Chapter 31

THE PRICE OF DELAY

It was raining with pitiless persistency when Alton and Tom of Okanagan came floundering down into the river valley. The roar of the canon rose in great reverberations from out of the haze beneath them, and all the pines were dripping, while the men struggled wearily knee-deep in slush of snow. The spring which lingers in the North had come suddenly, and a warm wind from the Pacific was melting the snow, so that the hillsides ran water, and the torrents that had burst their chains swirled frothing down every hollow.

The men were chilled to the backbone, for it had rained all day and they had passed several nights sheltered only by the pines. Garments and boots were sodden, and Alton's face was set and drawn, for though he could now walk without much visible effort upon the level, a journey through the ranges of that country would at any season test the endurance of the strongest whole-limbed man, and his forced march had only been accomplished by stubborn determination and disregard of pain. Still, it was not physical distress alone which accounted for his gravity. He had put off his journey to the latest moment, and now when time was scanty the weather promised to further delay him. They had stopped a moment breathless, when Okanagan broke the silence.

"Plenty water. I'm figuring we'll find Charley Seaforth somewhere here," he said. "The jumpers would have it drier, if they headed out from lower down the railroad over the bench country."

Alton nodded as he listened to the roar of the river, which warned him that their road up the valley would be almost impassable.

"It can't be helped," he said, and Tom of Okanagan, who saw how grim his face had grown, understood the reason. If Hallam's emissaries had gone up before them any further delay might cost Alton the mine.

Nothing was said for another minute, and then Okanagan pointed to a dim smear of vapour below them that was a little bluer than the mist.

"Smoke. Charley's held up by the river," he said.

They went on in moody silence, knowing that where the hardy ranchers Seaforth had with him had failed there was little probability of any man forcing a passage, and presently the smell of burning firwood came up to them through the rain. Then a red flicker appeared and vanished amidst the dusky trunks, and in another few minutes Alton was shaking his comrade's hand. The faces of both of them were unusually grave, and there was dejection in the growl of greeting from the men, who sat half seen amidst the smoke watching them.

"That's the whole of us," said Seaforth, who noticed his comrade's glance. "We can't get on."

"How long have you been here?" said Alton, with significant quietness.

"Two days. It's unfortunate you didn't come earlier, Harry, because we could have got right through a week ago. Was it the leg that kept you?"

"No," said Alton, with a little mirthless laugh, "it wasn't the leg. I should have come, but one can't always do two things at once, and I had to choose. I've a good deal to tell you."

Seaforth glanced sharply at his comrade. "I fancied you had. You are not the man I left at Vancouver, Harry. Well, you will be hungry, and supper's almost ready."

It was several hours later, and the men in the bigger tent were fast asleep, when Seaforth and Alton sat swathed in clammy blankets under a little canvas shelter. The drip from the great branches above beat upon it, and the red light of the snapping fire shone in upon the men. Neither of them had spoken for some time, but at last Alton laid down his pipe.

"This is a thing I wouldn't tell to any man if it could be helped, but as you will hear it told the wrong way when you get back to the city, you have got to know," he said. "I'd have been where I was wanted if it hadn't happened, and now I can't help feeling I have given you and the rest away. It hurts me, Charley, but what could I do? It would have been worse to let two women suffer for my condemned folly."

Seaforth was in no mood for laughter, but his eyes twinkled faintly. "Two of them? You have been getting on tolerably fast down there, Harry."

Alton stopped him with a gesture. "My temper's not what it was a few weeks ago," he said. "Now, you sit still and listen to me."

He had scarcely commenced his story when the smile died out of Seaforth's eyes. He seemed to listen with breathless intentness, and his voice shook a little as he said, "And you asked her to marry you. Did you think for a moment that she would?"

Alton appeared to consider. "I didn't think at all," he said. "It seemed the one thing I could do, and I did it."

"The city hasn't made much difference in you," said Seaforth, watching his comrade intently. "It must have been a load off your mind when she refused you?"

