Partners of the Out-Trail

The mechanical injury, however, was the worst, since Jim was too hard to collapse from shock, and he lay quiet, trying to think. One could walk in spite of a broken rib; Jim had known badly injured men walk two or three hundred miles to reach a doctor, but the blizzard would try his strength. It was a long way to the shack and farther to the next post, but on the whole he thought it prudent to make for the latter. The linesman, finding the line broken, would set out to look for the break, and when Jim met him his help would be useful. In fact, it might be necessary.

He felt a sharper prick as he got up, but he followed the posts down the gulch and toiled up the other side. His breathing was labored and painful as he climbed the rugged slope. At the top the ground was roughly level and the tossing pines gave some shelter from the wind. Jim coughed now and then and thought there was a salt taste in his mouth. This looked ominous and the stabs caused by his jolting movements hurt, but he would not think about it. It was pain, not blood, that gave him the salt taste. He had done his job and begun a harder fight. The claim of duty had been met and now he was fighting for his life.

The pines roared as he struggled on and at times a blinding haze of snow filled the gap. He had thrown away his tools, but his coat was getting heavy. Now and then he tried to brush off the snow and wiped his lips. The salt taste was plainer; but he was not going to admit he knew what it meant and was glad he could not see his mittens when he took them from his mouth. Speed was important and he labored on. He could not remember afterwards how long he stumbled forward, but at length he stopped and stood swaying dizzily when an indistinct object loomed through the snow. It was like a man and came towards him.

"Hallo! Why, Pete – " he gasped and with an effort reached and leaned against a pine.

The other stopped. "It's Pete, all right: but what d'you allow you're doing on my piece of the section?"

"Reckoned I might meet you coming along," Jim replied, leaning hard against the tree. "You can take the back trail. The line's fixed."

"That's good. But why are you heading this way? I don't get you yet."

"I fell down the gulch. Some ribs broke."

"Ah!" said Pete. "Which side?"

Jim indicated the spot where he felt the stabs and Pete went to his other side.

"It's a blamed long hike to my shack, but you've got to make it. If we stop here, we freeze. Put your arm on my shoulder."

They set off, and Jim was glad to use such help as the other could give. He was getting dull and began to doubt if he could reach the shack, but although both would freeze if they stopped, Pete would not leave him. It was not a thing to argue about. Pete was a white man and in the North the white man's code is stern. One here and there might have a yellow streak, but as a rule such a man soon left the wilds. Anyhow, Pete was going to see him through. Both would make the shack, or both would be buried in the snow. It was not a matter of generous sentiment; one did things like that.

They made it somehow, at a cost neither afterwards talked about, for at length a pale glimmer pierced the blowing snow. Then the dark bulk of a building loomed up ahead and Pete pushed open a door. He was forced to use both hands to shut the door and Jim, left without support, staggered into the room. His head swam, his eyes were dim, and his chin was red. There was a chair, if he could reach it, but it seemed to be rocking about and when he stretched out his hand it had gone. Next moment he fell with a heavy thud. He felt a horrible stab, a fit of coughing shook him, and he knew nothing more.

CHAPTER III

THE THIRD PARTNER

Some weeks after he mended the line, Jim sat by a window in a small frame house at Vancouver city. He had been very ill and knew little about his journey on a hand-sledge from the telegraph shack to the railroad. There was no doctor in the woods and Jake Winter, his helper, engaging two Indians, wrapped Jim in furs and started in a snowstorm for the South. It was an arduous journey, and once or twice Jake thought his comrade would succumb, but they reached the railroad and he put Jim on the cars.

Now Jim was getting better and had left his bed for a rocking-chair. The house stood on the hill, and he looked down, across tall blocks of stores and offices, on the Inlet. Plumes of dingy smoke from locomotives burning soft coal moved among the lumber stacks, a tug with a wave at her bows headed for the wharf, the water sparkled in the sunshine, and there was a background of dark forest and white mountains. The picture had some beauty that was not altogether spoiled by the telegraph wires, giant posts, and advertisement signs. These emphasized the contrast between the raw and aggressive civilization that is typical of Western towns and the austerity of the surrounding wilds. In the foreground were steamers, saw-mills, and street-cars; in the distance trackless woods and untrodden snow.

