The Broken Trail E-Book

Harold Bindloss

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Construction master Cassidy was popular with the people around him. Although he was a strict employer, everyone was pleased with his work. He did a lot of difficult railway work in western Canada. But how will his character affect his reputation and performance?

Leseprobe

Contents

I. Shadow Lake

II. Harden Goes Fishing

III. Walthew's Responsibility

IV. Friendship's Call

V. Anne Harden

VI. Moonlight and Shadow

VII. The Signal

VIII. Emerson Takes a Plunge

IX. The Strange Path

X. Emerson Drives On

XI. Harden's Double

XII. Emerson Takes Cover

XIII. Solway Sands

XIV. Anne's Inspiration

XV. Rebel Youth

XVI. The Search Party

XVII. Garnet Moves On

XVIII. Anne Takes Control

XIX. Garnet Tries Persuasion

XX. Harden Capitulates

XXI. Harden Looks in Front

XXII. Keith Comes Home

XXIII. Contact

XXIV. The Watershed

XXV. The Valley Road

XXVI. Whitrigg Flow

XXVII. Keith Gets Busy

XXVIII. Cherry Garth

XXIX. Garnet Delivers the Bonds

XXX. Garnet Shuts the Gate

XXXI. A True Bill

XXXII. Keith Plays Out His Part

XXXIII. Homeward Bound

I

SHADOW LAKE

A puff of wind touched the dark pines and the branches gently shook. Blue ripples trailed across the water; and then all was quiet and the lake shone like glass. Where the trees rolled down the bank the broken reflections joined, and one saw, as in a mirror, straight trunks, rigid branches, and worn, round-backed rocks. For long only the Indians and Metis trappers knew Shadow Lake, but since the railroad pierced the woods, tourists and fishing-parties paddled up its lonely reaches and pitched their camp in the Ontario wilds.

The sun was low, supper was over, and a noisy group occupied the flat in front of the big double tent. For the most part they were young, but two or three whose youth was past had left their stores and offices at the little town near the lake’s end to share the campers’ holiday. Three or four young men and women were from Winnipeg offices, but where they were not relations all were friends. In summer the quiet woods called, and by Shadow Lake the tangled pines rolled across the rocks as they had done from the beginning.

A little apart from the noisy group, two young men, lying in the warm gravel, smoked and talked with languid satisfaction. Keith Harden was soon to be married, and in a few days Garnet Emerson would start for the Old Country on the first holiday he had taken since he was a boy. Their friendship had begun some time since in the far Northwest. Harden now was agent for an important Montreal bank; Emerson was a contractor, and had prospered when the wooden settlement at Miscana Forks grew to a small town.

“I wrote my folks that you would look them up, and they hope you’ll stop for some time,” Harden remarked. “I believe you don’t know the Old Country?”

Emerson smiled. He was tall and thin, and although he carried himself like a soldier, his poise and the firmness of his shoulders indicated that he had used the ax. His skin was brown and his laugh was frank, but he was not a boy. When he was quiet, one remarked his steady thoughtful look and the lines on his face. Garnet Emerson had known hardship and adventure.

“For all our independence and commercialism, we’re a sentimental lot, and England’s yet the Old Country. My father was an American and my mother emigrated when she was a girl. She married in Dakota, and is long since dead. All the same, now I can take a holiday, I feel I’m going back.”

“It is queer,” Harden agreed. “Although we are frankly North American, and Washington, D.C., is rather our model than Westminster, Britain’s home. Well, it’s not important, and I have some grounds tobe satisfied where I am–But do you remember your people?”

“The picture’s indistinct. I think the old man was a typical pioneer: quiet, pretty grim, and, in a sense, indomitable. Anyhow, I seem to remember his laboring fourteen hours a day on the barren preëmpted farm. Sometimes I see my mother: a thin, tired woman, but gentler than our roughneck neighbors’ wives. Well, I think the hard job and the bad years broke them, and when they were gone their creditors seized the farm. A queer old fellow from St. Louis, a bit of a crank and something of a scholar, took me to his home. His farming was not high grade, but he gave me books I would not have got at a settlement school–However, since I’m going to stop with them, I want to know about your folks.”

