Chapter VIII: Part 8

Devine smiled. "I'm not sure we'll go at all. It seems to me Brooke means to give the thing a private trial before he asks me to come over and see it work, and that's why he waited until it was almost dark. Can you make him out, Barbara?"

Barbara had, as a matter of fact, already done so, but she realized that her sister's eyes were upon her, and for no very apparent reason preferred not to admit it.

"It is getting a little shadowy among the pines, and Katty used to tell me she had sharper eyes than mine," she said.

Mrs. Devine laughed. "Still," she said, reflectively, "I scarcely think I have seen Mr. Brooke quite so often as you have."

Devine glanced at them both a trifle sharply, but there was nothing in their faces that gave him a clue to their thoughts. "Well," he said, "I'm a good deal older than either of you, but I can make him out myself now. As usual, he seems to be doing most of the work."

Nobody said anything further, and the moving figures stopped where the rope ran into the shadows of the rocks, while it was a few minutes later when a long, dusky object swung out on it. It slid somewhat slowly down the incline, and then stopped where the slight curve led upward, and remained dangling high above the hidden river. A shout came faintly through the roar of water in the gulf below, and the dark mass oscillated violently, but otherwise remained immovable.

"What are they doing? Shouldn't it have run all the way across?" asked Mrs. Devine.

Devine nodded. "I guess they're 'most pulling their arms off trying to haul the thing across," he said. "It should have come itself, but the sheave the trolley runs on must have jammed, or they haven't pulled all the kinks and snarls out of the rope. It's quite a big log they've loaded her with."

The suspended trunk still oscillated, and a faint clinking came up with a hoarse murmur of voices from the hollow. Then there was silence, and Devine, who pointed to a fallen cedar, took out his cigar-case.

"We'll stay right here, and see the thing out," he said. "I guess the boys have quite enough to worry them just now."

Barbara surmised that most of the anxiety would fall on Brooke, and wondered why she should feel as eager as she did to see the fir trunk safely swung across. The economical handling of mining props was naturally not a subject she had any particular interest in, though she realized that the success of his venture was of some importance to the man who had stretched the rope across the canyon. There was no ostensible reason why it should affect her, and yet she was sensible of a curious nervous impatience.

In the meanwhile, it was growing darker, and she could not quite see what the dim figures across the river were doing. They did not, in fact, appear to be doing anything in particular, beyond standing in a group, while the rope no longer oscillated. A thin, white mist commenced to drift out of the hollow in filmy wisps, and, in a curious fashion, suggested the vast depth of it. The silence the roar of the river broke through grew more intense as the chill of the distant snow descended, and the stately pines seemed to grow older and greater of girth. They dwarfed the tiny clustering figures into insignificance, and as iron columns and the raw gashes in the side of the gully faded into the gathering night, it seemed to Barbara that here in her primeval fastnesses Nature ignored man's puny handiwork.

Then it was with a little thrill of anticipation she saw there was a movement among the dusky figures at last, but it cost her an effort to sit still when one of them appeared to move out on the rope, for she felt she knew who it must be. Devine rose sharply, and flung his cigar away, while his wife seemed to shiver apprehensively.

"One of them is coming across. Isn't it horribly dangerous?" she said.

Devine nodded. "It depends a good deal on what he means to do, but if he figures on clearing the jammed trolley there is a risk, especially to a man who has only one sound hand," he said. "They've slung him under the spare one. It's most probably Brooke."

Mrs. Devine glanced at Barbara, and fancied that the rigidity of her attitude was a trifle significant. The girl, however, said nothing, for her lips were pressed together, and she felt a shiver run through her as she watched the dusky figure sliding down the curving rope. The rope itself was no longer visible, but the dangling shape that moved across the horrible gulf was forced up by the whiteness of the drifting mists below. She held her breath when it stopped, and swung perilously beside the pine trunk which oscillated too, and then clenched her fingers viciously as it rose and apparently clutched at something overhead. Then she became sensible of the distressful beating of her heart, and that the tension was growing unendurable. Dark pines and hillside seemed to have faded now, and the dim objects outlined against the sliding mists dominated her attention. Still, though they were invisible to her, the space between the hoary pines, tremendous rock wall, and never-melting snow, formed a fitting arena for that conflict between daring humanity and unsubdued Nature.

Barbara never knew how long she sat there with set lips and straining eyes, but the time seemed interminable, until at last she gasped when Devine, who had been standing as motionless as the pines behind him, moved abruptly.

"I guess he has done it," he said. "That man has hard sand in him."

The dusky trunk slid onward; the dangling figure followed it; and a hoarse cry, that had a note of exultation in it as well as relief, came up when they vanished into the gloom beneath the dark rock's side.

"They've got him, but I guess that's not all they mean," said Devine. "Whatever was wrong with it, he has fixed the thing. They've beaten the canyon. The sling's working."

Then Barbara, rising, stood very straight, with a curious feeling that she had a personal part in those men's triumph. It did not even seem to matter when she felt that Mrs. Devine was looking at her.

"Why don't you shout?" said the latter, significantly.

