The Protector

“How are you getting to work?” he asked.

Salter pointed to the foot of the rock they stood upon. “I reckoned if we could put a shot in yonder, we might cut out stone enough to clear the butts of the larger logs that are keying up the jamb.”

“You’re wasting time – starting at the wrong place.”

“It’s possible, but what am I to do? I’d sooner split that boulder or chop down to the king log there, but the boys can’t get across.”

“I think I could,” Vane answered. “I’ll try, if it’s necessary.”

Salter expostulated, “I want to point out that you’re the boss director of this company. I don’t know what you’re making out of it, but you can hire men to do the kind of work you think of undertaking for three dollars a day.”

“We’ll let the boys try it, if they’re willing.” Vane raised his voice. “Are any of you open to earn twenty dollars? I’ll pay that to the man who’ll put a stick of giant-powder in yonder boulder, and another twenty to whoever can find the king log and chop it through.”

Three or four of them crept cautiously along the driftwood bridge. It heaved and worked beneath them; the foam sluiced across it, and the stream forced the thinner tops of shattered trees above the barrier. It was obvious that the men were risking life and limb, and there was a cry from the rest when one of them went down and momentarily disappeared. He scrambled to his feet again, but those behind him stopped, bracing themselves against the stream, knee-deep in rushing froth. Most of them had followed rough and dangerous occupation in the bush; but they were not professional river-Jacks trained to high proficiency in log-driving, and one turning shouted to the watchers on the bank.

“This jamb’s not solid,” he explained. “She’s working open and shutting; and you can’t tell where the breaks are.” He stooped and rubbed his leg, and Vane understood him to add: “Figured I had it smashed.”

Vane swung round towards Carroll, who was standing close by. “We give them a lead.”

Salter ventured another remonstrance: “Stay where you are. How are you going to manage if the boys can’t tackle the thing?”

“They haven’t as much at stake as I have,” was Vane’s reply. “I’m a director of the company as you pointed out. Give me two sticks of giant-powder, some fuse, and detonators.”

After cramming the blasting material into his pocket, Vane called to Carroll: “Are you coming with me?”

“Since I can’t stop you, I suppose I’d better go,” Carroll replied.

They sprang down the bank. Vane crawled out on the working timber, with Carroll, who carried a heavy hammer, a few feet behind him. The perilous bridge they traversed groaned beneath their feet, but they had joined the other men before they came to any particularly troublesome opening. Then the cluster of wet figures was brought up by a gap filled with leaping foam, in the midst of which brushwood swung to and fro and projecting branches ground on one another. Whether there was solid timber a foot or two beneath, or only the entrance to some cavity by which the stream swept through the barrier, there was nothing to show, but Vane set his lips and jumped. He alighted on something that bore him, and when the others followed, floundering and splashing, the deliberation which had hitherto characterised their movements suddenly deserted them. They had reached the limit beyond which it was no longer useful.

When they had crossed the gap, Vane and those behind him blundered on in hot fury. They had risen to the demand on them, and the curious psychic change had come; now they must achieve success or face annihilation. But in this there was nothing unusual; it is the alternative offered to many a log-driver, miner, and sailor-man.

Neither Vane nor Carroll, nor any of those who assisted them, had any clear recollection of what they did. Somehow they reached the boulder; somehow they plied axe or iron-hooked peevie, while the unstable, foam-lapped platform rocked beneath their feet. Every movement entailed a peril no one could calculate, but they savagely toiled on. When Vane began to swing a hammer above a drill, or whom he got it from, he did not know, any more than he remembered when he had torn off and thrown away his jacket, though the sticks of giant-powder, which had been in his pocket, lay close by upon the stone. Sparks sprang from the drill which Carroll held and fell among the coils of snaky fuse; but that did not trouble either, and it was only when Vane was breathless that he changed places with his companion.

About them, bowed figures that breathed in stertorous gasps grappled desperately with grinding, smashing logs. Sometimes they were forced up in harsh distinctness by a dazzling glare; sometimes they faded into blurred shadows as the pulsating flame upon the bank sank a little or was momentarily blown aside; but all the while gorged veins rose on bronzed foreheads and toil-hardened muscles were taxed to the uttermost. At last, when a trunk rolled beneath him, Carroll missed a stroke and realised with a shock of dismay that it was not the drill he had brought his hammer down upon.

