Harold Bindloss

“ Now a copse of birches flitted past, now a clump of willows, or the tall reeds of a sloo went down with a great crackling before us, then there were more swelling levels, for our course was straight as the crow flies from horizon to horizon, and we turned aside for no obstacle.
It was dusk when with lowered heads we charged through the scattered birches of a ravine bluff, and far down in the hollow beneath I caught the dull gleam of snow-sprinkled ice.
“It’s a mean-looking gully,” gasped Heysham. “I guess that creek’s not frozen hard, and it’s pretty deep. ”

“ There was nothing romantic about this land, which lacked even the clear skies Grace Carrington spoke of. It looked a hard country, out of which only a man with the power of stubborn endurance could wrest a living.
So with a rhythmic beat of whirring wheels, and now and again a clash of couplings as we slid down some hollow of the track, we rolled on through the night, while the scream of wind grew louder outside the rattling cars. I was nearly asleep when there came a sudden shock, and the conductor’s voice rang out warning us to leave the train. ”

“ I dare say many a poor deserter devil has marched to his death to it. The seamen came up with the vanguard when they found gold in Caribou. Wake up, and ring it out, Ralph. A tribute to the fallen. ‘Hey ho, Sacramento!’”
I have heard that chantey since. On certain occasions Harry brings out its final chords on the Fairmead piano with a triumphant crash that has yet a tremble in it, and each time it conjures up a vision of spectral pines towering through the shadow that veils the earth below, while above the mists the snow lies draped in stainless purity waiting for the dawn. ”

“ There’s the mill; I’m old and done, and while there’s one of the old stock forward I would not turn it over to be moiled and muddled by a limited company. Saving, starving, scheming, I built it bit by bit, and to-day there’s no cotton spun in Lancashire to beat the Orb brand. There’ll be plenty of good men under thee, and I’m waiting to make thee acting partner. Ay, it’s old and done I’m growing, and, Ralph Lorimer, I’m telling thee what none but her ever guessed before—I would have sold my soul for a kind word from thy mother. ”

“ Dreams seldom trouble the toiler in that land; and when I stood up refreshed under the early sunlight, and memory returned, the world seemed filled with light and beauty to reflect my own gladness. Ormond’s horse was cropping the grasses not far away, and when I caught him the very birch leaves rustled joyfully under their tender shimmering green as we rode over the bluff, while once out on the prairie a flight of sand-hill 380 cranes came up from the south, calling to one another, dazzling blurs of whiteness against the blue, and even their hoarse cry seemed to ring with triumph. ”

“ It was a bitter night when Harry and I rode into the red glow of light that beat out through the windows of Lone Hollow, the furthest outlying farm of the Carrington group, where, now that the last bushel of his wheat had been sold in Winnipeg, Raymond Lyle was celebrating a bounteous harvest. Round about it, drawn up in ranks, stood vehicles—or rigs, as we call them—of every kind, for it seemed as if the whole country-side had driven in. ”

“ The hillsides loomed black out of chilly mist that wrapped the serried ranks of climbing pines in their smoky folds. It was not yet dark in the valley, but the light was dying fast, and a bitter breeze swept down a darkening gorge, bringing with it the moan of an unseen forest until presently this was lost in the voice of the frothing torrent before us. There was neither fuel nor shelter on that side, and we determined to attempt the crossing, for, as Harry said, “Hunger alone is bad, but hunger and cold together are worth an effort to avoid.” ”

“ Nature, as those who love her know, is never in a hurry, and very slowly, little by little, working on through forgotten ages, she had stored her latent wealth under the matted sod against the time when the plowshare should convert it into food for man and beast. There is no wheat soil on the surface of the earth to beat that of Assiniboia and Manitoba.
Harry leaned on the plow-stilts with a smile on his handsome sun-bronzed face, and I smiled at him, for we were young and hope was strong within us. ”

“ No man had a truer comrade than I in Harry Lorraine, and the friendship which commenced in the sod stable that night when I was travel-worn and he cut the hay for me will last while we two remain on this earth, and after, hallowed in the survivor’s memory, until—but, remembering Coombs, I know that silence is often reverence, and so leave Grace’s clean lips to voice the eternal hope. ”