Barbara laughed, but there was a little vibration in her voice her sister had not often noticed there.

"If I thought any one could hear me, I certainly would," she said.

They stayed where they were a few minutes, until once more a faint creaking and rattling came out of the mist, and an object, that was scarcely distinguishable, swung across the chasm. Another followed, until Barbara had counted three of them, and Devine laughed drily as they turned away.

"It's most of eight miles round by the canyon foot, where one can get across by the big redwood log, but I guess they'd have taken the trail if Brooke hadn't given them a lead," he said. "It's not easy to understand any one, but that's a curious kind of man."

"Is Mr. Brooke more peculiar than the rest of you?" asked Barbara.

Devine seemed to smile, though she could not see him very well.

"Well," he said, drily, "that's rather more than I know, but I have a notion that his difficulty is he isn't quite sure what he would be at. Now, the man who does one thing at one time, and all with the same purpose, is the one who generally gets there first."

"And Brooke does not do that?"

"It kind of seems to me he is being pulled hard two ways at once just now," said Devine, with a curious little laugh.

Barbara asked no more questions, and said very little to her sister as they walked home through the pines. She could not blot out the picture which, for a few intense minutes, she had gazed upon, though it had been exasperatingly blurred, and, she felt, considering what it stood for, ineffective in itself--a dim, half-seen figure, dwarfed to insignificance, swinging across a background of filmy mist. There had been nothing at that distance to suggest the intensity of the effort which was the expression of an unyielding will, but she had, by some subtle sympathy, grasped it all--the daring that recognized the peril and disregarded it, and the thrill of the triumph, the wholesome satisfaction born of the struggle with the primitive forces of the universe which man was meant to wage. This, it seemed to her, was a nobler one than the strife of the cities, where wealth was less often created than torn or fleeced from one's fellows; for needy humanity flowed in to build her homes and prosper by sturdy toil at every fresh rolling back of the gates of the wilderness. The miner and the axeman led the way; but the big plough oxen and plodding packhorse train followed hard along the trails they made. Behind, in long procession, jaded with many sorrows, came the outcasts from crowded Eastern lands, but there was room, and to spare, for all of them in the new Canaan.

That the man who had bridged the canyon would admit any feelings of the kind was, she knew, not to be expected. Men of his description, she had discovered, very seldom do, and she could rather fancy him coming fresh from such a struggle to discuss the climate or the flavor of a cigar. Yet he had once told her that she had brought him a sword, and, as she had certainly shivered at his peril, she could, without asking herself troublesome questions, now participate in the victory he had won. Still, she seemed to feel that one could not draw any very apt comparison between him and the stainless hero of the Arthurian legend belted with Excalibur, for Brooke was, she fancied, in the phraseology of the country, not that kind of man. That, however, appeared of less importance, since she had discovered that perfection is apt to pall on one.

She had, she decided, permitted this train of thought to carry her sufficiently far, when a man appeared suddenly in the shadowy trail. It was evident that he did not see them at first, and Barbara fancied he was a trifle disconcerted and half-disposed to slip back into the undergrowth when he did. He, however, passed them hastily, and Devine swung round and looked after him.

"That wasn't one of Brooke's men?" he said.

"No," said Barbara. "I don't think it was. You didn't recognize him, Katty?"

Mrs. Devine laughed. "If you didn't, I scarcely fancy there was anything to be gained by asking me."

Barbara was not quite pleased with her sister, but she noticed that Devine was standing still.

"Was there anything remarkable about the man?" she said.

Devine laughed. "I didn't see his face; but if he's the man I took him for, nobody would have expected to meet him here."

Then he turned, and they proceeded towards the ranch, while Barbara, who recollected Devine's speech at the canyon, also remembered her sister had said she would like to know what her husband really thought of Brooke. This had not been very comprehensible to Barbara, who had experienced no great trouble in forming what she believed to be an accurate opinion concerning the flume-builder. It was her feelings towards him that presented the difficulty.

In the meanwhile, Brooke had flung himself down in a folding-chair in his tent. He was soaked with perspiration, his hard hands still quivered a little from the nervous strain, and his bronzed face was a trifle more colorless than usual, but he was, for the time being, sensible of a quiet exultation. He had done a difficult and dangerous thing, and the flush of success had swept away all his anxieties. He, however, found it a trifle difficult to sit still, and was carefully selecting a cigar in an attempt to compose himself, when a man came in, and took the chair opposite him. Then his face grew a trifle hard, and all sense of satisfaction was suddenly reft away from him.

"I scarcely expected you quite so soon, Saxton," he said. "Here are cigars; you'll find some drinkables in the box yonder."

Saxton opened the box he pointed to, and then looked at him with a grin as he took out a bottle.

"I've no great use for California wine. Bourbon whisky's good enough for me," he said. "Who've you been entertaining? Not Devine, anyway."

"Isn't the question a little outside the mark? If you want it, there's water with ice in it here. It's from the tail of the glacier."

Saxton laughed. "Then it would take a man 'most an hour and a half to bring a pail of it. It's quite easy to tell where you came from. Well, I'm here; but on the other occasions it was I who sent for you."

