On the Edge of the Arctic Part 13

"Tell me!" responded Colonel Howell. "That's what we all want to know.

Anyway," he went on, "we've done our part towards cutting it out. There isn't a drop of it in this outfit."

When he could do so without attracting attention, Norman glanced at Paul.

The latter as quickly averted his eyes and plunged with greater energy into his share of the work.

These events had taken place just before the "cabin pa.s.sengers" had been called to supper. Efforts were being made to forget the Chandler episode and Colonel Howell especially was talkative and jolly. Paul was just the opposite. At last, when the cook had left them with their tea, the young Austrian seemed to become desperate. Norman and Roy were just about to leave the cabin when Paul stopped them, more and more embarra.s.sed.

"I want to say something, boys," he began. Then he turned to his host and, the perspiration thick on his face, added suddenly: "Colonel Howell, I don't know how to say it, but I've got to tell you. I lied to you the other night in the hotel at Edmonton. You didn't ask me to stop drinking, but you talked to me pretty straight, and that's what I meant to do. Well I didn't stop--I just put it off, a little. I didn't do the right thing back at the Landing. I knew it then, but I knew I was going to stop when I came up here and I just put it off a little longer."

The colonel made a half deprecating motion, as if it embarra.s.sed him to listen to the young man's confession.

"I thought it was all right," he said, as if to somewhat relieve Paul's embarra.s.sment, "and I knew you meant to stop. Of course we knew what you were doing, but you're pretty young," concluded the colonel with a laugh.

Norman and Roy each gave signs of an inclination to relieve Paul's embarra.s.sment and Norman especially showed concern. But he and his friend remained silent.

"We'll let that all be bygones," suggested Colonel Howell, "and here's to the future--we'll drink to what is to come in Canada's national beverage--black tea reeking with the smoke of the camp fire."

A laugh of relief started round, as Paul's three companions. .h.i.t the table with their heavy tin cups, but in this the young Count did not join.

"That ain't it," he blurted suddenly. "That was bad enough, but I've done worse than that."

The colonel's face sobered and Norman's eyes turned toward the heap of personal belongings just outside the cabin door. Paul's trembling arm motioned toward these boxes and bags.

"I've got a case of brandy out there and I've got to tell you how I've lied to you."

"Hardly that!" protested Colonel Howell. "You hadn't spoken to me of it."

"No, I didn't," confessed Paul, his voice trembling, "but I just heard you say we hadn't anything like that with us and I might as well have lied, because I had it."

"Did that sergeant of police know this?" broke in Roy. "I thought he examined everything. He certainly said we were all right."

"Yes, he knew it," answered Paul, "but he isn't to blame. Don't think I'm making that an excuse."

Colonel Howell sat with downcast eyes and an expression of pain on his face.

"Why did you do it?" he asked in a low tone at last. "Did you mean to hide it from me?"

"No, no," exclaimed his young guest. "I don't know why I did it. I don't want it. I'm going to quit all that. That's why I came up here. You know that, Colonel Howell--don't you believe me?"

But Colonel Howell's face now bore a different expression.

"My friend," he remarked after a few moment's thought, "I may have done wrong to ask your father to let you come with us. I thought you knew all the conditions. If this is a life that is not going to interest you, you'd better go back. The Indians will be returning to-morrow or the next day and you won't find it such a hard trip."

Paul gulped as if choking and then sprang from the table. From the baggage outside he extracted a canvas-bound box, his own name on the side. While his companions sat in silence he hurled it on the floor at their feet and then, with a sweep of his knife, cut the canvas from the package. With a single crush by his heavy boot, he loosened one of the boards of the cover. Carefully packed within were a dozen bottles of expensive brandy. Paul caught one of them and appeared to be about to smash it on the edge of the table. The colonel raised his hand.

"Stop!" ordered his host. "Are you going back or do you want to stay with us?"

"Colonel Howell," almost sobbed the young man, "I'd give anything I have or can do for you if you'll let me stay."

"There's only one condition," answered Colonel Howell, and he no longer attempted to conceal his irritation. "If you're not strong enough to do without that kind of stuff, you're not welcome here. If you are, you are very welcome."

"I'll throw it all in the river," exclaimed Paul, chokingly.

"Which would prove nothing," announced Colonel Howell. "Put that bottle back in the box and nail it up. When you want it again, come and tell me and I'll give you the case and an escort back to the Landing."

The episode had become more than embarra.s.sing for Norman and Roy and they arose and left the room. Paul's face was buried in his hands and his head was low on the table. Fifteen minutes later, the young Count and the oil man made their appearance, both very sober of face.

At midnight when the last of the cargo had been uns.h.i.+pped, when the Indians had been fed again and when the white men had had a late supper of bannock and Nova Scotia b.u.t.ter and fresh tea, and when Colonel Howell and the boys had spread their heavy blankets on the fresh balsam, in Paul's corner of the cabin lay the box that had brought him so much chagrin. Not once during the evening had the humiliating incident been referred to by those who partic.i.p.ated in it.