Harden thoughtfully filled his pipe. A phrase of Garnet’s stuck–his mother was gentler than her neighbors. Perhaps it accounted for something; perhaps the St. Louis crank, who was also a scholar, had influenced the boy. Anyhow, Garnet Emerson was not the rude plainsman type. Although he had known poverty, one remarked a touch of cultivation and a sort of fastidiousness. His driving force and shrewdness was perhaps his father’s legacy; Garnet’s inheritance, so to speak, was mixed. It persuaded Harden to a frankness he had not altogether thought to use.

“Oh, well,” he said, “until the sun is lower, there’s not much use in fishing, and I don’t want to leave camp before the launch arrives. Besides, now I’m soon to bemarried, I sometimes look back and try to recapture my boyhood and picture the relations I haven’t seen for long. At all events, I’ll risk your getting bored–

“My folks are Borderers, and Copshope’s in the bleak hills where Scotland and England join. In a way, perhaps, it’s important, because the Scottish Borderer inherits two rather conflicting veins. His ancestors were swashbuckling cattle-thieves; and grim Covenanters, not unlike the New England Puritans about whom Hawthorne wrote. Afterwards they were hard-drinking, reckless sportsmen and poachers; and sober, parsimonious supporters of the Presbyterian kirk. You see, the jarring veins survive, and sometimes the Borderer doesn’t know for which type he stands. My mother was sternly religious and she declared the old warning stood: The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are on edge.

“Copshope is old, but the Hardens are not properly lairds; the house is small and the estate is but a strip of barren moor. We were merchants, stockbrokers, and so forth. All the same, we held Copshope for longer than we know; when a Harden prospered he went home. As a rule, the bogs absorbed his fortune and his son or nephew returned to the exchange. For the most part, our interest and speculations were Canadian; one or two of us were officers of the Hudson’s Bay Company.”

“Until Riel’s rebellion, the Hudson’s Bay ruled the Northwest and their chiefs were Scots,” Emerson remarked. “But go on. I’m not at all bored."

“My father was a Glasgow merchant,” Harden resumed. “When my grandfather died he was able to take Copshope, but I don’t think he’s rich. I never knew him rash or extravagant; he’s just and kind, and as a rule marked by traditional Scottish calm. In fact, he’s a pretty good example of the old-fashioned kirk elder–”

He stopped to get a light and smiled when he went on: “All the same, I doubt if the old man was always like that; his brothers certainly are not, and I’ve known his eyes sparkle at their jokes about some youthful exploit. In fact, sometimes one vaguely senses the old moss-trooper vein. Anyhow, you’ll like him. For my sake, he’ll give you a Borderer’s welcome, and he’ll urge you to stop, for your own sake.

“Perhaps the portrait’s not very accurate, for I was not at Copshope much. As soon as I was old enough, they sent me to Loretto–a Scottish public school–and then I went to Montreal. I rather think my stepmother could account for it, but I was willing, and our Canadian interest got me a post at the bank.”

“I had hoped your mother would be my host,” Emerson remarked. “For one thing, I haven’t yet met a lady of Mrs. Harden’s sort. But what is she like?”

Harden’s look got reflective; Emerson thought he frowned.

“To draw my stepmother is hard. On the whole, she was kind, and when Anne and I were boy and girl she indulged us. I hardly knew my mother, and for a time I was Madam’s champion. You see, my father soonremarried; I think when Anne was but twelve months old.”

“Then Anne is your own sister? Mr. Harden maybe felt that to bring up a girl was a woman’s job.”

“His sister was keen to take us both,” Harden replied, and Emerson saw his frown was distinct. Keith perhaps had felt the old man was, in a sense, not loyal to his first wife.

“We’ll let it go,” Harden resumed. “The second Mrs. Harden has some useful qualities, and Copshope has prospered by her firm rule. In fact, I admit she’s all a good Scottish housewife ought to be. She’s a loyal supporter of the established church; her friends are sober, locally-important folk. You feel she’d have nothing to do with the other sort. Although Mrs. Harden likes to be the laird’s lady, she uses the proper rules. I’m not ironical.”

“It looks as if you tried to be just,” Emerson rejoined.

“Oh, well,” said Harden, “I feel Mrs. Harden is not altogether my mother’s type, and sometimes when I was back for holidays, I sensed a sort of antagonism; jealousy is perhaps the proper word. Yet I could not bother her, and she was kind to Anne, whom she had perhaps some ground to think an obstacle, because the old man is not at all the sort to indulge his fresh wife at his daughter’s expense. Anyhow, it’s done with, and when my house is fixed Anne is coming out to stay with me.”

