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The Gold Trail. Harold Edward Bindloss
Читать онлайн.Название The Gold Trail
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isbn 4064066440602
Автор произведения Harold Edward Bindloss
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
Ida had no doubt upon the matter, for she recalled the curious intentness of Weston's face as he sat in the firelight listening to Kinnaird's description of the house in question. Still, she was not prepared to display her interest.
"Well?" she inquired again.
Arabella Kinnaird made a sign of impatience.
"Can't you see? They wouldn't have had his photograph unless he had been a friend of the family or a relative. I wonder whether he told you his real name?"
"He didn't."
"It doesn't matter," said Miss Kinnaird. "I feel tolerably sure it is Weston, and that is the name of the people who own the place. You don't appear to understand that the fact has its significance."
"How?" asked Ida.
"You haven't been in England or you'd understand. The people who live in those old places are often very poor, but a certain number of them have something that the people who have only money would give a good deal to possess. As a matter of fact, though distinctly human in most respects, they are—different."
Ida laughed.
"Oh," she said, "I've naturally heard of that. It's quite an old notion, and didn't originate with you English people. Didn't the Roman emperors claim to have the Imperial purple in their veins? Still, out here, when we speak of a man appreciatively we say his blood is—red."
"And that's the color of packer Weston's."
A faint gleam crept into Ida's eyes as she remembered the white-faced man who had limped out of camp one morning almost too weary to drag himself along.
"Well," she said, "I think you ought to know. When he went back up the range for you he left a trail of it behind him."
Her companion had no opportunity for answering, for Major Kinnaird came back from the smoking end of the car just then, and when he spoke to Ida his daughter took up a book she had laid down.
In the meanwhile, a mountain locomotive and a train of flat cars came clanking into the station where Weston waited. Swinging himself onto one he took his place among the men who sat on the rails with which the car was loaded. Then, as the big locomotive slowly pulled them out, some of his new companions vituperated the station-agent for stopping them, and one came near braining him with a deftly-flung bottle when he retaliated. There were a good many more men perched on the other cars, and Weston concluded, from the burst of hoarse laughter that reached him through the roar of wheels, that all of them were not wholly sober. They had been recruited in Vancouver, and included a few runaway sailormen. One told him that they were going into the ranges to fill up a muskeg, and he expressed his opinion of the meanness of the company for not sending them up in a Colonist train, and offered to throw Weston off the car if he did not agree with him. He explained that he had already pitched off two of his companions.
Weston endeavored to pacify him; but, failing in this and in an attempt to crawl over the couplings into the adjoining car, he reluctantly grappled with the man and succeeded in throwing him into a corner. Then one of the others rose and stood over his prostrate comrade with a big billet of firwood that had been used to wedge the rails.
"I can't sleep with all this circus going on," he said gruffly. "Make any more trouble and off you go."
The other man apparently decided to lie still, and his comrade turned to Weston.
"Guess the construction boss isn't going to find them tally out right to-morrow," he observed, "We've lost quite a few of them coming up the line."
He went to sleep again soon afterward, and Weston was left in peace. In front of him the great locomotive snorted up the climbing track, hurling clouds of sparks aloft. Misty pines went streaming by, the chill night wind rushed past, the cars banged and clanked, and now and then odd bursts of harsh laughter or discordant singing broke through the roar of wheels. It was very different from the deep tranquillity of the wilderness and the quiet composure of the people with whom he had spent the last few weeks, but, as Ida Stirling had suggested, Weston's blood was red, and he was still young enough to find pleasure in every fresh draught of the wine of life. It was something to feel himself the equal in bodily strength and animal courage of these strong-armed men who were going to fill up the muskeg.
Chapter VII: Grenfell's Mine
It was Saturday evening, and Weston sat on a ledge of the hillside above the silent construction camp, endeavoring to mend a pair of duck trousers that had been badly torn in the bush. He held several strips of a cotton flour-bag in one hand, and was considering how he could best make use of them without unduly displaying the bold lettering of the brand, though in the bush of that country it was not an unusual thing for a man to go about labeled "Early Riser," or somebody's "Excelsior." His companions had trooped off to the settlement about a league away, and a row of flat cars stood idle on the track which now led across the beaten muskeg. On the farther side of the latter, the tall pines lay strewn in rows, but beyond the strip of clearing the bush closed in again, solemn, shadowy, and almost impenetrable. There was a smell of resinous wood-smoke in the air, but save for the distant sound of the river everything was very still.
Weston looked up sharply as a patter of approaching footsteps rose out of the shadows behind him. Some of the men were evidently coming back from the settlement earlier than he had expected. In a few minutes three or four of them appeared among the trees, and he recognized them as some of his friends, small ranchers who had, as often happens on the Pacific Slope, been forced to leave their lonely, half-cleared holdings and go out to earn the money that would keep them through the winter. Two of them were apparently assisting another man along between them, and when they drew nearer Weston saw that the latter was Grenfell, the cook.
"Guess it's 'bout time somebody else took care of you," said one, when they came up. "Sit right down," he added, neatly shaking Grenfell off his feet and depositing him unceremoniously at Weston's side.
Another of the men sat down close by, and Grenfell waved his hand to the others as they moved away.
"Bless you! You're good boys," he said.
The man who remained grinned at Weston.
"We've packed the blame old deadbeat 'most three miles. If Tom hadn't promised to see him through I'd have felt tempted to dump him into the river. The boys were trying to fill him up at the Sprotson House."
Grenfell, who did not appear to hear him, thrust a hand into his pocket, and pulling out a few silver coins counted them deliberately.
"Two—four—six," he said. "Six dollars to face an unkind world with. It isn't very much."
He sighed and turned to Weston.
"You know I've got to quit?"
"That's right," interposed the other man. "Cassidy's had 'most enough of him. He never could cook, anyway, and the boys are getting thin. Last thing he did was to put the indurated plates on the stove to warm. Filled the thing right up and left them. When he came back the plates had gone."
Weston, who had been sent to work some distance from the camp that day and had not heard of this mishap, felt sorry for Grenfell. The man evidently had always been somewhat frail, and now he was past his prime; indulgence in deleterious whisky had further shaken him. He could not chop or ply the shovel, and it was with difficulty that his companions had borne his cooking, while it seemed scarcely likely that anybody would have much use for him in a country that is run by the young and strong. He sat still regarding the money ruefully.
"Six of them—and they charge you one for a meal and a drink or two," he said. "If I hadn't known where there was quartz streaked right through with wire gold I might have felt discouraged." Then he straightened himself resolutely. "Seems to me it's time I went up and looked for it again."