Hammond Innes

Nothing to Lose

The Saturday Evening Post, March 22-May 10, 1952

Volume 224, Issues 38-45

I

I hesitated as I crossed the road and paused to gaze up at the familiar face of No. 32. For years I had been coming home from the office to this rather drab old Georgian-fronted house on the edge of Mecklenburgh Square, yet now I seemed to be looking at it for the first time. It was as though I were living in a dream. I suppose I was still dazed by the news.

I wondered what they’d say at the office — or should I go on as though nothing had happened? I thought of all the years I’d been leaving this house at eight-thirty-five in the morning and returning to it shortly after six at night; lonely, wasted years. Men who had served with me during the war were now in good executive positions. But for me the army had been the big chance. Once out of it, I had drifted without the drive of an objective, without the competitive urge of a close-knit masculine world.

A car hooted and I shook myself, conscious of the dreadful feeling of weariness that possessed my body; conscious, too, of a sudden urgency. I needed to make some sense out of my life, and I needed to do it quickly. As I crossed to the pavement, automatically getting out my keys, I suddenly decided I wasn’t going to tell the office anything. I wasn’t going to tell anybody. I’d just say I was taking a holiday and quietly disappear. I went in and closed the door. Footsteps sounded in the darkness of the unlighted hall.

“Is that you, Mr. Wetheral?” It was my landlady.

“Yes, Mrs. Baird.”

“Ye’re home early. Did they give ye the afternoon off?”

“Yes,” I said, wondering what she would say if I told her why.

As I started up the stairs she stopped me. “Och, I nearly forgot. There was a lawyer to see you. He ha’na been gone more than ten minutes. He said it was very important, so I told him to come back again at six. Shall I bring him up when he comes?”

“Please do,” I said as I went on up to my rooms.

For a while I paced back and forth, wondering what the devil a lawyer could want with me. Then I turned abruptly and went through into the bedroom. I was tired, I took off my coat and lay down on my bed and closed my eyes. And as I lay there sweating with fear and nervous exhaustion, my life passed before my mind’s eye, mocking me with its emptiness. Thirty-six years, and what had I done with them? What had I achieved?

I must have dropped off to sleep, for I woke with a start to hear Mrs. Baird’s voice calling me from the sitting room, “Here’s the lawyer man to see ye again, Mr. Wetheral.”

I got up, feeling dazed and chilled, and went through into the other room. He was a lawyer, all right; no mistaking the neat blue suit, the white collar, the dry, dusty air of authority.

“My name is Fothergill,” he said carefully. “Of Anstey, Fothergill and Anstey, solicitors, of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Before I state my business, it will be necessary for me to ask you a few personal questions. A matter of identity, that is all. May I sit down?”

“Of course,” I murmured. “A cigarette?”

“I don’t smoke, thank you.”

I lit one and saw that my hand was shaking. I had had too many professional interviews in the last few days.

He waited until I was settled in an easy chair and then he said, “Your Christian names, please, Mr. Wetheral.”

“Bruce Campbell.”

“Date of birth?”

“July 20, 1916.”

“Parents alive?”

“No. Both dead.”

“Your father’s Christian names, please.”

“John Henry, He died on the Somme the year I was born.”

“What were your mother’s names?”

“Eleanor Rebecca.”

“And her maiden name?”

“Campbell.”

“Did you know any of the Campbells, Mr. Wetheral?”

“Only my grandfather; I met him once.”

“Where did you meet him?”

“Coming out of prison.”

He stared at me.

“He did five years in Brixton,” I explained quickly. “He was a thief and a swindler. My mother and I met him when he came out. I was about ten at the time. We drove in a taxi straight from the prison to a boat train.” After all these years I could not keep the bitterness out of my voice. I stubbed out my cigarette. Why did he have to come asking questions on this day of all days? “Why do you want to know all this?” I demanded irritably.

“Just one more question.” He seemed quite unperturbed by my impatience. “You were in the army during the war. In France?”

“No; the desert, and then Sicily and Italy. I was a captain in the RAC.”

“Were you wounded at all?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“By heaven!” I cried, jumping to my feet. “This is too much!” My fingers had gone automatically to the scar above my heart.

“Please.” He, too, had risen to his feet and he looked quite scared. “Calm yourself, Mr. Wetheral. I was instructed to locate a Bruce Campbell Wetheral, and I am now quite satisfied that you are the man I have been looking for.”

“Well, now you’ve found me, what do you want?”

“If you’ll just be seated again for a moment—”

I dropped back into my chair and lit a cigarette from the stub of the one I had half crushed out. “Well?”

He picked up his brief case and fumbled nervously at the straps as he perched himself on the edge of the chair opposite me. “We are acting for the firm of Donald McCrae and Acheson, of Calgary, in this matter. They are the solicitors appointed under your grandfather’s will. Since you met him only once, it will possibly be of no great concern to you that he is dead. What does concern you, however, is that you are the sole legatee under his will.” He placed a document on the table between us. “That is a copy of the will, together with a sealed letter written by your grandfather and addressed to you. The original of the will is held by the solicitors in Calgary. They also hold all the documents relating to the Campbell Oil Exploration Company, together with books of the company. You now control this company, but it is virtually moribund. However, it was territory in the Rocky Mountains, and Donald McCrae and Acheson advise disposal of this asset and the winding up of the company.” He burrowed in his brief case again and came up with another document. “Now, here is a deed of sale for the territory referred to—”

I stared at him, hearing his voice droning on and remembering only how I had hated my grandfather, how all my childhood had been made miserable by that big, rawboned Scot with the violent blue eyes and close-cropped gray hair who had sat beside my mother in that taxi and whom I had seen only that once.

“You’re sure my grandfather went back to Canada?” I asked incredulously.

“Yes, yes, quite sure. He formed this company there in 1926.”

That was the year he came out of prison. “This company,” I said. “Was a man called Paul Morton involved in it with him?”

“No,” he said. “The two other directors were Roger Fergus and Luke Trevedian. Fergus was one of the big men in the Turner Valley field and Trevedian owned a gold mine. Now, as I was saying, the shares in this company are worthless. The only working capital it seems to have had was advanced by Fergus, the money being advanced on mortgage. This included a survey—”

“Do you mean my grandfather was broke when he returned to Canada?”

“It would seem so.” Fothergill peered at the documents and then nodded. “Yes, I should say that was definitely the case.”

I leaned back, staring at the lamp, trying to adjust myself to a sudden and entirely new conception of my grandfather. “How did he die?” I asked.

“How?” Again the solicitor glanced through the papers on the table. “It says here that he died of cold. He was living alone high up in the Rockies. Now, as regards the company; it does not seem likely that the shares are marketable and—”

“He must have been a very old man.”

“He was seventy-nine. Now this land that is owned by the company. Your representatives in Calgary inform us that they have been fortunate enough to find a purchaser. In fact, they have an offer—” He stopped. “You’re not listening to me, Mr. Wetheral.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was just wondering what an old man of seventy-nine was doing living alone in the Rocky Mountains.”