He put up his pipe, and by and by a strange wild calllike mocking laughter pierced the creeping shadow. Emerson turned his head and saw a ripple trail behind a small dark object in a quiet bay. For a moment or two the ripple stopped; and then a splash broke the surface and the bird was gone.

“A loon!” said Harden. “Something scared the bird. I thought a branch shook by the point.”

“I did not. Besides, if a branch did shake, I doubt if you could see.”

“It’s queer, but when I was at Pierced Rock in the morning I thought somebody lurked about in the underbrush. In fact, I crept round through the trees, but saw no marks. Then, two days since, I found a pretty good new pipe on the rocks behind our tent. None of our friends claim the pipe.”

Emerson thought it strange. Keith was not the man to imagine somebody had stolen after him when he went fishing. Anyhow, he had not imagined he found the pipe. But there was no use in bothering about it, and another party was camped by the lake.

“If somebody meant to rob you, he’d watch out for you in town,” he said. “A bank manager does not carry his keys and wallet about the woods.”

“That is so,” Harden agreed. “Besides, now I’ve built my house, I’m nearly broke. Well, the sun will soon be off the water and the trout ought to feed, but I mustn’t start until the launch arrives. You see, unless Walthew is satisfied he can carry on, I must pull out in the morning. We expect to put across a big transaction for the Brockenhurst Company."

Walthew was his cashier, and the Brockenhurst Company was the main support of the little town. Their wood-working mills down the river were large, but they were planning to build a new factory, and Emerson, to some extent by Harden’s help, had secured a valuable contract.

“There’s the launch!” he said.

An engine throbbed behind the trees and a boat swung round a point. Foam curled about her bows, and where, but a few years since, only the half-breeds’ paddles disturbed the shadows, her propeller churned a long white wake. She stopped near the camp, and the party by the tent climbed across the rocks.

“A box of groceries, and a letter for Mr. Harden; that’s all tonight,” said a young fellow on board, and started his engine.

Harden tore the envelope. “All’s right and I have got two more days. Looks as if Walthew is glad for me to stay. The boy’s ambitious, and when I am not about he likes to take control. Anyhow, I’m off up the lake. The trout are rising and I haven’t yet got a good fish.”

“Won’t you wait and try at sun-up, Keith?” said a girl. “Bob is going to play the banjo and we want you to sing.”

Harden hesitated. He was going to marry Margaret Forbes, but he was a fisherman and his luck had not been good.

“I’ll be back in an hour, and we don’t start ourconcerts until it’s dark. So far, Bob and Jake have got the laugh on me, but I mean to beat them both.”

“Then you have got some job!” said a young man. “Where are you going?”

Harden laughed. “I’m sure an angler, Tom. When I’m not broke, my wallet is my friend’s, and if he wants my canoe, it’s his; but I will not put him wise where the big trout feed. Your job’s to help me pack the fish up the beach, and I’ll soon be back with a load.”

He pushed a canoe into the water and with a long, easy stroke drove her across the lake. For a few minutes his braced figure and the swift canoe cut the sunset, and then they melted in the shadows by the rocks. Harden was singing a song of the old French voyageurs, and when the words and the paddle’s measured splash died away Emerson and Miss Forbes sat down among the stones. Emerson acknowledged Margaret Forbes’ charm. He liked her modern frankness and touch of humor, and he knew she was not a fool.

“Keith is as keen as a boy for fishing, and Walthew’s note has made him happy,” she remarked.

“Perhaps it’s not strange,” said Emerson: “He gets two more days in camp, but I expect the chance to go fishing does not account for all.”

Margaret gave him a smile, but the smile vanished and she knitted her brows.

“I like him to be happy. At the bank he’s sternly sober and stays with his job. For all that, I’d sooner he hadn’t gone."

Emerson said nothing. Miss Forbes was not the sort to be jealous of her lover’s amusements, and after a few moments she looked up with a twinkle.

“I believe I’m a good Presbyterian and in some respects I am up to date; but, after all, my name is Forbes and the Highlanders are a superstitious lot. Keith’s boyish joyousness is not usual. In Scotland they might think him fey.”

“My history is not first-class; but I imagine the old-time Presbyterians believed in witchcraft and burned the witches,” Emerson remarked. “Anyhow, you are a modern Canadian and have nothing to do with spooks and spells.”