The house stood in a shabby street and on the ground floor Jake's mother and sister sold drygoods and groceries. The business was not remarkably profitable, but Mrs. Winter was a widow and Carrie had sacrificed her ambitions for her sake. Now she sat opposite Jim, whom she had nursed. Carrie did not know much about sickness when she began, but she was capable and Jim liked to have her about. She knew when to stimulate him by cheerful banter and when he needed soothing. Carrie could be quiet, although she could talk. Jim imagined all girls were not like that.

He studied her with languid satisfaction. Carrie was tall and vigorous: he had seen her handle heavy boxes the transfer men dumped on the sidewalk. She did such things when Jake was not about, and Jim knew she baked the cakes and biscuit Mrs. Winter sold. For all that, her strength was not obtrusive; her movements were graceful and when not occupied she was calm. She had some beauty, for her face was finely molded and her color was warm, and Jim liked her level glance. He liked her voice; it was clear without being harsh, and she seldom used smart colloquialisms. In fact, Carrie was not the girl one would expect to meet at a second-class store.

"You are looking bright this afternoon," she remarked.

"I feel bright," said Jim. "For one thing, I've got up, and then you have been here some time. You brace one. I felt that when I was very sick."

Carrie laughed. "You're trying to be polite!"

"No," said Jim, whose brain did not work quickly yet; "I don't think I tried at all. The remark was, so to speak, spontaneous. You helped me get better; you know you did!"

"Oh, well," said Carrie, smiling, "you needed some control. You wouldn't take the doctor's stuff and we couldn't keep you quiet. I reckon you are pretty obstinate."

"One has got to be obstinate in the North."

"That's possible. It's a hard country and Jake took some chances when he brought you out across the snow. Do you remember much about what happened when you were on the trail?"

"I don't," said Jim, in a thoughtful voice. "All I do remember is the talk I had with two Englishmen who made the shack just before I went to mend the line. I've been bothering about the fellows since."

"But why?"

Jim pondered languidly. If he kept on talking, Carrie might stop; moreover, he wanted to formulate his puzzling thoughts and Carrie was intelligent. He would like to see if he could make her understand.

"To begin with, they were people who had traveled and knew the world; I know the North and some Canadian cities, but there I stop. The curious thing was, they didn't talk like strangers; I felt I'd got their point of view."

"Did you like them?"

"I don't know. I might have hit it with the younger man; he was frank and I reckon he meant well, though you got a hint of something careless and weak. There was more to the other fellow; you couldn't tell right off if you'd trust him or not. But I'm afraid I make you tired."

"Oh, no," said Carrie, and was silent for a few moments.

She was frankly interested by Jim. For one thing, she had helped him to get well and this gave her a motherly curiosity. Then his remarks seemed to promise a clue to something she had found puzzling. In a way, Jim was different from the young men she knew. The difference was elusive, but she felt it now and then.

"Well," she said, "why don't you go on?"

"I'd met the men before," Jim resumed with a laugh. "Handed them their lunch at the Montreal restaurant; they had a girl with them then. I'd certainly not met a girl like that, but somehow I'd a notion I could get in touch with her."

"What kind of a girl was she?" Carrie asked, with keener curiosity.

"The kind we call a looker, but it wasn't that. She was fine-drawn, if you get me; clever and fastidious. I think fastidious is the word I want. She belonged to clean, quiet places where everything is right. That's what made my notion I understood her strange. You see, I have had to struggle in the dust and mud."

Carrie imagined Jim had, so far, come through the struggle without getting much hurt or soiled. He wore no obvious scars. She smiled, and he resumed: "Perhaps the strangest thing was, they knew a place in the Old Country my father sometimes talked about."

"Did you tell them your father knew the place?" Carrie asked, for the clue was leading her on.

"I did not; they were strangers," Jim replied, and she saw he had a reserve that was not common in Canada. "Besides, my father didn't talk about Langrigg much. Still I had, so to speak, got the place; I could see it. I wonder whether one remembers things one's parents knew."

"It doesn't look possible," Carrie replied. "But do you know your father's people?"

"I don't," said Jim, with a touch of dryness. "There was a Joseph Dearham who lived at Langrigg. I imagine he was my grandfather, but he and the others left my father alone and we cut out the lot."

"Were your father and you like each other?"

"Not in a way. I reckon I'm like my mother, but my father has kind of faded; I'm often sorry I can't locate him well. He was not the man to go far in this country. Things I do remember show he had fine grit, but he hadn't punch enough. I think he was too proud to grab what was his."

"You are not like that?"

Jim smiled. "I take what's mine, but I don't want more. You see, I had to hustle for my mother's sake and I'd got the habit when she died and left me all alone. Well, that's all there is to my story, and I've certainly made you tired."

"You are tired," Carrie replied. "Go to sleep. I have made you talk too much, and must get busy."

She went off and Jim mused about her. Carrie was not like the English girl, but she had charm and he felt she was somehow wasted at the shabby store. She was pretty and clever; although she was kind, she was sometimes firm. Then his eyes got heavy and he went to sleep. When he woke Carrie had come back and was lighting the lamp. Jake had entered with her and put a tray on the table.

"Supper's served," he said. "It's better hash than you used to hand out in the woods, and Carrie has fixed some hot biscuit with Magnolia drips in the way you like. Well, you better get busy, and we'll play we're in camp. I'll locate at the bottom of the snow bank."

Jake sat down on a rug, with his back to the wall and a plate on his knee, and Jim's thoughts wandered. He had got the habit of remembering things when he was ill, and the little shabby room, with the cheap rug on the rough, stained floor, seemed to melt like a dissolving view. He saw black pines, with the moon shining between their stiff branches, wood smoke drifting past, and a red fire snapping in the snow. Jake wore ragged furs and his eyes twinkled, as they twinkled now. Jake was a humorous philosopher and if his humor was sometimes thin his philosophy was sound. He was white; one could trust him. Then Jim came back to the room above the store. He liked the way Jake waited on Carrie, although Jake owned he had not been a success when he made a trip in the Mount Stephen dining-car.

"We're going to talk business," Jake remarked presently. "I've been getting after the telegraph department since we came home and one of the construction bosses was in town to-day. He allowed you made good the night they sent the Government messages through, and if we wanted the contract for the new line they're going to run across the ranges, he'd back our tender."

"Jim isn't well enough to go back yet. You mustn't bother him," Carrie said firmly.

"We can't do much until the thaw comes," Jake rejoined. "It's a fighting chance and I don't see many chances for us in this old town."

Carrie looked thoughtful. She knew the wilds would draw Jake back and Jim must soon go, but the North was a stern country and she wanted to keep them for a time. She was honest and owned that she wanted to keep both.

"Can you finance the job?" she asked.

"It's going to come hard, but we might put it over. Our pay was pretty good and the construction boss could get us a check as we go on if the work was approved. Of course, if we were pushed, we could sell out the Bluebird. The assay's all right and one or two of the big syndicates are looking up copper. Still I don't want to sell."

"You mustn't sell."

"Very well," Jake agreed. "What you say about it goes."

Jim looked up with some surprise. Jake and he had done enough work on the copper vein to get their patent, but could develop the mine no further without capital. Jim did not understand what Carrie had to do with this.

"He doesn't know," Jake remarked, and turned to Jim with a smile. "We put in the stakes and filed the record, but Carrie's a partner. She helped us out."

"Ah," said Jim, "I begin to see!"

He felt disturbed. The placer gold they had found was all spent before they proved the copper vein. Food cost much and nobody would let them have supplies. Copper mines were hardly thought worth exploiting then, since transport was expensive. When it looked as if they must give up the claim, Jake got some money from home, and now Jim knew who had sent the sum. He did not know how Carrie had saved it, but she must have used stern economy.

"You don't like my sending the money?" she remarked, with a quick glance at Jim.

"I don't like to think of your going without things you probably wanted and ought to have had. We could have let the mine go and worked for somebody else."

Carrie laughed. "I don't know if you're nice or not. Anyhow, I had the money; I'd been clerking for a time at the Woolsworth store and they had given me a good job. Why shouldn't I send Jake the money I didn't know how to spend?"

