The Protector Part 22

"No," said Vane decidedly. "I have no intention of giving way an inch.

It would only encourage the man to press me on another point, if I did.

I'm going to have trouble with him, and the sooner it comes the better.

There's only room for one controlling influence in the Clermont mine."

"In that case it might be as well to stay in Vancouver as much as possible and keep your eye on him."

"The same idea has struck me since we sailed," Vane said. "The trouble is that until I've decided about the pulp mill he'll have to go unwatched, for the same reason that prevented you from holding up for me and steaming the plank."

"If any unforeseen action of Horsfield's made it necessary, you could let this pulp project drop."

"No," said Vane, "You ought to understand why that's impossible.

Drayton, Kitty and Hartley count upon my exertions. They're poor folks and I can't go back on them. If we can't locate the spruce or it doesn't seem likely to pay for working up, there's nothing to prevent my abandoning the undertaking; but I'm not at liberty to do so just because it would be a convenience to myself. Hartley got my promise before he told me where to search."

He strolled away to the tent they had pitched on the edge of the bush, but Carroll sat a while smoking beside the fire. He was suspicious of Horsfield, and foresaw trouble, more particularly now his comrade had undertaken a project which seemed likely to occupy a good deal of his attention. Hitherto, Vane had owed part of his success to his faculty of concentrating all his powers upon one object.

They rose at dawn next morning, and by sunset had fitted the new planks.

Two days later, they sailed to the northwards, and eventually found the rancherie Hartley had mentioned, where they had expected to hire a guide. The rickety wooden building, however, was empty, and Vane pushed on again. He had now to face an unseen difficulty because there were a number of openings in that strip of coast, and Hartley's description was of no great service in deciding which was the right one.

During the next day or two, they looked into several bights, and seeing no valleys opening out of them, went on again, until one evening they ran into an inlet with a forest-shrouded hollow at the head of it. Here they moored the sloop close in with a sheltered beach, and after a night's rest got ready their packs for the march inland.

They had a light tent without poles, which could be cut when wanted; two blankets, an axe, and one or two cooking utensils, besides their provisions.

In front of them a deep trough opened up in the hills, but it was filled with giant forest, through which no track led, and only those who have traversed the dim recesses of the primeval bush can fully understand what this implies. The west winds swept through that gateway, reaping as they went, and here and there tremendous trees lay strewn athwart each other with their branches spread abroad in horrible tangles. Some had fallen amidst the wreckage left by previous gales, which the forest had partly made good, and there was scarcely a rod of the way that was not obstructed by half rotten trunks. Then there were thick bushes, and an undergrowth of willows where the soil was damp with th.o.r.n.y brakes and matted fern in between. In places, the growth was almost like a wall, and the men, who skirted the inlet, were glad to scramble forward among the rough boulders and ragged driftwood at the water's edge for some minutes at a time, until it was necessary to leave the beach behind.

After the first few minutes, there was no sign of the gleaming water.

They had entered a region of dim green shade, where the moist air was heavy with resinous smells. The trunks rose about them in tremendous columns; thorns clutched their garments, and twigs and brittle branches snapped beneath their feet. The day was cool, but the sweat of tense effort dripped from them, and when they stopped for breath at the end of an hour, Vane estimated that they had gone a mile.

"I'll be content if we can keep this up," he said.

"It isn't likely," Carroll, who glanced down at a big rent in his jacket, replied with a trace of dryness.

A little farther on, they waded with difficulty through a large stream, and Carroll, who stopped, glanced round at a deep rift in a crag on one side of them.

"I don't know if that could be considered a valley, but we may as well look at it," he suggested.

They scrambled towards it, and reaching gravelly soil, where the trees were thinner, Vane surveyed the opening. It was very narrow, and appeared to lose itself among the rocks. The size of the creek which flowed out of it was no guide, because those ranges are scored by running water.

"We won't waste time over that ravine," he said. "I noticed a wider one farther on, and we'll see what it's like, though Hartley led me to understand that he came down a straight and gently-sloping valley. The one we're in answers the description."

It was two hours before they reached the second opening, and then Vane, unstrapping his packs, clambered up the steep face of a crag. When he came back his face was thoughtful and, sitting down, he lighted his pipe.

"This search seems to take us longer than I expected," he said. "To begin with, there are a number of inlets, all of them pretty much alike, along this part of the coast; but I needn't go into the reasons for supposing that this is the one Hartley visited. Taking it for granted that we're right, we're up against another difficulty. So far as I could make out from the top of that rock, there's a regular series of ravines running back into the hills."

"Hartley told you he came straight down to tidewater, didn't he?"

"That's not much of a guide," Vane replied. "The slope of every fissure seems to run naturally from the inland watershed to this basin. Hartley was sick, and it was raining all the time; and coming out of any of these ravines he'd only have to make a slight turn to reach the water.

What's more, he could only tell me he was heading roughly west and allowing that there was no sun visible, that might have meant either north-west or south-west, which gives us the choice of searching the hollows on either side of the main valley. Now, it strikes me as most probable that he came down the latter; but we have to face the question whether we should push straight on, or search every opening that might be called a valley?"

"What's your idea?" Carroll rejoined.

"That we ought to go into the thing systematically and look at every ravine we come to."

"I guess you're right, but I don't move another step to-night."

