Alton of Somasco: A Romance of the Great Northwest

by Harold Bindloss

"I figure there's a good deal to be done before that time comes, and some of it can't wait after sun up," he said.

Then, having left the tent behind, he carried his blankets away from the fire, and rolled himself up in them between two great fir-roots that afforded concealment as well as shelter. Though he had strewn them about the blaze the blankets were still clammy, but he drew the damp folds about him uncomplainingly, and lay down with the rifle at his side. Ten minutes passed. The fire snapped and crackled, the growl of the rapid rose and fell fitfully, but the worn-out man heard neither, for he was sleeping heavily.

There are many like him who dream great dreams scattered across the new lands by the Pacific from the snow of the Yukon to Mexico, but their visions are sacred and not expressed in speech, while a smile which is half ironical flickers in the steadfast eyes when they hear them caricatured by the platform Imperialist. Their words are scanty, but their handiwork is plain; the gap hewn in the virgin forest, bridge flung over frothing river, and the raw rent of the giant powder amidst the lonely hills. It is crude and unsightly often, the creosote-reeking railroad track, and the ugly humming mills, but it means food for the toilers, good wages and trade, and in place of a pleasance for the rich to seek diversion in, a new and rich dominion won, not for England, or the Republic, alone, but for humanity.

He started with the sunrise, the pack-straps galling his shoulders, his feet bleeding in the saturated boots, clammy blankets, flour-bag, and pork upon his aching back, kettle, frypan, and rifle rattling about him, and for the first hour every stride that led him farther into the wilderness was made with pain and difficulty. Still, he made it cheerfully, for Alton had long borne the burden that was laid on Adam uncomplainingly, while his rival, sitting beyond the reach of hardship in his Vancouver office, plotted, and filched the fruits of others' toil. It was also an apparently unequal conflict they had been drawn into, subtlety pitted against sturdiness, the elusive, foining rapier against the bushman's axe, but there are moments in all struggles when finesse does not avail, and it is by raw, unreasoning valour a man must stand or fall, while at times like these the ponderous blade is the equal of the slender streak of steel.

It was two days later when Alton, who may have made ten miles in the time, noticed something unusual on the opposite hillside. A snowslide had come down that way, and its path was marked by willows and smaller trees. Alton, of course, knew that the hollow they sprang from had been scored out deep by countless tons of debris and snow, and that prospector Jimmy would scarcely have passed the place. It also seemed to him that there was a gap in the slighter band of forest which ran straight towards the snowline up the face of the hill that suggested the work of man, and his pace quickened a trifle as he pressed forward towards the river. There he stopped for several minutes, gazing about him.

The flood came down before him stained green with the clay that underlies the glaciers, and swollen by rain and snow. There was a big pool above him, lake-like and still, but it was too wide for any weary and shivering man to swim, and the wild, white rush of a rapid close below. Alton glanced at both of them and a cluster of smaller trees across the river, and smiled somewhat grimly.

"Now I wonder," he said, "why the thing one wants the most is always on the other side."

The firs behind him were great of girth, the smallest some distance from the bank, and he was weary; but loosing the straps about him, he dropped his burdens and fell to with the axe. It was an hour before the tree went down, and at least another had passed before he had hewn off a portion. Then very slowly and painfully he rolled it to the river with skids and levers cut in the bush. He was breathless, and the perspiration dripped from him when at last it slid into the water and he seated himself astride, with his possessions on the wet bark in front of him. The device was a very old one, but there is a difficulty attached to the putting it in execution, for it is needful to lean out a little while using the propelling pole, and a log is addicted to rolling round when anything disturbs its equilibrium.

Alton, of course, knew this, but when still some distance from the opposite side, had apparently to choose between a somewhat perilous effort and an unwished-for descent of the rapid. He glanced at its foaming rush a moment, and then decided upon the former. Several times he dipped the pole and won a yard with the strenuous thrust, and then what he partly expected happened. The bark seemed to be slipping away beneath him, and, as throwing himself forward upon his belongings he flung an arm about it, the log rolled slowly, and there was a splash in the water. He had restored the equilibrium, but one blanket and the flour-bag were in the river. In another few minutes he waded ashore, and drew the butt of the log out upon the shingle before he turned to glance ruefully at the sliding water.

"If I went back and plunged for it I might get that flour," he said. "Still, I should have to go down the rapid with it, and I mightn't want it then."