CHAPTER IX
AN HONEST ANTAGONIST
It was very hot on the rocky hill, and Jim stopped in the shade of a stunted pine, for he had gone far through the bush. His Hudson's Bay blanket and a bag of food, made up in a pack with straps for his shoulders, and a small ax, were a rather heavy load. When he had lighted his pipe he looked about. Tangled forest rolled up the hills wherever the stiff, dark pines could find soil in which to grow. Some were charred by fire and the tall rampikes shone silver-gray in the strong light; some were partly uprooted by storms and leaned drunkenly against each other.
At the head of the valley there was a faint blue haze, and Jim, knowing this was the smoke of a camp fire, began to muse. Now he would soon meet the man he was looking for, he doubted if he had been wise to come, and wondered what he would say. He had set off when an Indian reached the telegraph line and stated that a white man with a number of packers was camped in the valley. Jim imagined the man was Martin, Davies' employer, and meant to see him. He did not know if Davies was with Martin or not.
By and by he set off, avoiding fallen trees and scrambling across round-topped rocks. It was rough work and he was tired, but he could get forward without using the ax, which he had been forced to do when he fell among the horrible devil's club thorns. For all that, dusk was falling when he came to an opening by a creek where a big fire burned and a double-skinned tent stood at the edge of the trees. Six or seven sturdy packers lounged beside the fire, and Jim saw this was not a poor man's camp. For a few hot weeks, a traveler need suffer no hardship in the North, if he can pay for packers and canoes. A double-roofed tent will keep out sun and rain and a mosquito bar will keep off the flies, but packers who carry comforts cannot carry tools, and a utilitarian journey is another thing.
Jim was not traveling for pleasure and had gone alone. He was mosquito-bitten and ragged, and his boots were broken. The packers looked up with languid curiosity as he advanced, and when he asked for the boss one indicated the tent. Jim stopped in front of the tent and a man came out. He wore clean summer flannel clothes and looked strangely neat, but he was sunburnt and strongly made. Something about him indicated that he knew the bush and had not always traveled luxuriously.
"Are you prospecting?" he asked. "If you have struck us for supper, you can see the cook."
"I came to see you, and got supper three or four miles back. I'm Dearham, of Winter & Dearham. You have probably heard about us."
"Sure," said Martin, rather dryly. "You hold the contract for the new telegraph line. Somebody told me there was a dame in the firm."
"My partner's sister; I expect Davies told you, but don't see what this has to do with the thing."
"Sit down," said Martin, indicating a camp-chair, and then beckoned one of the men. "Bring some green bark and fix that smudge."
The man put fresh fuel on a smoldering fire and pungent blue smoke drifted about the tent.
"Better than mosquitoes; they're pretty fierce, evenings," Martin remarked. "Will you take a cigar?"
"No, thanks," said Jim. "I'll light my pipe."
He cut the tobacco slowly, because he did not know where to open his attack. Martin was not altogether the man he had thought and looked amused. He was a bushman; Jim knew the type, which was not, as a rule, marked by the use of small trickery. Yet Martin could handle money as well as he handled tools.
"Won't you state your business?" the contractor asked.
"I expect you and the Cartner people didn't like it when we got the telegraph job?"
"That is so. We thought the job was ours," Martin admitted.
"And you got to work to take it from us?"
"How do you mean?"
"To begin with, Probyn, Cartner's man, offered us a thousand dollars to quit."
"A pretty good price," said Martin. "Since you didn't go, I don't see why you are bothering me."
"It looks as if you and Cartner had pooled your interests. When we got to work, your man, Davies, came along and tried to hold us up. It was not his fault he didn't; the fellow's a crook."
"I haven't studied his character. In some ways, he's useful," Martin rejoined coolly. "Well, you reckon I sent him! How did he try to embarrass you?"
"Don't you know?"
"It's for you to state your grievance."
Martin's face was inscrutable; one could not tell if he knew or not. It was curious, but Jim could not take it for granted that he did know and he told him about the broken wall.
"You imagine Davies paid the fellow to cut your underpinning?" the contractor remarked.
"The thing's obvious."
"Then I don't understand why you came to me. There's not much advantage in telling your antagonist he has hit you pretty hard."
"I wanted you to understand that you hadn't hit us hard enough. Your blow was not a knockout, and we mean to guard against the next. We have taken the contract and are going to put it over; I want you to get that. You can't scare us off, and while I don't know if you can smash us or not, it will certainly cost you high. Hadn't you better calculate if the thing's worth while?"
