The Long Portage. Harold Bindloss
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THE CACHE
They spent the greater part of a week on the portage, crossing here and there a little lake; and then came out one evening on a river that flowed, green and tranquil, beneath a ridge of hills. Here they camped; and on rising with a shiver in the raw and nipping dawn the next morning, Nasmyth found Lisle busy at the fire. Jake was cutting wood some distance off, for the thud of his ax rang sharply through the stillness.
“I was awake—thinking—a good deal last night; in fact, I’ve been restless ever since we struck the Gladwynes’ trail,” Nasmyth began. “Now, I understand that an uninterrupted journey of about sixteen days would take us well on our way toward civilization. You say you apprehend no difficulty after that?”
“No.” Lisle waited, watching his companion in an intent fashion.
Nasmyth hesitated.
“Then, considering everything, mightn’t it be better to waste no time, and push straight on?”
“And leave the work that brought me here—I believe that brought us both here—undone?”
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t express myself very fortunately. What I feel is this—Gladwyne’s story is a tragic one, but it’s twelve months old. In a way, it’s forgotten; the wounds it made have healed.”
“Is such a man as the one you have described forgotten in a year?” Lisle asked with a hardening expression.
Nasmyth, being a man of simple and, for the most part, wholesome ideas, was in a quandary. His feelings were generous, but he shrank from putting them into words. Moreover he was just and was not wholly convinced that the course he wished to recommend was right.
“Well,” he contended, “there are faithful hearts that never quite forget—with them the scar remains; but it’s fortunate that the first keen pain does not last. Is it decent—I almost think that’s the right word—to reopen the wound?”
He paused and spread out one hand as if in expostulation.
“Your late comrade has gone beyond your help; you told me he had left no relatives; and you have only yourself to consider. Can you do any good by bringing this sorrowful tale of disaster up again?”
“Are you pleading for your English friends, anxious to save them pain at my expense? Can’t you understand my longing to clear my dead partner’s name?”
A trace of color crept into Nasmyth’s face.
“I suppose I deserve that, though it wasn’t quite the only thing I meant. I’ve an idea that you are somehow going to lay up trouble for yourself by persevering in this search.”
“I don’t want to be offensive; but can’t you see that by urging me to let the thing drop you are casting grave doubts upon the honor of a man of your own caste and kind, one with whom you are closely acquainted? Are you afraid to investigate, to look for proofs of Clarence Gladwyne’s story?”
Nasmyth looked him steadily in the eyes.
“For the sake of one or two others, I think I am. Your belief in the guide, Vernon, has had its effect on me.”
“Then,” said Lisle, “I have no fear of putting my belief to the test; I came up here for that purpose, and I mean to call upon you as my witness. As you said of George Gladwyne, the man I owe so much to never did a shabby thing. That he should have deserted a starving comrade is clean impossible!”
“I suppose there’s no help for it,” responded Nasmyth, with a gesture of acquiescence. “We have said enough. Since you insist, I’ll stand by my promise.”
The thudding of the ax ceased, and they heard Jake returning with the wood. Lisle set out the simple breakfast, and when they had eaten they launched the canoe and floated swiftly down the smooth green river all that day. They had accomplished the worst half of the journey; henceforward their way lay down-stream, and with moderate good fortune they need have no apprehension about safely reaching the settlements, but they were both silent and ill at ease. Lisle was consumed with fierce impatience; and Nasmyth shrank from what might shortly be revealed to him. Scarcely a word was spoken when they lay in camp that night.
The next day they came to the head of a long and furiously-running rapid. Rocks encumbered its channel; the stream boiled fiercely over sunken ledges, dropping several feet here and there in angry falls; and in one place, where the banks narrowed in, a white stretch of foaming waves ran straight down the middle. Here they unloaded and spent the day laboriously relaying their stores and camp-gear over the boulders and ragged ledges between a wall of rock and the water. It was a remarkably difficult traverse. In places they had to hoist the leader up to some slippery shelf he could not reach unassisted and to which he dragged his companions up in turn; in others deep pools barred their way, and in skirting them they were forced to cling to any indifferent handhold on the rock’s fissured side. As they toiled on, badly hampered by their loads, the same thought was in the minds of two of the men—a wonder as to how Gladwyne’s exhausted party had crossed that portage, unless the water had been lower. It was not difficult to understand how the famishing leader had fallen and lamed himself.
When at last, toward the end of the afternoon, the stores had been deposited on the banks of the pool below, Lisle sat down and filled his pipe.
“It would take us most of two days to portage the canoe, and we might damage her badly in doing so,” he said. “The head of the rapid’s impossible, but with luck we might run her down the rest in about ten minutes. The thing seems worth trying, though I wouldn’t have risked it with the stores on board.”
“Suppose you swamped or upset her?” Nasmyth suggested.
“It’s less likely, since she’d go light, with only two of us paddling.”
Nasmyth considered. The sight of the rapid was not encouraging, but he shrank from the intense effort that would be needed to transport the craft by the way they had come. Eventually it was decided to leave Jake below, ready to swim out with the tracking-line and seize the canoe if any mishap befell, and Lisle and Nasmyth went back to the head of the rapid. They dragged the canoe round the worst rush with infinite difficulty; and then Nasmyth set his lips and braced himself for the mad descent when his companion thrust her off.
A few strokes of the paddle drove them out into the stream, and then their task consisted in holding her straight and swinging her clear of the rocks that showed up through the leaping foam, which was difficult enough. Seen from the water, the prospect was almost appalling, though it was blurred and momentarily changing. Nasmyth’s eyes could hardly grasp salient details—he had only a confused impression of flying spray, rushing green water that piled itself here and there in frothy ridges, flitting rocks, and trees that came furiously speeding up toward him. He had an idea that Lisle once or twice shouted sharp instructions and that he clumsily obeyed, but he could not have told exactly what he did. He only knew that now and then he paddled desperately, but more often he knelt still, gazing fascinated at the mad turmoil in front of him.
At last there was an urgent cry from Lisle and he backed his paddle. The canoe swerved, a foaming wave broke into her, and in another moment Nasmyth was in the water. He was dragged down by the swirling stream, and when he rose he dimly saw the canoe a few yards in front of him. He failed to reach her—she was traveling faster than he was—and, though he could swim well, he grew horribly afraid. It struck him that there was a strong probability of his being driven against a boulder with force enough to break his bones or of being drawn down and battered against the stony bottom. Still, he struck out for a line of leaping froth between him and the bank and was nearing it when Lisle grasped his shoulder and thrust him straight down-stream. Scarcely able to see amid the turmoil, confused and bewildered, he nevertheless