"You're exaggerating," Jim rejoined. "A pretty girl can always spend money on hats and clothes. In fact, I think she ought."

"Now you're certainly nice, but we'll let it go. Your taking the money made me a partner, and in the meantime the Bluebird is not for sale. If you wait long enough, somebody will give you what the mine is worth."

"I think so. Copper's hard to smelt and when transport's expensive speculators stick to gold, but things will be different now the country's opening up. We will hold the patent until you are willing to sell."

"Thank you," said Carrie. "It cost you something to prove the vein, up there in the melting snow, and no greedy city man is going to get your reward. However, we'll get on. If they give you the telegraph contract, I'm going North."

Jim turned to his comrade. "She can't go! You had better tell her it's impossible."

"I'll leave it to you. There's not much use in telling Carrie she can't do a thing when she thinks she can."

Jim began a labored argument about the hardships and the ruggedness of the country and Carrie listened with inscrutable calm. Then she said, "You don't want me to go?"

"It isn't that. You don't know what you are up against."

"I have a notion," Carrie remarked with some dryness. "Perhaps you imagine all goes smooth and I have a soft job here?"

Jim was silent. He was sometimes sorry for Carrie, but she resumed: "You haven't lived in a shabby street, doing chores you don't like and trying to please people who are often rude. Well, I've stood for it a long time, for mother's sake; but now cousin Belle is coming, and she knows all there is to know about keeping store. Do you think a girl ought to be kept at home? That she never hears the call of adventure like the rest of you?"

"Adventure palls. One soon gets enough," said Jim. Then he saw Jake's smile and added: "After all, I don't know – "

"I know," said Carrie. "You are going back, and I am going too. But you won't have to take care of me. I mean to manage things."

"She has some talent that way," Jake observed. "If you're not very firm, Jim, she'll manage you. But what's your particular job, Carrie?"

"Supplies. When it comes to handling foodstuff, menfolk don't know how to buy. Then they waste, and the hash a man camp-cook puts up is seldom fit to eat."

"There's some truth in that," Jake remarked with feeling. "It looks as if you had got your program fixed."

"I have," said Carrie, with resolute quietness. "I'm going."

Jake smiled at his comrade. "You had better agree. When Carrie talks like that she can't be moved by argument. Anyhow, the trail's broken to the wirehead and if she gets tired she can come back."

"I may get tired," said Carrie. "But I shall not come back. There's another thing: I have a share in the Bluebird and want a stake on the telegraph line. Well, I've saved a hundred dollars."

"Carrie's pile!" Jake remarked. "She means to throw it in; that's the kind of girl my sister is. As a business proposition, our venture's humorous. We haven't capital enough to stand for one setback, and if luck's against us we'll sure go broke. To begin with, I've got to put up a big bluff on the construction department in order to get the job; look as if I owned a bank roll and didn't care if we got paid or not. Well, one takes steep chances in this country, and I allow there's something to be said for the small man who goes out with an ax, five dollars, and a bag of flour, to make a road or build a log bridge. Folks don't know how much he means and all he has to stand for."

Carrie's eyes sparkled. "You and Jim know. I'm going to find out."

Then Mrs. Winter came in. She was a pale, quiet woman whom Jim had thought dull until he saw her work. She listened, making a few remarks, while Jake talked about their plans.

"Well," she said at length, "your cousin is coming and she'll help me run the store. It has certainly got to be run; you'll need some money if you go broke."

"We're not going broke," Carrie rejoined with a hint of emotion. "Jake has got to make good for your sake. Some day we'll sell out the business and you shall rest as long as you like."

Mrs. Winter smiled, rather wearily. "I don't know if I'd like to do nothing; I've hustled so long. Still I've sometimes thought I'd like to find out how it feels just to sit quiet for a piece. Now the oven's good and hot; there's a batch of biscuit ready and you'd better come and help."

She took Carrie away and when they had gone Jake looked at his comrade.

"I allow the women's part is most as hard as ours, and Carrie hit it when she said I had to make good."

Jim nodded. "I like your sister, and your mother's very fine. I want to help you help them all I can."