“I couldn’t help it,” he gasped. “Where did I hit you?”

“Get on,” Vane said hoarsely. “I can hold the drill.”

Carroll struck for a few more minutes, after which he flung down the hammer and inserted the giant-powder into the holes sunk in the stone. Next he lighted the fuse; and, warning the others, they hastily recrossed the dangerous bridge. They had reached the edge of the forest when a flash sprang up amidst the foam and a sharp crash was followed by a deafening, drawn-out uproar. Rending, grinding, smashing, the jamb broke up, hammered upon the partly shattered boulder, and carrying it away or driving over it washed in tremendous ruin down the rapid. When the wild clamour had subsided, Salter gave the men some instructions, and then as they approached the lamp noticed Vane’s reddened hand.

“That looks a nasty smash; you want to get it seen to,” he remarked.

“I’ll get it dressed at the settlement; we’ll make an early start to-morrow,” said Vane. “We were lucky in breaking the jamb; but you’ll have the same trouble over again any time a heavy flood brings down an unusual quantity of driftwood.”

“It’s what I’d expect,” agreed Salter.

“Then something will have to be done to prevent it. I’ll go into the matter when I reach the city.”

Carroll and Vane walked back to the shack, where the former bound up his comrade’s injured hand, and, after a rest, left the mine early next morning. Vane got his hand dressed when they reached the little mining town at the head of the railroad, and on the following day they arrived in Vancouver.

CHAPTER XXI – VANE YIELDS A POINT

The short afternoon was drawing towards its close when Vane came out of a building in Hastings Street, Vancouver.

“The meeting went satisfactorily, taking it all round,” he remarked to Carroll, who was with him.

“I think so,” agreed his companion. “But I’m far from sure that Horsfield was pleased with the stockholders’ decision.”

Vane nodded in a thoughtful manner. After returning from the mine, he had gone inland to examine a new irrigation property he had been asked to take an interest in, and had only got back in time for a meeting of the Clermont shareholders, which Nairn had arranged in his absence. The meeting was just over, and though Vane had been forced to yield to a majority on some points, he had secured the abandonment of a proposition he considered dangerous.

“Though I don’t see what the man could have gained by it, I’m inclined to believe that if Nairn and I had been absent he’d have carried his reconstruction scheme,” he said. “That wouldn’t have pleased me.”

“I thought it injudicious,” Carroll commented.

“It was only because we must raise more money I agreed to the issue of the new shares,” Vane went on. “We ought to pay a fair dividend on such a moderate sum.”

“You think you’ll get it?”

“I’ve not much doubt.”

Vane was capable and forceful; but his abilities were rather of a practical than a diplomatic order, and he was occasionally addicted to headstrong action. Knowing that he had a very cunning antagonist intriguing against him, his companion had misgivings.

“Shall we walk back to the hotel?” he asked.

“No,” said Vane; “I’ll go across and see how Celia Hartley’s getting on. I’m afraid I’ve been forgetting her.”

“Then I’ll come too. You may need me; there are matters you’re not to be trusted with alone.”

Just then Nairn came down the steps and waved his hand to them. “Ye will no forget that Mrs. Nairn is expecting both of ye this evening.”

He passed on, and they set off together across the city towards the district where Celia lived. Though the quarter in question may have been improved out of existence since, some little time ago rows of low-rented shacks stood upon mounds of sweating sawdust which had been dumped into a swampy hollow. Leaky, frail, and fissured, they were not the kind of places any one who could help it would choose to live in; but Vane found the sick girl still installed in one of the worst of them. She looked pale and haggard; but she was busily at work upon some millinery, and the light of a tin lamp showed Drayton and Kitty Blake sitting near her.

“You oughtn’t to be at work; you don’t look fit,” Vane said to Celia, and hesitated a moment before he continued: “I’m sorry we couldn’t find that spruce; but, as I told Drayton, we’re going back to try again.”

The girl smiled bravely. “Then you’ll find it next time. I’m glad I’m able to do a little; it brings a few dollars in.”

“But what are you doing?”

“Making hats. I did one for Miss Horsfield, and afterwards friends of hers sent me some more to trim. She said she’d try to get me some work from one of the big stores.”

