Chapter Twenty One.
Camp-Life in the Far West.
Scene: In the backwoods of British America. Kenneth, Archie, and Harvey are seen sitting around the camp fire. It is a whole hour after sunset, and yet there is plenty of light in the sky. There are rocks and pine trees around, a brawling stream not far off. There is a tall rugged mountain in the distance; its highest peaks are snow-clad. Southwards away, grey clouds are heaped up on the horizon, a slight scimitar-shaped moon is shining in the north-west, and ominous little dark clouds are drifting over it. It is not from this moon that the light comes, but from a strange yellowish after-glow, which tinges all the western horizon, and, mingling with the blue above, evolves a peculiar shade of green.
“Heap more wood on the fire, Archie,” said Kenneth. “I’m growing quite an old man, I think. It is only a year since we left Africa and rounded the Horn, hardly nine months since we bade adieu to civilisation, and became wanderers and vagabonds in this wild dreary land, gold-hunting as usual, and yet it seems to me an age.”
Kenneth pulled his blanket closer round his shoulders as he spoke, and Archie rose to replenish the fire, laughing as he did so.
“When you die of old age,” he said, “I shall make my will, Kennie boy.”
“Oh! but we are sure to find gold,” put in Harvey.
“Well, I don’t know, but it seems to me that this searching for gold is like chasing a wild goose or a will-o’-the-wisp. Don’t you think, Archie, we had better settle down to something more certain if more slow?”
“I do think so,” replied Archie; “and after what Harvey here has told us, that he is the son of poor old Laird McGregor, and rightful heir to the McGregor estates, he ought to go straight away home, turn that old Yankee tyrant out, and regain possession of his own. You cannot break an entail, you know.”
“Heigho!” sighed Harvey, “I have repented my quarrel with my dear old father all my life. It was my proud Highland blood that caused it in the first instance. I rushed away to sea, I changed my name, I made myself out as dead. I thought not of the kind heart I was breaking, of the grey hairs I was bringing down in sorrow to the grave. And how has fate rewarded me? I have been a rover ever since, a wanderer and a vagabond; thrice have riches been within my grasp, thrice has Fortune dashed the cup aside. And am I to go now that my father is in his long home and claim my patrimony? My pride forbids; I’d rather be a ghillie on the old estate, or a keeper, than proud laird of it all.”
“Stay,” said Kenneth, laying his hand kindly on Harvey’s shoulder. “Not for your own sake should you do this thing, but remember you have a mother and sister, still alive it is to be hoped. Do you never think of them?”
Harvey’s hands now covered his face, his form was bent forward, but the heaving of his chest told of the grief that was rending him.
“Think, too, of the Clachan restored, of the old church bell once more calling the people of the glen to worship on the Sabbath mornings. Steve the Yankee, from all accounts, is a tyrant, an oppressor, and a villain. Harvey McGregor, think of seeing your old mother once more in the dear old-fashioned pew.”
“Kenneth McAlpine!” cried Harvey, starting up, “no more of this now, you irritate, you madden me!
“But,” he added, in a more softened tone of voice, “I may promise you just one thing. If we fail this time, if I fail to find fortune, I will return to my mother like the prodigal son I have been. Though fain, oh! how fain I would be to return full-handed, rich!”
“Thank you, Harvey, thank you for this promise. And now for your sake and for all our sakes I trust that fortune will at length favour us.”
The conversation then wandered back to the old, old theme; home at Glen Alva. A strange life these three adventurers had led for the last nine months and over. Wandering from place to place, sleeping by night in the open air when the weather was fine, in caves or huts of pine-wood branches when wet, and sojourning with trappers or even in the wigwams of the Indian when snow covered the ground and the storm winds were howling.
Wandering from place to place prospecting, wandering on and on in search of gold. A strange wild life was theirs, but it suited their tastes; then there was an ever-present hope that had not yet deserted them, a hope and an ambition to become suddenly wealthy as many a man had done before them. Yes, it is true, many a one had found gold and silver, but tens of thousands had found an early grave in searching for it.
Harvey, or let us call him now Harvey McGregor, was in a manner of speaking a genius. He possessed originality of thought, and he never hesitated to put his ideas to the test. He felt sure of one thing, namely, that gold and silver mines were not entirely confined to the southern states of North America. He had found treasure among the mountains of British Columbia, and he meant, so he said, to find it again in such quantities that both he and his friends would be “millionaires in a month.” But luck seemed long of coming. They had wandered all the way from California, and encountered every imaginable danger, in moor and mountain, forest, flood, and fall; and here they were to-night, with no other worldly wealth than the blankets they would presently roll themselves up in, and their guns with a modicum of ammunition.
Only they had youth and health on their side, though even these seemed passing away from poor McGregor. Grief had done its turn; it had hollowed his cheek, and though barely twenty-five, silver threads were already appearing in his brown beard.