“Yes, yes, of course. Very natural... Let me see now. It’s all in Mr. Acheson’s letter. Ah, here we are. Apparently he became a little queer as he grew old. His belief that there was oil up in this territory in the mountains had become an obsession with him. From 1930 onward he lived up there in a log cabin by himself, hardly ever coming down into the towns. It was there that he was found by a late hunting party. That was on the twenty-second of November, last year.” He placed the letter on the table beside me. “I will leave that with you and you can read it at your leisure. There is also a cutting from a local paper. Now, about this land. There is apparently some scheme for damming the valley and utilizing the waters for a hydroelectric project. One of the mining companies—”

I sat back and closed my eyes. So he had gone back. That was the thing that stuck in my mind. He had really believed there was oil there.

“Please, Mr. Wetheral. I must ask for your attention. We must have your signature to this document at once. The matter is most urgent. The company concerned apparently has alternative sources of power which, if we delay much longer, may render your property valueless. As I say, your solicitors in Calgary regard the terms as generous and advise immediate acceptance. When all debts have been paid and the company wound up, they estimate that the estate will be worth some nine or ten thousand dollars.”

“How long will all this take?” I asked.

He pursed his lips. “I think we can expect to prove probate in, say, about six months’ time.”

“Six months!” I laughed. “That’s just six months too long, Mr. Fothergill.”

“How do you mean? I assure you we will do everything possible to expedite proceedings, and you can rest assured—”

“Yes, of course,” I said, “but in six months—”

I stopped. Why should I bother to explain?

I leaned back and closed my eyes, trying to think it out clearly. The money wasn’t any use to me. I’d nobody to leave it to. “I’m not sure that I want to sell,” I said, almost unconsciously voicing my thoughts.

I opened my eyes and saw that he was looking at me with astonishment.

“May I see that newspaper clipping?” I asked.

He handed it across to me. It was from the Calgary Tribune and datelined:

JASPER, 4TH DECEMBER All those who made the pilgrimage up Thunder Creek to Campbell’s Kingdom will mourn the loss of a friend. Stuart Campbell, one of the old-timers of Turner Valley and the man who coined the phrase “There’s oil in the Rocky Mountains,” is dead. His body was found by a late hunting party headed by the Jasper packer, Johnny Carstairs. It was lying stretched out on the floor of his log cabin, the aerie he built for himself 7000 feet up in the Rockies just east of the famous Cariboo area.

Campbell was a great character. He will be remembered affectionately by the hunters, miners and loggers, as well as the tourists, who visited him in his mountain kingdom and listened to his stories of the oilfields and heard him make the surrounding peaks ring with the skirl of his pipes. Even those who lost money in his ill-starred Rocky Mountain Oil Exploration Company and declared him a swindler and worse cannot but render the homage of admiration to a man who was so convinced he was right that he dedicated the last twenty-five years of his life to trying to prove it—

I started to read the paragraph through again, but the type blurred, merging into a picture of a man standing in the dock at the Old Bailey accused of swindling the public by floating a company to drill for oil that didn’t exist and then absconding with the capital. He had been arrested boarding the Majestic at Southampton. The other director, Paul Morton, had got clean away. The bulk of the company’s funds had vanished. I had accepted his guilt as I had accepted our utter poverty. They were part of the conditions of my life. And now — I stared down at the cutting, trying to adjust my mind to a new conception of him.

I looked up at the lawyer. “He really believed there was oil up there,” I said.

“Just a will-o’-the-wisp.” Fothergill gave me a dry smile. “The matter is covered by Mr. Acheson in his letter. I think you can be satisfied that Mr. Campbell’s beliefs were entirely erroneous and that the executors’ opinion that the property in itself has no value is a true statement of the situation. Now, here is the deed of sale. If you will sign both copies—”

“I don’t think I’ll sell,” I said. I needed time to think this out, to adjust myself to this new view of my grandfather.

“But, Mr. Wetheral—”

“I can’t make a decision now,” I said. “You must give me time to consider.”

“You cannot expect this company to wait indefinitely for your answer. Mr. Acheson was most pressing. Every day’s delay—”

“There’s already been a delay of four months,” I said. “Another few days shouldn’t make much difference.”

“Perhaps not. I must remind you, however,” he went on in a patient voice, “that it is only the fact that the largest creditor was Mr. Campbell’s friend that has saved the company from bankruptcy long ago. It is your duty as Mr. Campbell’s heir to consider this gentleman.”

“I won’t be stampeded,” I said irritably.

He got to his feet. “I will leave these documents with you, Mr. Wetheral. I think when you have had time to consider them—”

“I’ll let you know what I decide,” I said, and took him down to the front door.

Then I hurried eagerly back to my room. I wanted to read the personal letter attached to the will. I slit the envelope. Inside was a single sheet; it was very direct and simple.

For my grandson.   Campbell’s Kingdom,

To be attached    Come Lucky,

to my will.      B.C.

16th March, 1947.

Dear Bruce: It is possible you may recall our one meeting, since the circumstances were peculiar. With your mother’s death I became entirely cut off from you, but in the last few weeks I have been able to obtain some information concerning your progress and your military record in the recent conflict. This leads me to believe that there is enough of the Campbell in you for me to hand on to you the aims, hopes and obligations that through age and misfortune I have been unable to fulfill.

I imagine that you are fully informed of the circumstances of my imprisonment. However, in case you should have attributed your mother’s belief in my innocence to filial loyalty, here is the testimony of a man who, when you receive this letter, will be dead:

I, Stuart Macaulay Campbell, swear before God and on His Holy Book that everything I did and said in connection with the flotation of an oil company in London known as the Rocky Mountain Oil Exploration Company was done and said in all good faith and that every word of that section of the prospectus dealing with the oil possibilities in the territory now commonly known as “Campbell’s Kingdom” was true to the best of my knowledge and belief, based on more than twelve years in the Turner Valley field and neighboring territories. And may the Lord condemn me to the everlasting fires of hell if this testimony be false.

Signed: Stuart Macaulay Campbell.

After my release I returned to Canada to prove what I knew to be true. With the help of kind friends I formed the Campbell Oil Exploration Company. All my shares in this I leave to you, together with the territory in which my bones will rest. If you are the man I hope you are, you will accept this challenge, that I may rest in peace and my life be justified to the end. May the Good Lord guide you and keep you in this task and may success, denied to me by the frailty of old age, attend your efforts.

Your humble and grateful grandfather

STUART MACAULAY CAMPBELL.

P.S. The diary of my efforts to prove the existence of oil up here you will find with my Bible. S.M.C.

I read it through again, more slowly. Every word carried weight — and his honesty and simplicity shone through it like a clean wind out of the high mountains. I had a feeling of guilt at having accepted so readily the verdict of the courts, at never having troubled to discover what he had done on leaving prison. And suddenly I found myself kneeling on the floor, swearing before a God whom I had scarcely troubled to get to know in the whole of my thirty-six years that whatever remained to me of life I would dedicate to the legacy my grandfather had left me. As I rose to my feet I realized that I was no longer afraid, no longer alone. I had a purpose and an urgency.

The other papers which Fothergill had left me seemed prosaic and dull after reading what my grandfather had written. There was the will, and it appointed Messrs. Donald McCrae and Acheson, solicitors, as executors. There was a letter from them, and attached to it was a deed of sale for my signature: “There is no question of obtaining a better offer. Please deliver the signed deed to Mr. Fothergill, of Anstey, Fothergill and Anstey, who represent us in London.”

