Harold Bindloss - A Damaged Reputation

Still, even then, he would not regret that he had broken away, for there was in him an inherent obstinacy, and he would have struggled on at the ranch had not the absence of funds precluded it, and consideration shown him that it would be merely throwing his toil away. Life, it seemed, had very little to offer him, but now he had made the decision he would adhere to it, though he had arrived at the resolution in cold blood, for it was his reason only which had responded to the girl's influence, and as yet what was spiritual in him remained untouched. He would not live as the Indians do, or sink into a sot. There were vague possibilities before him which, though this appeared most unlikely, might prove themselves facts, and the place he had been born to in England might yet be his. That was why he would not sell his birthright for a mess of stringy venison, and the deleterious whisky sold at the settlement, which seemed to him a most unfair price. Still, he went no further, even when he thought of the girl, which he did with dispassionate admiration.

Worn-out as he was, he slept, and awakened in the grey dawn almost unfit to rise. There was a distressful pain in his hip-joints, which those who sleep in the open are acquainted with, and at the first few steps he took his face went awry, but his physical nature demanded warmth and food, and there was only one way of obtaining it before the life went out of him. Whatever effort it cost him, he must reach the mine. He set out for it, limping, while the sharp gravel rolled under his bleeding feet as he floundered up the climbing trail. It seemed to lead upwards for ever between endless colonnades of towering trunks, and when at last pine and cedar had been left behind, there was slippery rock smoothed by sliding snow to be clambered over.

Still, reeling and gasping, he held on, and it was afternoon, and he had eaten nothing for close on thirty hours, when a filmy trail of smoke that drifted faintly blue athwart the climbing pines beneath him caught his eye. He braced himself for the effort to reach it, and went down with loose, uneven strides, smashing through sal-sal and barberry when he reached the bush again. The fern met above his head, there were mazes of fallen trunks to be scrambled through, and he tore the soaken jean that clung about him to rags in his haste. Still, he had learned to travel straight in the bush, and at last he staggered into sight of the mine.

There was a little scar on the hillside, an iron shanty, a few soaked tents and shelters of bark, but the ringing clink of the drills vibrated about them, and a most welcome smell of wood smoke came up to him with a murmur of voices. Brooke heard them faintly, and did not stop until a handful of men clustered about him, while, as he blinked at them, one, who appeared different from the others, pushed his way through the group.

"You seem considerably used up," he said.

"I am," said Brooke, hoarsely, "I'm almost starving."

It occurred to him that the man's voice ought to be familiar, but it was a few moments before he recognized him as the one who had sent him on the useless journey after the Surveyor.

"Then come right along. It's not quite supper-time, but there's food in the camp," he said.

Brooke went with him to the shanty, where he fell against a chair, and found it difficult to straighten himself when he picked it up. Saxton, so far as he could remember, asked no questions, but smiled at him reassuringly while he explained, somewhat incoherently, what had brought him there, until a man appeared with a big tray. Then Brooke ate strenuously.

"Some folks have a notion that one can kill himself by getting through too much at once when he's 'most starved," said Saxton. "I never found it work out that way in this country."

"Were you ever almost starved?" said Brooke, who felt the life coming back to him, with no great show of interest.

"Oh, yes," said Saxton, drily. "Twice, at least. I was three days without food the last time. One has to take his chances in the ranges, and you don't pick up dollars without trouble anywhere. Still, we'll talk of that afterwards. Had enough?"

Brooke said he fancied he had, and Saxton hammered upon the iron roof of the shanty until a man appeared.

"Give him a pair of blankets, Ike. He can sleep in the lean-to," he said.

Brooke went with the man, vacantly, and in another few minutes found himself lying in dry blankets on a couch of springy twigs. He was sensible that it was delightfully warm, but he could not remember how he got there, and was wondering why the rain no longer lashed his face, when sleep came to him.

It was next morning when he was awakened by the roar of a blasting charge, and lay still with an unusual sense of comfort until the silence that followed it was broken by the clinking of the drills. Then he rose stiffly, and put on his clothes, which he found had been dried, and was informed by a man who appeared while he was doing it that his breakfast was waiting. Brooke wondered a little at this, for he knew that it was past the usual hour, but he made an excellent meal, and then, being shown into a compartment of the little galvanized iron shanty, found Saxton sitting at a table. The latter now wore long boots and jean, and there were pieces of discolored stone strewn about in front of him.

He looked up with a little nod as Brooke came in. "Feeling quite yourself again?" he said.

"Yes," said Brooke, "thanks to the way your men have treated me. This is, of course, a hospitable country, but I may admit that I could scarcely have expected to be so well looked after by one I hadn't the slightest claim upon."

"And you almost wondered what he did it for?"

Brooke was a trifle astonished, for this certainly expressed his thoughts, but he was in no way disconcerted, and he laughed.

"I should, at least, never have ventured to suggest that anything except good-nature influenced you," he said.

"Still, you felt it? Well, you were considerably used up when you came in, and, as I sent you to the Surveyor, who didn't seem to have any use for you, I felt myself responsible. That appears sufficient?"

Now, Brooke had mixed with men of a good many different stations, and he was observant, and, as might have been expected, by no means diffident.

"Since you ask, I scarcely think it does," he said.

Saxton laughed. "Take a cigar. That's the kind of talk I like. We'll come to the point right away."

Brooke lighted a cigar, and found it good. "Thanks. I'm willing to listen as long as appears necessary," he said.

"You have a kind of grievance against Devine?"

"I have. According to my notion of ethics, he owes me six thousand dollars, and I shall not be quite content until I get them out of him, although that may never happen. I feel just now that it would please me especially to make him smart as well, which I quite realize, is unnecessary folly."

The Canadian nodded, and shook the ash from his cigar. "Exactly," he said. "A man with sense keeps his eye on the dollars, and leaves out the sentiment. It's quite apt to get in his way and trip him up. Well, suppose I could give you a chance of getting those dollars back?"

"I should be very much inclined to take it. Still, presumably, you do not mean to do it out of pure good-nature?"

"No, sir," said Saxton, drily. "I'm here to make dollars. That has been my object since I struck out for myself at fourteen, and I've piled quite a few of them together. I'd have had more only that wherever I plan a nice little venture in mines or land up and down this province, I run up against Devine. That's quite straight, isn't it?"

"I fancy it is. You are suggesting community of interest? Still, I scarcely realize how a man with empty pockets could be of very much use to you."

"I have a kind of notion that you could be if it suited you. I want a man with grit in him, who has had a good education, and could, if it was necessary, mix on equal terms with the folks in the cities."