A Damaged Reputation

Brooke stood still and the other man nodded with an air of languid indifference. "Glad to see you, I'm sure," he said. "Met quite a number of Englishmen in this country."

Then he turned towards the other woman as though he had done all that could be reasonably expected of him, and when the manager of the mine led the way down into the valley Brooke found himself walking with the woman who had flung him over a few paces behind the rest of the party. He did not know exactly how this came about, but he was certain that he, at least, had neither desired nor in any way contrived it.

They went down into the hollow between colonnades of towering trunks, crossed a crystal stream and climbed a steep ascent towards the clashing stamp-heads, but the woman appeared in difficulties and gasped a little until Brooke held out his arm. He had already decided that her little high-heeled shoes were distinctly out of place in that country, and wondered at the same time what kind Barbara Heathcote wore, for she, at least, moved with lithe gracefulness through the bush. He was, however, sensible of nothing in particular when his companion looked up at him as she leaned upon his arm.

"I was wondering how long it would be before you offered to help me. You used to be anxious to do it once," she said.

Brooke smiled a little. "That was quite a long time ago. I scarcely supposed you needed help, and one does not care to risk a repulse."

"Could you have expected one from me?"

There was an archness in the glance she cast him which Brooke was not especially gratified to see, and it struck him that the eyes which he had once considered softest blue were in reality tinged with a hazy grey, but he smiled again as he parried the question. "One," he said, "never quite knows what to expect from a lady."

His companion made no immediate answer, but by and by she once more glanced up at him.

"I am really not used to climbing if Shafton is, and I am not going any further just now," she said.

A newly-felled cedar lay conveniently near the trail, but its wide-girthed trunk stood high above the underbrush, and Brooke dragged up a big hewn-off branch to make a footstool before his companion sat down on it. The branch was heavy, and she watched his efforts approvingly.

"Canada has made you another man. Now, I do not think Shafton could have done that in a day," she said. "Of course, he would never have tried, even to please me."

Brooke, who was by no means certain what she wished him to understand from this, leaned against a cedar looking down at her gravely. This was the woman who had embittered several years of his life, and for whom he had flung a good deal away, and now he was most clearly sensible of his folly. Had he met her in a drawing-room or even the Vancouver opera-house, it might not have been quite so apparent to him, but she seemed an anachronism in that strip of primeval wilderness. Nature was dominant there, and the dull pounding of the stamp-heads, which came faintly through the silence among the great trunks that had grown slowly during centuries, suggested man's recognition of the curse and privilege that was laid upon him in Eden. Graceful idleness was not esteemed in that country, where bread was won by strenuous toil, and the stillness and dimness of those great forest aisles emphasized the woman's artificial superficiality. Voice and gesture, befrizzled, straw-colored hair which he had once called golden, constricted waist, and figure which was suggestively wooden in its curves, enforced the same impression, until the man, who realized that she had after all probably made at least as good a use of life as he had, turned his eyes away.

"You really couldn't expect him to," he said, with a little laugh. "He has never had to do anything of that kind for a living as I have."

He held up his hands and noticed her little shiver as she saw the scarred knuckles, hard, ingrained flesh, and broken nails.

"Oh," she said, "how cruel! Whatever have you been doing?"

Brooke glanced at his fingers reflectively. "On the contrary, I suppose I ought to feel proud of them, though I scarcely think I am. Building flumes and dams, though that will hardly convey any very clear impression to you. It implies swinging the axe and shovel most of every day, and working up to the waist in water occasionally."

"But you were always so particular in England."

"I could naturally afford to be. It cost me nothing when I was living on another man's bounty."

The woman made a little gesture. "And you gave up everything for me!"

Brooke laughed softly, for it seemed to him that a little candor was advisable. "As a matter of fact, I am not quite sure that I did. My native wrong-headedness may have had its share in influencing me. Anyway, that was all done with – several years ago."

"You will not be bitter, Harford," and she cast him a glance of appeal which might have awakened a trace of tenderness in the man had it sprung from any depth of feeling. "Can anything of that kind ever be quite done with?"

