A FORCED MARCH
When Crestwick awakened, very cold, and cramped, a little before daylight the next morning, it was still snowing, but Lisle was up and busy preparing breakfast.
“That looks like marching; I thought we were going to lie off to-day,” observed the lad.
“How do you feel?” Lisle inquired.
“Horribly stiff; but that’s the worst. Why are you going on?”
“Because the freighters should leave the Hudson Bay post to-morrow with their dog-teams. It’s the only chance of sending out a letter I may get for a long while, and I want to write to Nasmyth.”
Crestwick shivered, glancing disconsolately at the snow; he shrank from the prospect of a two days’ hurried march. Had Lisle suggested this when he first came out, the lad would have rebelled, but by degrees the stern discipline of the wilds had had its effect on him. He was learning that the weariness of the flesh must be disregarded when it is necessary that anything shall be done.
“Oh, well,” he acquiesced, “I’ll try to make it. If I can’t, you’ll have to drop me where there’s some shelter.”
He ate the best possible breakfast, for as wood was scarce in parts of the country, and making a fire difficult, it was very uncertain when he would get another meal. Then he slipped the pack-straps over his stiff shoulders, and got ready to start with a burden he did not think he would have been capable of carrying for a couple of hours when he left England.
“Now we’ll pull out,” he said. “But wait a moment: I’d better look for a dry place to put this paper currency.”
“Where did you get it? You told me at the last settlement that you had hardly a dollar left.”
Crestwick grinned.
“Oh, some of the boys offered to teach me a little game they were playing when we thawed out that claim. I didn’t find it difficult, though I must own that I had very good luck. It was three or four months since I’d touched a card, and there’s a risk of reaction in too drastic reform. Anyhow, I’m glad I saw that game; one fellow had a way of handling trumps that almost took me in. If I can remember, it should come in useful.”
Lisle made no comment; restraint, he thought, was likely to prove more effective if it were not continually exercised. They started and for several hours plodded up the white highway of the river, leaving it only for a while when the ice grew fissured where the current ran more swiftly. White hills rose above them, relieved here and there by a somber clump of cedars or leafless willows and birches in a ravine. The snow crunched beneath their feet, and scattered in a fine white powder when they broke the crust; more of it fell at intervals, but blew away again; and they held on with a nipping wind in their faces and a low gray sky hanging over them.
Lisle, however, noticed little; he pushed forward with a steady and apparently tireless stride, thinking bitterly. Since his return to Canada, his mind had dwelt more or less continuously on Millicent. He recognized that in leaving her with his regard for her undeclared he had been sustained by the possibility that he might by determined effort achieve such a success as would enable him to return and in claiming her to offer most of the amenities of life to which she had been accustomed. Though it had not been easy, he had to some extent accomplished this. On reaching Victoria, he had found his business associates considering one or two bold and risky schemes for the extension of their mining interests, which he had carried out in the face of many difficulties. The new claims he had taken over promised a favorable yield upon development; he had arranged for the more profitable working of others by the aid of costly plant; and his affairs were generally prospering.
Then, when he was satisfied with the result of his exertions, Crestwick’s news had struck him a crushing blow. He was wholly unprepared for it. Nasmyth had spoken of a match between Millicent and Gladwyne as probable, but the latter had devoted himself to Bella, who had openly encouraged him. The change in the girl’s demeanor had escaped Lisle’s notice, because he had been kept indoors by his injury. Now the success he had attained counted for almost nothing; he had nobody to share it with.
The subject, however, had another aspect; he could have borne the shock better had Millicent yielded to a worthy suitor, but it was unthinkable that she should marry Gladwyne. She must be saved from that at any cost, though he thought her restored liberty would promise nothing to him. Even if her attachment to Gladwyne were free from passion, as Nasmyth had hinted, she must cherish some degree of affection and regard for the man. His desertion of her brother could not be forgiven, but the revelation of his baseness would not incline her favorably toward the person who made it, as it would seem to be merely for the purpose of separating her from him.
Lisle set his lips as he looked back on what he now considered his weakness in withholding the story of Gladwyne’s treachery. Had he declared it at the beginning, Mrs. Gladwyne would have suffered no more than she must do, and it would have saved Millicent and himself from the pain that must fall upon them. He bitterly regretted that he had, for once, departed from his usual habit of simply and resolutely carrying out an obvious task without counting the cost. Still, he could write to Nasmyth, and to do that he must reach the Hudson Bay post on the morrow. He trudged on over the snow at a pace that kept Crestwick breathless.
