Partners of the Out-Trail. Harold Bindloss
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and the thud of snow, shaken from the tossing branches, on the roof. That was all, but he had trained his senses in the woods until they worked unconsciously. Somebody was coming and he knew it was not Jake.
A minute or two afterwards he heard steps in the snow. The steps were heavy, as if the men were tired. Somebody knocked and Jim opened the door. Two men came in and throwing down their packs shook the snow from their ragged furs. Their boots were broken, their leggins badly worn, and their faces were pinched with cold.
"I don't suppose you'll turn us out. It's what our packers call pretty fierce to-night," one remarked.
"Certainly not," said Jim. "Come right up to the fire. How did you make the shack?"
The strangers advanced and Jim hid his surprise, although they were the men whose lunch he had served at the Montreal restaurant. He had learned in the wilds something of the Indian's reserve.
"We hit the wire at dusk," one replied. "We had been climbing with a party of the Canadian Alpine Club, and stopped among the high ranges longer than we meant. In fact, the snow rather surprised us. The others had gone before we started and we had a rough time coming South."
"You didn't make it without packers," said Jim, who knew they were English.
"We left the boys some distance back. There was not much shelter at the camp and although they were satisfied, we resolved to follow the line and try to find a shack. The boys will, no doubt, arrive in the morning."
Jim nodded, because a line was cut through the forest for the telegraph wires.
"You ran some risk. If you camped at sundown, it's a while since you had supper. I can give you coffee and a hot bannock."
He put the kettle on the fire and when the meal was over studied his guests as they lighted their pipes. One was about thirty years old, and in spite of his ragged clothes, Jim thought him a man with cultivated tastes and wide experience. The other was young and looked frank. He had a refined, intelligent face and was like the girl whom Jim had seen at the restaurant; she was, perhaps, a relation. For a time the strangers talked about their journey and then one looked at Jim rather hard.
"Haven't I seen you before?"
Jim smiled. "At Cibbley's as you go to the new post-office at Montreal."
"Oh, yes! It was a very well-served lunch," said the other and picked up the French romance. "A curious book, but rather fine in parts. Do you understand the fellow?"
"On the whole. I like him; you feel he has a grip. Still he's puzzling now and then."
"These French' writers are puzzling; always trying to work off an epigram," the younger man remarked. "However, I suppose there's as much French as English spoken at Montreal and Quebec."
"Not French like this," the other said with a smile. "I doubt if an up-to-date boulevardier would own it for his mother's tongue. You would be surprised if you heard our Cumberland farmers use Chaucer's English."
"I don't know; they go back beyond him now and then. When they count their sheep I imagine they talk like Alfred or Canute. But suppose you give us an example of ancient French."
The older man opened the book and after turning a number of pages read a passage with taste and feeling. Then he looked at Jim.
"He's primitive; our thoughts run in another groove. But I daresay there's something archaic about Quebec French and you perhaps know the latter. Have I struck the right note?"
"Hit it first time! Anyhow, you've got my notion of what he meant," Jim replied. Then he paused and added thoughtfully: "But I don't know if we're as different as you think. In the North, men get back to primitive things."
The other nodded. "It's possible. One certainly gets a primitive hunger and learns something about bodily needs."
Jim lighted his pipe and mused. He had not talked to cultivated people since he left McGill. He felt rather moved and quietly excited; the strange thing was, their English voices and manner were not new. In a way, it was ridiculous, but he felt as if he had known them, or others of their kind, before.
"You are from the Old Country and your friend seems to know Cumberland," he said. "Do you know Langrigg Hall?"
He thought the older man gave him a keen glance, but next moment his face was inscrutable and with a little gesture of satisfaction he stretched his legs to the fire. His companion, however, looked interested.
"Why, yes," said the latter. "But there are a number of Langriggs in the North of England."
"At the place I mean there is a marsh."
"Then, I do know the hall. It stands upon a low ridge—what we call a knowe—with the big fells behind and the sands in front. At low-water, a river winds about the flats. It's a fine old house, although it's small."
"Isn't there a square tower with a battlement? The roof beams in the older part are bent, not straight."
The other looked surprised. "Have you been there?"
"No," said Jim, thoughtfully. "I've never left Canada, but a man I knew used to talk about Langrigg. I expect he told me about these things; he is dead now."
He glanced at the older man. The latter's eyes were half-closed and his pose was slack, as if he were languidly enjoying the warmth, but Jim thought he had been listening. Then he wondered why the other's short description had given him so distinct a picture; he could see the rugged blue hills in the background and the river winding among the sands. After all, his father had not talked about Langrigg often; in fact, only once or twice, when he was ill. Moreover, Jim reflected that he himself had used no Western colloquialisms; he had talked to the strangers like an Englishman.
"Then your friend must have been at Langrigg. It looks as if he knew the hall well," remarked the younger man.
His companion roused himself with a jerk. "I was nearly asleep. Give me your pouch; my tobacco's out."
He filled his pipe and turned to Jim. "Hope I didn't interrupt. I forget what we were talking about. It looks as if you didn't like a waiter's job."
Jim laughed and went to the telegraph, which began to click. He read the message and calling the next station waited for a time, and then turned to his guests.
"Line's broken and I've got to leave you. You can use the bunks; my partner must sit up and watch the instrument when he comes back. You can tell him I've gone to look for the break."
"Do you know where the break is?" the younger man asked.
"I don't know," said Jim, putting on his fur cap and old skin coat. "It mayn't be far off and it may be some distance. All I know is it's between here and the next shack."
"We found it hard to face the wind and there's more now."
Jim smiled. "One gets used to storms up here and the line must be mended. Some important messages from Ottawa are coming along."
He picked up some tools and when he opened the door the others heard the scream of the gale. The flames blew out from the snapping logs and an icy draught swept the room and roared in the chimney. Then the door shut, the fire burned steadily, and all was quiet in the shack.
"Our host excites one's curiosity," said the younger man.
"You mean he excited yours. You're an imaginative fellow, Dick."
Richard Halliday had remarked that since they reached the shack Mordaunt had not called him Dick and vaguely wondered why. Lance Mordaunt generally had an object. Dick doubted if he had been as sleepy as he pretended when he asked for his tobacco pouch.
"Oh, well," he said, "if we were in England, you wouldn't expect to find a fellow like this using his leisure to study old-fashioned French."
"We are not in England," Mordaunt rejoined. "When you judge Canadians by English standards you're likely to get misled. The country's, so to speak, in a transition stage; they haven't developed