“Then you’re going farther?”
“Quite so,” was the cheerful answer. “I’ll be a director of this company before I’ve finished. You can’t stop my buying shares when I come into my property.”
Lisle was conscious of some relief. It was a laudable ambition and Crestwick promised to be much less of a responsibility than he had once anticipated.
“I’ve a letter from Bella,” Lisle told him. “She still desires to be informed if you’re getting along satisfactorily. I think I can tell her there’s no cause for uneasiness.”
“Bella’s a good sort,” returned Crestwick. “She’ll stop asking such questions by and by. At least, I think she’ll have some grounds for doing so.”
They went out into the city and a week afterward they sailed together for the North. It was still winter in the wilds, and though that made Lisle’s work a little easier, because rivers and lakes and muskegs were frozen, he found it sufficiently arduous. He had to survey and break new trails suitable for the conveyance of heavy machinery, up rugged valleys and over high divides, and to arrange for transport—canoes here, a log-bridge there, relays of packers farther on. No man’s efforts could be wasted, for time was precious and wages are high in the wilderness. Then, when at last the frost relaxed its grip and rock and snow and loosened soil came thundering down the gullies in huge masses, the work grew more difficult as he began to build a dam.
Some of the men sent up to him, artizans from the cities, sailor deserters, dismayed by the toils of the journey and the nature of their tasks, promptly mutinied on arrival. Others dispatched after them failed to turn up, and Lisle never discovered what became of them. The camp-site was a sea of puddled mire with big stones in it; tents and shacks were almost continuously dripping; and every hollow was filled with a raging torrent. Nobody had dry clothes, even to sleep in; the work was mostly carried on knee-deep in water, and at first things got little better as the days grew warmer. The hill-benches steamed and clammy mists wrapped the camp at night; the downward rush of melting snow increased, and several times wild floods swept away portions of the dam and half-built flume.
In spite of it all, the work went on: foot by foot the wall of pile-bound rock rose and the long wooden conduit curved away down the valley; and when at length the hydraulic plant began to arrive, piecemeal, Lisle found Crestwick eminently useful. He superintended the transport, patrolling the trails and keeping them repaired. His skill with shovel and ax was negligible, but he could send a man or two to mend the gap where the path had slipped away down some gully or to fling a couple of logs across a swollen creek that could not be forded. He got thinner and harder from constant toil and from sleeping, often scantily fed, unsheltered in the rain.
After a while, however, there was a pleasant change: the days grew hot, the nights were clear and cold, and the short, vivid summer broke suddenly upon the mountain land. Then it seldom rained, as the high seaward barrier condensed most of the Pacific moisture, but at times the clouds which crossed the summits unbroken descended in a copious deluge, and it was in the midst of such a downpour that Crestwick returned to camp one evening after a week’s absence on the trail. His dripping garments were ragged, his boots gaped open, and his soft felt hat had fallen shapeless about his head. He found Lisle in a similar guise sitting at his evening meal.
“Have they got the pipes and those large castings across the big ravine?” Lisle asked.