Gold Trail

Harold Bindloss

Description

Like many of Harold Bindloss' novels, The Gold Trail unfolds against the backdrop of western Canada in its early pioneer years. In the midst of preparing a new railroad route, Clarence Weston and his fellow laborers face challenge after challenge. When romance enters the picture, it's almost too much for him to handle.

Sujets

• Westerns
• Western (genre)
• Western

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781776588695
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE GOLD TRAIL
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HAROLD BINDLOSS
 
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The Gold Trail First published in 1910 Epub ISBN 978-1-77658-869-5 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77658-870-1 © 2014 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Chapter I - Bottomless Swamp Chapter II - The Packer Chapter III - The Model Chapter IV - Ida's First Ascent Chapter V - Ida's Confidence Chapter VI - Kinnaird Strikes Camp Chapter VII - Grenfell's Mine Chapter VIII - In the Ranges Chapter IX - A Fruitless Search Chapter X - The Hotel-Keeper Chapter XI - In the Moonlight Chapter XII - The Copper-Mine Chapter XIII - Stirling Lets Things Slide Chapter XIV - Ida Asserts Her Authority Chapter XV - The Rock Pool Chapter XVI - On the Lake Chapter XVII - Scarthwaite-in-the-Forest Chapter XVIII - Weston's Advocate Chapter XIX - Illumination Chapter XX - Ida Claims an Acquaintance Chapter XXI - The Brûlée Chapter XXII - Grenfell Goes On Chapter XXIII - The Lode Chapter XXIV - A Qualified Success Chapter XXV - Stirling Gives Advice Chapter XXVI - The Jumpers Chapter XXVII - Saunders Takes Precautions Chapter XXVIII - Weston Stands Fast Chapter XXIX - The Fire Chapter XXX - Defeat Chapter XXXI - High-Grade Ore Chapter XXXII - Grenfell's Gift
Chapter I - Bottomless Swamp
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It was Construction Foreman Cassidy who gave the place its name whenhe answered his employer's laconic telegram. Stirling, the greatcontractor, frequently expressed himself with forcible terseness; butwhen he flung the message across to his secretary as he sat onemorning in his private room in an Ottawa hotel, the latter raised hiseyebrows questioningly. He knew his employer in all his moods; and hewas not in the least afraid of him. There was, though most of thosewho did business with him failed to perceive it, a vein of almostextravagant generosity in Stirling's character.
"Well," said the latter, "isn't the thing plain enough?"
The secretary smiled.
"Oh, yes," he said. "Still, I'm not sure they'll send it over thewires in quite that form."
His employer agreed to the modification he suggested, and the messageas despatched to Cassidy read simply, "Why are you stopping?"
After that the famous contractor busied himself about other mattersuntil he got the answer, "No bottom to this swamp."
Then his indignation boiled over, as it sometimes did, for Stirlingwas a thick-necked, red-faced man with a fiery temper and anindomitable will. He had undertaken a good deal of difficult railroadwork in western Canada and never yet had been beaten. What was more tothe purpose, he had no intention of being beaten now, or even delayed,by a swamp that had no bottom. He had grappled with hard rock andsliding snow, had overcome professional rivals, and had made hisinfluence felt by politicians; and, though he had left middle-agebehind, he still retained his full vigor of body and freedom ofspeech. When he had explained what he thought of Cassidy he turnedagain to his secretary.
"Arrange for a private car," he said. "I'll go along to-morrow andmake them jump."
The secretary, who fancied there would be trouble in the constructioncamp during the next few days, felt inclined to be sorry for Cassidyas he went out to make the necessary arrangements for his employer'sjourney west.
Stirling had spent a busy morning when he met his daughter Ida and herfriends at lunch. He did not belong to Ottawa. His offices were inMontreal; but as Ottawa is the seat of the government he had visitedit at the request of certain railroad potentates and other magnates ofpolitical influence. With him he had brought his daughter and three ofher English friends, for Ida had desired to show them the capital. Hehad no great opinion of the man and the two women in question. He saidthat they made him tired, and sometimes in confidence to his secretaryhe went rather further than that; but at the same time he was willingto bear with them, if the fact that he did so afforded Ida anypleasure. Ida Stirling was an unusually fortunate young woman, in sofar, at least, as that she had only to mention any desire that it wasin her father's power to gratify. He was a strenuous man, whose workwas his life; subtle where that work was concerned when force, whichhe preferred, was not advisable, but crudely direct and simple asregards almost everything else.
