They drove furiously between the white-streaked shoot of the fall and that horribly suggestive whirling; then, as they went back towards the outrush from the pool, they made another desperate, gasping effort.

For several moments it seemed that they must be swept back again, and then they gained a little, and, with a few more strokes, reached the edge of the rapid. They let the canoe drive down the rapid while the boulders flashed by them, for there was the same desire in all of them, and that was to get as far as possible away from that horrible pool. At last Mattawa, standing up forward, poled the canoe in where a deep ravine rent the dark rock's side, and the party went ash.o.r.e, wet and gasping. Wheeler looked back up the gorge and solemnly shook his head.

"If you want to see any more of it, you've got to do it alone. I've had enough," he declared. "A man who runs a pulp-mill has no use for paddling under that kind of fall. I'm not going back again."

Mattawa and Gordon set the tent up in the hollow of the ravine, while Wheeler hewed off spruce branches with which to make the beds; but Nasmyth did nothing to a.s.sist any of them. Thinking hard, he sat on a boulder, with his unlighted pipe in his hand. The throbbing roar of water rang about him; and it was then that the great project crept into his mind. It was rapidly growing dark in the bottom of the great rift, but he could still see the dim white flashing of the fall and the vast wall of rock and rugged hillside that ran up in shadowy grandeur, high above his head, and as he gazed at it all he felt his heart throb fast. He was conscious of a curious thrill as he watched and listened to that clash of stupendous forces. The river had spent countless ages cutting out that channel, hurling down mighty boulders and stream-driven shingle upon the living rock; but it was, it seemed to him, within man's power to alter it in a few arduous months. He sat very still, astonished at the daring of his own conception, until Wheeler strolled up to him.

"How much does the river drop at the fall?" he asked.

"About eight feet in the fall itself," answered Wheeler. "Seems to me it falls much more in the rush above. Still, I can't say I noticed it particularly--I had something else to think about."

"It's a short rapid," remarked Nasmyth reflectively. "There is, no doubt, a great deal of the hardest kind of rock under it, which is, in one or two respects, unfortunate. I suppose you don't know very much about geology?"

"I don't," confessed the pulp-miller. "Machines are my specialty."

"Well," said Nasmyth, "I'm afraid I don't either, and I believe one or two of these canons have puzzled wiser folks than I. You see, the general notion is that the rivers made them, but it doesn't seem quite reasonable to imagine a river tilting at a solid range and splitting it through the middle. In fact, it seems to me that some of the canons were there already, and the rivers just ran into them. One or two Indians have come down from the valley close to the fall, and they told me the river was quite deep there. The rock just holds it up at the fall. It's a natural dam--a d.y.k.e, I think they call it."

"I don't quite understand what all this is leading to," observed Wheeler.

Nasmyth laughed, though there was, as his companion noticed, a curious look in his eyes. "I'll try to make it clearer when we get into the valley. We're going there to-morrow."

It was almost dark now, and they went back together to the little fire that burned redly among the spruces in the ravine. There Mattawa and Gordon had a simple supper ready. The others stretched themselves out, rolled in their blankets, soon after they had eaten, but Nasmyth lay propped up on one elbow, wide awake, listening to the roar of water until well into the night. The stream drowned the faint rustling of the spruces in a great dominant note, and he set his lips as he recognized its depth of tone and volume. He had once more determined to pit all his strength of mind and body against the river. Still, he went to sleep at last, and awakening some time after it was dawn on the heights above, roused his comrades. When breakfast was over he started with them up the ravine to cross the range.

It was afternoon before they accomplished the climb, though the height was not great and a ravine pierced the crest, and they had rent most of their clothes to tatters when they scrambled down the slope into the valley. Those pine-shrouded hillsides are strewn with mighty fallen trees, amid which the tangled underbrush grows tall and rank, and, where the pines are less thickly s.p.a.ced, there are usually matted groves of willows, if the soil is damp. They pitched camp on the edge of the valley, and Gordon and Nasmyth prepared supper, while Wheeler cut firewood and Mattawa went out to prospect for the tracks of feeding deer. The axeman came back to say there were no signs of any wapiti, though the little Bush deer were evidently about, and it was decided to try for one that night with the pitlight, a mode of shooting now and then adopted when the deer are shy.

They ate their supper, and afterwards lay down with their blankets rolled about them, for it grew very cold as darkness crept up the valley. Like most of the other valleys, this one was walled in by steep-sided, pine-shrouded hills; but in this case there were no trees in the bottom of it, which, while very narrow, appeared several miles long. It was also nearly level, and the river wound through it in deep, still bends. There are not many valleys in that country in which heavy timber fails to grow, and those within reach of a market have been seized upon; for all ranch produce is in excellent demand, and the clearing of virgin forest is a singularly arduous task. In fact, there was only one reason why this strip of natural prairie had not already been claimed. Most of it was swamp. Nasmyth, who was quieter than usual, watched the filmy mist creep about it as the soft darkness rolled down the hillsides.

Gordon rose and hooked a pitlight into his hat. This pitlight consists simply of a little open miner's-lamp, which has fixed beneath it a shield cut out of any convenient meat-can. The lamp is filled with seal oil. Once a man has fastened it upon his head, the light is cut off from his person, so that he stands invisible, and the little flame appears unsupported. Deer of any kind are endued with an inquisitiveness which frequently leads to their destruction, and when they notice the twinkling light flitting through the air they approach it to ascertain the reason for such an unusual thing. Then the rancher shoots, as soon as their shining eyes become visible.

The party divided. Gordon and Nasmyth, who kept near each other, fell over several rotting trees, and into what appeared to be crumbling drains. They floundered knee-deep through withered timothy, which is not a natural gra.s.s. For an hour or two n.o.body saw any deer. Then Gordon, who was cautiously skirting another drain, closed in on Nasmyth until he touched his comrade. Nasmyth heard a crackling rustle among the withered gra.s.s. Gordon made a little abrupt movement.

"If we both blaze off, we double the odds on our getting it," he said.

Nasmyth only just heard him, for his heart was beating with excitement; but as he stood knee-deep in the gra.s.s, with both hands ready to pitch the heavy rifle up, it seemed to him that Mattawa could not have been correct when he said that there were only the Bush deer about. Judging by the noise it was making, the approaching beast, he thought, must be as big as a wapiti. Then he saw two pale spots of light, which seemed curiously high above the ground.

"I'm shooting," he said, and in another moment the b.u.t.t was into his shoulder.

He felt the jar of it, but, as usual in such cases, he heard no detonation, though the pale flash from Gordon's rifle was almost in his eyes. He, however, heard the thud of the heavy bullet, and a moment or two later, a floundering amidst the gra.s.s.

"That can't be a Bush deer!" he cried.

"It sounds 'way more like an elephant," said Gordon, with a gasp.

They ran forward until they stopped a few yards short of something very big and shadowy that was still struggling in the gra.s.s. Gordon cautiously crept up a little nearer.

"Those aren't deer's horns, anyway," he announced. "Plug it quick. The blamed thing's getting up."

Nasmyth flung the rifle up to his shoulder, and twice jerked a fresh cartridge into the chamber, but this time there was silence when the crash of the heavy Marlin died away among the woods. They crept forward a little further circ.u.mspectly, until Gordon stopped again with a gasp of consternation.

"Well," he said, "I guess it couldn't be either a Bush deer or a wapiti."

They were still standing there when their comrades came running up, and Mattawa, who took down his light, broke into a great hoa.r.s.e laugh.

"A steer!" he said, and pointed to a mark on the hide. "One of Custer's stock. Guess he'll charge you quite a few dollars for killing it."

Nasmyth smiled somewhat ruefully, for he was by no means burdened with wealth, but he was, after all, not greatly astonished. Few of the small ranchers can feed their stock entirely on their little patches of cleared land, and it is not an unusual thing for most of the herd to run almost wild in the Bush. Now and then, the cattle acquire a somewhat perilous fondness for wrecking road-makers' and prospectors'

tents, which explains why a steer occasionally fails to be found and some little community of axemen is provided with more fresh meat than can well be consumed.

