Delilah of the Snows Part 35

Then Leger laughed.

"I'm afraid Captain Esmond and his troopers will be very wet," he said.

"He is a capable officer, but such simple-minded persons as Hetty and Ingleby are now and then a match for the wise."

"Haven't you left somebody out?" asked Ingleby.

"Major Coulthurst," said Leger, "is, of course, the Gold Commissioner, and could not be expected to have any sympathy with such a man as Tomlinson. It would, in fact, be unpardonable to suggest that he could be an accessory. Still, it is, perhaps, not quite out of the question that people outside the cla.s.s to which Hetty and Ingleby and I belong should possess a few amiable qualities."

"You and Ingleby and Hetty?" said Sewell reflectively.

Leger looked at him with a little smile.

"Yes," he said, "you heard me quite correctly. It's not worth discussing, but I scarcely think one could place you in quite the same category."

XXI

A DOUBTFUL EXCHANGE

It was the Monday morning after the flight of Tomlinson when Ingleby stood beside a pile of debris on the claim which was no longer his. The rain had stopped, and there was a wonderful freshness in the mountain air. Overhead the mists were streaming athwart the forest, pierced by arrows of golden light, and the fragrance of redwood and cedar filled the hollow. It is a scent that brings sound rest to the jaded body when night closes down and braces it as an elixir in the coolness of the dawn. Ingleby drank it in with vague appreciation. There was hope in it and vigour, and as he stood with the torn blue shirt falling apart from his bronzed neck, looking out on the forest with steady eyes, there was something in his att.i.tude which suggested the silent, hasteless strength of the wilderness.

The impulsiveness which had afflicted him in England had gone, and steadfastness had grown in its place. The crude, half-formed thoughts and theories which had worked like yeast in him had ceased their ebullition, purging themselves, perhaps, by the froth of speech, and had left him with a vague optimism too deep for articulate expression. Faith he had always had, and now the half-comprehending hope that looks beyond all formulas had also come. So much, at least, the wilderness had done for him. He laughed as he turned towards Sewell and Leger, who sat on the pile of thrown-up gravel behind him.

"I've been standing here almost five minutes, doing nothing--I don't know why," he said. "One does not, as a rule, get rich that way in this country."

Leger grinned at him. "You have just finished a remarkably good breakfast, for one thing," he said. "Still, haven't you made an admission? You always knew why you did everything in England."

Ingleby smiled good-humouredly. "Well," he said, "I'm seldom quite so sure now. Perhaps, it's because I'm older--or it may be the fault of the country. Floods and frosts, slides of gravel, and blue-grit boulders are apt to upset the results one feels reasonably certain of here. That recalls the fact that I broke out a quant.i.ty of promising-looking dirt the last time I went down this shaft, and didn't try the colour."

"You have sunk several shafts now, and you're evidently improving," said Sewell. "The original one wasn't sunk or driven. It was scratched out, anyhow."

"Three or four, and I've made some two hundred dollars out of the lot of them. In fact, I've been spending my labour profitlessly ever since I came into the country. That is, at least, so far as one can see."

Sewell smiled. "There's a good deal in the reservation. The whole country's full of just such holes from Caribou to Kootenay. A few men took gold out of them. The rest put something in."

"Buried hopes," said Leger with a grin.

"Probably," answered Sewell. "Now and then buried men. Still, the ranches and the orchards came up after them. It was presumably good for somebody, although a little rough on the prospectors in question."

Leger appeared reflective. "I wonder if any one could grow plums and apples on Captain Esmond. In the language of the country it's about the only use it could have for him. Well, I've smoked my pipe out. Are we going to stay here and maunder any longer, Ingleby?"

"I'm going down the mine; though, as it doesn't belong to me now, I don't know why. Still, it's close on bottom, and I'd like to try the colour of the dirt I broke out on Sat.u.r.day."

He went down the notched pole, and filled the bucket Sewell lowered after him, and, when the latter hove it up, they proceeded to the creek, and the others sat down while Ingleby washed out its contents. Neither of them showed any particular interest in what he was doing. They had been some time in the gold-bearing region now, and had discovered that it is generally wise to expect very little. Then Ingleby scrambled up the bank with a curious look in his face, and gravely held out the pan.

"Placer mining is a tolerably uncertain thing, but here's a result I never antic.i.p.ated two or three days ago," he said. "Look at this!"

They bent over the pan, and their faces grew intent at the sight of the little grains of metal in its bottom. Then Leger looked up with a gasp.

"You've struck it again," he said. "Apparently as rich as ever!"

Ingleby stood still a moment, gazing straight in front of him with vacant eyes, and one hand closed a trifle at his side.

"Yes," he said harshly. "The second time, and once more it's of no use to me. When I recorded as part-owner of Tomlinson's claim, this one fell in to the Crown. You're on the lead, Tom, and you'll strike it, too; but you can get your stakes in, Sewell. Sunday's an off day, or the major would have had his notice out by now."

