But all across the southern portion, the greater half of Big Dent, the thickets had been cut away, the patriarchal trees freed of the litter about their solidly planted feet, the sun let in, grass sowed, so that the eye could reach far down wooded corridors and get glimpses of sparkling sea; so that a Norquay or his guests could walk abroad in those friendly places and observe—if they were minded to observe—how man had imposed order and beauty upon the wasteful processes of nature by sweeping away all the detritus of the arboreal struggle to survive.
Leaving the house Rod and Laska walked a little way up the slope. They came to a small square enclosed by a low wall of masonry, the half-acre of the Norquay dead. A gate of grilled iron let them in. A red cedar rose in the middle of the plot like an enormous brown mast which had sprouted flat, feathery boughs that drooped as if tired with the weight of long-borne years, and cast a deep shadow over part of this burial ground. In this shaded portion uprose a number of gray granite slabs, the native rock every Norquay had used for such of his works as he wished to endure. Apart from these simple slabs stood a row of uniform design: a headstone four feet high, three feet wide; another, the width of the headstone and the length of a tall man, laid flat on the earth. Ornamentation there was none. Plain gray stone, worked to a smooth polish, briefly lettered,—that was all. A few flower beds were let into the turf between. A simple, unpretentious place in which plain men could take their long sleep.
Rod stopped by the first of the larger headstones.
"This was the first of our family here," he said.
The girl looked down at the inscription.
RODERICK SYLVESTER NORQUAY
Born 1770
Died 1834
His eye was not dim
Nor his natural force abated
"This was his wife," Rod pointed. "The first white woman to live on the Pacific coast north of California. That was his youngest son. That was his eldest son, my great-grandfather. And that was his youngest son, who was killed by the Chilcotin Indians on their second raid. There's grandfather's wife, and a son and daughter. There is my mother's grave. And over there is my oldest brother, who died before I was born."
"How interesting," the girl murmured. "What an adventurous time these first people of yours must have had."
"Rather," Rod agreed, "when you think of some of the things they had to face. Still, by all accounts, they rather enjoyed themselves. It never seems to have occurred to them to go elsewhere. There were lots of men pioneered after Vancouver's first voyage, but all of them except old Roderick seem to have come here to make a fortune in the fur trade and go home to live on their gains. Old Roderick kept a journal all his life. It's a queer matter-of-fact account of what he did, mixed up with a lot of philosophic speculation on why he did it. It appears that from the first time he dropped anchor in Mermaid Bay to wait out a fair tide through the narrows, he had the feeling that right here was the place to make a stand. He says quite frankly in his journal that a few determined men could easily subdue the natives and possess great estates. He says further that shortly after letting go the anchor he saw a hawk fly from its nest in a great tree, and he thought to himself that, by the grace of God and his own resolution, he would some day build on this silent headland a stout nest in which many a brood of Norquays should be hatched.