Campbell's Kingdom

CHAPTER TWO

Days later I was in Calgary and Boy and I heard from Winnick’s own lips his report on that last recording we had mailed to him. He was guardedly optimistic. The pulses recorded by the geophones were not clearly defined, but at least there was no evidence of the broken strata referred to in his original report. ‘All I can say is that it looks like an anticline. Before I can tell you anything definite I’ll need to have the results of a dozen or so more shots from different points over the same ground.’

It wasn’t much to go on, but it was enough to confirm our suspicions that there had been substitution of the original recordings. Boy wired Garry Keogh the result and left for Edmonton at once to pick up the rest of his team. He planned to go up to the Kingdom by the pony trail just as soon as he could get through. He would bring the results of the survey out himself. He reckoned it would take about a month. I asked him how he was fixed for money, but he just shrugged his shoulders. ‘We’ll make out, I guess. There’s gas up in the Kingdom and cans of food. We won’t have to pack anything up there, just ourselves. As for wages, I’ll look after that.’

I stayed on in Calgary. I had a lot to see to. Acheson’s office handed over all the documents relating to my grandfather’s affairs and by the time I had unravelled the affairs of the Campbell Oil Exploration Company and had got somebody to act for me a week had passed. At the same time I did everything I could to make myself familiar with the operation of a drilling rig. Winnick, a little man with pale eyes and spectacles and.a rather sad-looking face, took Roger Fergus’ instructions very literally. He gave me every possible assistance. He lent me books. He took me out to dinner at the Petroleum Club, introduced me to oil men, and sent me to have a look over the Turner Valley field. At the end of that week I really felt that I was beginning to know something about oil.

And at the end of that week the jaded mechanism of my body ran down and I hadn’t the strength to crawl out of bed. Winnick came round to see me and sent at once for his doctor. I knew it wasn’t any use and I told him so. But he insisted. He seemed to feel personally responsible. I think at the back of his mind was the sense of having let old Roger Fergus down over that survey. He was a kind-hearted little man, fussy over details and with an immense regard for the infallibility of his own judgment.

The doctor, of course, wanted me to go straight into hospital. But I refused. I was afraid once I got inside a hospital I’d never get out. I’d been better in the cold, crisp air of the Rockies. I wanted to get back there. I felt that time was running out and if I were going to die I wanted to die up in the Kingdom. As I lay in my bed in the Palliser Hotel, in a half-coma of inertia, this became almost an obsession with me. I think it was this that pulled me through. I just refused to die down there in Calgary with the level ground of the ranchlands spreading out round me and the dust blowing through the streets.

A few days later, very weak and exhausted, I staggered down to Winnick’s car and we headed north for Edmonton and Jasper. We spent the night at Jasper and Johnnie Carstairs and Jeff Hart came to see me in my room. I remember something that Johnnie said to me then. Winnick had told him I’d been ill and he knew what the cause of it was. He said, ‘Take my advice, Bruce. Stay in the Rockies. The mountains suit you.’

‘You may be right,’ I said. ‘I was damn glad to see them again.’

He nodded. ‘Climate is the same as food. What you want is what you’re deficient of. And no damned quack blethering a lot of scientific nonsense will convince me otherwise. You stay up in the mountains, Bruce.’

‘I intend to,’ I said. ‘I’m going up to the Kingdom.’

He nodded. ‘Well, if they try and smoke you out, send for me.’

Next day we made Keithley Creek and the following morning we ploughed through the mud of the newly-graded road to Come Lucky. Now that I was in the mountains again I felt better. My heart was racing madly, but the air was cool and clear and I was suddenly quite confident that I should get my strength back. The sight of the peaks of Solomon’s Judgment against the clear blue of the sky gave me the same feeling that the cliffs of Dover had done when I came back at the end of the war; this was home to me now.

We didn’t turn up to the bunkhouse, but continued straight along the lake-shore road to the dark, timbered mouth of Thunder Creek. I had warned Winnick that we might not be allowed to go up by the hoist, but he wasn’t convinced. He was Henry Fergus’ oil consultant and he’d known him since they were kids together. He thought that would be enough.

But it didn’t work out that way. About a mile up the creek where the road cut back into the mountainside to bridge a torrent we were stopped by a heavy timber gate supported by a tall post like the corral gates around Calgary. There was a log hut with an iron chimney that sent a drift of wood through the frees. A man came out of it as we drew up and through the open doorway I saw a rifle propped against a wooden bench. ‘Can I see your pass?’ The man was short and stocky and he was chewing gum.

I certainly hadn’t expected precautions as elaborate as this and my companion was equally surprised. ‘My name’s Winnick,’ he said. ‘I’m a friend of Henry Fergus.’

‘I don’t know any Henry Fergus,’ the man replied. ‘I take my orders from Trevedian and he says you got to have a pass if you want to go on up to the camp.’

‘Who’s in charge up at the camp?’

‘Fellow named Butler, but that won’t help you, mister. You got to have a pass signed by Trevedian an’ Trevedian’s down at Come Lucky. You’ll find him at the company’s office.’ The last words were almost drowned by the sound of a horn. ‘Pull over, will you. There’s a truck coming through.’ I turned round. Coming up the grade behind us was a big American truck, heavily loaded and grinding up in low gear.

We pulled into a turning section that had been bulldozed out of the hillside and watched the truck grind past, through the wide-swung gate. It was loaded with bags of cement roped down under a tar-pauline. ‘For two pins I’d crash through behind it,’ Winnick said.

‘You’d only get your tyres shot up.’ I nodded to the open doorway of the hut.

He didn’t say anything for a moment, but sat staring first at the rifle inside the hut and then at the man who was leaning on the gate watching us. At length he put the car in gear, turned her and headed back down the valley. ‘Seems you were right after all. We’ll have to find Trevedian.’

‘You won’t get a pass out of him,’ I said.

‘Of course I will,’ he said.

We were running out of the timber and the lake lay blue in the sunshine and the whole hillside above it glistened with water from the melted snow so that the shacks of Come Lucky were like dilapidated houseboats plunging down the glittering cascade of a fall. He swung the car towards Come Lucky and stopped at Trevedian’s office. ‘You wait here,’ he said.

He was gone about ten minutes and when he came out his mouth was set in a tight line. ‘We’ll have to ride up,’ he said. ‘Do you know where we can get horses and a guide?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Unless…’ I paused, looking up to the line of shacks that marked the single street of Come Lucky. Then I climbed out of the car. ‘Let’s walk up to the hotel and have a drink. There’s just one person who might help us.’

‘Who’s that?’

I didn’t answer. It was such a slender chance. But if we didn’t get the horses here it would mean going back to Keithley and starting out from there. As we walked up along the rotten boarding of the sidewalk to the Golden Calf Winnick said, ‘Maybe you were right about that survey.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘About Henry arranging for the recording tapes to be switched. When Trevedian refused to give us a pass to go up the creek, I got through to Calgary. Henry told me I’d no business to be here. He warned me that if I continued to act for you he’d see to it that I got no more business from his companies or from any of his friends. I knew he was a cold-blooded devil, but I never thought he’d try to pull a thing like that.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Go up to the Kingdom with you.’

We had reached the Golden Calf. As we pushed open the door old Mac came to meet us. ‘Ah’m sorry, Wetheral,’ he said sourly, ‘but ye ken verra well Ah canna have ye here.’

‘Trevedian phoned you we were coming up, did he?’ I said.

He shrugged his shoulders awkwardly. ‘Ah canna help it, man.’

I said, ‘Well, don’t worry, we’re not here for the night. We just want a drink, that’s all.’

Mac hesitated and then he said angrily, ‘Och, o’course ye can have a drink.’ He looked at me and his face softened slightly, ‘If ye’d care to come into ma office there’s a wee drap o’ Scotch ye could have.’

We went through into a small room with a roll-top desk and a grandfather clock. I introduced Winnick. The old man stood looking at him for a moment and then he went over to the desk and brought out a bottle and glasses from the cupboard underneath. ‘So ye’re the oil consultant from Calgary.’ He passed the bottle across to Winnick. ‘And what brings ye to Come Lucky, Mr Winnick?’

‘We want to get up to the Kingdom,’ I said. ‘But there’s a guard at the entrance to Thunder Creek.’

He nodded. ‘Aye. And there’s anither at the hoist. Ye’ll no’ get to the Kingdom that way, laddie, not unless ye get Trevedian’s permission, and I dinna think ye’ll get that.’

‘He’s already refused,’ I said.

‘Aye.’ He nodded. ‘An’ he’s within his rights.

Thunder Creek’s all Trevedian land right up the fault to the dam.’

‘Where’s the pony trail start?’ I asked.

‘The pony trail?’ He rubbed the stubble of his chin with his bony fingers. ‘You cross Thunder Creek by a ford a few hundred yards above the lake and it runs up through the timber below Forked Lightning Mountain and then over the Saddle below the northern peak of Solomon’s Judgment.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s a hard trail to follow. Ye’d never make it on your own.’

‘I was afraid of that,’ I said. ‘Is Max around today or has he gone to Keithley for supplies?’

‘Max Trevedian? Aye, he’ll be doon at his place. But Max’ll no’ take ye up.’

‘Where’s his shack?’

The old man stared at me for a moment and then took me to the window and pointed it out to me, a dilapidated huddle of buildings standing on their own a few hundred yards above and beyond the bunk-house. ‘It’s Luke Trevedian’s old place.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘One time it was a fine farmhouse with flowers and all the people from miles around coming to parties there. He had some of the finest horses in the country and a big ranch over in the Kootenay. Och, the times I’ve had up there.’

‘You wait here,’ I said to Winnick. ‘I won’t be long.’

Mac stopped me at the door. ‘Take care,’ he said. ‘Max is an uncertain sort of critur. He doesna realise his own strength.’

‘I know,’ I said.

As I walked down the street I saw Trevedian come out of his office and get into the truck parked by the bunkhouse. He drove down to the lake-shore and turned up towards Thunder Creek. I couldn’t help smiling. Trevedian was making certain of his guards, and all because I had arrived in Come Lucky. A wisp of smoke came from the stone chimney of the old Trevedian home. Even now, though it was falling into ruins, it had an air of solidity about it. The stables and barns were of split pine, but the house itself was built of stone and there was the remains of a carriage driveway. A big saddle horse stood tethered to the railing of the verandah and it pricked its ears at me as I knocked on the patched woodwork of the front door. Nothing stirred inside the house and I knocked again. Below me Beaver Dam Lake lay like a sheet of glass mirroring the blue of the sky and the sharp-etched white of the mountains beyond. Boots sounded on bare boards. Then the door was flung open and Max Trevedian stood there, staring at me, his fool mouth agape. His eyes slid towards the shape of the bunkhouse.

‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘Your brother’s gone up Thunder Creek. Can I come in?’

‘Ja, ja. Come in.’ He closed the door after me and stood there, watching me. But for a moment I was too astonished to say anything. I was in a big lounge hall of tawdry magnificence, looking at the faded grandeur of Luke Trevedian, mine-owner and collector. He had apparently had a taste for old furniture, but it was entirely indiscriminate. Exquisite little Queen Anne pieces were mixed up with suits of armour, Chippendale and Adam mahogany and ornate Italian furniture. There was a superb Jacobean refectory table surrounded by Hepplewhite chairs. And everywhere there was dust and an air of decay.

‘Why do you come here?’ Max’s voice, hard and teutonic, growled round the rotting tapestry hangings on the walls.

I turned and faced him, trying to measure his mood. He hadn’t moved from the door. His small eyes were narrowed, his body hunched forward with the arms hanging loose. His expression was one of resentment at my intrusion. He glanced furtively round and then, with a sudden smile that was like a gleam of wintry sunshine in his rugged face, he said, ‘We go into my father’s room. This-’ His big hands indicated the room. ‘This is hers.’

He took me down a short passage and into a small, very simple room. It was furnished almost entirely with colonial pieces from the loyalist houses of the East. The furniture here gleamed with the care that had been lavished on it. I had a sudden feeling of warmth towards Max. He was clumsy and loutish and yet he’d kept this corner as a shrine to his father’s memory with the delicate care of a woman. ‘It’s a beautiful room,’ I said.

‘It is my father’s room.’ There was pride and love and longing in his voice.

‘Thank you for letting me see it.’ I hesitated. ‘Will you take me up to the Kingdom, Max?’

He stared at me and shook his head slowly. ‘Peter does not wish you to go to the Kingdom. I must not go there again.’

I went over and sat at the desk, fitting my mood to the atmosphere of the room, to the man who had once occupied it. I looked at Max Trevedian, trying to visualise the little boy who must have stood here before his father after he had killed another boy. ‘Max,’ I said gently. ‘You didn’t have a very happy childhood, did you?’

‘Childhood?’ He stared at me and then shook his head. ‘No. Not happy. Boys made fun of me and did cruel things. Little girls …’ He swung his head from side to side in that bear-like way he had. ‘They laugh at Max.’

‘Boys made fun of me, too.’ I said.

‘You?’

I nodded. ‘I was poor and half-starved and my grandfather was in prison. And later, something was missing — some money — and they ganged up on me and said I’d stolen it. And because my grandfather had been to prison and my mother was poor they sent me to a reform school.’ God, it seemed only yesterday. It was all so vivid in my mind still. ‘You loved your father, didn’t you?’

He nodded. ‘Ja. I love my father, but always there is my stepmother. She hated me. She made me live in the stables after…’ His voice trailed away, but I knew that what he had been going to say was after I killed Alf Robens. ‘It was different with me,’ I said. ‘I had no father.

He was killed in the first war. I loved my mother very dearly. She always believed my grandfather innocent. She brought me up to believe it, too. But when I was sent to the reform school and she died I began to hate my grandfather.’ I went slowly across to him and put my hand on his arm. ‘Max, I now know I did him a great wrong. I know he is innocent. I’m going to prove him innocent. And you’re going to help me because then Campbell and your father will once again be remembered as friends. He didn’t ruin your father. He was convinced there was oil up in the Kingdom. And so am I, Max. That is why you’re going to take me up to the Kingdom.’

He shook his head slowly, unwillingly. ‘Peter would be angry.’

I wanted to say Damn Peter, but instead I said, ‘You know I’ve been to Calgary?’

He nodded.

‘I was very ill there. I nearly died. I haven’t much time, Max. And it’s important. It’s important for both of us. Suppose there is oil up there — then you’ve done Campbell a great injustice. You remember when you took that report to him up in the Kingdom? That lulled him as surely as if you’d battered his head against a stone.’ I saw him wince. ‘You had hate in your heart, that was why you went up, wasn’t it — that’s why you did what Peter asked you? But you had no cause to hate him and you must give me the chance to prove it.’ I saw his childish mind struggling to grasp what I had been saying and knew I must put it in a way that was positive. ‘Campbell will never rest,’ I said, ‘until I have proved there is oil up there.’

I saw his mouth open, but I didn’t give him the chance to speak. I turned to the door. ‘Meet us at the entrance to Thunder Valley in half an hour,’ I said. ‘I’ll need two saddle horses. I’ve an oil man with me. You needn’t worry about your brother. He’s gone up to the dam.’ I paused, my hand on the door. ‘If you don’t do this for me, Max, may the dead ghost of Stuart Campbell haunt you to your dying day.’

I left him then. Outside the sunlight seemed to breathe an air of spring. I paused when I reached the Golden Calf and looked back to the old house. Max was making his way slowly towards the stables. I knew then that we’d get up to the Kingdom. I turned and went into the hotel, feeling a sense of pity, almost of affection for that great, friendless hulk of a man.

Quarter of an hour later Winnick parked his car in a clearing at the entrance to the valley of Thunder Creek. It was screened from the road and we waited there for Max. Half an hour passed and I began to fear that I had failed. But then the clip-clop of hooves sounded on the packed, rutted surface of the road and a moment later he came into sight leading three horses, two saddle and one pack. He dismounted and helped us into the saddle, adjusting our stirrup leathers, tightening the cinches. ‘You ride good?’ he asked Winnick.

‘I’ll be okay.’

Max turned to me then, his eyes keen and intelligent. ‘But you do not ride, huh?’

‘Not for a long time,’ I said. ‘And not on a Western saddle.’ It was a big, curved saddle shaped like a bucket seat with a roping horn in front. It was elaborately decorated and there were thongs of leather to tie things on to it.

He stared at me critically. In all else he might be a child, but he was a man when it came to horses. He was in his own element now and his stature increased immeasurably. He was the leader and he behaved like a leader. ‘It is different from the English saddle, huh? Now you ride with long stirrups and a long rein. Relax yourself and get down in the saddle. We have some bad places to cross. Let the pony have her head.’ He turned and swung himself on to his big black in a single, easy movement.

We moved off then, Max leading the pack-horse, myself following and Winnick bringing up the rear. We went down through thick brush and black pools damned by beavers to the rushing noise of Thunder Creek. We crossed the swirling ice-cold waters, the horses swimming, their heads high, their feet stumbling on the bottom. Then we were in timber again and climbing steadily.

Now and then we paused to rest the horses. At the stops nobody talked, but I saw Winnick watching me, speculating whether I’d make it or not. When I had returned to the Golden Calf with the news that I’d got horses and a guide, he’d tried to dissuade me. I think his scientific mind was convinced that a man who only a few days ago had been ordered into hospital by a doctor could not possibly stand up to a I

gruelling trek in the mountains. I think it was this as much as anything else that made me determined to reach the Kingdom. It was as though I’d been given a challenge. My heart hammered as it pumped thin blood through my system to give me oxygen, my ankles were swollen and the tips of my fingers ached. But as my muscles became exhausted my body sank lower and more relaxed into the saddle until the movement of the horse became easy and natural, as though it were a part of me and I a part of it.

Shortly after noon we came out above the timber line. The black gash of Thunder Creek cleaved the mountains below us and all round white peaks glimmered in the azure sky. Little rock plants, saxifrages mostly, thrust up among the stones and there was a warm, invigorating smell about the mountainside. Ahead the peaks of Solomon’s Judgment stood guard over the gateway to the Kingdom and gradually, as we moved along the mountainside, climbing steadily, the position of these peaks changed until one was almost screened by the other and ahead of us rose the rock-strewn slopes of the Saddle that swept up to the northern peak.

The sun was low in the sky as we crossed the Saddle and saw the bowl of the Kingdom at our feet. There was little snow now. It was green; a lovely, fresh emerald green, and through it water ran in silver threads. I could see Campbell’s ranch-house away to the right, and towards the dam, two trucks stood motionless, connected to the ranch-house by the tracks their tyres had made through the new grasses.

I was tired and exhausted, but a great peace seemed to have descended upon me. I was back in the Kingdom, clear of cities and the threat of a hospital. I was back in God’s own air, in the cool beauty of the mountains. I turned to Max. ‘We can find our way down from here,’ I said. I held out my hand to him. ‘Thank you for bringing us.’

He didn’t move. He sat motionless, staring down into the bowl of the Kingdom. ‘You rebuild the house,’ he said.

I nodded.

He looked at the peak rising above us. ‘Perhaps they are together — my father and Campbell.’ He turned to me. ‘You think there is some place we go when we die?’

‘Of course,’ I said.

‘Heaven and hell, huh?’ He gave a derisive laugh. ‘The world is full of devils, and so is the other place. How then can there be a God? There is only this.’ He waved his hand towards the mountains and the sky.

‘Somebody made it, Max.’

‘Ja, somebody make it. He make animals, too. Then somebody else make men. Tell Campbell I have done what you ask.’ He clapped his heels to his horse’s flanks and turned back the way he had come.

‘What about the horses?’ I called to him.