"You were far North for some time," Martin said carelessly.
"I was," Jim admitted with surprise, for he could not see where the remark led. "So were you."
Martin nodded. "A blamed hard country! Looks as if we were both pretty tough, since we made good yonder, and I think I get your proposition. Your idea is, we had better make terms than fight?"
"Something like that," Jim agreed.
"Very well," said Martin, who paused and smiled. "Now I'll tell you something. I don't like your butting in, but I did not put Davies on your track."
Jim looked hard at him, and although he was surprised did not doubt his statement. "Then, I imagine he made the plan himself; wanted to show you he was smart, but said nothing when it didn't work as smoothly as he thought."
Martin was silent for a few moments and Jim imagined he was thinking hard. Then he said, "It's possible; that's all."
"Perhaps the Cartner people sent him without telling you," Jim suggested.
"Cartner made you a square offer, and you can't grumble much because Probyn hired your men. Cartner is hard and I allow he'd like to break you, but I haven't known him play a crooked game."
"Then I can't see a light at all."
"It's puzzling," Martin agreed.
Jim filled his pipe again and pondered. There was something strange about his talking confidentially to a man he had thought an unscrupulous antagonist, but he was persuaded that Martin was honest. The latter seemed to be considering, for Jim saw his brows were knit when the firelight touched his face. It had got dark, but the fire leaped up now and then and threw a red glow upon the rows of trunks. The creek shone and faded; sometimes the smoke curled about the tent and sometimes blew away.
"You struck copper up North," Martin resumed after a time. "Has anybody tried to buy your claim?"
"Baumstein gave us an offer twice."
"Ah," said Martin, thoughtfully, "I suppose you wouldn't sell?"
"Not at his price. We thought we had better hold on; some day the Combine might buy."
"A pretty good plan," Martin agreed. "There'll be a demand for Northern copper before long. Well, I see you have a blanket. You'll find a bed in the tent."
"I picked a spot to camp a piece back," Jim said rather awkwardly, as he got up.
Martin laughed. "Since you reckoned Cartner and I were on your track, you felt you'd sooner not stop with me? Well, I don't think that ought to count. If we could have bought you off or scared you off, we might have done so, but since you are resolved to put the contract through, we'll be satisfied with seeing you don't get another. If you stop, you'll get a better breakfast than you can cook."
Jim's hesitation vanished and he went into the tent.
Next morning he got breakfast with Martin, and when he was going the latter remarked: "I guess you understand you needn't bother about our getting after you. Go ahead and finish the job."
"Thanks," said Jim, smiling. "Unless we go broke, we mean to finish."
"Very well," said Martin, "if you have to choose between quitting and selling your copper claim, you had better let the telegraph contract go." He paused and gave Jim a level glance. "Looks like interested advice, but I guess it's sound."
Jim strapped on his pack and started down the valley. He reached the telegraph camp three or four days afterwards, and in the evening told Jake and Carrie about his interview.
"Perhaps it's strange, but I really don't think we're up against Cartner and Martin," he concluded.
"We're up against somebody who hasn't many scruples," said Jake.
"That is so," Jim agreed. "I suggested that Davies might be playing a lone hand. Martin admitted that it was possible, but didn't look satisfied. In fact, I imagined he was thinking hard. Of course, the obvious line was to doubt his honesty, but somehow I didn't."
"The obvious line's not always best," Carrie interposed. "My notion is, it's a foolish habit to take it for granted your antagonist is a cheat. But what is he like, Jim?"
"Big and rather quiet, although he had a twinkle. Weighs all he says, and you feel that if he's satisfied he doesn't mind if you are or not. We know he was up North for some time; he looks like it, if you get me."
Jake nodded, for the men who push far into the frozen wilds conform to a type. Struggles with cold and hunger leave their mark, endurance breeds stubbornness, and fronting perils gives a quiet courage that makes for candor. The man who has conquered fear is not tempted to be mean.
"There are bad men, in some of the big camps, but no smooth rogues," he said.
"Martin is certainly not a smooth rogue," Jim declared. "I thought it curious he told me to hold on to the copper and let the contract go, if we couldn't stick to both. He admitted it looked as if he was playing for his side when he gave me the advice."
