"Yes, I guess we've got the men you want," he said, with unusual civility for a Western hotel clerk. "Just stood some big stock-buyers a high-cla.s.s breakfast, and you'll find them upstairs. Say, if you want a.s.sistance send right down for me."

"We'll probably fix them without you," was the smiling answer. "Only two doors to the place, haven't you? I'll leave this man here with you, sending two more to the other one. Walk straight in, Mr. Lorimer, and see the end of the play."

We entered the bustling coffee-room, where, at the detective's suggestion, I ordered refreshment, and he placed us at a table behind two pillars.

Heysham ate and chatted in high spirits; but, though hungry enough, I could scarcely eat at all, and sat still in irresolute impatience for what seemed an interminable time. I could not get Minnie's worn face out of my memory; and, though her husband's incarceration would probably be a boon to her, I knew she would not think so. Besides, this deliberate trapping of a man I had met on terms of friendship, even after what had happened, was repugnant; and the cattle were safe. There was, however, nothing to do but wait; for, alert and watchful, the representative of the law--who, nevertheless, made an excellent breakfast--kept his eyes fixed on the door, until I would have risen, but that he restrained me, as, followed by several others, Fletcher and a little dark man, besides the one who had cajoled the stock from me, came in.

"Stock-buyers!" whispered the detective, thrusting me further back. "Go slow. In the interests of justice, I want to see just what they're going to do."

The newcomers seated themselves not far from the other side of the pillar, and I waited feverishly, catching s.n.a.t.c.hes of somewhat vivid general chatter, until one of the party said more loudly: "Now let us come down to business. I've seen the beasts--had to crawl over the cars to do it--and they're mostly trash, though there are some that would suit me, marked hoop L. & J. Say, come down two dollars a head all around, and I'll give you a demand draft on the bank below for the lot."

What followed I did not hear, but by-and-by a voice broke through the confused murmuring: "It's a deal!" An individual scribbling in his pocket-book moved toward a writing table. Then the detective stepped forward, beckoning to me.

"Sorry to spoil trade, but I've saved your check, gentlemen," he said.

"That stock's stolen. Thomas Gorst and other names, Will Stephens, and Thomas Fletcher, would you like to glance at this warrant? No! well, it's no use looking ugly, there are men at either door waiting for you. This is a new trick, Stephens, and you haven't played it neatly."

"Euchred!" gasped the little man, while the other scowled at me.

"Confusion to you! In another hour I'd have been rustling for the Great Republic. Still, I guess the game's up. Don't be a mule, Fletcher; I'm going quietly."

He held out his hands with a resigned air, but when, amid exclamations of wonder, another officer appeared mysteriously from somewhere to slip on the handcuffs, Fletcher hurled a decanter into his face and sprang wildly for the door. He pa.s.sed within a yard of where I stood. I could have stopped him readily with an outstretched foot or hand, but I did neither, and there was an uproar as he plunged down the stairway with an officer close behind him. The detective saw his other prisoners handcuffed before he followed, and though he said nothing he gazed at me reproachfully.

When we stood at the head of the stairs he chuckled as he pointed below.

"Your friend hasn't got very far," he said dryly.

It was true enough, for in the hall a stalwart constable sat on the chest of a fallen man who apparently strove to bite him, and I saw that the latter was Thomas Fletcher. I had clearly been guilty of a dereliction of the honest citizen's duty, but for all that I did not like the manner in which he said, "Your friend."

We returned to the station, and later in the day I entertained Robertson and Heysham with the best luncheon I could procure, when for once we drank success to Number Forty in choice vintages.

"I can't sufficiently thank you, Heysham," I said when we shook hands.

"Now, advise me about those cattle; and is there anything I can do for you?"

"Enjoyed the fun," was the answer, "and you gave me a free pa.s.sage to Winnipeg. I didn't do it for that reason, but if you like to leave the disposal of those beasts to Ross & Grant, highest-cla.s.s salesmen, promptest settlements, etc., I shall be pleased to trade with you. Sorry to intrude business, but after all I'm a drummer, and one must earn one's bread and b.u.t.ter--see?"

I had much pleasure in agreeing, and Ross & Grant sold those beasts to my complete satisfaction and Jasper's as well, while that was but the beginning of a profitable connection with them, and an acquaintance with Heysham, who was from the first a friend of Aline's and is now sole partner in the firm. Still, though I returned to Fairmead with the proceeds, satisfied, it transpired that Thomas Fletcher was not yet past doing me a further injury.

CHAPTER XXIII

ON THE GOLD TRAIL

Nothing further of moment happened for a time. Fletcher, protesting his innocence, lay awaiting trial with his accomplices, and I had been warned that I should be called on to give evidence, which I was unwilling to do; and, after consulting a solicitor, I endeavored in the meantime to forget the disagreeable affair. Then one morning, when the snow lay thick on the shingles, and the creek in the ravine was frozen almost to the bottom, the fur-wrapped postman brought me a letter from Harry.