The bitter wind chilled them through in spite of their exertion, and it had increased by noon, when Lisle halted for a minute or two to look about him.
They were in the bottom of a valley walled in by barren hills; the bank of the frozen river was marked out by snow-covered stones, but none of them was large enough to rest behind, and one could not face the wind, motionless, in the open. While he stood, a stinging icy powder lashed his cheeks, and his hands grew stiff in their mittens.
“There’s not even a gulch we could sit down in,” he said. “We’ll have to go on; and I’m not sorry, for one reason. There’s not much time to spare.”
Crestwick’s eyes were smarting from the white glare; having started when weary from a previous journey, his legs and shoulders ached; but he had no choice between freezing and keeping himself slightly warm by steady walking. It would, he knew, be harder by and by, when his strength began to fail and the heat died out of his exhausted body.
“We’ll have to find a shelter for the tent by nightfall, or dig a snowpit where there’s some wood,” he declared. “I’ll try to hold out.”
They proceeded and the afternoon’s march tried him severely. Aching all over, breathing hard when they stumbled among the stones to skirt some half-frozen rapid, he labored on, regretting the comforts he had abandoned in England and yet not wholly sorry that he had done so. His moral fiber was toughening, for after all his faults were largely the result of circumstances and environment. Of no great intelligence, and imperfectly taught, he had been neglected by his penurious father who had been engaged in building up his commercial prosperity; his mother had died when he was young.
One of his marked failings was an inability to estimate the true value of things. He possessed something of the spirit of adventure and a desire to escape from the drab monotony of his early life, but these found expression in betting on the exploits of others on the football field and the turf, a haunting of the music-halls, and the cultivation of acquaintances on the lowest rung of the dramatic profession. All this offered him some glimpses of what he did not then perceive was merely sham romance. Later when, on the death of his father, wealth had opened a wider field, deceived by surface appearances, he had made the same mistake, selecting wrong models and then chiefly copying their failings. Even his rather generous enthusiasm for those whom he admired had led him farther into error.
Now, however, his eyes had been partly opened. Thrown among men who pretended nothing, in a land where pretense is generally useless, he was learning to depreciate much that he had admired. Called upon to make the true adventure he had blindly sought for, he found that little counted except the elemental qualities of courage and steadfastness. Dear life was the stake in this game, and the prizes were greater things than a repute for cheap gallantry, and pieces of money; they were the subjugation of rock and river, the conversion of the wilderness to the use of man. Crestwick was growing in the light he gained, and in proof of it he stumbled forward, scourged by driving snow, throughout the bitter afternoon, although before the end of it he could scarcely lift his weary feet.
It was getting dark, when they found a few cedars clustered in the shelter of a crag, and Lisle set to work hewing off the lower branches and cutting knots of the resinous wood. Crestwick could not rouse himself to assist, and when the fire was kindled he lay beside it, shivering miserably.
“There’s the kettle to be filled,” suggested Lisle. “You could break the ice where the stream’s faster among those stones; we’d boil water quicker than we’d melt down snow.”
Crestwick got up with an effort that cost him a good deal and stumbled away from the fire. Then a gust of wind met him, enveloping him in snow-dust and taking the power of motion momentarily away. He shook beneath his furs in the biting cold. Still, the river was near, and he moved on another few yards, when the kettle slipped from his stiffened hands and rolled down a steep slope. He stopped, wondering stupidly whether he could get down to recover it.
“Never mind; come back!” Lisle called to him. “I’ll go for the thing.”
The lad turned at the summons and sank down again beside the fire.
“I think I’m done,” he said wearily. “I may feel a little more fit in the morning.”
Lisle filled the kettle and prepared supper, and after eating voraciously, Crestwick lay down in the tent. It was in comparative shelter, but the frost grew more severe and the icy wind, eddying in behind the rock, threatened to overturn the frail structure every now and then. He tried to smoke, but found no comfort in it after he had with difficulty lighted his pipe; he did not feel inclined to talk, and it was a relief to him when Lisle sank into slumber.
Crestwick long remembered that night. His feet and hands tingled painfully with the cold, the branches he lay upon found out the sorest parts of his aching body, and he would have risen and walked up and down in the lee of the rock had he felt capable of the exertion, but he was doubtful whether he could even get upon his feet. At times thick smoke crept into the tent, and though it set him to coughing it was really a welcome change in his distressing sensations. He was utterly exhausted, but he shivered too much to sleep.
