The Greater Power

“That is certainly the case;” and Nasmyth flushed a little. “Still, I can get as far as the settlement, and I dare say somebody, who won’t be too hard on me at first, may want a hand. I am really rather a good chopper.”

Laura smiled as she glanced at his face, but it was not its hollowness she was thinking of. Nasmyth had not the appearance of the average chopper.

“Well,” she said, “perhaps you had better see my father. I think he has something to say to you.”

She left him, and, half an hour later, Waynefleet came up to Nasmyth, who was sunning himself outside the ranch-house. Like many other houses in that country, it stood beneath a few great firs on the edge of a desolate clearing, round which the primeval forest rose in an unbroken wall. Behind it, and a little farther back among the trees, was the rude barn, built of big notched logs, and roofed with cedar shingles. In front there lay some twenty acres of cleared land, out of which rose the fir-stumps, girdled with withered fern, for a warm wind from the Pacific had swept the snow away. Beyond that, in turn, and outside the split-rail fence, rows of giant trunks lay piled in the tremendous ruin usually called the “slashing.” Some day, these would be sawn up and burnt, and the clearing driven farther back into the Bush. The little gap into which the sunlight shone, however, had been hewn out at the cost of several years of strenuous labour, and Nasmyth, who was aware of this, felt inclined to smile as the man who owned it strolled up to him. It was a little difficult to imagine that he had had any great share in the making of that clearing.

Waynefleet was dressed in duck, but it was whole and unsoiled, and Nasmyth made his own deductions from a glance at the delicate hands. As a rule, Waynefleet’s expression was discontented and querulous, but for the time being his manner was gracious. In fact, he was generally more or less courteous to Nasmyth.

“Miss Waynefleet tells me you are thinking of going away,” said the owner of the ranch.

Nasmyth replied that he intended to leave the ranch, and was explaining that he felt he had already abused his host’s kindness, when Waynefleet cut him short.

“We have been glad to have you here,” he said; “in fact, I have been wondering if you might feel disposed to stay. It is probably evident to you that I cannot do all that is necessary about this place with one pair of hands.”

Nasmyth knew, from what he had seen on other and larger ranches, that one man could do the work, though he felt that it was more than one could reasonably have expected from Waynefleet. It was, however, clear that somebody did a great deal, and he fancied that it was the rancher’s daughter.

“Well,” continued Waynefleet, “I am disposed to spend a little upon the ranch. They are talking of building a pulp-mill near the settlement. That will make land more valuable, and probably lead to a demand for produce. With that in view, I wish to raise a larger crop, and I’m open to hire somebody.” He made a little gesture. “My strength scarcely permits me to undertake any severe physical effort, and I may confess that my faculty is rather that of administration. Now I will make you an offer.”

Nasmyth considered it gravely. As it happened, he was feeling sorry for the rancher’s daughter, and it was this fact chiefly which led him to come to terms with the man, since it seemed to him that there were tasks the girl must shrink from–tasks of which he could relieve her. Though he was quite aware that when his strength came back, he could probably earn more than Waynefleet offered him, he accepted the chance to stay at the ranch. Moreover, the varied work was likely to be much easier than logging.

“It’s a bargain. I’ll make a start now, and haul one or two of those logs out with the oxen,” he said. “Still, I’m afraid you must not expect too much from me for a week or two.”

Waynefleet made no objections. There was, as a matter of fact, a great deal to be done, and Nasmyth went back to his new quarters over the stable almost too weary to hold himself upright that night. He, however, gathered strength rapidly, and a few days later he was chopping a great tree, standing on a narrow plank notched into the trunk of it several feet from the ground as he swung the axe, when the man who had instructed Miss Waynefleet how to nurse him came up the trail. Gordon sat down on a log close by, and looked at Nasmyth.

“I was coming round to make sure I was quite through with your case, but it’s tolerably evident you have no more use for me,” he said. “Stopping here?”

Nasmyth said he was, and Gordon nodded.

“Well,” he said, “in several ways I’m rather glad. It’s going to make things easier for Miss Waynefleet. Guess you understand what I meant when I said she ran the ranch?”

Nasmyth said he thought he did, and then, with a certain diffidence, he changed the subject.

“You must have spent a good deal of time looking after men–professionally,” he said.

Gordon laughed in a somewhat curious fashion. “We’ll let that go. In one sense, I’ve dropped my profession. I had to, and it’s scarcely likely that I shall take it up again.”

“I wonder,” said Nasmyth reflectively, “if it’s admissible for me to mention that I had fancied something of the kind. You see, in the Bush, I have naturally come across a good many men who have turned their backs upon the cities.”

Gordon made a little gesture. “It’s a sure thing you’ll hear a good deal about me at the settlement, where, though the boys don’t cast it up to me, I’m credited with having killed somebody back East, and as I’ve had an idea that I could hit it rather well with you, I’d sooner tell you the thing myself. Well, I was making my mark in a big city, several years ago, when I lost my head. When success comes too quickly, it’s a thing you’re rather apt to do. The trouble is that you have usually to face the results of it.”

He broke off for a moment with a little wry smile. “In my case they were serious. There was a woman of hysterical temperament with a diseased imagination. I was overworked and a trifle overwrought, and had a glass of brandy too much at a certain committee lunch. Then there was a rather delicate operation in a hospital, and though I’m not sure yet that I blundered, it was suggested that I did, and the thing was complicated by what the woman said when the committee took it up. It didn’t matter that the patient recovered, for when he took action against the woman, the thing made a sensation in the Eastern papers.”

He looked at Nasmyth with a question in his eyes.

“Now,” he said, “you more or less understand my reasons for ranching here. How’s it going to affect you?”

