The Greater Power

The snow that eddied about him whitened his spongy blankets, but he got a little sleep, and, awakening, found the fire out. He tried to light it and failed. His fingers seemed useless. He was cramped and chilled all through, and there was in one hip-joint the gnawing pain that those who sleep on wet ground are acquainted with. Sometimes it goes away when one gets warmed up, but just as often it does not. Nasmyth, who found it a difficult matter to straighten himself, ate a little damp bread, and then, strapping his pack upon his shoulders, stumbled on into the forest. He afterwards fancied it did not snow very much that day, but he was not sure of anything except that he fell over many rotten branches, and entangled himself frequently in labyrinths of matted willows. Night came and he went to sleep without a fire. He contrived to push on next day, walking during most of it half asleep. Indeed, now and then he would stagger along for minutes after consciousness of what he was doing had deserted him, for there are men in that Bush, at least, who know what it is to stop with suddenly opened eyes on the verge of a collapse, and find that they have wandered from the path–only in Nasmyth’s case there was no path at all.

He was never sure whether it was that day or the next when, floundering through an undergrowth of willows, he came upon a break in the forest that was covered with sawn-off stumps. As he made for it, he fell into a split-rail fence, some of which he knocked down until he could climb over it. There was a faint smell of burning fir-wood in the air, and it was evident to him that there was a house somewhere in the vicinity. The snow was not deep in the clearing, and he plodded through it, staggering now and then, until he came to a little slope, and fell down it headlong. This time he did not seem able to get up again, and it was fortunate that, when he flung the split fence down, the crash made by the falling rails rang far through the silence of the woods.

While Nasmyth lay in the slushy snow, a girl came out from among the firs across the clearing, and walked down the little trail that led to a well. She was tall, and there was something in her face and the way she held herself which suggested that she was not a native of the Bush, though everything she wore had been made by her own fingers–that is, except the little fur cap, whose glossy brown enhanced the lustre of her hair. This was of a slightly lighter tint, and had gleams of ruddy gold in it. Her eyes were large and brown, and there was a reposeful quietness in the face, which suggested strength. It was significant that her hands were a trifle hard, as well as shapely, and that her wrists were red.

She came to the top of the slope near the foot of which Nasmyth, who had now raised himself on one elbow, lay, and though this might well have startled her, she stood quietly still, looking down on him. Nasmyth raised himself a trifle further, and blinked at her stupidly, and she noticed that his face was drawn and grey.

“I heard the rails fall,” she said. “What are you doing there?”

It did not appear strange to Nasmyth that she should speak in well-modulated English, for there are probably as many insular English as Canadians in parts of that country. Besides, he was scarcely in a condition to notice a point of that kind just then.

“I think I upset the fence,” he answered. “You see, I couldn’t get over. Then I must have fallen down.”

It naturally struck the girl as significant that he did not seem sure of what had happened, but the explanation that would have suggested itself to anyone fresh from England did not occur to her. There was not a saloon or hotel within eight or nine miles of the spot.

“Can you get up?” she asked.

“I’ll try,” said Nasmyth; but the attempt he made was not a complete success, for, although he staggered to his feet, he reeled when he stood upon them, and probably would have fallen had she not run down the slope and taken hold of him.

“You can rest on me,” she said, laying a firm and capable hand upon his shoulder.

With her assistance, Nasmyth staggered up the slope, and there were afterwards times when he remembered the next few minutes with somewhat mixed feelings. Just then, however, he was only glad to have someone to lean upon, and her mere human presence was a relief, since Nature had come very near to crushing the life out of him.

“This is your ranch?” he inquired, looking at her with half-closed eyes, when at length she moved away from him, a pace or two, and, gasping a little, stood still, beneath a colonnade of towering firs.

“It is,” she said simply; and a moment or two later he saw a little house of logs half hidden among the trees.

They reached it in another minute, and, staggering in, he sank into the nearest chair. A stove snapped and crackled in the middle of the little log-walled room, which in spite of its uncovered, split-boarded floor, seemed to possess a daintiness very unusual in the Bush. He did not, however, know what particular objects in it conveyed that impression, for the whole room seemed to be swinging up and down; but he was definitely conscious of a comforting smell of coffee and pork, which came from the stove. He sat still, shivering, and blinking at the girl, while the water trickled from his tattered clothing. He fancied from the patter on the shingle roof, that it was raining outside.

