Partners of the Out-Trail Part 17

"Oh, yes; I only met him once before and didn't learn his name. What did he want to know?"

"All I could tell him about you. He was something of a high-brow Englishman and used tact, but I reckoned he was keen on finding out what kind of man you were."

"You couldn't tell him much."

"That is so," said Martin, rather dryly. "In fact, I didn't try."

"Oh, well, it's not important," Jim replied. "Perhaps my books roused his curiosity. They were not the books he'd imagine a telegraph linesman would read. But did he tell you much about himself?"

"He did not. An Englishman like that doesn't talk about himself."

Jim agreed carelessly, but was thoughtful afterwards, and when Martin went off with Jake, stopped by the fire and mused. After a time he looked up and saw Carrie sitting in the shadow. Now and then the flickering light touched her face and he thought she studied him.

"I suppose you're thinking about that Englishman?" she said.

"Yes. It's rather strange he asked Martin about me."

"Perhaps he knows your relations."

"It looks like that," Jim agreed.

"And he was with the girl you met at the restaurant! I expect she was a relation of his. Aren't you curious?"

Jim imagined Carrie was curious, but one could be frank with her, and he wanted to formulate his thoughts.

"In a way, I am curious," he admitted. "I would like to see the girl again. Still, I think it's really as a type she interests me."

Carrie smiled. "It isn't as a type a girl gets interesting, Jim."

"It would be ridiculous to think about her in any other way. I've had nothing to do with girls like that; she's the first I've met."

"Oh, well," said Carrie. "Don't you want to learn something about your English relations?"

"No," said Jim, in a thoughtful voice. "In a sense, I'm half afraid."

"Afraid?" said Carrie.

He was silent for a few moments and then resumed: "On the whole, I've been happy. I feel I've got my proper job and am satisfied. For all that, when those Englishmen talked to me at the shack I had a strange notion that I knew things they knew and belonged to a world I hadn't lived in yet. Sometimes at McGill I got a kind of restlessness that made me want to see the Old Country. I fought against it."

"Why did you fight?"

"For one thing, it's obvious I belong where I am; I can make good in this country, I know my job. Something pulls another way, but I don't want to go."

"Ah," said Carrie, "I think I understand. Still, there's the adventure, Jim. And if you didn't like it in England, you could come back."

"There's a risk. I expect it's hard to get back when you leave your proper place. Then I have much I value; you and Jake and the boys who work for me. I stand on firm ground here; ground I know and like. In the Old Country it might be different----"

"Do you mean you might be different?"

"You are clever, Carrie. I think I do mean something like that. I feel now and then as if there was another Jim Dearham who, so to speak, hadn't developed yet. In a way, I'm afraid of him."

Carrie looked thoughtful, but her eyes were soft. "Jake and I are satisfied with the Jim we know. Still, perhaps, you ought to give the other his chance." She paused, and her voice had a curious note when she resumed: "If I were a man, I'd let nothing stop my development."

"You have grit," Jim said, smiling. "Grit that would carry you anywhere and makes you something of an aristocrat. So long as you're not afraid you must be fine. Well, I suppose I made good when I was up against rotten ice and sliding snow, but when I think about what I have and what I'd risk, my pluck goes."

"Sometimes you're rather nice, Jim, and you're a better philosopher than I thought," Carrie remarked. She got up and, stopping a moment, gave him a half-mocking glance. "But I wonder what you'd get like if you went to the Old Country and met that English girl!"

She went off and Jim sat by the fire with his brows knit. Perhaps he had talked too much and bored Carrie, but he suspected that she had led him on. By and by he roused himself and went to chop some wood.

Martin did not start in the morning, as his hosts had expected. He said his packers needed a rest and loafed about the camp, sometimes talking to Carrie and sometimes watching Jake and Jim at work. Next morning, however, he said he must go, and while they were at breakfast turned to Jim.

"In the bush, one often runs up against obstacles one did not expect.

If you find you can't put your contract over, I'd like you to send me word."

"I don't see why we should bother you," Jim replied with some surprise.

Martin smiled. "For one thing, you had a notion the Cartner people and I were playing a crooked game. Then you're making a good job, and I wouldn't like to see you beat."

"We imagined you wouldn't like our b.u.t.ting in on jobs you thought were yours," Jake observed.

"That is so," said Martin. "If I help, I'll make a proposition, to which I guess you'll be able to agree. In the meantime, we can let it go. Looks as if you'd make good anyhow."

He began to talk about something else and when he set off Jake and Jim went with him down the line. After a time, he stopped them.

"I must hit the trail and not keep you from your job," he said. "I reckon you'll put it over, but if you want some backing, remember my offer stands."

He paused and gave Jake a steady glance. "I like the way you have treated me; your sister is a queen."

Then he went on with his packers and Jake and Jim returned quietly to camp.

CHAPTER XII

FIRE

The light had got dim, and Carrie put down her sewing and looked about.

A belt of yellow sky glimmered above the distant snow, but the valley was dark and the pines rolled in blurred ma.s.ses up the hill. Thin mist crept out of the deep hollow and Carrie shivered when a cold wind shook the trees. She was beginning to know the wilds, and now and then their austerity daunted her. By and by a red twinkle in the distance drew her glance and she turned to Jim.

"What is that?"

Jim looked and frowned. "Ah," he said, "I'd begun to think our luck was too good!"

"But what is the light?"

"A bush fire."

Jake indicated the drift of the smoke from their cooking fire. As a rule, the valleys of British Columbia that open to the west form channels for the Chinook wind from the Pacific, but now and then a dry, cold current flows down them to the coast.