Harold Bindloss - The Ghost of Hemlock Canyon

They crossed the high pass in the dark, and when the sun was up stopped for some time on a lonely mountain-side. Denis understood that plunging rocks had broken a snow-shed, but speed was not important and he was satisfied to look about. Sitting down on the step of a first-class car, he lighted a cigarette.

Fifty yards off, a riband of snow, like a frozen river, curved between the rocks, and the sun, reflected from its sparkling surface, was pleasantly hot. Where the white belt stopped, the pines began, and rolled down in dark-green ranks to a foam-streaked river. Denis thought they went down for a thousand feet; anyhow, he got a sense of profound depth and the rapid’s hoarse turmoil hardly pierced the throb of the locomotive pump. The morning was fresh; he smelt the keen scent of the pines and the creosote in the railroad-ties. All he saw moved him and the sooty train did not jar. The mountain wilds were beautiful beyond his dreams, and the track man had built was the road to adventure.

Somebody came from the vestibule and Denis got up. Two girls were on the steps and one rather imperiously signed him to stop. Denis had remarked her proud, searching glance at Montreal and Ottawa.

“We need not disturb you. The cars are cold and grimy, and the sunshine called us to come out,” she said.

“This is the sunniest spot along the train; you get the snow’s reflections,” Denis remarked. “Well, I thought I’d like to see the locomotive that pulled us across the pass.”

He did not start. Had the girl wanted him to go, he imagined she would have indicated her wish. Instead, she smiled, and beckoning her companion, sat down on the steps.

“You will not bother us, and one must not be selfish. I believe we are held up for some time, and we are already two or three hours behind the schedule.”

“One might stop at a much less attractive spot, and my time is not at all valuable,” Denis rejoined and leaned against a broken pine a few yards off. “In Canada, I expect the admission’s strange.”

“You are English?”

“Obviously English?” said Denis. “It’s perhaps a drawback?”

“Something depends—” the girl replied. “Well, I think you are keener than some Englishmen I have met. The model you use in the Old Country is good, but when you imply that there is not another we don’t like you. In fact, we rather expect you to copy ours. However, I do not think that is hard. As a rule, the strangers who join us are soon stancher Canadians than the native-born.”

“There was, I believe,” said Denis, “a fox who lost his tail. He declared he wondered why he had ever carried the awkward thing. After all, when speed’s important, a draggled brush is a handicap.”

The girl laughed frankly. “Then you would sooner travel light?”

“To some extent,” Denis agreed, in a thoughtful voice. “When one is forced to take the road, there is not much use in carrying stuff one can go without. The trouble is to choose which to throw on the rubbish-heap, but recent events have helped. We have dumped much we thought indispensable before nineteen-fourteen.”

The girl smiled, but she gave him an understanding glance.

“The fox you talked about inherited his brush, and I expect to lose it hurt. But are you going to the cities?”

“No,” said Denis. “I have had enough. I thought I might grow fruit.”

“Then, perhaps you are lucky. The things most useful in the woods cannot be dumped. If you have got them, you ought to make good.”

“For example?”

A touch of color came to the girl’s face, but she said, “Steadiness and pluck; the power to take hard knocks and hold on. But I’m not a philosopher and one must be practical. Perhaps you can chop? And pull a cross-cut?”

“I cannot chop,” said Denis; “I doubt if I’d know a cross-cut, except that it’s a saw. However, if I’m forced, I certainly can dig. Well, that’s not much to boast about, but I want to earn five hundred dollars in the next twelve months. In a way, a relation bet I could not. Do you think it impossible?”

“The sum is not very large,” the girl replied. “On the whole, I would not be daunted. The proper plan is to try—”

A deep whistle blew, and a man on the track began to shout, “All aboard.” The girls went up the steps, and Denis thought one for a moment turned. Then the bell clashed, the cars rolled ahead, and Denis jumped on his. The throb of wheels got faster and the train plunged into a dark snow-shed.

V

THE TRAIL

Small frame houses straggled down the hill by the descending track. Denis saw orchards, a church with a little wooden tower, and a big water-tank. The brakes jarred, the cars stopped, and, jumping down, he ran along the line. The Misses Cullen were on the platform-steps, and Monica gave him her hand. Bride’s fresh face was touched by delicate color; her look was frankly sorrowful.

“We were watching for you,” she said. “All our friends on board the ship are gone. You’re the last and nicest. And now we’re lonely.”

“Smile and look in front,” said Denis. “You will soon collect another lot. Then by dark you’ll be with your relations, and Danny’s but a day behind.”

“Ah,” said Monica, “the friends one knows are best, and when one needs help one finds out which are true.”

Denis began to be embarrassed and he glanced about. Water splashed by the tank; the locomotive-pump clanged. Men dragged hose-pipes along the car roofs. One or two were occupied by a hot axle-box. Thick black smoke rolled across the pines. In a few minutes the train would roar down the tremendous gorge in front on its last race to the sea.

By the baggage-car, a tall, thin man controlled two restive horses. The team was good and the man was obviously important, because the station-agent stood by the car until the baggage-hands threw out the trunks for which he waited. The girls to whom Denis had talked joined him and climbed into the rig. The horses plunged, and the lurching vehicle vanished in a red dust-cloud up the hill. The party, however, had nothing to do with Denis, and the Misses Cullen would soon be gone.

“We will not forget you,” Monica resumed. “When we were lonely and anxious you were kind. You’re the sort one trusts.”

“I wonder—” said Denis, smiling. “At the beginning, I thought Danny had some doubts.”

“It was the coat,” Bride rejoined, in an apologetic voice, although her eyes sparkled. “The buttons annoyed him. After the Black and Tans burned the creamery, we don’t like the uniform.”

“Then, if you are logical, you ought not to like me. After all, the uniform was mine.”

Bride was very young and she blushed like a rose.

“Sure we hate England; ’tis wan’s duty; but wan loves some Englishmen.”

Since she no longer translated, Denis imagined she was moved. The bell, however, clanged and wheels and couplings groaned. Monica seized the brass rail, and when she gave Denis her hand he felt it tremble.

“The best of good luck go with ye. All ye want in life—”

The car lurched. Pullmans, baggage-cars, and Colonists rolled noisily by, and the figures on the swaying platform got small and indistinct. Denis turned, and as he walked along the track he smiled. The girls exaggerated, but he would lend his coat another time for a worse reward. The shabby war-stained material had sheltered Monica. Perhaps it had helped her feel less forlorn, but for all he knew it might have covered the frank, impulsive Bride. Well, he was not a sentimentalist, and both were gone. The rattle of the train was getting faint and he must take the trail.

His trunk had not arrived, and he bought some food at the settlement store. The storekeeper also supplied a large cotton flour-bag, a pair of braces, and some thin nails, by which Denis could carry his coat and the groceries like a pack. He strapped on the load, inquired his way, and started uphill.