“You had better take him!”
Then, deciding that perhaps he could help us in some small degree, and that we might spare a few dollars to give him, even if he only kept us in whole shoes, I answered: “Well, well see what you can do, and you can camp in the other tent. There’s a set of worn-out harness for a beginning to-morrow; and if you go right across you’ll just be in time for supper.”
He thanked us with effusion, and when he went out Harry said lightly: “We have made a very bad bargain, of course, but I dare say we can manage to raise all he will cost us. Naturally, I feel inclined to do something for the old man, but that confounded Fletcher exasperates me. His shadow has been over you ever since you started in this country, and, I suppose it’s foolish, but I feel that some day he’ll do you a greater injury. However, at present I almost sympathize with his action. It isn’t cheerful to have a future state of brimstone held up before one continually.”
“When I said you had better take him, I didn’t mean at your own expense,” interposed the surveyor, “but that in the circumstances it would come better so. I guess we’ll squeeze him somehow on to the pay-roll of the Company. Heard all about the whole thing from some one. Who?—oh, General Jackson, how should I remember? Kind of religio-political crank, isn’t he? Well, I’ve seen some inventive geniuses among the species, and while we’re driving straight ahead we can find use for a man if he’s honest and handy finicking round the chores. Still, that has nothing to do with what I’m coming to. We have room for straight live men on this road, and I’ve been watching you two. Guess you’ve been losing heavy, and you stuck right down to it. Now, this branch is going to be froze up presently, and they’ve sent for me to finish a mining loop among the mountains of British Columbia; when some 131 one else has fooled a tough job they generally do. They listen at headquarters when I get up to talk, and the question is, will you bring along your outfit and haul rocks and lumber in the ranges for me? This time we’ll try to make the deal a better one for you. We’ll square up and pay off on what you’ve done so far; it will cut the loss, because there’s more of the coulée, and there’ll be hard frost before you’re out on the prairie. Now, I’ve been talking straight—what have you to say?”
I looked around at the others. Harry beamed approval, Johnston nodded indifferently, and I felt a thrill of satisfaction as I turned to the railroad autocrat.
“We will come,” I said simply.
“That’s good,” was the laconic answer. “Don’t think you’ll regret it,” and with a nod to each of us the man who in a few moments had made a great change in our destiny was gone.
“On the up-grade now!” said Johnston, “but don’t lose your heads. The great man paid you a tremendous compliment, Ralph, and that kind of thing isn’t usual with him; but take it coolly. More people get badly busted, as they say in this benighted country, by sudden success than by hard luck!”
It was good to lounge in the tent door that evening, and remember that there would be no more dreary awakenings to a day of profitless labor; but perhaps it was the cool night wind and the frosty glitter of the stars that helped to check the rush of hot, hopeful fancies through my brain. I had learned already to distrust any untested offer of prosperity.
For another week nothing of moment happened, and then we spent an hour one morning with the surveyor and a gray-haired gentleman from Winnipeg. He differed from the former in many ways, and spoke with a deliberate 132 urbanity, but I felt that he also spoke with authority and was quietly taking stock of us. We signed several papers, a receipt among them, and it was only then that I realized what that unfortunate coulée had cost us, while, when at last we went out, the surveyor said: