Vane of the Timberlands Part 48

"Its stiffness, if that's what you mean," Carroll answered with a smile.

"These big conifers look as if they'd been carved, like the wooden trees in the Swiss or German toys. They're impressive in a way, but they're too formally artificial."

"That's not what I mean," Vane said impatiently.

"To tell the truth, I didn't suppose it was. Anyway, these trees aren't spruce. They're red cedar; the stuff they make roofing s.h.i.+ngles of."

"Precisely. Just now, s.h.i.+ngles are in good demand in the Province, and with the wooden towns springing up on the prairie, western millers can hardly send roofing material across the Rockies fast enough. Besides this, I haven't struck a creek more adapted for running down logs, and the last sharp drop to tide-water would give power for a mill. I'm only puzzled that none of the timber-lease prospectors have recorded the place."

"That's easy to understand," laughed Carroll. "Like you, they'd no doubt first search the most difficult spots to get at."

They went on, and when darkness fell they pitched their light tent beside the creek. It was now freezing hard, and after supper the men lay smoking, wrapped in blankets, with the tent between them and the stinging wind, while a great fire of cedar branches snapped and roared in front of them. Sometimes the red blaze shot up, flinging a lurid light on the stately trunks and tinging the men's faces with the hue of burnished copper; sometimes it fanned out away from them while the sparks drove along the frozen ground and the great forest aisle, growing dim, was filled with drifting vapor. The latter was aromatic; pungently fragrant.

"It struck me that you were disappointed when you got no mail at Comox," Carroll remarked at length, feeling that he was making something of a venture.

"I was," admitted Vane.

"That's strange," Carroll persisted, "because your hearing nothing from Nairn left you free to go ahead, which, one would suppose, was what you wanted."

Vane happened to be in a confidential mood; though usually averse to sharing his troubles, he felt that he needed sympathy.

"I'd better confess that I wrote Miss Chisholm a few lines from Nanaimo."

"And she didn't answer you? Now, I couldn't well help noticing that you were rather in her bad graces that night at Nairn's--the thing was pretty obvious. No doubt you're acquainted with the reason?"

"I'm not. That's just the trouble."

Carroll reflected. He had an idea that Miss Horsfield was somehow connected with the matter, but this was a suspicion he could not mention.

"Well," he said, "as I pointed out, you're addicted to taking the hardest way. When we came up here before, you marched past this valley, chiefly because it was close at hand; but I don't want to dwell on that. Has it occurred to you that you did something of the same kind when you were at the Dene? The way that was then offered you was easy."

Vane frowned.

"That is not the kind of subject one cares to talk about; but you ought to know that I couldn't allow them to force Miss Chisholm upon me against her will. It was unthinkable! Besides, looking at it in the most cold-blooded manner, it would have been foolishness, for which we'd both have had to pay afterward."

"I'm not so sure of that," Carroll smiled. "There were the Sabine women, among other instances. Didn't they cut off their hair to make bowstring for their abductors?"

His companion made no comment, and Carroll, deciding that he had ventured as far as was prudent, talked of something else until they crept into the little tent and soon fell asleep.

They started with the first of the daylight, but the timber grew denser and more choked with underbrush as they proceeded and for a day or two they wearily struggled through it and the clogging ma.s.ses of tangled, withered fern. Besides this, they were forced to clamber over mazes of fallen trunks, when the ragged ends of the snapped-off branches caught their loads. Their shoulders ached, their boots were ripped, their feet were badly galled; but they held on stubbornly, plunging deeper into the mountains all the while. It would probably overcome the average man if he were compelled to carry all the provisions he needed for a week along a well-kept road, but the task of the prospector and the survey packer, who must transport also an ax, cooking utensils and whatever protection he requires from the weather, through almost impenetrable thickets, is infinitely more difficult.

Vane and Carroll were more or less used to it, but both of them were badly jaded when soon after setting out one morning they climbed a clearer hillside to look about them. High up ahead, the crest of the white range gleamed dazzlingly against leaden clouds in a burst of suns.h.i.+ne; below, dark forest, still wrapped in gloom, filled all the valley; and in between, a belt of timber touched by the light shone with a curious silvery l.u.s.ter. Though it was some distance off, probably a day's journey allowing for the difficulty of the march, Vane gazed at it earnestly. The trees were bare--there was no doubt of that, for the dwindling ranks, diminished by the distance, stood out against the snow-streaked rock like rows of thick needles set upright; their straightness and the way they glistened suggested the resemblance.

