If his Vancouver-bound train had not started to pull out just then, perhaps he would have explained that that accursed “love stuff” formula was a figure of speech. Or perhaps he felt sure that I would understand it that way, if not at once, at least when the time came. And I would have, ordinarily. But my strawberry-and-cream appetite is so overpowering that, like the lions at feeding time, my finer psychological instincts are blunted where satiation is in sight. That was why I blurted out my hospitable friend’s directions almost verbatim when I saw that the door of his home (to which I had rushed at my first opportunity) had been opened by a female. It was only after I had spoken that I saw that she was lean, angular, gimlet-eyed, and had hatred of all malekind indelibly stamped upon her dour visage. She drew in her breath whistlingly; then controlled herself with an effort. “I suppose I must give you the berries and cream,” she said slowly and deliberately, the clearly enunciated words falling icily like the drip from the glacial grottoes at the head of the Columbia; “but the—the other matter you would find a little difficult.”
“Ye-es, ma’am,” I quavered shiveringly, “I would. If you’ll please send the strawberries and cream to the hotel I am quite content to have it a cash transaction.”
Considering the way that rapier-thrust punctured me through and through, I felt that I deserved no little credit for sticking to my guns in the matter of the strawberries and cream. For the rest, I was floored. The next time any one tries to send me into the Hesperides after free fruit I am going to know who is guarding the apples; and I am not going to approach the delectable garden by the love-path.
I had taken especial pains to warn Roos what he would have to expect from Golden in the matter of warnings about the Big Bend, but in spite of all, that garrulous social centre, the town pool-room, did manage to slip one rather good one over on him before we got away. “How long does it take to go round the Bend?” he had asked of a circle of trappers and lumber-jacks who were busily engaged in their favourite winter indoor-sport of decorating the pool-room stove with a frieze of tobacco juice. “Figger it fer yerself, sonny,” replied a corpulent woodsman with a bandaged jaw. “If yer gets inter yer boat an’ lets it go in that ten-twent’-thirt’ mile current, it’s a simpl’ problum of ’rithmatick. If yer ain’t dished in a souse-hole, yer has ter make Revelstoke insider one day. As yer has ter do sum linin’ to keep right side up, it’s sum slower. Best time any of us makes it in is two days. But we never rushes it even like that ’nless we’re hurryin’ the cor’ner down ter sit on sum drownded body.”
As the whole court had nodded solemn acquiescence to this, and as none had cracked anything remotely resembling a smile, Roos was considerably impressed—not to say depressed. (So had I been the first time I heard that coroner yarn.) Nor did he find great comfort in the hotel proprietor’s really well-meant attempt at reassurance. “Don’t let that story bother you, my boy,” the genial McConnell had said; “they never did take the coroner round the Big Bend. Fact is, there never was a coroner here that had the guts to tackle it!”
We met Blackmore at Beavermouth the afternoon of the twenty-eighth of September. He reported that his boat had been shipped from Revelstoke by that morning’s way freight, and should arrive the following day. As I had been unable to engage a boatman in Golden, and as Blackmore had found only one in Revelstoke to suit him, it was decided to give me an oar and a pike-pole and make out the best we could without another man. I had brought provisions for a fortnight with me from Golden, and Blackmore had tents and canvases. Through the efforts of influential friends in Golden I had also been able to secure two bottles of prime Demerara rum. Knowing that I was going to pick up at least one cask of Scotch on the way, and perhaps two or three, I had not been very keen about bothering with the rum. But on the assurance that it might well be two or three days before any whisky was found, and that getting wet in the Columbia without something to restore the circulation was as good as suicide, I allowed myself to be persuaded. It was wonderful stuff—thirty per cent. over-proof; which means that it could be diluted with four parts of water and still retain enough potency to make an ordinary man blink if he tried to bolt it. We did find one man—but he was not ordinary by any means; far from it. I will tell about “Wild Bill” in the proper place.
There was a wonderful aurora borealis that night—quite the finest display of the kind I recall ever having seen in either the northern or southern hemispheres. Blackmore—weather-wise from long experience—regarded the marvellous display of lambently licking light streamers with mixed feelings. “Yes, it’s a fine show,” he said, following the opalescent glimmer of the fluttering pennants with a dubious eye; “but I’m afraid we’ll have to pay through the nose for it. It means that in a couple of days more the rain will be streaming down as fast as those lights are streaming up. Just about the time we get well into Surprise Rapids there will be about as much water in the air as in the river. However, it won’t matter much,” he concluded philosophically, “for we’ll be soaked anyway, whether we’re running or lining, and rain water’s ten degrees warmer than river water.”