Thurston of Orchard Valley Part 11

"I fancied so!" Geoffrey lapsed instinctively into his brusque, professional style of comment. "Poor system of underpinning, badly fixed yonder. I am afraid you must find some other way down to the beach this morning."

It was long since Helen had heard anybody apply the word "must" to herself. As Julius Savine's only daughter, most of her wishes had been immediately gratified, while the men she met vied with one another in paying her homage. In addition to this, her father, in whose mechanical abilities she had supreme faith, had constructed that pathway especially for her pleasure. So for several reasons her pride took fire, and she answered coldly: "The path is perfectly safe. My father himself watched the greater portion of its building."

"It was safe once, no doubt," answered Geoffrey, slightly puzzled as to how he had offended her, but still resolute. "The rains of last winter, however, have washed out much of the surface soil, leaving bare parts of the rock beneath, and the next angle yonder is positively dangerous. Can we not go around?"

"Only by the head of the valley, two miles away at least," Helen's tone remained the reverse of cordial. "I have climbed both in the Selkirks and the Coast Range, and to anyone with a clear head, even in the most slippery places, there cannot be any real danger!"

"I regret that I cannot agree with you. I devoutly wish I could," said Geoffrey, uneasily. "No! you must please go no further, Miss Savine."

The girl's eyes glittered resentfully. A flush crept into the center of either cheek as she walked towards him. Though he did not intend it, there was perhaps too strong a suggestion of command in his att.i.tude, and when Helen came abreast of him, he laid a hand restrainingly upon her arm. She shook it off, not with ill-humored petulance, for Helen was never ungraceful nor undignified, but with a disdain that hurt the man far more than anger. Nevertheless, knowing that he was right, he was determined that she should run no risk.

Letting his hand swing at his side, he walked a few paces before her, and then turned in a narrow portion of the path where two people could not pa.s.s abreast.

"Please listen to me, Miss Savine," he began. "I am an engineer, and I can see that the bend yonder is dangerous. I cannot, therefore, consent to allow you to venture upon it. How should I face your father if anything unfortunate happened?"

"My father saw the path built," repeated Helen. "He also is an engineer, and is said to be one of the most skillful in the Dominion.

I am not used to being thwarted for inadequate reasons. Let me pa.s.s."

Geoffrey stood erect and immovable. "I am very sorry, Miss Savine, that, in this one instance, I cannot obey you," he said.

There was an awkward silence, and while they looked at each other, Helen felt her breath come faster. Retreating a few paces she seated herself upon a boulder, thus leaving the task of terminating an unpleasant position to Geoffrey, who was puzzled for a time. Finally, an inspiration dawned upon Thurston, who said:

"Perhaps you would feel the disappointment less if I convinced you by ocular demonstration."

Walking cautiously forward to the dangerous angle, he grasped a broken edge of the rock outcrop about which the path twisted, and pressed hard with both feet upon the edge of the narrow causeway. It was a hazardous experiment, and the result of it startling, for there was a crash and a rattle, and Geoffrey remained clinging to the rock, with one foot in a cranny, while a ma.s.s of earth and timber slid down the steep-pitched slope and disappeared over the face of the crag. A hollow splashing rose suggestively from far beneath the rock. Helen, who had been too angry to notice the consideration for herself implied in the man's last speech, turned her eyes upon the ground and did not raise them until, after swinging himself carefully onto firmer soil, Geoffrey approached her. "I hope, after what you have seen, you will forgive me for preventing your descent," he said.

"You used considerable violence, and I am still unconvinced," Helen declared, rising as she spoke. "In any case, you have at least made further progress impossible, and we may as well retrace our steps. No; I do not wish to hear any more upon the subject. It is really not worth further discussion."

They turned back together. When the ascent grew steeper, Geoffrey held out his hand. Instead of accepting the proffered a.s.sistance as she had done when they descended, Helen apparently failed to notice the hand, and the homeward journey was not pleasant to either of them. Helen did not parade her displeasure, but Geoffrey was sensible of it, and, never being a fluent speaker upon casual subjects, he was not successful in his conversational efforts. When at last they reached the villa, he shook his shoulders disgustedly as he recalled some of his inane remarks.