“I wonder–” said Margaret. “My grandfather was a Highland man. When the Red River half-breeds rebelled he joined Wolseley’s force and died on the westward march. Before the lists were sent back, my grandmother knew. However, the fey superstition is not altogether Scotch; it was known long since in Greece and Rome.”

“For example?” said Emerson. “I’m a roughneck plainsman and I don’t know the word.”

Margaret gave him a quiet glance. He certainly was not a roughneck, and although he was the plainsman type–hard, brown-skinned, and athletic–his Western accent was not marked. Moreover, he had qualities she approved, and her lover trusted him.

“Oh, well,” she said, “I expect it implies a sort of instinctive feeling that man’s part is to sweat and labor, and for him to be extravagantly happy is achallenge to the unseen powers. The old gods are jealous, and when all looks as if it went well they strike. However, one mustn’t be ridiculous and we have a nobler philosophy.”

“Man yet must sweat?” said Emerson. “Sometimes he must fight–”

A banjo began to tinkle, somebody got a light, and the big tent glimmered like a Chinese lantern in the trees. The shadows had crept across the lake and the rocky islands got indistinct. Emerson rolled a cigarette and mused.

He had fought for all he got, but now things went well for him, and Harden was going to marry the finest girl Garnet knew. At an important bank one did not progress fast, but Keith had built up a large business for the company in the wooden town. His pay had gone up, and he reckoned by and by to get a good post at Montreal. Emerson himself had taken a profitable contract for the Brockenhurst factory.

Then Miss Forbes turned to him.

“Sometimes one meets Pearls and Rubies, but Garnet is perhaps not a common name.”

Emerson laughed. “I don’t claim to sparkle much and am not in the jewel class. The fact is, I was called for a settlement where your grandfather’s commander once pitched his camp. You see, had not Colonel Garnet Wolseley hustled West, Manitoba might now be a half-breeds’ republic.”

“It might have been Red River state,” said Margaret. “I think you first met Keith in the Northwest?"

“In the Alberta foothills. He had taken a mountaineering holiday late in the fall. I was on a R.N.W.P. patrol.”

“Then you were a Royal Northwest trooper?”

“A mounted police constable,” Emerson agreed, smiling. “When I hit Keith’s camp, however, I was on foot, and I and Cartwright hauled an empty sled. The snow had come soon and Keith had fallen down a rock. His guide had gone a hundred miles for help.”

“Ah,” said Margaret, “I knew he hurt his leg in the mountains and he will always carry the mark. But go on, please. You saw him to the settlements?”

“The trip was a sort of mutual accommodation,” Emerson replied. “Keith could not use his leg; Cartwright and I had nothing to eat. To shove through the foothills timber was awkward, but at length we made a ranch.”

Margaret noted his modesty: Keith had talked about the march through the snowy tangled woods, but she supposed she had forgotten the leader’s name.

“You left the police. What did you do afterwards?”

“When we broke a raw cayuse I took a nasty kick, and when I got out of the hospital the doctor reckoned I might ask for my discharge. Well, I thought I’d had enough, and I was ambitious. I quit, and graded a road to a little mine; then I took a contract to cut telephone poles, and so forth. Sometimes I was nearly broke, and sometimes I owned four or five hundred dollars. Then Keith was sent to Miscana and wroteme that the town might boom. I put up my shingle and he helped me make good.”

“But Keith does not give contracts. He could not help you much.”

Emerson smiled. “My capital was a thousand dollars, and a bank manager is a useful friend. When I got jobs I couldn’t finance, he saw me out, and I reckon he took chances the Montreal directors would not approve. Keith Harden is a first-class pal.”

Margaret agreed. She knew his remark sincere, but she said: “Now you feel justified to take an expensive holiday?”

“That is so,” Emerson replied modestly. “Until I start on the Brockenhurst job not much is doing, and my new partner is an engineering college kid. He reckons he can hold the fort, and when he joined me his father put up a useful sum. Anyhow, I’m going to England and I expect to have a bully time.”

A loon called across the dark lake, and somehow the high, hoarse note was disturbing. It sounded as if somebody laughed. Margaret shivered and got up.

“Perhaps your luck was good, but I expect one’s luck depends upon one’s temperament.”

“Keith’s luck was better,” Emerson remarked.

“You play up and you’re really rather nice,” said Margaret. “Well, one mustn’t be superstitious, but I wish he was back.”