"I've no wish to urge you. There's hardly a joint in my body that doesn't ache." Vane flung down his pack and stretched himself with an air of relief. "That's what comes of civilisation and soft living. It would be nice to sit still while somebody brought me my supper."

As there was n.o.body to do so, he took up the axe and set about hewing chips off a fallen trunk, while Carroll made a fire. Then he cut the tent poles, and a few armfuls of twigs for a bed, and in half an hour the camp was pitched and a meal prepared. They afterwards lay a while, smoking and saying little, beside the sinking fire, the red light of which flickered upon the ma.s.sy trunks and fell away again. Then they crawled into the tent and wrapped their blankets round them.

CHAPTER XVII

VANE POSTPONES THE SEARCH.

When Vane rose early next morning, there was frost in the air, and when breakfast was ready the men ate hastily, eager for the exertion that would put a little warmth into them.

"We had it a good deal colder on other trips; I suppose I've been getting luxurious, since I seem to resent it now," said Vane. "There's no doubt that winter's beginning earlier than I expected up here; As soon as you can strike the tent, we'll move on."

The valley grew wilder and more rugged as they proceeded. In places, its bottom was filled with muskegs, c.u.mbered with half-submerged, decaying trunks of fallen trees; and when they could not spring from one falling log to another they sank in slime and water to the knee. They entered transverse valleys, and after hours of exhausting labour, abandoned the search of each in turn and plodded back to the one they had been following. Their boots and clothing suffered; their packs were rent upon their backs, and, since men engaged in such work must be generously fed, their provisions diminished rapidly.

At length, one lowering afternoon, they were brought to a standstill by the river, which forked into two branches, one of which came foaming out on a cleft in the rocks. This would have mattered less had it flowed across the level; but just there it had scored itself out a deep hollow, from which the roar of its turmoil rose in long reverberations. Carroll, who was aching all over, stood upon the brink, and first of all gazed ahead. He surmised from the steady ascent and the contours of the hills that the valley was dying out, and that they should reach the head of it in another day's journey. The higher summits, however, were veiled in leaden mist, and there was a sting in the cold breeze that blew down the hollow and set the ragged firs wailing. Then he glanced dubiously at the dim, green water, which swirled in deep eddies and boiled in white confusion among the fangs of rock sixty or seventy feet below. Not far away the stream was wider and he supposed in consequence shallower, though it ran furiously.

"It doesn't look encouraging, and we have no more food left than will take us back to the sloop if we're economical," he said. "Do you think it's worth while going on?"

"I haven't a doubt about it," Vane declared. "We ought to reach the head of the valley and get back here in two or three days."

"Three days will make a big hole in the provisions."

"Then we'll have to put up with short rations," Vane rejoined.

"If you're determined, we may as well get on."

He stepped cautiously over the edge of the descent, and went down a few yards with a run, while loosened soil and stones slipped away under him.

Then he clutched a slender tree, and proceeded as far as the next on his hands and knees. After that, it was necessary to swing himself over a ledge, and he was on the whole astonished when he alighted safely on one below, from which he could scramble down to the narrow strip of gravel between rock and water. He was standing, breathless, looking at the latter, when Vane joined him. The stones dipped sharply, and two or three large boulders, ringed about with froth, rose near the middle of the stream, which seemed to be running slacker on the other side of them.

There was nothing to show how deep it was, but Carroll braced himself for an effort and st.u.r.dily plunged in.

Two steps took him up to the waist, and he had trouble in finding solid bottom at the next, because the gravel rolled and slipped away beneath his feet in the strong stream. The current also dragged hard at his limbs, and he set his lips tight when it crept up to his ribs. Then he lost his footing, and was washed away, plunging and floundering, with now and then one toe resting momentarily upon the bottom, until he was hurled against the first of the boulders with a crash that almost drove the little remaining breath out of his body. He clung to it desperately, gasping hard; and then with a determined struggle contrived to reach the second stone, against which the stream pressed him, without finding any support for his feet. A moment or two later, Vane was washed down towards him, and grabbing at the boulder held on by it. They said nothing to each other, but they looked at the sliding water between them and the opposite bank. Carroll was getting horribly cold, and felt the power ebbing out of him; he thought if he must swim across he had better do so at once.

Launching himself forward, he felt the flood lap his breast, but as his arms went in he struck something violently with one leg and found that he could stand up on a submerged ledge. This carried him a yard or two, and though he stepped over the end of the ledge into deeper water, he reached a strip of shelving shingle, up which he staggered. Vane overtook him, and they scrambled up the slope ahead, which was a little less steep than the one they had descended. The work warmed them slightly, and they needed it, but as they strode on again, keeping to the foot of the hillside where the timber was less dense, a cold rain drove into their faces. It grew steadily thicker; the straps began to gall their wet shoulders, and their saturated clothing clung heavily about their limbs. In spite of this, they went on until nightfall, when it was difficult to make a fire, and after a reduced supper found a little humid warmth in their wet blankets.

The next day's work was much the same, only that they crossed no rivers and it rained harder; and, when evening came, Carroll, who had burst one boot, was limping badly. They made camp among the dripping firs which partly sheltered them from the bitter wind, and shortly after supper both fell asleep.

At evening next day they reached the head of the valley. It was still raining and heavy mists obscured the summits of the hills, but above the lower slopes of rocks glimmering snow ran up into the vapour. There were a few balsams and hemlocks about them, but no sign of a spruce.

"Now," said Carroll, "I expect you'll be satisfied."