"Sure, I know," said Jake, and then his eyes twinkled, for he had noted Jim's slight awkwardness. "You went rather farther than you meant, didn't you? Your English streak makes you shy, but you won't hurt my feelings; I'm all Canadian. Now, however, you are going to bed."

Jim went to bed and soon went to sleep. He was not well yet and had had an exciting day.

CHAPTER IV

ON THE TRAIL

Heavy rain swept the valley, the evening was cold, and Jim stood near the big rusty stove at Tillicum House, drying his wet clothes. He had eaten a very bad supper and imagined the wooden hotel on the North trail was perhaps the worst at which he had stopped. The floor was torn by lumbermen's spiked boots; burned matches and the ends of cheap cigars lay about. The board walls were cracked and stained by resin and drops of tarry liquid fell from the bend where the stove pipe went through the ceiling. A door opened on a passage where a small, wet towel hung above a row of tin basins filled with dirty water. There was no effort for comfort and Jake, who was tired and did not like the hard chairs, sat, smoking, on a box.

Outside, shabby frame houses ran down hill to the angry green river where drifting ice-floes shocked. Dark woods rolled up the other bank and trails of mist crawled among the pines. Patches of snow checkered the rocks above; in the distance a white range glimmered against leaden cloud. The settlement looked strangely desolate in the driving rain, but the small ugly houses were the last Jim's party would see for long. The wagon road ended there and a very rough pack trail led into the wilds. There was another hotel, to which the men Jim had engaged had gone.

"Where's Carrie?" he asked by and by.

"I guess she's tired," Jake replied. "It has been pretty fierce for Carrie since we left the cars."

Jim frowned. They had been some days on the road and the rain had not stopped. It was cold rain; belts of road were washed away and the rest was full of holes, in which the loaded wagons sometimes stuck. The men got wet and their clothes could not be dried, and Carrie was not sheltered much by a rubber sheet, while when they struck a wash-out all were forced to carry their tools and stores across slippery gravel. Carrie had not grumbled, but it was rough work and Jim knew she must have felt some strain.

"She oughtn't to have come," he said. "Why weren't you firm?"

"I've a notion you agreed; but if you imagine I could have kept her back, you don't know Carrie yet. Anyhow, the bad weather won't last and we must make the head of the wire soon. Summer's short."

Jim nodded. They had grounds for speed that disturbed them both. Supplies and transport had cost more than they calculated; wages were high, and their money was running out. It was obviously needful to push on the work until enough of the line was finished to justify their asking for some payment. While Jim mused a man came in. The stranger was big, and looked rather truculent, although he wore neat store-clothes and new long boots. His glance was quick and got ironical when he fixed his eyes on Jake.

"Been some time beating it from the railroad, haven't you?" he asked.

"I expect the trip has been made in better time," Jake admitted. "We struck a number of wash-outs and didn't want to leave our truck along the road."

"You were short of transport."

"We had all we could pay for. Transport comes high."

"When you leave the railroad, everything comes high, as you're going to find out. Guess your trouble is you haven't enough capital."

"The trouble's pretty common," Jake rejoined. "You don't find rich men hitting the trail to the woods."

"A sure thing," said the other. "Well, you're not going to get rich cutting the new telegraph line. Your outfit's not strong enough; you haven't stores and tools. Tell you what I'll do; I'll give you seven hundred and fifty dollars to let up."

"I don't know if you're generous or if you're rash," Jake remarked with a twinkle. "The truck we're hauling in cost us more than that."

"I'll take it at a valuation and you can find the men to fix the price."

Jake looked at Jim, who pondered and hesitated. He was dispirited and tired, and felt that the chance of their carrying out the contract was not good. It would be something of a relief to get their money back.

"I don't know who you are and why you want to buy us off," he said.

"Then I'll put you wise. I'm Probyn, Cartner and Dawson's man. They wanted the new branch-line job, and if you get out, it, will go to them. Anyhow, you can't put it over. The bush is thick in the valley and there's loose gravel on the range that will roll down when you cut your track."

"Loose gravel's bad," Jake remarked. "If there's much of it, I don't see why Cartner and Dawson want the contract."

"For one thing, they reckon it's theirs. Then they have money enough to get to work properly. You have taken up too big a job, and now's your chance to quit. If you're prudent, you won't let it go."