Brooke commenced to feel a trifle uneasy. "Well," he said, reflectively, "I certainly think it ought to be."

To his relief his companion smiled and apparently decided to change the subject. "You never even sent me a message. It really wasn't kind."

"It appeared considerably more becoming to let myself sink into oblivion. Besides, I could scarcely be expected to feel certain that you would care to hear from me."

The woman glanced at him reflectively. "I have often thought about you. Of course, I was dreadfully sorry when I had to give you up, but I really couldn't do anything else, and it was all for the best."

"Of course!" said Brooke, with a trace of dryness, and smiled when she glanced at him sharply. "I naturally mean in your case."

"You are only involving yourself, Harford. You never used to be so unfeeling."

"I was endorsing your own statement, and it is, at least, considerably easier to believe that all is for the best when one is prosperous. You have a wealthy husband, and Helen, who wrote me once, testified that he indulged you in – she said every caprice."

"Yes," said his companion, thoughtfully, "Shafton is certainly not poor, and he is almost everything any one could expect him to be. As husbands go, I think he is eminently satisfactory."

"One would fancy that an indulgent and wealthy husband of distinguished appearance would go a tolerably long way."

Again the woman appeared to reflect "Prosperity is apt to kill romance," she said. "One is never quite content, you know, and I feel now and then that Shafton scarcely understands me. That is a complaint people appear to find ludicrous, of course, though I really don't see why they should do so. Shafton is conventional and precise. You know exactly what he is going to do, and that it will be right, but one has longings now and then for something original and intense."

Brooke regarded her with a little dry smile. One, as he had discovered, cannot have everything, and as she had sold herself for wealth and station it appeared a trifle unreasonable to repine because she could not enjoy a romantic passion at the same time. It was, in fact, very likely that had anything of the kind been thrust upon her she would not have known what to do with it. It also occurred to him that there were depths in her husband's nature which she had never sounded, and he remembered the look of cynical weariness in the man's face. Lucy Coulson was one who trifled with emotions as a pastime, but Brooke had no wish to be made the subject of another experiment in simulated tenderness, even if that was meant, which, under the circumstances, scarcely seemed likely.

"Well," he said, "no doubt most people long for a good deal more than they ever get; but your friends must have reached the stamps by now, and they will be wondering what has become of you."

"I scarcely think they will. The men seem to consider it a waste of time to talk to anybody who doesn't know all about ranches and mines, and Shafton has Miss Goldie to attend to. She has attached herself to him like a limpet, but she is, of course, a Canadian, and I really don't mind."

Almost involuntarily Brooke contrasted her with a Canadian who had spent a week in the woods with him. Barbara Heathcote had never appeared out of place in the wilderness, for she was wholly natural and had moved amidst those scenes of wild grandeur as though in harmony with them, with the stillness of that lonely land in her steady eyes. There was no superficial sentimentality in her, for her thoughts and emotions were deep as the still blue lakes, and he could not fancy her disturbing their serenity for the purpose of whiling an idle day away. Then his face hardened, for it was becoming unpleasantly evident that she could not much longer even regard him with friendliness and there was nothing to be gained by letting his fancy run away with him.

"You are not the man I used to talk nonsense with, Harford," said his companion, who had in the meanwhile been watching him. "This country has made you quiet and a little grim. Why don't you go back again?"

"I am afraid they have too many men with no ostensible income in England."

"Still you could make it up with the old man."

Brooke's face was decidedly grim. "I scarcely think I could. Rather more was said by both of us than could be very well rubbed off one's memory. Besides, I think you know what kind of man he is?"

Lucy Coulson leaned forward a trifle and there was a trace of genuine feeling in her voice. "Harford," she said, "he frets about you – and he is getting very old. Of course, he would never show anybody what he felt, but I could guess, because he was once not long ago almost rude to me. That could only have been on your account, you know. It hurts me a little, though one could scarcely take exception to anything he said – but you know the quiet precision of his manner. If it wasn't quite so perfect it would be pedantic now. One feels it's a relic of the days of the hoops and patches ever so long ago."

