"Very different," Thirlwell agreed, and took out a photograph. "You will see that by the picture I promised to bring."
Agatha took the photograph. It showed a broad stretch of sullen water with a strip of forest on the other side. The pines were ragged and stunted and some leaned across each other, while the gloomy sky was smeared by the smoke of a forest-fire. In the foreground, angry waves broke in foaming turmoil among half-covered rocks. No soft beauty marked the river of the North, and the land it flowed through looked forbidding and desolate.
"The Shadow River," said Thirlwell. "You can see the Grand Rapid. I have marked a cross where the canoe upset."
Agatha said nothing for a few moments, and Thirlwell was relieved. He saw she felt keenly, but she was calm. In the meantime he waited; one learns to wait in the North.
"Thank you; I would like to keep the picture," she said by and by, and gave him a level glance. "I suppose you knew my father well?"
"I knew him in a way," Thirlwell answered cautiously, because he did not want to talk about Strange"s habits. Perhaps the girl knew her father"s weakness, and if not, it was better that she should think well of him.
Yet Thirlwell imagined she understood something of his reserve.
"Ah!" she said, "you knew him in the bush, but not when he lived at home with us. I should like to tell you his story."
"Not if it is painful."
"It is painful, but I would sooner you heard it," she replied. "For one thing, you have been kind--" She paused, and when she resumed there was a faint sparkle in her eyes. "I want you to understand my father. He was my hero."
Thirlwell made a vague gesture. He had seen Strange, half drunk, reeling along the trail to the mine, but this did not lessen his sympathy for the girl. He hoped she had taken his sign to imply that he was willing to listen.
"To begin with, do you believe in the silver lode?" she asked.
"One disbelieves in nothing up yonder," Thirlwell tactfully replied.
"It"s a country of surprises; you don"t know what you may find.
Besides, there is some silver--I"m now sinking a shaft--"
Agatha smiled and he saw she had the gift of humor. The smile softened her firm lips and lighted her eyes.
"I imagine you are cautious. In fact, you are rather like the picture I made of you after reading your letters."
Thirlwell felt embarra.s.sed and said nothing, as was his prudent rule when his thoughts were not clear.
"My father found the ore many years since, when he was employed by the Hudson"s Bay Company," she resumed. "The factory was in the Territories, three or four hundred miles north of your mine, and the agent sent him out, with a dog-train and two Indians, to collect some furs. They had to make a long journey, and were coming back, short of food, when they camped one evening beside a frozen creek. The water had worn away the face of a small cliff, and the frost had recently split off a large slab. That left the strata cleanly exposed, and my father noticed that near the foot of the rock there was a different-colored band. They were making camp in the snow then, but he went back afterwards when the moon rose and the Indians were asleep, and broke off a number of bits. The stones were unusually heavy. Doesn"t that mean something?"
"Silver has a high specific gravity; so has lead. Sometimes one finds them combined."
"I have a piece here," said Agatha, taking out a small packet. "My father gave it me when I was a child, and I brought it, thinking I might, perhaps, show it to you."
Thirlwell, examining the specimen, missed something of her meaning, and did not see that her decision to show him the ore was a compliment. He looked honest, and strangers often trusted him. His friends had never known him abuse their confidence.
"Yes," he said at length. "I think it"s silver. Traces of lead, and perhaps copper, too; you seldom find silver pure. But won"t you go on with the tale?"
"The party"s food was getting short. That meant they would starve if they did not reach the factory soon, and they set off again at dawn.
There was no time to prospect and deep snow covered the ground, but my father made what he called a mental photograph of the spot. It was a little hollow among the rocks, with a willow grove by the creek, and in the middle there were two or three burned pines. If you drew a line through them it pointed nearly north, and where it touched the cliff you turned east about twenty yards."
"Aren"t you rash to tell me this?" Thirlwell asked.
Agatha smiled. "On the whole, I think not; but nothing I could tell would be of much use to you. My father, although he had been there, could not find the spot again."
