Читать книгу The Ghost of Hemlock Canyon - Harold Bindloss - Страница 6

VI

THE CHOPPERS

A big drop splashed on Denis’s face, and, pushing back his coat, he looked about. The light was good and he had slept longer than he ought, but he could not see the hills across the river for rolling mist and the pine-needles trembled in the rain. His hip-joint hurt, for some time had gone since he had slept on the ground, his coat was wet, and muddy ashes marked the spot where his fire had burned. It was awkward. Somehow he had reckoned on a fine morning, but he must get breakfast and shove off. Marvin’s ranch was the next stop and he wanted to get there before the sun set.

The wet wood smoldered and his kettle refused to boil. Damp crackers and partly melted bacon were not appetizing, and after a few minutes he pulled on his pack. Water flowed down the hillside, and where the trail had been graded the soil was a bog. Vague mountain-tops pierced the mist and vanished, and the dripping pines murmured in the warm Chinook wind. Moreover, the trail went uphill and Denis’s coat began to embarrass him. All the same, it did not look as if there was much use in waiting for the rain to stop, and he did not mean to camp another night in the woods.

At noon he reached the slope of a high tableland. The valley, filled by mist, curved round the hill; but on the rocks in front the trees were thin, and since the trail followed the river, Denis reckoned he might cut out a mile or two if he crossed the top. He had not had much breakfast, the food in his bag was wet, and he must try to make the ranch for supper.

He faced the climb, and at the beginning his progress was good, but when he imagined he ought to descend thick forest blocked his path. Saplings, fern, and thorny canes choked the gaps between the trunks, and broken branches pierced the tangle. The roots of the pines and firs keep the surface, and the trees the storms brought down lay where they fell. As a rule, their tops were tilted, and among their giant limbs the underbrush grew high. Denis saw he could not get through, and he kept the level summit, where, by comparison, the ground was clear.

By and by he got disturbed. The trees began to roll across the bench and forced him back to the rocks on the other side. His line now slanted away from the valley, the ground was broken, and he could not go fast. To turn back was unthinkable, but if he kept the stony top, he might find a creek and follow its channel to the river. He hoped he would do so soon, for his wet coat was heavy and the Chinook wind was hot. In fact, he imagined that had he not carried a pack in France and, in the good days before the war, scrambled about the rocks in Switzerland, he must have stopped some time since.

At length a ravine cut the slope, and Denis leaned against a rock. The bank was precipitous and an angry creek brawled in the stones at the bottom. His line to the valley was not attractive, and before he started he ought to get some food.

Denis untied the flour-bag and swore. The crackers had dissolved in a pulpy mess; his tea had run from the soaked packet and stuck to the bacon. He must wait for supper at the ranch, and he did not altogether know where the homestead was. To think about it would not shorten the journey, and on a steep pitch one sometimes used the standing glissade. Denis balanced himself and shoved off.

For five or six yards he went down in front of a wave of rattling stones; and then he reached a steep, wet slab that the bank’s contour had hid. Denis’s boot struck a knob, and until he plunged into the creek, that was all he knew. Anyhow, he had got down, and if he could follow the channel, he must presently reach the trail by the river.

The stones were large, the pools were deep, and for the most part one could not crawl along the rocky bank. Denis imagined he could not get wetter, and he stuck to the creek’s bed. He was going down, but he began to think the current went ominously fast. Not long since, it was a chain of rapids; now it was getting like a waterfall. At the top of an awkward pitch he stopped and studied the descent. The rocks on each side were nearly smooth, and Denis admitted he could not get up. In front, the creek plunged across precipitous slabs, until, two or three hundred feet below, the banks rolled back. Denis doubted if he could reach the bottom, but it was obvious he must try.

Were he, for example, in Cumberland, with a steady companion and an Alpine rope, he might not think the gully awkward. He, however, was alone and tired; his boots were not nailed for the mountains, and the soaked British-warm was an embarrassing load. All the same, he must stick to the old coat, and, pushing it through the pack straps, he dropped to a rock in the cascade. Then he crawled obliquely down a crack in a treacherous slab, and studied another that slanted, smooth with moss, to an angry pool. Seeing no hold, he sat down and let himself go.

He brought up in the water, and the next pitch was daunting. All the rock was splashed or swept by foam, and at some spots the stream plunged in a frothing arch for three or four yards. Denis, however, could not get up the slab, and he could not remain in the pool. He pulled tight his awkward pack and risked the descent.