"What did he say?" asked Brooke, a trifle impatiently.

"Nothing that had any particular meaning by itself, but for all that he conveyed an impression, and I think if you were to go back – "

"Empty-handed!" said Brooke. "There are circumstances under which the desire for reconciliation with a wealthy relative is liable to misconception. If I had prospered it would have been easier."

Lucy Coulson looked at him thoughtfully. "Perhaps I did use you rather badly, and it might be possible for me to do you a trifling kindness now. Shall I talk to the old man when I go home again? I see him often."

Brooke shook his head. "I shall never go back a poor man," he said. "What are you doing here?"

"Everybody travels nowadays, and Shafton is never happy unless he is going somewhere. We started for Japan, and decided to see the Rockies and look at the British Columbian mines. That is, of course, Shafton did. He has money in some of them, and is interested in the colonies. I have to sit on platforms and listen while he abuses the Government for neglecting them. In fact, I don't know when I shall be able to get him out of the country now. Of course, I never expected to meet you here – and almost wonder if there is any reason beyond the one you mentioned that has kept you here so long."

She glanced at him in a curious fashion and made the most of her eyes, which he had once considered remarkably expressive ones.

"I can't quite think of any other, beyond the fact that I have a few dollars at stake," he said.

"There is nothing else?"

"No," said Brooke, a trifle too decisively. "What could there be?"

His companion smiled. "Well," she said, "I fancied there might have been a Canadian. They are not all very good style, but some of them are almost pretty, and – when one has been a good while away – "

The man flushed a trifle at the faint contempt in her tone. "I scarcely think there is one of them who would spare a thought for me. I should not be considered especially eligible even in this country."

"And you have a good memory!"

Brooke felt slightly disconcerted, for it was not the first delicate suggestion she had made. "I don't know that it is of any benefit to me. You see, I really haven't anything very pleasant to remember."

Lucy Coulson sighed. "Harford," she said, dropping her voice a trifle, "you must try not to blame me. If one of us had been richer – I, at least, can't help remembering."

Brooke looked at her steadily. Exactly where she wished to lead him he did not know, but she had flung away her power to lead him anywhere long ago. Perhaps she was influenced by vanity, for there was no genuine passion or tenderness in her, but Brooke was a well-favored man, and she had her caprices and drifted easily.

"I really don't think you should," he said. "Your husband mightn't like it, and it is quite a long while ago, you know."

A little pink flush crept into the woman's cheek and she rose leisurely. "Perhaps he will be wondering where I am, after all," she said. "You must come and make friends with him. We may be staying for some time yet at the C. P. R. Hotel, Vancouver."

Brooke went with her and spent some little time talking to her husband, who made a favorable impression upon him, while when he took his leave of them the woman let her hand remain in his a moment longer than there was any apparent necessity for.

"You must come down and see us – it really isn't very far, and we have so much to talk about," she said.

Brooke said nothing, but he felt that he had had a warning as he swung off his big shapeless hat and turned away.

XIV.

BROOKE HAS VISITORS

The afternoon was hot, and the roar of the river in the depths below emphasized the drowsy stillness of the hillside and climbing bush, when Brooke stood on the little jutting crag above the cañon. Two hundred feet above him rose a wall of fissured rock, but a gully, down which the white thread of a torrent frothed, split through that grim battlement, and already a winding strip of somewhat perilous pathway had been cut out of and pinned against the side of the chasm. Men with hammers and shovels were busy upon it, and the ringing of the drills broke sharply through the deep pulsations of the flood, while several more were clustered round the foot of an iron column, which rose from the verge of the crag, where the rock fell in one tremendous sweep to the dim green river.

Close beside it, and overhung by the rock wall, stood Brooke's double tent, for, absorbed as he had become in the struggle with the natural difficulties that must be faced and surmounted at every step, he lived by his work, and when he had risen that morning the sun had not touched the dim white ramparts beyond the climbing pines. He was just then, however, not watching his workmen, but looking up the gorge, and a little thrill of pleasure ran through him when two figures in light draperies appeared at the head of it. Then he went up at a pace which Jimmy, who grinned as he watched him, wondered at, and stopped a trifle breathless beside the two women who awaited him above.

