Alton of Somasco | Page 4

question. This earth wasn't made for the bear
and deer, and they've thousands of poor folks they can't find a use for
back there in the old country. Isn't that so, Charley?"
Seaforth, who was a young Englishman of good upbringing, laughed. "I
have no reason for doubting it," said he. "In any case, none of my
worthy relations had any use for me. Still, I don't see the connection
exactly."
"No?" said Alton. "Well, it's simple. We have the gold and silver, and
the coal and iron, too, while it don't strike one that these forests were
put here just to look pretty."
"The metals you allude to take some trouble in getting out," said
Seaforth dryly.

Alton nodded. "Of course," he said. "That's what man got his brains for,
and the one difference between a white man and a Siwash is that he's
always striking for something better."
Seaforth laughed. "You are trying to get at something, as usual," said
he.
"Yes," said Alton gravely. "I generally am. Well, I can see what we
don't want of these forests sailing sawn up to China, and this river
sprinkled with sawmills and wood-pulp factories. Then I can hear the
big dynamoes humming, and the thump of the mine stamps run with
the current the men who put them down will get for nothing. What
we're wasting round Somasco is going to feed ten thousand people by
and by."
"It's a big idea," said Seaforth reflectively. "Still, I don't know that if it
were ever put through the place would look any prettier--and the
question is, who's going to set the whole thing running?"
"God knows," said Alton gravely. "But somebody will, and if I live
long enough I'll make a shot at it. Oh, yes, it's very pretty as it is, but
the greatest thing in this world is man, and it was made as it is for him
to master."
"You have curious notions for a Canadian bush rancher," said Seaforth.
"You are, however, really an Englishman, aren't you?"
"No," said Alton grimly. "My father used to be, but he was too much of
my way of thinking and they fired him out of the country. It's a thing I
don't like to talk of, Charley, and just now I'm a low-down packer
hauling in a pile of truck I'll never get paid for. Steady, come up.
There's nothing going to hurt you, Julius Caesar."
The snarling and spitting of a panther came out of the darkness, and it
was only by main force Alton dragged the Cayuse past. Then he
laughed a little. "It's a pity we didn't bring a rifle along," he said.
"Panthers must have been made for something, or they wouldn't be here,
but it's a beast a white man has no kind of use for."

It was an hour later, and snowing fast, when they climbed out of the
valley and floundered over shale and slippery rock amidst scattered
pines to the forking of the trail. One arm of it dipped again, and wound
through a deep sheltered hollow to the Somasco ranch, the other ran
straight along the hillside to Townshead's dwelling. The hillside was
also steep, the beasts were tired, and the trail was very bad. Seaforth
glanced at his comrade when they stopped a moment, and saw him
dimly, tugging at the Cayuse's bridle, through the snow.
"It's a long way to Townshead's. Still, I think we can make it out," he
said.
Alton laughed. "We have got to. There's not generally too much to eat
at that house, and they'll want the things," he said.
There was another struggle with the Cayuse, which appeared reluctant
to face a treacherous ascent whose slope was somewhat steeper than the
pitch of an average roof, but once more Alton conquered, and they
dragged the beasts up, and then floundered on doggedly beside them,
seeing nothing but a dim pine or two through the snow. Now and then
there was a rattle and a rush beneath them, followed by a faint splash,
and Seaforth shivered a little, knowing that the shingle they dislodged
had plunged into a lonely lake lying far below. Still Alton said nothing,
but floundered on, apparently as cheerfully as though he would be well
paid for the risk he ran, until he crawled down into the sliding
whiteness, when a hide strip burst and some of Townshead's packages
were scattered about the face of a precipitous declivity.
Seaforth held his breath a moment as, gripping the bridle of a trembling
beast, he watched him until the dim moving figure sank into the snow.
He could hear the wash of the unfrozen lake, and knew there was no
foothold on the slippery rock which sloped almost sheer to it through
the darkness