“ We were all tired and hungry, and—for Johnston was silent—a melancholy settled down upon the camp, while I lay nearly frozen under two blankets, watching a half-moon sail slowly above the fretted ridge of firs. At last Johnston spoke:
“To-morrow is the fatal day. Ralph has the look of an unsatisfied wolf; you are hungry, Harry; we are all hungry, and such is mortal man that at this moment my soul longs more than all things for even the most cindery flapjack that ever came out of a camp cook’s frying-pan. ”

“ There are times, out on the vast prairie, when, through glories of pearl and crimson, night melts into day, or up in the northern muskegs, where the great Aurora blazes down through the bitter frost, when one stands, as it were, abashed and awe-stricken under a dim perception of the majesty upholding this universe. Then, and because of this, the man with understanding eyes will never be deceived by complacent harangues on sacred things from such as Coombs who never lend a luckless neighbor seed-wheat, and oppress the hireling. ”

“ Now there are occasions when even the weakest seem endowed with a special strength, while a look of blind confidence from the woman he loves is capable of transforming almost any man, and I knew in the exaltation of that moment, for my own sake, I had no fear of death. If I could not save her, I felt it would be a good end to go down into the green depths attempting it.
Then the canoe lurched forward half its length clear of the water, a white haze eddied about us, the sunlight went out, and we were in the cañon, shooting down the mad rush of a rapid toward eternity. ”

“ Sometimes, when frost bound fast the feeding snows, the Siwash Indians ran their light canoes through, but I never heard of a white man attempting the passage, and one glance was sufficient to show the reason. I understood it better when as by a miracle I came alive out of the cañon.
It was a still evening, and again the afterglow flamed behind the western pines, when, holding Cæsar’s rein, I stood under a hemlock talking to Grace Carrington. ”

“ With a faint clatter they vanished again; and I did not envy them their long ride to the next post, with a blizzard brewing. When his work is over or the snow comes down the settler may sleep snugly and sound, or lounge in tranquil contentment beside the twinkling stove, while, as the price of his security, the Northwest Police, snatching sometimes a few hours’ rest under the gray cloud in a trench of snow, and sometimes riding a grim race with death, keep watch and ward over the vast territories. We do not rear desperadoes on the prairie, though some few are sent to us. ”

“ The flowering creeper partly hid us, but it left openings between, framing the prospect of glittering peak and forest-filled valley with green tracery, while warm sunlight beat through. So, in contrast to the past, I found it comforting to lounge away the time there with a fair companion, while glancing down the glistening metals I told how we had built the line. Alice was a good listener, and the tale may have had its interest, while—and this is not wholly due to vanity—no man talks better than when he speaks to a sympathizing woman of the work that he is proud of. ”

“ Now between the mining town and Cedar the river loses itself in a gloomy cañon, one of those awful gorges which are common among the mountains of British Columbia. Two great rocks partly close the entrance, and beyond this the chasm is veiled in spray, while its roar when the floods race through it can be heard several miles away. Scarcely a ray of sunlight enters its shadowy depths, and looking up from beside the entrance one can see the great pines that crown the sheer fall of rock looming against the skyline in a slender lace-like filigree. ”

“ I stepped aside a moment to let the construction train with its load of rails roll past, and stood leaning on the axe wiping the perspiration out of my eyes until Harry’s shout rang out warningly. Then through the strident scream of brakes and the roar of blown-off steam an ominous rumbling commenced round a bend; there was a rush of flying footsteps, and Harry shouted again. I ran forward down the newly-laid track, and when I halted breathless, my first sensation was one of thankfulness followed by dismay. Harry was struggling to hold an excited team not far away. ”

“ It was a hot autumn morning when we prepared to commence our task of railroad building, the last forlorn hope between ourselves and ruin. Harry and I stood each beside our teams, which were harnessed to a great iron scoop or scraper designed to tear out a heavy load of soil at each traverse. This we would pile in the slight hollows, so that, sinking a few feet through the rises and raised slightly above each depression, the road-bed might run straight and level across the prairie. ”

“ Father had a craze for religion, mother was always sighing, and there was no peace at home for me. Then I met Tom Fletcher again—you remember him—and when he took me to concerts and dances I felt at last that I had begun to live. The endless drudgery in the mill, the little house in the smoky street, and the weary chapel three times each Sunday, were crushing the life out of me. You understand—you once told me you felt it all, and you went out in search of fortune; but what can a woman do? ”