‘Keep them till you return to Come Lucky,’ he shouted back. ‘The grass is good for them now.’

‘Queer fellow,’ Winnick said. ‘What did he mean about tell Campbell I have done what you ask?’ I shrugged my shoulders and started my horse down the slope. I couldn’t tell him Max was a soul in torment, that he was a mixture of Celt and Teuton and that circumstances and the mixture of his blood had torn him apart from the day he was born.

The mountain crests were flushed with the sunset as we rode into Campbell’s Kingdom and from the end of the wheel tracks where the trucks were parked came the sharp crack of an explosion as Boy fired another shot and recorded the sound waves on his geophones. The echo of that shot ran like a salvo of welcome through the mountains as we slid from our saddles by the door of the partly-burned barn. I stood there, hanging on to the leather of my stirrup, staring out across the new grass of the Kingdom. Early crocuses were springing up in the carpet of green. The air was still and clear and cold, and the shadow of the mountains crept across us as the sun went down. I was too weak with exhaustion to stand on my own and yet I was strangely content. Winnick helped me into the house and I sank down on to the bed that my grandfather had used for so many years. Lying there, staring at the rafters that he had hewn from the timbered slopes above us, the world of men and cities seemed remote and rather unreal. And as I slid into a half-coma of sleep I knew that I wouldn’t be going back, that this was my kingdom now.

I slept right through to the following morning and awoke to sunshine and the clatter of tin plates. They were having breakfast as I went out into the living-room of the ranch-house. Sleeping bags lay in a half circle round the ember glow of the wood ash in the grate and the place was littered with kit and equipment. Boy jumped to his feet and gripped hold of my hand. He was seething with excitement like a volcano about to erupt. ‘Are you all right, Bruce? Did you have a good night?’ He didn’t wait for a reply. ‘Louis has been up all night, computing the results. We’ve all been up most of the night. He wouldn’t let us wake you. I knew it was an anticline. I did my own computing and allowing for weathering I was certain we were all right. And I’m right, Bruce. That shot we fired just as you got in was the last of five on the cross traverse. It’s a perfect formation. Ask Louis. It’s a honey. We’re straddled right across the dome of it. Now all we’ve got to prove is that it extends across the Kingdom and beyond.’

I looked across at Winnick. ‘Is this definite?’

He nodded. ‘It’s an anticline all right. But it doesn’t prove there’s oil up here. You realise that?’ The precise, meticulous tone of his voice brought an air of reality to the thing.

‘Then how did Campbell see an oil seep at the Foot of the slope if it isn’t oil bearing?’ Boy demanded.

Winnick shrugged his shoulders. ‘Campbell may have been mistaken. Anyway, I’ll ride over the ground today and do a quick check on the rock strata. It may tell me something.’

But however matter-of-fact Winnick might be there was no damping the air of excitement that hung over the breakfast table. It wasn’t only Boy. His two companions seemed just as thrilled. They were both of them youngsters. Bill Mannion was a university graduate from McGill who had recently abandoned Government survey work to become a geophysicist. He was the observer. Don Leggert, a younger man, was from Edmonton. He was the driller. These two men, with Boy, were mucking in and doing the work of a full seismographical team of ten or twelve men. I didn’t need their chatter of technicalities to tell me they were keen.

I stood in the sunshine and watched them walk out to the instrument truck. They walked with purpose and the loose spring of men who were physically fit. I envied them that as I watched them go. Winnick came out and joined me. He had a rucksack on his back and a geologist’s hammer tucked into his belt. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘What are you going to do now you know you’re on an anticline?’

‘Sit in the sun here and think,’ I said.

He nodded, his eyes peering up at me from behind his thick-lensed glasses. ‘Why not let me try and interest one of the big companies in this property?’

‘You honestly think you could persuade them to risk a wildcat right up here in the Rockies?’

‘I could try,’ he answered evasively.

I laughed. ‘There’s oil in the Rocky Mountains?’ His eyes avoided mine. ‘No,’ I said, staring out towards the ring of the mountains. ‘There isn’t a chance, and you know it. If it’s to be done at all, I’ll have to do it myself.’

‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said. ‘But think it over. Now Roger Fergus is dead, his son controls a lot of finance. You’re a one-man show up against a big outfit. You’ll be running neck and neck with the construction of the dam and every dollar that’s sunk in that project will make it that much more vital to Fergus that you don’t bring in a well up here.’

‘How far do you think he’ll go to stop me?’ I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I wouldn’t know. But that dam is going to cost money. Henry Fergus will go a long way to see that his money isn’t thrown away.’ His hand gripped my arm. ‘Don’t rush into this. Think it over. At best your contractor may lose his rig. At worst somebody may get hurt.’

‘I see.’

There was nothing new in this. He was only saying what Jean had said, what I knew in my heart was inevitable. And yet hearing it from him, coldly and clearly stated, forced me to face up to the situation. I watched him ride out across the Kingdom and then I brought a chair out into the sunshine and most of the day I lay there, relaxed in the warmth, trying to work it out.

That night I wrote to Keogh telling him the result of the survey to date and instructing him to talk to no one and to come up on his own in three days’ time. Drive through from 150 Mile House without stopping, arriving at the entrance to Thunder Creek at 2 a.m. on the morning of Tuesday. We’ll meet you there with horses. I underlined this and gave Winnick the letter to take down with him.

Winnick left next day. I was feeling so much better that I rode with him up to the top of the Saddle. High up above the Kingdom I said good-bye to him and thanked him for all he’d done.

I sat there watching his small figure jogging slowly down the mountain slope till it was lost to view behind an outcrop. Then I turned my horse and slithered down through the snow back into the bowl of the Kingdom. As I came out below the timber I saw the drilling truck like a small rectangular box away to the right close beside the stream that was the source of Thunder Creek. They were drilling a new shot hole as I rode up, the three of them working on the drill which was turning with a steady rattle as it drove into the rock below. Boy pointed towards the dam. They’ve started,’ he shouted to me above the din.

I turned and looked back at the dam. Men were moving about the concrete housing of the hoist and there were more men at the base of the dam, stacking cement bags that were being lowered to them from the cable that stretched across the top of the structure. My eye was caught by a solitary figure standing on the buttress of rock above the cable terminal. There was a glint of glass in the sunlight, a flicker like two small heliographs. ‘Have you got a pair of binoculars?’ I shouted to Boy.

He nodded and got them from the cab of the drilling truck. Through them every detail became clear. There was no doubt about the solitary figure on the buttress. It was Trevedian and he was watching us through glasses of his own. ‘Did you have to start at this end of the Kingdom?’ I shouted to Boy.

He turned down the corners of his mouth. ‘Got to start somewhere,’ he said. ‘They were bound to find out what we were up to.’

That was true enough. I swung the glasses towards the dam. The cage was just coming in with another load, two tip trucks this time and a pile of rails. More cement was being slung along the top of the dam. And then in the foreground, halfway between us and the dam I noticed a big rusty cog wheel and some rotten baulks of timber bolted together in an upright position. There was the remains of an old boiler and a shapeless mass of machinery. I called to Boy. ‘What’s that pile of junk there?’ I asked him.

‘Don’t you know?’ He seemed surprised. ‘That’s Campbell Number One.’

‘How far did they get down?’

‘Don’t know. Something over four thousand, I guess.’

I rode over and had a look at it. The metal was rotten with age. The teeth of the big cog wheel disintegrated into a brown powder at the touch of my fingers. The wooden baulks that had formed the base of the rig were so rotten I could put my fist through them. There was the remains of a hole with a dirty scum of water in it. I called to Boy. ‘Where’s the top of the anticline?’

‘We’re on it now,’ he shouted back.

I stared at the rusty monument to my grandfather’s one and only attempt to drill and wondered how he’d felt when they’d had to give up. A whole lifetime lost for the sake of a thousand odd feet of drilling. I turned and rode slowly back to the ranch-house.

After that first day I took over the commissariat and the cooking, so relieving the survey team to some extent. The weather became unsettled. Sometimes it snowed, sometimes it blew. The change from sunshine to almost blizzard conditions could be astonishingly rapid.

Shortly after midday on the Monday Boy left Bill and Don drilling the second shot hole in the longitudinal traverse and we saddled our horses and started out for the Saddle and the pony trail down to Thunder Creek. It was blowing half a gale and mare’s tails of snow were streaming in a white drift from the crests of the mountains. It had snowed during the night and part of the morning and the Kingdom lay under a white drift. The two trucks were black specks about a mile from the ranch-house. We could see the drill working, but the sound of it was lost in the wind.

As we neared the crest of the Saddle wind-blown drifts of snow stung our faces. The going became treacherous and we had to lead the horses, Boy leading the spare as well as his own. On the crest we met the full force of the wind. It stung the eyes and drove the breath down into our throats. ‘Sure you’re okay?’ Boy shouted. ‘I can manage if you feel-’

‘I’m fine,’ I shouted back.

He looked at me for a moment, his eyes slitted against the thrust of wind and powdered snow. Then he nodded and we went on down the other side on a long diagonal for the line of the timber.

As we dropped down from the crests the snow worried us less. Through blurred eyes I got occasional glimpses of the road snaking up the valley from the lake. Sometimes there was movement on the road, a truck grinding up towards the hoist. And as we neared the shelter of the timber the great fault opened out to the left and we could see the slide and men moving around the little square box that was the concrete housing of the hoist.

The going was easier once we reached the timber though we were hampered by soft drifts of deep snow. I tried to memorise the trail, but it was almost impossible coming into it from above for the timber was pretty open and the pattern of drifts swirling round solitary firs or groups of firs repeated itself over and over again, all seemingly alike. We came across the track of a moose; big, splay-footed tracks that seemed to be able to cross the softest drift without sinking very deep.

Gradually the timber became denser and the trail clearer. Sheer slopes patterned by gnarled roots and deadfalls gave place to lightly timbered glades, crisscrossed with game tracks, and at one point we ploughed through almost half a mile of beaver dams. The lower we went the more game we encountered; mule-deer, moose, porcupines and an occasional coyote.

I asked Boy about bears, but he said they were still in hibernation and wouldn’t be out for another month at least. He was full of information about the wildlife of the mountains. It was part of his heritage, and when I was getting tired his stories of his encounters with animals kept me going.

It was dark when we swam the ford of Thunder Creek and dismounted close by the road in the glade where Winnick had parked his car. We had some food sitting on a fallen tree. Once in a while headlights cut a swathe through the night and a truck went rumbling up the road to the hoist. We had a cigarette and then rolled ourselves in our blankets on a groundsheet. The horses were hobbled and I could hear their rhythmic munching and the queer jerking sound they made as they reared both front legs together to move forward. It was bitterly cold, but I must have slept for suddenly Boy was shaking me. ‘It’s nearly two,’ he said.

We went out then to the edge of the road, standing in the screen of a little plantation of cottonwood. Headlights blazed and we heard the roar of a diesel. The heavy truck lumbered past, lighting the curving line of the road. We watched the timber close behind its red tail-light. Darkness closed in round us again and we listened as the sound of the truck’s engine slowly died away up the valley. Then all was still, only the murmur of the wind in the trees and the unchanging sound of water pouring over rocks. Somewhere far above us the cry of a coyote split the night like a bloodcurdling scream. An owl flapped from a tree.

It was nearly 3 a.m. when the darkness began to glow with light and we heard the sound of a car. Boy pushed forward to the edge of the road. The headlights brightened until the whole pattern of the brush around us stood in stark silhouette against two enormous eyes of light. It was a car all right and we flagged it down with our arms. It stopped and Garry Keogh got out, his thick body bulkier than ever in a sheepskin jacket. ‘Sorry I’m late. Had a flat. What in hell are we playing at, meeting like this in the middle of the night?’

Boy held up his hand, his head on one side. A faint murmur sounded above the noise of creek. ‘Is there a truck behind you?’ Boy asked.

‘Yeah. Passed it about six miles back.’

‘Quick then.’ Boy jumped into the car with him and guided him off the road to the glade where our horses were. We sat in the car with the lights off watching the heavy truck trundle by.

‘What’s all the secrecy about?’ Garry asked.

I tried to explain, but I don’t think I really convinced him. If Trevedian had been in charge of a rival drilling outfit I think he’d have understood. But he just couldn’t take the construction of a dam seriously. ‘You boys are jittery, that’s all. Why don’t you do a deal with this guy Trevedian. You’ve got to use the hoist anyway to get a drilling rig up there. You’re not planning to take it up by pack pony, are you?’

And his great laugh went echoing around the silence of the glade.

I told him the whole story then, sitting there in the car with the engine ticking over and the heater switched on. When I had finished he asked a few questions and then he was silent for a time. At length he said, ‘Well how do we get the rig up there?’

I said, ‘We’ll talk about that later, shall we — when you’ve had a look at the place and decided whether you’re willing to take a chance on it.’

The lateness of the hour and the warmth of the heater was making us all drowsy. We settled down in the seats then and slept till the first grey light of day filtered through the glade. Then we covered the car with brushwood and started back up the trail to the Kingdom.

It was midday before we reached the top of the Saddle. It was snowing steadily and the wind was from the east. My heart was pumping erratically and I was so tired I found it difficult to stay in the saddle. When we got to the ranch-house I went straight to bed and stayed there till the following morning. Next morning my buttocks were sore and the muscles of my legs stiff with riding, but once I was up I felt fine. My heart seemed steadier and slower and I had recovered my energy. Garry Keogh spent the day out with Boy riding over the territory, planning his drilling site, working out in his own mind the chances of success. In the evening, after supper, we got down to business.

We had a roaring log fire going and hot coffee. Garry sat with his notes in his hand and a cigar clamped between his teeth, the bald dome of his head furrowed by a frown. ‘You think we’ll run into a sill of basalt at about four thousand?’ He looked across at Boy.

‘I think so,’ Boy answered. ‘That or something like it stopped Campbell Number One in 1913. They were drilling by cable-tool and they just couldn’t make any impression. With a rotary drill-’

‘It’s still a snag,’ Garry cut in. He turned to me. ‘I think I told you, Bruce, I could stand two months operating on my own, no more. Well, that’s about the size of it. Boy here says if we’re going to hit oil, we’ll hit it at around five, six thousand. That’s okay, but this isn’t Leduc. We aren’t down in the plains here. There’s this sill he talks about, and down to that it’ll be metamorphic rocks all the way. It’ll be tough going. And on top of that we may drill crooked and have to fool around with a whipstock. Anything could happen in this sort of country. And we’re working on a financial shoe-string with no facilities. We can’t take a core sample. We’ve no geologist. We’ll just have to log on the cuttings — by guess and by God. We’ve no certainty that we’re on top of country that is oil bearing. We’ve no knowledge whatever of the nature of the strata at five thousand feet. We’re working entirely in the dark with minimum crew, no financial backing and against time.’ He sat back, sucking at his cigar. ‘The only clue to what’s under the surface is this story of Campbell’s that thirty years ago he saw some oil 09 the waters of Thunder Creek.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s a hell of a risk.’

‘Campbell knew a lot about oil,’ Boy murmured.

‘So you tell me.’

‘Bruce showed you the old man’s progress report. It’s obvious from that that he’s a sound geologist.’

‘Sure. I’ve seen what he’s written, but how do I know that it bears any relation to the ground itself?

I

All I know about Campbell is that he was reckoned to be crazy.’

‘I can confirm a good deal of it from my own observations,’ Boy said.

‘Yeah, the straightforward stuff. But what about the conclusions he draws? Can you confirm them?’

‘There’s nothing particularly revolutionary about them,’ Boy answered. ‘We all know that the oil deposits in the North American continent derive from the marine life deposited on the floor of the central sea area that ran from Hudson’s Bay to the Caribbean. These mountains here are a fairly recent formation. I know most geologists take the view that this is not a likely area. Yet the fact remains that many of the first wells were drilled at points of seepage on the eastern escarpment. Because those wells were not successful it doesn’t necessarily mean that there wasn’t any oil there. They were drilled early in the century and their equipment wasn’t good enough to reach down to any great depth.’

‘In two months I won’t be able to drill much deeper than five thousand, not in this sort of country.’ Garry relit his cigar. ‘There’s water here, there’s all the ingredients for making mud of about the right consistency, the weather shouldn’t be too bad from now on and Winnick has a sound reputation, but…’ He shook his head gloomily.

‘If Louis’ original report had been based on the results we’re now giving him — in other words if those recording tapes hadn’t been switched — Roger Fergus would have drilled a well up here by now.’

‘Sure and he would. But I’m not Roger Fergus. He could afford to lose any amount of dough. I can’t. I’m just in the clear and I mean to stay that way.’ He rubbed his fingers along the line of his jaw. ‘The only thing that makes me go on considering the idea is this fifty-fifty proposition of yours, Bruce.’ He stared at me with a sort of puzzled frown. ‘I keep telling myself I’m a fool, but still I keep considering it. Perhaps if I were younger …’ He shook his head slowly from side to side like a dog trying to remove a buzzing from its ears. ‘You know if this location were just beside a good highway I guess I’d be crazy enough to fall for your proposition, but how the hell am I to get my rig up here?’

‘By the hoist,’ I said.

He stared at me. ‘But you’ve told me about this fellow Trevedian. He owns the valley of Thunder Creek. He owns the road and he owns the hoist and he doesn’t aim to have any drilling done up here. Because of him I have to come up here. All this tomfoolery because he’s got guards on the valley route and now you tell me you’re going to bring my rig up by the hoist.’

‘I think it can be done,’ I said. ‘Once.’

‘I see.’ His leathery face cracked in a grin. ‘You’re going to play it rough, eh? Well, I don’t know that I blame you, considering what you’ve told me. But I’ve got my equipment to think of.’

‘It’s insured, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah, but I don’t know how the insurance company would view my acting outside the law, busting through two guard points and then slinging my equipment up through a mile of space to a mountain eyrie. How do I get it down anyway?’

‘I don’t think there’ll be any difficulty about that,’ I said. ‘If you bring in a well here, you won’t need to get it down. And if you don’t then I think you’ll find Trevedian only too happy to give you a free passage out of the area.’

‘Yeah.’ He nodded slowly. ‘That’s reasonable, I guess. What about the cable? Will it take my equipment?’

‘I don’t know what the breaking point is,’ I said. ‘But I’ve been up it and from what I’ve seen it’ll take about three or four times the tonnage that can be got on to the cage.’ I turned to Boy. ‘You brought your trucks up by it last year. What’s your view? Will it take Garry’s rig?’

‘I don’t think you need worry about that, Garry,’ he said. ‘It’s like Bruce says. The thing is built to carry a heavy tonnage.’

He nodded slowly. ‘And how do you propose we get the use of this hoist? As I understand it, there’s a guard at the entrance to Thunder Creek, another at the hoist terminal and near the terminal there’s a camp. I’ll have five, possibly six trucks-’ He hesitated. ‘Yes, it will be at least six trucks if we’re to haul in everything we need for the whole operation, including fuel and pipe.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s a heck of an operation, you know. We’ll need two tankers for a start and two truck-loads of pipe. Then there’s the rig, draw works, all equipment, tools, spares, everything. And casing.’ He hesitated and looked at Boy. ‘We’d have to take a chance on that. In this sort of country it might be all right. Well, say seven trucks. That’ll mean a minimum of four to five hours at the hoist. Now how the hell do you think you’re going to fix that?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘At least, I think I know, but I’ve not worked out all the details yet. Anyway, that’s my problem. If you’re game to try I’ll give you an undertaking to get your equipment up here. If I fail I’ll undertake to make good any loss you have sustained. How’s that?’

‘Very generous,’ he said. ‘Except that I understood you only possess a few hundred dollars.’

