The Protector Part 36

"But there may be some unburned spruce farther on," Carroll urged.

"It's possible," said Vane. "I'm going to find out."

This was a logical determination; but, in spite of his recent suggestion, Carroll realised that he would have abandoned the search there and then, had the choice been left to him, in which he did not think he was singular. After all they had undergone, the shock of the disappointment was severe. He could have faced a failure to locate the spruce with some degree of philosophical calm; but to find it at last, useless, was very much worse. But he did not expect his companion to turn back yet: before he desisted, Vane would seek for and examine every unburned tree. What was more, Carroll, who thought the search could serve no purpose, would have to accompany him. Then the latter noticed that Vane was waiting for him to speak, and he decided that this was a situation which he had better endeavour to treat lightly.

"I think I'll have a smoke," he said. "I'm afraid any remarks I could make wouldn't do justice to the occasion. Language has its limits."

He sat down on the charred log and took out his pipe before he proceeded: "A brulee's not a nice place to wander about in when there's any wind, and I've an idea there's some coming, though it's quiet now."

Shut in, as they were, in the deep hollow with the towering snows above them, it was impressively still; and in conjunction with the sight of the black desolation the deep silence reacted upon Carroll's nerves. He longed to escape from it, to make a noise, though this, if done unguardedly, might bring more of the rampikes thundering down. He could hear tiny flakes of charcoal falling from them, and though the fire had long gone out, a faint and curious crackling, as if the dead embers were stirring. He wondered if this were some effect of the frost; it struck him as disturbing and weird.

"We'll work right round the brulee," said Vane. "Then I suppose we had better head back for Vancouver, though we'll look at that cedar as we go down. Something might be made of it; I'm not sure we've thrown our time away."

"You wouldn't be sure of such a thing," said Carroll. "It isn't in you."

Vane disregarded this. A new constructive policy was already springing up out of the wreck of his previous plans. "There's a good mill site on the inlet, but as it's a long way from the railroad we'll have to determine whether it would be cheaper to tow the logs down or split them up on the spot," he went on. "I'll talk it over with Drayton; he'll no doubt be useful, and there's no reason why he shouldn't earn his share."

"Do you believe the arrangement you made with Hartley applies to the cedar?"

"Of course," said Vane. "I don't know that the other parties could insist upon the original terms--we can discuss that later; but, though it may be modified, the arrangement stands."

His companion considered the matter dispa.s.sionately, as an abstract proposition. Here was a man, who, in return for certain information respecting the whereabouts of a marketable commodity, had undertaken to find and share it with his informant. The commodity had proved to be valueless, but during the search for it he had incidentally discovered something else. Was he under any obligation to share the latter with his informant's heirs?

Carroll decided that the question could only be answered in the negative; but he had no intention of disputing his comrade's point of view. In the first place, this would probably only make Vane more determined or ruffle his temper; and in the second Carroll, who felt very dubious about the prospect of working the cedar profitably, was neither a covetous nor an ambitious person, which was, perhaps, on the whole, fortunate for him.

Vane, as his partner realised, was ambitious; but in place of aspiring after wealth or social prominence--the latter of which had, indeed, of late began to pall on him--his was a different aim; to rend the hidden minerals from the hills, to turn forests into dressed lumber, to make something grow. Dollars are often, though not always, made that way; but while he affected no contempt for them, in Vane's case their acquisition was undoubtedly not the end. Fortunately, he was not altogether singular in this respect.

When he next spoke, there was, however, no hint of altruistic sentiment in his curt inquiry: "Are you going to sit there until you freeze?"

Carroll got up, and they spent the rest of the day plodding through the brulee, with the result that when darkness fell Vane had abandoned all idea of working the spruce. Next morning, they set out for the inlet, and one afternoon during the journey they came upon several fallen logs lying athwart each other with their branches spread in a horrible tangle between. Vane proceeded to walk along one log, which was tilted up several yards above the ground, balancing himself carefully upon the rounded surface; and Carroll followed until the end of a broken branch, which he evidently had not noticed, caught in the leader's clothes. Next moment there was a sharp snapping, and Vane plunged down into the tangle beneath, while Carroll stood still and laughed. It was not an uncommon accident.

Vane, however, did not reappear; nor was there any movement among the half-rotten boughs and withered sprays, and Carroll, moving forward hastily, looked down into the hole. He was disagreeably surprised to see his comrade lying, rather white in face, upon his side.

"I'm afraid you'll have to chop me out," he said, and his voice was hoa.r.s.e. "Get to work; I can't move my leg."

Moving farther along the log, Carroll dropped to the ground, which was less enc.u.mbered there, and spent the next quarter of an hour hewing a pa.s.sage to his comrade. Then as he stood beside him, hot and panting, Vane looked up.

"It's my lower leg; the left," he said. "Bone's broken; I felt it snap."

Carroll turned from him for a moment in consternation. Looking out between the branches, he could see the lonely hills tower, pitilessly white, against the blue of the frosty sky, and the rigid firs running back as far as his vision reached upon their lower slopes. There was no touch of life in all the picture; everything was silent and motionless, and its desolation came near to appalling him. When he looked round again, Vane smiled wryly.