At last, a little while before daybreak, Lisle got up and strode away to the river after stirring the fire, and then, most cruel thing of all, the lad became sensible of a soothing drowsiness when it was too late for him to indulge in it. For a few moments he struggled hard, and then blissfully yielded. He was awakened by his companion, who was shaking him as he laid a plate and pannikin at his feet.
“We must be off in a few minutes,” he announced.
Crestwick raised himself with one hand and blinked.
“I don’t know whether I can manage it.”
“Then,” responded Lisle, hiding his compassion, “you’ll have to decide which of two things you’ll do—you can stay here until I come back, or you can take the trail with me. I must go on.”
Crestwick shrank from the painful choice. He did not think that he could walk; but to prolong the experience of the previous night for another twenty-four hours or more seemed even worse. He ate his breakfast; and then with a tense effort he got upon his feet and slipped the straps of the pack over his shoulders. Moving unevenly, he set off, lest he should yield to his weariness and sink down again.
“Come on!” he called back to Lisle.
He sometimes wondered afterward how he endured throughout the day. He was half dazed; he blundered forward, numbed in body, with his mind too dulled to be conscious of more than a despairing dejection. As he scarcely expected to reach the post, it did not matter how soon he fell. Yet, by instinctive effort stronger than conscious volition, the struggle for life continued; and Lisle’s keen anxiety concerning him diminished as the hours went by. Every step brought them nearer warmth and shelter, and made it more possible that help could be obtained if the lad collapsed. That was the only course that would be available because they were now crossing a lofty wind-swept elevation bare of timber.
It was afternoon when they entered a long valley, and Lisle, grasping Crestwick’s arm, partly supported him as they stumbled down the steep descent. Stunted trees straggled up toward them as they pushed on down the hollow, and Lisle surmised that the journey was almost over. That was fortunate, for he had some trouble in keeping his companion upon his feet. At length a faint howl rose from ahead and Lisle stopped and listened intently. The sound was repeated more plainly, and was followed by a confused snarling, the clamor of quarreling dogs.
“Malamutes; the freighters can’t have started yet with their sledges,” he said to Crestwick, who was holding on to him. “I don’t think they can be more than half a mile off.”
“I’ll manage that somehow,” replied the lad.
They went on through thickening timber, until at last a log house came into sight. In front of it stood two sledges, and a pack of snapping, snarling dogs were scuffling in the snow. Lisle was devoutly thankful when he opened the door and helped the lad into a log-walled room where four men, two of whom wore furs, were talking. The air was dry and strongly heated, besides being heavy with tobacco smoke and Crestwick sank limply into a chair. Gasping hard, he leaned forward, as if unable to hold himself upright; but Lisle was not alarmed: he had suffered at times, when exhausted, from the reaction that follows the change from the bitter cold outside to the stuffiness of a stove-heated room.
“Played out; I’d some trouble to get him along,” he explained to the men. “We’re going on to the claims at the gulch to-morrow.” Then he addressed the two in furs: “I guess you’ll take me out a letter?”
“Why, of course; but you’ll have to hustle,” said one of them, and Lisle turned to a man in a deerskin jacket whom he took for the agent.
“Can you give me some paper?”
“Sure! Sit down right here.”
It was not easy to write with stiffened fingers or to collect his thoughts with his head swimming from the change of temperature, but he informed Nasmyth briefly of what he had heard and asked how much truth there was in it. He added that he would have started for England forthwith, only that he could not be sure that this was necessary, and to leave his work unfinished might jeopardize the interests of people who had staked a good deal of money on the success of his schemes. Nevertheless he would come at once, if Nasmyth considered the match likely to be brought about and would cable him at Victoria, from whence a message would reach him. In the meanwhile, Nasmyth could make such use of their knowledge of Gladwyne’s treachery as he thought judicious.
Shortly after he had written the letter the two men in furs set out, and when the sound of their departure had died away the agent addressed his guests.
“I’ll fix you some supper; you look as if you needed it. Rustle round, Larry, and get the frying-pan on.”
They ate an excellent meal and shortly afterward Crestwick crawled into a wooden bunk, where he reveled in the unusual warmth and the softness of a mattress filled with swamp-hay. He had never lain down to rest in England with the delicious sense of physical comfort that now crept over his worn-out body.