"It was hardly a wonder she was silent. Heavens, what prompted me to drivel in that style?" he reflected. "It was cruelly unfortunate, but I could not let her risk her precious safety over that confounded path!"

At luncheon it happened that Mrs. Savine said: "I saw you going towards the White Rock Cove, Helen. Very interesting place, isn't it, Mr.

Thurston? But you brought none of that lovely weed back with you."

"Did you notice how I had the path graded as you went down?" asked Savine, and Thurston saw that Helen's eyes were fixed upon him. The expression of the eyes aroused his indignation because the glance was not a challenge, but a warning that whatever his answer might be, the result would be indifferent to her. He was hurt that she should suppose for a moment that he would profit by this opportunity.

"We were not able to descend the whole way," he replied. "Last winter's rains have loosened the surface soil, and one angle of the path slipped bodily away. Very fortunately I was some distance in advance of Miss Savine, and there was not the slightest danger. Might I suggest socketed timbers? The occurrence reminds me of a curious accident to the railroad track in the Rockies."

Helen did not glance at the speaker again, for Savine asked no awkward questions. But Thurston saw no more of her during the afternoon. That evening he sought Savine in his study.

"You have all been very kind to me," he said. "In fact, so much so that I feel, if I stay any longer among you, I shall never be content to rough it when I go back to the bush. This is only too pleasant, but, being a poor man with a living to earn, it would be more consistent if I recommenced my work. Which of the operations should I undertake first?"

Savine smiled on him whimsically, and answered with Western directness:

"I don't know whether the Roads Surveyor was right or wrong when he said that you were not always over-civil. See here, Thurston, leaving all personal amenities out of the question, I'm inclined to figure that you will be of use to me, aid the connection also will help you considerably. My paid representatives are not always so energetic as they might be. So if you are tired of High Maples you can start in with the rock-cutting on the new wagon road. It is only a detail, but I want it finished, and, as the cars would bring you down in two hours'

time, I'll expect you to put in the week-end here, talking over more important things with me."

Thurston left the house next morning. He did not see Helen to say good-by to her, for she had ridden out into the forest before he departed from High Maples. Helen admitted to herself that she was interested in Thurston, the more so because he alone, of all the men whom she had met, had successfully resisted her will. But she shrank from him, and though convinced that his action in preventing her from going down the pathway had been justified, she could not quite forgive him.

CHAPTER X

SAVINE'S CONFIDENCE

Despite his employer's invitation Thurston did not return to High Maples at the end of the week. The rock-cutting engrossed all his attention, and he was conscious that it might be desirable to allow Miss Savine's indignation to cool. He had thought of her often since the day that she gave him the dollar, and, at first still smarting under the memory of another woman's treachery, had tried to a.n.a.lyze his feelings regarding her. The result was not very definite, though he decided that he had never really loved Millicent, and was very certain now that she had wasted little affection upon him. One evening at Graham's ranch when they had stood silently together under the early stars, he had become suddenly conscious of the all-important fact, that his life would be empty without Helen Savine, and that of all the women whom he had met she alone could guide and raise him towards a higher plane.

It was characteristic of Geoffrey Thurston that the determination to win her in spite of every barrier of wealth and rank came with the revelation, and that, at the same time counting the cost, he realized that he must first bid boldly for a name and station, and with all patience bide his time. A more cold-blooded man might have abandoned the quest as hopeless at the first, and one more impulsive might have ruined his chances by rashness, but Geoffrey united the characteristics of the reckless Thurstons with his mother's cool North Country canniness.

It therefore happened that Savine, irritated by a journalistic reference to the tardiness of that season's road-making, went down to see how the work entrusted to Geoffrey was progressing. He was accompanied by his daughter, who desired to visit the wife of a prosperous rancher. It was towards noon of a hot day when they alighted from their horses in the mouth of a gorge that wound inland from the margin of a lake. No breath of wind ruffled the steely surface of the lake. White boulder and somber fir branch slept motionless, reflected in the crystal depths of the water, and lines of great black cedars, that kept watch from the ridge above, stood mute beneath the sun.

