Carmen's Messenger. Harold Bindloss
city boots, and the track, as usual, was roughly ballasted with coarse gravel. The stones rolled about under his feet, and the ties were irregularly spaced, so that he could not step from one to another except by an awkward stride. He went on, however, and by and by began to wonder where he could get a drink, for the struggle or the shock had made him thirsty.
The big coat proved troublesome to carry when he took it off. After a time his feet got sore and he tried to walk in the shallow drain beside the line, but this was filled with ice, on which he slipped. He had traveled by rougher trails and carried heavy loads, but that was some years ago and he wore different boots and fastened on his pack by proper straps. Moreover, one got soft when leading a business life.
By and by he heard the roar of water and pushing on faster came to a foaming creek that plunged down a stony ravine. A bridge crossed the gorge, and leaving the track he clambered down the rocky bank. Where the spray had fallen there were patches of ice, but Foster felt that he must get a drink. When he was half-way down his foot slipped and he slid the rest of the distance, bringing up with a shock at the edge of the water, where he struck a projecting stone. He felt shaken, but got a drink, and when he began to climb back found that he had wrenched his knee. Some movements were not painful, but when his weight came upon the joint it hurt. He must get up, for all that, and reached the top, where he sat down with his lips firmly set, and after putting on the coat felt in the pocket for a cigarette.
The case he took out was not his, and he remembered that he was wearing another man's coat. The cigarettes were of Turkish tobacco, which is not much used in Canada, and he thought the quality remarkably good. This seemed to imply that their owner had a cultivated taste, and Foster began to wonder whether he was after all not a business man running away from his creditors, but rejected the theory. It was strange that although the cigarettes were expensive the case was of the kind sold in Western stores for fifty cents, but Foster presently gave up speculating about the man.
The moon was getting low and ragged pine branches cut against the light. The track was wrapped in shadow that was only a little less dense than the gloom of the surrounding bush. It was not really cold for North Ontario, but the fur coat was hardly enough protection to make a bed in the open air comfortable. Foster had slept in the Athabasca forests when the thermometer marked forty degrees below zero, but he then wore different clothes and had been able to make a roaring fire and build a snow-bank between him and the wind. Moreover, he was still liable to be overtaken by the men on the train.
Getting up, he found his knee sore and stiff, but limped on for an hour or two after the moon sank. He seemed to be stumbling along the bottom of a dark trench, for the firs shut him in like a wall and there was only an elusive glimmer of light above their serrated tops. He did not expect to find a house until he reached the station, for much of North Ontario is a wilderness where the trees are too small for milling and agriculture is impossible among the rocks. To make things worse, he felt hungry. The train had stopped at about seven o'clock at a desolate station where the passengers were given a few minutes to get supper, but Foster's portion was too hot for him to eat. He tried to encourage himself by remembering that he had once marched three hundred miles across the snow with a badly frozen foot, but this did not make his present exertion easier.
As he got hungry he got angry. He had gone away to enjoy himself, and this was how his holiday had begun! The Government agent, if that was what he was, ought not to have dragged a confiding stranger into his difficulties. He was now safe in the express car and chuckling over the troubles he had left his substitute to face. Then Foster tried to remember if he had left any papers with his address in his overcoat and decided that he had not done so. His wallet was now in his jacket pocket. This was satisfactory, because he meant to have nothing more to do with the matter. Tying the fur coat round his waist to take some of the weight off his shoulders, he trudged on as briskly as he could through the gloom.
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