The Greater Power Part 34

Nasmyth flung a sharp glance at the big iron holdfast sunk in the rock above. There would, he knew, be trouble if that or the wire guy gave way, but it was only at some hazard that anything could be done in the canon.

"Hold on!" he said hoa.r.s.ely. "Slack that guy, and let her swing."

There was a clink and jar as the clutch took the weight off them; a wire rope set up a harsh rasping, and as Gordon jerked a guiding-line across the river, the great boom swung, trailing the heavy stone just above the water. Then the ominous creak grew sharper, and one of them shouted.

"Jump!" he said. "She's going!"

Two of them sprang on the instant into the pool, and washed out with the crackling ice-cake into the rapid at the tail of it. It was precisely what most men who could swim would have done, but Nasmyth stayed, and Mattawa stayed with him. Nasmyth did not think very clearly, but he remembered subconsciously what the construction of that derrick had cost him. There was a lever which would release the load and let it run. He had his hand on it when he turned to his companion.

"Strip that handle, Tom," he said.

The iron crank that would have hurled him into the river as its span fell with a rattle, and that was one peril gone; but the lever he grasped was difficult to move, and his hands were stiff and numb.

Still he persisted, and Mattawa watched him, because there was only room for one, until there was a crash above them, and the tilted top of the great boom came down. Mattawa, flattened against the rock side, held his breath as the ma.s.s of timber rushed towards the pool, and next moment saw that Nasmyth was no longer standing on the shelf.

Nasmyth lay partly beneath the shattered winch, and his face was grey, except for a red scar down one side of it. His eyes, however, were open, and Mattawa gasped with relief when he heard the injured man speak.

"It cleared my body. I'm fast by the hand," said Nasmyth.

Three or four minutes had slipped by before the rest scrambled upon the ledge with handspikes, and then it cost them a determined effort before they moved the redwood log an inch or two. Gordon, kneeling by Nasmyth's side, drew the crushed arm from under it. Nasmyth raised himself on one elbow, and lifted a red and pulpy hand that hung from the wrist. With an effort that set his face awry, he straightened it.

"I can move it," he said. "I don't know how it got under the thing, or what hit me in the face."

"It doesn't matter, either," said Gordon quietly. "Can you get up?"

Nasmyth blinked at him. "Of course," he answered. "As a general thing, I walk with my legs. They're not hurt."

Nasmyth staggered to his feet, and, while Gordon grasped his shoulder, floundered over the log staging laid athwart the fall and back to the shanty. Gordon was busy with him there for some time. After the crushed hand had been bound up Gordon flung the door open and spoke to the men outside.

"It's only his hand, and there's nothing broken," he announced. "You can get your dinner. We'll see about heaving the derrick up when you've eaten."

He went back and filled Nasmyth's pipe.

"I expect it hurts," he said.

Nasmyth nodded. "Yes," he replied, "quite enough."

"Well," said Gordon, "I don't know that it's any consolation, but if you expose it at this temperature, it's going to hurt you considerably more. You can't do anything worth while with one hand, and that the one you don't generally use, either. There's a rip upon your face that may give you trouble, too. I'm going to pack you out to-morrow."

"The difficulty is that I'm not disposed to go."

"Your wishes are not going to be consulted. If there's no other way, I'll appeal to the boys. I'd let you stay if you were a reasonable man, and would lie quiet beside the stove until that hand got better; but since it's quite clear that n.o.body could keep you there, you're starting to-morrow for Waynefleet's ranch."

Gordon turned to Waynefleet. "We'll lay you off for a week. There's a little business waiting at the settlement, anyway, and you can see about getting the new tools and provisions in."

Waynefleet's face was expressive of a vast relief. The few bitter weeks spent in the canon had taken a good deal of the keenness he had once displayed out of him.

"I certainly think the arrangement suggested is a very desirable one,"

he agreed "I am quite sure that Miss Waynefleet will have much pleasure in looking after Nasmyth."

Gordon turned to Nasmyth. "Now," he said, "you can protest just as much as you like, but still, as you'll start to-morrow if we have to tie you on to the pack-horse, it's not going to be very much use. You can nurse your hand for a week, and then go on to Victoria and see if you can pick up a boring-machine of the kind we want cheap."

