Black Rock | Page 5

of the clearing; at a little
distance was the sleeping-camp with the office built against it, and
about a hundred yards away on the other side of the clearing stood the
stables, and near them the smiddy. The mountains rose grandly on
every side, throwing up their great peaks into the sky. The clearing in
which the camp stood was hewn out of a dense pine forest that filled
the valley and climbed half way up the mountain-sides, and then frayed
out in scattered and stunted trees.
It was one of those wonderful Canadian winter days, bright, and with a
touch of sharpness in the air that did not chill, but warmed the blood
like draughts of wine. The men were up in the woods, and the shrill
scream of the blue jay flashing across the open, the impudent chatter of
the red squirrel from the top of the grub camp, and the pert chirp of the
whisky-jack, hopping about on the rubbish-heap, with the long, lone
cry of the wolf far down the valley, only made the silence felt the more.
As I stood drinking in with all my soul the glorious beauty and the
silence of mountain and forest, with the Christmas feeling stealing into
me, Graeme came out from his office, and, catching sight of me, called
out, 'Glorious Christmas weather, old chap!' And then, coming nearer,
'Must you go to-morrow?'
'I fear so,' I replied, knowing well that the Christmas feeling was on
him too.
'I wish I were going with you,' he said quietly.
I turned eagerly to persuade him, but at the look of suffering in his face
the words died at my lips, for we both were thinking of the awful night
of horror when all his bright, brilliant life crashed down about him in
black ruin and shame. I could only throw my arm over his shoulder and
stand silent beside him. A sudden jingle of bells roused him, and,
giving himself a little shake, he exclaimed, 'There are the boys coming
home.'
Soon the camp was filled with men talking, laughing, chaffing, like
light-hearted boys.

'They are a little wild to-night,' said Graeme; 'and to morrow they'll
paint Black Rock red.'
Before many minutes had gone, the last teamster was 'washed up,' and
all were standing about waiting impatiently for the cook's signal--the
supper to-night was to be 'something of a feed'--when the sound of bells
drew their attention to a light sleigh drawn by a buckskin broncho
coming down the hillside at a great pace.
'The preacher, I'll bet, by his driving,' said one of the men.
'Bedad, and it's him has the foine nose for turkey!' said Blaney, a
good-natured, jovial Irishman.
'Yes, or for pay-day, more like,' said Keefe, a black-browed, villainous
fellow-countryman of Blaney's, and, strange to say, his great friend.
Big Sandy M'Naughton, a Canadian Highlander from Glengarry, rose
up in wrath. 'Bill Keefe,' said he, with deliberate emphasis, 'you'll just
keep your dirty tongue off the minister; and as for your pay, it's little he
sees of it, or any one else, except Mike Slavin, when you're too dry to
wait for some one to treat you, or perhaps Father Ryan, when the fear
of hell-fire is on to you.'
The men stood amazed at Sandy's sudden anger and length of speech.
'Bon; dat's good for you, my bully boy,' said Baptiste, a wiry little
French-Canadian, Sandy's sworn ally and devoted admirer ever since
the day when the big Scotsman, under great provocation, had knocked
him clean off the dump into the river and then jumped in for him.
It was not till afterwards I learned the cause of Sandy's sudden wrath
which urged him to such unwonted length of speech. It was not simply
that the Presbyterian blood carried with it reverence for the minister
and contempt for Papists and Fenians, but that he had a vivid
remembrance of how, only a month ago, the minister had got him out
of Mike Slavin's saloon and out the clutches of Keefe and Slavin and
their gang of bloodsuckers.

Keefe started up with a curse. Baptiste sprang to Sandy's side, slapped
him on the back, and called out, 'You keel him, I'll hit (eat) him up,
me.'
It looked as if there might be a fight, when a harsh voice said in a low,
savage tone, 'Stop your row, you blank fools; settle it, if you want to,
somewhere else.' I turned, and was amazed to see old man Nelson, who
was very seldom moved to speech.
There was a look of scorn on his hard, iron-grey face, and of such
settled fierceness as made me quite believe the tales I had heard of his
deadly fights in the mines at the coast. Before any reply could be