His luck perhaps was good, but here and there he found some support for his groping boot; on the rocks one trusts one’s knees and feet. Although Denis did not claim to be a good mountaineer, he had balance and caution, and he mechanically felt for the proper spot. He got down; the gully’s walls fell back, and after another creek joined the first, belts of gravel lined the bank. By and by he saw a gap in the trees, and soon afterwards sat down under a balsam by the muddy trail.

Denis pulled out his watch. He had not thought the time was four o’clock, and when his glance searched the hillside it looked as if he was but two or three miles from the spot at which he left the trail. Anyhow, the rain was stopping and under the thick balsam the ground was not remarkably wet. After rubbing several damp matches, he lighted his pipe and cogitated.

There was no use in grumbling. If one hated rough adventures, one must keep the beaten track. He might have done so; moreover, he might have kept his English post. His temperament really accounted for his roaming the Canadian woods, wet and hungry, like a British tramp. However, he could not go back; when one took a rash plunge one was forced to take another. For example, his glissading down the slab. Well, he had at length rejoined the trail, and he wondered where it would carry him to fresh adventures. To philosophize about it would not help, although he would sooner philosophize than walk.

With something of an effort, Denis got up. His soaked boots had begun to gall his feet, and, perhaps because he had not had much food, his side hurt. One, however, soon got soft. At the farm his labor about the byres and stables was rather messy than bracing, and the winter days were short. In the Canadian woods, man lived by muscular effort; and Denis’s fatigue implied that his experiment might be rash. For all that, he had chosen Canada, and setting his mouth, he pushed ahead.

By and by he got drowsy. The pine-tops were vague, the trunks were indistinct. Sometimes he plunged into a hole, and sometimes he stumbled on a root that crossed the track. Then for a few minutes he saw where he went, but his watchfulness vanished, and all he was conscious of was mechanical effort. Although he could not bother to pull out his watch, he knew it was evening, and he wondered where he would stop for the night. He doubted if he could make the Marvin ranch.

At length he saw a big chopped tree. The top of the stump was two yards from the ground and three feet across. Another great log, from which the branches were hewn, lay beside the trail. The white chips were fresh; Denis smelt the resin in the wood, and imagined the choppers were not far off.

A few minutes afterwards, smoke floated about the trail and he saw a shanty by a creek. In the open-fronted shack a man was occupied by a stove. A companion, sitting on a box, rubbed an ax, and two or three more loafed about and smoked. Their wet overalls and dark-colored shirts were thin, and their bodies were modeled like the statues of Greek athletes. Denis had thought only boxers and acrobats were marked by the balance and queer muscular suppleness that stamped the fellows.

Denis’s pose was slack. His face was rather white, and his clothes were splashed by mud. A few yards off, two brawny oxen pulled at a bundle of hay. Although the nearest man gave him a welcoming nod, Denis dully studied the hay.

“The stuff’s not grass,” he said. “Do you mow your oats for cattle-feed?”

“Sure,” said one. “When the trees are off the ground, on a red soil, you can start with oats—”

“But you could thrash the oats and give the cattle orchard-grass.”

The chopper smiled. “The first few crops won’t head up good, and we haven’t got a thrasher across the mountains yet. But are you for the lake?”

Denis assented. Since he was tired and hungry, the hay’s interesting him was queer. He had meant to ask for food.

“The ranches are twelve miles off,” another man remarked. “We are going to get more rain.”

“Then, I’m afraid I can’t make it. Can I stop for the night?”

“Certainly,” said one. “Steve’s gone home, and you can have his blankets. Go right in and hang your coat by the stove. We’ll take supper soon as Bill gets on a move.”

“I’m ready. Maybe you’re waiting for the band,” the cook rejoined and threw rattling tin plates on the table.

Denis thought the bacon and fried potatoes, doughy flapjacks and flavored syrup, remarkably good, and he drained a large can of pungent tea. The trouble was, his hosts had finished before he had well begun, and in a very few minutes the heaped plates were clean. Restored by hot drink and food, he studied their camp. The shack was built of branches and roofed by bark. Rain beat the slabs, but the stove’s soothing heat drove back the damp. The table-top was split, comparatively straight, from a cedar log, and springy branches were fixed to posts for beds. Denis smelt wet clothes, balsam from the forest, and aromatic smoke.