"There is, however, a difference on this one, though I wouldn't like you to think that was the reason. The fact is, I've been busy."

"Well," said Saxton, "we'll get down to the business one. Still, how'd you get your arm in a sling?"

"Are you sure you don't know?"

"Quite!" and Saxton's sincerity was evident. "How should I?"

"I had fancied you knew all about it by this time, and felt a little astonished that you didn't come over, but I see I was mistaken. I tried to get hold of Devine's papers, as I promised you, and came upon another man attempting the same thing. During the difference of opinion that followed he shot me."

Saxton rose, and, kicking his chair aside, condemned himself several times as he moved up and down the tent.

"To be quite straight, I put another man on to it, as you didn't seem to be making much of a show," he said. "Still, what in the name of thunder did he want to shoot you for, when he knew you were standing in with me?"

"I can't say. The difficulty was that I was not as well informed as he seems to have been. It would have paid you better to be frank with me. Hasn't the man come back to you?"

"No," and Saxton's face grew a trifle vicious, "he hasn't--concern him! You see what that brings us to? I felt sure of that man; but it's plain he meant to find out what I wanted, and then, if he couldn't make use of it himself, sell it me. There are three of us after the same thing now."

Brooke shook his head. "No," he said, drily, "I don't think there are. You and the other man make two, while I scarcely fancy either of you will get hold of the papers, because I gave them back to Devine, and he has sent them to Vancouver."

"You had them?" and Saxton gasped.

"I certainly had," said Brooke. "They were put up in a very flimsy packet, which Mrs. Devine handed me. I did not, however, look at one of them."

Saxton, who seemed about to sit down, crossed the tent and stared at him.

"Well," he said, "may I be shot if I ever struck another man quite like you! What in the name of thunder made you let Devine have them back for?"

"I really don't think you would appreciate my motives, especially as I'm not quite sure I understand them myself. Anyway, I did it, and that, of course, implies that there can be no further understanding between you and me. I don't mean to question the morality of what we purposed doing, but, to be quite frank, I've had enough of it."

Saxton, who appeared to restrain himself with an effort, sat down and lighted a cigar.

"No doubt I could worry along 'most as well without you, but there's a question to be answered," he said, drily. "Do you mean to give me away?"

"It's not one I appreciate, and it seems to me a trifle unnecessary. You can reassure yourself on that point."

Saxton took a drink of whisky. "Well," he said, meditatively, "I guess I can trust you, and I'm not going to worry about letting you off the deal. You have too many fancies to be of much use to anybody. There's just another thing, and it has to be said. It's business I have on hand, and life's too short for any man to waste time he could pile up dollars in, trying to get even with a partner who has gone back on him. In fact, I've a kind of liking for you--but you'll most certainly get hurt if you put yourself in my way. It's a friendly warning."

Brooke laughed. "I will endeavor to keep out of it, so far as I can."

Saxton nodded, and then looked at him reflectively.

"Miss Heathcote's kind of pretty," he said.

"I suggested once already that we should get on better if you left Miss Heathcote out."

"You did. Still, when I've anything to say, it is scarcely a hint of that kind that's going to stop me. I guess you know she has quite a pile of dollars?"

Brooke's face flushed. "I don't, and it does not concern me in the least."

"She has, anyway. Devine's wife brought him a pile, and I heard one sister had the same as the other. Now, you ought to feel obliged to me."

Brooke straightened himself a trifle in his chair. "I don't wish to be unpleasant, but you have gone quite as far as is advisable. Can't you see the thing you are suggesting is quite out of the question?"

Saxton surveyed him critically. "Well," he said, reflectively, "I have seen better-looking men--quite a few of them, and you're blame hard to get on with, but there are women who don't expect too much."

Brooke's face was growing flushed, but he realized that nothing short of physical violence was likely to restrain his visitor, and he laughed.

"You will, of course, believe what pleases you," he said. "Are you going to stay here to-night?"

"No," said Saxton. "When I'm through with this whisky, I'm going right back to Tomlinson's ranch. I wouldn't like Devine to run up against me, and he nearly did it on the trail a little while ago."

Brooke looked up sharply. "He recognized you?"

"No," said Saxton, drily. "He didn't. It wouldn't have suited me. When I come to clinch with Devine, I want to be sure I have the whip-hand of him. Still, it wouldn't have been a case of pistols out and getting behind a tree. It's quite a long while since I had any, and, though you don't seem to think so in England, nobody has any use for a circus of that kind now. I don't know that the way they had in '49 wasn't better than trying to get ahead of the other man quietly."

Brooke made a little gesture of resignation. Saxton, he realized, had sufficient discretion not to persist in a useless attempt to hold him to his compact, but he was addicted to moralizing, and Brooke, who lighted another cigar, listened, as patiently as he could, while he discoursed upon the anxieties of the enterprising business man.

XXI.

DEVINE'S OFFER.

Evening had come round again when Brooke called at the ranch, in response to a brief note from Devine, and found the latter sitting, cigar in hand, at his office table.

"Take a cigar, if you feel like it, Mr. Brooke. We have got to have a talk," he said.