"I was almost afraid you would not come," he said. "You are sure you would care to go down now you have done so?"

Mrs. Devine gazed down into the tremendous depths with something that suggested a shiver, but Barbara laughed. "Of course," she said. "Those men go up and down with big loads every day, don't they?"

"They have to, and that naturally makes a difference," said Brooke, with a little smile.

"Then we can go down because we wish to, which is, in the case of most people, even a better reason."

Mrs. Devine appeared a trifle uncertain, and her face expressed rather resignation than any special desire to make the descent, but she permitted Brooke to assist her down the zig-zag trail, while Barbara followed with light, fearless tread. Once they entered the gully, they could not, however, see the cañon, which, in the elder lady's case, at least, made the climb considerably easier, and they reached the tent without misadventure. The door was triced up to form an outer shelter, and Barbara was a trifle astonished when Brooke signed them to enter.

She had seen how he lived at the ranch, and the squalid discomfort of the log room had not been without its significance to her, but there was a difference now. Nothing stood out of place in that partition of the big double tent, and from the spruce twigs which lay a soft, springy carpet, on the floor, to the little nickelled clock above her head, all she saw betokened taste and order. Even the neat folding chairs and table shone spotlessly, and there was no chip or flaw upon the crockery laid out upon the latter. There had, it seemed, been a change, of which all this was but the outward sign, in the man who stood smiling beside her.

"Tea at four o'clock is another English custom you may have become addicted to, and you have had a climb," he said. "Still, I'm afraid I can't guarantee it. Jimmy does the cooking."

Jimmy, as it happened, came in with a teapot in his hand just then. "Well," he said, "I guess I'm considerably smarter at it than my boss. You needn't be bashful, either. I've a kettle that holds most of a gallon outside there on the fire, and here's two big tins of fixings we sent for to Vancouver."

Mrs. Devine smiled, but Brooke's face was a trifle grim, as he glanced at his retainer, and Barbara did not look at either of them just then. It was, of course, after all, only a little thing, but she was, nevertheless, gratified that he could think of these trifles in the midst of his activities. She, however, took the white metal teapot, which was burnished brilliantly, from Jimmy, who, in spite of Brooke's warning glances, still hung about the tent, contemplating her with evident approbation as she passed the cups.

"I guess she does it considerably smarter than Tom Gordon's Bella would have done," he said, with a wicked grin. "Bella had no use for teapots either. She'd have given it you out of the kettle."

The glance Brooke rewarded him with was almost venomous, for he had seen the swift inquiry which had flashed into them fade as suddenly out of Barbara's eyes. She could not well admit the least desire to know who Tom Gordon's Bella was, though she would not have been unwilling to be enlightened. Jimmy, however, beamed upon Mrs. Devine, who had taken up her cup.

"I hope you like it. No smoke on that," he said. "When you use the green tea a smack of the resin goes well as flavoring, especially if it's brewed in a coal-oil tin. Now, there's tea they make right where they sell it in Vancouver, but what you've got is different I guess it's grown in China, or it ought to be, for the boss he sent me down, and says he – "

"Isn't it about time you made a start at getting that boulder out?" said Brooke, drily.

Jimmy retired unwillingly, and Brooke glanced deprecatingly at his guests. "We have been comrades for several years," he said.

"Of course!" said Mrs. Devine, with a little smile. "Still, I really don't think you need be so anxious to hide the fact that you have taken some pains to provide these little dainties for us. It would have been apparent in any case. We know how men live in the bush."

Brooke made no disclaimer, though a faint trace of color deepened the bronze in his face, for he remembered the six thousand dollars, and winced under her graciousness. Then they discussed other matters, until at last Barbara laid aside her cup.

"We came to see the cañon, and how you mean to put the rope across," she said.