“I suppose you are mending the trail,” he said. “Does your boss want help?”

“Are you going to buy a ranch?” the cook inquired.

Denis replied that in the meantime he was not; but he did not see what it had to do with his getting a job.

“To grade the trails is the bush rancher’s perquisite,” said one. “The politicians give us a road appropriation, and we get busy more or less when we like. The province needs settlers and parliament pays something to keep us on the ground.”

The young fellow was hard and muscular, but his voice was cultivated. Denis thought some expense was justified so long as it supported settlers of his type.

“If you have got a ranch, you get a job,” another remarked. “The boys pick the foreman and he doesn’t hustle you too bad.”

“But what about your fields and stock? When you are making roads you cannot plow.”

“My stock’s my working oxen, and when I have oats to feed them in winter I reckon I’m all right. In summer Tom and Jerry hunt their grub where they can find some.”

Denis drowsily pondered. On an English farm, stock implied the flocks and herds by whose increment the farmer lived. He imagined he might learn something about Canadian ranching economy that the emigration pamphlets did not state.

“To begin with, you must buy your forest block; and then you must engage labor to clear the ground. You need a house and stable. What’s the smallest sum on which one can start?”

They refused to fix a sum. Much depended on the rancher; but the young fellow with the cultivated voice admitted that he had used three thousand dollars.

“We clear the ground,” he stated, rather dryly. “My trouble was I could not chop. But you might give a smaller sum and a mortgage on the ranch.”

“You might?” interjected another. “I guess you ’most always must.”

Denis knitted his brows. A mortgage implied interest, and a sinking fund to repay the loan. Unless one could sell crops or young cattle, the bill could not be met. But there was another thing.

“I expect one can learn to chop. How long must one practise?”

“Some folks kaint learn,” a big fellow replied with a chuckle. “When they’ve whittled down both feet they quit. It’s most time Jim let up.”

Jim laughed. “We all carry some marks. The only man who boasted he never cut himself was admiring his new house when the ax he left on the shingles slipped down. Legend states he did not afterwards need two boots. Anyhow, I have used the ax since I left McGill, and sometimes I wish Nature gave us plated legs.”

The young fellow was lean and athletic. Denis pictured his leading a football team at the University; yet he admitted the ax baffled him. The thing was ominous, but Denis must find out as much as possible about the small rancher’s methods.

The others expounded; they were a frank, good-humored lot. One got one’s block of forest, put up one’s shack (sometimes a tent must serve) and began to cut the trees. Food was expensive, but one could kill a deer and trout, and nobody bothered about the game laws. Anyhow, a rancher could claim some exemption. When one’s bank-roll melted, one looked for a job. If the government were not cutting trails, one tried the sawmills and maybe the mines.

So long as the money one earned held out, one resumed one’s chopping, and if possible bought a span of oxen. Buck and Bright helped one pile the logs to burn and pulled out the stumps. When one had cleared four or five acres, one planted an orchard, sowed oats for fodder, and began to buy young stock. A tough, slow job; but in the meantime the country was opening up. Settlements sprang about the mines, and population followed one into the wilds. By the time one had stuff to sell, the market arrived.

“Then I suppose you take your profit?” Denis remarked. “You are certainly entitled to some reward.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said one. “When the trout in the river are poisoned by sawmill dumps, and city sports’ automobiles scare the deer off the woods, I reckon some of us will pull up stakes and shove on again ahead—” He smiled and turned to his companions. “We hate to be crowded. Who’s for the Peace River?”

“The Mackenzie,” said another. “When we get going, we’re going all the way.”

They laughed, but Denis thought all was not a joke. The men were pioneers; their business was to break the trail. For all that, they were not roughneck frontiersmen. Denis liked their type, and thought them sober, useful citizens. Two, he had some grounds to imagine, had graduated at Canadian universities.

To some extent, their talk daunted him. He had not the abilities they had perhaps inherited. The land they cleared was theirs, and they could use the woodman’s tools. All he had was his imperfectly trained muscle and some stubbornness. His road, rather obviously, went uphill, but he had started and he must front the climb.

The tobacco-smoke floating about the shack got thick and the choppers’ figures indistinct. Rain beat the roof and the stove snapped, but the noise got faint, and Denis stretching his legs across his branch bed, knew nothing more.