“Now pile more wood on the fire, Archie dear lad, and we will go to sleep like good boys, and dream we are back in our dear old glen.”
Archie did as told, and before long all three were sound asleep. They did not care even to do sentry duty. They trusted all to fate.
Silence now, except for the wind soughing through the tall mysterious-looking pine trees, or the occasional bark of fox or scream of night bird. A great cinnamon bear about midnight came snuffing around; he could have rent our sleeping heroes in pieces, but there was nothing cooking to lure him towards the fire. A stray wolf came next, and actually leapt over Kenneth’s legs. He was picking up some scraps of food when McGregor moaned and tossed, and away went the wolf.
“I had such a dream,” cried McGregor next morning. “I say, boys, I told you there was a bank of gold up here, and I for one start digging to-day.”
So he did, and so did all.
The only possible place to commence operations lay close to the banks of a turbulent river that came winding down through a pine-clad mountain land.
Silently, almost solemnly the trio worked, speaking but little, hanging on to their pipes (if I may use so strange a phrase), and hanging on to spade, and pick, and shovel.
All that day, and next, and next. About the coming of the fourth day, there was a shout from McGregor’s claim.
“Hurrah, boys! Hurrah, boys! Run here, lads, run here!”
They did run.
McGregor held up before their astonished gaze a nugget of almost pure gold as big as a baby’s shoe.
More gold was found every day for a week, and in gradually increasing quantities. They were already in possession of about three hundred pounds’ worth. No wonder they rejoiced. No wonder they were merry.
Now, around the camp fire, what stories are told, what songs are sung, what castles in the air are built!
They will all be millionaires. Archie says he is going to have a nice mansion down in the Clachan, and close by the riverside, and will fish there and in the sea just as when he was a boy. Nothing will satisfy Kenneth but a house near the fairy knoll. He pulls out the old Bible, Nannie’s gift, and opens it. There lie the withered flowers, and looking at them sets him a-thinking and a-wondering and a-dreaming.
“Little Jessie,” he says to himself, “can she still be alive? Is it possible she might one day be mine?”
He restores the flowers, restores the Book of books, and lies back to gaze at the starry sky and think.
But he is not allowed to.
“Out with the flute, Kennie,” cries Archie. “Oh, play me some dear auld Scottish lilt, that will make tears of joy well up in our eyes?”
Kenneth plays tune after tune, air after air; and then the trio join voices and sing “My native Highland home” till the woods ring and pine trees nod, and distant rocks send back the chorus.
There is hardly any need of a blanket to-night, for the day has been hot, and look, even now clouds are rolling slowly up and hiding the half-moon. Great round clouds they are, and little dark water-dog clouds lie nearer the earth, and seem to perch and leap from top to top of the pine trees, like birds of evil omen.
A storm is brewing.
By-and-bye, from far over the hills comes the muttering growl of distant thunder. Presently clouds go scurrying overhead, and a bright flash is followed by a rattling peal.
Rain, and terrible rain, followed, and the wind began to rise. The camp fire is drowned out, and our trio are fain to seek the shelter of a cave on the wooded hillside. None too soon; with a crashing roar, louder and more continued than any thunder ever heard, the storm bursts upon them with hurricane force. And all that night it continues. The pine trees have fallen in all directions. The river has risen in spate. Through the darkness they can see the ghostly glimmer of its foam, and they can hear the hurtling sound of the mighty boulders as they roll along.
Morning came at last, grim and grey.
“Saint Mary! what a scene is here!”
The whole face of the country is altered in appearance. Where is their claim, their gold mine, their hope of fortune, their joy of the previous evening? All swept away or buried in chaos.
Just three weeks after this fearful storm Kenneth and Archie bade good-bye to their friend and comrade Harvey McGregor. He had given up all hopes of finding fortune, and was returning to Scotland to claim his property.
They bade him good-bye at New Westminster. Then, hand in hand as if they were boys once more, they turned their backs to the coast, and went away towards the mountains.
“Archie,” said Kenneth, “there is gold to be got among these hills, but not by digging.”
“You are right.”
“Let us work for our fortune like steady, brave men. It may come, or it may not. At all events, we will be better working. And we will try to forget the past and build no more castles in the air.”
“Agreed,” said Archie; “let us work.”
At Victoria these two brave young men changed the few nuggets they had found for coin. Then they pushed their way many miles inland in Columbia, and, having hired servants and bought a little land with plenty more to purchase lying right behind it, they set to work with a will. They built their house, a solid log-mansion. They planned and laid out their gardens. They hewed timber, and sawed it, and sent it down stream. They tore the roots from the ground and cleared it for grain, and, in a word, settled down in every way as farmers, determined to make the best of every chance.
And here, in their far-away western home, let us leave them for a while, and journey over the broad Atlantic with Harvey McGregor. There are those in Scotland whose lives and actions may not be quite devoid of interest to many who have read this history from the commencement.