Harold Bindloss - Delilah of the Snows

The longing to see her again, however, became too strong for him, and looking up a moment he was conscious of a blissful astonishment, for she was walking straight towards him with a smile in her eyes. She seemed to him almost ethereally dainty in the dust and turmoil of the big cargo shed, and for the moment he forgot his uncovered arms and neck, and felt every nerve in him thrill as he took the little gloved hand she held out. What she had done was not likely to be regarded as anything very unusual in that country, where most men are liable to startling vicissitudes of fortune and there are no very rigid social distinctions; but Ingleby failed to recognize this just then, and it was not astonishing that he should idealize her for her courage.

"You are about the last person I expected to meet. What are you doing here?" she said, with the little tranquil smile that became her well.

Ingleby's heart was throbbing a good deal faster than usual, but he held himself in hand. Miss Coulthurst was apparently pleased to see him, but there was an indefinite something in her serene graciousness which put a check on him. It was, he felt, perhaps only because she was patrician to her finger-tips that she had so frankly greeted him. A girl with less natural distinction could, he fancied, scarcely have afforded to be equally gracious to a wharf-labourer.

"I am at present loading railway cars with tea and silk, though I have been carrying sugar bags most of the day," he said.

Grace showed no sign of astonishment as she glanced at his toiling comrades, and, though this was doubtless the correct attitude for her to assume, Ingleby was, in spite of his opinions, not exactly pleased until she spoke again.

"Don't you find it rather hard work?" she said. "Of course, one cannot always choose the occupation one likes here, but couldn't you find something that would be a little more – profitable?"

Ingleby laughed. "I'm afraid I can't," he said. "In this city the one passport to advancement appears to be the ability to play in the band, and I was, unfortunately, never particularly musical. Still, there is no reason why I should trouble you with my affairs. I wonder if I might venture to ask you how you came to be here?"

"It is quite simple. Major Coulthurst was appointed Gold Commissioner in one of the mining districts, and I came out with him; but he has been sent to an especially desolate post in the Northern ranges, and I am staying with friends in the city for a week or two. Then I am going to join him."

She stopped a moment, and then looked at him reflectively. "Why don't you go North and try your fortune at prospecting, too? They have been finding a good deal of gold lately in the Green River country where my father is."

It had seemed to Ingleby almost unnatural that he should be so quietly discussing his affairs with the girl he had last seen nearly six thousand miles away. This was not the kind of meeting he would have anticipated; but as she made the suggestion a little thrill once more ran through him, for he had heard that the district in question was a great desolation, and it almost seemed that she desired his company. However, he shook off the notion as untenable, for there would be, he knew, a distinction between a placer miner and the Gold Commissioner's daughter even in that land of rock and snow.

"I have thought of it," he said. "Some day I may go, but it is at the far end of the province, and for one who works on a steamboat wharf the getting there is a risky venture. I don't suppose everybody finds gold."

"I'm afraid they don't, and the cost of transporting provisions is a serious matter to those who fail. In fact, some of them have been giving my father trouble. They appear to lay the blame of everything on the mining regulations."

She stopped and glanced at him with a little smile. "From what I remember of your views, you would no doubt be inclined to agree with them."

Ingleby laughed, though it was pleasant to be told that she remembered anything he had said. "I really fancy I have learned a little sense in Canada, and I am not going to inflict my crude notions upon you again. Still, there is a question I should like to ask. Did Mr. Esmond of Holtcar – recover?"

Grace noticed the sudden intentness of his tone, and looked at him curiously. "Of course. In fact, he got better in a week or two, and I think behaved very generously. The police could not induce him to give them any information about the men who injured him."

Ingleby started, and the girl saw the relief in his face.

"I wonder," he said, "if you ever heard who they were supposed to be?"

Grace turned a trifle and gazed at him steadily, though there was now a little flash in her eyes.

"You," she said, with incisive coldness, "were one of them?"

Ingleby grew hot beneath her gaze, for he felt that all the pride and prejudices of her station were arrayed against him. "You will remember the form of my question. I was supposed to be one of them – but that was all," he said.

Grace's face softened, and she glanced at her companions, who, after waiting a little while, were just leaving the shed. "Of course," she said, "I should have known it was absurd to fancy that you could do anything of that kind."

"I am afraid I have kept you," said Ingleby. "Perhaps I should not have abused your kindness by letting you stop at all, but the desire to see you was too strong for me. I wonder whether even you would have dared to do as much had it been in England?"

There was a faint flush in the girl's cheek, but she smiled as she held out her hand.

"I scarcely think we need go into that, and I can't keep the others waiting any longer," she said. "Perhaps I shall meet you in the Green River country."

She swept away with a soft swish of dainty garments, and Ingleby, whose face grew curiously intent as he watched her, climbed the slanting gangway to the deck of the liner when she disappeared. From there he could see the white tops of the ranges gleaming ethereally as they stretched back mountain behind mountain towards the lonely North. The Green River country lay far beyond them, and there were leagues of tangled forest, and thundering rivers, to be crossed; but that day the untrodden snow he gazed upon seemed to beckon him, and a sudden longing to set out upon the long trail grew almost irresistible. There was gold in the wilderness, and with enough of it a man might aspire to anything, even the hand of a Crown Commissioner's daughter.

Then the winch beside him clattered, and he shook off the fancies as a fresh stream of bales and cases slid down the gangway. Whatever the future might have in store, there were several more hours of arduous work in front of him then. One of them had passed when Leger came hastily up to him.

"I suppose you got those last few cases?" he said.

Ingleby started. "I'm afraid I never remembered them until this moment. Have they pulled the car out, Tom?"

"It's not there, anyway. I fancied you had made the lot up. Somebody has put those cases in."

While they looked at one another the tolling of a locomotive bell broke through the clatter of the trucks, and Ingleby sped towards the door of the shed with Leger close behind him. When they reached it the hoot of a whistle came ringing down the track, and they saw the great locomotive vanish amidst the piles of lumber outside a big sawmill, with the long cars lurching through the smoke behind it. Ingleby said nothing then, but turned back into the shed with his lips set and questioned several men before he looked at Leger.

"Nobody seems to know whether they put that tea into the through East car or not, and it's no use being sorry now we didn't see it done," he said. "The sooner we have a word with the freight-traffic agent the better."

The gentleman in question, had, however, very little consolation to offer them.