“I wonder,” he answered reflectively, “why you didn’t.”
The logger appeared to consider. It was characteristic of him and the stock he sprang from that he would never have admitted that he had borne with Nasmyth as long as possible out of kindness. The thing would have hurt him.
“Well,” he said, “it seemed to me we might start you teaming, if I could have got a span or two of oxen in, but I’m most afraid I can’t get them at my figure.” He changed the subject abruptly. “Where are you heading for?”
“I don’t quite know, though I shall probably land in Victoria sooner or later. I might strike something a little easier than logging there. Still, it would be most of a week’s march before I could reach the railroad, and there’s not a ranch anywhere near the trail.”
The logger nodded. “Well,” he said, “I’d head West instead. There’ll be nothing going on along the 6 railroad just now, and the mines are running easy, while you ought to fetch the settlement south of Butte Lake on the third day. Guess you might pick up a dollar or two in that neighbourhood, and, any way, there’s a steamer running down the West Coast to Victoria. Seems to me quite likely one of those Bush-ranchers would take you in a while, even if he didn’t exactly want a hired man; but they don’t do that kind of thing in the city.”
Nasmyth smiled. Experience had already taught him that, as a rule, the stranger who is welcomed in the cities arrives there with money in his pockets, and that it is the hard-handed men with the axes from whom the wanderer in that country is most likely to receive a kindness. Still, though he was naturally not aware of it, a great deal was to depend upon the fact that he followed the advice of the logger, who traced out a diagram on the bench upon which they sat.
“There’s an Indian trail up the river for the first four leagues,” said the logger. “Then you strike southwest, across the divide––here––and you come to the Butte River. She’s running in a little cañon, and you can’t get over ’cept where a prospector or somebody has chopped a big fir.”
The log span across a stream is an old device, and was probably primitive man’s first attempt at bridge-building, though it is one frequently adopted on the Pacific slope, where a giant tree grows conveniently close to an otherwise impassable river. It was, however, important that Nasmyth should be able to find the tree.
“You know exactly where that fir is?” he asked.
“Southwest of the highest ridge of the divide. Once you’re over, you’ll fetch the Butte Lake in a long day’s march. When d’you figure you’ll start?”