‘I’d sell the Kingdom,’ I said, ‘to meet the obligation.’

‘To Fergus? But-’ He stopped and looked down at his hands. ‘Knowing how you feel about this place…’ He hesitated, sucking on his cigar. Then he lumbered to his feet. ‘Okay, Bruce,’ he said, gripping my hand. ‘You get my stuff up here and I’ll accept your proposition and drill you a well.’ He hesitated. ‘That is, providing Winnick gives me a written report on the two traverses when they’re completed and that report is good.’

We settled down then to work out the details. Everything that would he required from the time Garry spudded in to the time he brought in a well, presuming that he did, would have to be trucked in on the one operation. It meant buying or hiring trucks and tankers. It worked out at seven vehicles.

Seven separate trips on the hoist with difficult loadings between each trip. Boy was a help here for he was able to give us some idea of the time he had taken to load his trucks and off-load them at the other end. It meant allowing forty minutes minimum for each truck, to cover loading, the trip up to the dam, off-loading and the running down of the empty cage. We went through all the stores we should require — tools, spares, pipe, casing, food, cigarettes, bedding, oils, mud chemicals suitable for all types of strata; an endless list. Bill and Don agreed to stay on and become roughnecks, so that additional personnel was reduced to six, which allowed two teams of four and the rest of us available to cook, hunt, stand in for anyone sick and generally organise the operation.

We finished just after two in the morning and went to bed, but for ages I couldn’t get to sleep as my mind went over and over the lists we had made out. Several times I switched on my torch and made a note of something that had occurred to me. Under the agreement that I was making with Boy and Garry the drilling was their responsibility, but I was convinced that neither of them fully appreciated what the situation would be once we had got the rig and equipment up to the Kingdom. There would be no going down for things we had forgotten. We would be isolated up here in the mountains. Trevedian would see to that. Anything we had omitted from our lists we would have to do without. I had explained this to them, but Garry had shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘Sure, but there’s always the pony trail.’ I had left it at that. I saw no reason to scare him by explaining to him the lengths to which I should have to go to carry out my side of the bargain and get the rig up the hoist.

Boy took Garry down the next day. ‘If everything goes well I’ll be seeing you in about three weeks,’ Garry said as he shook my hand. And then he added, ‘You’re sure you can get us up the hoist?’

‘If I don’t I’ve got to sell up to pay your expenses,’ I said. ‘Isn’t that enough of a guarantee?’

‘Sure and it is, but I’d like to know just how you’re going to fix it. A bit of bribery and corruption, eh?’ He laughed and slapped me on the shoulder.

If he liked to think it could be done by bribery … I smiled and said nothing.

‘Well, see you let me have details before I bring my convoy up.’

‘I will,’ I said. ‘I’ll mail you full instructions in advance.’

‘Okay.’ He nodded and hauled himself up on to his horse. ‘Be seeing you, Bruce.’ He waved his hand and started up towards the Saddle.

When Boy got in that night he was packing the haunches of a deer on the back of his saddle. Stocks of canned food were running low and fresh meat was a welcome sight. All we lacked was flour to bake bread.

In the days that followed Boy and the rest of his team worked from first light till darkness to complete the longitudinal traverse. All the time the geophysical work was going on we were very conscious of the growing activity at the dam. Each day when the weather was good I rode up to an outcrop above the buttress and had a look at what they were doing. Once when it was fine I climbed a shoulder of the northern peak of Solomon’s Judgment. From this eyrie I could see the camp. It was now clear of all sapling growth with paths beginning to be worn between the quarters and the dining hall and the cookhouse and the latrines. It seemed filling up with men. Trucks were coming into the hoist regularly. As soon as they were off-loaded a grab crane filled them up with hard core from the slide and they went out loaded with stone. Farther down the valley I caught glimpses through my glasses of road gangs working, spreading hard core on sections where the surface was breaking up.

Two days later the peace of the Kingdom was shattered by an explosion that ran a thundering echo round the mountains. I didn’t need to ride out to my rock outcrop to know what it was. They were blasting at the quarries on either side of the dam. The construction work had begun. When I did get up to my vantage point I saw the whole area of the dam crawling with workers. Rails were laid out and tip wagons were trundling back and forth. Giant cement mixers were rattling away and loads of rock were being slung across by cable to the centre of the dam.

The race was on and we hadn’t even got our rig up.

‘How long do you reckon they’ll take?’ Boy asked when he got in that night. His dark face was sullen and moody.

‘We’ve plenty of time,’ I said.

But it had a depressing effect on all of us. After supper we all walked as far as the buttress. There was a young moon and we wanted to see what the new construction looked like. My one fear was that they’d work at night. But I suppose it was too cold that early in the season to work shifts round the clock. As it was they had to use large quantities of straw to protect the new concrete from frost. We went down as far as the hoist. In the queer light everything looked flat and white, a dead world from which men seemed suddenly to have vanished leaving the orderly evidence of their industry behind them.

‘I think I never saw such starved ignoble nature,’ Boy quoted. And then he added, ‘It seems the ultimate in futility — all this effort to build a hundred-foot high rampart and all around Nature has raised great peaks to seven and eight thousand feet.’

‘Isn’t that the measure of our greatness?’ Don said. ‘We go on, whatever the odds.’

‘Ants,’ Bill said. ‘It’s all comparative. Compare these peaks with the stars, with the limitlessness of space.’

‘Is it worth it — the efforts we make?’ Boy asked.

Bill looked across at me. ‘What do you say, Bruce?’

I shrugged my shoulders. ‘What is anything but an idea?’ I turned away, climbing the slope of the mountain. I didn’t like Boy’s mood. There was a note of fatalism in it.

From higher up the mountain we looked down on the deep shadows of Thunder Creek. Lights twinkled below us, marking the camp, and an up-draught of air brought the sound of a radio to us and the lilt of a dance band, mingled with the murmur of a diesel engine. A battery of arc lights surrounded the hoist terminal where loaded trucks were parked, waiting for the morning, and far down the valley the headlights of a vehicle weaved their tortuous way up through the timbered slopes of Thunder Creek.

‘We’re wasting our time, fooling around on a survey up here,’ Boy murmured moodily.

‘What makes you say that?’ I asked him.

‘There must be nearly a hundred men down in that camp now. You haven’t a hope in hell of getting one truck, let alone seven, up that hoist.’

The number of men doesn’t make much difference,’ I said.

‘Are you crazy? Well, if the number of men doesn’t make any difference, what about those arc lights?’

‘We’ll need them to load by.’

He gripped my arm. ‘Just what are you planning to do?’

I hesitated but I decided not to tell him what was in my mind. The less anybody knew about it the better. ‘All in good time,’ I said. ‘Let’s go back and get some sleep.’

But he didn’t move. ‘You can’t take on that outfit.

It’s too big, and you know it. The whole thing is too organised.’

‘Then we’ll have to disorganise it.’

He stared at me, his mouth falling open. ‘You’re not planning to-’ He checked himself and passed his hand wearily across his face. ‘No, I guess you wouldn’t be that crazy, but-’ His hand gripped my arm. ‘I wish I could see into your mind, Bruce. Sometimes I feel I’m on the edge of a precipice and you’re a stranger. There’s something inside of you that brushes things aside, that isn’t quite of this world. You know you’re licked and yet you get people like me and Louis and even a tough character like Garry Keogh to string along. What’s driving you?’

‘I thought you were as keen about this thing as I was,’ I said, keeping my voice low.

‘Sure I am, but-’ He waved his hand towards the lights in the valley. ‘I know when it’s time to back down. You don’t.’ He caught hold of my arm as though he were about to say something further. Then he let it drop. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘It’s time we got back.’

He was very silent the next few days. Often I’d catch him looking at me and I got the impression he was a little afraid of me. Like most Canadians, he was a very law-abiding person. Conflicts such as we had been involved in during the war were alien — a gun was for use against the wild, equipment was man’s tools to tame Nature, human life was something you travel two, three hundred miles to shake by the hand.

On May 29th, Boy completed the longitudinal tra verse and the following morning he left for Calgary with the recordings. Before he left I gave him a letter for Garry Keogh, instructing him to move up with his vehicles to 150 Mile House not later than 5th June. I would contact him there. I enclosed a signed undertaking to reimburse him for all expenses if I failed to get the rig up to the Kingdom and Boy had with him my agreement to split profits fifty-fifty with those involved in the development of the property. I also gave Boy a letter to Winnick in which I asked him to let Keogh have a report signed by him and if that report were optimistic I asked him to drop a hint here and there amongst the oil company scouts. I was preparing the ground for the possibility of ultimately having to fight a legal battle. He had with him also a final list of items we required.

I rode with him part of the way up to the Saddle. It was sleeting and the mountains were grey hulks half hidden by mist. The wind blew through our clothing and the horses hung their heads as they plodded up the mountainside. Halfway up, however, the clouds lifted, the snow on Solomon’s Judgment showed the white sweeps of the cornices and the sleet moved away from us in a leaden curtain towards the east. At the edge of a shelf of rock over which the horses had to be led I turned back. Boy gripped my hand. ‘I hope it turns out as you want it, Bruce.’

‘I’m sure it will,’ I said. ‘You’ll come straight back?’

He nodded. ‘I’ll be back inside of a week.’

‘And you’ll cable me the result at the Golden Calf.’

‘Sure. And don’t worry about the rig. If I know Garry he won’t be waiting for Louis’ final report. He’ll be getting team and equipment together right now.’

‘I hope so,’ I said. ‘Every day we delay weakens our chances of bringing in a well before the dam is completed.’

‘Sure. I know.’

‘And don’t forget that telephone equipment.’

He looked up at me, his head on one side. ‘Would that have something to do with your plans to get the rig up the hoist?’

‘Without it- we’re sunk,’ I said.

‘Okay. I’ll remember.’ He waved his hand and started across the rock shelf. It was wet and it gleamed like armour plate. I watched him for a moment and then turned my horse and began to descend. I hadn’t gone far before the sun came out and suddenly it was warm and spring had come to the Kingdom. The emerald green of the grass was splashed with the colours of flowers like a huge meadow. I stopped and stared down at it, absorbing the warmth of the sun, thinking how beautiful it was — the dark band of the timber below me, the silver thread of water in the colours of the bowl and beyond, the mountains, warm and brown till rock merged into the glittering white of the snows. Away to the right I could just see the far end of the dam. Figures were moving there like ants and the stillness of the air was sullied by the rattle of concrete mixers. I wondered how the Kingdom would look when all its beauty was a sheet I

of water and I went on down through the timber hating the thought of it.

There was nothing much for us to do now the survey was over. There were two rifles at the ranch-house, one belonging to Boy and one to my grandfather, and I encouraged Bill and Don to get out after game whenever they could. For myself I just lazed, gaining in energy every day and spending a good deal of time going over and over my plans to get the rig up the hoist. If everything worked smoothly it would be all right, but I had to plan for every eventuality.

Three days later I took Bill Mannion with me and we rode down to Come Lucky. We carried blankets and rucksacks stuffed with spare clothing and food. In a bag tied to my saddle were several of the charges used by Boy for his survey shots together with detonators, coils of wire and the plunger and batteries for shot firing. The sun was hot as we went down the pony trail to Thunder Creek. The timber had a warm, resinous smell and all about us pulsed the early summer life.

As we rode into Come Lucky I saw a change was coming over the place. New huts were going up; some were rough, split pine affairs, others pre-fabricated constructions trucked in from the sawmills. Some of the old shacks were being patched up and repainted. A new life stirred in the ghost town and for the first time since I had set eyes on the place it was possible to walk up the centre of the main street. The mud and tailings from the old wooden flumes above the town had set hard in the sun and wind to produce a cracked, hardbaked surface like a dried-out mud hole. There were even little drifts of dust blowing about.

It was near midday and several of the old men were in the Golden Calf for a lunch-time beer. They stared at us curiously, but without animosity. The dam was going ahead. Come Lucky was coming to life. They’d nothing to fear from me any more.

Mac was in his office. He was seated at the desk working on some accounts and he stared at me doubtfully over his steel-rimmed glasses. ‘Getting tired of living up in the Kingdom?’ he asked me.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I just came down to see if there was any mail for me.’

There’s a telegram for you. Nothing else.’ He reached into a pigeon hole of the desk and produced it.

I slit open the envelope. It was from Boy and had been handed in at Calgary the day before, June 1st. ‘Results perfect. Have seen G. He will be at House as arranged. Returning immediately arriving Come Lucky Tuesday.’ I handed it to Bill. ‘Where will I find Trevedian?’ I asked Mac.

‘Maybe in his office, but most of the day he’s up at the hoist.’

‘Does he sleep up at the camp?’

‘No. He’ll be in town by the evening.’

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘If you see him, tell him I’m looking for him.’

The old man stared at me with a puzzled frown.

‘What would ye be wanting him for?’

‘Just tell him I’d like to have a word with him.’

As I turned to go he said, ‘A friend of yours was asking about you.’

‘Who’s that?’ I asked him.

‘Jean Lucas.’

‘Jean! Is she back?’

‘Aye. Came back two days ago. She came to see me last night. Wanted to know what ye were up to.’

‘What did you say?’

The corners of his lips twitched slightly and there was a twinkle in his blue eyes as he said, ‘I told her to go up and find out for herself.’

‘Well, if she’d taken your advice we’d have met her on the way down,’ I said.

‘Aye, ye would that. Maybe she didna feel like it. Sarah Garret tells me she’s no’ looking herself despite her holiday.’

I was very conscious of the Lugar in the rucksack on my back, of a sudden restlessness compounded of spring and the smell of the woods and a desire to see her again. I went out through the bar into the sunshine, my heart throbbing in my throat.

‘Where now?’ Bill asked.

‘We’ll go down and see Trevedian,’ I said and climbed on to my horse and rode back down the street, lost in my own thoughts and the memory of that last time I’d seen Jean, wrought-up, unhappy and strangely close to me. I remembered the vibrance of her voice, the reflection of her face in the blackness of the window panes as I lay in my bed.

But at the sight of the open door of Trevedian’s office I put all thought of her out of my mind. There was no time to start dreaming about a girl.

The office of the Trevedian Transport Company had been enlarged by knocking down the partition at the back. There was another desk, more filing cabinets, a field telephone and an assistant with sleek black hair who affected high-heeled cowboy boots, blue jeans and a fancy shirt. Trevedian was on the telephone to Keithley as I came in. He was in his shirt sleeves and his big arms, covered with dark hair, were bronzed with sun and wind. He momentarily checked his conversation as he caught sight of me, unable to conceal his surprise. He waved me to a seat, finished his call and then put the receiver back on its rest. ‘Well, what can I do for you?’ he asked. ‘I suppose Bladen wants to get his trucks put, is that it?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Rather the reverse. I want to get some trucks in.’

‘How do you mean?’ His eyes had narrowed as though the sun’s glare was bothering him.

‘What do you charge per load on your hoist?’ I asked him.

‘Depends on the nature of the load,’ he said guardedly. ‘What’s the trouble? Running short of supplies?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I want to know what rate you’ll quote me for hoisting a drilling rig up to the Kingdom?’

‘A drilling rig!’ He stared at me. And then his fist came down on the desk top. ‘What the hell do you take me for, Wetheral? No drilling rig is going up Thunder Creek.’

I turned to Bill. ‘Take note of that, will you. This, by the way is Bill Mannion,’ I introduced him. ‘Now, about this rig. I quite realise that the road up Thunder Creek runs through your property and that the hoist is owned and run by you and James McClellan jointly. Naturally a toll is payable to the two of you for the transport of personnel and equipment up to the Kingdom. Perhaps you’d be good enough to quote me your rates.’

‘Quote you my rates!’ He laughed. ‘You must be crazy. The road’s a private road and the hoist is private, too. It’s being operated for the Larsen Mining Company. You know that damn well. And if you think I’m going to transport any damned rig up to the Kingdom-’ He hesitated there and leaned forward. ‘What’s the idea of taking a rig up there?’

‘I’m drilling a well.’

‘You’re drilling a well.’ He repeated my words in an offensive imitation of my English accent. Then his eyes slid to Bill Mannion and in a more controlled voice he said, ‘And what makes you think it’s worth drilling up there?’

‘Bladen’s done a check on his original survey,’ I said.

‘Well?’

‘There’s ample evidence that the original survey was tampered with. Louis Winnick, the oil consultant, has computed the results. The seismograms show a well-defined anticline. The indications are promising enough for me to go ahead and drill.’

‘And you expect me to get your rig up there for you?’

‘I’m merely asking you to quote me a rate.’

He laughed. ‘You’re not asking much.’ He leaned across the desk towards me. ‘Get this into your thick head, Wetheral. As far as you’re concerned there aren’t any rates. Your rig isn’t going up Thunder Creek. You can pack it up the pony trail.’ He grinned. ‘I give you full permission to do that, free of charge, even though it is partly on my land.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I must insist on a quotation for the hoist.’

‘Insist? Are you trying to be funny?’

‘Do I get a quotation or not?’

‘Of course you don’t.’

‘I see.’ I got to my feet. ‘That’s all I wanted.’ He was staring at me in surprise as Bill and I moved towards the door. I paused in the entrance. ‘By the way,’ I said, ‘you do realise I suppose, that the original road up Thunder Creek, was constructed in 1939 by the Canadian Government. The fact that you have improved it recently does not stop it being a public highway. Are you acting on Fergus’ instructions in putting a guard on it and holding up private transport?’

‘I’m acting for the Larsen Mining Company.’

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘That means Fergus.’

After that I went back up the street to the Golden Calf. Mac was still in his office. ‘Can I use your phone?’ I asked him.

‘Aye.’ He pushed the instrument towards me.

‘Would it be something private?’ He had got to his feet.

‘No, it’s all right,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing private about this.’ I picked up the instrument and got long distance. I gave them the number of the Calgary Tribune and made it a personal call to the editor. Half an hour later he was on the line. ‘Did Louis Winnick let you have his final report on Campbell’s Kingdom?’ I asked him.

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘And a fellow called Bladen was in here with the whole story of the original survey. Who am I talking with?’

‘Bruce Wetheral,’ I said. ‘Campbell’s heir.’

‘Well, Mr Wetheral, we ran the story pretty well in full a couple of days back.’

I thanked him and then brought him up to date with Trevedian’s refusal to allow a rig to proceed to the property. When I had finished he said, ‘Makes a dandy little story. Private enterprise versus big business, eh? Well, Mr Wetheral this won’t be the first time we’ve backed the small operator.’

‘You’re going to back us then?’

‘Oh, sure. It’s in the interests of the country. We’ve always taken that line. What are you going to do about getting your rig up there?’

‘Take the matter into my own hands.’

‘I see. Well, go easy on that. We don’t want to find we’re backing people who get outside the law.’

‘I’m not getting outside the law,’ I said. ‘It’s Fergus and Trevedian who have got outside the law.’

‘We-ell-’ He hesitated. ‘So long as nobody gets hurt…’

‘Nobody’s going to get hurt,’ I said.

‘Fine. Well, good luck. And, Mr Wetheral — if you do bring in a well be sure and let us have details. Later on I’d like to send one of my staff up to have a look at things if that’s all right with you?’

‘Any time,’ I said. ‘And thanks for your help.’ I put the receiver back.

‘So ye’re going to drill?’ Mac said.

I nodded. ‘I suppose your son wouldn’t take the responsibility of getting the rig up there?’

‘Jamie’ll no’ do anything to help ye, I’m afraid.’ He kept his eyes on the pipe he was filling, avoiding my gaze.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I suppose not.’ I hesitated. Trevedian will ask you what I’m up to. There’s no harm in telling him that I’ve been on to the Calgary Tribune. But I’d be glad if you’d forget that bit about my taking things into my own hands. Will you do that?’

