Chapter 8

It was dark when Anderson reached Laggan, if that can be called darkness which was rather a starry twilight, interfused with the whiteness of snow-field and glacier. He first of all despatched a message to Banff for Elizabeth's commissions. Then he made straight for the ugly frame house of which Delaine had given him the address. It was kept by a couple well known to him, an Irishman and his wife who made their living partly by odd jobs on the railway, partly by lodging men in search of work in the various construction camps of the line. To all such persons Anderson was a familiar figure, especially since the great strike of the year before.

The house stood by itself in a plot of cleared ground, some two or three hundred yards from the railway station. A rough road through the pine wood led up to it.

Anderson knocked, and Mrs. Ginnell came to the door, a tired, and apparently sulky woman.

"I hear you have a lodger here, Mrs. Ginnell," said Anderson, standing in the doorway, "a man called McEwen; and that he wants to see me on some business or other."

Mrs. Ginnell's countenance darkened.

"We have an old man here, Mr. Anderson, as answers to that name, but you'll get no business out of him--and I don't believe he _have_ any business with any decent crater. When he arrived two days ago he was worse for liquor, took on at Calgary. I made my husband look after him that night to see he didn't get at nothing, but yesterday he slipped us both, an' I believe he's now in that there outhouse, a-sleeping it off. Old men like him should be sent somewhere safe, an' kep' there."

"I'll go and see if he's awake, Mrs. Ginnell. Don't you trouble to come. Any other lodgers?"

"No, sir. There was a bunch of 'em left this morning--got work on the Crow's Nest."

Anderson made his way to the little "shack," Ginnell's house of the first year, now used as a kind of general receptacle for tools, rubbish and stores.

He looked in. On a heap of straw in the corner lay a huddled figure, a kind of human rag. Anderson paused a moment, then entered, hung the lamp he had brought with him on a peg, and closed the door behind him.

He stood looking down at the sleeper, who was in the restless stage before waking. McEwen threw himself from side to side, muttered, and stretched.

Slowly a deep colour flooded Anderson's cheeks and brow; his hands hanging beside him clenched; he checked a groan that was also a shudder. The abjectness of the figure, the terrible identification proceeding in his mind, the memories it evoked, were rending and blinding him. The winter morning on the snow-strewn prairie, the smell of smoke blown towards him on the wind, the flames of the burning house, the horror of the search among the ruins, his father's confession, and his own rage and despair--deep in the tissues of life these images were stamped. The anguish of them ran once more through his being.

How had he been deceived? And what was to be done? He sat down on a heap of rubbish beside the straw, looking at his father. He had last seen him as a man of fifty, vigorous, red-haired, coarsely handsome, though already undermined by drink. The man lying on the straw was approaching seventy, and might have been much older. His matted hair was nearly white, face blotched and cavernous; and the relaxation of sleep emphasised the mean cunning of the mouth. His clothing was torn and filthy, the hands repulsive.

Anderson could only bear a few minutes of this spectacle. A natural shame intervened. He bent over his father and called him.

"Robert Anderson!"

A sudden shock passed through the sleeper. He started up, and Anderson saw his hand dart for something lying beside him, no doubt a revolver.

But Anderson grasped the arm.

"Don't be afraid; you're quite safe."

McEwen, still bewildered by sleep and drink, tried to shake off the grasp, to see who it was standing over him. Anderson released him, and moved so that the lamplight fell upon himself.

Slowly McEwen's faculties came together, began to work. The lamplight showed him his son George--the fair-haired, broad-shouldered fellow he had been tracking all these days--and he understood.

He straightened himself, with an attempt at dignity.

"So it's you, George? You might have given me notice."

"Where have you been all these years?" said Anderson, indistinctly. "And why did you let me believe you dead?"

"Well, I had my reasons, George. But I don't mean to go into 'em. All that's dead and gone. There was a pack of fellows then on my shoulders--I was plumb tired of 'em. I had to get rid of--I did get rid of 'em--and you, too. I knew you were inquiring after me, and I didn't want inquiries. They didn't suit me. You may conclude what you like. I tell you those times are dead and gone. But it seemed to me that Robert Anderson was best put away for a bit. So I took measures according."

"You knew I was deceived."

"Yes, I knew," said the other composedly. "Couldn't be helped."

"And where have you been since?"

"In Nevada, George--Comstock--silver-mining. Rough lot, but you get a stroke of luck sometimes. I've got a chance on now--me and a friend of mine--that's first-rate."

"What brought you back to Canada?"