“ Meantime, a tender flush of emerald crept across the crackling sod, and the birches unfolded their tiny leaves until the bluff shimmered with tender verdure silver inlaid, while the jack-rabbits, which had not as yet 57 wholly put off their winter robes of ermine, scurried, piebald and mottled, through its shadows. Then, while the wheat grew taller, and the air warmer every day, the prairie assumed an evanescent beauty which it presently put off again, for the flush faded from the grasses, and only the birch bluff remained for a refuge filled with cool neutral shadow in a sun-parched land. ”

“ For the rest, Harry and I never found our interest slacken, and looked on in silence as that most gorgeous panorama of snow-peak, forest, and glacier unwound itself league after league before us, until at last amid a grinding of brakes the long freight train ran onto a side track. She was only just in time, for with the ballast trembling beneath, and red cinders flying from the funnel of the mammoth mountain engine ahead, the Atlantic mail went by. ”

“ But little time was left us for dalliance or soft speeches, and we paid our homage in practical fashion, with axe and saw and bridle, for there was truth in what Harry said: “The best compliment a man can pay a woman is to work for her comfort. Still, I don’t know that more leisure for other things wouldn’t be pleasant, too. There is more in life after all than an endless round of sowing and reaping.” ”

“ A warm breeze from the Pacific, crossing the snow-barred Rockies, set the dry grasses rippling; and the prairie running northward league after league was dappled with moving shadow by the white cloudlets that scudded across the great vault of blue. Behind us straggling silver-stemmed birches sheltered the little log-house of Fairmead, which nestled snugly among them, with its low sod-built stable further among the slender branches behind. Trees are scarce in that region, and the settlers make the most of them. ”

“ The footprints of our comrades wound in zig-zags among deep drifts and outcrops of ice-touched rock across the foreground, and perhaps twenty feet below the ledge on which we stood a smooth slide of frozen snow dropped steeply toward the edge of a precipice, through a gully in which we could see the tops of the climbing pines far beneath. A few small clumps of bushes and spruce rose out of this snow.
“It’s an awkward place for a lame man, but if we wait much longer we will lose the others,” said Ormond, pointing to the distant figures struggling across the dazzling incline. ”

“ So I prowled from swamp to swamp, seeing nothing but the sickly trunks which grew up out of thinly frozen slime, while no sound made by either bird or beast broke the impressive silence of the primeval solitude. At last, when the day was nearly spent, I crawled toward a larger muskeg, which spread out from a running creek, and knelt in congealed mire behind a blighted spruce, listening intently, for a sound I recognized set my heart beating. All around, dwindling in gradations as the soil grew wetter, the firs gave place to willows, and there was mud and ice cake under them. ”

“ Not an ounce of the ruin is wasted; the lower Fraser wheat-lands are built that way. There’s a theme for a master to write a Benedicite. Grinding ice chanting to the thunders of the snow, and the very cedars listening in the valleys. Well, I’ll make him a free present of the fancy; we’re merely gold miners, or we hope to be. Good-night, and remember the early start to-morrow.”
He was up long before the late dawn, and it was still early when we waded scarcely knee-deep among the boulders of a curiously shrunken stream. ”

“ Then Harry and Aline were married and settled in Hudson’s 382 dwelling; and one evening toward the close of the Indian summer, when our work was done at last we drove slowly down the long incline away from Fairmead. A maple flamed red on the bluff, the birch leaves were golden; but the prairie was lone and empty, save for a breadth of tall stubble, and there was neither a sack in the granary nor a beast in a stall. Harry had taken the working cattle, while the stock were traveling eastward across the ocean and the wheat lay piled in the elevators or had been ground already into finest flour. ”

“ My companion’s face was grave under the moonlight, but she touched my arm with a friendly gesture, as she answered: “Those are a young man’s words, and I suppose some would call them foolish; but though I am old I like the spirit in them. After all, even in these days, we have not done with romance, and a stout heart is often better than land and property. Grace is like you in many ways; she takes life seriously, and I fancy she sees, as I do, that some of us are spending our best on pleasure in Carrington. ”