‘Aye.’ He gave me a wintry smile. ‘I’ll no’ spoil yer game, whatever it is. But dinna do anything foolish, lad.’ He peered up at me. ‘Ye ken the advice I ought to gie ye? It’s to forget all aboot the Kingdom — sell oot and gang hame. But it’s no’ the sort o’ advice a young feller would be taking.’ He shook his head, ‘Mebbe I’m getting old.’ He held out his hand. ‘Good luck to ye. And if I should see Jeannie?’ He cocked his head to one side.

I hesitated and then I said, ‘If she should happen to ask about me, tell her there’s a vacancy for cook general up in the Kingdom — if she wants her old job back.’

He smiled and nodded his head. ‘Aye. I’ll tell her that.’

I paid for the call and we left then, riding down the hardbaked gravel of Come Lucky’s street, conscious here and there of faces peering at us from the windows of the shacks. Through the open door of his office I caught a glimpse of Trevedian. He was on the phone again, but he looked up as we rode by and stared at us, his heavy forehead puckered in a frown.

The sun was hot as we rode down to the lake-shore and there were gophers standing like sentinels on the mounds of their burrows. Their shrill squeaks of warning ran ahead of us as one by one they dropped from sight. Beaver Dam Lake was still and dark, mirroring the green and brown and white of the mountains beyond. A truck ground past us as we turned up towards Thunder Creek, a haze of white dust hovering behind it. And when it was gone and the dust had settled, everything was still again. Summer had come to the Rockies.

‘Will you wait down here for Boy?’ Bill asked.

I nodded. ‘We’ll camp down by the creek tonight.’

We found a suitable spot, well concealed in the cottonwood close to the waters of Thunder Creek, cooked ourselves a meal and slept for a couple of hours in the sun. Then we saddled the horses again and started up the road towards the camp. All I carried was my rucksack. The shadows were lengthening now and as we entered the timber the air was cool and damp. Every now and then Bill glanced at me curiously, but he didn’t say anything. He had the patience and tenacity of all geologists. He was content to wait and see what I was up to.

We reached the bend that concealed the round gate and its guard and I struck up into the timber. The timber was not very thick here and as we made the detour we caught glimpses of the guard hut. We came back on to the road about half a mile above it. The surface was much drier than it had been when Jeff and I had made that moonlight run and wherever there was water, hard core had been poured in by the truck load. Even so the surface was heavily rutted and some of the log culverts showed signs of breaking up. Every now and then I glanced up at the telephone wires that hung in shallow loops from the bare jack pine poles. There were just the two lines and at most points it would be possible to reach them from the top of a truck. At a point where the road reached down almost to the floor of the valley we saw beavers working in the black pools they’d damned and once we caught a glimpse of two coyotes slinking through the timber. But my mind was on practical things and not even the sight of a small herd of mule-deer distracted me from reconnaissance. We kept to the road all the way, only pushing into the timber when we heard the sound of a truck.

About a mile above the guard hut I found what I was looking for. The grade had been getting steadily steeper as we climbed up from the creek bed and we came face to face with a shoulder of the valley side.

The road swung away to the right and we could see it zig-zagging in wide hairpin sweeps as it gained height to by-pass the obstruction. Ahead of us a trail rose steeply up the shoulder, a short-cut that would come out on to the road again. We forced the horses up the slope and came out on to a rocky platform that looked straight up the valley to the slide and the sheer cliff of the fault. It was a most wonderful sight with the white peaks of Solomon’s Judgment crimsoned in the sunset.

About a mile further on we came out on to the road again where it swung round a big outcrop of rock. It had been blasted out of the face of the outcrop and above it the rocks towered more than a hundred feet, covered with lichen and black where the water seeped from the crevices. We waited for a truck to pass, going down the valley, and then we rode out on to the road.

I sat there for a moment looking at the overhang. This was what I had remembered. This was the place that had been in my mind when I first conceived my plan. The question was would I find what I wanted. I rode forward, a tight feeling in my throat. Everything depended upon this. The rock had been blasted. There was no question about that as I began eagerly examining the wall of it.

‘What are you looking for, Bruce?’ my companion asked.

‘I’m wondering if there are any drill holes,’ I said. I’d banked on the driller going ahead, drilling his shot holes, regardless of whether they’d blasted sufficiently.

Twice we had to canter off into the timber whilst a truck went by. Each time I came back to the same point in the face of the rock, working steadily along it. And then suddenly I had found what I had hoped for; a round hole — like the entrance to a sandmartin’s nest. There was another about ten feet from it and a third. They were about three feet from the ground and when I cut a straight branch from a tree and had whittled it down into a rod I found two of them extended about eight feet into the rock. The third was only about two feet deep. I took off my rucksack then, got out my charges and pushed them in, two to each shot hole. The wires to the detonators I cut to leave only about two inches protruding. Then we rammed wet earth in tight, sealing the holes. I marked the spot with the branch of a tree and we rode on.

About half a mile further on the road dipped again and crossed a patch of swampy ground. Road gangs had been busy here very recently. A lot of hard core had been dumped and rolled in and just beyond the swamp the trees had been cut back to allow trucks to turn. There was good standing here for a dozen or more vehicles. Over a slight rise a bridge of logs spanned a small torrent. Again I slipped my rucksack from my shoulders and got to work with the charges, fixing them to the log supports of the bridge and trailing the wires to a point easily reached from the road. I marked the spot and climbed back on to the road.

‘Okay, Bill,’ I said. ‘That’s the lot.’

We turned our horses and started back. There was still some light in the sky, but down in the valley night was closing in.

It was past nine when we rode into our camp. We built a fire and cooked a meal, sitting close by the flames, talking quietly, listening to the sound of the creek rumbling lakewards. I felt tired, but content. So far everything had gone well. But as I lay wrapped in my blankets, going over and over my plans, I wondered whether my luck would hold. I wondered, too, whether I wasn’t in danger of creating a situation I couldn’t handle. I was planning the thing as a military operation, relying on surprise and confusion to carry me through, banking on being able to present the other side with a fait accompli. I wondered chiefly about Garry Keogh. He was Irish and he was tough, but he ran his own rig and he’d got to live. His approach to the whole thing was entirely different from mine.

The following morning, Tuesday, June 3rd, broke in a grey mist. The sun came through, however, before we had finished breakfast and for three hours it shone from a clear blue sky and insects hovered round us in the heat. But shortly after midday, thunder heads began to build up to the west. Boy got in about two. He’d hitched a ride up from Quesnel in one of the cement trucks and had picked up his horse in Come Lucky on the way down to our rendezvous at the entrance to Thunder Creek. He had a copy of the Calgary Tribune with him. They had run the story of Campbell’s Kingdom as a news item on the front page and there was a long feature article inside. Boy had I

seen the editor, so had Winnick. They had talked to some of the scouts from the big companies. The legend of oil in the Rocky Mountains had got off to a good start. But his big news was that Garry was already at 150 Mile House. It only needed a phone call from us to get his convoy rolling.

I looked up at the gathering clouds. ‘What’s the weather going to do tonight?’ I asked.

‘I’d say rain,’ Bill answered.

Boy didn’t say anything, but walked across the clearing to where there was a view up the valley. He stood for some time, staring up towards Solomon’s Judgment where small puffs of snow were being driven down the forward slopes. ‘The weather’s breaking.’

‘Rain?’ I asked.

He shook his head. ‘Snow more likely. The wind’s from the east.’

‘Snow?’ It might be even better than rain. ‘Have you brought that phone-testing equipment?’

‘It’s in my pack.’ He went over to the two saddle bags he had dropped on to the ground and got out the instruments. ‘What are you planning to do, Bruce?’

‘Get Garry and his trucks up tonight,’ I said. ‘How long do you reckon it will take him from 150 Mile House?’

‘Six, seven hours.’ He hesitated, glancing up at the mountains. ‘If the snow is heavy he may bog down, you know. There’s a lot of weight in some of his trucks.’

‘We’ll have to risk that.’

We rode down the highway, past the turning up to Come Lucky, until we reached a stretch where it ran through trees. The telephone wires were close against the branches here. I posted the two of them as guards and climbed a fir tree. There was no difficulty in tapping the wires. I had to wait for a while, listening to Trevedian talking to Keithley Creek. As soon as he got off the line I rang the exchange and got put through to 150 Mile House. I was afraid Garry might not be ready to move, but I needn’t have worried. When I asked him how soon he could get started, he said, ‘Whenever you say. The gear’s all stowed, everything’s ready. We only got to start the engines.’

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Can you make the entrance to the creek by eleven-thirty tonight?’

‘Sure. Providing everything’s okay we could probably make it by ten, mebbe even earlier.’

‘I don’t want you earlier,’ I replied. ‘I want you there dead on eleven-thirty. The timing is important. What’s your watch say?’

‘Two twenty-eight.’

‘Okay.’ I adjusted my watch by a couple of minutes. ‘Now listen carefully, Garry. Keep moving all the time and try not to get involved with any truck coming in with materials for the dam. As you approach the rendezvous only the leading truck is to have any lights. Keep your convoy bunched. We’ll meet you where the timber starts. If we’re not there, turn around and go back as far as Hydraulic and I’ll contact you there tomorrow. It will mean something has gone wrong with our plans. Okay?’

‘Sure.’

‘See you tonight, then.’

‘Just a minute, Bruce. What are our plans? How do you propose-’

‘I haven’t time to go into that now,’ I cut in quickly. ‘See you at eleven-thirty. Goodbye.’

I undipped my wires and climbed down to the ground. Boy heeled his horse up to me as I packed the instrument away. ‘Where did you learn to tap telephone wires?’ he asked.

‘The war,’ I said. ‘Taught me quite a lot of things that I didn’t imagine would be any use to me after it was over.’

He was very silent as we rode back to our camp and several times I caught him looking at me with a worried frown. As we sat over our food that evening he tried to question me about my plans, but I kept on putting him off and in the end I walked down to the edge of the creek and sat there smoking. Every now and then I glanced at the luminous dial of my watch. And as the hands crept slowly round to zero hour the sense of nervousness increased.

At twenty to eleven I walked back to where the two of them sat smoking round the blackened embers of the fire. The night was very dark. There were no stars. A cold wind drifted down the valley. ‘What about your snow?’ I asked Boy.

‘It’ll come,’ he said.

‘When?’

Something touched my face — a cold kiss, light as a feather. More followed. ‘It’s here now,’ Boy said. I shone my torch into the darkness. A flurry of white flakes was drifting across the clearing. ‘Going to be cold up by the dam, if we get there.’

I glanced at my watch again. Ten forty-five. ‘Bill.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Get on your horse and ride up the road to the bend just before the gate. Tether your horse in the timber and work your way unobserved to a point where you can watch the guard hut. Now listen carefully. At eleven-fifteen exactly the guard will get a phone call. As a result of that call he should leave immediately, going up the road towards the hoist on foot. If he hasn’t left by eleven twenty-five get your horse and come back down the road as fast as you can to let us know.’

‘And if he does?’

‘Wait till he’s out of earshot, then open the gate and block it open. Get your horse and follow him up without him knowing. Okay? About a mile up the road there’s a trail cutting straight over a rocky bluff. He should take that trail. Wait for us there to let us know whether he took it or kept to the road. I’ll also want to know the exact time he started up the trail. When we’ve passed ride back down here, collect the two remaining horses and get part of the way up the pony trail to the Kingdom before camping. We’ll see you up at the Kingdom tomorrow, if all goes well. If by any chance we’re not in the Kingdom by the time you get there, then I’m afraid you’ll have to come down again with the horses. All right?’

He went through his instructions and then I checked his watch with mine. ‘Good luck,’ he said as he mounted his horse. ‘And see you don’t make me come down off the Kingdom again. I kinda want to see a rig operating up there now.’ He grinned and waved his hand as he walked his horse out of the clearing.

‘What now?’ Boy asked.

‘We wait,’ I said. I glanced at my watch. Five to eleven. Thirty-five minutes to wait. ‘Hell!’ I muttered.

He caught — hold of my arm as I turned away. ‘Don’t I get any instructions?’

‘Not yet,’ I said.

I could just see his eyes staring at me in the darkness. I wondered whether he could see in the dark. His eyes were large and luminous. ‘I don’t like going into something without a briefing.’

‘There’s nothing to brief you on.’

For a moment I thought he was going to insist. But then he dropped his hand. ‘All right. I understand. But just tell me one thing. Is anybody going to get hurt?’

‘Nobody’s going to get hurt,’ I said.

‘Then why are you carrying a gun?’

‘How the-’ I stopped. What did it matter? Probably he’d just opened my rucksack by mistake in the dark. I hesitated and then groped my way forward, found my pack and got out the Luger Jean had given me. ‘Here,’ I said, handing it to him. ‘Does that make you happier?’

He took it and stood for a moment, holding it in his hand. I glanced at my watch. Eleven o’clock. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Time we were moving.’

As we walked up towards the road, lights cleaved the darkness away to our right. We waited, watching them grow nearer, watching the trees become black shapes fringed already with a coating of snow. I put my watch to my ear, listening for the tick of it, afraid for the moment that it had stopped and this was Garry’s convoy. Then a single truck swept by giving us a brief glimpse of the road curving upwards through the timber, already whitening under the curtain of snow swirling down through the gap in the trees.

A moment later I was climbing a fir tree that stood close against the telephone wires. I had my testing box slung round my neck. I clipped the wires on and waited, my eyes on my watch. At eleven-fifteen exactly I reached into my pack, pulled out a pair of pliers and cut both wires close by my clips. Then I lifted my receiver and wound the handle in a long single ring. There was no answer. I repeated the ring. Suddenly a voice was crackling in my ears. ‘Valley guard.’

I held the mouthpiece well away from me. ‘Trevedian here,’ I bawled, deeping my voice. ‘I’ve had a report-’

Another voice chipped in on the line. ‘Butler, Slide Camp, here. What’s the trouble?’

‘Get off the line, Butler,’ I shouted. ‘I’m talking to the Valley guard. Valley guard?’

‘Yes, Mr Trevedian.’

‘I’ve had a report of some falls occurring a couple of miles up from you. Go up and investigate. It’s by that first overhang just after the hairpin bends.’

‘It’d be quicker to send a truck down from the camp. They could send a gang down-’

‘I’m not bringing a truck down through this snow on a vague report,’ I yelled at him. ‘You’re nearest. You get up there and see what it’s all about. There’s a short-cut-’

‘But, Mr Trevedian. There’s a truck just gone just gone up. He’ll be able to report at the other-’

‘Will you stop making excuses for getting a little snow down your damned neck. Get up there and report back to me. That’s an order. And take that short-cut. It’ll save you a good fifteen minutes. Now, get moving.’ I banged the receiver down and stayed there for a moment, clinging to the tree, trembling so much from nervous exhaustion that I was in danger of falling.

‘Are you coming down?’ Boy called up.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not for a moment.’ I lifted the receiver again and placed it reluctantly to my ears. But the line was dead. Neither the man up at the camp nor the guard had apparently dared to ring back. As the minutes passed I began to feel easier. I glanced at my watch. Eleven twenty-three. The guard should be well up the road by now.

‘Got rid of the guard?’ Boy asked, as I climbed down.

‘I think so,’ I said. ‘If Bill isn’t here in the next five minutes we’ll know for sure.’

We waited in silence after that. It was very dark. The snow made a gentle, murmuring sound as it fell and the wind stirred the tops of the firs. From behind us came the sound of water. Every now and then I glanced at my watch and as the minute hand crept slowly to the half-hour my nervousness increased. One of the trucks might have developed engine trouble. Maybe the snow had already drifted down towards Keithley. Or they might have got bogged down.

Suddenly Boy’s hand gripped my arm. Above the now familiar sounds of water, wind and snow I thought I heard a steady, distant murmur like the rattle of tanks in a parallel valley. The sound steadily grew and then a beam of light glowed yellow through the curtain of the snow. The light increased steadily till we could see each other’s faces and the shape of the trees around us. Two eyes suddenly thrust the black dots of the snow aside and an instant later the hulking shape of a diesel truck showed in the murk and panted to a stop. I glanced at my watch. It was eleven-thirty exactly.

That you, Garry?’ Boy called.

‘Sure and it’s me. Who d’you think it was?’ Garry leaned out of the cab. ‘What now, Bruce?’

I signalled Boy to clamber on and swung myself up on to the step. ‘All your trucks behind you?’ I asked.

‘Yeah. I checked about five miles back. What do we do now? What’s the plan, eh?’

‘Get going as fast as we can,’ I said.

The driver leaned forward to thrust in his gear, but Garry stopped him. ‘Before we go ahead I want to know just what sort of trouble I’m headed for.’

‘For God’s sake,’ I said.

‘I’m not budging till I know your plan, Bruce. There’s six vehicles here and a man to each vehicle. I’m responsible for them. I got to know what I’m heading into.’

‘We’ll talk as we go,’ I said.

‘No. Now.’

‘Don’t be a fool,’ I shouted at him angrily. ‘The guard is off the gate. Every second you delay-’ I took a deep breath and got control of myself. ‘Get going,’ I said. ‘My plan works on split timing over this section.’ I glanced at my watch. ‘You’re half a minute behind schedule now. If you can’t make up that half a minute you might just as well not have run over from 150 Mile House. And if you miss it this time, there won’t be another chance. All your effort will have been wasted. I can only do this once.’

He hesitated, but I think the earnestness of my voice convinced him as much as my words. He motioned to the driver. The gears crunched, the big motor roared and the trees began to fall away from us on either side as the heavy rig truck gathered speed.

‘I see you cut the telephone wires.’ Garry’s voice was barely audible above the roar of the engine.

‘That’s why I can’t do it again,’ I said. ‘All we’ve got to do is rely on confusion. I’ve been tapping the telephone wires and issuing orders in the name of Trevedian. That enough for you to go on with?’

He hesitated. Then he suddenly nodded and squeezed my arm. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘You got something up your sleeve. I know that. But if the guard is off the gate up here, I’ll agree you’ve been smart and leave it at that for the moment.’

All the way up I was watching for Bill, but there was no sign of him and as we rounded the bend where the guard was posted I saw that the gate was swung open and knew that it was all right so far. I caught a glimpse of the deserted guard hut as we passed and then we were climbing. ‘Can you manage on sidelights?’ I shouted to the driver.

For an answer he switched off the heads. The night closed in. Snow was beating against the clicking windscreen wipers. He switched on the heads again. ‘Too dangerous.’ I leaned out from the running board and looked back. The other trucks had their headlights on now. I counted five. A pity about the heads, but it couldn’t be helped. I glanced at my watch. Eleven thirty-six. The guard should be on the shortcut now. Slowly we approached the point where the shoulder of rock rose, blocking the road and forcing it away to the right into the hairpins. A figure loomed suddenly in the headlights — a figure on horseback, ghostly in his mantel of white.

At a gesture from me the driver checked. ‘Bruce?’ Bill called. And then as he saw me leaning out towards him he shouted, ‘It’s okay. He’s on the trail now. Started up at eleven thirty-three.’

‘Fine. See you at the Kingdom.’

His ‘Good luck!’ came faintly as the engine roared and we swung to the first of the hairpins.

That first bend had me in a panic. The truck was big, probably a lot bigger than the ones Trevedian was using. If we got stuck on the hairpins …

But we didn’t get stuck. The driver knew his stuff and we scraped round with inches to spare. The second and third bends were easier, but on the fourth we were forced to run back slightly. And then we were over the top and running out to the cliff where the overhang was. ‘Now listen, Garry,’ I shouted. ‘I’m dropping off in a minute. You’ll go on till you get to an area of swamp ground where a lot of hard core has been thrown in to make a causeway. Just beyond that you’ll find a place where you can turn off to the right into the brush. Get all your vehicles parked in under the trees and all facing outwards, ready to go on up the road at a moment’s notice. All lights out. No smoking. No talking. I’ll bring the last truck in myself a little later. Okay?’

He nodded. ‘Another phone call to make?’ he said with a grin.

‘That’s right,’ I said. The road was a shelf now, running along the cliff face. The headlights showed rock and road, and beyond, nothing but black emptiness. Slowly the big truck rounded the bend under the overhang and then dipped her nose for the long, straight run down to the swamp ground. And as the nose dipped I dropped to the ground.

One by one the trucks passed me — a pair of round eyes beaming into blazing headlights as they pierced the snow and then sudden blackness as the bulk of it ground past me. Three — four — five; and then I was flagging down the last truck, jumping for the running board. ‘I’m Bruce Wetheral,’ I shouted to the driver. ‘Pull up a moment, will you?’

He hesitated, eyeing me uncertainly. ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’ve just dropped off Garry’s truck.’

‘Okay.’ The engine died and the big tanker pulled up with a jerk. ‘What now?’

‘We’re acting as rear guard,’ I told him, unslinging my pack. ‘They’ll be waiting for us about a mile further on.’ I pulled out the box containing batteries and detonating plunger, slung the coil of wire over my shoulder and flicked on my torch. ‘I’ll be about five minutes,’ I said.

The snow was thicker now as I walked back down the road. In places it was drifting. My feet made no sound. Visibility was almost nil — the torch revealed nothing but a world of whirling white. I found the cliff wall and felt my way along it, probing with the torch for the branch with which I had marked the shot holes. The branch was still there, white with snow. I found the wires without difficulty, connected up with them and walked back, trailing the battery wires out behind me. At the limit of the wires I connected to the batteries, checked my connections carefully and then stood back, hesitating for a moment, wondering whether I had fixed the detonators correctly, scarcely believing that a thrust of the plunger could bring down thousands of tons of rock. Then quickly I stooped, grasped the handle and plunged it down.

There was a terrifying roar that went on and on, reverberating through the valley, plunging downwards, scattering debris in the trees, shaking the snow from them, stripping their branches. A chip of rock as big as my head thudded into the ground at my feet. And then quite suddenly there was silence.

I ran forward, probing with my torch, stumbled and almost fell. Piled in front of me was a mountain of debris. The results couldn’t have been better. The whole cliff face had fallen outwards, spilling across the road and over the precipice beyond. I tugged at the wires till they came free, coiled them over my arm and went back to the truck. The driver was out on the road. ‘For Chrissakes,’ he said. ‘What was that?’

‘Just blocking the road behind us,’ I said. ‘Can you pull your truck over so that I can reach those telephone wires?’

It was difficult. The wires were sagging loosely. I got my telephone equipment, clipped on to the wires, and rang and rang. At length a voice answered me. ‘Butler, Slide Camp, here. What’s going on? I been trying to get-’

‘Listen, Butler,’ I shouted, again holding the mouthpiece well away from my face. ‘There’s been an accident. That cliff face. It’s fallen. There’s-’

‘I can’t hear you. Speak up please. The line’s very bad.’

‘Probably because it’s down.’ I shouted.

‘I been trying to ring you. That truck just got in. The driver says there’s no sign of any falls-’

‘To hell with the truck. Listen, damn you,’ I shouted. ‘Can you hear me?’

‘Yes. Is that Mr Trevedian?’

‘Yes. Now listen. There’s been a bad fall. The cliff has fallen in and buried one of our trucks. Have you got that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right. How many men have you got up there?’

‘Men? Including everybody?’

‘Including every Goddam soul.’

‘About fifty-three, I guess.’

‘How many trucks?’

‘Four. No, five — counting the one that’s just arrived.’

‘Okay. Rustle up every man in the camp, all the digging equipment you can, pile them into the trucks and get down to that fall as fast as you can. We’ve got to have that road cleared by tomorrow morning. And there’s the driver of the truck. He’s buried under it somewhere. I want every man — you understand? No cooks or clerks skulking around, avoiding work. I want every man — the men guarding the hoist — every Goddam man. And don’t think I won’t know if any are left behind. I’ll have a roll call before we’re through. Every man, you understand. This is an emergency.’

‘Where are you speaking from?’ His voice sounded doubtful. ‘I’ve been trying to ring-’

‘For Christ’s sake get on with it, damn you. I want the whole lot of you down here in half an hour. I’ll be working up with my men from the other-’ I pulled off the wires then and wiped the sweat from my forehead. God, I felt tired! Would he bring them all down or would he balls it up. Suppose he decided to recce with just a truckload first? Everything depended on how scared he was of Trevedian. I was banking a lot on Trevedian’s reputation for ruthlessness.

Slowly I climbed into the cab. ‘Okay,’ I murmured as I sank back into the seat, absorbing gratefully the hot smell of the engine. ‘Let’s go and join the others.’

The driver was staring at me. His face looked white and scared in the dashboard lights. He switched on the heads and instantly the snow was a white, drifting wall. Would they risk it coming down through this? I wondered. The heavy diesel coughed and roared, the tanker ground forward round the curve of the hill, down the straight run to the swamp ground, across the hard core — and then Garry was there, white like a ghost in the snow, signalling us in, guiding the driver as he backed the tanker alongside the other trucks.

‘What was that noise?’ Garry asked as the driver cut his engine. The world became suddenly black as the lights were switched off. And then Garry was beside me, gripping my arm. ‘What have you been up to?’ His face, too, looked scared in the faint light from the cab.

‘Got a cigarette?’ I said.

He handed me one and lit it for me. ‘Well?’ he said.

‘There’s been a bit of a fall,’ I said wearily.

‘A fall?’ Then he saw the dynamiting equipment lying beside me on the seat. ‘Do you mean you’ve blown the road, by that overhang?’

‘That’s about it,’ I said.

‘But Christ, man — that’s a criminal offence. They’ll have the Mounties up here …’

‘We’ll see,’ I said. ‘It won’t be easy to prove.’

‘I should have insisted on your telling me your plan before-’

There wasn’t time,’ I said. And then suddenly losing my temper. ‘Damn it, how did you think we were going to get a rig up there? Ask Trevedian to be kind enough to bring it up for us? Well, I did that. I warned him this was a public highway, built with Government money. He laughed in my face.’

Boy had come up beside him. ‘What do we do next, Bruce?’ His voice was steady, quite natural, as though this were the most ordinary thing in the world. I liked Boy for that. He understood. For him a thing that was done was done. He just accepted it.

‘I’ve phoned the camp,’ I said. ‘We wait here until they’re all down at the fall.’

‘And then we blow up the camp, I suppose?’ Garry said sarcastically.

‘No,’ I replied. ‘Just a bridge. Better get some rest, both of you,’ I added. ‘We’ve got a long night’s work ahead of us.’

Boy turned away, but Garry hesitated and then he nodded slowly. ‘Guess you’re right,’ he said and went back to his truck.

Half an hour later headlights pierced the snow for a moment and a truck rumbled past. There were men in the back of it, white shapes huddled against the blinding snow. Another truck followed a few minutes afterwards and then another. They showed for an instant in the murk and then vanished quite suddenly, swallowed up in the storm. A branch creaked and split, broken off by the weight of snow. It fell across one of the trucks. We waited and watched. There were still two more trucks. Five minutes… ten. Nothing came. At length I got out of the cab and walked up the line to Garry’s truck. ‘I think we’ll risk it,’ I said. ‘Go one mile and then stop. As soon as I’ve blown the bridge I’ll change places with Boy and ride up with you. Okay?’

Garry opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it again. ‘Okay,’ he said.

One by one the trucks pulled out and swung on to the road. I followed in the last truck. Our headlights nosed the red tail light of the truck ahead. The hill was short and steep. I saw the truck ahead begin to swing and then we stopped, back wheels spinning. For an awful moment I thought we were going to get stuck. To fit chains would take half an hour. But then the wheels suddenly gripped as they dug down through the snow to the surface of the road. We nosed forward, touched the truck ahead and again stuck with wheel spin. But a moment later both of us were grinding forward, lipping the top of the hill and running down to the torrent. The logs of the bridge were heavy with snow. There was no hollow sound of wheels on wood as we crossed, only a slight change in the noise of the engine.

A hundred yards further on I had my driver stop and ran back to fix my battery wires. The explosion was much sharper this time. It was like the sound of a gun and the echoes vanished abruptly, masked by the falling snow. When I went forward to look at the bridge it was a tumbled mass of logs. The drop to the torrent bed was only a few feet. Nobody would get hurt if a truck failed to pull up in time.

I got back into the cab and half a mile further on we caught up with the tail light of the truck ahead. They had pulled up, engines panting softly in the darkness. I ran up to the leading truck and sent Boy back to bring up the rear. Garry looked at me once out of the corners of his eyes as I settled down beside him, but he said nothing and we started forward up the long drag to the camp.

It was twelve-forty when we saw the lights of a hut. More lights appeared as we slowly followed the road across the camp area. From somewhere in the darkness came the faint hum of a diesel electric plant. ‘Do you reckon they’ve all gone down in those trucks?’ Garry asked. It was the first time he had spoken.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I hope so.’

We were almost clear of the camp when a man suddenly ran out into the middle of the road, flagging us down with his arm. ‘What do we do now?’ the driver asked. ‘Ignore him?’

But I knew we couldn’t ignore him. ‘You’ll have to pull up,’ I said. I could feel myself trembling and my feet and hands felt deathly cold. Something had gone wrong. Another man appeared beside the first; another and another — a whole bunch of them. As we pulled up they crowded round us. ‘Switch the dashboard light off,’ I said to the driver. And then leaning out of the darkness of the cab I flashed the beam of my torch on them, blinding them. ‘What the hell are you boys doing up here?’ I rasped. ‘Didn’t you get Trevedian’s orders? Every man is wanted down the trail. There’s been a bad fall. One of our trucks is buried.’

A man stepped forward, a big gangling fellow with a battered nose. ‘We only got here yesterday. We heard some sort of a commotion going on and then the trucks pulled out. They must have forgotten about us, I guess. We didn’t know what in hell was going on. We’d just about decided to take one of the trucks and go down and find out. We thought mebbe they were scared of another slide.’

I said, ‘Well, you’d better get down there as fast as you can. It’s an emergency call. Trevedian wants everybody down there.’

‘Then why didn’t you boys stay there?’

‘We had to clear the road,’ I said quickly. ‘Besides he wasn’t risking this stuff. It’s got to be up the top and ready to start operating tomorrow. Anybody on the hoist?’

‘I don’t know,’ the big fellow answered. ‘We’re new here.’

‘Well, if you’re new here you’d better look lively and get down the road. Trevedian’s a bad man to fall out with.’

‘Tough, eh? Well, nobody ain’t going to get tough with me.’ His voice was drowned in a babble of talk. Then the men began to drift away to their hut. I signalled the driver to go on and we rumbled into the trees and down the slope to the edge of the slide. A glow pierced the darkness ahead, resolved itself into an arc light hanging from a tall pine pole. There were others, a whole circle of lights blazing on the dazzling white of the snow, lighting up the concrete box of the cable housing. A figure appeared, armed with a rifle. ‘Hell!’ I breatried. That damned fool Butler had failed to collect the guard.

I clambered down from the cab and started to explain. But as soon as I told him we’d got to get our trucks up the hoist he began asking for my pass. ‘Don’t be a Goddam fool, man,’ I shouted. ‘Trevedian’s down at the fall trying to clear it. How in hell would he issue passes. Can you work the motor?’

He shook his head uncertainly.

‘Well, probably one of my men can handle it,’ I said.

But he said, ‘Nobody’s allowed to touch the engine except the hoist men.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I yelled at him. ‘This isn’t routine. This is an emergency. Don’t you know what’s happened?’ He shook his head. I leaned closer. ‘Better keep this under your hat. Nobody’s supposed to know. There’s a bad crack developed in the foundations of the dam. They think the cliff face may be moving. We’ve got to drill and find out what the strata underneath is formed of. And we’ve got to do it damned quick.’ I caught hold of his arm. ‘Christ, man, what do you think we’re doing up here when one of our own trucks is buried under a fall? We wanted to stay and help dig him out. But Trevedian wouldn’t let us. He said it was more important to get our trucks up on schedule.’

The man hesitated, conviction struggling against caution. ‘You wait here,’ he said and hurried back to the housing. Garry joined me. Through the slit I could see him winding and winding at the telephone. ‘What’s going to happen?’ Garry asked.

‘It’ll work out,’ I said.

‘Well, no rough stuff,’ he growled. ‘We’ve done about $10,000 worth of damage already tonight.’

‘They’d have a job to prove we did it,’ I said.

‘Mebbe. But if you try pulling a gun on this guy…’

‘I haven’t got a gun on me,’ I snapped irritably. ‘And anyway I’m not that much of a fool.’

The guard came out of the housing. ‘I can’t get any reply.’ His voice was hesitant. He was unsure of himself.

‘What did you expect?’ I snarled at him. ‘There’s a million tons of rock down on the road and the line’s under it. In any case, Trevedian’s at the fall, not in his office.’ I turned as figures emerged into the glare of the lights led by the man with the battered nose. ‘What’s the trouble?’ I said.

‘No keys in the trucks,’ he said. ‘What do we do now?’ They were muffled in fur jackets and wind-breakers. Some carried picks and shovels. ‘If we could have one of your trucks,’ he said.

I hesitated. But the snow was falling thick. Much as I wanted to get rid of them I didn’t dare risk one of the trucks. ‘Are you just labourers or have any of you been taken on as engineers on the draw works of the hoist here?’

It was a shot in the dark, a hundred to one chance, but it came off. One of them stepped forward. ‘Please. I am engaged to replace an engineer who is seek.’ Dark eyes flashed in a sallow face. ‘I am shown how eet works yesterday.’ He smiled ingratiatingly.

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Get in there and get the engine started.’ And as the little Italian hurried over to the housing I turned to the guard. ‘There. Does that satisfy you? Goddam it,’ I added. ‘You’d think that piece of machinery was something new in atomic weapons the way you fuss about it.’

‘But my orders-’

‘Damn your orders!’ I screamed, catching hold of him by his coat and shaking him. ‘It’s just a diesel engine. Like any other damned diesel engine. And this stuff has got to be up there first thing. And because of your blasted Trevedian and this bloody dam we’re up here instead of helping to dig out one of our pals.

I wish to God we’d never been given the job. But it’s a thousand bucks a day this outfit costs and there’ll be hell to pay if we’re not up there on schedule, snow or no snow.’ I swung round on the silent, gaping crowd of men. ‘All right. You stay here and give us a hand loading the trucks. Garry!’ He didn’t answer. He stood there, staring at me and for the first time that night I saw a gleam of excitement in his eyes, a hint of laughter. ‘Get your first truck on to the staging. These men will help you load and secure. Boy! You ride up with the first vehicle and supervise the offloading at the top. And see that you don’t waste any time.’ I turned to the bunch of men, standing there like sheep. ‘Any of you cook?’ It was the inevitable Chinaman who came forward. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘You get up to the cookhouse. I want hot chow for all of us in two hours’ time. Okay?’

‘Okay, mister. I can do. Velly good cook.’

‘See it’s hot,’ I shouted at him. ‘That’s all I care about.’

I turned then and went into the housing. The pilot motor was already running. The little Italian engineer grinned at me. The guard hovered uncertainly. The cable wheel trembled and the cage bumped as the rig truck was driven on to the staging. The guard touched my arm. His face was pale and he was still uncertain. He opened his mouth to say something and then the big diesel started with a roar that drowned all other sound. I saw a look of helplessness come into his eyes and he turned away.

I knew then that we were through the worst. He couldn’t hold the whole gang of us up with his rifle. Besides it must have seemed all right. I’d more than twenty men from the camp working with me. I had come in quite openly. All that made him doubtful, I imagine, was that his instructions had been dinned into him very thoroughly and forcefully.

Five minutes later the draw works began to turn and the first and heaviest truck went floating off into the whirling, driving white of the night. It was there for a second, white under its canopy of snow, looking strangely unreal suspended from the cable, and then it reached the limits of the lights and vanished abruptly. It was like a scene from a pantomime where some object takes to the air and is lost as it moves from the circle of the spotlight.

I stayed inside the engine housing. I was safe there. Nobody could talk to me against the roar of the engine. One or two tried, but gave it up. I had warned Garry to see that all his men knew the story and stuck to it if they got into conversation with any of the men from the camp or if the guard started asking questions. Shortly after two-thirty the Chinaman brought down big thermos flasks full of thick soup, piping hot, and a great pile of meat sandwiches. Three trucks were up by then. A fourth was just leaving. We sent one flask up with it. The snow was still falling. ‘It sure must be hell up top,’ one of the drivers said. His face was a white circle in the fur of his hood. ‘Have you been up on this thing, Mr Wetheral?’

‘Yes,’ I said. And suddenly I realised he was scared. ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘You won’t see anything. It’ll just be cold as hell.’

He nodded and swallowed awkwardly. ‘I’m scared of heights, I guess.’

Somebody shouted to him. His mouth worked convulsively. ‘I must go now. That’s my truck.’

‘Switch your cab lights on,’ I called after him as he climbed on the staging. ‘It’ll just be like a road then.’

He nodded. And a moment later he was on his way, a white bloodless face staring at the wheel he was gripping as the diesel roared and the cables swung him up and out into the night.

By four o’clock the sixth truck was being loaded. Every few minutes now I found myself glancing at my watch. Eight minutes past four and the hoist was running again. Only one more truck. ‘What’s worrying you?’ Garry shouted above the din of the engine.

‘Nothing,’ I said.

He didn’t say anything, but I noticed that his eyes kept straying now to the point where the roadway up to the camp plunged into darkness. Suppose Butler and his gang had smelt a rat. Or maybe he’d send a truck up for more equipment. They’d find the bridge down. It wouldn’t take them long to repair it. Any moment they might drive in, asking what the hell was going on. My hands gripped each other, my eyes alternating between the road and the big iron cable wheel. At last the wheel stopped and we waited for the phone call that would tell us they had unloaded.

‘They’re taking their time,’ Garry growled. His face looked tired and strained. I had started to tremble again. I tried to pretend it was the cold, but I knew it was nervous strain. At last the bell rang, the indicator fell and the engineer started the cage down. That ten minutes seemed like hours. And then at last the cage bumped into the housing, the diesel slowed to a gentle rumble and we could hear the engine of the last tanker roaring as it drove on to the cage. We went out into the driving snow then and watched the securing ropes being made fast.

It was ten to five and the faintest greyness was creeping into the darkness of the night as Garry and I climbed up beside the driver. I raised my hand, there was a shout, the cable ahead of us jerked tight and then we, too, were being slung out into the void.

I don’t remember much about that trip up. I know I clutched at the seat, fighting back the overwhelming fear of last minute failure. I remember Garry voicing my thoughts: ‘I hope they don’t catch us now,’ he said. ‘We’d look pretty foolish swinging up here in space till morning.’

‘Shut up,’ I barked at him, my voice unrecognisable in its tenseness.

He looked at me and then suddenly he grinned and his big hand squeezed my arm. ‘They don’t breed many of your type around this part of the world.’

The minutes ticked slowly by. A shadow slipped past my window. The pylon at the top. We were over the lip. Two minutes later our progress slowed. There was a slight bump and then we were in the housing.