"Ominous, isn't it?" Carroll suggested at length. "If this is the valley Hartley came down--and everything points to that--we should be getting near the spruce."

Vane's face grew set.

"Yes," he agreed. "There has been a big fire up yonder; but whether it has swept the lower ground or not is more than I can tell. We'll find out to-night or early to-morrow."

He swung round without another word, and scrambling down the hillside they resumed the march. They pushed on all that day rather faster than before, with the same uncertainty troubling both of them. Forest fires are common in that region when there is a hot dry fall; and where, as often happens, a deep valley forms a natural channel for the winds that fan them, they travel far, stripping and charring the surface of every tree in their way. Neither of the men thought of stopping for a noonday meal, and during the gloomy afternoon, when dingy clouds rolled down from the peaks, they plodded forward with growing impatience. They could see scarcely a hundred yards in front of them; dense withering thickets choked up the s.p.a.ces between the towering trunks; and there was nothing to indicate that they were nearing the burned area when at last they pitched their camp as darkness fell.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE END OF THE SEARCH

The two men made a hurried breakfast in the cold dawn, and soon afterward they were struggling through thick timber when the light suddenly grew clearer. Carroll remarked upon the fact and Vane's face hardened.

"We're either coming to a swamp, or the track the fire has swept is close in front," he explained.

A thicket lay before them, but they smashed savagely through the midst of it, the undergrowth snapping and crackling about their limbs. Then there was a network of tangled branches to be crossed, and afterward, reaching slightly clearer ground, they broke into a run. Three or four minutes later they stopped, breathless and ragged, with their rent boots scarcely clinging to their feet, and gazed eagerly about.

The living forest rose behind them, an almost unbroken wall, but ahead the trees ran up in detached and blackened spires. Their branches had vanished; every cl.u.s.ter of somber-green needles and delicate spray had gone; the great rampicks looked like shafts of charcoal. About their feet lay crumbling ma.s.ses of calcined wood, which grew more numerous where there were open s.p.a.ces farther on, and then the bare, black columns ran on again, up the valley and the steep hill benches on either hand. It was a weird scene of desolation; impressive to the point of being appalling in its suggestiveness of wide-spread ruin.

For the s.p.a.ce of a minute the men gazed at it; and then Vane, stretching out his hand, pointed to a snow-sheeted hill.

"That's the peak Hartley mentioned," he said in a voice which was strangely incisive. "Give me the ax!"

He took it from his comrade and striding forward attacked the nearest rampick. Twice the keen blade sank noiselessly overhead, scattering a black dust in the frosty air, and then there was a clear, ringing thud.

After that, Vane smote on with a determined methodical swiftness, until Carroll grabbed his shoulder.

"Look out!" he cried. "It's going!"

Vane stepped back a few paces; the trunk reeled and rushed downward; there was a deafening crash, and they were enveloped in a cloud of gritty dust. Through the midst of it they dimly saw two more great trunks collapse; and then somewhere up the valley a series of thundering shocks, which both knew were not echoes, broke out. The sound jarred on Carroll's nerves, as the thud of the felled rampick had not done. Vane picked up one of the chips.

"We have found Hartley's spruce."

Carroll did not answer for a minute. After all, when defeat must be faced, there was very little to be said, though his companion's expression troubled him. Its grim stolidity was portentous.

"I suppose," he suggested hopefully, "nothing could be done with it?"

Vane pointed to the b.u.t.t of the tree, which showed a s.p.a.ce of clear wood surrounded by a blackened rim.

"You can't make marketable pulp of charcoal, and the price would have to run pretty high before it would pay for ripping most of the log away to get at the residue.

"But there may be some unburned spruce farther on."

"It's possible. I'm going to find out."

This was a logical determination; but, in spite of his recent suggestion, Carroll realized that he would have abandoned the search there and then, had the choice been left to him, in which he did not think he was singular. After all they had undergone and the risk they had run in leaving Vancouver, the shock of the disappointment was severe. He could have faced a failure to locate the spruce, with some degree of philosophical calm; but to find it at last, useless, was very much worse.

He did not, however, expect his companion to turn back yet; before he desisted, Vane would search for and examine every unburned tree. What was more, Carroll would have to accompany him. He noticed that Vane was waiting for him to speak, and he decided that this was a situation which he would better endeavor to treat lightly.

"I think I'll have a smoke," he said. "I'm afraid any remarks I could make wouldn't do justice to the occasion. Language has its limits."

He sat down on the charred log and took out his pipe.