The Gold Trail Part 24

Ida started at this, and leaned forward eagerly to catch Weston's answer.

"I fancied there might be a little risk in it, and I had Miss Stirling with me."

Ida felt her face grow warm as she remembered that she had twitted him with having less nerve than the Indians; but Grenfell apparently was not yet satisfied.

"You could have sent the girl on, and then have shot the fall," he said. "It would have saved you quite a lot of trouble."

"Oh, yes," agreed Weston, who appeared to resent his curiosity.

"Still, I didn't."

Grenfell moved away, and Ida recognized now that, in spite of a good deal of provocation, Weston had acted with laudable delicacy. It was clear that his obduracy in the matter of taking her down the fall had been due to a regard for her safety. He had also saddled himself with a laborious task to prevent this fact from becoming apparent. She fancied that, had she been in his place, she could have arranged the thing more neatly; but, after all, that did not detract from the delicacy of his purpose, and she sat very still, with a rather curious expression in her face, until Grenfell came to announce that supper was ready.

CHAPTER XV

THE ROCK POOL

Ida was quietly gracious to Weston during the week that followed his opposition to her wishes at the portage. This was not so much because she knew she had been wrong in insisting on his taking her down the fall, for, after all, that matter was a trifling one, but it was more because she was pleased by the part that he had played. The man, it seemed, had preferred to face her anger rather than to allow her to run any personal risk, and afterward had undertaken a very laborious task to prevent her from discovering why he had borne it. This was as far as she would go, though she was aware that it left something to be explained.

In any case, there was a subtle change in her manner toward Weston.

She had never attempted to patronize him, but now she placed him almost on the footing of an intimate acquaintance. It was done tactfully and naturally, but Mrs. Kinnaird noticed it, and took alarm.

Why she should do so was not very clear, for Stirling certainly had not encouraged her to put herself to any trouble on his daughter's account, but perhaps it was because Ida was going to England, and she had a well-favored son. It is also possible that, being a lady of conventional ideas, she acted instinctively and could not help herself. That a young woman of extensive possessions should encourage a camp-packer was, from her point of view, unthinkable.

For this reason, perhaps, it was not astonis.h.i.+ng that there was for some little time a quiet battle between the two. When Ida desired to go fis.h.i.+ng, Mrs. Kinnaird suggested something else, or contrived that the packer should be busy. Failing this, she patiently bore discomforts from which she usually shrank, and put her companions to a good deal of trouble by favoring them with her company. The major naturally did not notice what was going on, and she did not enlighten him; nor did Weston, for that matter; while Arabella stood aside and looked on with quiet amus.e.m.e.nt. It is probable that had Ida stooped to diplomacy, she would have been beaten, but, as it was, her uncompromising imperiousness stood her in good stead.

In any case, she went up the river alone with Weston on several occasions, in spite of Mrs. Kinnaird, and one morning the two sat together among the boulders beside a pool not far above the fall.

There had been heavy rain, and the stream, which had risen, swirled in an angry eddy along the rock that rose close in front of them from that side of the pool. A great drift-log, peeled white, with only stumps of branches left, had jammed its thinner top on a half-submerged ledge, and the great b.u.t.t, which was water borne, every now and then smote against the rock. The pines along the river were still wet, and the wilderness was steeped in ambrosial odors. Ida sat with thoughtful eyes regarding the endless rows of trunks, through which here and there a ray of dazzling sunlight struck; but her whole attention was not occupied with that great colonnade.

"I think you were right when you said that the bush gets hold of one,"

she said. "I sometimes feel that I don't want to go back to the cities at all."

Weston smiled, though there was something curious in his manner. It seemed to suggest that he was trying to face an unpleasant fact.

"Well," he said, "I told you that would probably be the case. In one way it's unfortunate, because I suppose you will have to go. You belong to civilization, and it will certainly claim you."

"And don't you?"

Weston made a little whimsical gesture.

