Harold Bindloss - A Damaged Reputation

"No more!" he said. "I have lived long enough in the bush to find out that is the way disaster lies."

Allonby nodded. "You are no doubt perfectly right," he said. "I had, however, gone a little too far when I made the discovery, and by that time the result of any further progress had become a matter of indifference to me. In any case, a man who has played his part with credit among his equals where life has a good deal to offer one and intellect is appreciated, must drown recollection now and then when he drags out his days in a lonely exile that can have only one end. I am quite aware that it is not particularly good form for me to commiserate myself, but it should be evident that there is nobody else here to do it for me."

Brooke had already found his host's maudlin moralizings becoming monotonous, but he also felt in a half-contemptuous fashion sorry for the man. He was, it seemed to him, in spite of his proclivities, in the restricted sense of the word, almost a gentleman.

"If one may make the inquiry, you came from England?" he said.

Allonby laughed. "Most men put that question differently in this country. They talk straight, as they term it, and apparently consider brutality to be the soul of candor. Yes, I came from England, because something happened which prevented me feeling any great desire to spend any further time there. What it was does not, of course, matter. I came out with a sheaf of certificates and several medals to exploit the mineral riches of Western Canada, and found that mineralogical science is not greatly appreciated here."

He rose, and taking down a battered walnut case, shook out a little bundle of greasy papers with a trembling hand. Then a faint gleam crept into his eyes as he opened a little box in which Brooke saw several big round pieces of gold. The dulness of the unpolished metal made the inscriptions on them more legible, and he knew enough about such matters to realize that no man of mean talent could have won those trophies.

"They would, I fancy, have got you a good appointment anywhere," he said.

"As a matter of fact, they got me one or two. It is, however, occasionally a little difficult to keep an appointment when obtained."

Brooke could understand that there were reasons which made that likely in his host's case, but he had by this time had enough of the subject.

"What are you going to do with the ore I brought you?" he said.

Allonby's eyes twinkled. "Enrich what we raise here with it."

"It is a little difficult to understand what you would gain by that."

Allonby smiled suggestively. "I would certainly gain nothing, but Thomas P. Saxton seems to fancy the result would be profitable to him."

"But does the Dayspring belong to Saxton?"

Allonby emptied his glass at a gulp. "As much as I do, and he believes he has bought me soul and body. The price was not a big one – a very few dollars every month, and enough whisky to keep me here. If that failed me, I should go away, though I do not know where to, for I cannot use the axe. He is, however, now quite willing to part with the Dayspring, which has done little more than pay expenses."

A light commenced to dawn on Brooke, and his face grew a trifle hot. "That is presumably why he arranged that I should bring the ore down past the few ranches near the trail at night?"

"Precisely!" said Allonby. "You see, Saxton wants to sell the mine to another man – because he is a fool. Now the chief recommendation a mine has to a prospective purchaser is naturally the quality of the ore to be got out of it."

"But the man who proposed buying it would send an expert to collect samples for assaying."

Allonby's voice was not quite so clear as it had been, but he smiled again. "It is not quite so difficult for a mine captain who knows his business to contrive that an expert sees no more than is advisable. A good deal of discretion is, however, necessary when you salt a poor mine with high-grade ore. It has to be done with knowledge, artistically. You don't seem quite pleased at being mixed up in such a deal."

Brooke was a trifle grim in face, but he laughed. "I have no doubt that, considering everything, it is a trifle absurd of me, but I'm not," he said. "One has to get accustomed to the notion that he is being made use of in connection with an ingenious swindle. That, however, is a matter which rests between Saxton and me, and we may talk over it when I go back again. Why did you call him a fool?"

Allonby leaned forward in his chair, and his face grew suddenly eager. "I suppose you couldn't raise eight thousand dollars to buy the mine with?"

Brooke laughed outright. "I should have some difficulty in raising twenty until the month is up."

"Then you are losing a chance you'll never get again in a lifetime," and Allonby made a little gesture of resignation. "I would have liked you to have taken it, because I think I could make you believe in me. That is why I showed you the medals."

Brooke looked at him curiously for a moment or two. It was evident that the man was in earnest, for his gaunt face was wholly intent, and his fingers were trembling.

"It is a very long time since I had the expectation of ever calling eight thousand dollars my own, and if I had them I should feel very dubious about putting them into any mine, and especially this one."

Allonby leaned forward further, and clutched his arm. "If you have any friends in the Old Country, beg or borrow from them. Offer them twenty per cent. – anything they ask. There is a fortune under your feet. Of course, you do not believe it. Nobody I ever told it to would even listen seriously."

"I believe you feel sure of it, but that is quite another thing," and Brooke smiled.

Allonby rose shakily, and leaned upon the table with his fingers trembling.

"Listen a few minutes – I was sure of attention without asking for it once," he said. "It was I who found the Dayspring, not by chance prospecting, but by calculations that very few men in the province could make. I know what that must appear – but you have seen the medals. Tracing the dip and curvature of the stratification from the Elktail and two prospectors' shafts, I knew the vein would approach the level here, and I put five thousand dollars – every cent I could scrape together – into proving it. We struck the vein, but while it should have been rich, we found it broken, displaced, and poor. There had, you see, been a disturbance of the strata. I borrowed money, worked night and day, and starved myself – did everything that would save a dollar from the rapidly-melting pile – and at last we struck the vein again, and struck it rich."

He stopped abruptly and stood staring vacantly in front of him, while Brooke heard him noisily draw in his breath.

"You can imagine what that meant!" he continued. "After what had happened in England I could never go back a poor man, but a good deal is forgiven the one who comes home rich. Then, while I tried to keep my head, we came to the fault where the ore vein suddenly ran out. It broke off as though cut through with a knife, and went down, as the men who knew no better said, to the centre of the earth. Now a fault is a very curious thing, but one can deduce a good deal when he has studied them, and a big snow-slide had laid bare an interesting slice of the foundations of this country in the valley opposite. It took me a month to construct my theory, and that was little when you consider the factors I had to reckon with – ages of crushing pressure, denudation by grinding ice and sliding snow, and Titanic upheavals thousands of years ago. The result was from one point of view contemptible. With about four thousand dollars I could strike the vein again."

"Of course you tried to raise them?"

Allonby made a grimace. "For six long years. The men who had lent me money laughed at me, and worked the poor ore back along the incline instead of boring. Somebody has been working it – for about five cents on the dollar – ever since, and when I told them what they were letting slip all of them smiled compassionately. I am of course – though once it was different – a broken man, with a brain clouded by whisky, only fit to run a played-out mine. How could I be expected to find any man a fortune?"