“But you’re not a milliner, are you?” said Vane, who felt grateful to Jessie for the practical way in which she had kept her promise to assist.

“Celia’s something better,” Kitty broke in. “She’s a genius.”

The others laughed, and Vane, anxious to turn the conversation away from Miss Horsfield’s action, led them on to general chatter, under cover of which he drew Drayton to the door.

“The girl looks far from fit,” he said. “Has the doctor been over lately?”

“Two or three days ago,” answered Drayton. “We’ve been worried about her. It’s out of the question that she should go back to the hotel, and she can only manage to work a few hours daily. There’s another thing – the clerk of the fellow who owns these shacks has just been along for his rent. It’s overdue.”

“Where’s he now?”

Drayton laughed, for the sounds of a vigorous altercation rose from farther up the unlighted street. “I guess he’s yonder, having some more trouble with his collecting.”

“I’ll fix that matter, anyway,” said Vane, who disappeared into the darkness.

It was some time later when he re-entered the shack, and waited until a remark of Celia’s gave him a lead.

“You’re really a partner in the lumber scheme,” he said. “I can’t see why you shouldn’t draw some of your share of the proceeds beforehand.”

“The first payment isn’t to be made until you find the spruce and get your lease,” the girl reminded him. “You’ve already paid a hundred dollars we had no claim upon.”

“That doesn’t matter; I’m going to find it.”

“Yes,” said Celia, with a look of confidence, “I think you will. But,” and a flicker of colour crept into her thin face – “I can’t take any more money until it’s done.”

Vane, failing in another attempt to shake her resolution, dropped the subject, and soon afterwards he and Carroll took their departure. They were sitting in their hotel, waiting for dinner, when Carroll, who lay in a luxurious chair, looked up lazily.

“What are you thinking about so hard?” he inquired.

Vane glanced meaningly round the elaborately furnished room. “There’s a contrast between all this and that rotten shack. Did you notice that Celia never stopped sewing while we were in?”

“I did,” said Carroll. “I suppose you’re going to propound another conundrum of a kind I’ve heard before – why you should have so many things you don’t particularly need while Miss Hartley must go on sewing, when she’s hardly able for it, in her most unpleasant shack? I don’t know if the fact that you found a mine answers the question; but if it doesn’t the thing’s beyond your philosophy.”

“Come off,” Vane bade him with signs of impatience. “Your moralising gets on one’s nerves. Anyhow, I straightened out one difficulty – I found the rent man, who’d been round worrying her, and got rid of him.”

Carroll groaned in mock dismay, which covered some genuine annoyance with himself.

“What’s the matter?” Vane inquired. “Do you want a drink?”

“I’ll get over it,” Carroll informed him. “It isn’t the first time I’ve suffered from the same complaint. But I’d like to point out that your chivalrous impulses may be the ruin of you some day. Why didn’t you let Drayton settle with the man? You gave him a cheque, I suppose?”

“I did; I’d only a few loose dollars on me. Now I see what you’re driving at, and I want to say that any little reputation I possess can pretty well take care of itself.”

“Just so. No doubt it will be necessary; but you’re not the only person concerned.”

“But who’s likely to take notice of the thing?”

“I can’t tell; but you make enemies as well as friends, and you’re walking in slippery places which you’re not altogether accustomed to. You can’t meet your difficulties with the axe here.”

“That’s true,” assented Vane, and they went in to dinner.

After the meal, they walked across to Nairn’s, and when they had been ushered into a room in which several other guests were assembled, Vane sat down on a sofa, beside Jessie Horsfield.

“I want to thank you; I was over at Miss Hartley’s this afternoon,” he began.

“I understood you were at the mining meeting.”

“So I was; your brother would tell that – ”

Vane broke off, remembering that he had defeated Horsfield.

“You were opposed to him; but it doesn’t follow that I share all his views. Perhaps I ought to be a stauncher partisan.”

“If you’ll be just to both of us, I’ll be satisfied.”

“I suppose that means you’re convinced of the equity of your cause,” she suggested.

“I expect I deserve the rebuke, but aren’t you trying to switch me off the subject?” Vane answered with a laugh. “It’s Celia Hartley I want to talk about.”

He did her injustice; Jessie felt that she had earned his gratitude, and she had no objection to his expressing it.