She glanced at her sister, but Mrs. Devine resolutely shook her head. "I have seen quite as much of the cañon as I have any wish to do," she said. "Besides, it was not exactly an easy matter getting down here, and I expect it will be considerably worse getting up. You can go with Mr. Brooke, my dear."

They left her in the tent, and five minutes later Brooke led the girl to a seat on a dizzy ledge, from which the rock fell away in one awful smooth wall.

"Now," he said quietly, "you can look about you."

Barbara, who had been too occupied in picking her way to notice very much as yet, drew in her breath as she gazed down into the tremendous chasm. The sunshine lay warm upon the pine-clad slopes above, but no ray of brightness streamed down into that depth of shadow, and its eerie dimness was thickened by the mist which drifted filmily above the river's turmoil. Out of it a deep vibratory roar came up, diminished by the distance, in long pulsations that died far up among the pines in sinking waves of sound.

"Oh," she said, with a little gasp, "it's tremendous!"

"A trifle overwhelming!" said Brooke, reflectively, "and yet it gets hold of one. There is a difference between it and the English valley you once mentioned."

Barbara turned to him, with a little gleam in her eyes.

"Of course!" she said. "One is glad there is, since it is typical of both countries. You couldn't tame this river and set it gliding smoothly between mossy stepping-stones."

"No," said Brooke, "I scarcely think one would wish to if he could. One feels it wouldn't be fitting."

"And yet we shall put the power that's in it into harness by and by."

"Without taming it?"

Barbara nodded. "Yes," she said. "If you had ever stood in a Canadian power house, as I have done once or twice, you would understand. You can hear the big dynamos humming in one low, deep note while the little blue sparks flicker about the shafts. They stand for controlled energy; but the whole place rocks with the whirring of the turbines and the thunder of the water plunging down the shoots. The river that drives them does it exulting in its strength. You couldn't fancy it lapping among the lily leaves in sunlit pools. It hasn't time."

"To have no time for artistic effect is typical of this country, then?" said Brooke.

Barbara smiled. "Yes," she said, "I really think it is. We shall come to that later, but this, you see, isn't art, but something greater. It's nature untrammelled, and primeval force."

"Then you, who personify reposefulness, admire force?"

Barbara held her hand up. "When it accomplishes anything I do; but listen," she said. "That sound isn't the discord of purposeless haste. There's a rhythm in it. It's ordered and stately harmony."

Brooke sat still, watching the little gleam in her brown eyes, until she turned again to him.

"You are going to put that rope across?" she said.

"I am, at least, going to try. There will, however, be difficulties."

Barbara smiled a little. "There generally are. Still, I think you will get over them." She looked down again at the tremendous gap, and then met his eyes in a fashion that sent a thrill through him. "It would be worth while."

"I almost think it would. Still, it is largely a question of dollars, and I have spent a good many with no great result already."

"My brother-in-law will not see you beaten. He would throw in as much as the mine was worth before he yielded a point to the timber-righters."

Brooke noticed the little hardness in her voice, and the sparkle in her eyes. "If he did, you would evidently sympathize with him?"

"Of course, though it wasn't exactly in that sense I meant it would be worth while. One would naturally sympathize with anybody who was made the subject of that kind of extortion. If there is anything detestable, it is a conspiracy."

"Still," said Brooke, reflectively, "it is in one sense a perfectly legitimate transaction."

"Would you consider yourself warranted in scheming to extort money from any one?"

Brooke did not look at her. "It would, of course, depend – upon, for example, any right I might consider I had to the money. We will suppose that somebody had robbed me – "

"Then one who has been robbed may steal?"

Brooke made a little deprecatory gesture while the blood crept to his face. "I'm afraid I have never given any questions of this kind much consideration. We were discussing the country."

Barbara laughed. "Of course. I ought to have remembered. You are so horribly afraid of betraying your sentiments in England that you would almost prefer folks to believe you hadn't any. I am, however, going to venture on dangerous ground again. I think the country is having an effect on you. You have changed considerably since I met you at the ranch."

"It is possible," and Brooke met her gaze with a little smile in his eyes. "Still, I am not quite sure it was altogether the fault of the country."