Alton of Somasco | Page 4

"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 close beneath. Then a voice came up, "Wasn't there a dry goods package of some kind, Charley?"
"There was," shouted Seaforth. "But come up with what you've got, and leave it."
A faint laugh answered him, and through the moaning of the pines he caught the words, "If it's not over the edge here, I'm going to get the thing."
Seaforth said nothing further. He knew his comrade too well, and could picture him clinging by hand and heel as he crawled along the brink of the declivity with