Brooke did as he suggested, and when he sat down, Devine passed a strip of paper across to him.

"There's your cheque for the tramway. I'll ask you for a receipt," he said. "Make up an account of what the dam has cost you to-morrow, and we'll try to arrange the thing so's to suit both of us."

Brooke appeared a trifle astonished. "It is by no means finished, sir."

"Well," said Devine, drily, "I'm not quite sure it ever will be. The mine no longer belongs to me. It's part of the Dayspring Consolidated Mineral Properties. I've been working the thing up quietly for quite a while now, and I've a cable from London that the deal's put through."

Brooke, remembering what he had heard from Saxton, looked hard at him. "You have sold it out to English company promoters?"

"Not exactly! I'm taking so many thousand dollars down, and a controlling share of the stock. I'm also the boss director, with full power to run operations as appears advisable at the mines. How does the deal strike you?"

"Since you ask for my opinion, I fancy I should have preferred a good many dollars, and very little stock."

Devine glanced at him with a curious smile.

"You believe Allonby's a crank?"

"Other people do. On my part, I'm not quite sure of it. Still, it seems to me that the men who spend their money to prove him right will run a tolerably heavy risk, especially as, so far, at least, there appears to be no ore that's worth reduction in the mine, so far as it has been opened up."

"How do you know what is in the Dayspring?" and Devine looked at him steadily.

Brooke made a little gesture. "I don't think that point's important," he said. "You, no doubt, had a purpose in telling me as much as you have done?"

Devine did not answer for a moment or two, and Brooke was sensible of a slight bewilderment as he watched him. This was, he knew, a hard, shrewd man, and yet he had apparently permitted Saxton to beguile him into buying a mine in which nobody but a man whose faculties had been destroyed by alcohol believed. He was also, it seemed, willing to risk a moderate competence in another one which was liable to be jumped at any moment. The thing was almost incomprehensible.

Then Devine made a sign that he desired attention. "When I told you this, I had a purpose," he said. "We are going to spend a pile of dollars on the Dayspring, and my part of the business lies in the city. Wilkins stays right at the Canopus, and while Allonby goes along with the mine it's too big a contract to reform him. That brings me to the point. I want a man to take charge at the Dayspring under him, and though you were not exactly civil when I made you an offer once before, we might make it worth your while."

Brooke gasped, and felt his face becoming warm.

"I have very little practical experience of mining, sir," he said.

Devine nodded tranquilly. "Allonby has enough for two, but he lets up and loses his grip when the whisky comes along," he said. "Still, I guess you have got something that's worth rather more to me. You couldn't help having it. It was born in you."

Brooke sat silent for a space, with an unpleasant realization of the fact that Devine's keen eyes were watching him. He had come there with the intention of severing his connection with the man, and now that astonishing offer had been made him in the very room he had not long ago crept into with the purpose of plundering him. Every detail of what had happened on that eventful night came back to him, and he remembered, with a sickening sense of degradation, how he had leaned upon the table where Devine was sitting then and permitted the startled girl to force her thanks on him. Then he raised his head, as Devine, turning a little, looked at him with disconcerting steadiness.

"You have more reasons than the one you gave me for not taking hold?" he said.

Suddenly, Brooke made up his mind. He was sick of the career of deception, and had already meant to put an end to it, while he now seized upon the opportunity of placing a continuance in it out of the question.

"I have, and can't help fancying that one of them is a tolerably good one," he said. "You see, you really know very little about me."

"Go on," said Devine, drily. "I'm generally quite willing to back my opinion of a mine or man. Besides, I have picked up one or two pointers about you."

"Still," said Brooke, very slowly, while his face grew set, "you don't know why I came here to build that flume for you."

Then he gasped with astonishment, for Devine laughed.

"Well," he said, drily, "I guess I do."

Brooke, who lost command of himself, rose abruptly, and stood looking down on him, with one quivering hand clenched on the edge of the table.

"You know I meant to jump the claim?" he said.

"I had a notion that you meant to try."

Then there was a curious silence, and the two men remained motionless, looking at one another for a space, the younger one leaning somewhat heavily upon the table, with the crimson showing through the bronze in his face, the elder one watching him with a little grim smile. There was also a suggestion of sardonic amusement in it at which the other winced, as he would scarcely have done had Devine struck him.

"And you let me stay on?" he said at length.

"I did. It was plain you couldn't hurt me, and there was a kind of humor in the thing. I had just to put my hand down and squelch you when I felt like it."

Brooke recognized that he had deserved this, but he had never felt the same utter sense of insignificance that he did just then. His companion evidently did not even consider it worth while to be angry with him, and he wondered vacantly at his folly in even fancying that he or Saxton could prove a match for such a man.

Then Devine made a little gesture. "Hadn't you better sit down? We're not quite through yet."

Brooke did as he suggested.

"Still----" he said.

Devine smiled again. "You don't quite understand? Well, I'll try to make it plain. You make about the poorest kind of claim-jumper I ever ran up against, and I've handled quite a few in my time. It's not your fault. You haven't it in you. If you had, you'd have stayed right with it, and not let the dam-building get hold of you so that you scarcely remembered what you came here for. You couldn't help that either."