Every line of their letter took it for granted that I should agree to sell. I tossed it back onto the table, and as I did so, I caught sight of the newspaper cutting lying on the floor where I had dropped it. I picked it up and continued reading where I had left off:

— Only those whose values are entirely material will belittle his efforts because time has proved him wrong. He was a man of boundless energy and he squandered it recklessly in pursuit of the will-o’-the-wisp of black gold. But people who know him best, like Johnny Carstairs and Jean Lucas, the young Englishwoman who for the last few years had housekept for him during the summer months, declare that it was not the pursuit of riches that drove him in his later years, but the desire to prove himself right and to recover the losses suffered by so many people who invested in his early ventures.

Like so many of the old-timers, he was a God-fearing man and a great character. His phrase — There’s oil in the Rocky Mountains — has become a part of the oil man’s vocabulary, denoting an area not worth surveying; but who knows?

Someday perhaps he’ll be proved right. In the meantime, local people, headed by Mr. Will Polder, are organizing a fund to raise a monument to the memory of “King” Campbell.

I put the cutting down and sat staring at the wall, seeing only the little log cabin high up in the Rockies and the old man whose hopes had died so hard. “There’s oil in the Rocky Mountains.” It would be something to prove the phrase true, to wipe out the stigma that had haunted me all my early life, to prove him innocent. I had something to bite on now — an objective, a purpose. And somehow it lessened the shock of Maclean-Hervey’s pronouncement.

I was suddenly possessed with an urge to see Campbell’s Kingdom, to discover for myself something of the faith, the indomitable hope, that had sent my grandfather back there after conviction and imprisonment. It couldn’t have been an easy decision for him. The newspaper cutting had hinted that many people out there had lost heavily through backing him. It must have been hell for him. And yet he had gone back.

I got up and began to pace back and forth. Failure and twenty-two years of utter loneliness had not destroyed his faith. His letter proved that. If I could take up where he had left off—

It was absurd. I’d no knowledge of oil, no money. And yet — the alternative was to sign that deed of sale. I went over to the table and picked it up. If I signed it, Fothergill had said I might get $10,000 out of it in six months’ time. It would pay for my funeral, that was about all the good it would be to me. To sign it was unthinkable.

And then it gradually came to me that what had at first seemed absurd was the most reasonable thing for me to do, the only thing. To remain in London, an insurance clerk in the same monotonous rut to the end, was impossible with this prospect, this hope of achievement dangled in front of my eyes. I tore the deed of sale across and flung the pieces onto the floor. I would go to Canada. I would try to carry out the provisions of my grandfather’s will...

It took me just a week to get to Calgary. Since this included a night’s flying across the Atlantic and two and a half days by train across Canada, I think I’d id pretty well. It did not take me long to clear up my own affairs, and the major obstacle was foreign exchange. I got over this by emigrating, and here I had two slices of luck: Maclean-Hervey knew the high commissioner, and the Canadian Government was subsidizing immigrant travel by air via Trans-Canada.

The night before we reached Calgary, just after we had left Moose Jaw, the colored attendant brought a telegram to my sleeper. It was from Donald McCrae and Acheson:

IMPORTANT YOU COME DIRECT TO OUR OFFICES. CALGARY. PURCHASERS HAVE GIVEN US TILL TOMORROW NIGHT TO COMPLETE DEAL. THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO DISPOSE OF PROPERTY. SIGNED, ACHESON.

They were certainly a very thorough and determined firm. They’d have me sell whether I wanted to or not. Like Fothergill, they found it impossible to accept my attitude.

We arrived at Calgary at 8:30 A.M. I had breakfast and then rang Acheson’s office and was requested to come right along. The firm of Donald McCrae and Acheson had their offices on the third floor in an old brick building among a litter of oil companies. There were four doors, the one on my immediate right being that of Donald McCrae and Acheson, But it was the name on the door to my left that caught my eye — THE ROGER FERGUS OIL DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, LTD. — for it was the name of the man who had backed my grandfather. The other two doors were occupied by LOUIS WINNICK, OIL CONSULTANT AND SURVEYOR, and HENRY FERGUS, STOCKBROKER. Under the latter, and newly painted in, was the name: THE LARSEN MINING AND DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, LTD.

I found myself strangely nervous. The atmosphere of the place was one of business and money. Sentiment seemed out of place. I went through the door marked DONALD MCCRAE AND ACHESON, SOLICITORS. A girl secretary asked me my business and showed me through into Acheson’s office. He was a big man, rather florid, with smooth cheeks that shone slightly, as though they had been rubbed with pumice stone.

“Mr. Wetheral?” He rose to greet me and his hand was soft and plump. “Glad to see you.” He waved me to a chair and sat down. “Cigar?”

I shook my head. “Pity you didn’t write me before you came out,” he said. “I could have saved you the journey. However, now you’re here, maybe I can clear up any points that are worrying you.” He flicked a switch on the house phone box. “Ellen, bring in the Campbell file, will you? Now then.” He sat back and clipped the end of a cigar. “Fothergill writes that for some reason best known to yourself you don’t want to sell.”

“No,” I said. “Not till I’ve seen the place, anyway.”

He gave a grunt. “It’s oil you’re thinking of, is it? I warned Fothergill to make it perfectly clear to you that there wasn’t any oil. Did he give you my letter?”

“Yes,” I said.

“And you’re not satisfied? All right. Well, let me tell you that Roger Fergus had Bladen’s geophysical outfit up in the Kingdom last summer, and Louis Winnick’s report on that survey finally damns Campbell’s ideas about oil up there as a lot of moonshine.” He reached forward and pulled a document from the file. “Here’s a copy of that report.” He tossed it onto the desk in front of me. “Take it away and read it at your leisure. In any case, the mineral rights don’t belong to you. They belong to Roger Fergus.”

“But I thought I had a controlling interest in the Campbell Oil Exploration Company?”

“Certainly you do. But the mineral rights were mortgaged as security for the cash Fergus advanced the company. Of course,” he added, with a shrug of his shoulders, “that was just a matter of form. They weren’t worth anything. Roger Fergus knew that. He was just being kind to the old fellow, and we fixed it that way so that Campbell wouldn’t think it was charity.”

To gain time and sort out my impressions, I glanced down at the report and my attention was caught by the final paragraph:

... Therefore I have no hesitation in saying there is absolutely no possibility whatever of oil being discovered on this property. Signed:

LOUIS WINNICK, OIL CONSULTANT.

“Is a survey of this nature conclusive?” I asked.

“Not entirely. It won’t prove the presence of oil. But it’s pretty well a hundred per cent in indicating that a territory is not oil-bearing.”

“I see.”

So that was that. My grandfather’s vision of a great new oilfield in the Rockies was scientifically disproved. I suddenly felt tired and dispirited. I had come a long way, buoyed up with the feeling that I had a mission to accomplish. “I’d like to see the place,” I murmured.

