Vane of the Timberlands Part 26

"You're the man who located the Clermont--and put the project through.

You had the luck. I've been among the ranges half my life--and you can see how much I've made of it! When I struck a claim that was worth anything somebody else got the money."

Vane had reasons for believing that this was not an uncommon experience.

"Well," the man continued, "you look straight--and I've got to take some chances. It's my last stake. We'll get down to business. I'll tell you about that spruce."

He spoke for a few minutes, and then asked abruptly:

"What are you going to offer?"

Vane had not been certain that he would make any offer at all; but, as had befallen him once or twice before, the swift decision flashed instinctively into his mind.

"If I find that the timber and its location come up to your account of it, I'll pay you so many dollars down--whatever we can agree on--when I get my lease from the land office. Then I'll make another equal payment the day we start the mill. But I don't bind myself to record the timber or to put up a mill, unless I'm convinced that it's worth while."

"I'd rather take less money and have a small share in the concern; and Drayton must stand in."

"It's a question of terms," Vane replied. "I'll consider your views."

They discussed it for a while, and when they had at length arrived at a provisional understanding, the prospector made a sign of acquiescence.

"We'll let it go at that; but the thing will take time, and I'll never get the money. If you exercise your option, you'll sure pay it down to Seely?"

"Celia's his daughter," Drayton explained. "He has no one else. She's a waitress at the ---- House." He named a hotel of no great standing in the city. "Comes home at nights, and looks after him as best she can."

Vane glanced round the room. It was evident that Celia's earnings were small; but he noticed several things which suggested that she had lavished loving care upon the sick man, probably at the cost of severe self-denial. This was what he would have expected, for he had spent most of his nine years in Canada among the people who toil the hardest for the least reward.

"Yes," he answered; "I'll promise that. But, as I pointed out, while we have agreed on the two payments, I reserve the right of deciding what share your daughter and Drayton are to have, within the limits sketched out. I can't fix it definitely until I've seen the timber--you'll have to trust me."

The prospector once more looked at him steadily, and then implied by a gesture that he was satisfied. He was not in a position to dictate terms, but his confidence had its effect on the man in whom he reposed it.

"There's another thing. You'll do all you can to find that spruce?"

"Yes," Vane promised.

The man fumbled under his pillow and produced a piece cut out from a map of the Province, with rough pencil notes on the back of it.

"It was on my last prospecting trip I found the spruce," he said. "I'd been looking round, and I figured I'd strike down to the coast over the range. The creeks were full up with snow-water, and as I was held up here and there before I could get across, provisions began to run short. Then I fell down a gulch and hurt my knee, and as I had to leave my tent and it rained most of the while, I lay in the wet at nights, half-fed, with my knee getting worse. By and by I fell sick; but I had to get out of the mountains, and I was pushing on for the straits when I struck the valley where the spruce is. After that, I got kind of muddled in the head, but I went down a long valley on an easy grade and struck some Siwash curing the last of the salmon. The trouble is, I was too sick to figure exactly where the small inlet they were camped by lies. They took me back with them to their rancherie--you could find that--and sailed me across to Comox. I came down on a steamboat, and the doctor told me I'd made my last journey."

Vane could sympathize. The narrative had been crudely matter-of-fact, but he had been out on the prospecting trail often enough to fill in the details the sick man omitted. He had slept in the rain, very scantily fed, and he could picture the starving man limping along in an agony of pain and exhaustion, with an injured knee, over boulders and broken rock and through dense tangles of underbrush strewed with mighty fallen logs.

"How far was the valley from the inlet?" he asked.

"I can't tell you. I think I was three days on the trail; but it might have been more. I was too sick to remember. Anyway, there was a creek you could run the logs down."

"Well, how far was the inlet from the rancherie?"

"I was in the canoe part of one night and some of the next day. I can't get it any clearer. We had a fair breeze. Guess thirty miles wouldn't be far out."

"That's something to go upon. How much does your daughter earn?"

It was an abrupt change of subject, but the man answered as Vane had expected. The girl's wages might maintain her economically, but it was difficult to see how she could provide for her sick father. The latter seemed to guess Vane's thoughts, for he spoke again.

"If I'd known I was done for when I was up in the bush, I wouldn't have pushed on quite so fast," he said with expressive simplicity.

Vane rose.

"If Drayton will come along with me, I'll send him back with a hundred dollars. It's part of the first payment. Your getting it now should make things a little easier for Celia."

"But you haven't located the spruce yet!"

"I'm going to locate it, if the thing's anyway possible." Vane shook hands with the man. "I expect to get off up the straits very shortly."

The prospector looked at him with relief and grat.i.tude in his eyes.

"You're white--and I guess you'd be mighty hard to beat!"

When they reached the rutted street, which was bordered on one side by great fir stumps, Drayton glanced at Vane with open admiration.

"I'm glad I brought you across. You have a way of getting hold of people--making them believe in you. Hartley hasn't a word in writing, but he knows you mean to act square with him. Kitty felt the same thing--it was why she came down in the sloop with you."

Vane smiled, though there was a trace of embarra.s.sment in his manner.

"Now that you mention it, I don't think Hartley was wise; and you were equally confiding. We have only arrived at a rather indefinite understanding about your share."

"We'll leave it at that. I haven't struck anybody else in this city who would hear about the thing. Anyway, I'd prefer a few shares in the concern, as mentioned, instead of money. If you get the thing on foot, I guess it will go."

"Won't they raise trouble at the mill about your staying out?" Vane inquired. "We have still to go for that hundred dollars."

Drayton owned that it might be advisable to hurry, and they set off for the business quarter of the city.

During the remainder of the day Vane was busy on board the sloop, but in the evening he walked over to Horsfield's house with Mrs. Nairn and found Jessy and her brother at home. Horsfield presently took Vane to his smoking-room.

"About that smelter," he began. "Haven't you made up your mind yet? The thing's been hanging fire a long while."

"Isn't it a matter for the board?" Vane asked suggestively. "There are several directors."

Horsfield laughed.

"We'll face the fact: they'll do what you decide on."

Vane did not reply to this.

"Well," he said, "at present we couldn't keep a smelter big enough to be economical going, and I'm doubtful whether we would get much ore from the other properties you were talking about to Nairn."

"Did he say it was my idea?"

"He didn't; I'd reasons for a.s.suming it. Those properties, however, are of no account."

Horsfield made no comment but waited expectantly, and Vane went on: