Nothing to Lose

II

I lay awake for hours that night, fighting for breath. I can admit it now — I was scared. But the more sick at heart I felt, the more determined I became to reach Campbell’s Kingdom.

Next day Jeff Hart and Johnny Carstairs both came down after lunch to see me off. They insisted on carrying my two hand grips and walked one on either side of me, as though they were afraid I’d die on them right there.

“Hang it!” Jeff growled. “Any time you need help, Bruce, there’s a couple of pals right here in Jasper you might call on.”

“We’ll be up to see you sometime,” Johnny added. I waved acknowledgment and as I watched the black outline of the station fade in the wind-driven snow, I felt a lump in my throat.

We reached Ashcroft just before midnight. When I asked at the hotel about the road to Clinton, they told me it had been open for the last two days. I felt my luck was in then and that nothing could stop me. Next morning I bought a pair of good waterproof boots and tramped the round of the local garages. My luck held. At one of them I found a mud-be-spattered car filling up with gas, a logger bound for Prince George. He gave me a ride as far as 150-Mile House.

I spent the night there and in the morning got a lift as far as Keithley Creek. It was dark when I arrived. The country was deep in snow and it was freezing hard. I resigned myself to a long delay here, but, to my surprise, when I talked to the proprietor of the hotel after dinner, he told me the road to Come Lucky had been open for a fortnight. I crawled into bed feeling dead to the world, and for the first time in months slept like a log.

I slept right through to eleven o’clock and was wakened with the news that the packer was in from Come Lucky and would be leaving after lunch. I was taken out and introduced to a great ox of a man who was loading groceries into an ex-army truck.

We pulled out of Keithley just after two, the rattle of the chains deadened by the soft snow. I glanced at my companion. He was wrapped in a huge bearskin coat and he had a fur cap, with ear flaps, and big skin gloves. His face was the color of mahogany. His nose was broad and flat, and his little eyes peered into the murk from below a wide forehead that receded quickly to the protection of his Russian-looking cap. His huge hands gripped the steering wheel as though he had to fight the truck every yard of the way.

After half an hour we were climbing steadily beside the black waters of the Little River. Timbered fountain slopes rose steeply above us and I got a momentary glimpse of a shaggy gray head of rock high above us and half veiled in cloud. I glanced at my companion and suddenly it occurred to me that this might be the packer whom Johnny Carstairs had talked about.

“Is your name Max Trevedian?” I asked him.

He turned his head slowly and looked at me. “Ja, that is my name.”

So this was the man who could take me up to Campbell’s Kingdom before the snows melted. “Do you know Campbell’s Kingdom?” I asked him.

“Campbell’s Kingdom!” His voice had a sudden violence of interest. “Why do you ask about Campbell’s Kingdom?”

“I want to go up there.”

“Why? It is too soon for visitors. Are you an oil man?”

“No. What made you ask?”

“Oil men come here last year. There was an old devil lived up in the mountains who thought there was oil there. But he was a swindler!” he growled. “A dirty, lying old man who swindle everyone!” His voice had risen suddenly to a high pitch and his little eyes glared at me hotly. “You ask my brother Peter.”

I was beginning to understand what Johnny Carstairs had meant when he had said the man was an ornery critter. It was like traveling with an animal you’re not quite sure of, and we drove on in silence.

Shortly afterward we reached another stream and began to descend. The going was better here, and as dusk began to fall we came out onto the shores of a narrow lake. Come Lucky was at the head of it. The town was half buried in snow, a dark huddle of shacks clinging to the bare, snow-covered slopes of a mountain. Beyond it a narrow gulch cut back into the mountains and lost itself in a gray veil of cloud. The road appeared to continue along the shore of the lake and into the gulch. We turned right, however, up to Come Lucky and stopped at a long low shack, the log timbers of which had been patched with yellow hoards of untreated pine. There was a notice on one of the doors: Trevedian Transport Company Office. This was as far as the track into Come Lucky had been cleared. A drift of smoke streamed out from an iron chimney. A door slammed and a fat Chinaman waddled out to meet us. He and Max Trevedian disappeared into the back of the truck and began off-loading the stores. I stood around waiting, and presently my two suitcases were dropped into the snow at my feet. The Chinaman poked his head out of the back of the truck.

“You stay here?” he asked.

“Is this the hotel?”

“No. This is bunkhouse for men working on road up Thunder Creek.”

“Where’s the hotel?” I asked.

“You mean Mr. Mac’s place, the Golden Calf?” He pointed up the snow-blocked street. “You find up there on the right side.”

I thanked him and trudged through the snow into the town of Come Lucky. It was a single street bounded on either side by weatherboarded shacks. The roofs of many of them had fallen in. Some had their windows ripped out, frames and all. Doom hung rotting on their hinges. It was my first sight of a ghost town.

The Golden Calf was about the biggest building in the place. The sidewalk was solid here and roofed over to form a sort of street-side veranda. The door of the hotel opened straight into an enormous barroom. The bar itself ran all along one side, and behind it were empty shelves backed by blotchy mirrors. The room was warm, but it had a barrack-room emptiness about it that was only heightened by the marks of its one-time Edwardian elegance.

I put my bags down and drew up a chair to the stove. The warmth of the room was already melting the snow on my storm coat. My trousers steamed. I took off my outer clothes and sat back, letting the warmth seep into my body. I felt deathly tired.

Beyond the stove there was a door, and beside it a bell push. I pulled myself to my feet and rang. After a time the door was opened by a dour-faced man who looked me over with the disinterest of one who has seen many travelers and is surprised at nothing.

“Are you Mr. Mac?” I asked him.

He seemed to consider the question. “Me name’s McClellan,” he said, “but most folk around here call me Mac. Ye’re wanting a room?”

“Yes,” I said. “My name’s Bruce Wetheral. I’ve just arrived from England.”

“Weel, it’s a wee bit airly in the season for us, Mr. Wetheral, Ye’ll no mind feeding in the kitchen wi’ the family?”

“Of course not.”

The room he took me to was bare except for the essentials — an iron-framed bed, a wash basin, a chest of drawers and a chair. But the room was clean and the bed looked comfortable.

They kept farmhouse hours at the hotel, and I barely had time to wash and unpack my things before an old Chinaman called me for tea. By the time I got down, the McClellan family was all assembled in the kitchen, a huge room designed to feed the seething population of Come Lucky in its heyday. Besides the old man and his sister, Florence McClellan, there was his son, James, and his family — his wife, Pauline, and their two children, Jackie, aged nine, and Kitty, aged six and a half. Pauline was half French, raven-haired and buxom, with an attractive accent and a wide mouth. She laughed a little too often, showing big white teeth.

There was one other person at the big, scrubbed deal table, a thick-set man of about forty with tough, leathery features. His name was Ben Creasy and he was introduced to me as the engineer who was building the road up Thunder Creek. The meal was cooked and served by the old Chinaman.

Nobody spoke during the meal, not even the children. Eating was a serious business. After the meal, the men drifted over to the furnace-hot range and sat and smoked while the women cleared up. Old Mac and his son were talking about cattle, and I sat back, my eyes half closed, succumbing to the warmth. I gathered James McClellan ran a garage in Keithley Creek and farmed a piece of land on the other side of the lake.

“And what brings ye up to Come Lucky at this time of the year, Mr. Wetheral?” the old man asked me suddenly.

The question jerked me out of my reverie. He was looking across at me, his drooped lids almost concealing his eyes, his wrinkled face half hidden in the smoke from his short-stemmed brier.

“Do you know a place near here called Campbell’s Kingdom?” I asked him.

“Aye.” He nodded, waiting for me to go on.

“How do I get up there?” I asked.

“Better ask Ben.” The old man turned to Creasy. “Do ye ken what the snow’s like at the head o’ the creek, Ben?”

“Sure. It’s pretty deep. Anyway, he couldn’t get past the fall till it’s cleared.”

“Why do you want to go up to the Kingdom?” the younger McClellan asked.

“I’m Campbell’s grandson,” I said.

They stared at me in astonishment. “His grandson, did ye say?” The old man was leaning forward, and his tone was one of incredulity.

“Yes.”

James McClellan darted his head forward. “Why do you want to see the Kingdom?” he asked. There was sudden violence in the way he repeated the question.

“Why?” I stared at him, wondering at the tenseness of his expression. “Because it belongs to me.”

“Belongs to you!” He stared at me unbelievingly. “But the place is sold. It was sold to the Larsen Mining and Development Company.”

The Larsen Mining and Development Company? The name was fresh in my memory. It was the name that had been newly painted on the frosted door of Henry Fergus’ office. Acheson and his desire to have foe sell fell into place then.

“I had an offer from the company,” I said, “but I turned it down.”

“You turned it down!” McClellan kicked his chair out from under him as he jerked to his feet. “But—” He stopped and looked slowly across at Creasy. “We’d better go and have a word with Peter.” The other nodded and got to his feet. “You’re sure you really are Campbell’s heir?” he asked me.

“Yes. Is that anything to do with you?” I was a little uncertain, disturbed by the violence of his reaction. He looked scared.

“By heaven, it is!” he said. “If—” He seemed to take bold of himself and hurried out of the room, followed by Creasy.

I turned and stared after them in astonishment. “What was all that about?” I asked the old man. He was still sitting there thumbing tobacco into his pipe.

He didn’t say anything for a moment and as he lit his pipe he stared at me over the flame of the match. “So you’re Campbell’s heir and the legal owner of the Kingdom,” he murmured. “What are your plans?”

“I thought I might live up there,” I said. “My grandfather did.”

“Aye. For twenty years old Campbell lived there.” His voice was bitter and fie spat out a piece of tobacco. “Dinna he a fool, laddie,” he said. “The Kingdom’s no place for ye. And if it’s oil you’re looking for, ye won’t find it, as many of us in this town have learnt to our cost. There’s no oil in these mountains. Bladen’s survey proved that once and for all. Take my advice; sell out and gang home where you belong.”

I leaned back slackly in my chair. Everything was so different from what I had expected — the place, the people, the way they regarded my grandfather, I felt suddenly very tired and went up to my room. Half an hour later I was in bed listening to the sound of the wind. Out there in the darkness, only a dozen or so miles away, was the place I had come so far to see. I was at the end of my journey.

When I got down to breakfast the next morning, the others had finished. The Chinaman served me bacon and eggs and coffee, and after I had eaten I got some clothes and went out to have a look at Come Lucky. The snow had stopped. I turned down through the snow toward the bunkhouse, where a heavy American truck with a bulldozer loaded in the back was drawn up outside the office of the Trevedian Transport Company. The driver came out just as I reached it. He was a big, cheerful man in an old buckskin jacket and olive-green trousers.

“Are you taking that bulldozer up Thunder Creek?” I asked him.

“Yes. Want to ride along?”

There seemed no point in hanging around Come Lucky. “Yes,” I said. “I only got in last night. I haven’t had a chance yet to see much of the country.” I climbed up into the cab beside him and he swung the big truck down the snow-packed grade to the lakeshore road. There we turned right and rumbled along the ice-bound edge of the lake toward the dark cleft of Thunder Creek. “Where’s this road going to lead to when it’s finished?” I asked him.

He stared at me in surprise. “Shouldn’t have thought you could stay a night in Come Lucky and not know the answer to that one. It’s going up to the cable hoist at the foot of Solomon’s Judgment.” He peered through the windshield. “Seems like the clouds are lifting. Maybe you’ll get a glimpse of Solomon’s Judgment after all. Quite a sight where the big slide occurred. The mountain falls away sheer nearly two thousand feet. Happened around the same time as the Come Lucky slide.” He nodded through his side window. “Doesn’t look much from here when it’s covered in snow like it is now. But you see those two big rocks up there? That’s just about where the entrance to the old Come Lucky mine was. They reckon there’s three or four hundred feet of mountainside over that entrance right now.” He started talking about the geological causes of the slide and I watched the slowly lifting clouds as we ground our way along the edge of the lake.

Then we were climbing steeply, reaching back into a tributary of Thunder Creek to gain height. The road twisted and turned, sometimes running across bare, smooth rock ledges, sometimes under overhanging cliffs. On some of the hairpin bends the driver had to back up in order to complete the turn. The engine roared and the cab became stifling hot.

“Quite a road, isn’t it?” The driver grinned at me and then his eyes flicked quickly back to his steering.

We topped a shoulder of rock bare of trees, and I caught a brief glimpse of two snow-covered peaks towering above the dark timbered slopes and of a sheer wall of rock that fell like a black curtain across the end of the valley.

“That’s the slide I was telling you about!” the driver shouted. “And that’s Solomon’s Judgment, those twin peaks!” He revved the big Diesel engine and changed gear.

“Do you know Campbell’s Kingdom?” I asked the driver.

“Heard of it,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road. “It’s up there,” he said, pointing to the peaks.

My heart sank. It looked like a long, steep climb. “How far does the road go?” I asked.

“The road? Well, it doesn’t go up to the Kingdom.” He laughed. “There’s two thousand feet of cliff there. Right this minute the road only goes about half a mile farther. But when it’s finished it’ll go as far as the hoist.” He swung the truck round a bend and there, straight ahead of us, two bulldozers and a gang of men were working on a section of the track that had been completely obliterated, “An avalanche did that, by the looks of it,” the driver said. The snow had completely engulfed the waters of Thunder Creek, which flowed out from a black arch underneath it... “Hey, Ben! I got your other bulldozer for you!”

Creasy was coming back up the road toward us. “About time,” he said. “This is a fair cow, this one.” He looked across at me. “You haven’t wasted much time getting out here.” He turned to the driver, who was already in the back of the truck, loosening the securing tackle of the bulldozer.

I walked to the lip of the road and gazed down into the creek bed, half filled with the wrack of the avalanche. It was a pretty terrifying sight. I followed the black thread of the creek up the valley to where it tumbled in white foam over a fall at the bottom of the slide.

Not even repeated and heavy falls of snow could wholly mask that slide or the black face of the fault, towering skyward like an improbable wall two thousand feet high. And above the fault rose the twin peaks I had watched grow bigger all the way up the valley. From their summits powdery snow streamed lazily upward like smoke. Separating the two peaks was a narrow cleft, a dark gash in the mountain face, and across the upper end of it was wedged a shelf of rock like a wall. Something about that wall caught and held my gaze. Though it was breached in the center, it was too regular to be natural and it was of a lighter shade than the rock walls of the cleft.

“Like to have a look through these?” The driver was standing beside me and he was offering me a pair of glasses. I focused them on the cleft and instantly the lighter-colored rock resolved itself into a wall of concrete. I was looking at a dam, completed except for the center section.

“When was that built?” I asked the driver.

“It was begun in the summer of 1939,” he replied, “when the government reckoned they’d need to open up the Larson mines for the rearmament drive. They stopped work when the States came into the war. It became cheaper to get our ore from across the border, I guess. Now, of course, with the price of lead at the level it is today—”

“They’re going to complete the dam — is that it? That’s what this road is for?”

He nodded. “You can just see the cable of the hoist if you look carefully. It runs up to a pylon at the top.”

I searched the cliff face and gradually made out the slender thread of the cable rising to a concrete pylon on the cliff top and snaking back to a squat-housing to the left of the dam and a little above it.

I lowered the glasses, the truth slowly dawning on me. “Where exactly is Campbell’s Kingdom?” I asked him.

“Up there.” He nodded toward the dam, “Just through the cleft.”

“Where’s the boundary of the property?”

“I wouldn’t know exactly.”

I turned as a bulldozer thrust a great pile of blast-shattered rock toward the lip of the road. They’d been so sure I’d sell that they’d started the work without even waiting for me to sign the deeds.

I looked around. Creasy was standing a little way up the road. I got the impression he had been watching me. No wonder they’d been worried last night. Anger boiled up inside me. If they’d given me the details, if they’d explained that there was a dam three quarters built already — I went over to him.

“This road is being built to bring material up to complete the dam, isn’t it?” I asked. “And if the dam is on my property—”

“It isn’t on your property.”

“Well, where’s the Campbell land start?”

“Just the other side of the dam. You may own old Campbell’s Kingdom, but this is Trevedian land, and what happens here is nothing to do with you.”

“I think it is,” I said.

“All right. Then talk to Peter Trevedian and stop worrying me.”

I walked back up the road a bit and stood looking up to the cleft in the mountain they called Solomon’s Judgment. I hadn’t expected anything like this. I might just as well have signed the deeds of sale, borrowed on the result and spent a few pleasant, carefree months traveling.

The driver shouted to me that he was leaving, and I went slowly back up the road and climbed into the cab beside him. Back in Come Lucky I dropped off at the office of the Trevedian Transport Company, but it was locked and I went on to the hotel. There were several old men in the bar drinking beer.

“Do you know where I’ll find a man called Peter Trevedian?” I asked one of them.

“Sure. Over to Keithley Creek. He and Jamie McClellan went in early this morning.” I would have to wait.

I had just sat down at one of the marble-topped tables when a bell rang in the depths of the hotel and the Chinaman came to tell me dinner was ready. As I got to my feet, a man pushed open the street door and came in. He was short and dark, with black hair and a smooth, coppery skin.

“Hiya, Mac,” he said, and he came forward to the bar, a cheerful smile on his face that disclosed the even Line of very white teeth. He carried a leather grip, and the backs of his hands were marked with the dark purple of burns.

Old Mac got to his feet and shook his hand. “It’s grand to see you, Boy.” There was real pleasure in the old man’s voice. “Jean was only saying the other day it was time you came back for your trucks.”

“Are they through to the hoist yet?”

“Not quite. But they’ll no be long now. Creasy’s working through the fall right this minute.” Mac shook his head. “It was bad luck, that fall. How did you make out this winter?”

The other grinned. “Oh, not too bad. Went wildcatting with a hunch of hoodlums up in the Little Smoky country. Have you got a room for me? I guess I’ll stay up here now until the hoist’s working and I can get my trucks down.”

“Aye, there’s room for ye. And ye’re just in time for dinner.”

“Well, thanks, but I thought I’d go and scrounge a meal off Jean.”

“Ye think the lass has been pining for ye, eh?” The old man poked him in the ribs.

“I wouldn’t know about that,” the other grinned. “But I’ve been pining for her.”

Their laughter followed me as I went through into the kitchen. When Mac came in, I asked him who the newcomer was. “That was Boy Bladen,” he said.

“Bladen?”

“Aye. He’s the laddie who did the survey up in the Kingdom last summer.”

Bladen! “Bladen was keen — as keen as Stuart.” — I could hear old Roger Fergus’ words still. It seemed that providence had delivered Bladen into my hands for the sole purpose of discovering the truth about that survey.

“— and he had to abandon all his equipment, leave it up in the Kingdom all winter,” old Mac was saying. “You saw that fall they were clearing when you went up the road today?” I nodded. “Well, that happened just before he was due to come down.” He shook his head sadly. “That’s tough on a boy, all his capital locked up in a place like that.”

“About that survey,” I said. “Did my grandfather know the result of it?”

“No. He went and died while the letter containing the report was waiting for him down here in my office. It would just about have killed him anyway.”

After the meal, I went up to my room and lay on the bed and smoked and tried to think the thing out.

It was shortly after four when I heard James McClellan shouting for his father. If he was back, presumably Trevedian was too. I got up, put on my coat and went down through the hard-packed snow to the bunkhouse.

The door of the transport company’s office was ajar and as I climbed the wooden steps I heard the sound of voices. I hesitated, my hand on the knob of the door. “— you should have thought of that before you took your trucks up there.” The man’s tone was easy, almost cheerful. “If I weren’t clearing that fall and rebuilding the road, you’d never get them out. You do as I say or you’ll never get your trucks down.”

“Damn you, Trevedian!” The door swung open and Bladen came out, pushing past me and walking angrily up the slope toward Come Lucky?

I knocked and went in. The office was small and hare and dusty. An old-fashioned telephone stood on a desk Littered with papers and cigarette ash, and behind the desk sat a stocky man of about forty-five.

“Mr. Peter Trevedian?” I asked.

He rose to greet me. “You must be Bruce Wetheral.” His hand was hard and rough, the smile of welcome rubber-stamped on his leathery features. “Sit down. You’re Campbell’s heir, I understand.”

I nodded.

“Well, I think I can guess why you’ve come to see me.” He smiled and sat back in his chair with a grunt. “I’ll be quite frank with you, Wetheral; your refusal to sell the Kingdom has put me in a bit of a spot. As you probably know, through my holding in the Larsen mines I’ve got the contract for supplying all materials for the completion of the Solomon’s Judgment dam. But the contract is a tricky one. The dam has to be completed this summer. To get all the materials up on the one hoist, I had to be in a position to begin packing the stuff in the moment the construction people were ready to start work on the dam. To do that I had to have the road cleared and ready. I couldn’t wait for the okay from Fergus. So I took a chance on it.” He leaned back. “Well, now, what are you holding out for more dough?”

The unwinking stare of his black little eyes was disconcerting.

“No,” I said. “It’s not that.”

“What is it then? Mac said something about your planning to live up there.”

“My grandfather lived up there,” I said. “If he could do it—”

“Campbell didn’t live there because he liked it,” he cut in sharply. “He lived there because he had to; because he didn’t dare live down here amongst the folk he’d swindled.” There was nothing I could say. He was giving me the other side of the picture, and the violence in his voice emphasized that it was the truth he was telling me. It explained so much, but it didn’t make my problem any easier.

“Well,” he said, “what are you going to do? If you sell the Kingdom, then Henry Fergus will go ahead with the hydroelectric scheme and Come Lucky will become a flourishing little town again.”

“My grandfather’s will imposed certain obligations on me,” I said. “You see, he still believed—”

“Obligations, hell!” he snapped. He came and stood over me. “Suppose you go and think this thing over.” He was looking down at me, his eyes slightly narrowed, the nerves at the corners quivering slightly. “I phoned Henry Fergus this morning when I was in Keithley. He’s coming up to see the progress they’re making at Larsen. I suggested he come on up here and have a talk with you. He said he would.” His hand dropped to my shoulder. “Think it over very carefully, will you? It means a lot to the people here.”

I nodded and got to my feet. “Very well,” I said. “I’ll think it over.”

When I got back to the hotel it was tea time. There was an extra place laid at the big deal table, and just after we’d sat down, Bladen came in. “Can I have a word with you?” I asked him.

He hesitated. “Sure.” His voice sounded reluctant. We drew our chairs a little apart from the others. Well he said, “I suppose it’s about the Kingdom?” His voice sounded nervous.

“I believe you did some sort of a survey up there last summer?”

He nodded. “A seismographic survey.”

“In your opinion, did that survey make it clear that there could be no oil in the Kingdom?”

“I think you’ll find the report makes that quite clear.”

“I’m not interested in the report I want your opinion.”

His eyes dropped to his bands again. “I don’t think you quite understand the way this tiling works. My equipment records the time taken by a shock wave to be reflected back from the various strata to half a dozen detectors. It’s the same principle as the echo-sounding device used by ships at sea. All I do is the field work. I get the figures and from these the computers map the strata under the surface.”

“I’m asking you a very simple question,” I said. “Do you agree with the report?”

He seemed to hesitate. “Yes,” he said, and pushed quickly by me to the door.

I stood there for a moment, wondering why he had been so reluctant to commit himself. I went over my conversation with Roger Fergus again. He had given me to understand that Bladen had been as enthusiastic as my grandfather. And yet now, when I had asked Bladen—

I looked round the room. Everyone had finished and the room was quite empty. Through the door to the scullery I could see Pauline busy at the sink. I went across to her.

“Could you tell me whether there’s a girl called Jean Lucas still living here?” I asked.

“Yes, she’s still here,” she replied. “She lives with Miss Garret and her sister. If you like, I’ll take you over there when I’ve put Kitty to bed.”

I thanked her and went back to the stove to wait.

It was about seven-thirty when we left The Golden Calf. Outside it was pitch dark. Pauline, with a flashlight, guided me along the uneven wooden sidewalk. A sudden unearthly cry rang out from the darkness ahead.

“It is only a coyote,” Pauline said, “a kind of wild dog. We are nearly there.” She flicked her torch toward the pale glimmer of a lighted window ahead. “That is where the Miss Garrets live. They are terrible gossips and very old-fashioned. But I like them.”

“And Jean Lucas — what’s she like?” I asked.

“Oh, you will like her.” She gave my arm a squeeze. “She and I are great friends. We talk in French together.”

“She speaks French?”

“But of course. She is English, but she has some French blood.”

“What is she doing in Come Lucky?” I asked. “Has she relatives here?”

“No. I can never discover why she comes here. Always she says it is because she likes the solitude. I think perhaps it is because she is not happy. She worked in France during the war. I think perhaps it is there that she learns to be unhappy.” We had reached a shack that was weatherboarded and had actually been painted within living memory. “Here we are now.” She knocked and pushed open the door. “Miss Garret!” she called. “It is Pauline! May we come in?”

A door opened and the soft glow of lamplight flooded the small entrance hall. “Surely. Come on in.” Miss Garret was small and dainty, like a piece of Dresden china. She wore a long black velvet dress with a little lace collar and a hand of velvet round her neck from which hung a large cameo. To my astonishment, she stared at me through a gold lorgnette as I entered the room. “Oh, how nice of you, Pauline,” she cooed. “You’ve brought Mr. Wetheral to see us.”

“You know my name?” I said.

“Of course.” She turned to the other occupant of the room. “Sarah, Pauline’s brought Mr. Wetheral to see us!” She spoke loudly... “My sister’s a little deaf. Now take off your coat, Mr. Wetheral, and come and tell us all about your legacy.”

“Well, actually,” I said, “I came here to see Miss Lucas.”

“There’s plenty of time.” She gave me a tight-lipped, primly coquettish smile. “That is one thing about Come Lucky; there is always plenty of time. Bight now Jean’s in her room — reading, I expect. She’s very well educated, I’m always telling her education is all very well, but what’s the use of it here in Come Lucky... Just put your coat over there, Mr. Wetheral... Sarah, Mr. Wetheral has come to see Jean.”

The other old lady darted me another quick glance and then got up. “I’ll go and fetch her, Ruth.”

I gazed round the room. It was fantastic. I was in a little copy of a Victorian drawing room. An upright piano stood against the wall, the chairs had cross-stitch seats and the backs of the armchairs were covered with lace antimacassars. There was even an aspidistra.

The whole place, including the occupants with their overrefined speech, was a little period piece in the Canadian wilds.

“Now, Mr. Wetheral, will you sit over there?... And you, Pauline, you come and sit by me.” She had placed me so that she could sit and watch me. “So you are Mr. Campbell’s grandson.”

“Yes,” I said.

She raised her lorgnette and stared at me. “You don’t look very strong, Mr. Wetheral. Have you been ill?”

“I’m convalescing.”

“Oh, and your doctors have said the high mountain air will do you good.” She nodded as though agreeing with their verdict. “I’m so glad to hear that you are not allowing this little backwater of ours to become an industrial center again. Do you know, Mr. Wetheral, they even had the Japanese working up here during the war when they were building the dam? I am sure if you were to permit them to complete it, they would now have Chinese labor. It is quite terrible to think what might happen. I am so glad, Mr. Wetheral, you are not a mercenary man. Everybody here—”

“I’m surprised my grandfather agreed to the building of a dam,” I said.

“Oh, it wasn’t Mr. Campbell. It was Peter Trevedian. It’s on his property, you know. I’m sure Luke wouldn’t have done it, not when it meant making a lake of Mr. Campbell’s property.” She gave a little sigh. “But Luke is dead, and I’m afraid Peter is a much harder man.” She leaned forward and tapped me playfully on the arm with her lorgnette. “But you are a civilized person, Mr. Wetheral; I can see that. You will stand between us and the factories and things they are planning.”

Footsteps sounded in the hall and then Jean Lucas entered the room. “Mr. Wetheral?” She held out her hand. “I’ve been expecting you for some time.”

Her manner was direct, her grip firm. She had the assurance of good breeding. In her well-cut tweed suit she brought a breath of the English countryside into the room. I stared down at her, wondering what on earth she was doing buried up here in this God-forsaken town. Her eyes met mine — gray, intelligent eyes.

“You knew I’d come?” I asked.

She nodded slowly. “I knew your war record. I didn’t think you’d let him down.”

The room seemed suddenly silent. I could hear the ticking of the clock in its glass case. Nobody seemed to be there but the two of us. I didn’t say anything more. I stood there, staring down at her face, and as I stared at her I suddenly felt I had to know her.

“We’ll go into my room, shall we?” she said.

I was dimly aware of Miss Ruth Garret’s disapproval. Then I was in a room with a log fire blazing on the hearth and bookshelves crowding the walls. Paper-white narcissuses bloomed in the light of the oil lamp and filled the room with their scent, and on the table beside them was a large photograph of an elderly man in army uniform.

“My father,” she said, and by the tone of her voice I knew he was dead. A big brown collie lay like a hearth rug before the fire. He thumped his tail and eyed me without stirring. “That’s Moses,” she said. “He belonged to your grandfather. He found him as a pup in the leaver swamps the other side of the lake. Hence the name.” She glanced at me quickly and then bent to pat the dog. “What do you think of my two old ladies?”

“Are they relatives of yours?” I asked.

“No.”

“Then why do you live up here?”

“That’s my business.” Her voice had suddenly become frozen. “There are some cigarettes in the box beside you. Will you pass me one, please?”

“Try an English one for a change,” I said, producing a packet from my pocket. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have tried to—”

“There’s no need to apologize.” Her eyes met mine over the flame of my lighter. “It’s just that I know it’s odd and I’m sensitive about it. I imagine you think it was odd of me to live up in the Kingdom with your grandfather during the summer months?”

“Now that I’ve seen you, yes.”

She gave a quick little laugh. “What were you expecting? Something out of Dickens?”

“Perhaps.”

She turned away and poked at the fire. “I believe there are still people in the town who are convinced I’m Stuart’s illegitimate daughter.” She looked up suddenly and smiled. “We call this decrepit bundle of shacks a town, by the way. Would you care for a drink? I’ve got some Scotch here. Only don’t tell my two old dears or I’d get thrown out onto the streets. Naturally, they don’t approve of liquor — at least Ruth doesn’t.”

We sat for a while over our drinks without saying anything. It wasn’t an uneasy silence, though. It seemed natural at the time, as though we both needed a moment to sort out our impressions of each other. At length she looked across at me with a faintly inquiring expression. The firelight was glowing on her right cheek and I realized with surprise that she looked quite pretty.

“What did you do after the war?” She smiled. “That’s a very rude question, but, you see, Stuart was very anxious to know what had happened to you.” She hesitated and then said, “After your mother died, he lost touch with home. It was only when I came out here —” She looked away into the fire. “I wrote the War Office. They reported that you’d been a captain in the RAC out in the Middle East. They couldn’t discover what had happened to you after you were invalided out.”

“You were very fond of him, weren’t you?” I asked.

She nodded. “Enough to hear his voice again in yours. You’ve something of his manner, too, though not his build.” She suddenly looked across at me. “Why did you never write to him or come out and see him? Were you ashamed of him — because he had been to prison?”

“I... I just didn’t think about him,” I said. “I met him only once. That was all. When I was ten years old.”

“When he’d just come out of prison.”

“Yes.”

“And so you decided you’d forget all about him. Because he’d done five years for... for something he didn’t do.” She looked at me sadly. “It never occurred to you that he might have been wrongly convicted?”

“No, it never occurred to me.”

She sighed. “It’s strange, because you meant a lot to him. You were his only relative. He was an old man when he died — old and tired. Oh, he kept up a front when Johnny and other people brought visitors. But deep down he was tired. He’d lost heart and he needed help.”

“Then why didn’t he write to me?”

“Pride, I guess.” She stared at me, frowning slightly. “Would you have come if he’d written to you, if you’d known he was innocent?”

“I... I don’t know,” I said.

“But you came when you heard he was dead. Why? Because you thought there might be oil here?”

The trace of bitterness in her voice brought me to my feet. “Why I came is my own business!” I said harshly. “If you want to know, my plan was to live up there!”

“Live there.” She stared at me. “All the year round?”

“Yes.”

“Whatever for?”

I turned and stared angrily at her. “I’d my own reasons, the same as you have for living in this dump.”

She shifted her gaze to the fire. “Touché,” she said softly. “I only wanted to know—” She hesitated and then got to her feet. “I’ve some things here that belong to you.” She went over to a bureau and brought out a cardboard box tied with ribbon. “I couldn’t bring any more, but these things I know he wanted you to have.” She placed the box on a table near me. She hesitated, her hand still on the box. “You said your plan was to live up in the Kingdom?”

I nodded. “Yes, but that was before I knew there was a half-completed dam up there.”

“I see. So now you’re going to sell out and go back to England?”

I laughed. The sound was harsh in that pleasant little room, but it gave vent to my feelings. “It’s not so easy as that. I’ve rather burned my boats. You see, I’ve emigrated.”

“You’ve—” She stared at me, the thin line of her eyebrows arched in surprise. “You’re a queer person,” she said slowly. “There’s something about you I don’t quite understand.” She spoke more to herself than to me. I watched her as she went back to her Beat by the fire and sat there, gazing into the flames.

At length her eyes came round to my face. “What’s made you change your mind? When you came here you’d already turned down Henry Berg us offer for the Kingdom.”

“How did you know that?” I asked.

“Gossip.” She laughed a trifle nervously. “You can’t keep anything secret in this place.” She turned and faced me squarely. “I suppose Peter has been getting at you. And the old men—” There was anger and contempt in her voice.

She seemed to expect some sort of a reply so I said, “Well, I suppose from their point of view I am being a little unreasonable.”

“Unreasonable! Was it Stuart’s fault they went oil-crazy and bought up half the mountain peaks around here regardless of the geological possibilities, just because he reported a big oil seep at the head of Thunder Creek?” She leaned suddenly forward. “Do you think they helped him when things went wrong? When he was on trial in England for fraud, they swore out affidavits that he was a liar and a cheat. And when he came back here they hounded him up into the Kingdom, so that all the last years of his life were spent in solitude and hardship. When Luke Trevedian died, Stuart hadn’t a friend in Come Lucky. You owe the people here nothing. Nothing.” She paused for breath. “Now you’re here,” she added in a quieter tone, “don’t believe everything people tell you. Please. Check everything for yourself.”

She spoke as though I had all the time in the world. I passed my hand wearily across my eyes. “Am I to take it that you believe my grandfather was right?”

She nodded slowly. “Yes. It was impossible to live with him for any length of time and not believe him. He had tremendous faith-in himself and in other people, and in God. He couldn’t understand that some people—” She stopped, her mouth suddenly a tight, hard line. “I met many fine men — during the war. But he was one of the finest.” Her voice died and she stared into the flames. “I want him to be proved right.”

“But what about this survey?” I said. “I understand it proved conclusively that there was no oil in the Kingdom.”

“Of course it did. Do you think Henry Fergus would have agreed to postpone his plans for a whole season without insuring that the results proved what he wanted them to prove? Before you do anything, go and talk to Boy Bladen. He’s here in Come Lucky now. Ask him what he thinks of that report.”

“But—” I stared at her. “I’ve already spoken to Bladen. He agrees with it.”

“He does not.” Her eyes were wide. “Ever since he saw the results of the first charge, he’s been as enthusiastic as your grandfather. It just isn’t true that he agrees with the report.”

“Well, that’s what he told me, and scarcely two hours ago.”

“I’ll talk to him,” she said. “He’s coming to see me this evening. There’s something behind this. I’ll send him straight over to see you when he leaves here.”

I was suddenly remembering the expression of violent anger on Bladen’s face as he had pushed past me on the steps of Trevedian’s office. “Yes,” I said. “Perhaps if you have a talk with him—”

There was a knock at the door and Miss Ruth Garret entered with a tray. “I’ve brought you some tea, dear.” Her sharp, inquisitive eyes seemed to miss nothing.

“That’s very kind of you.” Jean Lucas got up and took the tray. “Is Pauline still here?”

“Yes, she’s waiting for Mr. Wetheral.”

“We won’t he long.”

Miss Garret stood there uncertainly for a moment, her eyes fixed on the box on the table beside me. Then she turned reluctantly and left us.

“Poor old thing,” Jean said. “She just loves to know everything. Once they went as far as Prince George and saw the river steamers and the trains. That was thirty years ago, and I don’t think they’ve been out of Come Lucky since.” She glanced at the box beside me. “You’d better have a look at the things I brought down for you. It may help you to learn something about your grandfather.”

I took the box on my knees, slipped the ribbon off and lifted the lid. Inside, everything had been carefully wrapped in tissue paper. The objects on top were flat. There was a photograph of my mother as a girl of about twenty, and one of my grandmother. There followed several little velvet-lined boxes containing medals of the first World War. They included the M.C. and an old newspaper cutting with a picture of Capt. Stuart Campbell in the uniform of a Highland regiment. There were several other personal oddments, including a mining diploma, a little musical box with locks of hair in it, a regimental dirk of silver, a small set of ivory chessmen and a notebook containing some press cuttings.

As I laid them out on the table beside me, I said, “When did he give you these?”

“He didn’t give them to me. I brought them down myself. I knew what he wanted you to have.”

“You went up after his death?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“By the hoist?”

“No, the hoist wasn’t working then. There’s an old Indian trail. It’s only a day’s journey each way. I just wanted to be sure that everything was all right.”

“Is his Bible here, by any chance?”

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

“He said there would be some papers with it.” I pulled it out and riffled through the pages. A single sheet of notepaper fell out. I stared at it, wondering where the progress report had got to. And then the contents of the note riveted my attention:

I stared at the paragraph and read it through again. Then I looked across at Jean.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I thought he died without knowing the results of that survey?” I said.

She nodded. “Yes. I was so glad. In view of Boy’s reaction, he was very optimistic that at last—”

“He knew the result,” I said.

“But that’s impossible. Johnny was the last person up there, except for me.”

“Well, listen to this,” I said. “ ‘This day I have received the results of Bladen’s survey.’ ”

“But—” She was staring at me, her eyes wide. “When was it written?” She held out her hand. “Let me see.”

“It was written on the twentieth of November,” I said, “Johnny Carstairs found him on the twenty-second.” I passed her the sheet of paper.

She stared at it unbelievingly. Her voice trembled as she read:

Her voice died away and she stared at the paper, which trembled violently in her hands. “Oh!” she breathed. Her hands clenched suddenly. “How could they be so cruel?” She turned on me, her face suddenly older and stronger in the violence of her feeling. “What an incredible, beastly way to kill a man — to kill him through his hopes. If they’d stuck a knife into him—” She turned away, struggling to get control of herself. “Here,” She thrust the letter out to me. “Read the rest of it, will you? I can’t.”

I took the crumpled sheet and spread it out:

My hands dropped to my knees and I sat staring at the fire, seeing in my mind the old man writing that last pitiful plea, knowing that there were people down in the valley who hated him enough to climb through a snowstorm to give him the bad news before winter closed in on him.

“I’d like to get my hands on the man that took that report up to him.” My voice grated harshly on the silence of the room.

“If they’d killed him with their own hands,” Jean whispered, “they couldn’t have done it more cruelly.”

“Who hated him that much?”

“Oh, George Riley, the Trevedians, the McClellans, Daniel Smith, Ed Sclueffer — everybody who’d lost money.”

She turned to me suddenly. “You’ve got to prove him right. He had such faith in you.”

I leaned back and stared at the fire. That was all very well, but it meant arming. It meant time and money, and I hadn’t much of either. “I’ll see what Bladen has to say.”

She nodded and then rose slowly to her feet. “You must go now. He’ll be here shortly, and I don’t want him to meet you before I’ve talked to him. Besides—” She hesitated. “He has fits of moodiness that I don’t think you’d understand, and I want you to like him. He’s half Indian, a queer mixture of daring, poetry and utter wretched silence. But he’s one of the nicest men—” She turned toward the door. “Pauline will be getting tired of waiting.”

She took me back to the Victorian drawing room and the two old ladies. A few minutes later I was walking through wet snow in the dark, dismal street of Come Lucky.

When the people of Come Lucky, British Columbia, learned that I was Bruce Campbell Wetheral, most of them grew hostile. A few weeks earlier, on the day I learned from my doctor that I had at most six months left to live, I was notified that I was the sole legatee to the will of my grandfather, Stuart Campbell. My inheritance was a large tract of land in the Rockies called Campbell’s Kingdom, and all the stock in the Campbell Oil Exploration Company. My grandfather had spent most of his life trying to prove there was oil in the Rockies. His last request to me was to prove him right.

Although I had an offer of $50,000 for the Kingdom, I turned it down. When I got to Come Lucky I discovered that a dam was nearing completion just below my property. When it was finished, the Kingdom would be flooded.

I visited Jean Lucas, who had been one of my grandfather’s friends. She gave me some of his papers. Among them was another letter to me. Campbell had Been the results of a survey made there the year before by a man named Boy Bladen, Although the report said there was no possibility of oil being in the Kingdom, Stuart Campbell wanted me to test his beliefs by drilling — the only sure way of proving him right or wrong — before the Kingdom was flooded.

Jean told me that Bladen was enthusiastic about the possibilities of oil in the Kingdom. But I had seen Bladen earlier, and he had evaded my direct questions on this subject. I saw now why the people of Come Lucky didn’t trust me. If I refused to sell the Kingdom and started digging for oil, the dam would be delayed. But why had Boy Bladen evaded me? Did he have some scheme of his own?