"Well, it was your aunt, Mrs. Harriet Sykes. Ever hear of her, George?"

Anderson shook his head.

"You must have heard of her when you were a little chap. When I left Ayrshire in 1840 she was a lass of sixteen; never saw her since. But she married a man well-to-do, and was left a widder with no children. And when she died t'other day, she'd left me something in her will, and told the lawyers to advertise over here, in Canada and the States--both. And I happened on the advertisement in a Chicago paper. Told yer to call on Smith & Dawkins, Winnipeg. So that was how I came to see Winnipeg again."

"When were you there?"

"Just when you was," said the old man, with a triumphant look, which for the moment effaced the squalor of his aspect. "I was coming out of Smith & Dawkins's with the money in my pocket, when I saw you opposite, just going into a shop. You could ha' knocked me down easy, I warrant ye. Didn't expect to come on yer tracks as fast as all that. But there you were, and when you came out and went down t' street, I just followed you at a safe distance, and saw you go into the hotel. Afterwards, I went into the Free Library to think a bit, and then I saw the piece in the paper about you and that Saskatchewan place; and I got hold of a young man in a saloon who found out all about you and those English swells you've been hanging round with; and that same night, when you boarded the train, I boarded it, too. See? Only I am not a swell like you. And here we are. See?"

The last speech was delivered with a mixture of bravado, cunning, and sinister triumph. Anderson sat with his head in his hands, his eyes on the mud floor, listening. When it was over he looked up.

"Why didn't you come and speak to me at once?"

The other hesitated.

"Well, I wasn't a beauty to look at. Not much of a credit to you, am I? Didn't think you'd own me. And I don't like towns--too many people about. Thought I'd catch you somewhere on the quiet. Heard you was going to the Rockies. Thought I might as well go round by Seattle home. See?"

"You have had plenty of chances since Winnipeg of making yourself known to me," said Anderson sombrely. "Why did you speak to a stranger instead of coming direct to me?"

McEwen hesitated a moment.

"Well, I wasn't sure of you. I didn't know how you'd take it. And I'd lost my nerve, damn it! the last few years. Thought you might just kick me out, or set the police on me."

Anderson studied the speaker. His fair skin was deeply flushed; his brow frowned unconsciously, reflecting the travail of thought behind it.

"What did you say to that gentleman the other night?"

McEwen smiled a shifty smile, and began to pluck some pieces of straw from his sleeve.

"Don't remember just what I did say. Nothing to do you no harm, anyway. I might have said you were never an easy chap to get on with. I might have said that, or I mightn't. Think I did. Don't remember."

The eyes of the two men met for a moment, Anderson's bright and fixed. He divined perfectly what had been said to the Englishman, Lady Merton's friend and travelling companion. A father overborne by misfortunes and poverty, disowned by a prosperous and Pharisaical son--admitting a few peccadilloes, such as most men forgive, in order to weigh them against virtues, such as all men hate. Old age and infirmity on the one hand; mean hardness and cruelty on the other. Was Elizabeth already contemplating the picture?

And yet--No! unless perhaps under the shelter of darkness, it could never have been possible for this figure before him to play the part of innocent misfortune, at all events. Could debauch, could ruin of body and soul be put more plainly? Could they express themselves more clearly than through this face and form?

A shudder ran through Anderson, a cry against fate, a sick wondering as to his own past responsibility, a horror of the future. Then his will strengthened, and he set himself quietly to see what could be done.

"We can't talk here," he said to his father. "Come back into the house. There are some rooms vacant. I'll take them for you."

McEwen rose with difficulty, groaning as he put his right foot to the ground. Anderson then perceived that the right foot and ankle were wrapped round with a bloodstained rag, and was told that the night before their owner had stumbled over a jug in Mrs. Ginnell's kitchen, breaking the jug and inflicting some deep cuts on his own foot and ankle. McEwen, indeed, could only limp along, with mingled curses and lamentations, supported by Anderson. In the excitement of his son's appearance he had forgotten his injury. The pain and annoyance of it returned upon him now with added sharpness, and Anderson realised that here was yet another complication as they moved across the yard.

A few words to the astonished Mrs. Ginnell sufficed to secure all her vacant rooms, four in number. Anderson put his father in one on the ground floor, then shut the door on him and went back to the woman of the house. She stood looking at him, flushed, in a bewildered silence. But she and her husband owed various kindnesses to Anderson, and he quickly made up his mind.

