Partners of the Out-Trail Part 6

"I wasn't," she said, rather sharply. "Anyhow, if I was, you oughtn't to have noticed."

"Perhaps not. Jake told me not long since my touch wasn't light. But what has gone wrong?"

"It's all gone wrong," she answered drearily. "I oughtn't to have come. Supper was the last thing----"

"The supper was quite good," Jim declared.

"Quite good! Well, I suppose that's all you can say for it honestly.

If you liked it, it's curious you didn't eat very much. Then, you see, I can cook, and I wanted to make a little feast to celebrate your beginning the job."

"n.o.body could cook at a fire like that. Besides, folks are not fastidious in camp. When you're chopping and cutting rock all day, you can eat whatever you get."

"Your touch is certainly not light; I'd sooner you were fastidious,"

Carrie rejoined.

"Looks as if I'd taken the wrong line," Jim said gently. "I hate to see you disturbed."

"Do you hate it very much?"

"Yes," said Jim. "That's why I'm awkward."

Carrie gave him a quick glance and turned her head. The firelight touched his face and she noted his grave sympathy.

"Oh!" she said, "I'm a silly little fool! I would come--although I knew you didn't want me."

"I thought you would find things hard," Jim replied, with some embarra.s.sment.

"I do find them hard; that's the trouble, because they're really not hard. The fault's mine; I haven't enough grit."

"You are full of grit," Jim declared. "I've known men knocked out by an easier journey."

"You're trying to be nice and I don't like that. I didn't want you to come just now, but since you have come, sit down and smoke. I meant to be a partner and help you both along."

"But you have helped----"

Carrie looked up quickly. "Oh, you are dull! You don't see I want to confess. It's sometimes a comfort to make yourself look as mean as possible. Afterwards you begin to imagine you're perhaps not quite so bad."

"I don't know if it's worth while to bother about such things," Jim remarked.

"You don't bother. When you're on the trail, you're occupied about the horses and how far you can go. Nothing else matters, and Jake, of course, never bothers at all. He grins. But I insisted on coming and when the man at the hotel wanted to buy you off I made you refuse. You know I did. You were hesitating."

"On the whole, I'm glad you were firm."

"It was easy to be firm at the hotel, but I ought to have kept it up.

I was vain and sure of myself, when I'd come up in a wagon, over a graded road."

"The road was pretty bad," said Jim.

"Anyhow, it was a road and I sat in a wagon," Carrie rejoined. "When the road stopped and we hit the real wild country, I got frightened, like a child. What use is there in starting out, if you can't go on?"

"You have gone on. I don't think many girls from the cities would have borne the journey with an outfit like ours. But I don't quite get your object for leaving home."

"Ah," said Carrie, "you have done what you wanted, although it was perhaps hard. You have tasted adventure, seen the wild North, and found gold. You haven't known monotony, done dreary things that never change, and tried to make fifty cents go as far as a dollar. If you had talents, you could use them, but it wasn't like that with me. I don't know if I have talent, but I felt I could do something better than bake biscuit and sell cheap groceries. I longed to do something different; to go out and take my chances, and see if I couldn't make my mark. Then I wanted money, for mother's sake. So I came, but as soon as I got wet and tired I was afraid."

Jim pondered. Carrie had pluck; it meant much that she had owned her fears. She meant to conquer them and he imagined she looked to him for help. His business was to give her back her confidence, but this could not be done by awkward flattery. In the meantime, he looked about.

The fire had sunk, the moon was rising, and through a gap between the trunks one could see a dark gulf, out of which thin mist rolled. The vapor streamed across long rows of ragged pines that ran up among the rocks until they melted in the gloom. In the distance, a glimmering line of snow cut against the sky. The landscape had grandeur but not beauty. It was stern and forbidding.

"I think we are all afraid now and then," he said. "I never hit the North trail without shrinking. Perhaps it's instinct, or something like that. In the cities, man lives in comfort by using machines, but he's up against Nature all the time in the wilds. She must be fought and beaten and he must leave behind the weapons he knows. Up North, a small accident or carelessness may cost you your life; an ax forgotten, a bag of flour lost, mean frostbite and hunger that may stop the march.

You have got to be braced and watchful; it's a grim country and it kills off the slack. But we are only on its edge and things are different here. If we are beaten, we can fall back. The trail to the cities is open."

"Would you fall back?" Carrie asked.

"Not unless I'm forced," Jim answered with a laugh.

"Nor will I," said Carrie. "I've been a fool to-night, but if I'm up against silly old things like instincts, I'm going to put them down."

"You will make good all right. But what did your mother think when you resolved to come with us?"

Carrie hesitated, and then gave Jim a level glance.

"You didn't see mother much. She was busy; she's always busy, and you don't know her yet. She's quiet, you don't feel her using control, but one does what she wants, and I can't remember when that was wrong.

Well, I suppose she felt, on the surface, I oughtn't to go. It was the proper, conventional view, but when it's needful mother can go deep. I think she was willing to give me a chance of finding out, and trying, my powers; she knew I wouldn't be so restless afterwards, if I was happier or not." Carrie paused and there was a touch of color in her face as she resumed: "Besides, she knew she could trust Jake and I think she trusts you."

Jim said nothing. It looked as if the little faded woman who had been occupied about the store all day had qualities he had not imagined, although he now remembered he had sometimes got a hint of reserved force. All was quiet for a minute or two while he mused, and then they heard steps and Jake came up.

"I've been prospecting up the line. We have got our job," he said.

"What's the trouble? Bush pretty thick?"

"Rocks! They're lying loose right up the slope and it's going to cost us high to roll them away. Then it's possible another lot will come down."

Jim frowned. They had undertaken to clear a track of stated width, along which pack-horses could travel, as well as fix the telegraph posts; and a bank of big loose stones would, be a troublesome obstacle.

Much depended on the steepness of the hillside and he had not yet seen the ground.

"If we have to build up and underpin the line, it will certainly cost us something," he said. "However, we'll find that out as we go on.

The main thing is to start."

"I allow that's so. When you start you finish," Jake remarked. "Still dollars will count in this fight and we may go broke."

"It's possible. Anyhow, we'll hold on until we are broke."

Carrie laughed. "And that's all there is to it, Jim? I like your way of looking at things. It's simple and saves trouble."

"It puts it off," Jim rejoined dryly. "The trouble sometimes comes at the end. But it's rather curious how often you can make good by just holding on."

"Oh, well!" said Carrie. "I hear the boys coming. Go and see if they have caught some fish."

Jim went off and presently returned with a string of big gray trout.

Sitting down, he began to sharpen his knife, but Carrie stopped him.