CHAPTER XVI

THE BUSH.

It was a quiet evening, nearly a fortnight after the arrival of the sloop, and pale sunshine streamed into the cove. Little glittering ripples lapped lazily along the shingle, and the placid surface of the inlet was streaked with faint blue lines where wandering airs came down from the heights above. Now and then an elfin sighing fell from the ragged summits of the tall black firs, but it died away again, and afterwards the silence was only broken by the pounding of a heavy hammer and the crackle of a fire.

Carroll sat beside the latter, alternately holding a stout plank up to the blaze and dabbing its hot surface with a dripping mop. A big sea canoe lay drawn up near the spot, and one of its copper-skinned Siwash owners sat amongst the shingle, stolidly watching the white men. His comrade was inside the sloop, holding a big stone against one of her frames, while Vane crouched outside her, swinging a hammer.

Vane, who was stripped to shirt and trousers, had arrived from Comox across the Strait at dawn that morning in the sea canoe. It was a long trip and they had had wild weather on the outward journey, but he had set to work with characteristic energy as soon as he landed. Now, though the sun was low, he was working rather harder than ever, with the flood tide, which would shortly compel him to desist, creeping up to his feet.

Carroll, who watched him with quiet amusement, was on the whole content that the tide was rising, because his comrade had firmly declined to stop for dinner, and he was conscious of a sharpened appetite. It was comforting to reflect that Vane would be unable to get the plank into place before the evening meal, because if there had been any prospect of his doing so, he would certainly have postponed the latter.

By and by he stopped a moment and turned to Carroll. "If you were any use in an emergency, you'd be holding up for me instead of that wooden image inside," he remarked. "He will back the stone against any frame except the one I'm nailing."

"The difficulty is that I can't be in two places at the same time," Carroll pointed out. "Shall I leave this plank? You can't get it in to-night."

"I'm going to try," Vane answered grimly.

He turned round to direct the Siwash and then cautiously hammered in one of the wedges a little farther, after which, swinging back the hammer, he struck a heavy blow. The result was disastrous, for there was a crash and one of the shores shot backwards, striking him on the knee. He jumped with a savage cry, and next moment there was a sharp snapping, and the end of the plank sprang out. Then another shore gave way, and when the plank fell clattering at his feet he whirled the hammer round his head, and hurled it violently into the bush. This appeared to afford him some satisfaction, and he strode up the beach, with the blood dripping from the knuckles of one hand.

"That's the blamed Siwash's fault," he said. "I couldn't get him to back up when I put the last spike in."

"Hadn't you better tell him to come out?" Carroll suggested.

"No," said Vane. "If he hasn't sense enough to see that he isn't wanted, he can stay where he is all night. Are you going to get supper, or must I do that, too?"

Carroll set about preparing the meal, which the two Siwash partook of and afterwards departed, with some paper currency. Then Vane, walking down the beach, came back with the plank, and after lighting his pipe, pointed to one or two broken nails in it.

"That's the cause of the trouble," he said. "It cost me a week's journey to get the package of galvanised spikes--I could have managed to split a plank or two out of one of these firs. The storekeeper fellow assured me they were specially annealed for heading up. If I knew who the manufacturers were, I'd have pleasure in telling them what I think of them. If they set up to make spikes, they ought to make them, and empty every keg that won't stand the test on to the scrap heap."

Carroll smiled. The course his partner had indicated was the one he would have adopted. He was characterised by a somewhat grim idea of efficiency, and never spared his labour to attain it, though the latter fact had now and then its inconveniences for those who had co-operated with him, as Carroll had discovered. The latter had no doubt that Vane would put the planks in, if he spent a month over the operation.

"I wouldn't have had this trouble if you'd been handier with tools," he resumed.

"My abilities aren't as varied as yours, and the thing is bad economy," Carroll replied. "Skill of the kind you mentioned is worth about three dollars a day."

"You were getting two dollars for shovelling in a mining ditch, when I first met you."

"I was," Carroll assented good-humouredly; "I believe another month or two of it would have worn me out. It's considerably pleasanter and more profitable to act as your understudy; but a fairly proficient carpenter might have bungled the latter."

Vane looked embarrassed. "Let it pass; I've a pernicious habit of expressing myself unfortunately. Anyhow, we'll start again on those planks first thing to-morrow."

He stretched out his aching limbs beside the fire, and languidly watched the firs grow dimmer and the mists creep in ghostly trails down the steep hillside, until Carroll broke the silence.

"Wallace," he said, "wouldn't it be wiser if you met that fellow Horsfield to some extent?"

"No," said Vane decidedly. "I have no intention of giving way an inch. It would only encourage the man to press me on another point, if I did. I'm going to have trouble with him, and the sooner it comes the better. There's only room for one controlling influence in the Clermont mine."

"In that case it might be as well to stay in Vancouver as much as possible and keep your eye on him."

"The same idea has struck me since we sailed," Vane said. "The trouble is that until I've decided about the pulp mill he'll have to go unwatched, for the same reason that prevented you from holding up for me and steaming the plank."

"If any unforeseen action of Horsfield's made it necessary, you could let this pulp project drop."

