Scott paused and smoked meditatively before he resumed: "It was of no use; the city palled. Don't know that I'm a cynic or much of a philosopher, but the folks I knew seemed to have a wrong idea of values. Spent their best efforts grubbing for money and trying to take the lead in smart society. They made me tired with their hustling about things that didn't matter; I wanted the woods and the quiet the river hardly breaks."
"You went back?"
"I did," said Scott. "Felt I had to go. It was winter and the cold was fierce, but we made four hundred miles with the hand-sledge across the snow, and when I came out with some fingers frozen I was nine pounds heavier. Used to sit in my office afterwards and dream about the glittering lakes and the stiff white pines; saw them crowding round the lonely camps, when I ought to have been studying the market reports. Well, I couldn't concentrate on buying and selling things. Betting on the market and getting after other people's money seemed a pretty mean business." He paused and added with a twinkle: "That's how I felt then, and I don't know that I've changed my opinions much."
"All the same, you're anxious to make your mining pay."
"It isn't logical, but I was born a white man and had got civilized. You can't altogether get rid of what you're taught when young, and it's harder when the notions you inherit are backed by your training. Well, I saw there was a danger of my turning out a hobo if I went back North without a job. I must get some work, and when Brinsmead came with a proposition about the Clermont vein I took down my shingle and located here with him."
"But what about your relations? Did they object?"
"Not much. On the whole, I reckon they were satisfied to see me go. They had long decided I was a crank, and since I was bound to do something foolish, I'd better do it where I wouldn't disgrace them. That's about all. We're here, and I don't know that I'd go back if the road was open. Would you?"
Thirlwell pondered. It was a hard life he led, working, for the most part, in the dark underground, for when money was scarce and wages high he could not be satisfied to superintend. Scott, indeed, worked like a paid hand, and they had fought a long, and it seemed a losing, battle against forces whose strength science cannot yet properly measure. The fish-oil lamps sometimes went out in poisonous air while they examined an unsafe working face; props broke under a load they ought to have borne; and now and then the roof came down. Rock pillars crushed, massive stones fell out where one least expected, and there was always the icy water that the pump could not keep under and the frost could not stop.
Yet there was something that thrilled one in the stubborn fight, and a strange ascetic satisfaction in proving how much flesh and blood could stand. One felt stronger for bracing one's tired body against fresh fatigue, and watchfulness in the face of constant danger toned up the brain. Then, after all, the vast, silent wilderness had a seductive charm.
"This country draws, and holds what it gets," he said. "I'm satisfied to stop here, as long as I'm young."