“I wonder if you would let me camp in the barn to-night,” he said.

The girl’s eyes had grown compassionate as she watched him, for there was a suggestive greyness in his face. It was evident to her that he was utterly worn-out.

“Go in there,” she said, pointing to a door. “You will find some dry clothes. Put them on.”

Nasmyth staggered into a very small room, which had a rude wooden bunk in it, and with considerable difficulty sloughed off his wet things and put on somebody else’s clothing. Then he came back and sank into a deer-hide lounge at the table. The girl set a cup of coffee, as well as some pork and potatoes, before him. He drank the coffee, but finding, somewhat to his astonishment, that he could scarcely eat, he lay back in his chair and looked at the girl deprecatingly with half-closed eyes.

“Sorry I can’t do the supper justice. I think I’m ill,” he said.

Then his head fell back against the deer-hide lounge, and, while the girl watched him with a natural consternation, he sank into sleep or unconsciousness. She was not sure which it was, but he certainly looked very ill, and, being a capable young woman, she remembered that within the next hour, the weekly mail-carrier would strike a trail which passed within a mile of the ranch. Rising, she touched Nasmyth’s shoulder.

“Stay there, and don’t try to get up until I come back,” she commanded in a kindly tone.

Nasmyth, as she had half-expected, said nothing, and, slipping into another room–there were three in the house–she returned, wearing a jacket of coarse fur, and went quietly out into the rain. It was dark now, but she had, as it happened, not long to wait for the mail-carrier.

“I want you to call at Gordon’s ranch, Dave,” she told the man. “Tell him he is to come along as soon as he can. There’s a stranger here who seems very ill.”

The mail-carrier would have asked questions, but she cut him short.

“How long will it be before you can tell Gordon?” she asked.

“Well,” answered the man reflectively, “I’m heading right back for the settlement, but it’s a league to Gordon’s, anyway. He could be here in two hours, if he starts right off, and, considering what the trail’s like, that’s blamed fast travelling.”

He disappeared into the darkness, and the girl went back to the ranch. It was, perhaps, significant that she should feel sure that the man she had sent for would obey the summons, but she grew anxious while the two hours slipped by. At last, a man opened the door and walked in, with the water dripping from the long outer garment he flung off. He was a young man, with a bronzed face and keen grey eyes, and he had swung the axe, as one could see by his lithe carriage and the hardness of his hands, but there was something professional in his manner as he stooped down, regarding Nasmyth closely while he gripped the stranger’s wrist. Then he turned to the girl.

“He’s very sick,” Gordon said. “Guess you have no objections to my putting him in your father’s bunk. First, we’ll warm the blankets.”

The girl rose to help him, and–for she was strong–they stripped off most of Nasmyth’s garments and lifted him into the bunk in the next room. Then Gordon sent her for the blankets, and, when he had wrapped them round Nasmyth, he sat down and looked at her.

“Pneumonia,” he said. “Anyway, in the meanwhile, I’ll figure on it as that, though there’s what one might call a general physical collapse as well. Where did he come from?”

“I don’t know,” said the girl.

“Your father won’t be back for a week?”

“It’s scarcely likely.”

The man appeared to reflect for a moment or two. Then he made a little expressive gesture.

“Well,” he said, “it’s up to us to do what we can. First thing’s a poultice. I’ll show you how to fix it; but while we’re here, I guess we might as well run through his things.”

“Is that needful?” and the girl glanced at Nasmyth compassionately.

“Well,” said the man with an air of reflection, “it might be. This thing’s quick. Leaves you or wipes you out right away. There’s very little strength in him.”

He turned out the pockets of Nasmyth’s clothes, which were, however, empty of anything that might disclose his identity.

“Not a scrap of paper, not a dollar; but I guess that wasn’t always the case with him–you can see it by his face,” he said. Then he laughed. “He’s probably like a good many more of us–not very anxious to let folks know where he came from.”

The girl, though he did not notice it, winced at this; but next moment he touched her shoulder.