Figures appeared. The lashings were unhitched, the engine roared and with our headlights blazing on to a wall of snow we crawled off the staging and floundered through a drift to stop above the dam.

As we climbed out the cage lifted from the housing and disappeared abruptly. The ground seemed to move under my feet. I heard Boy’s voice say, ‘Well. that’s the lot, I guess. You’re in the Kingdom now, Garry — rig and all.’ Then my knees were giving under me and I blacked out.

I came to in the firm belief that I was on board a ship. There was a reek of hot engine oil and the cabin swayed and dipped. And then I opened my eyes and found myself staring at the luminous dial of an oil gauge. Raising my eyes I saw a faint glimmering of grey through a windscreen. ‘You okay, Bruce?’ It was Boy’s voice. He was propping me up in the seat of a cab and we were grinding slowly through thick snow. ‘You’ll be all right soon. There’s hot food waiting for us at the ranch-house. We had to stop to fix chains. The snow is pretty deep in places.’

I remember vaguely being spoon-fed hot soup and men moving about, talking excitedly, laughing, pumping my hand. And then I was lying in a bed. But this time it was different. It wasn’t because I was ill. It was only because I was physically and nervously exhausted. And I was back in the Kingdom. The rig was here at last. We were going to drill now. And with that thought I went to sleep and stayed asleep for twelve hours.

And when I woke up Boy was there beside me and he was grinning and saying that the rig would be up before nightfall. When I went down to the drilling site next morning I found the rig erected and the draw works being tightened down on to the steel plates of the platform. The travelling block was already suspended from the crown and the kelly was in its rat housing. They had already begun to dig a mud sump and there were several lengths of pipe in the rack.

I stood there with Boy and Garry and stared across to the dam less than a mile away. The sun was shining and already the snow was beginning to melt. I was thinking it was time Trevedian came storming into our camp. But nobody seemed to be taking any notice of us. The hoist moved regularly in and out of the housing, the loads of cement were stacked under their tarpaulins, the mixers chattered noisily and every now and then there was the heavy roar of blasting and more stone was run down in the tip wagons or slung on the cable across to the centre of the dam. ‘We’ll have to mount a guard,’ I said.

Boy wiped the sweat from his face. ‘I’m sleeping down here,’ he said. ‘And I’ve got that pistol of yours. There are four rifles on the site as well.’

I nodded, still looking across the dam. ‘The next move is with them,’ I murmured half to myself.

Garry chuckled. ‘Mebbe he’s had enough. You sure fooled them.’

I turned away. I didn’t like it. The natural thing would have been for Trevedian to come and raise hell. It wasn’t in the nature of the man to take it lying down. But he didn’t come that day, or the next, or the next. I didn’t feel up to heavy work so I took over the cooking again.

On the morning of Tuesday, June 9th, just a week after the rig had rolled into Thunder Valley, Garry spudded in. I stood on the platform and watched the block come down and the bit lowered into the hole. The bushing was dropped into the table, gripping the grief stern, and then at a signal from Garry the platform trembled under my feet, the big diesel of the draw works roared and the table began to turn. We had started to drill Campbell Number Two.

I walked slowly back to the ranch-house to the music of the drill, the noise of it drowning the irritating chatter of the mixers at the dam. Strangely I felt no elation. It was as though I had sailed out of a calm and felt the threatening presence of the approaching storm. I went into the kitchen and began peeling the potatoes for the evening meal.

Half an hour later I heard the patter of feet, the door was pushed open and a big brown collie fell upon me, barking and licking my hand and jumping up to get at my face. It was Moses. He was spattered with mud and his coat was as wet as if he’d just swam the Jordan. I went out into the grey murk of the morning and there, coming up beside the barn was Jean riding a small pinto. She pulled up as she saw me and sat there, looking at me. Her hair was plastered down with the rain so that it clung to her scalp showing the shape of her head like a boy. Her face looked strained and almost sad. The pony dropped its head. She sat motionless. Only her eyes seemed alive. ‘Mac said you needed a cook?’ Her voice was toneless.

‘Yes,’ I said. And I just stared at her. I couldn’t think of anything to say. And yet there was a singing in my blood as though the sun were shining and the violets just opening.

‘Well, I hope I’ll do.’ She climbed stiffly down from the saddle, undid her pack and walked slowly towards me. She stopped when she reached the doorway. She had to, I suppose, because I was blocking it. We looked at each other for a moment.

‘Why did you come?’ I asked at length. My voice sounded hoarse.

She lowered her gaze. ‘I don’t know,’ she said slowly. ‘I just had to, I guess. I brought you this.’ She handed me a bulky envelope. ‘Now I’d like to change please.’

I stood aside and she went through into the bedroom. I turned the envelope over. It was postmarked London. Inside was a whole sheaf of typewritten pages, the newspaper report of my grandfather’s trial which I had asked a friend to copy for me. I stabled the pinto and then I sat down and read through the report. Stuart Campbell had himself gone into the witness box. His evidence was the story of his discovery of the seep, of the abortive drilling in 1913, of his sincere conviction that there was oil in the Kingdom. Most of it I now knew, but one section of it hit me like a blow between the eyes. It occurred during cross-examination by his own counsel:

Counsel: This well you were drilling in 1913 why did you suddenly abandon it? Witness: We couldn’t go on. Counsel: Why not? Witness: We struck a sill of igneous rock. We were operating a cable-tool drill and it was too light for the job. Counsel: At what depth was this? Witness: About five thousand six hundred feet.

We had to have a heavier drill and that meant more capital.

Counsel: And so you came to England? Witness: Not at once. I tried to raise money in Canada. Then the war came …

I leaned back and closed my eyes. Five thousand six hundred! And our geophysical survey showed an anticline at five thousand five hundred. The anticline was nothing but the sill of igneous rock that my grandfather had struck in 1913. God, what a fool I’d been not to get hold of the account of this case before starting to drill. Why hadn’t my grandfather mentioned it in his progress report? Afraid of discouraging me, I suppose. I got to my feet and went over to the window and stood there staring across the alfalfa to the rig, wondering what the hell I was going to do. But there wasn’t anything I could do. It hadn’t stopped my grandfather from trying to drill another well.

‘I wish somebody from back home would write me nice long letters like that.’

I swung round to find Jean standing beside me. ‘It’s just a business letter,’ I said quickly. I folded it up and put it back in the envelope. I couldn’t tell her that what she had brought me was the full account of Stuart Campbell’s trial.

That night the stars shone and it was almost warm. The second shift was working and we strolled down to the rig where it blazed like a Christmas tree with lights rigged up as far as the derrick man’s platform. We were talking trivialities, carefully avoiding anything that could be regarded as personal. And then in a pause I said, ‘Didn’t you like it in Vancouver?’

‘Yes, I was having fun — dancing and sailing. But-’ She hesitated and then sighed. ‘Somehow it wasn’t real. I think I’ve lost the capacity to enjoy myself.’

‘So you came back to Come Lucky?’ She nodded. ‘To escape again?’

‘To escape?’ She looked up at me and there was a tired set to her mouth. ‘No. Because it was the only place I could call home. And then-’ She walked on in silence for a bit. Finally she said, ‘Did you have to slap Peter Trevedian in the face like that?’

‘I had to get the rig up here. It was the only way.’

She didn’t say anything for a moment. Then she sighed. ‘Yes. I suppose so.’

We came to the rig and climbed on to the platform and stood there watching the table turning and the block slowly inching down as the drill bit into the rock two hundred feet below us. Beneath us the screen shook and the rock chips sifted out of the mud as it returned to the sump. Bill was standing beside the driller. ‘What are you making now?’ I shouted to him.

‘About eight feet an hour.’

Eight feet an hour. I did a quick calculation. Roughly two hundred a day. Then twenty-five days — say a month — should see us down to the anticline?’

He nodded. ‘If we can keep this rate of drilling up.’

We stayed until they shut down at midnight. We were working two teams of four on ten-hour shifts and closing down from midnight to 4 a.m. It was the most the men could do and keep it up day after day. Boy and I were taking it in turns to stand guard on the rig. Moses acting as watchdog.

We were soon settled into a regular routine. One day followed another and each was the same, the monotony broken only by the variable nature of the weather. June dragged into July and each day two more lengths of pipe had been added to the length of the drill. The heat at midday became intense when the sun shone and the nights were less cold. Snow storms became less frequent, but whenever the sun shone throughout the morning thunder heads would build up over the mountains around midday and then there’d be rain and the thunder would rumble round the peaks and they would be assailed by jabbing streaks of lightning. And all the time the alfalfa grew and the Kingdom was carpeted with lupins and tiger lilies and a host of other flowers.

And in all that time Trevedian had not once come near us. The work at the dam was going on night and day now. Once we rode over at night to have a look at it and where Campbell land stopped and Trevedian land began, the boundary was marked by a heavy barbed wire fence. There was a guard on the hoist and on the dam itself and they carried guns and had guard dogs.

The sense of being cut off gradually overlaid all our other feelings. The drill might probe lower and lower, boring steadily nearer to the dome of the anticline, but in all our minds was that sense of being trapped, of not being able to get out. We were completely isolated in a world of our own, the radio our only contact with the outside world. And when that broke down the Kingdom closed in on us.

I wouldn’t have minded for myself. If I’d been up there on my own I should have been happy. But my mood reacted inevitably to the mood of the others and all the time I had the uncanny feeling that we were all waiting for something to happen. Our isolation wasn’t natural. Fergus couldn’t ignore us indefinitely. He didn’t dare let us bring in a well. And there was Trevedian. That phrase of Jean’s — about slapping Trevedian in the face — stuck in my mind. The man was biding his time. I felt it. And so did Jean. Sometimes I’d find her standing, alone and solitary, her work forgotten, staring towards the dam.

And then the blow fell. It was on July 4th. Boy had left that morning taking core samples down to Winnick in Calgary. The weather was bad and when I came on watch at midnight it was blowing half a gale with the wind driving a murk of rain before it that was sometimes sleet, sometimes hail and occasionally snow. I was wearing practically everything I could muster, for the wind was from the east and it was bitterly cold. As usual I had Moses with me and the Luger was strapped to my belt.

The team on duty closed down the draw works and the drill clattered to a standstill. The rig stopped shaking and all was suddenly silent except for a queer howling sound made by the wind in the steel struts of the rig. As the big diesel of the draw works stopped the lights snapped off and blackness closed in. Torches flickered and then the boys called out Goodnight and followed along the line of markers that led back to the ranch-house, four hunched figures against the flickering light of their torches. Then a curtain of sleet blotted them out and the dog and I were alone on the empty platform of the rig.

The switch from noisy activity to utter blackness was, I remember, very sudden that night. The lights of the dam were completely blotted out and there was not even the ugly rattle of the mixers to keep me company since they were down-wind. I was alone in the solitude of the mountains.

I made the usual round of the trucks which were drawn up at various points in the vicinity of the rig. It was a routine inspection and my torch did not probe very inquisitively. It was too cold. The dog, I remember, was restless, but whether because he smelt smoking or had a premonition or just because he didn’t like the weather I cannot say. I finished the round as quickly as possible and then climbed to the platform. For a time I paced up and down and at length I sought the comparative warmth of the little crew shelter, a wooden hut at the back of the platform fitted with a bench. I smoked cigarettes, occasionally opening the door and peering out.

Time passed slowly that night. The dog kept moving about. I tried to make him settle, but every time he got himself curled up something made him get to his feet again!

It was about two-thirty and I had just peered out to see it snowing hard. As I closed the door, Moses suddenly cocked his head on one side and gave a low growl. The next moment he leapt for the door. I opened it and he shot through. And at the same instant there was a great roar of flame, a whoof of hot air that seemed to fling back the snow and seared my eyeballs with the hot blast of it. It was followed almost instantly by two more explosions in close succession that shook the rig and sent great gobs of flaming fuel high into the night.

In the lurid glare of one of these liquid torches I saw a figure running, a shapeless unrecognisable bundle of clothing heading for the dam. And behind him came Moses in great bounds. The figure checked, turned and as Moses leapt I saw the quick stab of a gun, though the sound of it was lost in the holocaust of flame that surrounded me. The dog checked in mid leap, twisted and fell.

I had my gun out now and I began firing, emptying the magazine at the fleeing figure. Then suddenly the pool of flame that had illuminated him died out and he vanished into the red curtain of the driving snow.

As suddenly as they had started the flames died down. For a moment I saw the skeletons of the two tankers, black and twisted against the lurid background. And then quite abruptly everything was dark again, except for a few bits of metal that showed a lingering tendency to remain red hot. I hurried down from the platform of the rig and at the bottom I met Moses, dragging himself painfully on three legs. In the light of the torch I saw a bullet had furrowed his shoulder. He was bleeding badly and his right front leg would support no weight. I tried to feel whether the blade of the shoulder had been broken, but he wouldn’t let me touch it.

I made a quick round of the remaining vehicles to check that there was nothing smouldering. Wisps of smoke still came from the burnt-out tankers, but there was no danger of any more fire. They were already sizzling gently and steaming as the snow settled on their twisted metal frames. Then I hurried to the ranch-house with Moses following as best he could.

Every moment I expected to meet the others running to the rig to find out what had happened. It seemed incredible to me that they couldn’t have seen the glare of that blaze. And yet when I reached the house it was in darkness. There was no sound. They were all fast asleep and blissfully ignorant of the disaster. For disaster it was; I knew that by the time I’d covered half the distance to the house. The attack had been made on the one thing that could stop us dead.

Without fuel we could not drill. And like my blowing up of the road it would be a hard thing to prove in a court of law.

The first person I woke was Jean and I gave Moses into her care, avoiding meeting her gaze as I told her briefly what had happened. I was scared of the reproach I knew must be in her eyes. She loved that dog. After that I woke Garry.

I think that was one of the hardest things I ever had to do, to tell Garry that two of his trucks were gone and all his fuel. I knew what he’d think — that I had started the rough stuff, that I had invited this raid. He didn’t say anything when I had finished, but put on his clothes and strode out into the storm. I followed him.

When he’d looked at the damage he said, ‘Well, I hope the insurance company pay up, that’s all.’ We went into the hut then. ‘Cigarette?’ He thrust the packet towards me. As we lit up he said, ‘It might have been worse, I guess. The whole rig could have gone.’ He leaned back and closed his eyes, drawing on his cigarette. ‘We’re down just over four thousand two hundred. Fortunately the rig tank was filled up yesterday. There’s probably two hundred gallons or so in it. That’ll get us down to about four thousand five hundred. With luck we’ll only need another seven hundred gallons — say a thousand.’ He had been talking to himself, but now he opened his eyes and looked across at me. ‘Any idea how we’ll get a thousand gallons of fuel up here?’

‘We’ll have to bring it in by the pony trail,’ I said.

‘Hmmm. Twenty gallons to a pony; that means fifty ponies. Know where you can get fifty ponies? It’ll make the cost about a dollar a gallon. That’s a thousand bucks and I’m broke. Can you raise a thousand bucks?’

There was nothing I could say. His big frame looked crumpled and tired. An hour later the morning shift came on. They stood and stared at the gutted trucks, talking in low, excited whispers. ‘Well, what are you waiting for?’ Garry shouted at them. ‘Get the rig going.’

He remained with them and I walked slowly back to the ranch-house, hearing the clatter of the drill behind me, very conscious that they could go on drilling for just over a week and then we’d have to close down.

Jean was still up as I staggered wearily in. ‘How’s Moses?’ I asked as I pulled off my wet clothes.

‘He’ll be all right,’ she said and went through into the kitchen. She came back with a mug of tea. ‘Drink that,’ she said.

‘What about Moses?’ I said, taking the mug. ‘Is his shoulder all right?’

‘The bone’s not broken, if that’s what you mean. It’s just a flesh wound. He’ll be all right.’

I drank the tea and flung myself into a chair. She brought in logs and built the fire up into a blaze. ‘Hungry?’

I nodded. And then I fell asleep and she had to wake me when she brought in a plate of bacon and fried potatoes. She sat down opposite me, watching me as I began to eat. Moses came in, moving stiffly, and sat himself beside me, licking my hand as much as if to say, ‘Sorry I didn’t get that bastard for you.’ I stared down, fondling his head. And then I gave him the plate of food. Suddenly I didn’t feel like eating. Instead I lit a cigarette and watched the dog as he cleared the plate.

There was a dry sob and I looked across the table to see Jean staring at me, tears in her eyes. She turned quickly as our eyes met and went out into the kitchen. I got to my feet and went over to the window. The snow had stopped now. Dawn had broken and the wisps of ragged cloud were lifting and breaking up. Even as I watched, the clouds drew apart from the face of Solomon’s Judgment. I went out to the barn where I slept, got my things together and took them across to the stables. As I was saddling up Jean came in. ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.

‘Get on to Johnnie,’ I said. ‘See if he’ll pack the fuel up for me.’

‘You’re going alone?’

‘Yes.’

She hesitated and then went back to the house. Before I’d finished saddling, however, she returned, dressed for the trail. ‘What’s the idea?’ I said. ‘There’s no point in your coming with me.’

She didn’t say anything, but got out her pinto and flung the saddle on it. I tried to dissuade her, but all she said was, ‘You’re in no state to go down on your own.’

‘What about Moses?’

‘Moses will be all right. And the boys can cook for themselves for a day or so.’

Something in the set of her face warned me not to argue with her. I had an uneasy feeling that her coming with me was inevitable, a necessary part of the future. I scribbled a note for Garry, left it on the table in the living-room and then we rode up the mountainside. It was quiet in the timber, a quiet that was full of an aching, damp cold. And when we emerged the mist had clamped down again. We rode in silence, forcing the reluctant horses forward. At times we had to lead them, particularly near the top where the mist was freezing and coating the rocks with a thin layer of ice. Then suddenly there was a breath of wind on our faces and the white miasma of the mist began to swirl in an agitated manner. A rent appeared, a glimpse of the Kingdom and of the rig with the two burnt-out trucks, and then as though a screen had been lifted bodily the whole mountainside was suddenly visible and there was the Saddle and beyond it the nearer peak of Solomon’s Judgment.

It was fortunate for us that the mist did clear for the trail over the Saddle was not an easy one and in places it was difficult to follow. It was dangerous, too, for a slight deviation at the top brought one out on to the edge of a sheer drop of several hundred feet. It is possible that the fact that I have described several trips made over this trail will give the impression that it was straightforward. In good weather conditions this would certainly be true. But these are the Rocky Mountains, and though not particularly high, the great mass of mountains together with the wide variations in climatic conditions, particularly of humidity, between the coast and the prairies to the east, makes them very uncertain as regards weather and subject to great extremes of conditions. At this altitude, for instance, there is not a month in the year when it does not snow and storms can come upon the traveller with astonishing rapidity if he is not high enough up to get an unobstructed view of the sky.

Having started so early we were down into the timber again before ten. Jean insisted on a rest here and we sat on a deadfall and ate the biscuits and cheese which she had very thoughtfully included in her pack. I was very tired after my sleepless night and extremely depressed. We had not yet drilled deep enough for me to feel any of the excitement that is inherent in drilling when the bit is approaching the probable area of oil. Without fuel success was as remote as ever and I cursed myself for not having foreseen the most probable means by which Trevedian would get back at us.

‘What do you plan to do when we get down into the valley?’ Jean asked suddenly.

I looked at her in surprise. ‘Phone Johnnie,’ I said. ‘I can always get him through Jeff.’

‘Where are you going to phone from?’

‘The Golden Calf, of course. Mac will-’ I stopped then for she was laughing at me. It wasn’t a natural laugh. It was half bitter, half contemptuous. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Don’t you understand what you did when you blew the Thunder Valley road? You’d get battered to pulp if you went into Come Lucky now.’