CHAPTER XI

PREPARING CAMP FOR WINTER

Colonel Howell being a far from hard taskmaster, especially in his dealings with the Indians, it was not until the morning of the second day that Moosetooth and La b.i.+.c.he led their men out of camp on the three-hundred mile tramp to Athabasca Landing. But the beginning of work in the camp did not await their departure. Colonel Howell took time to explain his plans so far as they concerned his young friends, and the morning after the arrival of the boats work at once began with the regularity of a factory.

The things to be done included a substantial addition to the present cabin, to be made in the main out of the straight poplar timber. The roof of this was to be of sod and the new bunk house formed a "T" with the old cabin. A clay floor was packed within and on this a board floor was made of some of the inside timber from one of the scows. New timber and poplar posts were used to make the bunks, which, packed heavily with shredded balsam, soon provided clean and fragrant sleeping berths. Colonel Howell had learned of a sheet-iron stove to be had in the McMurray settlement, and this was to be installed before cold weather arrived.

The other cabin was renovated and thoroughly cleaned. A provision storehouse was added in the rear, and the clay fireplace was enlarged and extended into the room. This work under way, Norman and Roy, a.s.sisted by Paul, undertook to construct a rough but adequate aerodrome. The open s.p.a.ce in front of the cabin was not sufficient for a landing and a large part of the clearing in the rear of the cabin was leveled for the airs.h.i.+p shed. To decrease the size of the structure, it was also made in "T"

shape, the extension for the tail of the machine reaching back toward the cabin, for the new shelter faced away from the cabin so that there might be no obstacle in starting and landing the machine.

In spite of its simple character, the boys made elaborate sketches for this shed and used in the main small uniform poplar trees easily carried on their shoulders. The entire frame of the building was made of this timber. The front of it was to be made of the colonel's three enormous tarpaulins. The sides and top being of heavy hemlock bark, this feature of the work required many days and it was often tiresome.

In the three weeks that this work went on, Colonel Howell appeared to be in no hurry to resume his prospecting. The boys learned that the old Kansas oil men had not been wholly idle in this respect and that they had located several good signs, all of which Colonel Howell took occasion to examine.

The boys also learned that the best prospects were not those found where the derrick had been erected. From their experience, the men who had been left in camp strongly urged another location in a dip of land farther inland.

"It's as good a surface sign as I ever saw," Colonel Howell explained to the young men. "It's a rock cut, but there's enough tar floating loose to show that there's oil mighty close. But there's no use getting excited about it and tapping a gusher. We'd only have to cap it and wait for the tank cars. Everything around here is prospective, of course. All we can do is to cover the field and establish our claim. And I guess that's a good winter's job."

"Ain't you goin' to work this derrick?" asked Paul, indicating the one erected near the camp.

"Looks like there might be gas around here," was the colonel's laughing response. "We'll sink a shaft here an' maybe we can find a flow of natural gas. That'd help some when she gets down to forty below."

It was surprising how all these preparations consumed time. It was nearly the end of August when these plans had been worked out and with the setting up of the _Gitchie Manitou_ in its novel aerodrome and the storing away of its oil and gasoline in a little bark lean-to, the camp appeared to be ready for serious work.

For a week Ewen and Miller had been setting up the wood boiler and engine for operating the derrick. From the night he unceremoniously left camp, Chandler, the Englishman, had not been heard from.

Each Sunday all labor ceased in camp and Ewen and Miller invariably spent the day, long into the night, in Fort McMurray. The boys also visited this settlement, which had in it little of interest. There was no store and nothing to excite their cupidity in the way of purchases. They heard that Chandler had gone down the river, but the information was not definite and, although Colonel Howell left messages for his discharged employee, the man did not reappear and sent no word.

Colonel Howell's other workmen, Ewen and Miller, were not companionable and did not become comrades of the boys. Now and then, in the month's work, Norman and Roy had heard Colonel Howell freely criticize them for the method of their work or for some newly omitted thing they had failed to do during the winter.

When the stores and supplies had been compactly arranged in the rear of the living room and the new storehouse, the cabin and its surroundings seemed prepared for comfortable occupancy in the coldest weather.

The only man retained out of the river outfit was a Lac la b.i.+.c.he half-breed, a relative of Moosetooth, who was to serve both as a cook and a hunter. At least once a week, the entire party of young men went with Philip Tremble, the half-breed hunter, for deer or moose. This usually meant an early day's start, if they were looking for moose, and a long hike over the wooded hills to the upland.

One moose they secured on the second hunt and to the great joy of the boys Philip brought the skin of the animal back to camp. The antlers, being soft, were useless. This episode not only afforded a welcome change in meat which, as Colonel Howell had predicted, could not be told from tender beef, but it sadly interfered with the work on the aerodrome.