The Protector

CHAPTER IX – CHISHOLM PROVES AMENABLE

Vane spent a month at the Dene with quiet satisfaction, and when at last he left for London and Paris he gladly promised to come back for another few weeks before he sailed for Canada. He stayed some time in Paris, because Carroll insisted on it, but it was with eagerness he went north again. For one reason – and he laid some stress upon this – he longed for the moorland air and the rugged fells, though he also admitted that Evelyn’s society enhanced their charm for him.

At last, shortly before setting out on the journey, he took himself to task and endeavoured to determine what his feelings towards her were, but he signally failed to elucidate the point. It was only clear that he was more contented in her presence, and that, apart from her physical comeliness, she had a stimulating effect upon his mental faculties, although so far as he could remember she seldom said anything remarkable. Then he wondered how she regarded him, and to this question he could find no answer. For the most part there was a reserve he found more piquant than deterrent about her, and he was conscious that while willing to talk with him freely she was still holding him off at arm’s length.

On the whole, he could not be absolutely sure that he desired to get much nearer. Though he failed to admit this clearly, his attitude was largely one of respectful admiration with a vein of compassion in it. Evelyn was unhappy, and out of harmony with her relatives, which he could understand more readily because their ideas often jarred on him.

He had been back at the Dene a fortnight, when one morning he walked out of the hamlet where the wheelwright’s shop was with a telegram in his hand. Sitting down on the wall of a bridge close by, he turned to Carroll, who had accompanied him.

“I think you have Nairn’s code in your wallet,” he said. “We’ll decipher the thing.”

Carroll laid the message upon a smooth stone and set to work with a pencil.

“‘Situation highly satisfactory,’” he read aloud, and commented: “It must be, if Nairn paid for another word; ‘highly’s’ not in the code.” Then he went on with the deciphering: “‘Result of reduction exceeds anticipations. Stock, 30 premium. Your presence not immediately required.’”

“That’s distinctly encouraging,” said Vane. “Now they’re getting farther in, the ore must be carrying more silver.”

“It’s fortunate. I ran through the bank account last night, and you have spent a lot of money. It confirms my opinion that you have expensive friends.”

Vane frowned at this, but Carroll continued undeterred: “You want pulling up after the way you have been indulging in a reckless extravagance, which I feel compelled to point out is new to you. The cheque drawn in favour of Gerald Chisholm rather astonished me. Have you said anything about it to his relatives?”

“I haven’t,” Vane answered shortly.

“Then, judging by the little I saw of him, I should consider it most unlikely that he has made any allusion to the matter. The next cheque was more surprising; I mean the one you gave his father.”

“They were both loans.”

“Have you any expectation of getting the money back?”

“What has that to do with you?”

Carroll spread out his hands. “Only this – I think you need looking after. We can’t stay here indefinitely. Hadn’t you better get back to Vancouver before your English friends ruin you?”

“I’ll go in three or four weeks, not before.”

Carroll sat silent a minute or two; and then he looked his companion squarely in the face.

“Is it your intention to marry Evelyn Chisholm?”

“I don’t know what has put that into your mind.”

“I should be astonished if it hadn’t suggested itself to her family,” Carroll retorted.

“I’m far from sure it’s an idea they’d entertain with any great favour. For one thing, I can’t live here.”

“Try them, and see. Show them Nairn’s telegram when you mention the matter.”

Vane swung himself down from the wall.

“It’s very possible that I may do so,” he informed his comrade. “But we’ll get along.”

His heart beat more rapidly than usual as they turned back towards the house, but he was perfectly composed when, some little time later, he sat down beside Chisholm, who was lounging away the morning on the lawn.

“I’ve been across to the village for a telegram I expected,” he announced. “The news is encouraging.”

He read it to Chisholm, who had determined on the line he meant to follow.

“You’re a fortunate man,” he said. “There’s probably no reasonable wish that you can’t gratify.”

“There are things one can’t buy with dollars,” Vane replied.

“That is very true. They’re often the most valuable. On the other hand, some of them may now and then be had for the asking. Besides, when one has a sanguine temperament, it’s difficult to believe that anything one sets one’s heart upon is quite unattainable.”

Vane wondered if he had been given a hint. Chisholm’s manner was suggestive and Carroll’s remarks had had an effect on him. He sat silent, and Chisholm spoke again: “If I were in your place, I should feel I had all I could desire within my reach.”

Vane was becoming sure that his comrade had been right. Chisholm would not have harped upon the same idea unless he had intended to convey some particular meaning, but the man’s methods roused Vane’s dislike. He could face opposition, and he would sooner have been discouraged than judiciously prompted.

“Then if I offered myself as a suitor for Evelyn, you would not think me presumptuous?” he said.

Chisholm was somewhat surprised at his abruptness, but he smiled reassuringly.

“No,” he said; “I can’t see why I should do so. You are in a position to maintain a wife in comfort, and I don’t think anybody could take exception to your character.” He paused a moment. “I suppose you have some idea of how Evelyn regards you?”

“I haven’t the faintest notion,” Vane confessed. “That’s the trouble.”

“Would you like me to mention the matter?”

“No,” said Vane decidedly. “In fact, I must ask you not to do anything of the kind. I only wished to make sure of your good will, and now I’m satisfied on that point, I’d sooner wait, and speak – when it seems judicious.”

Chisholm nodded. “Yes,” he said indulgently, “I dare say that would be wisest.”

Vane, who thanked him, waited. He fancied that the transaction, which seemed the best name for it, was not complete yet; but he meant to leave what should follow to his companion. He would not help the man.

“There’s a matter which had better be mentioned now, distasteful as it is,” Chisholm said at length. “I can settle nothing upon Evelyn. As you must have guessed, my affairs are in a far from promising state. Indeed, I’m afraid I may have to ask your indulgence when the loan falls due, and I don’t mind confessing that the prospect of Evelyn’s making what I think is a suitable marriage is a relief to me.”

Vane’s feelings were somewhat mixed, but contempt figured prominently among them. He could find no fault with Chisholm’s desire to safeguard his daughter’s future, but he was convinced that the man looked for more than this. He felt he had been favoured with a delicate hint, to which his companion expected an answer.

“Well,” he said curtly, “you need not be concerned about the loan. To go a little farther, I should naturally take an interest in the welfare of my wife’s relatives. I don’t think I can say anything more in the meanwhile.”

He knew that he might have spoken more plainly without offence, when he saw Chisholm’s smile, but the latter looked satisfied.

“Those are the views I expected you to hold,” he declared. “I believe Mrs. Chisholm will share my gratification if you find Evelyn disposed to listen to you.”

Vane left him shortly afterwards with a sense of shame. He felt he had bought the girl and that, if she ever heard of it, she would find it hard to forgive him for the course he had taken. By and by he met Carroll, who looked at him inquiringly.

“I’ve had a talk with Chisholm,” said Vane. “It has upset my temper – I feel mean. There’s no doubt that you were right.”

Carroll smiled and showed that he could guess what was in his comrade’s mind. “I wouldn’t worry too much about the thing,” he replied. “The girl probably understands the situation. It’s not pleasant, but I expect she’s more or less resigned to it. She can’t help herself.”

Vane gazed at him with anger. “Does that make it any better? Is it any comfort to me?”

“Take her out of it. If she has any liking for you, she’ll thank you for doing so afterwards.”

Vane, who made no answer, strode away, and nobody saw any more of him for an hour or two.

He had her father’s consent, but he felt he could not plead his cause with Evelyn just then. With her parents on his side, she was at a disadvantage, and he shrank from the thought that she might be forced upon him against her will. This was not what he desired, and she might hate him for it afterwards. She was very alluring; there had been signs of an unusual gentleness in her manner, but he wanted time to win her favour, aided only by such gifts as he had been endowed with. It cost him a determined effort, but he made up his mind to wait.

CHAPTER X – WITH THE OTTER HOUNDS

A week or two had slipped away since Vane’s eventful interview, when he lounged upon the terrace after breakfast chatting with Carroll.

Suddenly a long, faint howl came up the valley, and was answered by another in a deeper note. Then a confused swelling clamour, which slightly resembled the sound of chiming bells, broke out, softened by the distance. Carroll stopped and listened.

“What in the name of wonder is that?” he asked. “The first of it reminded me of a coyote howling, but the rest’s more like the noise the timber wolves make in the bush at night.”

“You haven’t made a bad shot,” Vane laughed. “It’s a pack of otter hounds hot upon the scent.”

The sound ceased as suddenly as it had begun, but a few moments later Mabel came running towards the men.

“I knew the hounds met at Patten Brig, but Jim was sure they’d go down-stream,” she cried breathlessly. “They’re coming up, and I think they’re at the pool below the village. Get two poles – you’ll find some in the tool-shed – and come along at once.”

She clambered into the house through a window, calling for Evelyn, and Carroll smiled.

“We have our orders,” he remarked. “I suppose we’d better go.”

“It’s one of the popular sports up here,” said Vane. “You may as well see it.”

They set out a few minutes later, accompanied by Evelyn, while Mabel hurried on in front and reproached them for their tardiness.

