Vane of the Timberlands by Harold Bindloss

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Vane of The Timberlands

BY HAROLD BINDLOSS

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. A FRIEND IN NEED
II. A BREEZE OF WIND
III. AN AFTERNOON ASHORE
IV. A CHANGE OF ENVIRONMENT
V. THE OLD COUNTRY
VI. UPON THE HEIGHTS
VII. STORM-STAYED
VIII. LUCY VANE
IX. CHISHOLM PROVES AMENABLE
X. WITH THE OTTER HOUNDS
XI. VANE WITHDRAWS
XII. IN VANCOUVER
XIII. A NEW PROJECT
XIV. VANE SAILS NORTH
XV. THE FIRST MISADVENTURE
XVI. THE BUSH
XVII. VANE POSTPONES THE SEARCH
XVIII. JESSY CONFERS A FAVOR
XIX. VANE FORESEES TROUBLE
XX. THE FLOOD
XXI. VANE YIELDS A POINT
XXII. EVELYN GOES FOR A SAIL
XXIII. VANE PROVES OBDURATE
XXIV. JESSY STRIKES
XXV. THE INTERCEPTED LETTER
XXVI. ON THE TRAIL
XXVII. THE END OF THE SEARCH
XXVIII. CARROLL SEEKS HELP
XXIX. JESSY'S CONTRITION
XXX. CONVINCING TESTIMONY
XXXI. VANE IS REINSTATED

VANE OF THE TIMBERLANDS

CHAPTER I

A FRIEND IN NEED

A light breeze, scented with the smell of the firs, was blowing down the
inlet, and the tiny ripples it chased across the water splashed musically
against the bows of the canoe. They met her end-on, sparkling in the warm
sunset light, gurgled about her sides, and trailed away astern in two
divergent lines as the paddles flashed and fell. There was a thud as the
blades struck the water, and the long, light hull forged onward with
slightly lifted, bird's-head prow, while the two men swung forward for
the next stroke with a rhythmic grace of motion. They knelt, facing
forward, in the bottom of the craft, and, dissimilar as they were in
features and, to some extent, in character, the likeness between them was
stronger than the difference. Both bore the unmistakable stamp of a
wholesome life spent in vigorous labor in the open. Their eyes were clear
and, like those of most bushmen, singularly steady; their skin was clean
and weather-darkened; and they were leanly muscular.

On either side of the lane of green water giant firs, cedars and balsams
crept down the rocky hills to the whitened driftwood fringe. They formed
part of the great coniferous forest which rolls west from the wet Coast
Range of Canada's Pacific Province and, overleaping the straits, spreads
across the rugged and beautiful wilderness of Vancouver Island. Ahead,
clusters of little frame houses showed up here and there in openings
among the trees, and a small sloop, toward which the canoe was heading,
lay anchored near the wharf.

The men had plied the paddle during most of that day, from inclination
rather than necessity, for they could have hired Siwash Indians to
undertake the labor for them, had they been so minded. They were,
though their appearance did not suggest it, moderately prosperous; but
their prosperity was of recent date; they had been accustomed to doing
everything for themselves, as are most of the men who dwell among the
woods and ranges of British Columbia.

Vane, who knelt nearest the bow, was twenty-seven years of age. Nine of
those years he had spent chopping trees, driving cattle, poling canoes
and assisting in the search for useful minerals among the snow-clad
ranges. He wore a wide, gray felt hat, which had lost its shape from
frequent wettings, an old shirt of the same color, and blue duck
trousers, rent in places; but the light attire revealed a fine muscular
symmetry. He had brown hair and brown eyes; and a certain warmth of
coloring which showed through the deep bronze of his skin hinted at a
sanguine and somewhat impatient temperament. As a matter of fact, the
man was resolute and usually shrewd; but there was a vein of
impulsiveness in him, and, while he possessed considerable powers of
endurance, he was on occasion troubled by a shortness of temper.

His companion, Carroll, had lighter hair and gray eyes, and his
appearance was a little less vigorous and a little more refined; though
he, too, had toiled hard and borne many privations in the wilderness. His
dress resembled Vane's, but, dilapidated as it was, it suggested a
greater fastidiousness.

The two had located a valuable mineral property some months earlier and,
though this does not invariably follow, had held their own against city
financiers during the negotiations that preceded the floating of a
company to work the mine. That they had succeeded in securing a good deal
of the stock was largely due to Vane's pertinacity and said something for
his acumen; but both had been trained in a very hard school.