“Get some water on,” he said. “After we’ve made the poultice, I’ll take charge of him. We may get Mrs. Custer round in the morning.”

The girl merely smiled and went out with him. She was aware that it was in some respects an unusual thing which she was doing, but that did not greatly trouble her. They are not very conventional people in that country.

CHAPTER III

WAYNEFLEET’S RANCH

Though he afterwards endeavoured to recall them, Nasmyth had never more than a faint and shadowy recollection of the next few days. During most of the time, he fancied he was back in England, and the girl he had left there seemed to be hovering about him. Now and then, she would lay gentle hands upon him, and her soothing touch would send him off to sleep again; but there was a puzzling change in her appearance. He remembered her as slight in figure–sylph-like he had sometimes called her–fastidious and dainty, and always artistically dressed. Now, however, she seemed to have grown taller, stronger, more reserved, and, as he vaguely realized, more capable, while her garments were of a different and coarser fashion. What was still more curious, she did not seem to recognize her name, though he addressed her by it now and then. He pondered over the matter drowsily once or twice, and then ceased to trouble himself about it. There were several other things that appeared at least as incomprehensible.

After a long time, however, his senses came back to him, and one evening, as he lay languidly looking about him in his rude wooden bunk, he endeavoured to recall what had passed since he left the loggers’ camp. The little room was comfortably warm, and a plain tin lamp burned upon what was evidently a home-made table. There was nothing, except a rifle, upon the rough log walls, and nothing upon the floor, which was, as usual, rudely laid with split boards, for dressed lumber is costly in the Bush. Looking through the open door into the general living-room, which was also lighted, he could see a red twinkle beneath the register of the stove, beside which a woman was sitting sewing. She was a hard-featured, homely person in coarsely fashioned garments, which did not seem to fit her well, and Nasmyth felt slightly disconcerted when he glanced at her, for she was not the woman whom he had expected to see. Then his glance rested on a man, who had also figured in his uncertain memories, and now sat not far away from him. The man, who was young, was dressed in plain blue duck, and, though Nasmyth noticed that his hands were hard, and that he had broken nails, there was something in his bronzed face that suggested mental capacity.

“I suppose,” the sick man said, “you are the doctor who has evidently taken care of me?”

He was not quite himself yet, and he spoke clean colloquial English, without any trace of the Western accentuation he usually considered it advisable to adopt, though, as a matter of fact, the accent usually heard on the Pacific slope is not unduly marked. The other man naturally noticed it, and laughed somewhat curiously.

“I have some knowledge of medicine and surgery,” Gordon answered. “Now and then I make use of it, though I don’t, as a rule, get a fee.” Then he looked rather hard at Nasmyth. “Quite a few of us find it advisable to let our professions go when we come to this country.”

Nasmyth nodded, for this was a thing he had discovered already. Many of the comrades he had made there were outcasts–men outside the pale–and they were excellent comrades, too.

“Well,” he said, “I have evidently been very sick. How did I get here? I don’t seem to remember.”

“Miss Waynefleet found you lying in the snow in the clearing.”

“Ah!” said Nasmyth–“a tall girl with a quiet voice, big brown eyes, and splendid hair?”

Gordon smiled. “Well,” he said, “that’s quite like her.”

“Where is she now?” asked Nasmyth; and though he was very feeble still, there was a certain expectancy in his manner.

“In the barn, I believe. The working oxen have to be fed. It’s very probable that you will see her in the next half-hour. As to your other question–you were very sick indeed–pneumonia. Once or twice it seemed a sure thing that you’d slip through our fingers. Where were you coming from when you struck the clearing?”

Nasmyth, who had no reason for reticence, and found his mind rapidly growing clearer, briefly related what had led him to set out on his journey through the Bush, and his companion nodded.

“It’s very much as I expected,” he said. “They paid you off before you left that logging camp?”

“They did,” said Nasmyth, who was pleased to recall the fact. “I had thirty-two dollars in my belt.”

His companion looked at him steadily. “When you came here you hadn’t a belt on. There was not a dollar in your pockets, either.”