"I have only good news," it ran. "We have piled up beams and stringers ahead of contract, and sold a number of logs a snow-slide brought us at a good profit, ready for floating down to a new sawmill in the valley. That, however, is by the way. As you know, Johnston has quartz reefs on the brain, and now fancies he is really on the track of one. There have been rumors of rich gold west of the Fraser, and one of our prospecting friends came in almost snow-blind with promising specimens. Nothing will stop Johnston, and I'm bitten myself, so the fact is we're going up to find that gold. Of course, it's the wrong time; but there'll be a rush in spite of that. In short, we want you, and I managed to secure this railroad pa.s.s."

I showed Aline the letter, and she said, "Why don't you go? I can stay with the Kenyons; they have often asked me. It would be splendid, wouldn't it, if you were to find a gold mine?"

I nodded rather gravely. Gold mines worth developing are singularly hard to find, and when found generally need a large capital to work them, while the company financier gets the pickings. The steady following up of one consistent plan more commended itself to me, and prospecting in mid-winter would try the strength of a giant. Still, if my partners were bent on it they would naturally expect me to humor them in the matter, and there was a hope of seeing Grace, so I answered:

"I wish they had never heard of it; but, if Mrs. Kenyon will take care of you for a few weeks, I must go."

Aline was evidently prepared to bear my absence philosophically, and, perhaps because one of Mrs. Kenyon's sons was a handsome stripling, she spent all day sewing, while I gathered up my belongings and rode over to interview that lady, who had lately come out from Ontario, and professed herself delighted to receive my sister. Thus it happened that one morning before daybreak I stood beside a burdened pack-horse with a load of forty pounds strapped about my shoulders, outside a log shanty, ready to strike out into the snow-bound northern wilderness. Johnston, who was in high spirits, held the bridle of another horse, and Harry whistled gaily as with the a.s.sistance of a prospector he strapped a heavy collection of sundries upon its back, while the owner of the shanty watched us with a fine a.s.sumption of pity.

"Lots of gold up yonder! Well, I guess there is," he said. "But maybe you'll get mighty tired before you find it, and this isn't quite the season to go sloshing round glaciers and snow-fields. Don't I wish I was coming? Can't say I do. Go slow and steady is my motto, and you'll turn more gold out of the earth with the plough than you ever will with the drill, and considerably easier, too. There's another outfit yonder ahead of you, and a third one coming along. Look in this way if you come back hungry."

Johnston smote the pack-horse, and there was a clash of rifles, axes, tin pans and kettles as we moved off into the forest, which was free of undergrowth here.

"That was a sensible man," I observed. "Harry, I can't help feeling that this gold hunting is not our business, and no good will come of it."

"Then you needn't say so," Harry answered shortly. "If I were troubled with old women's presentiments I should keep them to myself. The man we have with us knows the country well, and from what the other half revealed we ought to find something. I'm wondering who got up the other expedition, unless it's Ormond. The Day Spring is doing even worse lately, and the Colonel has gone down to Vancouver to raise fresh funds or sell it to a company, which would be rough on the company. Your uncle and your cousin are wintering there."

This gave me food for thought, and I trudged on, dreamily noticing how the tramp of feet and the clatter of metal broke through the ghostly silence, while half-seen figures of man and beast appeared and vanished among the trunks, and the still woods seemed listening to our march. I knew that in the old days the feet of a mult.i.tude had worn trails through these ranges as they pressed on toward the treasure of Ca.s.siar and Caribou, and that the bones of many were strewn broadcast across the region into which we were venturing. Perhaps it was because of the old Lancashire folk-lore I once had greedily listened to, but I could not altogether disbelieve in presentiments, and my dislike to the journey deepened until Johnston's voice rose clearly through the frosty air: "There's shining gold in heaps, I'm told, by the banks of Sacramento."

The rest was the usual forecastle gibberish, but, and it may have been that our partner being born with the wanderer's spirits could give meaning to the immemorial calling that speaks to the hearts of the English through the rude chanteys of the sea, something stirred me when the refrain rose up exultantly, "Blow, boys, blow, for Californio, for there's shining gold and wealth untold on the sunny Sacramento."

"Where did he learn the trick of it?" said Harry. "There's certainly nothing in the words, and yet that song takes hold. I dare say many a poor deserter devil has marched to his death to it. The seamen came up with the vanguard when they found gold in Caribou. Wake up, and ring it out, Ralph.

A tribute to the fallen. 'Hey ho, Sacramento!'"