As the wooden houses ahead rose higher and the sloop's gray hull grew
into sharper shape upon the clear green shining of the brine, Vane broke
into a snatch of song:

"Had I the wings of a dove, I would fly
Just for to-night to the Old Country."

He stopped and laughed.

"It's nine years since I've seen it, but I can't get those lines out of
my head. Perhaps it's because of the girl who sang them. Somehow, I felt
sorry for her. She had remarkably fine eyes."

"Sea-blue," suggested his companion. "I don't grasp the connection
between the last two remarks."

"Neither do I," admitted Vane. "I suppose there isn't one. But they
weren't sea-blue; unless you mean the depth of indigo when you are out of
soundings. They're Irish eyes."

"You're not Irish. There's not a trace of the Celt in you, except,
perhaps, your habit of getting indignant with the people who don't share
your views."

"No, sir! By birth, I'm North Country--England, I mean. Over there we're
descendants of the Saxons, Scandinavians, Danes--Teutonic stock at
bottom, anyhow; and we've inherited their unromantic virtues. We're
solid, and cautious, respectable before everything, and smart at getting
hold of anything worth having. As a matter of fact, you Ontario Scotsmen
are mighty like us."

"You certainly came out well ahead of those city men who put up the
money," agreed Carroll. "I guess it's in the blood; though I fancied once
or twice that they would take the mine from you."

Vane brought his paddle down with a thud.

"Just for to-night to the Old Country,--"

He hummed, and added:

"It sticks to one."

"What made you leave the Old Country? I don't think you ever told me."

Vane laughed.

"That's a blamed injudicious question to ask anybody, as you ought to
know; but in this particular instance you shall have an answer. There was
a row at home--I was a sentimentalist then, and just eighteen--and as a
result of it I came out to Canada." His voice changed and grew softer. "I
hadn't many relatives, and, except one sister, they're all gone now. That
reminds me--she's not going to lecture for the county education
authorities any longer."

The sloop was close ahead, and slackening the paddling they ran
alongside. Vane glanced at his watch when they had climbed on board.

"Supper will be finished at the hotel," he remarked. "You had better get
the stove lighted. It's your turn, and that rascally Siwash seems to
have gone off again. If he's not back when we're ready, we'll sail
without him."

Supper is served at the hotels in the western settlements as soon as work
ceases for the day, and the man who arrives after it is over must wait
until the next day's breakfast is ready. Carroll, accordingly, prepared
the meal; and when they had finished it they lay on deck smoking with a
content not altogether accounted for by a satisfied appetite. They had
spent several anxious months, during which they had come very near the
end of their slender resources, arranging for the exploitation of the
mine, and now at last the work was over. Vane had that day made his final
plans for the construction of a road and a wharf by which the ore could
be economically shipped for reduction, or, as an alternative to this, for
the erection of a small smelting plant. They had bought the sloop as a
convenient means of conveyance and shelter, as they could live in some
comfort on board; and now they could take their ease for a while, which
was a very unusual thing to both of them.

"I suppose you're bent on sailing this craft back?" Carroll remarked at
length. "We could hire a couple of Siwash to take her home while we rode
across the island and got the train to Victoria. Besides, there's that
steamboat coming down the coast to-night."

"Either way would cost a good deal extra."

"That's true," Carroll agreed with an amused expression; "but you could
charge it to the company."

Vane laughed.

"You and I have a big stake in the concern; and I haven't got used to
spending money unnecessarily yet, I've been mighty glad to earn a couple
dollars by working from sunup until dark, though I didn't always get it
afterward. So have you."

"How are you going to dispose of your money, then? You have a nice little
balance in cash, besides the shares."

"It has occurred to me that I might spend a few months in the Old
Country. Have you ever been over there?"

"I was across some time ago; but, if you like, I'll go along with you. We
could start as soon as we've arranged the few matters left open in
Vancouver."

Vane was glad to hear it. He knew little about Carroll's antecedents, but
his companion was obviously a man of education, and they had been staunch
comrades for the last three years. They had plodded through leagues of
rain-swept bush, had forded icy rivers, had slept in wet fern and
sometimes slushy snow, and had toiled together with pick and drill.
During that time they had learned to know and trust each other and to
bear with each other's idiosyncrasies.