"If this had happened farther north, it would have been the end of me,"

he said. "As it is, it's awkward."

The word struck Carroll as singularly inadequate, but he made an effort to gather his courage when his companion broke off with a groan of pain.

"It's lucky we helped that doctor when he set Pete's leg at Bryant's mill," he said. "Can you wait a few minutes?"

Vane's face was beaded with damp now, but he tried to smile. "It strikes me," he answered, "I'll have to wait a mighty long time."

Carroll turned and left him. He was afraid to stand still and think, but action was a relief. It was some time before he returned with several strips of fabric cut from the tent curtain, and the neatest splints he could extemporise from slabs of stripped-off bark, and the next half-hour was a trying one to both of them. Sometimes Vane a.s.sisted him with suggestions--once he reviled his clumsiness--and sometimes he lay silent with his face awry and his lips tight set; but at length it was done, and Carroll stood up, breathing hard.

"I'll fasten you on to a couple of skids and pull you out," he said.

"Then I'll make camp."

He managed it with difficulty, pitched the tent above Vane, whom he covered with their blankets, and made a fire outside.

"Are you comfortable now?" he inquired.

Vane looked up at him with a somewhat ghastly grin. "I suppose I'm about as comfortable as could be expected. Anyhow, I've got to get used to the thing. Six weeks is the shortest limit, isn't it?"

Carroll confessed that he did not know, and presently Vane resumed: "It's lucky that the winters aren't often very cold so near the coast."

The temperature struck Carroll as low enough, but he made no answer. To his disgust, he could think of no cheering observation, for there was no doubt that the situation was serious. They were cut off from the sloop by leagues of tangled forest which a vigorous man would find it difficult to traverse, and it would be weeks before Vane could use his leg; no human a.s.sistance could be looked for, and they had only a small quant.i.ty of provisions left. Besides this, it would not be easy to keep the sufferer warm in rigorous weather.

"I'll make supper. You'll feel better afterwards," he said at length.

"Then don't be too liberal," Vane warned him.

The latter fell into a restless doze after the meal, and it was dark when he opened his eyes again.

"I can't sleep any more, and we may as well talk--there are things to be arranged," he said. "In the first place, as soon as I feel a little easier, you'll have to sail across to Comox and hire some men to pack me out. When you've sent them off, you'll make for Vancouver, and get a timber licence and find out how matters are going on."

"That," said Carroll firmly, "is out of the question. Nairn can look after our mining interests--he's a capable man--and if the thing's too much for him they can go to smash. Besides, they won't give you a timber licence without full particulars of area and limits, and we've blazed no boundaries. Anyhow, I'm staying right here."

Vane began to protest, but Carroll raised his hand. "Argument's not conducive to recovery. You're on your back, unfortunately, and I'll give way to you, as usual, as soon as you're on your feet again, but not before."

"I'd better point out that we'll both be hungry by then. The provisions won't last long."

"Then I'll look for a deer as soon as I think you can be left. And now we'll try to talk of something more amusing."

"Can you see anything humorous in the situation?"

"I can't," Carroll confessed. "Still, there may be something of that description which I haven't noticed yet. By the way, the last time we were at Nairn's, I happened to cross the room near where you and Miss Horsfield were sitting, and I heard her ask you to wait for something at Nanaimo or Comox. I thought it curious."

"She told me to wait, so she could send me word to come back, if it was needful."

"Ah!" said Carroll; "I won't ask why she was willing to do so--it concerns you more than me--but I fancy that as regards your interests in the Clermont a warning from her would be worth as much as one from Nairn; that is, if she could be depended on."

"Have you any doubt upon the subject?"

"Don't get angry. Perhaps I've talked too much. We have to think of your injury."

"I'm not likely to forget it," Vane informed him. "But I dare say you're right in one respect--as an amusing companion you're a dead failure, and talking isn't as easy as I imagined."

He lay silent afterwards, and, though he had disclaimed any desire for sleep, worn by the march and pain, as he was, his eyes presently closed.

Carroll, however, sat long awake, and afterwards admitted that he felt badly afraid. Deer are by no means numerous in some parts of the bush; they had not seen one during the journey; and though there was a little food left on board her, it was a long way to the sloop.

Once or twice, for no obvious reason, he drew aside the tent flap and looked out. The sky was cloudless and darkly blue, and a sickle moon gleamed in it, keen and clear with frost. Below, the hills were washed in silver, majestic, but utterly cheerless; and lower still the serrated tops of the rigid firs cut against the dreary whiteness. After each glimpse of them, Carroll drew his blanket tighter round him with a shiver. Very shortly, when the little flour and pork were gone and their few cartridges had been expended, he would be reduced to the condition of primitive man. Cut off from all other resources, he must then wrest what means of subsistence he could from the snowy wilderness by brute strength and cunning and such instruments as he could make with his una.s.sisted hands, except that an axe of Pennsylvania steel was better than a stone one. Civilisation has its compensations, and Carroll longed for a few more of them that night.