This was naturally a blow to Nasmyth. He realized that it would probably be several weeks at least before he was strong enough to work again, and he had evidently been a charge upon these strangers for some little time. Still, he did not for a moment connect any of them with the disappearance of his belt. He was too well acquainted with the character of the men who are hewing the clearings out of the great forests of the Pacific slope. As a matter of fact, he never did discover what became of his belt.

“Well,” he said, “I suppose I forgot to put it on, one of those mornings on the march. Still, it’s not very astonishing that the thing should worry me. I can’t expect to stay on at this ranch. When do you think I can get up and set out again?”

“How long have you been out here?”

“Been out?”

Gordon laughed. “You’re from the Old Country–that’s plain enough.”

“Several years.”

“In that case I’m not going to tell you we’re not likely to turn you out until you have some strength in you. I believe I’m speaking for Miss Waynefleet now.”

Nasmyth lay still and considered this. It was, at least, quite evident that he could not get up yet, but there were one or two other points that occurred to him.

“Does the ranch belong to Miss Waynefleet?” he inquired. “She can’t live here alone.”

“She runs the concern. She has certainly a father, but you’ll understand things more clearly when you see him. He’s away in Victoria, which is partly why Mrs. Custer from the settlement is now in yonder room. Her husband is at present building a trestle on the Dunsmore track. I come up here for only an hour every day.”

Nasmyth afterwards discovered that this implied a journey of three or four miles either way over a very indifferent trail, but at the moment he was thinking chiefly of Miss Waynefleet, who had given him shelter.

“You practise at the settlement?” he asked.

“Yes,” said his companion dryly, “chopping big trees. I’ve a ranch there. Still, I don’t know that you could exactly call it practising. By this time, I’ve acquired a certain proficiency in the thing.”

Nasmyth fancied that he must have gone to sleep soon after this, for when he opened his eyes again there was no sign of the doctor, and a girl was quietly moving about the room. She sat down, when she saw that he was awake, and looked at him with a little smile, and it was only natural that Nasmyth should also look at her. It struck him once more that she had wonderful hair. In the lamp-light, it seemed to glow with curious red-gold gleams. She had also quiet brown eyes, and a face that was a trifle darkened by sun and wind. He guessed that she was tall. She looked so as she moved about the room with a supple gracefulness that had a suggestion of strength in it. That was all he noticed in detail, for he was chiefly conscious of the air of quiet composure that characterized her. He was a trifle fanciful that night, and, while he looked her, he felt as he had sometimes felt when he stood at sunset in the silence of the shadowy Bush, or gazed down into the depths of some still river pool. Only her gleaming red-gold hair and her full red lips slightly counteracted this impression. There was in them at least a hint of fire and passion.

“You are much better,” she said, and her softly modulated voice fell pleasantly on his ears. He contrived to raise himself a trifle.

“I believe I am,” he answered, “In any case, I know I owe it to you that I’m alive at all. Still”–and he hesitated–“I can’t help feeling a bit uncomfortable. You see, I have really no claim on you.”

Laura Waynefleet laughed. “Did you expect me to leave you out in the snow?”

“If you had, I couldn’t have complained. There wasn’t the least obligation upon you to look after a penniless stranger.”

“Ah!” said the girl, with a little smile which was curiously expressive, “after all, many of us are in one sense strangers in the Bush.”

Nasmyth pondered over this, for, in view of what he had noticed in her voice and manner, he fancied he understood her meaning.

“Well,” he said, “it’s evident that I can do nothing in return for all your kindness, except take myself off your hands as soon as possible. That’s partly why I’m particularly anxious to get better.”

He stopped a moment, with a faint flush in his hollow face. “It sounds very ungracious, doesn’t it? But, after all, it’s sense. Besides, I scarcely feel up to expressing myself very neatly.”

The girl moved across the room, and gently pressed him down again on the pillow.

“Go to sleep again at once,” she said.