Alton straightened himself a little. "I don't like the way you put it, Charley. Whoever gets Miss Townshead will have a treasure. The girl's good all through. Now I think I've told you everything, and I don't ask if you believe me."

There was a flicker of warmer colour under Seaforth's bronze, and a curious glint in his eyes.

"Yes," he said slowly; "I think she is too good even for you, and you have done all that any one could have expected of you, without keeping up the farce any longer. I am glad you did not ask if I believed you--because I could scarcely have forgiven you that question. Do you think I don't know--both of you--better?"

The last words were a trifle strained, and Alton stared at his comrade in bewildered astonishment, for Seaforth had betrayed himself in his passion. Then there was silence for a full minute until he said very quietly--

"And I never guessed."

"No?" said Seaforth, still a trifle hoarsely. "And now I think you know."

Alton nodded, and there was a very kindly smile in his eyes. "Yes; I'm beginning to understand--a good deal," he said. "I'm very glad, for there are not many girls like Miss Townshead in the Dominion. Charley, you're a lucky man, but why have you been so long over it? It never struck me that you were bashful."

Seaforth smiled mirthlessly. "If you will listen a few minutes you will see how fortunate I am. You never asked me what brought me out from the old country, Harry."

Alton gravely pressed his arm. "There are times when one must talk. Go on, if it will do you good," he said.

It was not an uncommon story Seaforth told that night, and Alton, who had heard it, slightly varied, several times already, could fill up the gaps when his comrade ceased, and the drip from the branches splashing upon the canvas replaced his disjointed utterance. Seaforth was very young when it happened and the woman older than him.

"Now you see what kept me silent. It wasn't a nice thing to tell--you," he said.

Alton glanced at him with grave sympathy, and then stared at the fire. "And what became of her? I saw her picture once--in a twenty-five cent album," he said. "A woman of that kind would know what she was about?"

Seaforth smiled wryly. "I was not the only fool," he said. "When I'd flung away everything a richer man came along."

Alton was silent a space. "Three thousand pounds," he said, "is a good deal, even in the old country."

"Yes," said Seaforth wearily; "though it goes a very little way as I spent it, it is, and I've been paying it back, at first a few dollars at a time, ever since I came out to the Dominion. You see, the old man paid off everything, though I know now money was very scarce with him then, and I've wondered sometimes how far it helped to break him. He died soon after the crash came--and the girls had nothing."

"I think you told me your sisters were married now?"

"Yes," said Seaforth, "Flora sent me back the last exchange somewhat indignantly, which was why I was able to take my share in the Consolidated. Still, all that is a little outside the question, isn't it?"

Alton smiled at his partner, and laid a sinewy hand on his shoulder. "I wouldn't worry too much about it, Charley," he said. "You were a young fool, but you have lived it down, and there's the room there has always been for a good many more like you in the Dominion. Look round in high places, and you'll see them--good men, and better than they might have been but for that little trip-up when they were young. Yes, I've wondered where your dollars went to--and I'm glad we have done so well now I know. You can stand straight up, Charley, and face the world again."

Seaforth laughed wryly. "The trouble is that it isn't the world I care about," he said.

"No," said Alton. "Well, for one has to do the square thing, I think I'd chance telling somebody the story you told me--though of course you'd have to put parts of it differently."

Seaforth made a little gesture of despondency. "I'm afraid I haven't the courage, and--with all that behind me----"

"It--is--behind," said Alton. "And somehow I fancy it would only be fair to give the person it might concern the opportunity of hearing you."

Seaforth appeared to check a groan. "There are things that one can never quite rub out. I was twenty-three then, and now when it is five years ago, and she is alone in that horrible city, I must keep silent still. Harry, it's almost unendurable, but, because I must tell that story, to speak now would be to throw my last chance away."

Alton nodded with grave sympathy. "Yes, I think you're right, and you must wait. Well, it's time to turn in. With the first of the daylight we're going on again."

