Partners of the Out-Trail. Harold Bindloss
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schools of specialists yet, and an intelligent man can often make good at an unaccustomed job. This fellow, for example, was a waiter."
He picked up the romance and put it on a shelf. Mordaunt was generally neat and Dick noted that he replaced the book in the spot from which it had been taken and put the rest against it.
"Anyhow, it's curious he knew about Langrigg," Dick insisted.
"I don't think so," said Mordaunt, carelessly. "A number of our farmers' sons have emigrated. He stated he had not left Canada and the man who told him about Langrigg was dead."
"The man who ought to own Langrigg vanished in Canada."
"On the whole, I imagine that's lucky. The trustees spent a large sum in trying to find him and were satisfied he was dead. His age made this probable."
"But he might have had a son."
"Of course," Mordaunt agreed. "Suppose he had a son? The fellow obviously knows nothing about his inheritance; and for that matter, Langrigg is not worth much. I expect he's engaged in some useful occupation, chopping trees or keeping store, for example, and is, no doubt, satisfied with his lot. I don't suppose he is the kind of man you would like to see at Langrigg. Besides, if he turned up, a number of people would suffer."
"That is so," Dick said thoughtfully. "After all, however, if Franklin Dearham had a son, he ought to be at Langrigg. Joseph left the hall to Franklin and his heirs."
Mordaunt smiled. "It was as illogical as other things Joseph did. He was not a good business man and spent the most part of his money after he quarreled with Franklin and turned him out. Then, shortly before he died, when Franklin had vanished and the estate would hardly pay its debts, he left him Langrigg. However, the thing's done with, and if I found Franklin's heir, I doubt if I'd feel justified in meddling. Matters like this are better left alone." He got up and stretched himself. "Now I'm going to bed."
He got into the nearest bunk, which was filled with spruce-twigs and wild hay, and soon went to sleep, but for a time Dick sat by the fire. The linesman had excited his curiosity; it was strange the fellow knew about Langrigg. Then he was obviously a man with rather unusual qualities and character; his books indicated this. Dick resolved to find out something about him when he returned.
By and by the other linesman came in with a mule-tail buck, and when Dick gave him Jim's message sat down by the telegraph. Dick went to bed and did not wake until his packers arrived at daybreak. The linesman was watching the telegraph, but the finger had not moved and he owned that he was getting anxious about his comrade.
Dick suggested that they should look for him, but on the whole the linesman hardly thought this necessary. He said the man from the next post would have started to meet Jim. Then Mordaunt wanted to get off. The snow had stopped, the wind had fallen, and if they missed this opportunity, they might be held up by another storm, while their food was getting short. Dick hesitated, but Mordaunt generally led him where he would and after some argument he agreed to start. Half an hour later they left the shack and pushed on down the line.
CHAPTER II
IN THE SNOW
When Jim left the shack the cold pierced his furs like a knife. For a few moments he heard nothing but the roar of the gale and could hardly get his breath. His eyes ran water and the snow beat his smarting face. Then he braced himself, for he had gone out to mend the line on other bitter nights and could not lose his way. Where the telegraph runs through the forests of the North a narrow track is cut for packhorse transport to the linesmen's posts, and one could not push between the trunks that lined the gap without finding thickets and tangles of fallen logs. The track, however, was not graded like a road. Outcropping rocks broke its surface, short brush had grown up, and although the snow had covered some of the obstacles its top was soft.
For a time the trees broke the wind, and Jim pushed on, hoping that he might soon find a trailing wire, but the posts loomed up, undamaged, out of the tossing haze. Luck was obviously against him, and he might be forced to walk half-way to the next shack, from which the other linesman would start. The snow was loose and blew about in a kind of frozen dust that was intolerably painful to his smarting skin. Although his cap had ear-flaps, he could not cover his mouth and nose, and the fine powder, dried by the cold, clogged his eyelashes and filled his nostrils. His old coat did not keep out the wind and, although he was in partial shelter, he was now and then compelled to stop for breath. The gale was getting worse and, as sometimes happens when a blizzard rages, the temperature was falling.
Jim's flesh shrank from the Arctic blast, but he knew that in the North bodily weakness must be conquered. In the stern battle with savage Nature prudence is a handicap; one must risk all and do what one undertakes since there is no place in the wilderness for the man who counts the cost. Moreover, Jim had fought harder fights, when his strength was lowered by want of food, and he went forward, conscious of one thing: the line was broken and must be mended. There was no other way. He must give up his post if he could not make good.
In the meantime his physical senses, developed in the wilds, worked with mechanical regularity and guarded him. He could not hear much through his fur cap and often for some moments could not see, but he stopped when a tossing branch broke off and struck the snow in front, and sprang forward when a fir plunged down a few yards behind. He could not have stated that he knew the danger, but he avoided it where a stranger to the woods would have been crushed.
Perhaps the going was the worst. Plowing through the loose snow, he struck his feet against outcropping rocks and sometimes stubbed them hard on a fallen log. In places he sank deep; the labor was heavy and wind and cold made it awkward to breathe. His lungs seemed cramped; the blood could not properly reach his hands and feet. It was a comfort that they hurt, because when he no longer felt the painful tingling the real trouble would begin. One cannot feel when one's flesh is frozen. He could not have seen his watch had he taken it out, and doubted if there was warmth enough in his body to keep it going, because watches and gun-locks often freeze in the North. For all that, he knew how long he had left the shack and how much ground he had covered.
Men like Dearham learn such things, and by the half-instinctive faculties they develop Canadian traffic is carried on in winter storms. Telegraph linesmen in the bush and railroad hands on mountain sections use powers beyond the imagining of sheltered city men. They make good, giving all that can be demanded of flesh and blood; the wires work and Montreal-Vancouver expresses keep time in the snow.
One thing made Jim's task a little easier. The wire was overhead and when he reached the break he would see the trailing end. The trees had been chopped back; there was nothing to help the current's leap to earth, and he would not be forced to cut and call up the next shack with his battery. He wanted to find a fallen post, but as he struggled forward the half-seen poles came back out of the icy mist in an unending row. He had been out two hours and had not reached the worst spot. The line had no doubt broken at Silver's Gulch.
Some time afterwards he stopped and leaned against a post. The woods broke off behind him and in front a gap, filled with waves of snow, opened up. He could not see across; indeed, for a few moments, he could hardly see at all, but the turmoil that came out of the dark hollow hinted at its depth. He heard the roar of tossing trees far below and his brain reproduced an accurate picture of the gulch that pierced the high tableland. It was wide just there, but narrowed farther on, and a river, fed by a glacier, flowed through the defile. The river was probably frozen, although it ran fast. The wires went down obliquely, and in one place there was a straight fall of a hundred feet. The rest of the rugged slope was very steep and one needed some nerve to follow the row of posts when the light was good.
Jim did not hesitate when he had got his breath. With a blizzard raging, his job would not bear thinking about. He let go the post and slipped down some distance. When he stopped he got up badly shaken and crawled down cautiously, trying