Nasmyth did as he was bidden, which, since he felt that he wanted to lie awake and watch her, was in one way significant. As a matter of fact, what Laura Waynefleet considered advisable was usually done. Nasmyth’s head was clearer next morning, and, during the week that followed, he grew stronger rapidly, until one night, as he sat beside the stove, he realized that he could, in all probability, set out again on his journey in a day or two. While he talked to Laura Waynefleet, there were footsteps outside, and she ran towards the door as a man came into the room. Nasmyth fancied the newcomer was her father, for he was grey-haired and elderly, but he did not look in the least like a Bush-rancher. Beneath the fur coat, which he flung off when he had kissed his daughter, he was dressed as one who lived in the cities, though his garments were evidently far from new. He was tall, but his spareness suggested fragility, and his face, which emphasized this impression, had a hint of querulous discontent in it.

“I didn’t expect to get through until to-morrow, but they’ve altered the running of the stage,” he said. “Wiston drove me up from the settlement, and said he’d send my things across to-morrow. I was glad to get out of Victoria. The cooking and accommodation at the hotel I stayed at were simply disgusting.”

Nasmyth glanced at the speaker in amused astonishment, for the Bush-ranchers of the Pacific slope are not, as a rule, particular. They can live on anything, and sleep more or less contentedly among dripping fern, or even in a pool of water, as, indeed, they not infrequently have to do, when they go up into the forests surveying, or undertake a road-making contract. Laura Waynefleet directed her father’s attention to her convalescent guest.

“This is Mr. Nasmyth,” she said. “You will remember I mentioned him in my letter.”

Waynefleet made the young man a little inclination that was formally courteous. “I am glad to see you are evidently recovering,” he said. “I hope they have made you at home here.” Then he turned to his daughter. “If you could get me some supper–”

Laura busied herself about the stove, while Waynefleet sat down and talked to Nasmyth about generalities. Waynefleet appeared to be a politician, and he criticized the Government, which, in his opinion, was neglecting the Bush-ranchers shamefully. It was evident that he considered it the duty of the Government to contribute indirectly towards the support of settlers. Then the supper was laid out. As he ate fastidiously, he made a few faintly sardonic observations about the cookery, and, after the girl had brought in a pot of coffee, he frowned at the cup he put down.

“There is one place in Victoria where you can get coffee, as it ought to be, but this is merely roasted wheat,” he said. “You will excuse me from drinking any more of it. As you have probably discovered, Mr. Nasmyth, one has to put up with a good deal in this country. It is in many respects a barbarous land.”

Nasmyth saw the faint flush in Laura Waynefleet’s face, and said nothing. He fancied that he knew the establishment in Victoria to which Waynefleet referred, but it was not one which he had ever visited, or which the smaller Bush-ranchers usually frequented.

Soon after supper, Nasmyth withdrew to the bed, which he had insisted on preparing for himself in the loft above the stables, and it was next day when he spoke to Laura Waynefleet alone.

“I can’t abuse your kindness any longer,” he said. “I must go away.”

The girl looked at him quietly. “You are far from strong yet, and–it must be mentioned–there was not a dollar in your pockets.”

“That is certainly the case;” and Nasmyth flushed a little. “Still, I can get as far as the settlement, and I dare say somebody, who won’t be too hard on me at first, may want a hand. I am really rather a good chopper.”

Laura smiled as she glanced at his face, but it was not its hollowness she was thinking of. Nasmyth had not the appearance of the average chopper.

“Well,” she said, “perhaps you had better see my father. I think he has something to say to you.”

She left him, and, half an hour later, Waynefleet came up to Nasmyth, who was sunning himself outside the ranch-house. Like many other houses in that country, it stood beneath a few great firs on the edge of a desolate clearing, round which the primeval forest rose in an unbroken wall. Behind it, and a little farther back among the trees, was the rude barn, built of big notched logs, and roofed with cedar shingles. In front there lay some twenty acres of cleared land, out of which rose the fir-stumps, girdled with withered fern, for a warm wind from the Pacific had swept the snow away. Beyond that, in turn, and outside the split-rail fence, rows of giant trunks lay piled in the tremendous ruin usually called the “slashing.” Some day, these would be sawn up and burnt, and the clearing driven farther back into the Bush. The little gap into which the sunlight shone, however, had been hewn out at the cost of several years of strenuous labour, and Nasmyth, who was aware of this, felt inclined to smile as the man who owned it strolled up to him. It was a little difficult to imagine that he had had any great share in the making of that clearing.