II

HARDEN GOES FISHING

The tents by the beach got indistinct, the trembling reflections lost their sharpness, and Harden’s paddle slowed. The water was smooth as glass, and an easy stroke sent the light canoe along. Now he thought about it, he was persuaded a branch by the point did shake, and when he was fishing at Pierced Rock somebody lurked about the spot. It looked as if his movements interested the fellow, but Harden could not account for his curiosity. He was not remarkably important, and to see the stranger’s object for following him was hard.

Harden resolved he would not bother about it, and he mused happily about his approaching marriage. Margaret was altogether the proper wife for him. She was kind and stanch; leal was the good Scottish word. He loved her quiet humor and her thoughtful calm. Then he knew her pluck; if forced, she would front trouble nobly, and he knew she loved him, although she was not a sentimentalist. Well, he himself was a sober Scot and had not much use for hectic romance. In some of his relations the reckless vein a Borderer now and then inherited was rather marked, but Keithimagined he, so to speak, was his staid Presbyterian mother’s son.

Margaret, however, had ordered him not to stay long, and since he wanted to catch a big trout, he resumed his paddling. Across the quiet reach, a river the lake fed plunged down a valley, and when the swift current hurried the canoe along Harden glanced ahead. The light was going, and vague, crossed branches and dim, straight trunks bordered the high bank. In the background, white foam glimmered and angry water throbbed. Keith knew he must not go down the rapid. When the water was low, rocks broke the channel and savage whirlpools revolved.

The stream went faster, and when Harden saw the head of a rocky island he backed his paddle and got his breath. He dared not take the west fork, down which the greater part of the water plunged, and the other was awkward, but he was a good river man, and when he was level with the first pines on the island he let the canoe go. She leaped ahead like a toboggan; rocks and trees sped by; and then a swift stroke carried her to an eddy running back the other way. Harden had marked the landing, and a few more strokes drove her bow on to a gravel bank. Keith thought he had made it neatly, but the exploit was not really hard. If one studied the slacks, and hit the backwash at the proper spot, one might, perhaps, swim across. The light, however, was nearly gone, and seizing his rod he pushed through the brushwood under the trees.

On the other side of the island, the current wasdeflected by a ledge, and, swinging across, revolved about a dark, foam-streaked pool. Where the ripples marked the edge of deep water one ought to find a good trout, and Harden got to work. For some time, however, the large, light-colored fly floated undisturbed across the slack, and Keith frowned and lighted his pipe. The mosquitoes had got busy, and where the pests were numerous one could not concentrate. He thought he knew where the trout were, but one must steer the fly, as if the current carried it, to the proper spot. Nothing but the ripples broke the surface and he turned his head.

Small slanted pines grew in the rocks, and one, broken by a storm, was in the water. He could see for a few yards across the island; and then the dark, tangled branches cut his view. In the gloom downstream, where the forking channels reunited, the main rapid crashed on the ledges; and one heard mosquitoes–

The rod jerked. Things happened like that; when one watched one’s line the trout did not rise. Then Harden thrilled. The trout was not gone, and he knew it was large. The reel clicked, and, holding down the rod’s butt, he let the fish run. Until it was beaten, he could not use the net, and to get down to the water was awkward.

The tense line sped across the pool; and then Harden began to wind. The trout was turning and the trace must not get slack. He ought to pull the fish downstream, but he could not scramble along the precipitous bank, and not far off the broken pine was in the water.He must not risk an entanglement. After all, he might use the net; the trout was going upstream and would soon be at his feet. For a moment he looked about. A branch dropped to the pool, and a crack in the smooth slabs would support his foot. If he used some caution, he might reach a mossy shelf–

The rod quivered and he knew the line had stopped. It was under the broken tree, and it all at once went slack. The jar had cut the trace, and the trout was gone. Harden swore, and then, reeling up the line, savagely rubbed his face and neck. Had the blamed mosquitoes left him alone, he might not have lost the trout! Now there was no use in fishing. Dark had fallen, and when the venomous insects swarmed about one’s head one could not steer the line. Besides, he had stayed longer than he ought and Margaret waited for him at the camp.

Keith put up his rod, crossed the island, and when he stopped at the other side clenched his fist. The landing was two or three yards below him; he knew where he had climbed the rocks, but the canoe was not about. Moreover, there was no use in his searching the bank: when she floated off the gravel the eddy had swept her into the main stream and she had gone down the rapid. Harden experimented with a dead branch he broke. Where the branch went the canoe had gone; his supposition was accurate.