Filling his pipe again as he lay in the fading sunlight, Vane looked back
on the nine years he had passed in Canada, and, allowing for the periods
of exposure to cold and wet and the almost ceaseless toil, he admitted
that he might have spent them more unpleasantly. He had a stout heart and
a muscular body, and the physical hardships had not troubled him. What
was more, he had a quick, almost instinctive, judgment and the faculty
for seizing an opportunity.

Having quarreled with his relatives and declined any favors from them, he
had come to Canada with only a few pounds and had promptly set about
earning a living with his hands. When he had been in the country several
years, a friend of the family had, however, sent him a small sum, and the
young man had made judicious use of the money. The lot he bought outside
a wooden town doubled in value, and the share he took in a new orchard
paid him well; but he had held aloof from the cities, and his only
recklessness had been his prospecting journeys into the wilderness.
Prospecting for minerals is at once an art and a gamble. Skill, acquired
by long experience or instinctive--and there are men who seem to possess
the latter--counts for much, but chance plays a leading part. Provisions,
tents and packhorses are expensive, and though a placer mine may be
worked by two partners, a reef or lode can be disposed of only to men
with means sufficient to develop it. Even in this delicate matter, in
which he had had keen wits against him, Vane had held his own; but there
was one side of life with which he was practically unacquainted.

There are no social amenities on the rangeside or in the bush, where
women are scarce. Vane had lived in Spartan simplicity, practising the
ascetic virtues, as a matter of course. He had had no time for sentiment,
his passions had remained unstirred; and now he was seven and twenty,
sound and vigorous of body, and, as a rule, level of head. At length,
however, there was to be a change. He had earned an interlude of
leisure, and he meant to enjoy it without, so he prudently determined,
making a fool of himself.

Presently Carroll took his pipe from his mouth.

"Are you going ashore again to the show to-night?"

"Yes," Vane answered. "It's a long while since I've struck an
entertainment of any kind, and that yellow-haired mite's dancing is one
of the prettiest things I've seen."

"You've been twice already," Carroll hinted. "The girl with the blue eyes
sings her first song rather well."

"I think so," Vane agreed with a significant absence of embarrassment.
"In this case a good deal depends on the singing--the interpretation,
isn't it? The thing's on the border, and I've struck places where they'd
have made it gross; but the girl only brought out the mischief. Strikes
me she didn't see there was anything else in it"

"That's curious, considering the crowd she goes about with. Aren't you
cultivating a critical faculty?"

Vane disregarded the ironical question.

"She's Irish; that accounts for a good deal."

He paused and looked thoughtful.

"If I knew how to do it, I'd like to give five or ten dollars to the
child who dances. It must be a tough life, and her mother--the woman
at the piano--looks ill. I wonder whatever brought them to a place
like this?"

"Struck a cold streak at Nanaimo, the storekeeper told me. Anyway, since
we're to start at sunup, I'm staying here." Then he smiled. "Has it
struck you that your attendance in the front seats is liable to
misconception?"

Vane rose without answering and dropped into the canoe. Thrusting her
off, he drove the light craft toward the wharf with vigorous strokes of
the paddle, and Carroll shook his head whimsically as he watched him.

"Anybody except myself would conclude that he's waking up at last," he
commented.

A minute or two later Vane swung himself up onto the wharf and strode
into the wooden settlement. There were one or two hydraulic mines and a
pulp mill in the vicinity, and, though the place was by no means
populous, a company of third-rate entertainers had arrived there a few
days earlier. On reaching the rude wooden building in which they had
given their performance and finding it closed, he accosted a lounger.

"What's become of the show?" he asked.

"Busted. Didn't take the boys' fancy. The crowd went out with the stage
this afternoon; though I heard that two of the women stayed behind.
Somebody said the hotel-keeper had trouble about his bill."

Vane turned away with a slight sense of compassion. More than once during
his first year or two in Canada he had limped footsore and weary into a
wooden town where nobody seemed willing to employ him. An experience of
the kind was unpleasant to a vigorous man, but he reflected that it must
be much more so in the case of a woman, who probably had nothing to fall
back upon. However, he dismissed the matter from his mind. Having been
kneeling in a cramped position in the canoe most of the day, he decided
to stroll along the waterside before going back to the sloop.

Great firs stretched out their somber branches over the smooth shingle,
and now that the sun had gone their clean resinous smell was heavy in the
dew-cooled air. Here and there brushwood grew among outcropping rock and
moss-grown logs lay fallen among the brambles.