Nasmyth, who was aware that the machine must be purchased before very long, submitted with the best grace he could, and, though his hand was painful, he contrived to sleep most of the afternoon. Now that he was disabled and could not work, he began to feel the strain. He set out with Waynefleet at sunrise next morning, and they pa.s.sed the day scrambling over the divide, and winding in and out among withered fern and thickets as they descended a rocky valley. Here and there they found an easier pathway on the snow-sheeted reaches of a frozen stream, and only left it to plunge once more into the undergrowth when the ice crackled under them. They had a pack-horse with them, for now and then one of the men made a laborious journey to the settlement for provisions, and in places a fallen tree had been chopped through or a thicket partly hewn away. That, however, did little to relieve the difficulties of the march, for the trail was rudimentary, and the first two leagues of it would probably have severely taxed the strength of a vigorous man unaccustomed to the Bush.

But they pushed on, Waynefleet riding when it was possible, while Nasmyth plodded beside the horse's head, until a cloud of whirling snow broke upon them as they floundered through a belt of thinner Bush. The snow wrapped them in its filmy folds, gathering thick upon their garments and filling their eyes, and Nasmyth grew anxious as the daylight suddenly died out. They were in a valley, out of which they could not very well wander without knowing it, and they stumbled on, smashing into thickets and swerving round fallen trees, until they struck a clearer trail, and it was with relief that Nasmyth saw a tall split-rail fence close in front of him. He threw a strip of it down, and then turned to Waynefleet when he dimly made out a blink of light in the whirling haze of snow.

"If you will go in and tell Miss Waynefleet, I'll try to put the horse up," he said.

Waynefleet swung himself down stiffly and vanished into the snow. He was half frozen, and it did not occur to him that Nasmyth had only one hand with which to loose the harness. It is also possible that he would have made no protest if it had.

Nasmyth reached the stable, and contrived to find and to light the lantern, but he discovered that it would be difficult to do anything more. His sound hand was numbed. His fingers would not bend, and the buckles of the harness held, in spite of his efforts, but he persisted. The struggle he was waging in the canon had stirred him curiously, and each fresh obstacle roused him to a half-savage determination. Though the action sent a thrill of pain through him, he laid his bound-up hand upon the headstall, and set his lips as he tore at a buckle. He felt that if the thing cost him hours of effort he would not be beaten.

He had, however, let his hand fall back into the bandage that hung from his neck, when the door opened and Laura Waynefleet came in. She saw him leaning against the side of the stall, with a greyness in his face, which had an angry red scar down one side of it, and her eyes shone with compa.s.sion.

"Sit down," she said. "I will do that."

Nasmyth, who straightened himself, shook his head. "I can manage it if you will loose the buckles," he said. "One feels a little awkward with only one hand."

They did it together, and then Nasmyth sat down, with his face drawn and lined. Laura stood still a moment or two with the lantern in her hand.

"The snow must be deep on the divide, and it is a very rough trail. I suppose you walked all the way?" she said.

Nasmyth contrived to smile. "As it happens, I am used to it."

There was a flash of indignation in the girl's eyes, for she had, after all, a spice of temper, and she was naturally acquainted with her father's character. Her anger had, however, disappeared next moment.

"You are looking ill," she remarked anxiously.

Nasmyth glanced down at the bandage. "I've been working rather hard of late, and this hand is painful." He made a deprecatory gesture. "I don't know what excuse to offer for troubling you. Gordon insisted on sending me."

"You fancy I require one from you?"

Nasmyth looked at her with heavy eyes. "No," he answered, "it is evident that you don't. After all, perhaps I shouldn't have wished to make any excuse. It seems only natural that when I get hurt, or find myself in any trouble, I should come to you."

He did not see the colour that crept into her face, for his perceptions were not clear then; but he rose with an effort, and together they went back to the house through the snow. There Nasmyth changed his clothes for the dry garments he had brought in a valise strapped to the pack-saddle, and an hour after supper he fell quietly asleep in his chair. Then Laura turned to her father.

"You let him walk all the way when he is worn-out and hurt!" she said accusingly.

Waynefleet waved his hand. "He insisted on it; and I would like to point out that there is nothing very much the matter with him. We have all been working very hard at the canon; in fact, I quite fail to understand why you should be so much more concerned about him than you evidently are about me. I am, however, quite aware that there would be no use in my showing that I resented it."

Laura said nothing further. She felt that silence was wiser, for, after all, her patience now and then almost failed her.

CHAPTER XXIV

REALITIES

Though there was bitter frost in the ranges, it had but lightly touched the sheltered forests that shut in Bonavista. The snow seldom lay long there, and only a few wisps of it gleamed beneath the northern edge of the pines. Mrs. Acton, as usual, had gathered a number of guests about her, and Violet Hamilton sat talking with one of them in the great drawing-room one evening. The room was brilliantly lighted, and the soft radiance gleamed upon the polished parquetry floor, on which rugs of costly skins were scattered. A fire of snapping pine-logs blazed in the big English hearth, and a faint aromatic fragrance crept into the room.