A Damaged Reputation. Bindloss Harold
Labor is accounted honorable in that land, but it is none the less very frequently brutal as well as strenuous, and she could fancy how this man, who, she felt certain, had been accustomed to live softly in England, must have shrunk from some of his tasks, and picture to herself what he felt when he came back at night to herd close-packed with comrades whose thoughts and his must always be far apart. That many possibly better men had certainly borne with as hard a lot longer, after all, made no great difference to the facts. She also recognized that there was a vein of pathos in the story, as she remembered that he had told her it was scarcely likely he would ever go back to England again. That naturally suggested a good deal to her, for she held him blameless, though she knew it was not the regularity of their conduct at home which sent a good many of his countrymen out to Canada.
At last he rose between two songs, and stood still a moment looking down on her.
"I'm afraid I have trespassed on your kindness," he said. "I am going back to the bush with a survey expedition to-morrow, and I do not know when I shall be fortunate enough to see you again."
Barbara smiled a little. "That," she said, "is for you to decide. We are 'At home' every Thursday in the afternoon – and, in your case, in the evening."
He made her a little inclination, and turned away, while Barbara sat still, looking straight in front of her, but quite oblivious of the music, until she turned with a laugh, and the girl who sat next to her glanced round.
"Was the man very amusing?" she said.
"No," said Barbara, reflectively. "I scarcely think he was. I gave him permission to call upon us, and never told him where we lived."
"Still, he would, like everybody else in this city, know it already."
"He may," said Barbara. "That, I suppose, is what I felt at the time, but now I scarcely think he does."
"Then one would fancy that to meet a young man of his appearance who didn't know all about you would be something quite new," said her companion, drily.
Barbara flushed ever so slightly, but her companion noticed it. She was quite aware that if she was made much of in that city it was, in part, at least, due to the fact that she was the niece of a well-known man, and had considerable possessions.
VI.
AN ARDUOUS JOURNEY
It was late at night, and raining hard, when a line of dripping mules stood waiting beneath the pines that crowded in upon the workings of the Elktail mine. A few lights blinked among the log-sheds that clustered round the mouth of the rift in the steep hillside, and a warm wind that drove the deluge before it came wailing out of the blackness of the valley beneath them. The mine was not a big one, but it was believed that it paid Thomas P. Saxton and his friends tolerably well, in spite of the heavy cost of transport to the nearest smelter. A somewhat varying vein of galena, which is silver-lead, was worked there, and Saxton had, on several occasions, declined an offer to buy it, made on behalf of a company.
On the night in question he stood in the doorway of one of the sheds with Brooke, for whom the Surveyor had no more work just then, beside him. Brooke wore long boots and a big rubber coat, on whose dripping surface the light of the lantern Saxton held flickered. Here and there a man was dimly visible beside the mules, but beyond them impenetrable darkness closed in.
"It's a wicked kind of night," said Saxton, who, Brooke fancied, nevertheless, appeared quite content with it. "You know what you've got to do?"
"Yes," said Brooke, a trifle drily, "you have given me tolerably complete instructions once or twice already. The ore is to be delivered to Allonby at the Dayspring mine not later than to-morrow night, and I'm to be contented with his verbal acknowledgment. The getting it across the river will, I fancy, be the difficulty, especially as I'm to send half the teamsters back before we reach it."
"Still, you have got to send them back," said Saxton. "Jake and Tom will go on, and when you have crossed the ford that will be two mules for each of you. Not one of the other men must come within a mile of the trail forking. It's part of our bargain that you're to do just what I tell you."
Brooke laughed a little. "I'm not going to grumble very much at leading two mules. I have done a good deal harder work quite frequently."
"You'll find it tough enough by the time you're through. You must be in at the mine by daylight the day after to-morrow, anyway. Allonby will be sitting up waiting for you."
Brooke said nothing further, but went out into the rain, calling to one of the teamsters, and the mules were got under way. The trail that led to the Elktail mine sloped steep as a roof just there, and was slippery with rain and mire, but the mules went down it as no other loaded beasts could have done, feeling their way foot by foot, or glissading on all four hoofs for yards together. The men made little attempt to guide them, for a mule is opinionated by nature, and when it cannot find its own way up or down any ascent it is seldom worth while for its driver to endeavor to show it one.
When they reached the level, or rather the depth of the hollow, for of level, in the usual sense of the word, there is none in that country, Brooke, who was then cumbered with no bridle, turned and looked round. The lights of the Elktail had faded among the pines, and there was only black darkness about him. Here and there he could discern the ghostly outline of a towering trunk a little more solid than the night it rose against, and he could hear the men and beasts floundering and splashing in front of him. A deep reverberating sound rose out of the obscurity beneath, and he knew it to be the roar of a torrent in a deep-sunk gully, while now and then a diminishing rattle suggested that a hundred-weight or so of water-loosened gravel had slipped down into the chasm from the perilous trail.
It was a difficult road to travel by daylight, and, naturally, considerably worse at night, while Brooke had already wondered why Saxton had not sent off the ore earlier. That, however, was not his business, and, shaking the rain from his dripping hat, he plodded on. It was still two or three hours before daylight when they reached a wider and smoother trail, and he sent away three of the men.
"It's a tolerably good road now, and Saxton wants you at the mine," he said.
One of the teamsters who were remaining laughed ironically. "I'm blamed if I ever heard the dip down to the long ford called a good trail before!"
"Well," said one of the others, "what in the name of thunder are you going that way for?"
Brooke, who was standing close by, fancied that a man who had not spoken kicked his loquacious comrade viciously.
"Tom never does know where he's going. It's the mule that does the thinking for both of them," he said.
There was a little hoarse laughter, and those who were going back vanished into the deluge, while Brooke, who took a bridle now, went on with two men again. It was darker than ever, for great fir branches met overhead just there, but they at least kept off a little of the rain, and he groped onward, splashing in the mire, until the roar of a river throbbed across the forest as the night was wearing through. Then the leading teamster pulled up his mules.
"It's a nasty ford in daylight, and she'll be swirling over it waist-deep and more just now," he said. "Still, we've got to take our chances of getting through."
"It will be light in two hours," said Brooke, suggestively. "Of course, you know better than I do whether we could make the wasted time up."
The man laughed curiously. "I guess we could, but there's two concerned bush ranchers just started their chopping over yonder. I had a kind of notion the boss would have told you that."
It commenced to dawn on Brooke that Saxton had a reason for not desiring that everybody should know he was sending ore away, but he was too wet to concern himself about the question then.
"I don't think he did," he said. "Anyway, if we have to go through in the dark there's nothing to be gained by waiting here."
They went on, down what appeared to be the side of a bottomless gully, with the stones and soil slipping away from under them, while half-seen trees flitted up out of the obscurity. Then they reached the bed of a stream, and proceeded along it, splashing and stumbling amidst the boulders. In the meanwhile the roar of the river was growing steadily louder,