She paused a moment and then went on: "When they reached the factory he showed the specimens to the agent, who said they were worthless and laughed at him. But it was perhaps significant that he was not sent that way again. One understands that the Hudson"s Bay directors were jealous of their game preserves."
"Furs paid better than silver," Thirlwell agreed. "They didn"t want miners with dynamite and noisy machines to invade the solitudes and frighten the wild animals away."
"My father, going south on a holiday, met my mother and gave up his post when they were married. She had a little money, enough to open a small store, and for her sake he started business in a new wooden town. He did not like the towns, and I know when I got older that he often longed for the wild North, but although the place grew and the business prospered, he could not spare the time and money to look for the lode. He wanted to give my brother a good education and start him well, and after a time I was sent to a university."
"That explains something," Thirlwell remarked, and then pulling himself up, added: "If you take proper appliances, a prospecting expedition costs much. But did your father often talk about the lode?"
"No; not unless it was to me."
"But why did he tell you and not your brother?"
"George was very practical; I was romantic and my father something of a dreamer. We lived happily at home, but I felt that he needed sympathy that he did not get. I think now my mother knew he longed for the North, and was afraid the longing might grow too strong and draw him back. When he did speak of the silver she smiled. I suppose when you have known the wilderness its charm is strong?"
She stopped and her face was gravely thoughtful as she looked across the shining water towards the faint blur of a pine forest on a distant point, and Thirlwell felt as if they had been suddenly united by a bond of understanding.
"Yes," he said. "It"s a stern country and one has much to bear; but it calls. One fears the hardships, cold, and danger--but one goes."
Agatha looked up quietly, but he noted the gleam in her eyes.
"You _know_! Well, you can imagine what it cost my father to resist the call, but he did resist for many years. He loved my mother, but I think he hated the growing town; then there was the dream of riches that might be his. He was not greedy, and my brother did not need money. George had a talent for business and his employers soon promoted him; but I was fond of science, and it was my father"s ambition that I should make independent researches and not be forced to work for pay."
She hesitated, and then went on: "Perhaps I am boring you, but I wanted you to understand what his duty must have cost. You see, you only knew him in the bush, and after he went back I noted a difference in his letters. They were sometimes strange; he seemed to be hiding things. I think he felt the disappointment keenly and lost heart."
Thirlwell saw she suspected something, and replied: "Disappointment is often numbing; but your father never lost his faith in the lode."
"Nor have I lost mine," said Agatha. "But we will not talk about that yet. He brought us up and started us well; then my mother died, and n.o.body had any further claim on him. His duty was done, and though he was getting old, he went back to the North. Well, I have told you part of his story, and you know the rest."
"It is a moving tale," said Thirlwell, with quiet sympathy.
He thought she felt it was necessary to defend her father, and she had done so. Indeed, he admitted that one must respect the man who had, with uncomplaining patience, for years carried on his disliked task for his wife and children"s sake. Longing for the woods and the silent trail, Strange must have found it irksome to count dollar bills and weigh groceries in the store; but he had done his duty, and borne hardship and failure when at last freedom came. Still the girl must not know what he had become.
Agatha asked him a number of questions and then got up. "Thank you," she said. "I will take the photograph and would like you to keep the specimen of ore."
"I will keep it; but I wonder why you wish to give it me?"
She smiled. "I believe in the lode and would like you to believe in it, too. You are a mining engineer and can find out if there is much silver in the stone."
Then she crossed the lawn to the hotel veranda and left Thirlwell thoughtful.
CHAPTER III
AGATHA MAKES A PROMISE
Next morning Thirlwell wrote to his employers, stating that he meant to take another week"s holiday, and smiled as he reflected that the letter would arrive too late for them to refuse. The hotel was comfortable, he had met one or two interesting people, and was told the fishing was good; besides, he thought he would not be badly needed at the mine just then. For all that, he was not quite persuaded that these were sufficient reasons for neglecting his work, and when he went through the hall with the letter in his hand he put it into his pocket instead of the box. He would think over the matter again before the mail went out.