I have heard that chantey since. On certain occasions Harry brings out its final chords on the Fairmead piano with a triumphant crash that has yet a tremble in it, and each time it conjures up a vision of spectral pines towering through the shadow that veils the earth below, while above the mists the snow lies draped in stainless purity waiting for the dawn. Then I know that Harry, who is only a tiller of the soil, had learned in the book of nature to grasp the message of that scene, and interpret it through the close of a seaman's ballad.

The full story of our journey would take long to tell, and a recital of how we struggled through choked forests, floundered amid the drifts in the pa.s.ses, or crawled along the icy rock-slope's side, might prove monotonous. We left the ashes of our camp-fires in many a burnt brulee and among the boulders of lonely lakes, but though, after one pack-horse fell over a precipice, provisions ran out rapidly, we failed to find the gorge the prospector talked about; or rather, because the whole land was fissured by them, we found many gorges, but each in succession proved to be the wrong one. Then we held consultations, and the prospector suggested that we should return and try again in the spring, to which Harry agreed. Johnston, however, would not hear of this, and said with a strange a.s.surance:

"I suppose it's the gambler's spirit, but I've gone prospecting somewhat too often before, and if one only keeps on long enough the luck is bound to turn. This time I seem to know it's going to. Still, I'll fall in with the majority. Ralph, as head of the firm you have the casting vote."

Then, and I always regretted it, I said: "We should never have come at all. No sensible person goes prospecting in mid-winter; but, being here, we had better spend three days more. That means further reduced rations, but if we find nothing by the third noon we'll turn back forthwith."

The others agreed, and on the second night we lay in camp in a burnt forest. We were all tired and hungry, and--for Johnston was silent--a melancholy settled down upon the camp, while I lay nearly frozen under two blankets, watching a half-moon sail slowly above the fretted ridge of firs. At last Johnston spoke:

"To-morrow is the fatal day. Ralph has the look of an unsatisfied wolf; you are hungry, Harry; we are all hungry, and such is mortal man that at this moment my soul longs more than all things for even the most cindery flapjack that ever came out of a camp cook's frying-pan. Still, I'm not going home 'returned empty' this time, and fragments of a forgotten verse keep jingling through my head. It's an encouraging stanza, to the effect that, though often one gets weary, the long, long road has a turning, and there's an end at last. It would be particularly nice if it ended up in a quartz reef that paid for the stamping, especially when one might square up some of one's youthful misdeeds with the proceeds. Ever heard me moralizing, Ralph? The question is whether one can ever square the reckoning of such foolishness."

"I haven't thought about it," I answered, remembering how when Johnston harangued the railroaders' camp, banjo in hand, he would mix up the wildest nonsense with sentiment. "But it's an axiom, isn't it, that a man must pay for his fun, and if you will go looking for gold mines in winter you can't expect to be comfortable."

"He hasn't thought about it," said Johnston. "Ralph, all things considered, you are a lucky individual. What can man want better than to win his way to fortune, and the love of a virtuous maid, tramping behind his oxen under clear sunshine down the half-mile furrow, looking only for the harvest, and sowing hope with the grain. There's a restfulness about it that appeals to me. Some men are born with a chronic desire for rest."

"I don't think you were among them," I answered irritably; "and there's precious little rest in summer on the prairie;" but Johnston continued:

"I too loved a virtuous maiden, and, stranger still, I fancy she loved me, but unfortunately there was one of the other kind too, and the result thereof was as usual--disaster. I've been trying to remedy that disaster--did you ever wonder where my dividends went to? Well, there is a reason why I'm anxious to find a mine. If we do, I'll tell you the sequel.

Otherwise--and things do happen unexpectedly--there's a leather case in my pocket, and in case of accident I hope my partners will act on what they find in it. Perhaps some one in England would bless them if they did."

He ceased, and some time later a vibratory monotone commenced far up under the stars, gathering strength and volume until it rolled in long pulsations down the steep ranges' side.

"It's more common in spring," remarked the prospector, "but some ice bridge has busted under pressure, and the snow is coming down. There'll be most astonishing chaos in the next valley."

I cannot say how long the great harmony lasted, for we listened spellbound, unheeding the pa.s.sage of time, while the cedars trembled about us as the tremendous diapason leaped from peak to peak and the valleys flung back the echoes in majestic antiphones. There was the roar of sliding gravel, the crash of rent-down forest, and the rumble of ice and snow, each mingling its own note, softened by distance, in the supernatural orchestra, until the last echoes died away and there was a breathless hush.

"We have heard great things," said Johnston; "what did the surveyor say?

Not an ounce of the ruin is wasted; the lower Fraser wheat-lands are built that way. There's a theme for a master to write a Benedicite. Grinding ice chanting to the thunders of the snow, and the very cedars listening in the valleys. Well, I'll make him a free present of the fancy; we're merely gold miners, or we hope to be. Good-night, and remember the early start to-morrow."