Nasmyth gazed reflectively towards the East. “I think,” he replied, “there are more of us who have left a good deal behind back yonder. Perhaps it’s fortunate that the thing is possible.”

Then he swung his axe again, and Gordon, who saw Waynefleet approaching, strolled away towards the ranch-owner.

CHAPTER IV

LAURA WAYNEFLEET’S WISH

It was a hot summer evening, and a drowsy, resinous fragrance stole out of the shadowy bush when Nasmyth, who had now spent six months at Waynefleet’s ranch, lay among the wineberries by the river-side. Across the strip of sliding water the sombre firs rose in a great colonnade from the grey rock’s crest, with the fires of sunset blazing behind their wide-girthed trunks. The river was low and very clear, and the sound of it seemed to intensify the solemn stillness of the Bush. Nasmyth had come there to fish, after a long day of tolerably arduous labour, but he did not expect much success, though the trout rise freely just after sunset in those rivers. Indeed, he had almost forgotten that the rod and net lay near his side, for his employer’s daughter sat on a fallen cedar not far away from him.

She had laid her hat aside, and, as it happened, two humming-birds that flashed, bejewelled, in a ray of ruddy light hung poised on invisible wings about the clustered blossoms of an arrow-bush that drooped above her head. She was, however, not looking at them, but watching Nasmyth with thoughtful eyes. Everything she wore was the work of her own fingers, but the light print dress became her curiously well.

“You have been here six months now,” she said.

“I have,” answered Nasmyth, with a little laugh. “I almost venture to think I do you credit, in view of the state I was in when I reached the ranch. If you hadn’t taken me in hand, two or three days would probably have been the length of my stay.”

The girl made no disclaimer. She was one who admitted facts, even when they did not chime with her wishes, and she still regarded Nasmyth thoughtfully. He certainly did her credit, so far as his physical appearance went, for his strength had fully come back to him, and, as he lay among the wineberries in an easy pose, his thin duck garments displayed the fine proportions of a figure that had been trained almost to muscular perfection by strenuous labour. The light of the paling sunset was on his bronzed face, and it revealed the elusive delicacy that characterized it. Nasmyth was certainly a well-favoured man, but there were respects in which his companion was not altogether satisfied with him. She had, as she admitted, restored him to bodily health, but, after all, that was only going so far, and she felt it was possible that she might accomplish a little more, though there was no very evident reason why she should wish to do so. Still, she was conscious of the wish.

“I was wondering,” she said, “how long you would be content to stay.”

Nasmyth gazed at her in evident astonishment. “Stay!” he exclaimed. “Oh, you can call it twenty years, if one must be precise.”

“Ah!” replied Laura, “in one sense, that is an admission I’m not exactly pleased that you should make.”

The man raised himself slowly, and his face became intent as he strove to grasp her meaning. He was not in the least astonished that she should speak to him as she did, for there are few distinctions drawn between the hired man and those who employ him on the Pacific slope, and he had discovered already that the girl was at least his equal in intelligence and education. In fact, he had now and then a suspicion that her views of life were broader than his. In the meanwhile it was in one respect gratifying to feel that she could be displeased at anything he might think or do.

“I’m not quite sure I see the drift of that,” he said.

“You would be content to continue a ranch-hand indefinitely?”

“Why not?” Nasmyth asked, with a smile.

Laura once more looked at him with an almost disconcerting steadiness, and she had, as he was already aware, very fine eyes. She, however, noticed the suggestive delicacy of his face, which had, as it happened, more than once somewhat displeased her, and a certain languidness of expression, with which she had also grown almost impatient. This man, she had decided, was too readily acquiescent.

“That,” she continued, “is rather a big question, isn’t it?”

“Ah!” said Nasmyth reflectively. “Now I begin to understand. Well, I don’t mind admitting that I once had ambitions and the means of gratifying them, as well as an optimistic belief in myself. That, however, was rudely shattered when the means were withdrawn, and a man very soon learns of how little account he is in Western Canada. Why shouldn’t I be content to live as the ranch-hands do, especially when it’s tolerably evident that I can’t do anything else?”

“You are forgetting that most of them were born to it. That counts for a good deal. Have you noticed how far some of the others drift?” A faint trace of heightened colour crept into her cheeks. “Perhaps one couldn’t blame them when they have once acquired the whisky habit and a Siwash wife.”

Nasmyth lay very still for a few moments, resting on one elbow among the wineberries, for she had, after all, only suggested a question that had once or twice troubled him. It was, however, characteristic of him that he had temporized, and, though he knew it must be answered some day, had thrust it aside.

“Ah!” he exclaimed, “you want to send me away. Now, I had almost fancied I had made things easier in various ways for you, and we have been good comrades, haven’t we? One could call it that?”

“Yes,” agreed Laura slowly; “I think one could call it that.”

“Then,” returned Nasmyth, “why do you want me to go?”

It was difficult to answer, and, to begin with, Laura did not exactly know she desired him to leave the ranch–in fact, she was willing to admit that there were several reasons why she wished him to stay. Still, perhaps because she had watched over him in his sickness, and, so Gordon said, had snatched him back to life again, she had a certain pride in him, and vaguely felt that. In one sense, he belonged to her. She would not have him throw away the life she had saved, and she had recognized, as many of his English friends had not, the perilously acquiescent side of his character. He was, she feared, one who had an unfortunate aptitude for drifting.

“That,” she said, “is rather more than I could explain either to myself or to you, but I will tell you something. They are going to build the pulp-mill down the valley, and they are now asking for tenders for the construction of the dam. The thing, I have heard, is not big enough to interest contractors from the cities, and most of the men round here have their hands full with their ranches.”