To be turned inside out in this fashion was almost too disconcerting to be exasperating, and Brooke sat stupidly silent for a moment or two.

"After all, we need not go into that," he said. "I suppose what I meant to do requires no defence in this country, but while I am by no means proud of it, I should never have undertaken it had you not sold me a worthless ranch. I purposed doing nothing more than getting my six thousand dollars back."

"You figure that would have contented the man behind you?"

Brooke was once more startled, for Devine's penetration appeared almost uncanny, but he remembered that he, at least, owed a little to his confederate.

"You think there was another man?" he said.

Devine laughed. "I guess I'm sure. You don't know enough to fix up a thing of this kind. Who is he?"

"That," said Brooke, drily, "is rather more than I feel at liberty to tell you. I have, however, broken with him once for all."

Devine made a little gesture which implied that the point was of no great importance. "Well," he said, "I guess I've no great cause to be afraid of him, if he was content to have you for a partner. The question is--Are you going to take my offer?"

"You are asking me seriously?"

"I am. It seems to me I sized you up correctly quite a while ago, and you have had about enough claim-jumping. Now, I don't know that I blame you, and, anyway, if you had very little sense, it showed you had some grit. As the mining laws stand, it's a legitimate occupation, and you tell me you only figured on getting your dollars back. Well, if you want them, you can work for them at a reasonable salary."

Brooke was once more astonished. Sentiment, it appeared, counted for as little with Devine as it had done with Saxton, and with both of them business was simply and solely a question of dollars.

"Then you disclaim all responsibility for your agent's doings?" he said.

"No," said Devine, drily. "If Slocum had swindled you, it would have been different, but you made a foolish deal, and you have got to stand up to it. Nobody was going to stop you surveying that land before you bought it, or getting a man who knew its value to do it for you. I'm offering you the option of working for those six thousand dollars. Do you take it?"

Brooke scarcely considered. The money was no longer the chief inducement, for, as Devine had expressed it, the work had got hold of him, and he was sensible of a growing belief in his capabilities, while he now fancied he saw his opportunity.

"Yes," he said, simply.

Devine nodded. "Then we'll go into the thing right now," he said. "You'll start for the Dayspring soon as you can to-morrow."

An hour had passed before they had arranged everything, and it seemed to one of them that it was, under the circumstances, a somewhat astonishing compact they made. What the other thought about it did not appear, but he was one who was seldom very much mistaken in his estimate of the character of his fellow-men. Then, as it happened, Brooke came upon Barbara in the log-walled hall as he was leaving the ranch, and stood still a moment irresolute. Whether Devine would tell her or his wife what had passed between them he did not know, but it appeared very probable, and just then he almost shrank from meeting her. It did not, however, occur to him to ask himself how she happened to be there.

"So you are not going out on the trail that leads to nowhere in particular, after all?" she said.

Brooke showed his astonishment. "You knew what Devine meant to offer me?"

"Of course!" and Barbara smiled. "I don't even mind admitting that I think he did wisely."

"Now, I wonder why?"

Barbara laughed softly. "Don't you think the question is a little difficult, or do you expect me to present you with a catalogue of your virtues?"

"I'm afraid the latter is out of the question. You would want, at least, several items."

"And you imply that I should have a difficulty in finding them?"

Brooke had spoken lightly, partly because the interview with Devine had put a strain on him, and he dare scarcely trust himself just then, but a tide of feeling swept him away, and his face grew suddenly grim. The girl was very alluring, and her little smile showed plainly that she had reposed her confidence in him.

"Yes," he said, a trifle hoarsely, "you would have the greatest difficulty in finding one, and I am almost glad that I am going away to-morrow. Such a man as I am is scarcely fit to speak to you."

Barbara was, though she did not show it, distinctly startled. She had never heard the man speak in that fashion, and his set face and vibrant voice were new to her. Indeed, she had now and then wondered whether he ever really let himself go. Still, she looked at him quietly, and, noticing the swollen veins on his forehead, and the glow in his eyes, decided it would not be advisable to admit that she attached much importance to what he had said. He was, she fancied, fit for any rashness just then.

"I suppose we, all of us, have moods of self-depreciation occasionally," she said. "Still, one would not have fancied that you were unduly morbid, and one part of that little speech was a trifle inexplicable."

Brooke laughed curiously, but the girl noticed that one of his lean, hard hands was closed as he looked down on her.

"There are times when one has to be one's self, and civilities don't seem to count," he said. "I am glad that I am going away, because if I stayed here I should lose the last shred of my self-respect. As a matter of fact, I have very little left, but that little is valuable, if only because it was you who gave it me."

"Still, one would signally fail to see how you could lose it here."

Brooke stood still, looking at her with signs of struggle, and, she could almost fancy, passion, in his set face; and then made a little gesture, which seemed to imply that he had borne enough.

"You will probably understand it all by and by," he said. "I can only ask you not to think too hardly of me when that happens."

