The Greater Power. Harold Bindloss
in the Bush, men acquire a certain pride in their physical manhood, and it is never a pleasant thing to own oneself defeated. The logger, however, nodded comprehendingly. He was a reticent, grim-faced person from Ontario, where they breed hard men, though some have, also, kindly hearts in them.
“That’s quite right. I’ve noticed it myself,” he commented. “In fact, I’ve been figuring on asking you to get out the last week or two.”
Nasmyth smiled. Like other men of his description in that country, he had become accustomed to hearing such remarks addressed to him.
“I wonder,” he answered reflectively, “why you didn’t.”
The logger appeared to consider. It was characteristic of him and the stock he sprang from that he would never have admitted that he had borne with Nasmyth as long as possible out of kindness. The thing would have hurt him.
“Well,” he said, “it seemed to me we might start you teaming, if I could have got a span or two of oxen in, but I’m most afraid I can’t get them at my figure.” He changed the subject abruptly. “Where are you heading for?”
“I don’t quite know, though I shall probably land in Victoria sooner or later. I might strike something a little easier than logging there. Still, it would be most of a week’s march before I could reach the railroad, and there’s not a ranch anywhere near the trail.”
The logger nodded. “Well,” he said, “I’d head West instead. There’ll be nothing going on along the 6 railroad just now, and the mines are running easy, while you ought to fetch the settlement south of Butte Lake on the third day. Guess you might pick up a dollar or two in that neighbourhood, and, any way, there’s a steamer running down the West Coast to Victoria. Seems to me quite likely one of those Bush-ranchers would take you in a while, even if he didn’t exactly want a hired man; but they don’t do that kind of thing in the city.”
Nasmyth smiled. Experience had already taught him that, as a rule, the stranger who is welcomed in the cities arrives there with money in his pockets, and that it is the hard-handed men with the axes from whom the wanderer in that country is most likely to receive a kindness. Still, though he was naturally not aware of it, a great deal was to depend upon the fact that he followed the advice of the logger, who traced out a diagram on the bench upon which they sat.
“There’s an Indian trail up the river for the first four leagues,” said the logger. “Then you strike southwest, across the divide––here––and you come to the Butte River. She’s running in a little cañon, and you can’t get over ’cept where a prospector or somebody has chopped a big fir.”
The log span across a stream is an old device, and was probably primitive man’s first attempt at bridge-building, though it is one frequently adopted on the Pacific slope, where a giant tree grows conveniently close to an otherwise impassable river. It was, however, important that Nasmyth should be able to find the tree.
“You know exactly where that fir is?” he asked.
“Southwest of the highest ridge of the divide. Once you’re over, you’ll fetch the Butte Lake in a long day’s march. When d’you figure you’ll start?”
“To-night,” said Nasmyth, “after supper. If there’s sickness of any kind hanging round me––and I feel like 7 it––you don’t want me here, and I dare say they’d take me into the hospital at Victoria. Walking’s easier than logging, anyway, and it seems wiser to try for that fir in daylight.”
The logger nodded as if he concurred in this, and, taking a little book from his pocket, he turned it over, wrinkling his brows while Nasmyth watched him with a smile.
“Well,” he said at length, “we’ll count you full time to-day, but there’s the four days off when you got crushed by that redwood, and the week when you chopped your leg. Then, counting the amount for your board, that’s thirty-six dollars I’m due to you.”
“Not quite,” answered Nasmyth. “There was the day or two after I fell through the ice and had the shivers. I’d sooner you knocked off the few dollars.”
The logger was said to be a hard man, and in some respects this was certainly the case; but a faint flush crept into his grim face. Perhaps he had noticed the weariness in Nasmyth’s voice or the hollowness of his cheeks.
“All right,” he said awkwardly. “Jake will put you up grub for four days, and we’ll call it square.”
He counted out the money, which Nasmyth slipped into the receptacle inside his belt. When the logger moved away the weary man crossed over to his bunk. Nasmyth had brought his few possessions up in a canoe, and now, knowing that he could not take them all away, he turned them over with a curious smile. There were one or two ragged pairs of duck trousers stained with soil, a few old tattered shirts, and a jacket of much the same description. He remembered that he had once been fastidious about his tailoring, as he wondered when he would be able to replace the things that he left behind. Then he rolled up some of the garments and his two blankets into a pack that could be strapped upon his 8 shoulders, and, as he did this, his comrades came trooping in, stamping to shake the snow off their leggings.
There were about a dozen of them––simple, strenuous, brown-faced Bush-ranchers for the most part––and they ate in haste, voraciously, when the abundant but rudely served supper was laid out. Nasmyth had not much appetite, and the greasy salt pork, grindstone bread, desiccated apples, flavoured molasses, and flapjacks hot from the pan, did not tempt him. He preferred to watch his companions, and now and then his glance was a trifle wistful. He had worked and eaten with them; they had slept about him, and he knew he had their rude good-will. When his strength had begun to give way, some of them had saddled themselves with more than their share of the tasks they were engaged in, and he knew that it was possible he might not fall in with comrades of their kind again. Now that the time had come, he, who had once been welcomed at brilliant London functions, felt that it would cost him an effort to part with these rough comrades. Perhaps this was not so astonishing, for, after all, strenuous, valiant manhood and rude kindliness count for much.
The shanty was cheerfully lighted and cosily warm. Nasmyth had slept soundly there on the springy spruce-twigs, and there was at least abundance when the mealtimes came round. Now he was about to be cast adrift again to face a three days’ march in the open, under the bitter frost, and what might await him at the end of it he did not know. At length, the meal was cleared away, and when the pipes were lighted, he told his comrades that he was going. They were not demonstrative in their expressions of regret, but they thrust upon him little plugs of tobacco, which could not well be replaced there, and several of them told him that, if he struck nothing he liked better, all he had to do was to present himself at this ranch or the other beside blue lake or 9 frothing river when they went back in the spring. What was more to the purpose, they meant it.
Among those Western pines men are reared who, in point of primitive vigour, slow endurance, and the dogged courage that leads them to attempt, and usually to accomplish, the apparently impossible, are a match for any in the world, and no wanderer who limps up to their lonely ranches is turned away. Those who have no claim on them are honoured with their hospitality, and now and then one new to that country looks with wonder on their handiwork. Down all the long Pacific coast, from lonely Wrangel, wrapped in the Northern snow, to Shasta in the South, it is written on hewn-back forest, rent hillside, and dammed river. The inhabitants are subduing savage Nature; but, as time will surely show, their greatest achievement is the rearing of fearless men.
Though it cost him an effort, Nasmyth contrived to smile as he shook hands with the loggers. Then he set his lips tight as, with his pack strapped on his shoulders, he opened the door and looked out at the dimly shining snow. It was only natural that he hesitated for a moment. After all, brutal as the toil had been, he at least knew what he was leaving behind, and his heart sank as he drew the door to. The cold struck through him to the bone, though there was not a breath of air astir, and the stillness was almost overwhelming. The frost cramped his muscles and drove the courage out of him, and, as he plodded down the trail, he heard Jacques, the French-Canadian cook,