Catching sight of what looked like a strip of woven fabric beneath a
brake, Vane strode toward it. Then he stopped with a start, for a young
girl lay with her face hidden from him, in an attitude of dejected
abandonment. He was about to turn away softly, when she started and
looked up at him. Her long dark lashes glistened and her eyes were wet,
but they were of the deep blue he had described to Carroll, and he
stood still.

"You really shouldn't give way like that," he said.

It was all he could think of, but he spoke without obtrusive assurance or
pronounced embarrassment; and the girl, shaking out her crumpled skirt
over one little foot, with a swift sinuous movement, choked back a sob
and favored him with a glance of keen scrutiny as she rose to a sitting
posture. She was quick at reading character--the life she led had made
that necessary--and his manner and appearance were reassuring. He was on
the whole a well-favored man--good-looking seemed the best word for
it--though what impressed her most was his expression. It indicated that
he regarded her with some pity, not as an attractive young woman, which
she knew she was, but merely as a human being. The girl, however, said
nothing; and, sitting down on a neighboring boulder, Vane took out his
pipe from force of habit.

"Well," he added, in much the same tone he would have used to a
distressed child, "what's the trouble?"

She told him, speaking on impulse.

"They've gone off and left me! The takings didn't meet expenses; there
was no treasury."

"That's bad," responded Vane gravely. "Do you mean they've left
you alone?"

"No; it's worse than that. I suppose I could go--somewhere--but there's
Mrs. Marvin and Elsie."

"The child who dances?"

The girl assented, and Vane looked thoughtful. He had already noticed
that Mrs. Marvin, whom he supposed to be the child's mother, was worn and
frail, and he did not think there was anything she could turn her hand to
in a vigorous mining community. The same applied to his companion, though
he was not greatly astonished that she had taken him into her confidence.
The reserve that characterizes the insular English is less common in the
West, where the stranger is more readily taken on trust.

"The three of you stick together?" he suggested.

"Of course! Mrs. Marvin's the only friend I have."

"Then I suppose you've no idea what to do?"

"No," she confessed, and then explained, not very clearly, that it was
the cause of her distress and that they had had bad luck of late. Vane
could understand that as he looked at her. Her dress was shabby, and he
fancied that she had not been bountifully fed.

"If you stayed here a few days you could go out with the next stage and
take the train to Victoria." He paused and continued diffidently: "It
could be arranged with the hotel-keeper."

She laughed in a half-hysterical manner, and he remembered what she had
said about the treasury, and that fares are high in that country.

"I suppose you have no money," he added with blunt directness. "I want
you to tell Mrs. Marvin that I'll lend her enough to take you all to
Victoria."

Her face crimsoned. He had not quite expected that, and he suddenly felt
embarrassed. It was a relief when she broke the brief silence.

"No," she replied; "I can't do that. For one thing, it would be too late
when we got to Victoria, I think we could get an engagement if we reached
Vancouver in time to get to Kamloops by--"

Vane knit his brows when he heard the date, and it was a moment or two
before he spoke.

"There's only one way you can do it. There's a little steamboat coming
down the coast to-night. I had half thought of intercepting her, anyway,
and handing the skipper some letters to post in Victoria. He knows
me--I'm likely to have dealings with his employers. That's my sloop
yonder, and if I put you on board the steamer, you'd reach Vancouver in
good time. We should have sailed at sunup, anyhow."

The girl hesitated and turned partly from him. He surmised that she did
not know what to make of his offer, though her need was urgent. In the
meanwhile he stood up.

"Come along and talk it over with Mrs. Marvin," he urged. "I'd better
tell you that I'm Wallace Vane, of the Clermont Mine. Of course, I know
your name, from the program."

She rose and they walked back to the hotel. Once more it struck him that
the girl was pretty and graceful, though he had already deduced from
several things that she had not been regularly trained as a singer nor
well educated. On reaching the hotel, he sat down on the veranda while
she went in, and a few minutes later Mrs. Marvin came out and looked at
him much as the girl had done. He grew hot under her gaze and repeated
his offer in the curtest terms.

"If this breeze holds, we'll put you on board the steamer soon after
daybreak," he explained.

The woman's face softened, and he recognized now that there had been
strong suspicion in it.

"Thank you," she said simply; "we'll come."

There was a moment's silence and then she added with an eloquent gesture:

"You don't know what it means to us!"

Vane merely took off his hat and turned away; but a minute or two later
he met the hotel-keeper.