"In the meanwhile, I don't quite know where I belong. It's perplexing."

Ida noticed the "in the meanwhile." It had, she fancied, a certain significance, and hinted that by and by he expected to be more sure of his station.

"You don't wish to go back?" she asked.

"No," said Weston decisively. "Anyway, not to the packed boarding-house and the flour-mill. Even in winter, when these rivers are frozen hard and the pines stand white and motionless under the Arctic frost, this is a good deal nicer."

"You're getting away from the point," said Ida, laughing. "I meant to England."

Weston leaned forward a little, looking at her with a curious expression in his eyes.

"For three or four months in the year England is the most beautiful country in the world," he said. "We haven't your great pines and foaming rivers, but, even in the land from which I come in the rugged north, every valley is a garden. It's all so smooth and green and well cared for. One could fancy that somebody loved every inch of it--once you get outside the towns. I said the dales were gardens--in summer they're more like Paradise."

It was evident that the exile's longing for the old land was awake within him, and Ida nodded sympathetically.

"Won't you go on?" she begged.

"Ah!" said Weston. "If I could make you see them--the wonderful green of the larch woods, the bronze of the opening oaks, and the smooth velvet pastures between the little river and the gleaming limestone at the foot of the towering fell! All is trimmed and clipped and cared for, down to the level hedgerows and the sod on the roadside banks, and every here and there white hamlets, with little old-world churches, nestle among-the trees. You see, it has grown ripe and mellow, while your settlements are crude and new."

The girl sat silent a brief s.p.a.ce. She had read of the old country, and seen pictures of it, and it seemed to her that his term, a garden, described parts, at least, of it rather efficiently.

Then, though he had already a.s.sured her that he meant to stay in the bush, she wondered whether he never longed to gather a flower of that trim garden. In fact, it suddenly became a question of some moment to her.

"You will go back to it some day?"

"No," said Weston, with a little wry smile; "I don't think so. After all, why should I?"

Ida was sensible of a certain satisfaction, but she desired to make more sure.

"There must be somebody you would wish to see, or somebody who would care to see you?"

"Ah," said Weston, "the failures are soon forgotten over yonder.

Perhaps it's fortunate that it happens so."

A shadow crept into his face.

"No," he added, "unless it is as a successful man, it is scarcely likely that I shall go back again."

Ida glanced at him covertly, with thoughtful eyes. Though his attire was neater than it had been when she had seen him on other occasions, he still wore the bush packer's usual dress. There was, however, a subtle grace in his manner, and, though he was by no means a brilliant conversationalist, there was something in his voice and the half-whimsical tricks of fancy which now and then characterized him that made a wide distinction between him and the general hired hand.

Once more it seemed to her that when he had called the old country a garden it was a somewhat apt description, for this man had evidently been subjected to careful training and pruning in his youth. He was, she felt, one who had grown up under a watchful eye.

"Well," she said, with a little laugh, "perhaps you are wise. One could almost fancy that the old land is overcrowded, and even on the richest soil one needs light and air."

Weston's smile showed that he could understand her train of thought.

"I certainly think that some of us are hardier for transplanting," he replied. "It is easier to make a vigorous growth out in the open, in the wind and the sun. Besides, over yonder every one is pinched and trimmed back to the same conventional pattern. They sacrifice too much for uniformity."

"Still," said Ida, once more harping on the idea that troubled her, "there are only wild flowers in the wilderness. One understands that we have nothing like your peerless English blooms."

Weston looked at her with a little gleam in his eyes.

"Oh," he said, "one must be honest, and even for the credit of the old land I can't admit that. It couldn't be, when you have your sunlight and your crystal skies. It always seems to me that strength is essential to perfect grace, and one finds both, and sweetness unexcelled, out here in Canada."

He rose, and, taking up the rod, straightened the gut trace.

"There is a big trout rising in the slack," he said. "I think you could cast from the bank."