He leaned back and drew slowly on his cigar. “I’m afraid that is impossible. It’s still winter in the mountains and most of the roads are blocked. The Kingdom is a goodish way from any railroad. You might not get through for a month, maybe more. Meantime, the company that’s interested in the property has got to get organized so that work on the dam can begin as soon as they can get up there. The season is a short one.” He leaned forward and searched among the papers on his desk. “Here you are.” He pushed a document across to me. “All you have to do is sign that. I’ll look after the rest. You’ll see the figure they agree to pay is fifty thousand. It’s a sight more than the property is worth. But they’re willing to pay that figure to avoid a court action on compensation. They already have the authority of the Provincial Parliament to go ahead with the construction; so, whether you sign or not, they are in a position to take over the property and flood it, subject to payment of compensation.”

I didn’t say anything and there was an awkward silence, I was thinking that the dam had still to be built before they could flood the Kingdom. For a few months it could be mine. Even if there wasn’t any oil, it was a patch of land that belonged to me.

“Well?”

I stared down at the deed of sale. “I noticed you’ve not inserted the name of the purchasing company.”

“No.” He seemed to hesitate. “A subsidiary will be formed to operate the power scheme. If you’ll sign the deed. I’ll insert the name of the company as soon as it’s formed. Then there’ll be just the deeds and the land registration to be settled. I’ll look after all that.” His eyes fastened on mine, waiting.

“You seem very anxious for me to sob,” I murmured.

“It’s in your interest.” He took the cigar out of his mouth and leaned forward, his eyes narrowed. “I don’t understand you,” he said. His tone was one of exasperation. “In the letter I sent you via Fothergill I made it perfectly clear to you that my advice was to sell. And I act for old Roger Fergus. He’s sunk nearly forty thousand dollars in Campbell’s company. I’d say that you have a moral obligation to see that Roger Fergus is repaid.” He sat back in his chair. “You’ve got till this evening,” he said. “Where are you staying?”

“The Palliser.”

“Well, you go back to your room and think it over.” He got to his feet. “Take the report with you. Read it. Come and see me about five.”

The secretary showed me out. As I made for the stairs I checked at the sight of the door opposite me — THE FERGUS OIL DEVELOPMENT COMPANY. On a sudden impulse, I opened the door and went in. The office was empty.

The door of the neighboring office slammed and a girl’s voice behind me said, “Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Mr. Fergus,” I explained.

“Old Mr. Fergus?” She shook her head. “He hasn’t been coming to the office for a long time now. He’s been ill.”

“Oh.” I hesitated.

“Is your business urgent? Because his son, Mr. Henry Fergus—”

“No,” I said. “It wasn’t really business — more a social call. He was a great friend of my grandfather, Stuart Campbell.”

Her eyes lit up in her rather pale face. “I met Mr. Campbell once.” She smiled. “He was a wonderful old man — quite a character.” She hesitated and then said, “I’ll ring Mr. Fergus’ home. I’m sure he’d like to see you if he’s well enough. He had a stroke, you know. He’s paralyzed all down one side and he tires very easily.”

But apparently it was all right. He would see me if I went straight over. “But the nurse says you’re not to stay more than five minutes. The Fergus farm is a little way out of town on the far side of the Bow River. The cab drivers all know it.”

I thanked her, went down the stairs and found a taxi. The Fergus home was a low, sprawling ranch-house building.

A manservant let me in and took me through into a great lounge hall full of trophies, prizes taken by cattle and horses at shows up and down the country. All these I took in at a glance, and then my gaze came to rest on the man seated in a wheel chair. He was a big man, broad-shouldered with massive, gnarled hands and a great shock of white hair. He had a fine face with bushy, tufty eyebrows and a way of craning his neck forward like a bird.

“So you’re Stuart’s grandson.” He spoke out of one corner of his mouth; the other was twisted by paralysis, “Sit down. He often spoke of you. Had great hopes that one day you’d be managing an oilfield for him. Darned old fool.” His voice was surprisingly gentle.

“Five minutes, that’s all,” the nurse said, and went out.

“Like a drink?” He reached down with his long arm to a cupboard under the nearest pedestal of the desk. “Not supposed to have it. Henry smuggles it in for me. That’s my son. Hopes it’ll kill me off,” he added with a malicious twinkle. He poured out two Scotches neat. “Your health, young feller.”

“And yours, sir,” I said.

“I haven’t got any.” He waved his left hand vaguely. “They’re all hanging around waiting for me to die.” He craned forward, peering at me from under his eyebrows. “You’re from the Old Country, aren’t you? What brought you out to Canada? Think you’re going to drill a discovery well up in the Kingdom?”

“There doesn’t seem much chance of that,” I said. “Acheson just showed me the report on that survey.”

“Ah, yes. A pity. And Bladen was so enthusiastic. Good boy, Bladen. Fine flier. Half Indian, you know. Seems he’s not so good as a surveyor.” His voice had dropped almost to a mutter. But he rallied himself and said, “Well, now, what’s the purpose of this visit?”

“You were a friend of my grandfather,” I said. “I wanted to meet you.”

“Fine.” He peered at me. “Any financial propositions up your sleeve?”

“No,” I said. “It never occurred to me.”

“That’s okay.” He gave me a twisted smile. “When you’re old and rich, you get kinda suspicious about people’s motives. Now then, tell me about yourself.”

I started to tell him about Fothergill’s visit to my digs in London, and then suddenly I was telling him the whole story — about Maclean-Hervey’s verdict and my decision to emigrate. When I had finished, his eyes, which had been closed, flicked open. “Fine pair we are,” he said, and he managed a contorted grin that somehow made me realize that he was still something of a boy at heart. “So now they’re going to drown the Kingdom and you’re here to act as midwife. Well, maybe it’s for the best. It brought Stuart nothing but trouble.” He gave a little sigh and closed his eyes.

I liked him and because of that I felt I had to get the financial obligations settled. “I’ve seen Acheson,” I said. “He’ll settle up with you for the amount you advanced to the company. But I’m afraid the purchase price they’re prepared to pay won’t cover the survey.”

He fixed his gray eyes on me. “I thought this wasn’t a business visit!” he barked. “To hell with the money! You don’t have to worry about that. You’re under no obligation as far as I’m concerned. Do you understand? If you want to throw good money after bad and drill a well, you can go ahead.”

I laughed, “I’m not in a position to drill a well,” I said. “In any case, you’re the only per on who could do that. You own the mineral rights.”

“Yes, I’d forgotten that.” He took my glass and returned it with the bottle and his own glass to the cupboard. Then he leaned back and closed his eyes. “The mineral rights.” His voice was a barely audible murmur. “I wonder why Bladen was so keen; as keen as Stuart.” His left shoulder twitched in the slightest of shrugs. “I’d like to have been able to thumb my nose just once more at all the know-alls in the big companies. There’s oil in the Rocky Mountains.” He gave a tired laugh. “Well, there it is. Winnick is a straight guy. He wouldn’t pull anything on me. You’d best go home, young feller. You want friends around you when you die. It’s a lonely business anyway.”

The nurse came in and said my time was up. I got to my feet. He held out his left hand to me. “Good luck,” he said. “I’m glad you came. If your doctor feller’s right, we’ll maybe meet again soon. We’ll have a good chat then with all eternity ahead of us.” His eyes were smiling; his lips were tired and twisted.

I went out to my taxi and drove back to the hotel, the memory of that fine old shell of a man lingering with me.

I went up to my room and sat staring at Winnick’s report and thinking of the old man who had been my grandfather’s friend. I could understand his wanting that one final justification of his existence, wanting to prove the experts wrong. I needed the same thing. I needed it desperately. I pushed the papers into my suitcase and went down to get some lunch. At the desk was a short, stockily built man in an airman’s jacket, with a friendly face under a sweat-stained sombrero. He was checking out, and as I stood behind him, waiting, he said to the clerk, “If a feller by the name of Jack Harbin asks for me, tell him I’ve gone back to Jasper.”

“Okay, Jeff,” the clerk said. “I’ll tell him.”

Jasper! Jasper was in the Yellowhead Pass, the Canadian National’s gateway into the Rockies and the Fraser River valley. The Kingdom was barely fifty miles from Jasper as the crow flies. “Excuse me. Are you going by car?” The words were out before I had time to think it over.

“Yeah.” He looked me over and then his face crinkled into a friendly smile, “Want a ride?”

“Have you got room for me?”

“Sure. You’re from the Old Country, I guess.” He held out his hand. “I’m Jeff Hart.”

“My name’s Wetheral,” I said as I gripped his hand. “Bruce Wetheral.”

“Okay, Bruce. Make it snappy then. I got to be in Edmonton by tea time. I’ll he going on to Jasper the next day. I’ll be glad to have some company.”

It was all done on the spur of the moment. I didn’t have time to think of Acheson until I was in the big station wagon trundling north out of Calgary, and then I didn’t care. I was moving one step nearer the Kingdom and I was content to let it go at that. I lay back and relaxed in the warmth of the heater and the steady drone of the engine, listening to Jeff Hart’s gentle lazy voice giving me an oral introduction to the province of Alberta.

We reached Edmonton just before six and got a room at The Macdonald. I had moved into another world. This was the jumping-off place for the Arctic, the first outpost of civilization on the Alaska Highway. It had atmosphere, the atmosphere of a frontier town on which an oil boom had been superimposed.

I was dead beat by the time I crawled into my bed, and I was thankful when Jeff said he wouldn’t be leaving until after lunch. I stayed in bed all the morning, feeling weak and a little sick. The reaction from the strain of too much traveling had set in.

It was late that afternoon when we topped a rise and I got my first glimpse of Jasper.

“Do you know a man called Johnny Carstairs?” I asked my companion.

“The packer? Sure.”

“Where will I find him?”

“Oh, most anywheres around town. He wrangles a bunch of horses and acts as packer for the visitors in the summer.” The big car skidded on a patch of ice. “Better wait till the evening. You’ll find him in one of the beer parlors around seven.”

Jeff Hart dropped me at the hotel, saying he’d pick me up at seven and introduce me to Carstairs. I couldn’t face any food and went straight up to my room. I felt tired and short of breath. Looking in the mirror, I was shocked to see how gaunt my face was, the skin white and transparent so that the veins showed through it, and the stubble of my beard by contrast appeared a metallic blue. I lay down on the bed, lit a cigarette, and lying there, feeling the utter exhaustion of my body, I wondered whether I should ever get to Campbell’s Kingdom.

I must have dropped off into a sort of coma, for I woke up to find Jeff Hart bending over me, shaking me by the shoulders. “You gave me a turn,” he said. “Thought you’d never come around. You all right?”

“Yes,” I murmured, and forced myself to swing my feet off the bed. I sat there for a minute, panting and feeling the blood hammering in my ears.

“Would you like me to fetch a doctor?”

“No,” I said. “I’m all right.”

“Well, you don’t look it. You look like death. Better let the doctor look at you.”

I got to my feet then and caught him by the arm. “No. There’s nothing he can do about it.”

“But goldarn it, man, you’re ill.”

“I know.” I crossed to the window and stared at the peak of Edith Cavell, now a white marble monument against the darkening shadows of night. “There’s something wrong with my blood.”

“Then you’d better go to sleep again, I guess.”

“No, I’ll be all right,” I said. “Just wait while I wash, and then we’ll go down to the bar.”

As we went down, a party of skiers came in. They were Americans and their gaily colored wind-cheaters made a bright splash of color in the drab entrance to the hotel. We went through into the saloon.

“I sent word for Johnny to meet us here,” Jeff Hart said. He glanced at his watch. “He’ll be here any minute now.” The bartender came in. “Four beers.” His gaze swung to the door. “Here’s Johnny now... Make it six beers, will you, George?... Johnny, this is Bruce Wetheral.”

I found myself looking at a slim-hipped man in a sheepskin jacket and a battered hat. He had a kindly face, tanned by wind and sun, and his eyes had a faraway look, as though they were constantly searching for a distant peak.

“Understand you bin asking for me, Bruce?” He smiled and perched himself on a chair with the light ease of a man who sits on a horse most of his time. He turned to me. “What is it you’re wanting — horses?” He had a soft, lazy smile that crinkled the corners of his mouth and eyes.

“I’m not here on business,” I said. “I just wanted to meet you.”

“That’s real nice of you.” He smiled and waited.

“You knew an old man called Stuart Campbell, didn’t you?”

“King Campbell? Sure. But he’s dead now.”

“I know. You were one of the party that found his body.”

“That’s so, I guess.”

“Would you tell me about it?”

“Sure.” His eyes narrowed slightly and he frowned. “You a newspaper guy or somethin’?”

“No,” I said. “I’m Campbell’s grandson.”

His eyes opened wide. “His grandson!” He suddenly smiled. He had the softest, gentlest smile I’ve ever seen on a man’s face. “Well, well, King Campbell’s grandson.” He leaned across the table and gripped my hand.

And Jeff Hart clapped me on the shoulder. “Why didn’t you say who you were? I’d never have let you stop off at the hotel if I’d known.”

Johnny Carstairs said, “What’s brought you up here? You his heir or somethin’?”

I nodded.

He smiled that lazy smile of his. “Reckon he didn’t leave you much. What happens to the Kingdom? Do you own that now?”

“Yes.”

“Well, well.” The smile broadened into a puckish grin. “You got all the oil in the Rocky Mountains, Bruce.”

“You were going to tell me how you found his body,” I reminded him.

“Yeah.” He sat back, sprinkled salt into one of his glasses of beer and drank it. “Queer thing, that,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “He was fine and dandy when we got up there. An’ a week later he was dead.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Well, it was this-away: I’d bin totin’ a couple of Americans round for the best part of two months. They were climbers and they did stuff for magazines, back in the States. When the snows started, they wanted to get some material on ghost towns, and I took them over to Barkerville and then on to Come Lucky. Well, by then of course they’d bin bitten by the bug to meet King Campbell and do a story on him, so I hired some ponies off Trevedian and we went up.”

He produced a little white cotton bag of tobacco and rolled himself a cigarette. “Well, there was the old man as chirpy as a gopher in the sunshine. Let ’em take his pitcher an’ stayed up half the night tellin’ ’em tall stories and drinking their rye.

“Next day they decide they’ll climb The Gillie. I stabled the horses with the old man-all except two which we took along to pack our gear. Well, a bit of a storm caught us on The Gillie; by the time we got to the ranch I guess we’d bin away the best part of a week. I figured somethin’ was wrong as soon as I saw there weren’t no smoke coming from any of the chimneys and no tracks in the snow outside either. We went into the house. The fire was dead and the place was deathly cold. The old man was lying face down on the floor just inside the door, like as though he was struggling to get outside and bring in some logs.”

“What do you think caused his death?” I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. “Old age, I guess. Or maybe he had a stroke and died of cold. I hope, when it comes to my turn, I’ll go like that. No fuss, no illness — and no regrets. Right to the end he believed there was oil up there.” He relit the stub of his cigarette and leaned back, his eyes half closed. “Ever hear him playin’ the pipes, Bruce?”

I shook my head. “I met him only once. That was in England and he’d just come out of prison.”

His sandy eyebrows lifted slightly. “So the prison stuff was true, eh? That was the only story I ever heard him tell more than once — that and about the oil. Mebbe they’re both true and you’re the richest man this side of the Canadian border.” He laughed. “ ‘There’s oil in the Rocky Mountains.’ Be a joke, Jeff, if it were true, wouldn’t it now?” He laughed and shook his head. “But he could play the pipes. A grand man.” He leaned forward and picked up his glass. “Your health!”

I raised my glass, thinking of the picture he was giving me of my grandfather and the Kingdom. “How do I get there?” I asked.

“Up to the Kingdom?” Johnny shook his head. “You won’t get up there yet for a month or more — not until the snow melts.”

“I can’t wait that long,” I said.

Johnny’s eyes narrowed as he peered across sat me. “You seem in a gol-darned hurry.”

“I am,” I said.

“Well, Max Trevedian might take you up from Come Lucky. He acts as packer and guide around there. But it’d be a tough trip, an’ he’s an ornery sort of critter anyway. Me, I wouldn’t look at it, not till the snows melt.”

I brought a dog-eared map out of my pocket and spread it on the table. “Well, how do I get to Come Lucky anyway?” I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. “Well, all I can suggest is you take the Continental out of here at one-thirty and go down to Kamloops. Stop off the night there and make inquiries. Or you can go on to Ashcroft. Either way you’ve got to get across that stretch of road from Ashcroft to Clinton. From Clinton you can take the Great Eastern up to Williams Lake or Quesnel. From either of those places you get into Come Lucky as best you can. My guess is that if the road is open between Ashcroft and Clinton, then you’ll probably be able to get all the way up to Hundred-and-Fifty-Mile House by road.”

I thanked him and folded the map up.

He looked across at me and his hand closed over my arm. “You’re a sick man, Bruce. Take my advice. Wait a month. It’s too early for traveling through the mountains except by rail.”

“I can’t wait that long,” I murmured. “I must get up there.”

“Well, then, wait a month.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because—” I stopped then. I couldn’t just tell them I hadn’t much time.

“Let him find out for himself, Jeff.” Johnny’s voice was gruff with anger. “Some people are just cussed. They got to learn the hard way.”

“It’s not that,” I said quickly.

“All right, then. What is it? What’s the gol-darned hurry?”

“It isn’t any of your business.” I hesitated, and then added, “I’ve got only a few months to live.”

They stared at me. Johnny’s eyes searched my face and then dropped awkwardly. He brought out his tobacco and concentrated on rolling a cigarette.

“I’m sorry, Bruce,” he said gently. Accustomed to dealing with animals, I think he’d read the truth of Maclean-Hervey’s opinion in my features.

But Jeff was a mechanic. “How do you know?” he asked. “You can’t know a thing like that.”

“You can if you’ve had the best man in London.” My voice sounded harsh. “He gave me six months at the outside,” I added. I got to my feet. My lips were trembling uncontrollably. “Good night,” I said. “And thanks for your help.” I didn’t want them to see that I was scared.

I had a chance to make $50,000 by selling some land I had never seen, but I turned the offer down. Although I was not wealthy, the money had little meaning for me. The land, on the other hand, aroused my curiosity.

A few weeks earlier, after I had assured a lawyer that I was Bruce Campbell Wetheral, I was told that I was sole legatee to the will of my grandfather, Stuart Campbell. My inheritance was a large tract of land in the Canadian Rockies known as Campbell’s Kingdom, and all the shares of the Campbell Oil Exploration Company. My grandfather had spent most of his life trying to prove there was oil in the Rockies. Although he had been sent to jail for fraud in connection with his oil project, he died convinced he was right about the oil.

Among my grandfather’s papers was a letter to me. Stuart Campbell swore he was innocent of the swindle charges, and his last request to me was to prove he was right about the oil. I emigrated to Canada from London. Although I knew I would never be able to prove my grandfather right, I wanted to see Campbell’s Kingdom before I sold the property.

At Jasper, British Columbia, fifty miles away from the Kingdom, I met Johnny Carstairs, one of the men in the party that found my grandfather’s body. I asked Carstairs how I could get up to the Kingdom. He advised me to wait a month, when the snows would be gone and the roads open. I told him I couldn’t wait, that I had no time. When he argued with me, trying to change my mind, I told him why I had to move quickly — Maclean-Hervey, one of the best surgeons in London, had told me that I had only six months left to live.

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:

Dear Bruce: When you read this, the Kingdom will be yours. I shall not last the winter. And I have no longer the energy or the will to fight for my beliefs.

This day I have received the results of Bladen’s survey, I have it before me as I write, together with the consultant’s report—

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:

“It is clear, therefore, that in the upheaval which raised these mountains, us might be expected, such disturbance of the rock strata occurred as to make the possibility of oil traps, either stratigraphical or in the form of anticlines, quite out of the question.”

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:

“So finally I have to face the facts that I can do no more. You may regard this as the obstinacy of a cranky old man, set in his beliefs. I only ask you to remember that I have been studying rock strata till my life and I absolutely refuse to believe that the very broken nature of the strata below the Kingdom as shown by this survey can be correct. You have only to look at the fault at the head of Thunder Creek to know this to be true. Further, though I cannot vouch for there being oil, I do know there was oil here in 1911 when the big slide occurred. The trap that held that oil must have shown on the chart if this survey were accurate. I fear there are things moving that I do not understand, living alone here in my kingdom.

“My final and urgent request to you is that you somehow find the money to test my beliefs by drilling, which is the only sure method. Do this before they complete the dam and drown the Kingdom forever.

“I pray God you will accept the mantle of my beliefs and wear it to the damnation of my enemies.

“Affectionately and with Great Hopes of You

“STUART CAMPBELL”

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?

III

While I was walking back to the hotel, my mind unconsciously dwelt on the hatred these people had for my grandfather. I think something of this communicated itself to Pauline. As we reached The Golden Calf she paused with her hand on the door, and said, “Things that are small to you become big to us hero at this time of the year.”

She pressed the latch of the door and pushed it open. The murmur of voices died as we entered. There were TuIly a dozen men clustered round the fire. “Here he is now,” one of them hissed. “Give him the telegram. Hut.” I saw Peter Trevedian watching me. He was sitting with his brother at one of the tables. Bladen was there, too, talking to Mac.

The telegram was creased and much thumbed. I opened it out and took it to the lamp. The message read:

HAVE PERSUADED LARSEN COMPANY TO INCREASE OFFER. URGENT I SEE YOU. HOPE ARRIVE COME LUCKY TUESDAY. BRINGING HENRY FERGUS, CHAIRMAN LARSEN MINES. PLEASE AWAIT OUR ARRIVAL. VITAL WE FINALLY COME TO TERMS FOR PURCHASE OF KINGDOM OR ALTERNATIVE PLAN WILL DEFINITELY BE ADOPTED. SIGNED, ACHESON.

The silence in the room was intense as I stuffed it into my pocket. The men’s eyes were fixed hungrily on my face and it was obvious that they knew the contents of that wire. I turned and started far the door, intent upon escaping to my room.

But the old man who had given me the wire barred my way.

“What is it?” I asked him.

He tugged awkwardly at his mustache. “We-ell. What we want to know is: Are you going to sell or not?”

“I don’t see that it concerns you.”

He stared at me “You wouldn’t understand. I guess. You’re a stranger here. But the completion of the Solomon’s Judgment dam means a lot to us.”

They were all eying me, all silent now, waiting.

“Well?”

“I’m not selling,” I said.

Peter Trevedian’s chair flung back against the wall with a crash as he got to his feet. “You said you were going to think it over.”

“I’ve done so,” I said. “And I’ve made up my mind. I’m not selling.”

He swung round on the others. “I told you what it would be. We’re going to have the same nonsense all over again.” He got control of himself then and came toward me. “Look.” His tone was considered and reasonable, but his eyes were hard and angry. “You owe it to the people your grandfather ruined.”

“And suppose he was right?” I said.

“Then show us the river of oil!” somebody called out.

And another shouted, “Aye! You drown Come Lucky with oil! We’ll drown the Kingdom with water! See who’s flooded out first!”

I turned to Bladen. “Tell me the truth about that survey,” I said.

“Oh, to hell with the survey!” Trevedian snapped. “Why don’t you think about the people here for a change?”

“Why should I?” I cried. “What did they ever do for my grandfather except try and cash in on his discovery and then blame him when they lost their money? I might have been willing to sell, but I’ve just discovered that my grandfather knew the results of that survey. Somebody took a copy of the report up to him just before winter set in.”

“What’s that got to do with it?” James McClellan demanded.

“Just this.” My voice trembled. “In my opinion, the man who did that was responsible for my grandfather’s death. Because of that the welfare of this town is no longer a consideration as far as I’m concerned. And if I knew who’d done it—”

“If you knew, what would you do, huh?” Max Trevedian had thrust his massive body to its feet. “I took that report up. It killed him, did it? That is good.”

I stared at the foolish grin on his thick lips. “You’re mad,” I heard myself say.

“How was my brother to know what the report showed?” Peter Trevedian said. “We naturally I bought the old man would want to know the result.”

I turned to him, staring at him, “You sent your brother up with that report,” I said.

He nodded. “Yes. I sent him.”

“And how did you get hold of a second copy?” He didn’t say anything, but just stood there, smiling at me. “Did this man Henry Fergus send it to you?”

I looked round at the others. What I had seen in. his eyes was reflected in theirs, It was then I noticed that Bladen had left. Feeling suddenly sick at heart, I crossed to the door and went up to the seclusion of my room.

I must have fallen asleep, for I was suddenly startled by a knock on the door. “Come in,” I murmured.

It was Boy Bladen. He shut the door and stood there hesitantly. “I’ve just been talking to Jean. I didn’t know you’d emigrated to Canada, prepared to live up in the Kingdom and start out where Stuart had left off. Why didn’t you tell me that?”

“I didn’t see any necessity,” I murmured.

“No, of course not,” I had the feeling of something boiling up inside him. “You were outside Trevedian’s office this afternoon. How much did you hear of what we were saying?”

“Enough, I think, to understand why you agreed with the report on your survey.”

“You knew all the time I wasn’t being honest with you?”

“No,” I said. “It was only when Jean Lucas confirmed that you’d been enthusiastic about the prospects of finding oil in the Kingdom that I began to put two and two together.”

“I see.” He turned away again toward the window. “I thought you were just out to get the best price you could for the property. I thought— Hell!” he said, turning sharply and facing me. “I was scared of losing my trucks. I’ve a lot of dough tied up in that equipment and if Trevedian had refused to bring it down on the hoist—” He shrugged his shoulders.

He suddenly pulled up a chair and sat down astride it, his hands gripping the back. “Now then, about the survey I did. I formed the impression I was surveying a perfect anticline. I can’t be sure. I’d need to plot the figures I got on a seismogram. But I do know this: the report Winnick made on the figures I sent him is a lot of honey. I was never more surprised in my life than when I saw that article in the Edmonton Journal. I wrote to Louis right away, but all he said in reply was that if I cared to come and check the figures against the seismograms his office had prepared, I’d find them accurate.”

“Is he straight?”

“Louis Winnick? Straight as a die.”

“Have you checked your figures with the ones Winnick worked from?”

“I haven’t seen him. But as soon as I get back to Calgary—” He stopped. “What are you getting at?”

“Did you take the results of your survey down to Winnick yourself?”

“Of course not. We had them mailed from Keithley.”

“Yes, but how did you get them down to Keithley?”

“By the hoist. Max Trevedian was running supplies up to us, and each week—” He stopped then. “Of course. All they had to do was substitute the figures of some unsuccessful survey.” He jumped to his feet and began pacing violently up and down the room. “No wonder Trevedian needed to be sure I kept my mouth shut.” He stopped by the window and stood there, silent for a long time, drawing on his cigarette. He turned slowly and faced me, eyes alight as though he had seen a vision. “I just wanted to get my trucks and go. But now—” He half shrugged his shoulders and came toward me. “Jean said you wanted to prove Stuart right.” His voice was suddenly practical. “She said you’d got guts and you’d do it if you had someone in with you to handle the technical side. How much is a drilling operation worth to you?”

I laughed then. “All I’ve got is a few hundred dollars.”

“I don’t mean that.” He resumed his seat astride the chair facing me. “Look. If I find the capital and the equipment, will you split fifty-fifty? By that I mean fifty-fifty of oil profits resulting from drilling operations in the Kingdom.”

“Aren’t you anticipating a bit?” I said. “Even supposing your survey did show an anticline, you admit yourself it doesn’t necessarily mean there’s oil there.”

He nodded slowly. “You’re too level-headed,” he said, grinning. “All right. Let’s take it step by step. Tomorrow I’ll leave for Calgary. I’ll have a talk with Louis and look over the figures from which he prepared that report. Meantime, you get up to the Kingdom just as soon as they get the road through and the hoist working. You’ll find my trucks in one of the barns there. Somewhere in the instrument truck there are the results of the final surveys I did. Bring them down with you and mail them direct to Louis. While you’re doing that I’ll go and see old Roger Fergus. He’s always been very good to me. I used to work for him quite a lot in the old days. He’s a pretty sick man now, but if I could get him interested he might put up the dough. If I can make Roger Fergus a proposition” — he paused and lit another cigarette — “would you split fifty-fifty for the chance of proving Stuart right?”

