CHAPTER XXVI
ONE NIGHT’S TASK
Daylight was dying out in a flurry of whirling snow, when Nasmyth, who led a jaded horse, floundered down from the steep rock slopes of the divide into the shelter of the dark pines about the head of the gully. It was a little warmer there, and he was glad of it, for he was chilled, in spite of the toilsome climb. The dark boughs wailed above him, tossing athwart his path a haze of sliding snow, but he caught a faint and reassuring clink of drills, and straightened himself as he clambered down between the trees. The sound had a bracing effect on him, and he felt a curious little thrill as the clamour of the river came up to him in long pulsations. The sound of the waters was growing louder when Gordon, with a big axe in his hand, materialized out of the shadows, and strode forward impulsively at the sight of him.
“Hand better? We’re glad to see you; but you might have stayed another day or two,” he said.
Nasmyth laughed. “Well,” replied he, “perhaps it’s a little curious, considering everything, but I was impatient to get back again. In fact, I feel more at home each time I scramble down from the divide.”
He glanced round through the sliding snow at the dim white range and ranks of towering pines, and, as he did so, the roar of the river and the wail of trees that swayed beneath a fierce wind filled the rock-walled hollow. Then the persistent clink of drills and thud of axes broke out again, while here and there the blurred white figure of a toiling man emerged from the snow. It was a picture 270 that a man unused to the wilderness might have shrunk from, but Gordon understood his comrade. They were engaged in a great struggle, with the powers of savage Nature arrayed against them; but it was with a curious quickening of all the strength that was in them, mental and physical, that they braced themselves for the conflict.
“I have a thing or two to tell you, but we’ll get into the shanty and have supper first. The boys are just quitting work,” remarked Gordon.
They clambered down over a practicable trail, though part of it was covered deep with snow, crept in and out among the boulders by the light of a great fire that blazed above the fall, and found Mattawa laying a meal out when they reached the shanty. Neither Nasmyth nor Gordon said anything of consequence until after the meal, and then Nasmyth, who had put on his deer-hide jacket and duck trousers, flung himself down in an empty packing-case that was stuffed with soft spruce twigs, and looked about him with a smile of contentment. A lamp hung above him, and its light gleamed upon axes, drills, iron wedges, and crosscut saws, and made a chequered pattern of brightness and shadow on the rude log walls. A glowing stove diffused a cosy warmth, and the little room was filled with the odours of tobacco and drying boots and clothes.
“I suppose you saw Wisbech?” observed Gordon. “Miss Waynefleet told one of the boys, who was through at the settlement, that she had a note from him asking if she’d get a letter he or Acton had written into your hands as soon as possible. He seems to be making quite a stay in this country.”
“He has stayed several months longer than he intended,” replied Nasmyth. “I believe he did it on my account; but he’s going on again in a week or two. I saw him at Bonavista. Where’s Waynefleet?”