At length, after crossing several wet fields, they came into a rushy meadow on the edge of the river, which spread out into a wide pool, fringed with alders which had not yet lost their leaves and the barer withes of osiers. There was a swift stream at the head of it, and a long rippling shallow at the tail, and a very mixed company was scattered along the bank and in the water.

A red-coated man with whip and horn stood in the tail outflow, and three or four more with poles in their hands were spread out across the stream behind him. These and one or two in the head stream appeared by their dress to belong to the hunt, but the rest, among whom were a few women, were attired in everyday garments and of different walks in life: artisans, labourers, people of leisure, and a belated tourist or two.

Three or four big hounds were swimming aimlessly up and down the pool; a dozen more or thereabouts trotted to and fro along the water’s edge, stopping to sniff and give tongue in an uncertain manner now and then; but there was no sign of an otter.

Carroll looked round with a smile when his companions stopped. “There’ll be very little work done in this neighbourhood to-day,” he said. “I’d no idea there were so many folks in the valley with time to spare. The only thing that’s missing is the beast they’re after.”

“An otter is an almost invisible creature,” Evelyn explained, “You very seldom see one, unless it’s hard pressed by the dogs. There are a good many in the river, but even the trout fishers, who are about at sunrise in the hot weather and wade in the dusk, rarely come across them. Are you going to take a share in the hunt?”

“No,” replied Carroll, glancing humorously at his pole. “I don’t know what I brought this thing for, unless it was because Mopsy sent me for it. I’d sooner stay and watch with you. Splashing through a river after a little beast which I don’t suppose they’d let an outsider kill doesn’t interest me, and I don’t see why I should want to kill it, anyway. Some of you English people have sporting ideas I can’t understand. I struck a young man the other day – a well-educated man by the look of him – who was spending the afternoon happily with a ferret by a corn stack, killing rats with a club. He seemed uncommonly pleased with himself because he’d got four of them.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Mabel, “you’re as bad as the silly people who call killing things cruelty. I wouldn’t have thought it of you.”

“I’ve seen him,” said Vane, “drop a deer going almost as fast as a locomotive through thick brush, with a single-shot rifle, and I believe he once assisted in killing a panther in a thicket you couldn’t see two yards ahead in. The point is, that he meant to eat the deer, and the panther had been taking a rancher’s hogs.”

“Then I’m sorry I brought him,” said Mabel decidedly. “He’s not a sportsman.”

“I really think there’s some excuse for the more vigorous sports,” Evelyn declared. “Of course, you can’t eliminate a certain amount of cruelty; but admitting that, isn’t it just as well that men who live in a luxurious civilisation should be willing to plod through miles of heather after grouse, risk their limbs on horseback, or spend hours in cold water? These are bracing things; they imply moral discipline. It can’t be nice to ride at a dangerous fence, or flounder down a rapid after an otter when you’re stiff with cold. The effort to do so must be wholesome.”

“A sure thing,” Carroll agreed. “The only drawback is that when you’ve got your fox or otter, it isn’t worth anything. A good many of the folks in the newer lands have to make something of the kind of effort you described every day. In their case, the results are waggon-trails, valleys cleared for orchards, new branch railroads. I suppose it’s a matter of opinion, but if I’d put in a season’s risky work I’d sooner have a piece of land to grow fruit on, or a share in a mineral claim – you get plenty of excitement in prospecting – than a fox’s tail. But there are people in Canada who wouldn’t agree with me.”

He strolled along the water’s edge with Evelyn, and presently looked round.

“Mopsy’s gone, and I don’t see Vane,” he said.

“After all, he’s one of us. If you’re born in the North Country, it’s hard to keep out of the river when you hear the otter hounds.”

They took up their station behind a growth of alders, and for a while the dogs went trotting by in twos and threes or swam about the pool, but nothing else broke the surface of the leaden-coloured water. Then there was a cry, an outbreak of shouting, a confused baying, and half a dozen hounds dashed past. Evelyn stretched out her hand.

“Look!” she said.

Carroll saw a small grey spot – the top of the otter’s head – moving across the slacker part of the pool, with a very slight, wedge-shaped ripple trailing away from it. It sank next moment; a bubble or two rose, and then there was nothing but the smooth flow of water.