Then, as one making a strenuous effort, he turned abruptly away, and Barbara, who let him go, went back to the room where her sister sat, very thoughtfully.

Brooke in the meanwhile swung savagely along the trail, beneath the shadowy pines, for he recognized, with a painful distinctness, that Barbara Heathcote's view of his conduct was by no means likely to coincide with Devine's, and he could picture her disgust and anger when the revelation came, while it was only now, when he would in all probability never meet her on the same terms again, he realized the intensity of his longing for the girl. He had also, he felt, succeeded in making himself ridiculous by a display of sentimentality that must have been incomprehensible to her, and though that appeared of no great importance relatively, it naturally did not tend to console him. When he reached his tent Jimmy stared at him.

"I guess you look kind of raised," he said. "Where's your hat?"

Brooke laughed hoarsely. "I believe I must have left it at the ranch. Still, that's not so very astonishing, because, even if I didn't do it altogether, I came very near losing my head."

Jimmy again surveyed him, with a grin. "Devine," he said, suggestively, "has been giving you whisky, and it mixed you up a little? That's what comes of drinking tea."

Brooke made no answer, though a swift flush rose to his face, as he remembered his half-coherent speeches at the ranch, and the astonishment in the girl's eyes, for it seemed probable that the explanation that had occurred to Jimmy had also suggested itself to her. Then he smiled grimly, as he decided that it did not greatly matter, after all, since she could not think more hardly of him than she would do when the truth came out presently.

XXII.

THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS.

It was already late at night, but the mounted mail carrier had not reached the Dayspring mine, and Allonby, who was impatiently waiting news of certain supplies and plant, had insisted on Brooke sitting up with him. It was also raining hard, and, in spite of the glowing stove, the shanty reeked with damp, while there was a steady splashing upon the iron roof above. Now and then a trickle descended from a defective joint in it, and formed a rivulet upon the earthen floor, or fizzled into a puff of steam upon the corroded iron pipe which stretched across the room. The latter was strewn with soil-stained clothing, and wet knee-boots with the red mire of the mine still clinging about them.

Brooke lay drowsily in a canvas chair, while Allonby sat at the uncleanly table, with a litter of burnt matches and tobacco ash as well as a steaming glass in front of him. His eyes were bleared and watery, and there were curious little patches of color in his haggard face, while the gorged, blue veins showed upon his forehead. He had been discoursing in a maudlin fashion which Brooke, who had endeavored to make the best of his company during the last three months, found singularly exasperating, but he moved abruptly when a stream from the roof suddenly descended upon his grizzled head.

"That," he said, "is one of the trifles a man with a sense of proportion and a contemplative temperament makes light of. The curse of this effete age is its ceaseless striving after luxury."

Brooke laughed softly, as he watched the water run down the moralizer's nose. "It is," he said, "at least, not often attainable in this country."

"Which is precisely why men grow rich in the Colonies. Now, here are you and I, who at one time in our lives required four or five courses for dinner, not only subsisting, but thriving upon grindstone bread, flapjacks, molasses, and the contents of certain cans from Chicago, which one cannot even be certain are what they are averred to be, though the Colonist consumes them with the faith that asks no questions."

"I fancy you are, in one respect, taking a good deal for granted," Brooke said, drily.

Allonby made a deprecatory gesture. "Being, although you might occasionally find a difficulty in crediting it, one myself, I am seldom mistaken about the points of a man who has moved in good society, though I may admit that it was the ruin of me. Had I been brought up in this country, one-third of my income would have sufficed me, and I should have made provision for my grey hairs with the rest, while I fed, like a Canadian, out of vessels of enamel and the useful wood pulp. As it was, I wasted my substance, and, unfortunately, that of other men who had undue confidence in me, in London clubs, with the result that I am now what is sometimes termed a waster in the land of promise."

"It is not very difficult to get through a good deal of one's substance in a certain fashion, even in Canada," and Brooke glanced reflectively at the array of empty bottles.

"That point of view, although a popular one, is illusory, which can be demonstrated by mathematics. A man, it is evident, cannot drink more than a certain quantity of whisky. His physical capacity precludes it, while even in my bad weeks the cost of it could not well exceed some eight dollars. Excluding that item, one could live contentedly here at an outlay of one dollar daily, if he did not, unfortunately, possess a memory."

It seemed to Brooke that this latter observation might be true, if one had, at least, any hope for the future. Allonby's day was nearly done, and he had only the past to return and trouble him, but Brooke felt just then that, in spite of his pride in the profession which had been rather forced upon him than adopted, he had very little to look forward to, since he had, by his own folly, made the one thing he longed for above all others unattainable. He had been three months at the Dayspring, and had heard nothing from Barbara. She must, he fancied, have discovered the part he had played by this time, and would blot him out of her memory, while now, when it seemed conceivable that he might make his mark in Canada, all that this implied had become valueless to him. Wealth and celebrity might perhaps be attainable, but there would be nobody to share them with, for he realized that Barbara Heathcote did not possess the easy toleration on certain points which appeared to characterize Saxton and Devine. In the meanwhile, Allonby did not seem pleased with his silence.

