Andrew smoked his pipe out before he answered.
"I"ll consider it when I"ve a little more to go on. It strikes me that I"m learning things. And now I think I"ll get to sleep; my head"s aching."
He lay down on a bed of spruce twigs and soon sank into restful slumber, but Carnally sat a while in the tent door, watching the dark river roll by. Allinson evidently meant to make him his confidential adviser, and he felt his responsibility.
CHAPTER VI
DREAM MINE
The next morning the party broke camp, and after toiling hard with pole and paddle reached, toward evening, a forest-shrouded gorge through which the flood swept furiously. A quarter of a mile ahead steep rocks pent in the raging water, which was veiled in spray; but nearer at hand the stream widened into a pool at which Andrew gazed with misgivings. Evidently Carnally meant to cross it. A wall of crag formed one bank; the opposite beach was strewn with ma.s.sy boulders, over which the pine branches stretched; and in between there ran a great wedge-shaped track of foam. No canoe, Andrew thought, could live through that tumult of broken water; but it ran more slackly near the boulder bank, and a short distance higher up an angry eddy swung back, close insh.o.r.e, to the head of the pool, where it joined the main downward rush. At the junction a spur of rock ran out into the wild side-swirl of the flood. Shut in as it was by dripping pines, the place had a forbidding look.
"It strikes me that the Company will find carrying up its stores and plant very costly work," Andrew remarked, as they rested in an eddy behind a stone. "I"m beginning to understand why Leonard asked for so much capital. My idea is that we"ll have to do some preliminary reducing on the spot to save mineral transport."
Carnally nodded. For a novice in such matters, Allinson was showing an unusual grasp of details.
"It"s a question of the quality of the ore. In the North you must have a high-grade product that can be handled at a profit in small quant.i.ties. It doesn"t pay to work rock that carries a low percentage of metal."
"What grade of stuff are we turning out? I"ve been unable to learn anything about it since I saw the results of the first a.s.says."
"So far, the Company has not got up much ore: the boys have been kept busy at development work. But you"ll be able to judge for yourself shortly, and we had better get on. There"s a slack along the edge of the spur at the head of the pool which we ought to make, and it will save us some trouble in portaging. I"ll land you if you"d rather, but I want a hand, and Lucien must give us a lift by tracking."
"If you can take the canoe up, I"ll go with you," said Andrew quietly.
They headed for the boulder beach, where they landed the half-breed.
He made a line fast to the craft and went up-stream with the end of it, while Carnally thrust the canoe out and, with Andrew"s help, forced her up against the current, aided by the line. It was arduous work. The foam stood high about the bows; eddies swirling up from the rough bottom swung them to and fro and, although they strained every muscle, now and then brought them to a standstill. Angry waves broke on board freely, and Andrew realized that if Lucien lost his footing or slackened his efforts the line would be torn from him and they would be swept back to the tail of the pool. This, however, would be better than being sucked into the cataract close outsh.o.r.e, which would no doubt result in the canoe"s capsizing. At last they reached a spot where they must stem the main rush, which swung in nearer the bank.
"Can we get through there?" Andrew asked breathlessly.
"I"ll try," said Carnally. "If we fail, I guess you"ll have to swim."
Andrew said nothing, but the swollen veins rose on his forehead as he strained upon his pole. Frothing water broke into the canoe; Lucien was knee-deep in the foam, braced tensely against the drag of the line. Spray lashed their hot faces, and the air was filled with the roar of the torrent. For nearly a minute they hung stationary, their strength taxed to the utmost, the pole-shoes gripping the bottom. Then they moved a foot or two, and the work was a little easier when they next dipped the poles. They made a few yards. With a cry to the half-breed, Carnally loosed the line, and they shot forward up-stream with a back-eddy. It swirled about them in curious green upheavals, streaked with lines of foam, and they sped with it past boulder and shingle at a furious pace. This was exhilarating; but when steep rocks dropped to the water Andrew glanced anxiously toward the white confusion where the eddy reunited with the downward stream. Its descent was not to be thought of, but he could see no alternative except being dashed against the crag.
Carnally, however, did not seem disturbed. He knelt in the stern, his eyes fixed ahead, quietly dipping the steering paddle, for they had laid down the poles.
"Use all your strength when I give the word," he said.
They slid on, a tall, projecting spur of rock drawing nearer, with furious waves leaping down-stream a yard or two outsh.o.r.e of it. It seemed to Andrew that destruction surely awaited them. The turmoil grew closer, the rock was only a yard or two away; in another few moments the bow of the canoe would plunge into the tumbling foam. Then came a cry from Carnally:
"Now, with your right! Shoot her in!"