Sitting on the stones, he reloaded his pipe. To smoke might drive off the mosquitoes and help him see a plan. It certainly was awkward! If Margaret werenot disturbed, she had, at all events, some grounds to be annoyed, and the others did not know where he had meant to fish. There was the trouble, since the lake was large and the woods along its shore were thick. In fact, Harden wondered whether he ought not to swim across.

Keith’s nerve was good, but his habit was to weigh things, and he pondered. In order to get across, one must watch for the slacks and backwash, and use all one’s strength at exactly the proper spot. So long as one could see, the turmoil was perhaps not dangerous; in the dark, however, to plunge into the angry flood might be very rash. There was another thing: when he fell down the rocks in Alberta he hurt his leg. The injury did not bother him much, but when he walked fast his step was slightly uneven, and the muscles would not bear a violent strain.

In the circumstances, Keith resolved to wait for morning. Day broke about three o’clock, and although he must for some distance push through tangled forest and stumble along stony beaches where the driftwood was piled, he ought to reach camp for breakfast. In the meantime, the mosquitoes swarmed about his face, and he must make a smudge fire. To gather dead branches and throw green twigs on the snapping flame was some relief. The pungent smoke drove back the pests, the night was not cold, and Harden on a mossy shelf rested his back comfortably against a trunk. After a time, however, he got restless and put up his pipe.

A flame pierced the smoke, and for a few moments flickering light touched the stiff branches and smooth-topped rocks; then the beam faded and the gloom crept back. But for the river’s turmoil and the snapping fire, all was very quiet. Harden frowned. Margaret certainly would be disturbed; perhaps it was strange, but somehow he felt she wanted him to risk the crossing, and he wanted to go. In fact, to conquer the rash impulse was hard. He was young, and but for his leg, athletic. In some respects, to take the plunge was easier than to wait.

All the same, Keith refused to allow his imagination to carry him away. Moreover, to think Margaret would like him to risk it was ridiculous; her pluck was good, but it was not the pluck that fronts a hazard carelessly. Harden argued like a logical Scot and thought his reasoning sound.

A fresh noise pierced the turmoil, and far off across the woods, he thought he heard a train. The train would make Miscana in half an hour, and had Keith not got Walthew’s note, he might have stopped her at the flag station down the lake. He began to wonder whether he ought to have taken the two extra days. Walthew was young, and the Brockenhurst Company was the bank’s chief customer. The new factory would cost a large sum, and the treasurer had engaged to send across some valuable stock certificates, on which the bank would negotiate a loan. The documents must go to Montreal, and when they arrived Harden would sooner be at the office. All the same, it was notimportant; the bank’s safe was good and Walthew would express the packet by the first train.

Harden speculated about the canoe. He had thought he pulled her bow up the bank, but the sand-flies bothered him and he was keen to start fishing. Perhaps he had not used proper caution, and if the current swung her stern against the stones, the jar might help her slide back into the pool. As a rule, he was not careless, and his slackness puzzled him, but he must have been slack. To imagine somebody had swum the rapid in order to steal an old canoe was absurd. He stretched his legs and rested his back farther down the trunk. His chin sank to his chest, the curling smoke got indistinct, and he was asleep.

When he looked up the smoke was gone and feathery ashes marked the spot the fire had occupied. Day was breaking and the morning was cold. Harden shivered, but he jumped up and pulled off his coat. Since he must follow rough beaches and smash through underbrush, he would need his thick hiking boots. His summer clothes ought not to embarrass him much, and pulling his belt tight, he scrambled down the bank. Now his trying to cross was justified, he did not loiter.

For a few moments the cold cut his breath and the eddy, running upstream, carried him along. It looked as if the dark rocks sped the other way, but Harden fixed his glance in front. Seven or eight yards off, the eddy joined the main current, and a savage turmoil marked the confluence. Keith swam slowly and got his breath.

He was pulled under, as if somebody had seized his legs. When he came up he went downstream horribly fast, and angry white waves broke against his head. He, however, had reckoned on something like that and had marked a big rock in the channel. The rock sped by, and using his fastest stroke, he plunged into a swirling, foaming belt. His weak leg hurt, his side hurt, his head was covered, and he could not breathe or see. Then the confused tumult stopped and he was in the slack behind the rock. With something of an effort, he reached the mass and rested his arms on a shelf. He had covered half the distance and he imagined the other half looked worse than it was.

The channel in front was deep; a long, smooth slide of water, running ominously fast to the spray that leaped about the rapid’s top. All, however, did not reach the daunting spot, for a backwash, marked by revolving eddies, broke the main stream and followed the hollow bank. If one could reach the junction, to land ought not to be difficult; but one must not be carried past.

Keith pushed off and was swept downstream like a cork, although he headed obliquely the other way. Speed was now indicated, and he used all the strength he had; his head for the most part under water and his arms beating the flood. He dared not for a moment ease his stroke in order to look about. When he reached the slack he would know, but if he were carried past, his strongest swimming would not help him much.

A wave flung him sideways. He went down and wasviolently tossed about; and then he was on the surface and going the other way. Two or three yards off, he saw steep, smooth rocks, and he got his breath and swam easily. Not far in front, a broken pine had fallen across the stones, and when the stream swept him by he seized a branch.

Crawling along the trunk, he reached the bank and stopped for a minute or two to rub his leg. The effort he had used had hurt the strained muscles, and when he started for the camp he limped. The stiffness, however, wore off, and when a bright sunbeam pierced the woods his speed was good. On the whole, to cross the rapid was easier than he had thought, but he was glad he had not tried it in the dark. Yet he admitted he came near to going. Now the sun shone and the morning was fresh, he knew the queer romantic impulse was ridiculous. One must be logical, and Harden smiled. The boys would banter him about the trout he did not catch, and after breakfast he must take Bob’s canoe and go back for his coat and fishing-rod.

III

WALTHEW’S RESPONSIBILITY

Supper was over, and Stephen Walthew, bank clerk, smoked a cigarette on the veranda of the Miscana hotel. He occupied a good room on the wooden building’s first floor, but tonight he was going to use Harden’s at the office across the street. He had planned to go fishing when the bank was shut, but he had telephoned his friend, rather importantly, that he was putting across a big deal for a customer and must stay with his job. Walthew reckoned he played a good billiard game, but since he got his post at Miscana he left the cue alone. The pool-room was not the spot for an aspiring bank clerk to haunt. Anyhow, after a scorching day, the evening was cool, and Walthew was satisfied to smoke on the hotel veranda, which commanded the bank office.

Although Miscana as yet was small, it was a thriving town, and pleasant shade-trees bordered the wide street. Behind the trees, on one side, were unfenced garden lots, and automatic sprinklers threw sparkling showers across the thirsty grass. On the stoops of the frame-houses friendly groups engaged in cheerful talk. Walthew heard a piano and one or two gramophones. In the background, the river throbbed, and sometimes thedeep-toned hum of the turbines at the Brockenhurst power-house stole across the woods. One smelt locomotive smoke, creosoted railroad ties, and resinous pines.

Walthew reflected that Western Canada was a land of contrasts. One used up-to-date inventions in the primeval wilds. A mile from the steel road and telephone poles, civilization stopped, and the tangled woods rolled back to the Arctic barrens, as they had done since the world was young.

On the whole, Walthew liked his job. He had recently graduated at Toronto, and now he had got a post at a famous bank, he meant to make good. In fact, he thought he made some progress, and he was willing for Harden to leave him at the office. When Keith got back he must admit that the business Walthew had transacted was properly carried out. In particular, he had got the securities on which the Brockenhurst Company wanted the bank to negotiate a loan. The treasurer himself had brought the packet, and when he took a receipt commented on Walthew’s accuracy and his acquaintance with the rules about negotiating the different sorts of documents. Stephen was flattered; he liked to feel he deserved Harden’s confidence.

The Brockenhurst people were using their reserve fund to build the new factory, and Walthew approved the way in which the fund was invested. The bank would hold some securities against a loan; others would be sold by Montreal stockbrokers, and Walthew thought some would be offered on the exchanges inLondon and Paris. Part must be formally transferred and could not be stolen, except, perhaps, by a clever forger; but a sum was in foreign bearer bonds, which could be used in Europe like dollar bills.

Walthew had carefully registered the documents and the sealed packet was in the safe. He would sooner it was on its way to Montreal, but the Atlantic express did not arrive until morning and he was going to the bank for the night. The locks were good and only he and Harden knew the combination, but he admitted he would be happier when he got the express clerk’s receipt.

Dusk began to fall and Walthew got up. For the most part, the hotel boarders were at a club meeting; there was nobody to whom he could talk, and he thought he would go to the station and see the local train arrive. At a small Western town one likes to know all that is doing.