"You are," he said, a trifle quickly, "by no means an entertaining companion for a man who is at times too sensible of the irony of his position, and appear to be without either comprehension or sympathy. Here am I, who was accustomed to fare sumptuously in London clubs, living on the husks and other metaphorical et ceteras, and endeavoring--for that is all it amounts to--to console myself with profitless reflections. I am, of course, in the elegant simile of the country, a tank, or whisky-skin, but I am still a man who found a fortune and stripped himself of everything but whisky to develop it."

Brooke laughed to conceal his impatience. "Then you are as sure as ever about the silver? We have got a good way down without finding very much sign of it."

Allonby rose, with a little flush in his watery eyes, and leaned, somewhat unsteadily, upon the table.

"It is the one thing I believe in. The rest, and I once had my fancies and theories like other men, are shadows and chimeras now. Only the silver is real--and there. All I made in Canada is sunk in this mine, which no longer belongs to me, and when I make the great discovery not a dollar will fall to my share."

"Then it is a little difficult to understand what you are so anxious to find the silver for."

Allonby swayed a trifle on his feet, but the gleam in his eyes grew brighter. "You," he said, "are, as I pointed out, curiously deficient in comprehension, but you never won a case of medals that were coveted by the keenest brains among all those who hoped to enter your profession. Of what use are dollars to a whisky-tank who will, in all probability, be found mangled at the bottom of the shaft one day? Still, when I made the calculations we are now working on, there was no man in the province with a knowledge equal to mine, and I ask no more than to prove them right."

Brooke sat silent, because he could think of nothing appropriate to say. He had asked the question lightly, and had got his answer. It made the attitude of this broken-down wreck of humanity plain to him, and he vaguely realized the pathos underlying it. Possessed by the one fancy, the man had lost or flung away all that life might have offered him, while he clung to the apparently worthless mine, not, it seemed, for the dollars that success might bring him, but from pride in his professional skill and the faculties which had long deserted him. That, as he said, was his one point of faith, and he lived only to vindicate it.

Then Allonby lurched unsteadily to the door, and held his hand up as he opened it.

"Listen!" he said. "Is that the mail carrier? I must know when we'll get those drills and the giant powder before I sleep. The sinking goes on slowly, and life is very uncertain when one drinks whisky as I do."

Brooke listened, and, for a time, heard only the splash from the pine boughs and the patter of the rain, while Allonby's frail figure cut against the white mists that slid past the doorway. Then a faint, measured thudding came up the valley, and he remembered afterwards that he felt a curious sense of anticipation. The sound swelled into the beat of horse hoofs floundering and slipping on the wet gravel, and Brooke smiled at his eagerness, for though he had, he fancied, cut himself off from all that concerned his past in England, he had never been quite able to await the approach of a mail carrier with complete indifference, and he felt the suggestiveness of the drumming of the weary horse's feet. There had been a time when he had listened with beating heart while it drew nearer down the shadowy trail, and once more a little thrill ran through him.

Then there was a clatter of hoofs on wet rock, and a shout, as a man pulled his jaded beast up in the darkness outside, while a dripping packet was flung into the room. Brooke could see nobody, but a voice said, "That's your lot; I guess I can't stop. Got to make Truscott's before I sleep, and the beast's gone lame."

The rattle of hoofs commenced again, and Brooke sat idly watching Allonby, who was tearing open the packet with shaky fingers.

"The tools and powder are coming up," he said. "Hallo! Excuse my inadvertence, Brooke. This one's apparently for you."

Brooke caught the big blue envelope tossed across to him, and when he had taken out several precisely folded papers and glanced at the sheet of stiff legal writing, sat still, staring vacantly straight in front of him. The uncleanly shanty faded from before his eyes, and he was not even conscious that Allonby, who had laid down his own correspondence, was watching him until the latter broke the silence.

"I know that style of envelope, but it is, presumably, too long since you left England for it to contain any unpleasant reference to a debt," he said. "Has somebody been leaving you a fortune?"

Brooke smiled in a curious, listless fashion. "No," he said, "not a fortune. Still, I suppose one could almost consider it a competence."

"Then you appear singularly free from the satisfaction one would naturally expect from a man who had just received any news of that description," said Allonby, drily.

Brooke's face grew suddenly grim. "If it had come a little earlier, it might have been of much more use to me."

Allonby had, apparently, sufficient sense left in him to recognize that any further observations he might feel inclined to make were scarcely likely to be appreciated just then, and once more Brooke sat motionless, with the letter in his hand, and the inclosures that had slipped from his fingers strewn about the floor. He had been left with what any one with simple tastes would have considered a moderate competence, at least, in Canada, by the man he had quarrelled with, and he gathered from the lawyer's letter that, if he wished it, there would be no difficulty in at once realizing the property. It naturally amounted to considerably more than the six thousand dollars he had sold his self-respect for, and at the moment he was only sensible of a bitter regret that the news had not come to hand a little earlier.

If that had happened, he would never have made the attempt upon the papers, and might have broken with Saxton without the necessity for any explanation with Devine. He had no doubt that the latter had acquainted his wife and Barbara, which meant that he would be branded for ever as rather worse than a thief in her eyes. The money which would have saved him, and might have bought him happiness, was he felt, almost useless to him now.

