Alton of Somasco | Page 3

he. "But what's the
matter with the Tyee dollars, Harry, that you wouldn't do Hallam's
packing?"
Alton glanced at him gravely. "I think not," said he. "Put another pound
or two into her, and I'll pay you on your invoice for the last lot you sent
me. Otherwise I'm going to whittle down that bill considerably. You
see Townshead is too shaky to come down, and he can't live on
nothing."
"And the Lord knows when he'll pay you," said the storekeeper. "It's a
good twelve months since he sent a dollar to me."
Alton laughed a little. "I can wait," he said. "Fill that bag up again. Get
hold of the truck, Charley."
Charles Seaforth, who was apparently younger, and certainly a trifle
more fastidious about his attire than his comrade, shouldered a flour
bag, and twenty minutes later he and Alton tramped out of the
settlement with three loaded beasts splashing and floundering in front
of them. It was almost dark now, though a line of snow still glimmered
white and cold high up beyond the trees until the trail plunged into the
blackness of the forest. Then the lights of the settlement were blotted
out behind them, the hum of voices ceased, and they were alone in the

primeval silence of the bush. The thud and splash of tired hoofs only
served to emphasize it, the thin jingle of steel or creak of pack-rope was
swallowed up and lost, for the great dim forest seemed to mock at
anything man could do to disturb its pristine serenity. It had shrouded
all that valley, where no biting gale ever blew, from the beginning,
majestic in its solitary grandeur and eternally green. Pine and hemlock,
balsam and cedar, had followed in due succession others that had
grown to the fulness of their stature only in centuries, and their healing
essence, which brings sound sleep to man's jaded body and tranquillity
to his mind, had doubtless risen like incense when all was made very
good.
Now Alton loved the wilderness, partly because he had been born in it,
and because he had a large share of the spirit of his race. He had also
seen the cities, and they did not greatly please him, though he had
watched their inhabitants curiously and been taught a good deal about
them by what he read in books, which to the wonder of his associates
he would spend hardly-earned dollars upon. It was more curious that he
understood all he read, and sometimes more than the writer apparently
did, for Alton was not only the son of a clever man, but had seen
Nature in her primitive nakedness and the human passions that usually
lie beneath the surface, for man reverts a little and the veneer of his
civilization wears through in the silent bush.
Thus he plodded on contentedly on his twelve-mile march, with the
snow and the mire beneath it reaching now and then to his knee, until
his companion stopped beside a little bark shanty and lighted a lantern.
"Thomson's dumping-place already," he said, pulling a burst cotton bag
out of the sack of sundries upon the Cayuse pony's back. "Some of it
has got out, and Jimmy was always particular about the weight of his
sugar. Well, the rest of it must be in the bottom somewhere, and if
you'll hold the sack up I'll shake it into my hat."
Alton's hat was capacious, and he had worn it during the two years
which had elapsed since his last visit to Vancouver, but it did not seem
to occur to him that it was in any way an unusual receptacle for sugar.
His companion, however, laughed a little as he stirred the sticky mass

round with his wet fingers.
"There is no use giving him our tobacco and matches in," said he.
"Here are the letters Mrs. Neilson gave me at the post-office, too."
Alton took the letters, and his face grew a trifle grim under the
flickering light of the lantern as he thrust them crumpled into his pocket.
"From England, and they will keep," he said. "There's nobody I'm
anxious to hear from in that country. Now we'll go on again, Charley."
The Cayuse, however, objected, and there was a struggle before Alton
convinced it that resistance would be useless, while presently the trail
grew steeper and the roar of water came out of the darkness before
them.
"This," said Alton gravely, "is a great country, but it's mighty
unfinished yet, and it kind of hurts me to see all that power wasted."
"Wasted?" said Seaforth, smiling. "Don't the salmon swim in it, and the
bear and deer come down to drink?"
"Oh, yes," said Alton. "And sometimes the Siwash wash themselves in
it too, but that's not the