A horn called shrilly, a few whip-cracks rang out like pistol shots, and the dogs took to the water, swimming slowly here and there. Men scrambled along the bank and while some, entering the river, reinforced the line spread out across the head rapid, others joined the second row, wading steadily up-stream, and splashed about as they advanced with iron-tipped poles. Nothing rewarded their efforts; the dogs turned and went down-stream; and then suddenly everybody ran or waded towards the tall outflow. A clamour of shouting and baying broke out, and floundering men and swimming dogs went down the stream together in a confused mass. Then there was silence, and the hounds came out and trotted to and fro along the bank, up which dripping men clambered after them. Evelyn laughed as she pointed to Vane, who looked wetter than most, among the leading group.

“I don’t suppose he meant to go in. It’s in the blood,” she said.

“There’s no reason why he shouldn’t, if it amuses him,” Carroll replied.

A little later, the dogs were driven in again, and this time the whole of the otter’s head was visible as it swam, up-stream. The animal was flagging, and on reaching shoaler water it sprang out altogether now and then, rising and falling in the stronger stream with a curious serpentine motion. In fact, as head and body bent in the same sinuous curves, it looked less like an animal than a plunging fish. The men guarding the rapid stood ready with their poles, and more were wading and splashing up both sides of the pool. The otter’s pace was getting slower; sometimes it seemed to stop, and now and then it vanished among the ripples. Carroll saw that Evelyn’s face was intent, though there were signs of shrinking in it.

“Now,” he said, “I’ll tell you what you are thinking – you want that poor little beast to get away.”

“I believe I do,” Evelyn confessed.

They watched with strained attention. The girl could not help it, though, she dreaded the climax. Her sympathies were now with the hard pressed, exhausted creature that was making a desperate fight for life. The pursuers were close behind it, the swimming dogs leading them; and ahead lay a foaming rush of water which did not seem more than a foot deep with men spread out across it. The shouting from the bank had ceased, and everybody waited in tense expectancy, when the otter disappeared.

The dogs reached the rapid, where they were washed back a few yards before they could make head up-stream. Men who came splashing close upon their tails left the river to scramble along its edge; and then stopped abruptly, while the dogs swam in an uncertain manner about the still reach beyond. They came out in a few minutes, and scampered up and down among the stones, evidently at fault, for there was no sign of the otter anywhere. The hunted creature had crept up the rush of water among the feet of those who watched for it, and vanished unseen into the sheltering depths beyond.

Evelyn sighed with relief. “I think it will escape,” she said. “The river’s rather full after the rain, which is against the dogs, and there isn’t another shallow for some distance. Shall we go on?”

They strolled forward behind the dogs, which were again moving up-stream; but they turned aside to avoid a wood, and it was some time later when they came out upon a rocky promontory dropping steeply to the river. The hunt was now widely scattered about the reach. Men crept along slippery ledges above the water, and moved over steeply-slanting slopes, half hidden among the trees.

A few were in the river, and three or four of the dogs were swimming; the rest, spread out in twos and threes, trotted to and fro among the undergrowth, Carroll did not think they were following any scent, but a figure creeping along the foot of the rock not far away presently seized his attention.

“It’s Mopsy,” he said. “The foothold doesn’t look very safe among those stones, and there seems to be deep water below.”

He called out in warning, but the girl did not heed. The willows were thinner at the spot she had reached, and, squeezing herself through them, she leaned down, clinging to an alder branch.

“He’s gone to holt among the roots,” she cried.

Three or four men came running along the opposite bank and apparently decided that she was right, for the horn was sounded and here and there a dog broke through the underbrush; then, just as the first-comers reached the rapid, there was a splash. It was a moment or two before Evelyn or Carroll, who had been watching the dogs, realised what had happened, and then the blood ebbed from the girl’s face. Mabel had disappeared.

Running a few paces forward, Carroll saw what looked like a bundle of spread-out garments swing round in an eddy. It washed in among the willows, and he heard a faint cry.

“Somebody help me, quick; I’ve caught a branch.”

He could not see the girl now, but an alder bough was bending sharply, and he flung a rapid glance around him. The summit of the rock he stood upon rose above the trees, and though he would have faced the risky fall had there been a better landing, it seemed impossible to alight among the stones without a broken leg. Further down-stream he might reach the water by a reckless jump, because the promontory sloped towards it there; but he would not be able to swim back against the current. His position was a painful one; it looked as if there was nothing that he could do.

Next moment men and dogs went scrambling and swimming down the rapid; but they were in hot pursuit of the otter, which had left its hiding-place, and it was evident that the girl had escaped their attention. Carroll shouted savagely as his comrade appeared among the tail of the hunt below. The others were too occupied to heed, or perhaps concluded that he was urging them on; but Vane, who was in the water, seemed to understand. In another few minutes he was swimming down the pool along the edge of the alders. Then Carroll saw that Evelyn expected him to take some part in the rescue.

“Get down before it’s too late!” she cried.