“It was a happy thought of yours to give her hats and things to make; I’m ever so much obliged to you. I felt you could be trusted to think of the right thing. An ingenious idea of that kind would never have occurred to me.”

“It was very simple; I noticed a hat and dress of hers which she owned she had made. The girl has some talent; I’m only sorry I can’t keep her busy.”

“Couldn’t you give her an order for a dozen hats? I’d be glad to be responsible.”

“The difficulty would be the disposal of them. They would be of no use to you, and I couldn’t allow you to present them to me.”

“I wish I could,” Vane declared. “You certainly deserve them.”

This was satisfactory, so far as it went, though Jessie would have preferred that his desire to bestow the favour should have sprung from some other motive than a recognition of her services to Celia Hartley. She was, however, convinced that his only feeling towards the girl was one of compassion. Then she saw that he was looking at her with half-humorous annoyance in his face.

“Are you grieved I won’t take those hats?” she asked.

“I am,” Vane confessed and proceeded to explain with unnecessary ingenuousness: “I’m still more vexed with the state of things its typical of – I suppose I mean the restrictedness of this civilised life. When you want to do anything in the bush, you take the axe and set about it; but here you’re continually running up against some artificial obstacle.”

“One understands that it’s worse in England,” said Jessie. “But in regard to Miss Hartley, I’ll recommend her to my friends as far as I can.”

Just then Vane made an abrupt movement, and Jessie realised by his expression that he had suddenly become oblivious of her presence. She had no doubt about the reason for this, because Evelyn Chisholm entered the room. The lamplight fell upon her as she crossed the threshold, and Jessie recognised unwillingly that she looked surprisingly handsome. Handsome, however, was not the word Vane would have used. He thought Evelyn looked exotic, highly cultivated, strangely refined, as though she had grown up in a rarefied atmosphere in which nothing rank could thrive. Though Evelyn had her faults, the impression she made on him was, perhaps, more or less justifiable.

Then he remembered that the girl had been offered to him and he had refused the gift. He wondered how he had exerted the necessary strength of will, for he was conscious that admiration, respect, pity, had now changed and melted into sudden passion. His blood tingled and, as it happened, no change of his expression was lost upon his companion.

Laying a check upon his thoughts, he resumed a desultory conversation with Jessie, though he betrayed himself several times during it, and at length she let him go. It was, however, some time before he secured a place beside Evelyn. He was now quiet and self-contained.

“Nairn promised me a surprise this evening, but it has exceeded all my expectations,” he said. “How are your people?”

Evelyn informed him that their health was satisfactory, and added, watching him the while: “Gerald sent his best remembrances.”

“Ah!” said Vane in a casual manner, “I’m glad to have them.”

Evelyn was now convinced that Mabel had been correct in concluding that he had assisted Gerald financially, though she was aware that nothing would induce either of the men to acquaint her with the fact.

“I understood from Mrs. Nairn that you were away in the bush,” she said.

He turned and regarded her steadily. “That was the case, and I’m shortly going off again. Perhaps it’s fortunate that I may be away some time. It will leave you more at ease.”

The last remark was more of a question than an assertion, and Evelyn knew the man could be direct. She also esteemed candour.

“No,” she said; “I wouldn’t wish you to think that – and I wouldn’t like to believe that I had anything to do with driving you away.”

Vane saw a faintly warmer tone show through the clear pallor of her skin; but while his heart beat faster than usual he felt that she meant just what she said and nothing more. He must proceed with caution, which was, on the whole, foreign to him; and shortly afterwards he left her.

When he had gone, Evelyn sat thinking about him. She had shrunk from the man in rebellious alarm when her parents would have bestowed her hand on him; but even then, and undoubtedly afterwards, she had felt that there was something in his nature which would have attracted her, had she been willing to allow it to do so. Now, though he had said nothing to rouse it, the feeling was stronger. Then she remembered with a rather curious smile her father’s indignation when Vane had withdrawn from the field. He had done this because she had appealed to his generosity, and she had been grateful to him; but, unreasonable as she admitted the faint resentment she was conscious of to be, the recollection of the fact that he had yielded to her wishes was somehow bitter.

In the meanwhile, Carroll had taken his place by Jessie’s side.

“I understand you steered your comrade satisfactorily through the meeting to-day,” she began.

“No,” objected Carroll, “I can’t claim any credit for doing so. In matters of the kind, Vane takes full control, and I’m willing to own that he drove us all, including your brother, on the course he chose.”

“Then it’s in other matters you exercise a little judicious pressure on the helm?”

The man looked at her in well-assumed admiration of her keenness. “I don’t know how you guessed it, but I suppose it’s a fact. It’s, however, an open secret that Vane’s now and then unguardedly ingenuous; indeed, there are respects in which he’s a babe by comparison, we’ll say, with either of us.”

“That’s rather a dubious compliment,” Jessie informed him. “What do you think of Miss Chisholm? I suppose you saw a good deal of her in England?”

“I spent a month or two in her company; so did Vane. I fancy she’s rather like him in several ways; and there are reasons for believing that he thinks a good deal of her.”

Having watched Vane carefully when Evelyn came in, Jessie was inclined to agree with him, and she glanced round the room. One or two people were moving about and the rest were talking in little groups; but there was nobody very near, and she fancied that she and her companion were safe from interruption.

“What were some of the reasons?” she asked.

Carroll had expected some question of this description, and had decided to answer it plainly, because it seemed probable that Jessie would get the information out of him in one way or another. He had also another motive, which he thought a commendable one. Jessie had obviously taken a certain interest in Vane, but it could not have gone very far as yet, and Vane did not reciprocate it. The latter was, however, impulsive, while Jessie was calculating and clever, and Carroll, who was slightly afraid of her, foresaw that complications might follow any increase of friendliness between her and his comrade. He thought it would be better if she left Vane alone.

“Well,” he said, “since you have asked, I’ll try to tell you.”

He proceeded to recount what had passed at the Dene and Jessie listened, with an expressionless face.

“So he gave her up – because he admired her?” she said at length.

“That’s my view of it,” Carroll agreed.

Jessie made no comment, but he felt that she was hardly hit, which was not what he had anticipated. He began to wonder if he had acted judiciously and he glanced about the room. It did not seem considerate to study her expression then. A few moments later she turned to him with a smile in which there was the faintest hint of strain.

“I daresay you are right; but there are one or two people I haven’t spoken to,” she said and moved away from him.

Some time after this Mrs. Nairn came upon Carroll standing for the moment alone. “It’s no often one sees ye looking moody,” she informed him. “Was Jessie no gracious?”

“That,” said Carroll, smiling, “is not the difficulty. I’m an unsusceptible and somewhat inconspicuous person, not worth powder and shot, so to speak, for which I’m sometimes thankful. I believe it saves me a good deal of trouble.”

“Then, is it something Vane has done that is on your mind? Doubtless, ye feel him a responsibility?”

“He’s all that,” Carroll confessed. “Still, you see, I’ve constituted myself his guardian; I don’t know why, because he’d probably be very vexed if he suspected it.”

“The gods give ye a good conceit o’ yourself!” Mrs. Nairn exclaimed.

“I need it,” said Carroll humbly. “This afternoon I let him do a most injudicious thing, and now I’ve done another which I fear is worse. On the whole, I think I’d better take him away to the bush. He’d be safer there.”

“Ye will not, no just now,” declared his hostess firmly.

Carroll made a sign of resignation. “Oh, well,” he said, “if you say so, I’m quite willing to stand out and let things alone. Too many cooks are apt to spoil the kail.”

Mrs. Nairn left him, but she afterwards once or twice glanced thoughtfully at Vane and Evelyn, who had once more drawn together.

CHAPTER XXII – EVELYN GOES FOR A SAIL

It was about the middle of the morning and Vane sat in Nairn’s office. Specimens of ore lately received from the mine were scattered about a table, and Nairn had some papers in his hand.

“Weel?” he said, when Vane, after examining two or three of the stones abruptly flung them down.

“The ore’s running poorer,” Vane admitted. “On the other hand, I partly expected this, and there’s better stuff in the reef. We’re a little too high; I look for more encouraging results when we start the lower heading.”

He went into details of the new operations and, when he had finished, Nairn, who had been jotting down some figures, looked up.

“Yon workings will cost a good deal,” he pointed out. “Ye’ll no be able to make a start until we’re sure of the money.”