"I'm going west across the Rockies to-morrow," he said. "We'll have aprivate car on the Pacific express. You'd better bring these folkalong and show them the Mountain Province."
Ida was pleased with the idea; and Stirling and his party started weston the morrow.
In the meanwhile, Construction Foreman Cassidy was spending an anxioustime. He was red-haired and irascible, Canadian by adoption andHibernian by descent, a man of no ideas beyond those connected withrailroad building, which was, however, very much what one would haveexpected, for the chief attribute of the men who are building up thewestern Dominion is their power of concentration. Though there weregreater men above Cassidy who would get the credit, it was due chieflyto his grim persistency that the branch road had been blasted out ofthe mountainside, made secure from sliding snow, and flung on dizzytrestles over thundering rivers, until at last it reached the swampwhich, in his own simple words, had no bottom.
There are other places like it in the Mountain Province of BritishColumbia. Giant ranges, whose peaks glimmer with the cold gleam ofnever-melting snow, shut in the valley. Great pine forests clothetheir lower slopes, and a green-stained river leaps roaring out of themidst of them. The new track wound through their shadow, a doubleriband of steel, until it broke off abruptly where a creek that pouredout of the hills had spread itself among the trees. The latterdwindled and rotted, and black depths of mire lay among their crawlingroots, forming what is known in that country as a muskeg. There was adeep, blue lake on the one hand, and on the other scarped slopes ofrock that the tract could not surmount; and for a time Cassidy and hismen had floundered knee-deep, and often deeper, among the roots whilethey plied the ax and saw. Then they dumped in carload after carloadof rock and gravel; but the muskeg absorbed it and waited for more. Itwas apparently insatiable; and, for Cassidy drove them savagely, themen's tempers grew shorter under the strain, until some, who had drawna sufficient proportion of their wages to warrant it, rolled up theirblankets and walked out reviling him. Still, most of them stayed withthe task and toiled on sullenly in the mire under a scorching heat,for it was summer in the wilderness.
Affairs were in this condition when Clarence Weston crawled out of theswamp one evening and sat down on a cedar log before he followed hiscomrades up the track, though he supposed that supper would shortly belaid out in the sleeping-shanty. The sunlight that flung lurid flecksof color upon the western side of the fir trunks beat upon hisdripping face, which, though a little worn and grim just then, wasotherwise a pleasant face of the fair English type. In fact, though hehad been some years in the country, Englishman was unmistakablystamped upon him. He was attired scantily and simply in a very oldblue shirt, and trousers, which also had once been blue, of duck; andjust then he was very weary, and more than a little lame.
He had cut himself about the ankle when chopping a week earlier, andthough the wound had partly healed his foot was still painful. Therewere also a good many other scars and bruises upon his body, for thecost of building a western railroad is usually heavy. Still, he had anexcellent constitution, and was, while not particularly brilliant as arule, at least whimsically contented in mind. His comrades called himthe Kid, or the English Kid, perhaps on account of a certain delicacyof manner and expression which he had somehow contrived to retain,though he had spent several years in logging camps, and his age wasclose onto twenty-five.
While he sat there with the shovel that had worn his hands hard lyingat his feet, Cassidy, who had not recovered from the interview he hadhad with Stirling that morning, strode by, hot and out of temper, andthen stopped and swung round on him.
"Too stiff to get up hustle before the mosquitoes eat you, whensupper's ready?" he said.
Weston glanced down at his foot.
"I was on the gravel bank all afternoon. It's steep. Seemed to wrenchthe cut."
"Well," said Cassidy, "I've no kind of use for a man who doesn't knowenough to keep himself from getting hurt. You have got to get thatfoot better right away or get out."
He shook a big, hard fist at the swamp.
"How'm I going to fill up that pit with a crowd of stiffs anddeadbeats like those I'm driving now? You make me tired!"
He did not wait for an answer to the query, but plodded away; andWeston sat still a few minutes longer, with a wry smile in his eyes.He resented being over-driven, though he was more or less used to it,and now and then he found his superior's vitriolic comments upon hisefforts almost intolerably galling. Still he had sense enough torealize that the remedy open to him was a somewhat hazardous one,because, while it would be easy to walk out of the construction camp,industrial activity just then was unusually slack in the MountainProvince. Besides, he was willing to admit that there were excuses forCassidy, and there was a certain quiet tenacity in him. He was alsoaware that