‘Who by — Trevedian?’ I asked.

‘Of course not. By the boys you fooled. You actually got some of them to help you load the trucks on to the hoist, didn’t you?’ I nodded. ‘Trevedian was pretty sarcastic when he hauled them over the coals for being such mutts. If any of those boys got their hands on you-’ She shrugged her shoulders. That’s why I came up to the Kingdom, to stop you walking into a bad beating up.’

‘Sort of nursemaid, eh?’ I felt, suddenly, violently angry. What right had this girl to act as though she were responsible for me? ‘Pity you weren’t around last night. You might have saved me from making a fool of myself, which would have been more to the point.’

‘You’ll have to ride into Keithley and phone from there,’ she said quietly.

‘I’ll do no such thing.’ I got abruptly to my feet and went over to my horse. ‘The nearest phone is at the Golden Calf and that’s where I’m going.’

She didn’t attempt to argue. She just shrugged her shoulders and swung herself up into the saddle. ‘I’ll pick up the pieces,’ she said.

The sun was shining as we rode up the hill to Come Lucky. The door of Trevedian’s office was open. He must have seen us coming for as we drew level he came to the door and stood there watching us, leaning against the jamb and smoking a cheroot. His skin was the colour of mahogany against the white of his nylon shirt, and he wore scarlet braces. No words were exchanged between us, but out of the corners of my eyes I could see he was smiling. I wondered how long he had sat at his desk with the door open watching for me to come down the trail from the Kingdom.

We met nobody in the sun-drenched street. The place seemed dead as though the whole population were up working on the dam. We tied our horses to the hotel rail and Jean led me in by the back way. Pauline stared at us as we entered and then there was the rasp of a chair and James McClellan stormed towards me, his face scowling with sudden anger. ‘I’ve been wanting to have a word with you, Wetheral, for a long time.’ His fists were clenched. His eyes were cold and there was an ugly set to his jaw.

There was only one thing to do. ‘Was it you or Trevedian — or both of you — who set fire to our trucks last night?’

He stopped in his tracks. ‘What’s that? Are you trying to swing something on-’

‘I’m not swinging anything on you,’ I said. ‘I’m just asking you, McClellan — were you in on it?’

‘In on what?’ He had halted. Pauline had hold of his arm. Her face was white. They were both staring at me.

There’s about two thousand gallons of fuel gone up and two trucks. Shots were fired. You’re damn lucky it was only a dog that got hit.’ I turned towards the office. ‘Mind if I use the phone?’

‘You brought it on yourself,’ he said. ‘If you phone the police, then Trevedian will report what happened-’

‘I’m not phoning the police,’ I said over my shoulder. ‘I’m phoning for more fuel.’

The office was empty. I got hold of the phone and put a personal call through to Jeff Hart at Jasper. Then I sat there, waiting, feeling sleep creeping up on me, trying to keep myself awake. I heard voices in the kitchen and then a door slammed and all was quiet. Half an hour later my call came through and I explained to Jeff Hart what had happened. He couldn’t get away himself, but he’d talk to Johnnie and ring me back in the evening.

I went out into the kitchen then. It was empty. I sat down in the chair by the stove and went to sleep. It was Pauline who woke me. She had made me some coffee and there was a plate full of bacon and eggs waiting for me. ‘You shouldn’t have bothered,’ I murmured sleepily.

‘It’s no trouble.’

‘Where’s Jean?’

The corners of her mouth turned down and she gave a slight shrug — a very Latin gesture. ‘She is with Miss Garret, I think.’ She came and sat near me as I ate, watching me with her big, dark eyes. ‘You look tired.’

‘I am tired,’ I said. ‘I was up all night.’

She nodded slowly, understandingly.

‘Jean told you what happened?’

‘Oui. I am very sorry.’ She smiled, a flash of white teeth. ‘I am sorry also that you do not stay. But it is dangerous for you.’

‘I’ll have to stay till this evening. I’m waiting for a call.’

‘No, no. It is dangerous, I tell you.’

I looked at her, a mood of frustration and annoyance taking hold of me. ‘Another nursemaid, eh?’

‘Please?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

Jean came in then. ‘We must go now, Bruce. There are some men coming up from the bunkhouse. I think Trevedian sent them up.’

I explained about the phone call. But all she said was, ‘Do you want to get beaten up?’

‘You think I’m no good in a scrap?’

She hesitated fractionally. ‘You’ve been ill,’ she said. ‘I don’t think you’re very strong.’ She must have guessed what I was thinking for she added, ‘The way you handled Jimmy won’t work with them.’

She was right, of course, but it went against the grain to appear a coward. And yet it wouldn’t do any good. Reluctantly I got to my feet. Pauline suddenly touched my arm. ‘I will take your call for you, if you wish.’

‘That’s kind of you, Pauline,’ Jean said.

I hesitated, feeling caught in the web of a woman’s world, feeling like a skunk. ‘All right,’ I said and told her what I wanted to say. ‘If he can come, arrange where I can meet him. Okay?’

She nodded, smiling. ‘Okay. I will leave a message for you with Miss Garret.’

I thanked her and we went out the back way and round to the front to get our horses. There were about a dozen men coming up the street, a rough-looking bunch headed by a man I recognised, the man who had been on guard at the hoist the night we ran the rig up to the Kingdom. He was a little fellow with bandy legs and a mean face. He had been cowed when I had seen him before, but now, backed up by the men behind him, he had a cocky air. ‘That’s him,’ he shouted. ‘That’s the bastard.’ And he began to run towards us. The others followed at his heels and they were almost on us as we unhitched our ponies and swung into.the saddle. I heeled my animal into a canter and side by side we drove through them. But as I passed, the fellow shouted a remark. It wasn’t aimed at me. It was aimed at Jean. It was just one word and without thinking I reined up and swung round. I caught a glimpse of the colour flaring in Jean’s face as she called to me to ride on.

The whole bunch of them were laughing now and thus emboldened the little bow-legged swine called out. ‘Why d’yer keep her all to yerselves? Why don’t yer let her visit us — alternate nights, say?’ He leered at Jean and then let his filthy tongue run riot with further and more detailed abuse.

I don’t know what got into me. I hadn’t felt this way in years — that sense of being swept up in a red blur of rage. I pushed my horse towards him. ‘Say that again,’ I said. All that had happened in the last twelve hours seemed condensed into that one sordid little figure. I saw the trucks blossom into flame, the spurt of the gun as it was emptied at the dog, the look of tired resignation on Garry Keogh’s face. The man hesitated, glancing round at his companions and then, with sudden truculence born of the herd, he moutried that one word again.

I dug my heels into my horse’s ribs and drove straight at him. I saw him fall back, momentarily knocked off balance and as the horse reared I flung myself from the saddle, grappling for his throat as my arms closed around him. We hit the dirt of the street and I felt his breath hot on my face as it was forced out of his lungs with a grunt. Then hands reached for me, clutching at my arms, twisting me back and pinning me down against the gravel. Fingers gripped my hair and as my skull was pounded against the hard earth I saw half a dozen faces, panting and sweaty, bending over me.

And then there was the sharp crack of an explosion and something whined out of the dust. The faces fell back and as I sat up I saw Jean sitting close alongside my horse, the Luger that had been in my saddle-bag smoking in her hand. And her face was calm and set. She held the ugly weapon as though it were a part of her, as though shooting were as natural as walking or riding. The men saw it, too, and they huddled together uncertainly, their faces unnaturally pale, their eyes looking all ways for a place to run. ‘Are you all right, Bruce?’

‘Yes,’ I said, struggling to my feet.

‘Then get on your horse.’

She levelled her gun at the bunch standing there in the street. ‘Now get back to Trevedian. And tell him next time he tries to shoot my dog I’ll kill him.’

She slipped the automatic back into my saddlebag and in silence we turned and rode down the street out of Come Lucky. For a long time I couldn’t bring myself to speak. Only when we had reached a clearing above the ford and had dismounted did I manage to thank her. It wasn’t pride or anything like that. It was just that I’d caught a glimpse of the other side of Jean, the side she had tried to forget.

She looked at me and then said with a wry smile, ‘Maybe I should thank you — for rushing in like a school kid just because of a word.’ The way she put it hurt, particularly as I was confused as to my motives, but there was a softness in her eyes and I let it go. ‘How did you know the gun was in my saddle-bag?’

‘I felt it there when we stopped on the way down. It was partly why I came. I was scared you might-’ She hesitated and then turned away. ‘I don’t quite understand you, Bruce. You’re not predictable like most people.’ She swung round and faced me. ‘Why didn’t you give up when you found you were faced with a big company?’ And when I didn’t answer, she said, ‘It wasn’t ignorance, was it? You knew what you were up against?’

‘Yes, I knew,’ I said, sinking down into the warmth of the grass.

‘Then why did you go on?’

‘Why did you come back to Come Lucky — to the Kingdom?’

She came and sat beside me, chewing on a blade of grass. There was a long silence and then she said, ‘Isn’t it about time we had things out together?’

‘Why were you running away and then suddenly turned and faced life — why I refused to give up a hopeless project? Maybe.’ But I knew I couldn’t tell her the truth. I knew I had to quench this growing intimacy. And yet I said, almost involuntarily, ‘Why did you leave me that gun?’

‘I thought you might need it.’

I looked at her, knowing it wasn’t the real reason. She knew it, too, for she put out her hand. ‘Just leave it at that, Bruce. The message is there, in the weapon itself. You know what that message is as well as I do. You know the truth about my father, why I had to come back and see Stuart. You know that, don’t you?’ I nodded. ‘Then leave it at that please. Don’t let’s talk about it, ever again.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

‘No, there’s nothing to be sorry about.’ Her voice was very quiet, but quite firm — no tremor in it at all, no regrets. ‘He died as a man should die — fighting for something he believed in. He was half French, you know — and when it came to the pinch he found he loved France more than money, more than life itself.’

She got up and walked away then. And I lay back in the grass, closed my eyes and was instantly asleep. It was cold when she woke me and the valley was deep in shadow. We ate the few remaining biscuits and then, as night closed in, we hobbled the horses and cut across the road and along the slope of the hillside. We made a detour and entered Come Lucky from above. The two Miss Garrets welcomed us with a sort of breathless excitement. They had heard what had happened that morning and to them our nocturnal arrival, the sense that they were hiding us from a gang of wicked men was pure Victorian melodrama. Sarah Garret was particularly affected, talking in whispers, a high colour in her cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes. Miss Ruth Garret was more practical, several times looking to the bolting of the door, getting us food and coffee and trying desperately to maintain an aloof, matter-of-fact air. I found it all a little ridiculous, rather like a game — and yet the reality of it was there, in our need of a place to stay the night, in the two burnt-out trucks up in the Kingdom.

Shortly after our meal, when we were sitting having coffee, Pauline arrived. Johnnie would meet me at 150 Mile House to-morrow evening or, if he couldn’t make it, the following morning. She had other news, too. A stranger had arrived at the Golden Calf. He wasn’t a fisherman and he was busy plying Mac with drinks and pumping him about our activities in the Kingdom. Boy’s visit to Calgary and Edmonton was evidently bearing fruit.

That night I slept in the Victorian grandeur of a feather bed. It was Sarah Garret’s room. She had moved in with her sister for the night. It was not a large room and it was cluttered with heavy, painted furniture, the marble mantelpiece and the dressing-table littered with china bric-a-brac. The bedstead was a heavy iron affair adorned with brass. For a long time I lay awake looking at the stars, conscious of the smell of the room that took me back to my childhood — it was a compound of lavender and starch and lace. My mind was busy, going over and over the possibilities of packing the necessary fuel up to the Kingdom. And then just as I was dropping off to sleep I heard the door open. A figure came softly into the room and stood beside my bed, looking down at me.

It was Sarah Garret. I could just see the tiny outline of her head against the window. ‘Are you awake?’ she asked. Her voice trembled slightly.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Then light a candle please.’

I got out of bed, wrapping a blanket round me, and found my lighter. As the thin light of the candle illuminated the room I turned to her, wondering why she was here, what had driven her to this nocturnal escapade. She took the candlestick from me, her hand trembling and spilling grease. ‘I have something to show you,’ she said.

She crossed over to a big trunk in the corner. It was one of those great leather-covered things with a curved top. There was a jingle of keys and then she had it open and was lifting the lid. It was full of clothes and the smell of lavender and mothballs was very strong. ‘Will you lift the tray out, please?’

I did as she asked. Underneath were more clothes. Her joints creaked slightly as she bent and began to lift them out. Dresses of satin and silk piled up on the floor, beautiful lace-edged nightgowns, a dressing gown that was like something out of Madame Butterfly, a parasol, painted ivory fans, necklaces of onyx and amber, a bedspread of the finest needlework.

At last the trunk was empty. With trembling fingers she felt around the edges. There was a click and the bottom moved. She took the candle from me then. ‘Lift it out, please.’

The false bottom of that trunk was of steel and quite heavy. And underneath were neat little tin boxes. She lifted the lid of one. It was filled with gold coins. There were several bars of gold wrapped in tissue paper, and another box contained gold dust. The last one she opened revealed several pieces of jewellery. ‘I have never shown anybody this,’ she said.

‘Why have you shown me?’ I asked.

She looked up at me. She had a brooch in her hand. It was gold studded with amethyst, and the amethysts matched the colour of her eyes and both gleamed as brightly in the candlelight. ‘This was my favourite.’

‘Why have you shown me all this?’ I asked again.

She sighed and put the brooch back. Then she signalled me to replace the false bottom. She operated the hidden catch fixing it in position and then returned the clothes to the trunk. When the lid was finally down and locked she pulled herself to her feet. She was crying gently and dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. ‘That is all I have left of my father,’ she said, her voice trembling slightly. ‘He made it in the Come Lucky mine and when he died that was my share. There was more, of course, but we have had to live.’

‘You mean that was how he left you his money?’

She nodded. ‘Yes. He did not believe in banks and modern innovations like that. He liked to see what he had made. My sister-’ She sighed and blew her nose delicately. ‘My sister thought she knew better. She was engaged to a man in Vancouver and he invested it for her. She lost it all. The stocks were no good.’

‘And her fiance?’

She gave a little shrug. ‘The man was no good either.’

‘Why have you told me this? Why have you shown me where you keep your money?’

She stared at me for a moment and then she gave me a beautiful little smile. ‘Because I like you,’ she said. ‘I had a — friend once. He was rather like you. A Scotsman. But he was already married.’ She got to her feet. ‘I must go now. I do not want my sister to know that I have done anything so naughty as visiting a man in his bedroom.’ Her eyes twinkled at me. And then she touched my arm. ‘I am an old lady now. There has been very little in my life. You remember the parable of the talents? Now that I am old I see that I have made too little use of the money my father gave me. Jean told us what had happened up in the Kingdom. I would like to you to know that you do not have to worry about money. You only have to ask-’

‘I couldn’t possibly-’ I began, but she silenced me.

‘Don’t be silly. It is no good to me and I would like to help.’ She hesitated and then smiled. ‘Stuart Campbell was the friend I spoke about. Now perhaps you understand. Goodnight.’

I watched her as she went out and then I sat down on the bed, staring at the old leather trunk with a strong desire to cry. I still remember every detail of that visit from Sarah Garret and I treasure it as one of the most beautiful memories I have.

A few hours later I left. The house was silent and as I walked down through the shacks of Come Lucky the sky was just beginning to pale over Solomon’s Judgment. I walked along the lake-shore and waited for a truck coming down from Slide Camp. It took me as far as Hydraulic and from there I got a timber wagon down to 150 Mile House. Jean was to take my horse back up to the Kingdom and now that I was on my own I found a mood of depression creeping over me.

But when Johnnie arrived everything was different. He came with a couple of Americans. They were on holiday and they regarded the whole thing as a game, part of the fun of being in the Rockies a long way from their offices in Chicago. As soon as they knew the situation they got on the phone to a whole list of farmers along the valley. But we soon discovered that though horses were easy to hire it was difficult to get them complete with packing gear. The farms were widely dispersed and the better part of a week had passed before we had a total of twenty-six animals with gear coralled at a homestead a few miles west of Beaver Dam Lake.

On the 15th July we moved them up to the entrance to Thunder Creek and the following morning, as arranged, we rendezvoused with the vehicle trucking in our containers. It took us over 24 hours to pack that first 500 gallons up to the Kingdom. Every four hours we off-loaded and let the animals rest. It was back-breaking work and the weather was bad with several thunderstorms and thick mist on the slopes of the Saddle. Without Johnnie I should have turned back, but he seemed to be able to smell the trail out through mist and blinding hail. And the men who were hiring him to show them the Rockies were in high spirits, always anticipating worse conditions that we actually experienced, apparently thoroughly happy to combine pleasure with some real outdoor work.

The atmosphere when we came down into the Kingdom was one of tense excitement. The whole bunch came out to meet us. The rig had stopped drilling three days back for lack of fuel and Jean told me afterwards that if I hadn’t turned up when I did Garry would have asked Trevedian to hoist the rig down. Time was running out for him. But just before we arrived an Imperial Oil scout had ridden in. This recognition from the outside world had lifted their spirits slightly and with the arrival of the fuel and the starting up of the rig again enthusiasm was suddenly unbounded.

Two days later the four of us brought a second 500 gallons up. We now had enough fuel to drill to nearly six thousand feet at the present rate. At the time they started the rig again they were at four thousand six hundred and making over twelve feet an hour through softish rock. By the time we packed in the second load of fuel they were past the five thousand mark and going strong.

I remember Johnnie standing in front of the rig the day he and his two Americans took the pack animals down. ‘I’d sure like to stay on up here, Bruce,’ he said. He, too, had been caught by the mood of excitement. Boy had arrived that morning and with him was a reporter from the Calgary Tribune. Five thousand five hundred feet was the level at which they expected to reach the anticline and hanging over me all the time was the knowledge that it wasn’t oil we were going to strike there, but the sill of igneous rock that had stopped Campbell Number One. I couldn’t tell anybody this. I just had to brace myself to combat the sense of defeat when it came.

‘Oil isn’t much in your line, is it, Johnnie?’ Jean said.

He grinned. ‘I guess not. But I’ll need to know what we’re to put on old Campbell’s tombstone.’

‘Just quote him as saying, “There’s oil in the Rocky Mountains,” Garry said. ‘That’ll be enough.’

Everybody laughed. It was a thin, feverish sound against the racket of the drill and I thought of the grave I had found behind the ranch-house and how they were all up here because of him. They were pretty keyed up now, and their optimism had a feverish undercurrent that wasn’t healthy.

As the days went by the suspense became almost unbearable. At first there were anxious inquiries as each shift came off duty, but as we approached the end of July the mood changed and we’d just glance at the shift coming off, unwilling to voice our interest, one look at their faces being sufficient to tell us that there were no new developments. The waiting was intolerable and a mood of depression gradually settled on the camp. We were drilling through quartzite and making slower progress than we had hoped. Time was against us. With each day’s drilling our fuel reserves were dwindling. And meanwhile the dam was moving steadily towards completion. Sometimes on an evening Jean and I would ride up to the rock buttress and look at the work. Already by the first week in August there was only a small section to be completed and engineers were working on the installation of the sluices and pens. From higher up the mountainside we could see that work on the power station beside the slide had also started. Some of the drilling crew were in touch with men working on the dam from whom they were able to purchase cigarettes at an inflated price, and from them they learned that the completion date was fixed for August 20th. Worse still, the Larsen Company planned to begin flooding immediately in order to build up a sufficient head of water to run a pilot plant during the winter.