He was asleep in another ten minutes, but Seaforth lay awake shivering under his clammy blankets most of the night, and rose aching when he heard his comrade's voice through the patter of the rain in the misty darkness of the early morning. They made four miles that day, and floundered waist-deep in water amidst the boulders during most of it. The hillsides above them were steep and almost unclimbable, and no man could have driven a canoe upstream amidst the grinding ice-cake which cumbered the river, that was frozen still in its slower reaches. There they found better travelling through the slush that covered the rotten ice, but those reaches were few and short, and they went back to the boulders when the swollen river burst its bonds again.

It came down in savage tumult between the rocks, whose heads just showed above the foam, and its banks were further cumbered by a whitened driftwood frieze over which the men must clamber warily, clawing for a foothold on the great battered trunks, or smashing through a tangle of brittle limbs. At times they were stopped altogether by a maze of washed-up timber no man could struggle through, and the axes were plied for an hour or more before they went on again.

The second day was like the first one, though their toil was if anything more arduous still, and on the evening of the fourth they came, worn out, dripping, and dejected, to a spot where the valley narrowed in. A strip of forest divided the rock from the river on the opposite shore, but between them and it a confusion of froth and foam swirled down, while the hillsides seemed to vibrate with the roar of the rapid. One glance sufficed to show that the crossing was wholly impossible for either beast or man. On their side of the river a wall of rock hemmed the little party in, and even Seaforth wondered, while Okanagan growled half-aloud, when Alton, knee-deep in water, plodded steadily on. There was not more than another hour's daylight, and Seaforth remembered that the gorge extended for a league or so, while the flood had spread across it in front of them, but he knew his comrade and said nothing. Presently he slipped from a boulder, and sank almost shoulder-deep in a whirling pool, but somebody grabbed his arm, and after a breathless flounder he felt the shingle under him and the froth lapped only to his knee. Then they crawled amidst the driftwood which washed up and down beneath them, tearing garments and lacerating limbs, until they stood once more panting on dry shingle, with a broad stretch of froth before them, and the light growing dim.

The river had spread from side to side of the constricted valley, and the crash of the ice it brought down rang hollowly from rock to rock until it was lost high up amidst the climbing pines. It seemed to Seaforth that to go on was impossible, and he glanced at his comrade anxiously, Alton stood alone upon a driftwood trunk, his figure silhouetted in rigid outline against the whiteness of the foam, for his drenched garments clung in sodden folds to every curve of it. His face was as immobile in its wet grimness save for the smouldering glow in his eyes, and there was a low growl of half-articulate expostulation from those about him as he turned and pointed to the river.

"What are you stopping for? The silver's yonder, and there's our road," he said.

None of them protested. They knew no rancher or prospector in the province could traverse the road he pointed to, but in their long grapple with the forest they had not infrequently attempted things that appeared beyond the power of man, and speech seemed useless when the river would answer for them. Therefore, when Alton once more took to the water they followed him, bracing overtaxed muscle against the tireless stream until the man who pressed on a dozen yards in front went down. Then while Seaforth held his breath there was a cry from Okanagan, who clutched at an arm that rose from the flood. Seaforth had his hand next moment, somebody clung to him, and they went downstream together for a space, with the shingle slipping beneath them, and their burdens dragging them down, panting, floundering, choking, but still holding on, until they found a foothold in the slack of an eddy, and Seaforth saw that Alton was on his feet again. His hat had gone, and there was a red gash on his forehead from which the blood ran down. He said nothing until they stood less than knee-deep, when Seaforth glanced at him.

"You will be contented now?" he said.

"Yes," said Alton, with hoarse breathlessness. "I'm beaten. Well, we'll go back and make a traverse across the ranges."

Seaforth glanced for a moment at the slope of rock that ran up into the dimness above him. Here and there it afforded a foothold to a juniper or stunted pine, but that was all, and there was a gleam of slushy snow high up above it, where though the pitch was flatter the firs could scarcely climb. Whether any man could reach those heights or cross them through the melting drifts he did not know, but at the best the journey would cost a day for every hour it would have done had it been possible to follow the valley.

"You know what day it is?" he said.

