“The temperance meeting was an unqualified success,” he said. “We’ve broken up all the bottles in the Magnolia saloon—Lee reveled among them with a hammer. Then we made all the malcontents we could catch sign the pledge, and you’ll find the chief dissenter behind there on the stretcher.”
“Glad to hear it,” remarked the surveyor, dryly. “Judging by your appearance the proceedings must have been of the nature of an Irish fair.”
I remember that when we discussed the affair later Johnston said, “What did I do it for? Well, perhaps from a sense of fairness, or because that girl’s courage got hold of 150 me. Don’t set up as a reformer—that’s not me; but I’ve a weakness for downright if blundering sincerity, and I fancied I could indirectly help them a little.”
The next morning we were astonished to find that Hemlock Jim had gone. “Thought he was dyin’ last night!” said the watcher, “and as that didn’t matter I went to sleep; woke up, and there wasn’t a trace of him.” This was evidently true, and where he went to remained a mystery, for we heard no more of Hemlock Jim, though there was a marked improvement in the morals of Cedar Crossing, while, and this we hardly expected, some of those who signed that pledge honestly kept it.
CHAPTER XIV
THE HIRED TEAMSTER
Speaking generally, winter is much less severe in British Columbia, especially near the coast, than it is on the prairie, though it is sufficiently trying high up among the mountains, where as a rule little work is done at that season. Still, though the number of the track-layers was largely reduced, the inhabitants of the mining region had waited long enough, and so, in spite of many hardships, slowly, fathom by fathom, we carried the rail-head on.
Now and then for several days together we sat in our log-built shelter while a blinding snowstorm raged outside and the pines filled the valley with their roaring. Then there were weeks of bitter frost, when work was partly suspended, and both rock and soil defied our efforts. One of our best horses died and another fell over a precipice. Hay was hardly to be bought with money, provisions only at an exorbitant cost, and though we received a few interim payments it was, as Johnston said, even chances either way if we kept on top, because every day of enforced idleness cost us many dollars. However, floundering through snow-slush, swinging the axe in driving sleet and rain, or hauling the mossy logs through the mire of a sudden thaw, we persisted in our task, though often at nights we sat inside the shanty, which was filled with steaming garments, counting the cost, in a state of gloomy despondency. Except for the thought of Grace, there were moments when I might have yielded; but we were always an obstinate race, and seeing 152 that I was steadfastly determined to hold out to the last, the others gallantly aided me. Now, when the time of stress is past, I know how much I owe to their loyalty.