"I'm afraid it's rather more than likely I'll have to pay a good price," said Nasmyth. "Do you feel anxious for any more shooting to-night, Wheeler?"

"No," said the pulp-miller, with a grin, as he surveyed his bemired clothes. "Guess it's going to prove expensive, and I've had 'most enough. I don't feel like poling that canoe any farther up-river, either. What's the matter with camping right where we are until we eat the steer?"

There was, however, as Mattawa pointed out, a good deal to be done before they could make their first meal off the beast, and none of them quite relished the task, especially as they had only an axe and a couple of moderately long knives. Still, it was done, and when they carried a portion of the meat out of the swamp, and had gone down to wash in the icy river, they went wearily back to their tent among the firs.

CHAPTER XI

THE GREAT IDEA

The night was cold, and a frost-laden wind set the fir branches sighing as Nasmyth and his comrades sat about a snapping fire. The red light flickered upon their faces, and then grew dim again, leaving their blurred figures indistinct amid the smoke that diffused pungent, aromatic odours as it streamed by and vanished between the towering tree-trunks.

The four men were of widely different type and training, though it was characteristic of the country that they sat and talked together on terms of perfect equality. Two of them were exiles, by fault and misfortune, from their natural environment. One had forced himself upwards by daring and mechanical genius into a station to which, in one sense, he did not belong, and Mattawa, the chopper, alone, pursued the occupation which had always been familiar to him. Still, it was as comrades that they lived together in the wilderness, and, what was more, had they come across one another afterwards in the cities, they would have resumed their intercourse on exactly the same footing.

After all, they were, in essentials, very much the same, and, when that is the case, the barriers men raise between themselves do not count for much in the West, at least. Wheeler, the pulp-mill builder, who had once sold oranges on the railroad cars, led up to a conversation that gave Nasmyth an opportunity for which he had been waiting.

"You and Mattawa are about through with that slashing contract," he said. "You will not net a great pile of money out of it, I suppose?"

"My share is about thirty," answered Nasmyth, with a little laugh. "My partner draws a few dollars more. He got in a week when the big log that rolled on my cut leg lamed me. I seem to have a particularly unfortunate habit of hurting myself. Are you going back to Ontario when we get that money, Mattawa?"

"No," the big axeman replied slowly; "anyway, not yet, though I was thinking of it. The ticket costs too much. They've been shoving up their Eastern rates."

"You ought to have a few dollars in hand," remarked Nasmyth, who was quite aware that this was not exactly his business. "Are you going to start a ranch?"

Mattawa appeared to smile. "I have one half cleared back in Ontario."

"Then what d'you come out here for?" Gordon broke in.

"To give the boy a show. He's quite smart, and we were figuring we might make a doctor or a surveyor of him. That costs money, and wages are 'way higher here than they are back East."

It was a simple statement, made very quietly by a simple man, but it appealed forcibly to those who heard it, for they could understand what lay behind it. Love of change or adventure, it was evident, had nothing to do with sending the grizzled Mattawa out to the forests of the West. He had, as he said, merely come there that his son might be afforded opportunities that he had never had, and this was characteristic, for it is not often that the second generation stays on the land. Though teamsters and choppers to the manner born are busy here and there, the Canadian prairie is to a large extent broken and the forest driven back by young men from the Eastern cities and by exiled Englishmen. Their life is a grim one, and when they marry they do not desire their children to continue it. Yet, they do not often marry, since the wilderness, in most cases, would crush the wives they would choose. The men toil on alone, facing flood, and drought, and frost, and some hate the silence of the winter nights during which they sit beside the stove.

"Then," inquired Wheeler, "who runs the ranch?"

"The wife and the boy. That is, when the boy's not chopping or ploughing for somebody."

There were reasons why Nasmyth was stirred by what he had heard, and with his pipe he pointed to Mattawa, as the flickering firelight fell upon the old axeman's face.