"No," said Vane, "You ought to understand why that's impossible. Drayton, Kitty and Hartley count upon my exertions. They're poor folks and I can't go back on them. If we can't locate the spruce or it doesn't seem likely to pay for working up, there's nothing to prevent my abandoning the undertaking; but I'm not at liberty to do so just because it would be a convenience to myself. Hartley got my promise before he told me where to search."

He strolled away to the tent they had pitched on the edge of the bush, but Carroll sat a while smoking beside the fire. He was suspicious of Horsfield, and foresaw trouble, more particularly now his comrade had undertaken a project which seemed likely to occupy a good deal of his attention. Hitherto, Vane had owed part of his success to his faculty of concentrating all his powers upon one object.

They rose at dawn next morning, and by sunset had fitted the new planks. Two days later, they sailed to the northwards, and eventually found the rancherie Hartley had mentioned, where they had expected to hire a guide. The rickety wooden building, however, was empty, and Vane pushed on again. He had now to face an unseen difficulty because there were a number of openings in that strip of coast, and Hartley's description was of no great service in deciding which was the right one.

During the next day or two, they looked into several bights, and seeing no valleys opening out of them, went on again, until one evening they ran into an inlet with a forest-shrouded hollow at the head of it. Here they moored the sloop close in with a sheltered beach, and after a night's rest got ready their packs for the march inland.

They had a light tent without poles, which could be cut when wanted; two blankets, an axe, and one or two cooking utensils, besides their provisions.

In front of them a deep trough opened up in the hills, but it was filled with giant forest, through which no track led, and only those who have traversed the dim recesses of the primeval bush can fully understand what this implies. The west winds swept through that gateway, reaping as they went, and here and there tremendous trees lay strewn athwart each other with their branches spread abroad in horrible tangles. Some had fallen amidst the wreckage left by previous gales, which the forest had partly made good, and there was scarcely a rod of the way that was not obstructed by half rotten trunks. Then there were thick bushes, and an undergrowth of willows where the soil was damp with thorny brakes and matted fern in between. In places, the growth was almost like a wall, and the men, who skirted the inlet, were glad to scramble forward among the rough boulders and ragged driftwood at the water's edge for some minutes at a time, until it was necessary to leave the beach behind.

After the first few minutes, there was no sign of the gleaming water. They had entered a region of dim green shade, where the moist air was heavy with resinous smells. The trunks rose about them in tremendous columns; thorns clutched their garments, and twigs and brittle branches snapped beneath their feet. The day was cool, but the sweat of tense effort dripped from them, and when they stopped for breath at the end of an hour, Vane estimated that they had gone a mile.

"I'll be content if we can keep this up," he said.

"It isn't likely," Carroll, who glanced down at a big rent in his jacket, replied with a trace of dryness.

A little farther on, they waded with difficulty through a large stream, and Carroll, who stopped, glanced round at a deep rift in a crag on one side of them.

"I don't know if that could be considered a valley, but we may as well look at it," he suggested.

They scrambled towards it, and reaching gravelly soil, where the trees were thinner, Vane surveyed the opening. It was very narrow, and appeared to lose itself among the rocks. The size of the creek which flowed out of it was no guide, because those ranges are scored by running water.

"We won't waste time over that ravine," he said. "I noticed a wider one farther on, and we'll see what it's like, though Hartley led me to understand that he came down a straight and gently-sloping valley. The one we're in answers the description."

It was two hours before they reached the second opening, and then Vane, unstrapping his packs, clambered up the steep face of a crag. When he came back his face was thoughtful and, sitting down, he lighted his pipe.

"This search seems to take us longer than I expected," he said. "To begin with, there are a number of inlets, all of them pretty much alike, along this part of the coast; but I needn't go into the reasons for supposing that this is the one Hartley visited. Taking it for granted that we're right, we're up against another difficulty. So far as I could make out from the top of that rock, there's a regular series of ravines running back into the hills."

"Hartley told you he came straight down to tidewater, didn't he?"

"That's not much of a guide," Vane replied. "The slope of every fissure seems to run naturally from the inland watershed to this basin. Hartley was sick, and it was raining all the time; and coming out of any of these ravines he'd only have to make a slight turn to reach the water. What's more, he could only tell me he was heading roughly west and allowing that there was no sun visible, that might have meant either north-west or south-west, which gives us the choice of searching the hollows on either side of the main valley. Now, it strikes me as most probable that he came down the latter; but we have to face the question whether we should push straight on, or search every opening that might be called a valley?"

"What's your idea?" Carroll rejoined.

"That we ought to go into the thing systematically and look at every ravine we come to."

"I guess you're right, but I don't move another step to-night."

"I've no wish to urge you. There's hardly a joint in my body that doesn't ache." Vane flung down his pack and stretched himself with an air of relief. "That's what comes of civilisation and soft living. It would be nice to sit still while somebody brought me my supper."

As there was nobody to do so, he took up the axe and set about hewing chips off a fallen trunk, while Carroll made a fire. Then he cut the tent poles, and a few armfuls of twigs for a bed, and in half an hour the camp was pitched and a meal prepared. They afterwards lay a while, smoking and saying little, beside the sinking fire, the red light of which flickered upon the massy trunks and fell away again. Then they crawled into the tent and wrapped their blankets round them.