In a very few words he quietly told her the real facts, confiding them both to her self-interest and her humanity. McEwen was to be her only lodger till the next step could be determined. She was to wait on him, to keep drink from him, to get him clothes. Her husband was to go out with him, if he should insist on going out; but Anderson thought his injury would keep him quiet for a day or two. Meanwhile, no babbling to anybody. And, of course, generous payment for all that was asked of them.

But Mrs. Ginnell understood that she was being appealed to not only commercially, but as a woman with a heart in her body and a good share of Irish wit. That moved and secured her. She threw herself nobly into the business. Anderson might command her as he pleased, and she answered for her man. Renewed groans from the room next door disturbed them. Mrs. Ginnell went in to answer them, and came out demanding a doctor. The patient was in much pain, the wounds looked bad, and she suspected fever.

"Yo can't especk places to heal with such as him," she said, grimly.

With doggedness, Anderson resigned himself. He went to the station and sent a wire to Field for a doctor. What would happen when he arrived he did not know. He had made no compact with his father. If the old man chose to announce himself, so be it. Anderson did not mean to bargain or sue. Other men have had to bear such burdens in the face of the world. Should it fall to him to be forced to take his up in like manner, let him set his teeth and shoulder it, sore and shaken as he was. He felt a fierce confidence that could still make the world respect him.

An hour passed away. An answer came from Field to the effect that a doctor would be sent up on a freight train just starting, and might be expected shortly.

While Mrs. Ginnell was still attending on her lodger, Anderson went out into the starlight to try and think out the situation. The night was clear and balmy. The high snows glimmered through the lingering twilight, and in the air there was at last a promise of "midsummer pomps." Pine woods and streams breathed freshness, and when in his walk along the railway line--since there is no other road through the Kicking Horse Pass--he reached a point whence the great Yoho valley became visible to the right, he checked the rapid movement which had brought him a kind of physical comfort, and set himself--in face of that far-stretching and splendid solitude--to wrestle with calamity.

First of all there was the Englishman--Delaine--and the letter that must be written him. But there, also, no evasions, no suppliancy. Delaine must be told that the story was true, and would no doubt think himself entitled to act upon it. The protest on behalf of Lady Merton implied already in his manner that afternoon was humiliating enough. The smart of it was still tingling through Anderson's being. He had till now felt a kind of instinctive contempt for Delaine as a fine gentleman with a useless education, inclined to patronise "colonists." The two men had jarred from the beginning, and at Banff, Anderson had both divined in him the possible suitor of Lady Merton, and had also become aware that Delaine resented his own intrusion upon the party, and the rapid intimacy which had grown up between him and the brother and sister. Well, let him use his chance! if it so pleased him. No promise whatever should be asked of him; there should be no suggestion even of a line of action. The bare fact which he had become possessed of should be admitted, and he should be left to deal with it. Upon his next step would depend Anderson's; that was all.

But Lady Merton?

Anderson stared across the near valley, up the darkness beyond, where lay the forests of the Yoho, and to those ethereal summits whence a man might behold on one side the smoke-wreaths of the great railway, and on the other side the still virgin peaks of the northern Rockies, untamed, untrodden. But his eyes were holden; he saw neither snow, nor forests, and the roar of the stream dashing at his feet was unheard.

Three weeks, was it, since he had first seen that delicately oval face, and those clear eyes? The strong man--accustomed to hold himself in check, to guard his own strength as the instrument, firm and indispensable, of an iron will--recoiled from the truth he was at last compelled to recognise. In this daily companionship with a sensitive and charming woman, endowed beneath her light reserve with all the sweetness of unspoilt feeling, while yet commanding through her long training in an old society a thousand delicacies and subtleties, which played on Anderson's fresh senses like the breeze on young leaves--whither had he been drifting--to the brink of what precipice had he brought himself, unknowing?

He stood there indefinitely, among the charred tree-trunks that bordered the line, his arms folded, looking straight before him, motionless.

Supposing to-day had been yesterday, need he--together with this sting of passion--have felt also this impotent and angry despair? Before his eyes had seen that figure lying on the straw of Mrs. Ginnell's outhouse, could he ever have dreamed it possible that Elizabeth Merton should marry him?

Yes! He thought, trembling from head to foot, of that expression in her eyes he had seen that very afternoon. Again and again he had checked his feeling by the harsh reminder of her social advantages. But, at this moment of crisis, the man in him stood up, confident and rebellious. He knew himself sound, intellectually and morally. There was a career before him, to which a cool and reasonable ambition looked forward without any paralysing doubts. In this growing Canada, measuring himself against the other men of the moment, he calmly foresaw his own growing place. As to money, he would make it; he was in process of making it, honourably and sufficiently.

He was well aware indeed that in the case of many women sprung from the English governing class, the ties that bind them to their own world, its traditions, and its outlook, are so strong that to try and break them would be merely to invite disaster. But then from such women his own pride--his pride in his country--would have warned his passion. It was to Elizabeth's lovely sympathy, her generous detachment, her free kindling mind--that his life had gone out. _She_ would, surely, never be deterred from marrying a Canadian--if he pleased her--because it would cut her off from London and Paris, and all the ripe antiquities and traditions of English or European life? Even in the sparsely peopled Northwest, with which his own future was bound up, how many English women are there--fresh, some of them, from luxurious and fastidious homes--on ranches, on prairie farms, in the Okanagan valley! "This Northwest is no longer a wilderness!" he proudly thought; "it is no longer a leap in the dark to bring a woman of delicate nurture and cultivation to the prairies."

So, only a few hours before, he might have flattered the tyranny of longing and desire which had taken hold upon him.

But now! All his life seemed besmirched. His passion had been no sooner born than, like a wounded bird, it fluttered to the ground. Bring upon such a woman as Elizabeth Merton the most distant responsibility for such a being as he had left behind him in the log-hut at Laggan? Link her life in however remote a fashion with that life? Treachery and sacrilege, indeed! No need for Delaine to tell him that! His father as a grim memory of the past--that Lady Merton knew. His own origins--his own story--as to that she had nothing to discover. But the man who might have dared to love her, up to that moment in the hut, was now a slave, bound to a corpse--

_Finis_!

And then as the anguish of the thought swept through him, and by a natural transmission of ideas, there rose in Anderson the sore and sudden memory of old, unhappy things, of the tender voices and faces of his first youth. The ugly vision of his degraded father had brought back upon him, through a thousand channels of association, the recollection of his mother. He saw her now--the worn, roughened face, the sweet swimming eyes; he felt her arms around him, the tears of her long agony on his face. She had endured--he too must endure. Close, close--he pressed her to his heart. As the radiant image of Elizabeth vanished from him in the darkness, his mother--broken, despairing, murdered in her youth--came to him and strengthened him. Let him do his duty to this poor outcast, as she would have done it--and put high thoughts from him.

He tore himself resolutely from his trance of thought, and began to walk back along the line. All the same, he would go up to Lake Louise, as he had promised, on the following morning. As far as his own intention was concerned, he would not cease to look after Lady Merton and her brother; Philip Gaddesden would soon have to be moved, and he meant to escort them to Vancouver.

Sounds approached, from the distance--the "freight," with the doctor, climbing the steep pass. He stepped on briskly to a signal-man's cabin and made arrangements to stop the train.

It was towards midnight when he and the doctor emerged from the Ginnell's cabin.

"Oh, I daresay we'll heal those cuts," said the doctor. "I've told Mrs. Ginnell what to do; but the old fellow's in a pretty cranky state. I doubt whether he'll trouble the world very long."

Anderson started. With his eyes on the ground and his hands in his pockets, he inquired the reason for this opinion.

"Arteries--first and foremost. It's a wonder they've held out so long, and then--a score of other things. What can you expect?"

The speaker went into some details, discussing the case with gusto. A miner from Nevada? Queer hells often, those mining camps, whether on the Canadian or the American side of the border.

"You were acquainted with his family? Canadian, to begin with, I understand?"

"Yes. He applied to me for help. Did he tell you much about himself?"

"No. He boasted a lot about some mine in the Comstock district which is to make his fortune, if he can raise the money to buy it up. If he can raise fifteen thousand dollars, he says, he wouldn't care to call Rockefeller his uncle!"

"That's what he wants, is it?" said Anderson, absently, "fifteen thousand dollars?"

"Apparently. Wish he may get it!" laughed the doctor. "Well, keep him from drink, if you can. But I doubt if you'll cheat the undertaker very long. Good night. There'll be a train along soon that'll pick me up."

Anderson went back to the cabin, found that his father had dropped asleep, left money and directions with Mrs. Ginnell, and then returned to his own lodgings.

He sat down to write to Delaine. It was clear that, so far, that gentleman and Mrs. Ginnell were the only other participants in the secret of McEwen's identity. The old man had not revealed himself to the doctor. Did that mean that--in spite of his first reckless interview with the Englishman--he had still some notion of a bargain with his son, on the basis of the fifteen thousand dollars?

Possibly. But that son had still to determine his own line of action. When at last he began to write, he wrote steadily and without a pause. Nor was the letter long.