Harold Bindloss - The Ghost of Hemlock Canyon

Marvin did not find a deer, but he shot a blue grouse, and wild berries are numerous in the British Columbian woods. Rocks split by frost blocked his path up the ravines, and on the lower benches the forest was thick. Devil’s-club thorn tore his clothes, and he was forced to cross tangled, fallen trees, buried in giant fern.

He had no blanket and at night the dew was cold; mosquitoes banished sleep, but he could not light a smudge-fire, for his matches were gone. Moreover, if the mosquitoes did leave him alone, he heard Aylward’s boots rattle on the stones. Sometimes when the sun was hot he went to sleep on his feet, and wakened with a jolt if he struck a tree. He was exhausted, and faint from want of food, but he went fast, for he thought Aylward gasped and stumbled in the gloom behind the trunks. The haunting footsteps began in the lonely woods, and Marvin, looking back on his career, felt as if Tom had followed him ever since.

When he reached the mining town his tale was received with bleak suspicion. His neighbors knew Aylward and he had recently disputed and the other had supplied the capital Marvin used. Then Marvin carried a rifle and had brought back gold. The quantity was not large, but he had not long since sold a claim to a mining company and had perhaps wanted all the profit of a fresh speculation.

Marvin faced his calumniators, and the storekeeper-magistrate admitted, rather unwillingly, that he was satisfied. Yet the doubts were not banished, and Marvin soon was conscious that only his wife believed his innocence. He told her much about the tragedy, but she did not know he had refused to stop for Aylward at the bottom of the slab.

When he resolved to sell his business Hannah agreed, and in a sense he had made good at Vancouver. Anyhow, he had got rich, and when his ambition was satisfied had gone back to the woods; Marvin was by inheritance a bush pioneer. His ranch would soon be a model ranch, and until Denis’s letter arrived, he had almost persuaded himself that Aylward’s haunting him was an illusion. Yet, when he was tired and bothered and the river throbbed in the dark, he heard his partner’s feet on the rocks.

Now Tom’s nephew proposed to join him, and he must help the boy find an occupation. Denis Aylward must not stay at the ranch. Marvin frankly could not stand seeing him about—

A stick cracked in the clearing and cedar-branches shook. The river’s turmoil was louder, and the glass on the mantel was cloudy and dim. Marvin threw back the window-frame, pulled down the shade, and got a light.

III

DENIS STARTS WEST

Locomotive bells rang, wheels rolled, and soft-coal smoke floated about the high roof. In the morning the C.P.R. station at Montreal is a busy spot, and Denis Aylward, sitting on his Colonist mattress, studied the hurrying crowd. It looked as if the smart young men and women were importantly occupied; they went by as fast as they could go, and but one or two gave him and his belongings an interested glance.

Denis admitted with a touch of humor that in the busy station he was perhaps exotic, although a swarm of ruder foreign emigrants waited at the end of the platform. His clothes, used on an English farm, were not remarkably good, and he had given the railroad a dollar for his straw bed. Denis, studying the emigrants, hoped the bed had not been used before. A baggage-master at the dock had taken his trunk; his other luggage was on the mattress; a shabby British-warm greatcoat, a tin kettle and plate, and a basket of food. To some extent he obstructed the traffic, but he could not find a quiet spot, and he waited philosophically for the Vancouver express to start.

Since he landed, two or three hours ago, he had got breakfast on a high stool at a cheap restaurant where an electric organ blared. To walk up St. James’s afterward to the big quiet cathedral was some relief; and then in the clear, fresh morning he climbed the Mountain. From the wooded slopes he saw the noble river, and the blue hills rolling back to Vermont. Denis wanted to stay, but at the station all he could find out was that his train would start when the emigrants were on board.

Going downhill by the Windsor, he regarded the ambitious block humorously. At one time, he had stopped at hotels like that; but it was in the good days before the war, and he had since occupied dugouts in France. He strolled back down St. James’s, and bought and loaded a basket at a grocery-store by the Grand Trunk depot. Now he sat on his mattress against the station wall and, smoking a cigarette, reviewed the circumstances that accounted for his being there.

His father was long since dead; his mother died when he was in France, but Denis refused to dwell on that. Although Mrs. Aylward was rather an important lady at the small market town, she was not as rich as Denis had thought and money melted in the war. A council of relations, however, decided that Denis’s sisters must remain at their expensive school and he resume his studies at the lawyer’s office. When he was a registered solicitor, they would talk about things again. In the meantime, the chief trustee promised to see the young fellow through his articled apprenticeship.

Denis was not altogether willing, but he went. In France he had known adventure, strain that stimulated as well as exhausted one, and before the end, responsibility. Young as he was, he had used command, and men had confidently followed where he led. When the war was over he had had enough, but he frankly could not stand the office. To draft a prolix conveyance bored him horribly, and he hated the disputes about small sums at the county court. He wanted to use his nerve and muscle, and when the days got long and spring winds blew, the wide world called.

At length he rebelled, and the trustee who administered Mrs. Aylward’s supposititious estate was frank. Denis had got already all there was for him, and his relations imagined he did not want to squander his sisters’ vanishing inheritance. For all that, if he were resolved to emigrate, his relations would, for six months, help him study practical agriculture at an English farm. Then, if a winter spent in byres and muddy fields had not discouraged him, he might start for Canada.

Denis agreed, and when the winter was gone the trustee wrote him a check. “If at the end of twelve months, you have as much money as you have now, I’ll undertake to double the sum,” he said. “If you have not, you must not expect a fresh subsidy.”

Denis thanked him and said the offer was a sporting offer and he hoped to claim the check. Since he had refused a useful occupation, his relations were perhaps justified to think him something of a wastrel. The check was small; Denis imagined old Stormont meant to try him out, and since he had no illusions about the golden West, he resolved to use stern economy. It accounted for his buying a second-class steamship ticket and crossing Canada on board an emigrant car. Denis was young and sometimes romantic, but he was not at all a fool.

At length it looked as if his train would start. Bells clashed and big, flat-sided baggage-cars, dusty Colonists, dining-cars, and Pullmans rolled into the track; Denis had not imagined a locomotive could haul so large a load. Kneeling on the grimy slabs, he began to roll up his mattress, and two young women passed. One gave him a swift but rather careless glance; the other turned her head and Denis thought her amused. They no doubt knew him for an impecunious tenderfoot, but not very long since fashionable young women had acclaimed him a conquering hero. People soon forgot!

Denis had cultivated philosophy in France, but for a moment or two his glance followed the girls. Their clothes were fashionable and he imagined them important at some Western town. She who had studied him walked with a queer rhythmic grace. Denis did not know if he exaggerated, but he thought her glance imperious. The girl, in fact, had followed the rocky trails of the Pacific Slope, and mountaineers and woodsmen know how to use their feet. They went to a first-class car and Denis folded his greatcoat. He had nothing to do with young women of their type and he must get on board.