Andrew felt the stout paddle bend and afterward thought he had never made a stronger effort. The bow swung insh.o.r.e, the rock unexpectedly fell back, and as they drove past its end a narrow basin opened up.
The next moment they had entered it and, gliding forward, grounded on a gravelly bank. A man scrambled down a ledge and helped them to drag out the canoe.
"I"ve been watching you; didn"t think you would make it," he said.
"The stream"s stronger than usual. Come along to my camp; I"ll put you up to-night."
"Thanks," responded Carnally. "This is Mr. Allinson, of the Rain Bluff Mine." He turned to Andrew. "Mr. Graham, from the Landing."
Andrew saw that the man was studying him with quiet interest. Graham was elderly; his hair was gray, and his face and general appearance indicated that he led a comfortable, domestic life. Andrew supposed he was in business, but when they reached his camp he recognized that it had been laid out by a man with some knowledge of the wilds.
Graham gave them a supper of gray trout and bannocks and they afterward sat talking while the half-breed went fishing. The rain had ceased, though the mist still drifted heavily down the gorge, and the aromatic smell of wood-smoke mingled with the scent of the pines.
Somewhere in the shadows a loon was calling, its wild cry piercing through the roar of water.
"A rugged and beautiful country," Graham remarked. "Is this your first visit to it, Mr. Allinson?"
"No," Andrew replied. "I was once some distance north, looking for caribou. I"m glad of an opportunity for seeing it again. It gets hold of one."
"So you know that; you have felt the pull of the lonely North! Curious how it draws some of us, isn"t it?"
"Have you been up there?"
"Oh, yes; as a young man I served the Hudson Bay. I"ve been through most of the barrens between Churchill and the Mackenzie. Perhaps that"s the grimmest, hardest country white men ever entered; but it"s one you can"t forget."
"It"s undoubtedly hard," said Andrew. "We scarcely reached the fringe of it, but I was dressed in rags and worn very thin when we struck Lake Manitoba. I suppose you live at the Landing now?"
"I"ve been there twenty years; built my house myself when there was only a shack or two and a Hudson Bay store. The railroad has changed all that."
"Mr. Graham is treasurer for the sawmill," Carnally explained.
"Didn"t you find it tamer than serving the fur company?" Andrew asked.
A curious smile crept into Graham"s eyes.
"One can"t have everything, Mr. Allinson. I"ve been content, a willing slave of the desk, only seeing the wilds for a week or two in summer.
But I"ve thought I might make another trip before I get too old."
"I think I understand," Andrew replied; "if I"ve a chance, I"m going before I return home. There"s so much up yonder that impresses me--the caribou, the timber wolves, the lake storms, and the break up of the rivers in the spring. What a tremendous spectacle the last must be!--six-foot ice, piled up in wild confusion, thundering down the valleys. I"ve only followed the track of it in summer, but I"ve seen the wreckage of rubbed-out b.u.t.tes and islands, and boulders smashed to rubble."
"It is grand," said Graham quietly.
"I wonder if you"d mind telling Mr. Allinson about the silver lode you found?" Carnally suggested. "I guess he"d be interested."
Graham needed some persuasion before he began his tale.
"It happened a long time ago and I seldom mention it now; in fact, I"ll confess that the lode is looked upon as a harmless illusion of mine. My friends call it my Dream Mine. When I was a young man I was stationed at a Hudson Bay factory about four hundred miles north of here and was despatched with two half-breeds and a canoe to carry stores to a band of Indians. No doubt you know that the great Company held sovereign authority over the North for a very long time and the Indians depended on it for their maintenance. Well, we set off with the canoe, paddling and portaging up rivers and across the height of land, toward the south."
"Then you were working across country toward the headwaters of this river," Andrew remarked.
"We didn"t get so far, but I did my errand, and one day when crossing a divide we nooned beside a little creek. As I filled the kettle I noticed something peculiar about the pebbles and picked up a few. They were unusually heavy and dully l.u.s.trous, which made me curious.
Following the creek back, I found a vein of the same material among the rocks. I filled a small bag with specimens and took the bearings of the spot, though we had to get on without loss of time because the rivers would soon be freezing up. On reaching the fort I showed the agent the specimens. I can remember his look of disgust. He was a grim old Scot.
"Just pebbles; I"m no saying but they might be pretty," he remarked, and opening the door threw them out. "Ye"ll think nae mair o" them.
The Company"s no collecting precious stones, and ye should ken a souter"s expected to stick till his last.""
"I wonder," said Andrew, "which of you hailed from the Border."