Wisbech, however, had not very far to go, and, though it entailed an occasional stumble, he endeavoured to look about him. He was progressing along the side of the wonderful Fraser gorge, which is the great channel clearly provided by Nature for the commerce of the mountain province, and he was impressed by the spectacle upon which he gazed. In front of him rose great rocky ramparts, with here and there a snow-tipped peak cutting coldly white against the glaring blue. Beneath these the climbing pines rolled down in battalions to the brink of a vast hollow, in the black depths of which the river roared far below. Wisps of gauzy mist clung to the hillside, and out of them the track came winding down, a sinuous gleaming riband that links the nations with a band of 128 steel. There were, as he knew, fleet steamers ready at either end of it, in Vancouver Inlet, and at Montreal, two thousand four hundred odd miles away, for this was the all-British route round half the world from London to Yokohama and Hong-Kong.
That fact had its effect on Wisbech as he plodded painfully along the ties. He had Democratic notions, but he was an Imperialist, too, which was, perhaps, after all, not surprising, for he knew something of England’s great dependencies. There are a good many men with similar views in the Dominion, and they have certainly lived up to them. Men undoubtedly work for money in Western Canada, but one has only to listen to their conversation in saloon and shanty to recognize the clean pride in their manhood, and their faith in the destiny of the land to which they belong. They have also proved their faith by pitting their unshrinking courage and splendid physical strength against savage Nature, and, among their other achievements, that track blown out of the living rock, flung over roaring rivers, and driven through eternal snow, supplies a significant hint of what they can bear and do. They buried mangled men in roaring cañon and by giddy trestle, but the rails crept always on.
Wisbech came to the brink of a gorge which rent the steep hillside. He could not tell how deep it was, but it made him dizzy to look down upon the streak of frothing water far below. The gorge was spanned by the usual Western trestle bridge, an openwork fabric of timber just wide enough to carry the single track rising out of the chasm on tapering piers that looked ethereally fragile in that wilderness of towering trees and tremendous slopes of rock. The chunk of axes and ringing of hammers jarred through the roar of the stream, and he could see men clinging in mid-air to little stages slung about the piers, and moving among the pines below. A man in a ragged duck suit strode by him with an axe on his shoulder, 129 and Wisbech half-diffidently ventured to inquire if he could tell where Derrick Nasmyth could be found. The man, who paid no attention to him, stopped close by, and shouted to some of his comrades below.
“You ought to get that beam fixed before the fast freight comes through, boys. There’s no sign of her yet,” he called in a loud voice.
Somebody answered him, and the man turned to Wisbech.
“Now, sir,” he replied tardily, “you were asking for Nasmyth?”
Wisbech said he wished to see Derrick Nasmyth, and the man nodded.
“Well,” said he, “you’ll have to wait a few minutes, I guess he’s busy. There’s a log they want to put into the trestle before the train comes along. It’s not his particular business, but we’re rather anxious to get through with our contract.”
“Ah,” returned Wisbech, “then I fancy I know who you must be. In fact, I’m rather glad I came across you. You are evidently the man who looked after my nephew when he was ill, and from what Miss Waynefleet told me, Derrick owes you a good deal.”
Gordon looked at Wisbech with a little smile, as he recalled what Nasmyth had said about the man who had sent him the draft.