At the beginning of August we were approaching five thousand five hundred and Garry was getting restive. So were his crew. They had been up in the Kingdom for almost two months. The cuttings, screened from the mud as it flowed back into the sump pit, showed us still in the metamorphic rock. No jokes were cracked on the site now. Nobody spoke much. Four of the boys had started a poker school. I tried to break it up, but there was nothing else for them to do. They’d no liquor and no women and they were fed up.

The inevitable happened. There was a fight and one of them, a fellow called Weary Dodds, got a finger smashed in the draw works. He was lucky not to have had his arm ripped off for he was flung right against the steel hawser that was lifting the travelling block. Jean patched it up as best she could, but she couldn’t patch up the atmosphere of the camp — it was very tense.

Just after nine on the morning of August 5th they pulled pipe for what they all hoped might be the last time. The depth was five thousand four hundred and ninety feet. They were all down on the rig, waiting. They waited there all morning, watching the grief stem inching down through the turntable and I stood there with them feeling sick with apprehension. They pulled pipe again at two-fifteen. Another sixty-foot length of pipe was run on and down went the drill again, section by section. The depth was now five thousand five hundred and fifty feet. Those not on shift drifted back to the ranch-house. We had some food and a tense silence brooded over the meal.

At length I could stand the suspense no longer. I drew Garry on one side. ‘Suppose we don’t strike the anticline exactly where we expect to,’ I said. ‘What depth are you willing to drill to?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘The boys are getting restive.’

‘Will you give it a margin of two thousand feet?’

‘Two thousand!’ He stared at me as though I were crazy. That’s nearly a fortnight’s drilling. It’d take us right up to the date of completion of the dam. Anyway, we haven’t the fuel.’

‘I can pack some more up.’

He looked at me, his eyes narrowed. ‘There’s something on your mind. What is it?’

‘I just want to know the margin of error you’re willing to give it.’

He hesitated and then said, ‘All right, I’ll tell you. I’ll drill till we’ve exhausted the fuel that’s already up here. That’s four days more. That’ll take us over six thousand.’

‘You’ve got to give a bigger margin than that,’ I said.

He caught hold of my arm then. ‘See here, Bruce. The boys wouldn’t stand for it.’

‘For God’s sake,’ I said. ‘You’ve been drilling up here now for two months. Are you going to throw all that effort away for the sake of another fortnight?’

‘And risk losing my rig when they flood the place? Good Christ, man, you don’t seem to realise that we’ve all had about as much as we can take. I’ve lost two trucks; neither the rig nor any of the boys are earning their keep. If we don’t bring in a well-’

He stopped then for the door burst open and Clif Lindy, the driller on shift, came in. There was a wild look in his eyes. ‘What is it, Clif?’ Garry asked.

‘We’re in new country,’ he said.

‘The anticline?’

But I knew it wasn’t the anticline. His face, his whole manner told me that this was the moment I had dreaded. They had reached the sill.

‘We’re down to rock as hard as granite and we’ve worn a bit out in an hour’s drilling.’ He caught hold of Garry’s arm. ‘For God’s sake,’ he said, ‘let’s get the hell out of here before we’re all of us broke.’

‘How much have you made in the last hour?’ Garry asked.

‘Two feet. The boys want to know shall we stop drilling?’

Garry didn’t say anything. He just stood there, looking at me, waiting to see what I was going to say.

‘You’re just throwing away good bits and wearing out your rig for nothing,’ Clif said excitedly.

‘What do you say, Bruce?’ Garry asked.

‘It’s the same formation that stopped Campbell’s cable-tool rig. If you get through this-’

‘At two feet an hour,’ Clif said with a laugh that trembled slightly. ‘We could be a month drilling through this.’ He turned to Garry. ‘The boys won’t stand for it, not any more. Nor will I, Garry. I don’t mind risking a couple of months for the chance of making big dough. But we know damn well now that we’re not going to bring in a-’

‘How do you know?’ I cut in.

He laughed. ‘You go and ask Boy. You ask him what he thinks about it. Only you won’t find him, not around camp here. He’s away into the mountains to brood over Campbell’s folly — and his own. He thought when the country changed we’d be down to the anticline. He didn’t expect to get into igneous country this deep.’ His fingers dug into my flesh as he gripped my arm. ‘If you want my opinion Boy Bladen doesn’t know enough about geophysics to plot a gopher hole. As for Winnick, well damn it, isn’t it obvious? His office is right next door to Henry Fergus. He’d put it across you.’ He looked across at Garry and his tone was suddenly quieter as he said, ‘The boys want to haul out.’

Garry didn’t say anything for a moment. He stood there rasping his fingers along the line of his jaw. ‘I wonder how thick through this sill is,’ he murmured. ‘Most of them around here are not more than a hundred, two hundred feet — those that are exposed on the mountain slopes, that is.’

That’s four days’ drilling,’ Clif said. ‘And what’s below the sill, when we get through it? I ain’t a geologist, but I’m not such a fool as to expect oil bearing country directly below a volcanic intrusion.’

Garry nodded slowly. ‘I guess you’re right, Clif.’ He turned towards the door. ‘I’ll come down and have a look at what’s going on. Coming, Bruce?’

I shook my head. I stood there, watching them disappear through the doorway, a mood of anger and bitterness struggling with the wretchedness of failure.

‘I’m sorry, Bruce.’ A hand touched my arm and I turned to find Jean beside me.

‘You heard?’

‘No, Boy told me. I went down to see to the horses and found him in there, saddling up. I came back to-’ She hesitated and then finished on a note of tenderness: To break it to you.’

‘Why the hell didn’t Boy have the guts to come and tell me himself?’ I exploded.

‘Boy’s sensitive,’ she murmured.

‘Sensitive?’ I cried, giving rein to my feelings. ‘You mean he’s a moral coward. Instead of supporting me and trying to lick some enthusiasm into this miserable bunch of defeatists, he immediately concludes his survey is inaccurate and goes crawling off into the mountains like a wounded cur. I suppose that’s the Indian in him.’

‘That’s a rotten thing to say.’ Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright with sudden anger.

‘If you think so much of the little half-breed,’ I said, ‘why don’t you go with him to nurse his wounded pride?’

She opened her mouth to speak, and then slowly closed it. ‘I’ll get you some coffee,’ she said quietly and went through into the kitchen.

I flung myself into the one armchair. Probably Stuart Campbell had flung himself into the self-same chair when he got the news that drilling was no longer possible on Campbell Number One. It wasn’t Boy’s fault any more than it was Garry’s. They’d both of them taken a chance on the property. They couldn’t be expected to go on when they’d lost all hope of bringing in a well. The anger and bitterness I had felt had subsided by the time Jean returned with the coffee. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t have let fly like that.’

She put the tray down and came and stood near me. Her hand reached out and touched my hair. Without thinking I took hold of it, grasping it tightly like a drowning man clutching at a straw. The next moment she was in my arms, holding my head down against her breast. The feel of her body comforted me. The promise of happiness whatever happened to the Kingdom filled me with a sudden feeling that life was good. I kissed her lips and her hair, holding her close, not caring any longer about anything but the fact that she was there in my arms. And then very gently I pulled myself clear of her and got to my feet. ‘I must go down to the rig,’ I said.

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘No. I’d rather go alone. I want to talk to them.’

But when I got there I knew by the expression on their faces that this wasn’t the moment. They were sitting around in the hut and the rig was silent. They were as angry and bitter as I had been, but with them it was the bitterness of defeat.

The decision to quit was taken the following morning. And as though he’d been given a cue Trevedian arrived whilst we were still sitting around the breakfast table. We all sat and stared at him, wondering what the hell he wanted. I saw Garry’s big hand clench into a fist and Clif half rose to his feet.

I think Trevedian sensed the violence of the hostility for he kept the door open behind him and he didn’t come more than a step into the room. His black eyes took in the bitterness and the anger and then fastened on me. ‘I’ve brought a telegram for you, Wetheral. Thought it might be urgent.’

I got slowly to my feet wondering why he should have bothered to come all the way up with it. But as soon as I’d read it I knew why. It was from my lawyers. Henry Fergus instituting proceedings against you in civil courts for fraudulently gaining possession mineral rights Campbell’s Kingdom mortgaged to Roger Fergus. Essential you return Calgary soonest. Willing to act for you provided assured your financial position. Please advise us immediately. Grange and Letour, solicitors. I looked up at Trevedian. ‘You know the contents, of course?’

He hesitated, but there was no point in his denying it. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘If you care to let me have your reply I’ll see that it’s sent off.’ There was a note of satisfaction in his voice, though he tried to conceal it. I wondered which of the boys kept him informed about what was happening on the rig. The timing was too good for it to be coincidence.

‘What is it?’ Jean asked.

I handed her the wire. It was passed from hand to hand. And as I watched them reading it I knew that this was the end of any hope I might have had of getting them to drill deeper. With the mineral rights themselves in doubt the ground was cut away from under my feet. And yet… I was thinking of Sarah Garret and what she had said there in my room that night.

‘So they’re starting to work on you,’ Garry said.

‘I’ve ample proof of what happened,’ I said.

‘Sure, you have — that is till you see what the witnesses themselves are willing to say in the box. I’m sorry, Bruce,’ he added. ‘But looks like they’re going to put you through the mincer now.’

‘Fergus told me to give you a message,’ Trevedian said. ‘Settle the whole business out of court, sell the Kingdom and he’ll give you the $50,000 he originally offered.’

I didn’t say anything. I was still thinking about Sarah Garret. Had she meant it? But I knew she had. She’d not only meant it, but she wanted to help. I went over to the desk and scribbled a reply.

As I finished it Garry’s voice suddenly broke the tense silence of the room: ‘Two thousand dollars a vehicle! You must be crazy.’

I turned and saw that he’d taken Trevedian on one side. Trevedian was smiling. ‘If you want to get your trucks down, that’s what it’s going to cost you.’

Garry stared at him. The muscles of his arms tightened. ‘You know damn well I couldn’t pay it. I’m broke. We’re all of us broke.’ He took a step towards Trevedian. ‘Now then, suppose you quote me a proper price for the use of the hoist.’

Trevedian was back at the open door now. Through the window I saw he hadn’t come alone. Three of his men were waiting for him out there.

Garry had seen them too and his voice was under control as he said, ‘For God’s sake be reasonable, Trevedian.’

‘Reasonable! By God I’m only getting back what it cost us to repair the road after you’d been through.’

‘I didn’t have anything to do with that,’ Garry said.

‘No?’ Trevedian laughed. ‘It was just coincidence that your trucks were in the Kingdom by the time we’d cleared the rubble of that fall. Okay. You didn’t use the hoist. You had nothing to do with blocking the road.’ He leaned slightly forward, his round head sunk between his shoulders, his voice hard. ‘I suppose you’ll tell me you packed the whole damned outfit up the pony trail. Well, pack ‘em down the same way if you don’t like my terms. See which costs you most in the end.’ He turned to me. ‘What will I tell Fergus?’ he asked.

I hesitated, glancing round the room. They were all watching me, all except Jean who had turned her face away and Garry who was so angry that I was afraid for the moment that he would rush Trevedian.

‘Well?’

I turned to Trevedian. ‘Tell him,’ I said, ‘that I’m going to seek an injunction to restrain him from flooding the Kingdom. And let him know that if he doesn’t want to lose any more money he’d better stop work on the dam and the power station until he knows what the courts decide. And you might have this wire sent off for me.’ I handed him the slip of paper.

He took it automatically. I think he was too astonished to speak. Then he glanced down at the message and read it. ‘You’re crazy,’ he said. ‘You haven’t the dough to start an action like this.’

‘I think I have.’

‘Well, whether you have or not is immaterial,’ he said harshly. ‘No Canadian court is going to grant you an injunction against the damming up of a useless bit of territory like this. You don’t seem to realise what you’re up against. This dam is going to open up a big mining industry, feed a whole new area with’-’

‘I know quite well what I’m up against,’ I said, suddenly losing control of myself. ‘I’m up against a bunch of crooks who don’t stop at falsifying surveys, setting fire to fuel tankers, trespassing on other people’s property, shooting and attempting to expropriate land that doesn’t belong to them. It hadn’t occurred to me to start legal proceedings. But if Fergus wants it that way, he can have it. Tell him I’m fighting him every inch of the ground. Tell him that what we’ve proved already by drilling, together with Win-nick’s evidence, will be enough to satisfy any Canadian court. And by the time he’s got his dam finished I’ll have brought in a well up here. Now get out.’

Trevedian hesitated, a bewildered expression on his face. ‘Then why does Keogh want to get his trucks down?’

‘Because we’re just about through here,’ I said quickly. ‘Now get the hell out of here and tell your boss, Henry Fergus, that the gloves are off.’

He stood there, his mouth half open as though he was about to say something further. ‘You heard what Wetheral said.’ Garry was moving towards him, his hands low at his side, the fingers crooked, expressive of his urgent desire to throw Trevedian through the doorway. The boys were closing in on him, too. He turned suddenly and ducked through the doorway.

For a moment we all stood there without moving. Then Garry came over and grasped my hand. ‘By God, I got to hand it to you,’ he said.

I pushed my hand wearily across my face. ‘It was all bluff,’ I said.

He peered down at me. ‘How do you mean? Aren’t you going to fight ‘em?’

‘Yes, of course I’m going to fight them.’ I suddenly felt very tired. I think it was the knowledge that I’d got to go back to Calgary.

‘Did you really mean you’d got a backer?’ Clif asked.

‘Yes.’ I looked across at Jean. ‘Would you make me up a parcel of food?’

She nodded slowly. ‘You’re going to Calgary?’

‘Yes.’ I turned back to Garry. ‘You’re willing to go on drilling?’

He looked round at his crew. ‘And why not, eh, boys? We go on drilling till we have to swim for it? That right?’ They were suddenly all grinning and shouting agreement. ‘We’re right with you, Bruce.’ There was a gleam in his eyes and he added, ‘I’d sure like to get even with that bastard.’ And then the gleam died away. There’s one or two things though. We’ve only got fuel for four more days of drilling. We’re getting short of food up here, too. There’s a whole lot of things we need.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘Make out a list of your requirements for another month. Get hold of Boy, tell him to hire the pack animals Johnnie and I had before. He’s to have them corralled at Wessels Farm the other side of Beaver Dam Lake in three days’ time — that’s the 8th August. I’ll meet him there. Tell him to have all the supplies laid on ready. I’ll wire him the money at Keithley.’

‘I’ll do that.’ His big hand gripped my shoulder. ‘You look like you aren’t strong enough to hold your own against a puff of wind. But by God you’re tougher than I am.’ He turned towards the door. ‘C’m on, boys. We’ll get the rig started up again.’ He waved his hand to me. ‘Good luck!’ he said. ‘And just keep your fingers crossed in case this sill goes deep.’

I got my things together and then went out to the stables. I was saddling up when Jean came in with a package of food. ‘Shall I come with you?’ she asked.

‘No,’ I said. This is something I have to do alone.’

She hesitated then said, ‘You’re going to see Sarah, aren’t you?’ I didn’t say anything and she added, ‘She’s your backer, isn’t she?’

‘How did you know?’

She smiled a trifle sadly. ‘I lived there for three years, you know.’ She pushed the food into my pack. ‘Does she have enough?’ I was tightening my cinch. She caught hold of my arm. ‘It’ll cost a lot to fight a legal battle.’

‘A delaying action, that’s all,’ I said. ‘If we don’t bring in a well…’ I shrugged my shoulders. ‘Then I don’t care very much.’

‘We’ll bring in a well.’ She reached up and kissed me. For a second I felt the warmth of her lips on mine and then she was gone.

As I rode up the trail to the Saddle I could hear the draw works of the rig sounding their challenge across the Kingdom. It was like music to hear it working again, to know that the whole crowd were solidly behind me. ‘Pray God it comes out right,’ I murmured aloud. But I felt tired and depressed. Calgary scared me and I wasn’t sure of myself.

I waited till nightfall before entering Come Lucky, riding in from above it and wending my way through the huddle of shacks. There was a glow of lamplight in the windows of the Garret home. Ruth Garret answered my knock. She stared at me coldly through her lorgnette. ‘Have you brought Jean back, Mr Wetheral?’

‘Jean? No.’

‘Oh, dear. What a pity. There’s so much talk in the town. It was bad enough when she insisted on living up there with that queer old man. But keeping house for a lot of-’ She hesitated. ‘Roughnecks is what they call them.’

‘That’s only the name for men who work a rig,’ I said. ‘They’re a good crowd. May I come in? I want to see your sister.’

‘My sister? Yes, of course. Come in.’

Sarah Garret rose as I entered. She seemed to know what I had come for. ‘You’re in a hurry, I expect,’ she said.

‘I have to go to Calgary.’

She nodded. ‘There’s a rumour you’re going to get the courts to stop the work on the dam. That’s why you’ve come, isn’t it?’

I nodded.

Her eyes were bright and there was a little spot of colour in each of the waxen cheeks. ‘I’m glad,’ she said. She took me through into her room, talking all the time, a little breathless, a little excited. She wanted to know all my plans, everything that had happened that morning. And whilst I talked she unlocked the tin trunk and took out the clothes. When I had lifted out the false bottom, she picked out two of the little tin boxes and put them into my hands. There,’ she said. ‘I do hope it will be enough, but I must keep sufficient for my sister and me to live on.’ One of the boxes contained gold dust, the other two small bars of gold.

‘You do realise,’ I said, ‘that I may not be able to repay you. We may fail.’

She smiled. ‘You foolish man. It isn’t a loan. It’s a gift.’ She let the lid of the trunk fall. ‘I think my father would have been glad to think that I have saved it for something that was important to someone.’

‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ I murmured.

‘Nonsense. I haven’t had so much excitement since-’ She looked at me and I swear she blushed. ‘Well, not for a very long time.’ Her eyes twinkled up at me. ‘Will you promise me something? When all this is over, will you take me up to the Kingdom? I haven’t been out of Come Lucky for so long and I would like to see it again, and the log houses and the tiger lilies. Are there tiger lilies there still?’

I nodded. For some reason I couldn’t trust myself to speak.

‘Now you must hurry. If they hear you are in Come Lucky-’ She hustled me to the door. ‘Put the boxes under your coat. Yes, that’s right. Ruth mustn’t see them. I think she suspects, but-’ Her frail fingers squeezed my arm. ‘It’s our secret, eh? She wouldn’t understand.’

Ruth Garret was waiting for us in the living-room. ‘What have you two been up to?’ The playfulness of the remark was lost in the sharpness of her eyes.’

‘We were just talking,’ her sister said quickly. She put her hand on my arm and led me out. She paused at the front door. ‘Are you going to marry Jean?’

The suddenness of the question took me by surprise.

‘You’re an extraordinary person,’ I said.

‘You haven’t answered my question.’

I looked down at her and then slowly shook my head. ‘No.’

‘Why not? She’s in love with you.’ I didn’t answer. ‘Did you know that?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you? Are you in love with her?’

Slowly I nodded my head. ‘But I can’t marry her,’ I said. And then briefly I told her why. ‘That’s also a secret between us,’ I said when I had finished.

‘Doesn’t it occur to you she might want to look after you?’

‘She’s been hurt once,’ I said. ‘She doesn’t want to be hurt again. I can’t do that to her. I must go now.’

‘Yes, you must go now.’ She opened the door for me. As I stepped out into the night I turned. She looked very frail and lonely, standing there in the lamplight. And yet beneath the patina of age I thought I saw the girl who’d known my grandfather. She must have been very lovely. I bent and kissed her. Then I got on my horse and rode quickly out of Come Lucky.