"Yes," said Alton very quietly. "If Hallam's men are up there it will be too late when we get through. That means tolerably bad times for Somasco."

"I," said Seaforth, "wasn't exactly thinking about Somasco."

Alton's face was very grim. "Well," he said dryly, "it means a good deal less to one of us than it would have done a few weeks ago."

They went back, and it was dark when they camped in the dripping undergrowth, but while Seaforth fancied that Alton did not sleep that night, he was the first upon his feet when they rose in the darkness of the morning, and commenced the slow ascent. There was no man in the party who did not feel that the journey would be useless, but they went on nevertheless, hewing a path through thickets, crawling up steep rock faces on hands and knees, and wading through the drifts to the waist in melting snow. So with toil incredible they left the leagues behind, one, and when they were fortunate, two to the day, and evening was at hand when at last they came scrambling down from fir to fir into the rain-swept valley. There was nothing visible beneath them but a haze of falling water and the tops of dripping trees, but Alton stooped now and then as though listening, and Seaforth could guess at the torments of suspense he was enduring.

"We shall know in a few more minutes," he said. "I can see the river now."

"Go on," said Alton hoarsely. "Oh, get on."

Five minutes had scarcely passed when they stopped again, and the men stared at each other in silence as a thudding sound came up to them through the rain. It was just distinguishable, and they might be mistaken, but a full minute went by before one of them glanced at Alton. He stood very still, with one knee bent a trifle, leaning against a pine until the sound grew plainer and was followed by a voice.

"We're too late, but we'll go down and see it out," he said.

Ten minutes later they plodded into the glare of a fire, and stopped, worn-out and dripping in front of a rude bark shelter. A few men were scattered about it eating their evening meal, and for a moment or two they stared at the newcomers silently, until Alton stepped forward and stood where all could see him, hatless and tattered, with a clotted bandage about his head.

"What are you doing on my claim?" he said.

A big man rose up slowly with an axe in his hand, and pointed to a board with rough letters cut in it nailed to a tree.

"It may have been yours one time. It's ours now," he said. "There's no getting over the laws of this country."

Seaforth expected an outbreak, and heard a growl from his comrades, who commenced to close in behind him, but Alton only closed one hand a little.

"Where's the man who brought you here?" he said.

"Gone out," said the other, "to record the claim. Now we don't want any unpleasantness, but the mine is ours, and there are enough of us to keep it, you see. Come in and have some supper, and take it reasonably."

Alton looked at him for a space out of half-closed eyes, and the man appeared to grow uneasy.

"You condemned jumper! These are honest men," he said, pointing to those who followed him. "We'll go back and camp up yonder, boys."

It was close on midnight when Seaforth crept up to Alton, who lay huddled against a cedar in the smoke of the fire. His face showed drawn and puckered in the flickering light.

"Don't take it too hard, Harry," he said.

Alton smothered a groan. "I'm feeling very mean tonight," he said. "Lord, what a mess I've made of everything. Every ranch in Somasco mortgaged to the last rod, the new mill not finished, roads half made, and not another dollar to be had in the city. And there's not a man or woman who believed in me but I've dragged them down."

"I think," said Seaforth, "they believe in you still. You did all that any man could have done, Harry."

"No," said Alton. "I stayed down in Vancouver when I should have been here. That can never be quite wiped out--but what could I do?"

Seaforth laid his hand on his comrade's shoulder. "Don't worry too much about what is done with, but look forward. You'll find your friends behind you yet."

Alton shook off his grasp. "My friends! I've done them harm enough, but you are right. This thing isn't finished yet."

Seaforth smiled a little. "That is a good deal better, Harry. One wins at the last round now and then."

Alton looked at him steadily. "You don't understand. All that was worth winning has gone already--but Hallam must fight."

Seaforth saw the smouldering fire in the half-closed eyes, and the instinctive closing of the lean, hard fingers, and went back to his lair in the wet undergrowth contented. Hallam had won hitherto, but he knew his comrade, and the struggle was not over yet.