"Do these people owe you anything?" he asked.

"Five dollars; they paid up part of the time. I was wondering what to do
with them. Guess they've no money. They didn't come in to supper, though
we would have stood them that. Made me think they were straight folks;
the other kind wouldn't have been bashful."

Vane handed him a bill.

"Take it out of this, and make any excuse you like. I'm going to put them
on board the steamboat."

The man made no comment, and Vane, striding down to the beach, sent a
hail ringing across the water. Carroll appeared on the sloop's deck and
answered him.

"Hallo!" he cried. "What's the trouble?"

"Get ready the best supper you can manage, for three people, as quick
as you can!"

"Supper for three people!"

Vane caught the astonished exclamation and came near losing his temper.

"For three people!" he shouted. "Don't ask any fool questions! You'll see
later on!"

Then he turned away in a hurry, wondering somewhat uneasily what Carroll
would say when he grasped the situation.

CHAPTER II

A BREEZE OF WIND

There were signs of a change in the weather when Vane walked down to the
wharf with his passengers, for a cold wind which had sprung up struck an
eerie sighing from the somber firs and sent the white mists streaming
along the hillside. There was a watery moon in the sky, and when they
reached the water's edge Vane fancied that the singer hesitated; but Mrs.
Marvin laid her hand on the girl's arm reassuringly, and she got into the
canoe. A few minutes later Vane ran the craft alongside the sloop and saw
the amazement in Carroll's face by the glow from the cabin skylight. He
fancied, however, that his comrade would rise to the occasion, and he
helped his guests up.

"My partner, Carroll. Mrs. Marvin and her daughter; Miss Kitty
Blake. You have seen them already. They're coming down with us to
catch the steamer."

Carroll bowed, and Vane thrust back the cabin slide and motioned the
others below. The place was brightly lighted by a nickeled lamp, though
it was scarcely four feet high and the centerboard trunk occupied the
middle of it. A wide cushioned locker ran along either side a foot above
the floor, and a swing-table, fixed above the trunk, filled up most of
the space between. There was no cloth on the table, but it was
invitingly laid out with canned fruit, coffee, hot flapjacks and a big
lake trout, for in the western bush most men can cook.

"You must help yourselves while we get sail upon the boat," said Vane
cheerily. "The saloon's at your disposal--my partner and I have the
forecastle. You will notice that there are blankets yonder, and as we'll
have smooth water most of the way you should get some sleep. Perhaps
you'd better keep the stove burning; and if you should like some coffee
in the early morning you'll find it in the top locker."

He withdrew, closing the slide, and went forward with Carroll to shorten
in the cable; but when they stopped beside the bitts his companion broke
into a laugh.

"Is there anything amusing you?" Vane asked curtly.

"Well," drawled Carroll, "this country, of course, isn't England; but,
for all that, it's desirable that a man who expects to make his mark in
it should exercise a certain amount of caution. It strikes me that you're
making a rather unconventional use of your new prosperity, and it might
be prudent to consider how some of your friends in Vancouver may regard
the adventure."

Vane sat down upon the bitts and took out his pipe.

"One trouble in talking to you is that I never know whether you're in
earnest or not. You trot out your cold-blooded worldly wisdom--I suppose
it is wisdom--and then you grin at it."

"It seems to me that's the only philosophic attitude," Carroll replied.
"It's possible to grow furiously indignant with the restraints
stereotyped people lay on one, but on the whole it's wiser to bow to them
and chuckle. After all, they've some foundation."

Vane looked up at him sharply.

"You've been right in the advice you have given me more than once. You
seem to know how prosperous, and what you call stereotyped, people look
at things. But you've never explained where you acquired the knowledge."

"Oh, that's quite another matter," laughed Carroll.

"Anyway, there's one remark of yours I'd like to answer. You would, no
doubt, consider that I made a legitimate use of my money when I
entertained that crowd of city people--some of whom would have plundered
me if they could have managed it--in Vancouver. I didn't grudge it, of
course, but I was a little astonished when I saw the wine and cigar bill.
It struck me that the best of them scarcely noticed what they got--I
think they'd been up against it at one time, as we have; and it would
have done the rest of the guzzlers good if they'd had to work with the
shovel all day on pork and flapjacks. But we'll let that go. What have
you and I done that we should swill in champagne, while a girl with a
face like that one below and a child who dances like a fairy haven't
enough to eat? You know what I paid for the last cigars. What confounded
hogs we are!"

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