Jimmy only made her a grave inclination, for, though he could not blame her for it, his father's death was the most formidable of the barriers between them, and, recognizing it, he felt a little thrill of dismay as she turned off across the lawn toward where Mrs. Burnell was apparently awaiting her. It afterward cost him an effort to talk intelligently to Austerly and his daughter; but since they betrayed no astonishment at his observations, he fancied that he had somehow accomplished it.
CHAPTER XVII
THE RANCHER'S ANSWER
It was a Saturday evening, and Barbison, the fruit-tree drummer, felt that he had chosen a fitting time to introduce the business which had brought him there, as he sat amidst a cluster of bush-ranchers on the veranda of the little wooden hotel. It stood beside a crystal river in a lonely settlement, with the dark coniferous forest rolling close up to it. There were, however, wide gaps in the firs in front of the veranda, with tall, split fences, raised to keep the deer out, straggling athwart them amidst the pale-green of the oats, while here and there one could see an axe-built log-house embowered in young orchard trees. A trail led past the hotel, rutted by the wooden runners of jumper-sleds and ploughed up by the feet of toiling oxen and pack-horses. It led back in one direction through shadowy forest to the Dunsmore railroad, thirty miles away, and in the other to the deep inlet where the Shasta lay. The ranchers, however, usually reached the latter by canoe, because the trail was as bad as most of the others are in that country.
On the evening in question there was a little stir in the sleepy place, for the mounted mail-carrier, who accomplished the journey weekly, had come in, and hard-handed, jean-clad men had plodded down from lonely clearings among the enfolding hills to inquire for letters, purchase stores, and ask each other whether the Government meant to make a wagon-road or do anything at all for them. The question was, however, not quite so important as usual just then, for private enterprise had, as not infrequently happens, undertaken the Government's responsibilities, and the ranchers were conscious of a certain gratitude to the Shasta Shipping Company. Thirty miles over mountains is rather a long way to convey one's produce and supplies.
A select company of deeply bronzed and wiry men who had tried to do it with pack-horses as well as oxen and jumper-sledges sat listening to Barbison, apparently with grave attention, while another entertainment was being prepared for them. Two of their comrades, stripped to their blue shirts and old jean trousers, were then engaged in grubbing a very big fir-stump in front of the veranda—that is, clearing out the soil from beneath it, and cutting through the smaller roots with an instrument which much resembled a ship carpenter's adze. It is in general use on the Pacific Slope, where the process of making a bush-ranch seldom varies greatly. The rancher purchases the raw material, thin red soil covered with tremendous forest, as cheaply as he can, and at the cost of several years' strenuous toil hews down a few acres of the latter. Then he proceeds to burn up the logs, and there are left rows of unsightly stumps rising four to six feet above the ground, which he laboriously ploughs around. When he has garnered a crop or two he usually attacks these in turn—that is, if they show no sign of rotting; and to grub out a big one and haul it clear with oxen frequently costs him at least a day.
Barbison, who watched the proceedings with the rest, was aware of this, but he did not know that the man who sat smoking on a big mechanical appliance of the screw-jack order was the Shasta's engineer. It was also somewhat curious, since he had contrived to mention her several times, that his companions had not thought it worth while to acquaint him with the fact, but left him to suppose the gentleman in question was traveling the country on behalf of the manufacturers of the American stump-grubber. In the meanwhile Barbison discoursed glibly about fruit-trees and produce prices, and pointed now and then to a big tin case partly filled with desiccated fruits and pictures which lay on a chair beside him. He was a little, dapper man, evidently from the cities, and by no mean disingenuous, though he was apparently young. He turned when a big quiet rancher picked up and gravely munched a fine Californian plum.
"Oh, let up!—that's the third," he said. "How can I sell trees on my samples when the boys have eaten them?"
The man looked at him stolidly. "It's high-grade fruit," he said. "How'd you start those plum-trees bearing?—they're quite a long while showing a flower or two. Cut them hard when the frost lets up in spring?"
"Quite hard!" said Barbison, for one must make a venture now and then; and none of his companions showed any astonishment, though fruit is freely raised in that country, and the trees that grow the kind with stones in it resent the use of the pruning knife, as everybody who has much to do with them knows.