On one side, dark pine forest bordered the track, but by and by a fan-shaped beam pierced the gloom and a locomotive and two cars rolled into the station. Two or three commercial travelers, and a group of young men and women, got down. Their baskets and fishing-rods indicated that they were from the lake and Walthew knew them, but when he was going to ask if they had met Harden, a customer of the bank’s came up and began to talk. The bell tolled, the cars rolled away, and Walthew thought he would walk along the street before he went to bed.

He passed the bank. The small frame-house wasdark, for Harden took his meals at the hotel, and a woman cleaned his rooms in the morning. A little farther on, the board sidewalk ended and the row of houses was broken by unoccupied lots where willows and small pines grew. The road was soft; thick dust covered the gravel, and in some places the branches spread across. People had begun to go to bed, for the lights in the scattered houses burned behind the upper windows and some were dark.

Walthew thought he heard steps in front, but an automobile advanced noisily. The reflections from the headlamps touched the road and trees with silver light, and Walthew looked up in surprise. A man’s dark figure cut the strong illumination and he thought it was Harden. The man went fast, but if Keith had arrived by the train, he would have stopped at the bank, and the road went only to a small sawmill in the woods. Then the big lamps dazzled Walthew and he jumped aside. A wave of hot dust rolled about him and the car sped by. When the dust subsided he frowned. Although he certainly had seen a man in front, nobody was about.

Fifty yards farther on, three or four houses stood beside a short side road, but when Walthew reached the corner the windows were dark and he did not hear a door open. The occupants, moreover, were not friends of Harden’s. Walthew turned, and going back uptown, stopped at a house. The fishing-party he had seen at the station was yet on the porch.

“Did you see my boss at the lake?” he asked.

“Now you talk about it, I did think I saw Harden at the depot,” one replied. “The train was pulling out and he ran along by the wheels. In fact, I waved to him, but it looked as if he didn’t know me and he jumped on the next car. Since I did not see him get down, maybe it was somebody else.”

“Keith hates to run,” said another. “When he hurries he goes with a sort of limp.”

“The fellow I saw did not limp,” the first rejoined.

Walthew was nearly persuaded that the man in the road was Harden, but, now he reflected, although the other went fast, his step was even.

“Oh, well, Keith reckoned to stop for another day or two,” he said. “I expect you spotted somebody like him.”

“Who is like Keith Harden?” a girl inquired.

After pondering for a moment, Walthew admitted he did not know, and he started for the bank. Finding nobody there, he went to the station, but the agent had not seen Harden. When the train arrived, however, he was called to the baggage-car and did not notice who got down.

Walthew returned to the bank. Opening the safe, he saw the packet of securities was on a shelf, and he went upstairs to bed. The combination that worked the lock was intricate, the house was small, and a noise carried well. If a thief tried to break the safe, he must first knock out Walthew, and Harden’s automatic pistol was in the bureau. At twenty yards, Walthew could hit a fruit-can, almost every time.

He got to bed, but daybreak was about three o’clock and he resolved he would not go to sleep. Although he had not much grounds to be anxious, now all was quiet, his responsibility weighed, and he went for Harden’s reading-lamp. He had brought across a book about banking and a classical poet’s famous epic. His choice, perhaps, was strange. Stephen was a muscular young fellow and could handle a canoe in a rapid and throw a trout-fly, but his main ambition was not to have a bully time. In order to make progress, he must know all about his job, and when he got where he wanted he must be able to talk like a cultivated gentleman. With youthful optimism he believed that if one labored honestly one got one’s reward.

Propping up the banking book, he began to study a chapter about the creation of credits. The argument, however, was intricate, and by and by he admitted that he was puzzled; besides, he was getting drowsy. He glanced at his watch and opened the other book.

Somehow the throb of the Brockenhurst turbines and the rapid’s measured clamor harmonized with the famous epic; Walthew read it in the original. The old Greeks were virile, red-blooded folk, willing to fight and wise to plan. Well, vigor of brain and muscle, was the quality one needed in modern Canada. The rivers that pierced the trackless wilds must drive factories; man must carry the Rockies’ snow across the dry Western plains. The job was a job for resolute men who could look ahead, but the great banks must supply the capital. In the meantime, Walthew’s particularbusiness was to keep awake until dawn, and to do so got hard.