"Well," said Jake, thoughtfully, "if he meant to gain his object that way, it was a fool plan, but we know Martin's clever. To jump at a shallow suspicion is a blamed lazy habit that often puts you wrong. If he didn't mean well, I can't see what he did mean."
"I can't see," Jim agreed.
"Better let it go," Carrie interposed. "I like that man. If you have drawn him right, I think he could be trusted. However, you look as if you had been among the devil's club. What are you going to do with your clothes?"
"If you insist, I meant to hide them," Jim owned with a laugh.
"So I thought," said Carrie. "Bring them to the tent instead. If you don't, I'll come for them in the morning."
Jim promised to bring the clothes and lighted his pipe, feeling somewhat moved. He knew now how much he and Jake owed Carrie, and the thought she gave their comfort. If things went smoothly, it was because Carrie made them go; but this was not all. She was not satisfied with controlling the camp; Jim was beginning to see that now and then she controlled their talk and helped their decisions. She was a girl and had, for the most part, lived at a shabby store, but he admitted that her judgment was often sound. Carrie had qualities. Then he started, for she looked at him with a smile.
"What are you thinking about, Jim?" she asked.
"I was wondering how we would have got on if we hadn't brought you," he replied.
Carrie laughed. "I know. Yet you wanted to leave me!"
"If I did, I was a fool."
"No," said Carrie, thoughtfully, "you are not a fool, but sometimes you're rather dull. Now you're half asleep and had better go to bed."
Jim knocked out his pipe and went.
A few days afterwards he started for the settlement with two of his men. They were good workmen and Jake was unwilling to let them go, but they had been with Jim in the North and he needed helpers whom he could trust, for he was going to make a bold experiment. He needed food, powder, and tools, and it was hard to keep the camp supplied. Pack-horses could not carry much over the mountain-trail and the freighters' charges were high. Jim imagined he could bring up the goods cheaper by canoe, although the plan had drawbacks.
He reached the settlement, and after waiting a few days sat one evening on the hotel veranda. Burned matches and cigar-ends lay about the dirty boards; the windows of the mean ship-lap house were guarded by fine wire net. The door had been removed, and a frame, filled in with gauze and held by a spring, slammed noisily when one went in or out. For all that, the hotel was full of dust and flies, and mosquitoes hummed about the hot rooms at night. The snow had melted below the timber line and a long trail of smoke floated across the somber forest. A fire was working through the trees and a smell of burning came down the valley.
Three or four men in ragged overalls lounged about the veranda, and the landlord leaned against a post. He wore a white shirt with gold studs, and his clothes were good.
"Now you have got your truck, I reckon you'll pull out," he remarked.
"We start up river at daybreak."
"Then you're surely foolish. If you can't make it, there's trouble coming to you next time."
Jim understood the hint. The pack-horse freighters had enjoyed a monopoly of transport to the mining camps. The river was off the regular line, and its navigation was difficult except when the water reached a certain level, but if Jim's experiment proved that supplies could be taken by canoes transport charges would come down.
"There are some awkward portages, but I think I can get through," he said.
"I wasn't figuring on the portages," the landlord rejoined, meaningly. "Somas Charlie's a tough proposition to run up against." He indicated a man coming along the road. "Somas has his tillicums, and around this settlement what he says goes."
In the Chinook jargon, tillicum means something like a familiar spirit, and Jim thought he saw what the other implied. He had had trouble to get articles he needed and had met with annoying delays; and he studied the advancing freighter with some curiosity. Somas was big and powerful and walked with the pack-horse driver's loose stride. He had a dark face, cunning black eyes, and very black hair. It looked as if Indian blood ran in his veins. He came up the veranda steps and gave Jim an ironical glance.
"Got your canoes loaded up?" he asked.
"Not yet; the truck is ready," said Jim, who had thought it prudent to put his goods in a store.
"It's a sure thing you're not going to take your canoes through. Say, I don't want to see you lose the grub and tools. Drop the fool plan and I'll take off a cent a pound."
"If you had offered that before, we might have made a deal. You're too late."
"Thought you were bluffing; I guess you're crazy now. You can't make it, anyway."
"I'm going to try."
The freighter shrugged. "Trying's going to cost you something; you'll feel pretty mean when you meet the bill. Fools like you make me tired." He beckoned the landlord. "Get on a move; I want a drink."
He went into the hotel and when the door slammed Jim was thoughtful.