In the meanwhile, Allonby had turned to his own correspondence, and the shanty was very still, save for the patter of the rain outside and the doleful wailing of the pines. Brooke gazed at the letter he held with vacant eyes, but though he scarcely seemed to notice his surroundings, he could long afterwards recall them clearly--the litter of soil-stained garments and mining boots, the crackling stove, the rain that flashed through the stream of light outside the open door, and Allonby's haggard face and wasted figure.

Then it occurred to him that there was a discrepancy between the time when the will was made and that on which the news of it had been sent to him, and as he stooped to pick up the papers from the floor, he came upon a black-edged envelope. He recognized the writing, and, hastily opening it, found it was from an English kinsman.

"You will be sorry to hear that Austin Dangerfield has succumbed at last," he read. "He was, perhaps, a little hard upon you at one time, but Clara and I felt that he was right in his objections to Lucy all along, and no doubt you realized it when she married Shafton Coulson. However that may be, the old man mentioned you frequently a little before the end, and seemed to feel the fact that he had driven you away, which was, no doubt, what induced him to leave you most of his personal property. Baron and Rodway will have sent you a schedule, and, as one of the executors, I would say that we had some difficulty in finding where to address you until we heard from Coulson that Lucy had met you. There is one point I feel I should refer to. As you will notice, part of the estate is represented by stock in a Canadian mine. Austin, whose mental grip was getting a trifle slack latterly, appears to have been led rather too much by Shafton Coulson in the stock operations he was fond of dabbling in, and I fancy it was by the latter's advice he made the purchase. There is very little demand for the shares on the market here, but you will perhaps be able to form an accurate opinion concerning their value."

Brooke laid down the letter, and took up the lawyers' schedule. Then he laughed curiously as he realized that a considerable proportion of his legacy was represented by shares in the Dayspring Consols. One of the mines, he knew, was liable to be jumped at any moment, and the other was worthless, unless the opinion of his half-crazy companion could be taken seriously. There were one or two more small gashes in the hillside, concerning which the miners he had questioned appeared distinctly dubious.

Allonby turned at the sound. "One would scarcely have fancied from that laugh that you were feeling very much more pleased than you were when you hadn't gone into the affair," he said.

"Then it was a tolerably accurate reflection of my state of mind," said Brooke. "This legacy, which came along two or three months after the time when it would have been of vital importance to me, consists in part of shares in this very mine. That is naturally about the last thing I would have desired or expected, and results from one of the curious conjunctions of circumstances which, I suppose, come about now and then. When the thing one has longed for does come along, it is generally at a time when the wish for it has gone."

"Commiseration would be a little unnecessary," said Allonby, with unusual quietness. "The competence you mention will certainly prove a fortune before you are very much older."

"I don't feel by any means as sure of it as you seem to be. Still, under the circumstances, it doesn't greatly matter."

Allonby, with some difficulty, straightened himself. "I am," he said, not without a certain dignity which almost astonished Brooke, "a worn-out wastrel and a whisky-tank, but I'll live to show the men who look down on me with contemptuous pity what I was once capable of. That is all I am holding on to life for. It is naturally not a very pleasant one to a man with a memory."

For a moment he stood almost erect, and then collapsed suddenly into his chair. "Devine has a brain of another and very much lower order, though it is of a kind that is apt to prove more useful to its possessor, and in his own sphere there are very few men to equal him. If I do not fall down the shaft in the meanwhile, we will certainly show this province what we can do together. And now I believe it is advisable for me to go to bed, while I feel to some extent capable of reaching it. My head is at least as clear as usual, but my legs are unruly."

XXIII.

BROOKE'S CONFESSION.

The Pacific express had just come in, and the C. P. R. wharf at Vancouver was thronged with a hurrying crowd when Barbara Heathcote and her sister stood leaning upon the rails of the S. S. _Islander_. Beneath them the big locomotive which had hauled the dusty cars over the wild Selkirk passes was crawling slowly down the wharf with bell tolling dolefully, and while a feathery steam roared aloft above the tiers of white deckhouses a stream of passengers flowed up the gangway. Barbara, who was crossing to Victoria, watched them languidly until an elaborately-dressed woman ascended, leaning upon the arm of a man whose fastidious neatness of attire and air of indifference to the confusion about him proclaimed him an Englishman. She made a very slight inclination when the woman smiled at her.

"It is fortunate she can't very well get at us here," she said, glancing at the pile of baggage which cut them off from the rest of the deck. "Three or four hours of Mrs. Coulson's conversation would be a good deal more than I could appreciate."

"You need scarcely be afraid of it in the meanwhile," said Mrs. Devine. "It is a trifle difficult to hear one's self speak."

"For which her husband is no doubt thankful. Until I met them once or twice I wondered why that man wore an habitually tired expression. Of course there are Englishmen who consider it becoming, but one feels that in his case his looks are quite in keeping with his sensations."

Mrs. Devine laughed. "You don't like the woman?"