It was a relief to do anything just then, and he cut and drove in two of the location pegs the law required. Then when the last was driven he turned to Sewell with grim quietness.

"Well," he said, "why don't you get away and make your record? There's no reason you should throw away a fortune, too."

Sewell smiled a little. "For one thing, Major Coulthurst would certainly not be up when I reached his office. For another, before I record the claim there's something to be said. The law, you see, cannot be expected to cover every contingency, and, if you look at it from one point of view, the claim is still yours. I'll buy the goodwill of you, if you'll take my bill."

Ingleby shook his head impatiently. "I can't sell you what isn't mine,"

he answered. "Anybody who thinks it worth while can record that claim.

It belongs to the Crown. I have my share in Tomlinson's mine, and, in one respect, I'm not sorry to see this one come into your possession.

You, at least, would not consider the gold you took out belonged to yourself."

Sewell looked at him with an expression in his face which somewhat puzzled Leger.

"No?" he said. "It's not wise to be too sure of anything, Ingleby."

"I believe you told us you had struck gold once before. What did you do with it? When we met you in Vancouver you hadn't the appearance of a man who has a balance at his bank."

A suggestion of darker colour crept into Sewell's face. "You can't carry on a campaign of any kind without funds. The one I embarked upon not long before you came across me was too big for us. It broke the exchequer, and landed me in jail."

"Precisely!" said Ingleby. "And what t.i.tle have I to the money you would hold in trust? That is the difference between us. I'm not a leader--I'm glad of it just now--and what gold I find I want for myself."

Once more Sewell's expression furnished Leger with food for reflection, though Ingleby did not appear to notice it. It is now and then a trifle embarra.s.sing to have one's good deeds proclaimed to one's face, and Leger was aware that all Sewell gained was usually expended on the extension of his propaganda; but that did not seem to account for everything, and he fancied the man had winced at his comrade's speech, as though it had hurt him. Then Sewell made a curious little gesture.

"It is," he said, "seldom worth while to decide what other people will do. They don't know themselves very frequently. Well, since n.o.body ever persuaded you, I'll get on and record the claim."

He left them, and neither Ingleby nor Leger broke the silence as they pushed on up the valley, near the farther end of which Tomlinson's claim lay. Leger knew that, because his claim adjoined the one his comrade had allowed to fall to the Crown, he, too, would in all probability find gold, and, since now it would all be his, that fact alone was sufficient to occupy him. Still, he was getting accustomed to the dramatic unexpectedness of the results of placer mining; and he was also sensible of a certain sympathy for Ingleby, who held no more than a third-share in Tomlinson's mine. Then he recalled Sewell's face and wondered again.

The man had certainly appeared embarra.s.sed, and that had its significance in connection with what Ingleby had said. Sewell was certainly ent.i.tled to use what gold he dug toilfully from the earth as seemed best to him, and there was no reason why he should devote it to the liberation or enlightenment of those he might regard oppressed unless he wished. That he had done so hitherto was, it seemed to Leger, plain; but he fancied it was to be different now. This led to the question, what did Sewell, who lived with Spartan simplicity, want the gold for--and to that there was no answer until he changed the what to whom. Then a reason suggested itself, for Sewell of late had played chess with Major Coulthurst frequently, more often, indeed, Leger fancied, than Ingleby knew.

It was a relief to both of them when they reached Tomlinson's mine, which was by no means imposing at first sight, consisting, as it did, of a little gap in the forest strewn with blackened branches and charred fir stumps, a shanty, a pile of shattered rock and gravel, and a black hole with a very rude windla.s.s straddling it. It did not count at all that it was engirdled by towering trees whose sombre spires, lifted one beyond the other in climbing ranks, led the wondering vision upwards ever across the face of a tremendous crag, where they clung dotted against the grey rock in the fissures, to the ethereal gleam of never-melting snow. It was sufficient that the clink of the shovel and clatter of flung-up gravel came out of the scented shadow, in token that Tomlinson's claim was on the lead, the bed which had been worn out and left ages ago by the Green River, or some other, which had washed away the matrix rock.

Ingleby stopped beside the windla.s.s and rolled the sleeves of his blue shirt to the elbow as he looked into the shadow beneath him.

"Exactly what is down there I don't know, and it seems a little astonishing now that I didn't ask Tomlinson when I bought the mine," he said. "There should be a thousand dollars, anyway. Tom, are you going to stand shares with me?"

Leger looked at the shaft, and for no very apparent reason became sensible of unpleasant misgivings.

"No," he said. "You hold only a third-share, anyway, and I'm not sure that if you split it up there would be enough for two. Still, I'll stay with you until this evening. You should have some notion how the thing will work out by then."

They went down and toiled steadily for several hours in the short heading Tomlinson had driven. Then Leger ascended and hove up the bucket Ingleby filled, after which they transported the debris to the rocker at the adjacent creek. Tomlinson's flume, which would bring the water to the mine, was not finished yet. By the time this was done the dinner hour had come, and Leger looked at Ingleby as he took up his axe.