"This wouldn't strike one as an easy place to portage across, and the stream runs smartly past the stones we landed on," he chuckled. "I guess Mappin's boys will go straight on, and it may be some time before they get suspicious."
His opinion was reassuring, as far as it went, but Andrew felt daunted as he studied the rise ahead. The ravines were filled with brushwood, the spurs clothed with spruce, and he failed to see how the canoe was to be conveyed to the top. It must, however, be tried, and they set to work, laboriously carrying her up the steep slopes, a few yards at a time, until they reached a gully choked with brush, where progress became almost impossible. They were forced to drag her through thick bushes, stopping every two or three minutes for breath, while on the steeper pitches they buried knees and toes in the gravel as they passed her from hand to hand. The light was fading when they reached the crest, exhausted, and it cost Andrew a determined effort to go back some distance with Carnally for the provisions. Indeed, it was only hunger forced him to do so.
The nights had been getting lighter rapidly, but the soft dimness was puzzling when the two men faced the ascent. They could not judge the steepness of the slope; they plunged into bushes they had not noticed, and there were spots where they narrowly escaped dangerous falls. Slipping, scrambling, floundering, Andrew struggled up with his load, and sank down, worn out and aching, beside Graham's fire.
"You'll have to cook; I can't make another move," he said. "It strikes me that the man who finds a mine in this country deserves all he gets. That raises the question—how is it that Mappin can trust the rascals he has sent after us? Suppose they found the lode, why couldn't they stick to it?"
"A mineral vein is of little use to a man without money," Graham explained. "It would cost him a good deal in transport of provisions and tools before he got his legal development work done; and then he wouldn't be much farther on, because he'd have to put up expensive plant and clear a trail to bring the ore out. As a matter of fact, the fortunate prospector is forced to look for a capitalist."
"That," remarked Carnally, "is how we are fixed. You needn't worry about our going back on you."
"Rot!" said Andrew. "You know I'd trust either of you with my last penny!"
"It's your trouble that you're a confiding man. But I guess you have learned that it doesn't pay to take any chances when you deal with Mappin."
"I'm convinced of it. One experience of his tricks is enough."
"I'll confess it wasn't enough for me. When I'd fired him out of the store I felt so good that I set up drinks for all the thirsty slouches in the hotel; but I made a mistake I've been sorry for ever since. Instead of letting him walk off, I ought to have punched the hog until they had to take him to a Winnipeg hospital. For one thing, it would have saved us portaging over this blamed divide."