As they picked their path carefully through the debris littering an ugly rent in the rock, where perspiring men were toiling hard with pick and drill, they came upon Thurston before he was aware of them.

Geoffrey stood with a heavy hammer in his hand critically surveying a somewhat seedy man who was just then offering his services. Savine, who had a sense of humor, was interested in the scene, and said to his daughter: "Thurston's busy. We'll just wait until he's through with that fellow."

Geoffrey, being ignorant of their presence, decided that the applicant, who said that he was an Englishman, and used to estimating quant.i.ties, would be of little service; but he seldom refused to a.s.sist a stranger in distress.

"I do all the draughting and figuring work myself," he said. "However, if you are hard up you can earn two dollars a day wheeling broken rock until you find something better."

The man turned away, apparently not delighted at the prospect of wheeling rock, and Geoffrey faced about to greet the spectators.

"I don't fancy you'll get much work out of that fellow," observed Savine.

"I did not expect to see you so soon, and am pleasantly surprised,"

said Geoffrey, who, warned by something in Helen's face, restrained the answer he was about to make. "You will be tired after your rough ride, and it is very hot out here. If you will come into my office tent I can offer you some slight refreshment."

Helen noticed every appointment of the double tent which was singularly neat and trim. Its flooring of packed twigs gave out a pleasant aromatic odor. The instruments scattered among the papers on the maple desk were silver-mounted. The tall, dusty man in toil-stained jean produced thin gla.s.ses, into which he poured mineral waters and California wine. A tin of English biscuits was pa.s.sed with the cooling drinks. Thurston was a curious combination, she fancied, for, having seen him covered with the grime of hard toil she now beheld him in a new _role_--that of host.

They chatted for half-an-hour, and then there was an interruption, for the young Englishman, who had grown tired of wheeling the barrow, stood outside the tent demanding to see his employer. Geoffrey strode out into the sunshine.

The stranger said that he had a backache, besides blisters on his hands, and that wheeling a heavy barrow did not agree with him. He added, with an easy a.s.surance that drew a frown to the contractor's face, "It's a considerable come-down for me to have to work hard at all, and I was told you were generally good to a distressed countryman.

Can't you really give me anything easier?"

"I try to be helpful to my countrymen when they're worth it," answered Geoffrey, dryly. "Would you care to hold a rock drill, or swing a sledge instead?"

"I hardly think so," he returned dubiously. "You see, I haven't been trained to manual labor, and I'm not so strong as you might think by looking at me." Geoffrey lost his temper.

"The drill might blister your fingers, I dare say," he admitted. "I'm afraid you are too good for this rude country, and I have no use for you. I could afford to be decent? Perhaps so, but I earn my money with considerably more effort than you seem willing to make. The cook will give you dinner with the other men to-day; then you can resume your search for an easy billet. We have no room in this camp for idlers."

Savine chuckled, but Helen, who had a weakness for philanthropy, and small practical experience of its economic aspect, flushed with indignation, pitying the stranger and resenting what she considered Thurston's brutality. Her father rose, when the contractor came in, to say that he wanted to look around the workings. He suggested that Helen should remain somewhere in the shade. When Thurston had placed a canvas lounge for her, outside the tent, the girl turned towards him a look of severe disapproval. "Why did you speak to that poor man so cruelly?" she asked. "Perhaps I am transgressing, but it seems to me that one living here in comfort, even comparative luxury, might be a little more considerate towards those less fortunate."

"Please remember that I was once what you term 'less fortunate'

myself," Geoffrey reminded Helen, who answered quickly, "One would almost fancy it was you who had forgotten."

"On the contrary, I am not likely to forget how hard it was for me to earn my first fee here in this new country," he declared, looking straight at her. "I was glad to work up to my waist in ice-water to make, at first, scarcely a dollar and a half a day. One must exercise discretion, Miss Savine, and that man, so far as I could see, had no desire to work."

It was a pity that Geoffrey did not explain that he meant Bransome's payment by the words "my first fee," for Helen had never forgotten how she had failed in the attempt to double the amount for which he had bargained. She had considered him dest.i.tute of all the gentler graces, but now she was surprised that he should apparently attempt to wound her.