Carroll spread out his hands, as if to beg her forbearance, and while every impulse urged him to the leap he endeavoured to keep his head.

“I can’t do any good just now,” he answered, knowing he was right and yet feeling horribly ashamed. “She’s holding on, and Wallace will reach her in a moment or two.”

Evelyn broke out on him in an agony of fear and anger. “You coward!” she cried. “Will you let her drown?”

She turned and ran forward, but Carroll, dreading that she meant to attempt the descent, seized her shoulder and held her fast. While he grappled with her, Vane’s voice rose from below, and he let his hands drop.

“Wallace has her! There’s no more danger,” he said.

Evelyn suddenly recovered some degree of calm.

Standing, breathless, a pace or two apart, they saw Vane and the girl appear from beneath the willows and wash away down-stream. The man was swimming but he was hampered by his burden, and once he and Mabel sank almost from sight in a whirling eddy. Carroll said nothing, but he turned and ran along the sloping ridge, until where the fall was less and the trees were thinner he leaped out into the air. He broke through the alders amidst a rustle of bending boughs and disappeared; but a moment later his head rose out of the water close beside Vane, and the two men went down-stream with Mabel between them.

Evelyn scrambled wildly along the ridge, and when she reached the foot of it Vane was helping Mabel up the sloping bank of gravel. The girl’s drenched garments clung about her, her wet hair was streaked across her face; but she seemed able to stand, and she was speaking in jerky gasps. The hunt had swept on through shoaler water, but there was a cheer from the stragglers across the river. Evelyn clutched her sister, half laughing, half sobbing, and incoherently upbraided her. Mabel shook herself free, and her first remark was characteristic.

“Oh!” she said, “don’t make a silly fuss.” Then she tried to shake out her dripping skirt. “I’m only wet through, Wallace, take me home.”

Vane picked her up, which was what she seemed to expect, and the others followed when he pushed through the underbush towards a neighbouring meadow. Evelyn, however, was still a little unnerved, and when they reached a gap in a wall she stopped, and leaning against the stones turned to Carroll.

“I think I’m more disturbed than Mopsy is,” she said. “What I felt must be some excuse for me. I’m sorry for what I said; it was unjustifiable.”

“Anyway, it was perfectly natural; but I must confess that I felt some temptation to make a fool of myself. I might have jumped into those alders, but it’s most unlikely that I could have got out of them.”

Evelyn looked at him with a faint respect. She had not troubled to point out that he had not flinched from the leap, when it seemed likely to be of service.

“How had you the sense to think of that?” she asked.

“I suppose it’s a matter of practice,” Carroll answered with amusement. “One can’t work among the ranges and rivers without learning to make the right decision rapidly. When you don’t, you get badly hurt. The thing has to be cultivated, it’s not instinctive.”

Evelyn was struck by the explanation. This acquired coolness was a finer thing, and undoubtedly more useful than hot-headed gallantry, though she admired the latter.

“Wallace was splendid in the water,” she broke out, uttering part of her thoughts aloud.

“I thought rather more of him in the city,” Carroll replied. “That kind of thing was new to him, and I’m inclined to believe I’d have let the folks he had to negotiate with have the mine for a good deal less than what he eventually got for it. But I’ve said something about that before, and after all I’m not here to play Boswell.”

The girl was surprised at the apt allusion; it was not what she would have expected from the man. Since she had not recovered her composure, she forgot what Vane had told her about him, and her comment was an incautious one. “How did you hear of him?”

Carroll parried this with a smile.

“Oh!” he said, “you don’t suppose you can keep those old fellows to yourselves – they’re international. But hadn’t we better be getting on? Let me help you through the gap.”

They reached the Dene some time later, and Mabel, very much against her wishes, was sent to bed, while shortly afterwards Carroll came across Vane, who had changed his clothes, strolling up and down among the shrubberies.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

Vane looked embarrassed. “For one thing, I’m keeping out of Mrs. Chisholm’s way; she’s inclined to be effusive. For another, I’m trying to decide what I ought to do. We’ll have to pull out very shortly, and I had meant to have had an interview with Evelyn to-day. That’s why I feel uncommonly annoyed with Mopsy for falling in.”

Carroll made a grimace. “If that’s how it strikes you, any advice I could offer would be wasted. A sensible man would consider it a promising opportunity.”

“And trade upon it.”

“Do you really want the girl?”

“That impression’s firmly in my mind,” said Vane, curtly.

“Then you had better pitch your quixotic notions overboard, and tell her so.”

Vane made no answer, and Carroll, seeing that his comrade was not inclined to be communicative, left him.