Partners of the Out-Trail Part 3

When he woke Carrie had come back and was lighting the lamp. Jake had entered with her and put a tray on the table.

"Supper's served," he said. "It's better hash than you used to hand out in the woods, and Carrie has fixed some hot biscuit with Magnolia drips in the way you like. Well, you better get busy, and we'll play we're in camp. I'll locate at the bottom of the snow bank."

Jake sat down on a rug, with his back to the wall and a plate on his knee, and Jim's thoughts wandered. He had got the habit of remembering things when he was ill, and the little shabby room, with the cheap rug on the rough, stained floor, seemed to melt like a dissolving view. He saw black pines, with the moon s.h.i.+ning between their stiff branches, wood smoke drifting past, and a red fire snapping in the snow. Jake wore ragged furs and his eyes twinkled, as they twinkled now. Jake was a humorous philosopher and if his humor was sometimes thin his philosophy was sound. He was white; one could trust him. Then Jim came back to the room above the store. He liked the way Jake waited on Carrie, although Jake owned he had not been a success when he made a trip in the Mount Stephen dining-car.

"We're going to talk business," Jake remarked presently. "I've been getting after the telegraph department since we came home and one of the construction bosses was in town to-day. He allowed you made good the night they sent the Government messages through, and if we wanted the contract for the new line they're going to run across the ranges, he'd back our tender."

"Jim isn't well enough to go back yet. You mustn't bother him," Carrie said firmly.

"We can't do much until the thaw comes," Jake rejoined. "It's a fighting chance and I don't see many chances for us in this old town."

Carrie looked thoughtful. She knew the wilds would draw Jake back and Jim must soon go, but the North was a stern country and she wanted to keep them for a time. She was honest and owned that she wanted to keep both.

"Can you finance the job?" she asked.

"It's going to come hard, but we might put it over. Our pay was pretty good and the construction boss could get us a check as we go on if the work was approved. Of course, if we were pushed, we could sell out the Bluebird. The a.s.say's all right and one or two of the big syndicates are looking up copper. Still I don't want to sell."

"You mustn't sell."

"Very well," Jake agreed. "What you say about it goes."

Jim looked up with some surprise. Jake and he had done enough work on the copper vein to get their patent, but could develop the mine no further without capital. Jim did not understand what Carrie had to do with this.

"He doesn't know," Jake remarked, and turned to Jim with a smile. "We put in the stakes and filed the record, but Carrie's a partner. She helped us out."

"Ah," said Jim, "I begin to see!"

He felt disturbed. The placer gold they had found was all spent before they proved the copper vein. Food cost much and n.o.body would let them have supplies. Copper mines were hardly thought worth exploiting then, since transport was expensive. When it looked as if they must give up the claim, Jake got some money from home, and now Jim knew who had sent the sum. He did not know how Carrie had saved it, but she must have used stern economy.

"You don't like my sending the money?" she remarked, with a quick glance at Jim.

"I don't like to think of your going without things you probably wanted and ought to have had. We could have let the mine go and worked for somebody else."

Carrie laughed. "I don't know if you're nice or not. Anyhow, I had the money; I'd been clerking for a time at the Woolsworth store and they had given me a good job. Why shouldn't I send Jake the money I didn't know how to spend?"

"You're exaggerating," Jim rejoined. "A pretty girl can always spend money on hats and clothes. In fact, I think she ought."

"Now you're certainly nice, but we'll let it go. Your taking the money made me a partner, and in the meantime the Bluebird is not for sale.

If you wait long enough, somebody will give you what the mine is worth."

"I think so. Copper's hard to smelt and when transport's expensive speculators stick to gold, but things will be different now the country's opening up. We will hold the patent until you are willing to sell."

"Thank you," said Carrie. "It cost you something to prove the vein, up there in the melting snow, and no greedy city man is going to get your reward. However, we'll get on. If they give you the telegraph contract, I'm going North."

Jim turned to his comrade. "She can't go! You had better tell her it's impossible."

"I'll leave it to you. There's not much use in telling Carrie she can't do a thing when she thinks she can."

Jim began a labored argument about the hards.h.i.+ps and the ruggedness of the country and Carrie listened with inscrutable calm. Then she said, "You don't want me to go?"

"It isn't that. You don't know what you are up against."

"I have a notion," Carrie remarked with some dryness. "Perhaps you imagine all goes smooth and I have a soft job here?"

Jim was silent. He was sometimes sorry for Carrie, but she resumed: "You haven't lived in a shabby street, doing ch.o.r.es you don't like and trying to please people who are often rude. Well, I've stood for it a long time, for mother's sake; but now cousin Belle is coming, and she knows all there is to know about keeping store. Do you think a girl ought to be kept at home? That she never hears the call of adventure like the rest of you?"

"Adventure palls. One soon gets enough," said Jim. Then he saw Jake's smile and added: "After all, I don't know----"

"I know," said Carrie. "You are going back, and I am going too. But you won't have to take care of me. I mean to manage things."

"She has some talent that way," Jake observed. "If you're not very firm, Jim, she'll manage you. But what's your particular job, Carrie?"

"Supplies. When it comes to handling foodstuff, menfolk don't know how to buy. Then they waste, and the hash a man camp-cook puts up is seldom fit to eat."

"There's some truth in that," Jake remarked with feeling. "It looks as if you had got your program fixed."

"I have," said Carrie, with resolute quietness. "I'm going."

Jake smiled at his comrade. "You had better agree. When Carrie talks like that she can't be moved by argument. Anyhow, the trail's broken to the wirehead and if she gets tired she can come back."

"I may get tired," said Carrie. "But I shall not come back. There's another thing: I have a share in the Bluebird and want a stake on the telegraph line. Well, I've saved a hundred dollars."

"Carrie's pile!" Jake remarked. "She means to throw it in; that's the kind of girl my sister is. As a business proposition, our venture's humorous. We haven't capital enough to stand for one setback, and if luck's against us we'll sure go broke. To begin with, I've got to put up a big bluff on the construction department in order to get the job; look as if I owned a bank roll and didn't care if we got paid or not.

Well, one takes steep chances in this country, and I allow there's something to be said for the small man who goes out with an ax, five dollars, and a bag of flour, to make a road or build a log bridge.

Folks don't know how much he means and all he has to stand for."

Carrie's eyes sparkled. "You and Jim know. I'm going to find out."

Then Mrs. Winter came in. She was a pale, quiet woman whom Jim had thought dull until he saw her work. She listened, making a few remarks, while Jake talked about their plans.

"Well," she said at length, "your cousin is coming and she'll help me run the store. It has certainly got to be run; you'll need some money if you go broke."

"We're not going broke," Carrie rejoined with a hint of emotion. "Jake has got to make good for your sake. Some day we'll sell out the business and you shall rest as long as you like."

Mrs. Winter smiled, rather wearily. "I don't know if I'd like to do nothing; I've hustled so long. Still I've sometimes thought I'd like to find out how it feels just to sit quiet for a piece. Now the oven's good and hot; there's a batch of biscuit ready and you'd better come and help."

She took Carrie away and when they had gone Jake looked at his comrade.

"I allow the women's part is most as hard as ours, and Carrie hit it when she said I had to make good."

Jim nodded. "I like your sister, and your mother's very fine. I want to help you help them all I can."

"Sure, I know," said Jake, and then his eyes twinkled, for he had noted Jim's slight awkwardness. "You went rather farther than you meant, didn't you? Your English streak makes you shy, but you won't hurt my feelings; I'm all Canadian. Now, however, you are going to bed."

Jim went to bed and soon went to sleep. He was not well yet and had had an exciting day.