Kermode had been gone a fortnight when Prescott reached the camp and heard from Ferguson and others of his latest exploit. He smiled as he listened to their stories, but that he should find people willing to talk about the man did not surprise him. Kermode was not likely to pass unnoticed: his talents were of a kind that seized attention. Where he went there was laughter and sometimes strife; he had a trick of winning warm attachment, and even where his departure was not regretted he was remembered.
Ferguson insisted on taking Prescott in, for his comrade’s sake, and late one evening he sat talking with him beside the stove. His house was rudely put together, shingle-roofed and walled with shiplap boards that gave out strong resinous odors. The joints were not tight and stinging draughts crept in. Deep snow lay about the camp and the frost was keen.
“I can’t venture to predict Kermode’s movements,” said the clergyman. “It was his intention to make for a camp half-way to the coast, but he may change his mind long before he gets there.”
“Yes,” Prescott replied; “that’s the kind of man he is.”
Ferguson smiled.
“You and Kermode strike me as differing in many ways; yet you seem strongly attached to him.” 184
“That’s true,” Prescott assented. “I can’t see that I owe him anything, and he once led me into a piece of foolishness that nobody but himself could have thought of. I knew the thing was crazy, but I did it when he urged me, and I’ve regretted it ever since. Still, when I meet the fellow I expect I shan’t have a word of blame for him.”
“He’s a man I had a strong liking for, though on many matters our points of view were opposite. However, I dare say it’s something to be thankful for that we’re not all made alike.”
“Kermode’s unique,” Prescott explained. “I’m of the plodding kind and I find that consequences catch me up. Kermode’s different: he plunges into recklessness and the penalty falls on somebody else.”
“You don’t mean by his connivance?”
“Never! It’s the last thing I meant. Kermode never shirks. Bring a thing home to him and he’ll face it, but somehow he generally escapes. There’s the matter I mentioned—he and I played a fool trick, and while he rambles about the country, flinging a foreman down an embankment, assisting a lady in distress, posing as a temperance reformer, in his usual inconsequent way, I’m deep in trouble, and so are other people who don’t deserve it. So far I’ve always reached the scene of his latest exploit soon after he had left; but the man must be found.”
Ferguson laughed.
“What are you going to do about it?”
“Follow him to the Pacific, if necessary. As the country isn’t opened up, he can’t get off the line.”
“I’m afraid you’re going to have a very rough journey. The track’s surveyed and blazed; they’re working at it in sections, but there are big gaps where nothing has been done yet, and they have been withdrawing a large 185 number of men. Crossing the mountains is a tough proposition in the winter.”
“Kermode didn’t seem afraid of it.”
“He started two weeks ago, when there had been less snow. You’ll find it difficult to get through the passes now.”
“Anyway,” declared Prescott, “I have to get through.”
Ferguson pondered the simple answer. It was, he thought, typical of the man, and the contrast between him and his friend became more forcible. Kermode exercised a curious charm. His gay, careless nature made him excellent company, and he had a strain of somewhat eccentric genius; but he was irresponsible and erratic, one could not depend on him. The Canadian was of different temperament: slower, less subject to impulse, but more stubborn and more consistent. When dealing with him one would know what to expect. He would reason out a purpose and then unwaveringly adhere to it.
“Well,” the clergyman said, “you may have to cross a big province; and though it’s warmer as you get down to the coast, the weather’s often nearly arctic among the ranges, while it’s only here and there that you’ll have a chance to find shelter. It’s a trip that’s not to be undertaken rashly. You’ll need a fur coat, among other things, and I think I can get you one. You had better take a couple of days’ rest so as to start fresh. And now it’s time for bed.”
Prescott spent the next day with him and left the camp at daybreak on the second morning. He wore a long coat, from which the fur had peeled in patches, and carried a heavy pack besides a small ax. His boots were dilapidated, but he had been unable to replace them. 186 There was sharp frost and when he boarded a construction train he looked back at the camp with keen regret; he shrank from the grim wilds ahead. A haze of smoke hung over the clustering shacks, lights still blinked among them, and already the nipping air was filled with sounds of activity. Then the locomotive shrieked and he turned his face toward the lonely white hills as the cars moved forward with a jerk. It was bitterly cold, though he lay down out of the wind behind the load of rails, where hot cinders rattled about him and now and then stung his face.
At noon the train stopped. Alighting with cramped limbs, Prescott saw that the rails went no farther. A few shacks stood forlornly upon the hillside, a frozen river wound like a white riband through the gorge beneath, and ahead lay a sharply rising waste of rock and snow. His path led across it, and after a word or two with the men on the line he began his journey, breaking through the thin, frozen crust. The sounds behind him grew fainter and ceased; the trail of dingy smoke which had followed him melted away, and he was alone in the wilderness. His course was marked, however, by a pile of stones here, a blazed tree there, and he plodded on all day. When night came he found a hollow free from snow beneath a clump of juniper, and lay awake, shivering under his blankets. White peaks and snow-fields were wrapped in deathly silence: there was not even the howl of a prowling wolf or the splash of falling water.
Rising at dawn, almost too cold to move, he could find no dry wood to make a fire and had serious trouble in getting on his frozen boots; and after a hurried meal he set out again. It was some time before he felt moderately warm, but with a short rest at noon, he held on 187 until evening was near, when he camped in a deep rift among the rocks filled with small firs. Here he found dry branches, and made his supper, sitting between a sheltering stone and a welcome fire. Soon afterward, he lay down and slept until the piercing cold awakened him near dawn. The fire had burned out to a few red embers; he had some trouble in stirring it into life, and it was bright daylight when he resumed his journey.
He was too tired and generally too cold to retain any clear impression of the next few days’ march. There were ranks of peaks above, glittering at times against an intensely blue sky, but more often veiled in leaden cloud, while rolling vapor hid their lower slopes. He skirted tremendous gorges, looked up great hollows filled with climbing trees, followed winding valleys, and at length limped into sight of a lonely camp at the foot of a crag. The light was fading when he reached it, though a lurid sunset glowed behind the black firs on the crest of a ridge, and the place had a desolate look. Most of the shacks were empty, there were rings of branches with a litter of old cans about them where tents had been pitched, but a few toiling figures were scattered about a strip of track. It was comforting to see them, but Prescott was too jaded to notice what they were doing.
Entering a shanty, roughly built of ties and galvanized iron, he found a stove burning, and a Chinaman who told him that supper would be ready soon. After a while the men came in and, asking very few questions, gave him a share of their meal; then he was shown a rude bed of fir branches and swamp hay and told he could sleep there. Prescott lay down and lighted his pipe and then looked about for a while. The place was dimly lighted and filled with rank tobacco smoke, through which he 188 saw the blurred figures of his new companions. Some of them were playing cards under a lamp, some were disputing in harsh voices, and now and then there was a burst of laughter. Once or twice a man went out and an icy draught swept through the shed, but except for that it was delightfully warm. Soon Prescott’s pipe dropped from his hand and, failing in a drowsy attempt to find it, he went to sleep.
At breakfast the next morning he learned that a man answering Kermode’s description had spent a night there eight or nine days ago. That showed that he was gaining, and he forced his pace all day. At sunset he made a fire beside a frozen lake, and after three or four days of arduous toil reached another camp. From the few men remaining there he learned that Kermode had left the spot a week earlier with a companion whose work had been interfered with by the frost. It was understood that they intended to examine a mineral vein the railroad hand had discovered in a valley some distance off, and when Prescott had ascertained where it lay he set off on their trail. Th............