“Of course,” I said. “But the only person you could do it with is Fergus. Otherwise we’d be up against his son’s company. Besides, Fergus owns the mineral rights.”

He turned toward the door. “You leave it to me. So long as I have your assurance that you’re prepared to split fifty-fifty?”

“Of course,” I said.

“Okay then. You let Louis have those figures just as soon as you can get them. I’ll talk to him and then I’ll see the old man. I’ll wire you as soon as I’ve any news.”

“And what about your trucks?”

“Oh, the heck with the trucks,” he grinned. “Anyway, we’ll maybe need them to cheek on the anticline.” He took hold of the handle of the door. “I’ll leave you now. Jean said you were pretty tired.”

“Good night,” I said. “And thanks for your help.”

He smiled. “Time enough to thank me when we bring in a well.”

Next morning Jean came to see me. I had just finished breakfast and was out on the veranda enjoying the warmth of the sun. “Has Boy left?” she asked.

I nodded. “He went into Keithley with Creasy this morning.” And I told her what he had planned the night before.

When I had finished she didn’t say anything for a moment, but stood staring toward the gulch of Thunder Creek and the twin peaks of Solomon’s Judgment. “I’m not surprised,” she said. “He always had a feeling about the Kingdom.”

Footsteps sounded on the bare boards of the sidewalk and I turned to find Peter Trevedian coming toward us. “Where’s Bladen gone,” he asked Jean.

“I don’t know,” she said.

Trevedian grunted and turned to me. “He came to see you late last night. Did he say why he was leaving?”

“He probably regarded that as his own business.”

Trevedian looked at me hard for a moment. Then he grunted and turned on his heel and went into the hotel.

“He’s worried,” Jean said. Her hand touched my arm. “Be careful. You don’t look as though you could go many rounds with him.”

I was gazing after Trevedian. “Maybe not,” I said. “But I’d like to. It was his brother who took that report up to my grandfather. And he sent him.”

“I know,” she said. “Boy told me about the reception committee that greeted you when you got back to the hotel last night. That was Peter’s work too. Be careful,” she repeated. “Stay in Come Lucky, will you, till Boy gets back?”

I took her advice for the next two days and saw quite a lot of her. Meantime, Creasy and his construction gang broke through the fall where the avalanche had carried the old road away, and the talk after the evening meal was all of opening up the camp at the head of the creek and getting the hoist working.

On Saturday Mac handed me a telegram.

CONVINCED FIGURES NOT MINE. SEND WINNICK THOSE FROM KINGDOM SOONEST POSSIBLE. ROGER FERGUS DIED TWO DAYS AGO. LEAVING FOR PEACE RIVER. SIGNED, BLADEN.

I thanked him and went up to my room. So Roger Fergus was dead and that was that. I was back where I’d started, and the Kingdom was as far away as ever.

Creasy was late that day and when he came in we had almost finished tea. “Well, we’re through to the camp,” he said as he lowered himself into his chair. “We should reach the hoist by midday tomorrow.”

“Does Peter know this?” James McClennan asked him.

“Yes. I told him. He wants you to go down and have a word with him this evening. I think he’s pretty anxious to see that hoist working.”

“He doesn’t have to worry about the hoist,” McClennan answered, “It’ll work all right; I built it to last.”

I got to my feet and returned to my room. Ever since the night I had told them I wasn’t selling the Kingdom my presence had produced a strained atmosphere. It made me very dependent upon Jean for company and upon the hospitality of the two Miss Garrets.

When I went down there that evening it was raining hard and blowing half a gale from the west. Miss Sarah Garret opened the door to me.

“Come in, Mr. Wetheral; come in.” She shut the door. “My sister and I were so sorry to hear about the death of Roger Fergus.”

I stared at her. “How did you know he was dead?”

“But you received a telegram from Boy today saying so.”

I wondered whether Trevedian, too, knew the contents of that wire yet, and if so, what he was going to do about it. I wished now I had told Bladen to write.

She smiled at me and her eyes twinkled. “So sensible of you to get Boy to do the organizing side of your venture.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Why?” She tapped me with her fingers. “Go on with you. Think I don’t know why? I was young once, you know, and I understand only too well how lonely it can be for a girl up here in Come Lucky.”

She gave a little tinkling laugh and then turned quickly at the sound of footsteps. “Ah, here she is,” she said as Jean entered the room.

“I gather you know about the wire I got from Boy,” I said.

She nodded, “Miss McClellan was here two hours ago with the details of it. The news will be all over Come Lucky by now.” She took me through into her own room. “You look tired,” she said as she poured me a drink.

“I feel it,” I answered. “It seems so hopeless. Henry Fergus now owns the mineral rights of the Kingdom.”

“It’ll work out,” she said quietly. “You see. You’ve got a good partner in Boy. Once he gets hold of an idea, he doesn’t easily let go. He’ll find somebody to back you.”

She had spoken with a warmth that was unusual in her. “Are you in love with him?” I asked.

She stared at me in sudden shocked surprise and then turned away. “We’ll talk about the Kingdom, not me, if you don’t mind,” she said, in a voice that trembled slightly.

“Why has Boy gone to Peace River, do you know?” I asked her.

She started slightly. “Has he? I didn’t know.” Her voice was fiat. She turned and looked at me. “He was working there during the winter.”

For some reason she had withdrawn into herself. I left shortly after that and returned to the hotel. As I was starting upstairs Pauline came out of the kitchen. “Jimmy is going up to the dam tomorrow.”

“When?”

“They leave tomorrow after breakfast; he is going with Ben.”

“Tell him I’d like to come with him, provided he’ll take me to the top if the hoist is working.”

“Yes, I will tell him that.” She flashed me a smile. “Good night, Bruce.”

“Good night, Pauline.”

I went up to my room, suddenly too excited to think of reading. At last I was going to get a glimpse of the Kingdom.

I was called at seven. By the time I got down, the men were already having breakfast. Pauline brought me mine.

“So you’re going up to have a look at the dam. Mr. Wetheral?” old Mac said.

“I gather your son’s willing to take me up,” I said.

He nodded and belched at the same time. “Jamie will take ye up.” He turned to his son. “Take him up the hoist, Jamie; and let him see the place for himself.”

McClellan nodded. He finished his coffee at a gulp, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and got to his feet. “Okay, Ben?” Creasy nodded and pushed back his chair. McClellan turned to me. “You ready, Wetheral?”

I went up to get my boots and a raincoat. A truck was waiting for us down by the bunkhouse — the same one that had brought me to Come Lucky. Max Trevedian was loading drums of Diesel fuel into the back. Peter Trevedian came slithering down through the mud toward us.

“All set?” he asked.

“Just about,” McClellan said.

“Well, what do you want here, Wetheral?” I turned to find Peter Trevedian coming toward me.

“McClellan offered to take me up to have a look at the dam,” I said.

“He did, did he?” He called to McClellan and took him to one side.

“It can’t do any harm,” I heard McClellan say.

Finally Trevedian said, in a voice that was loud enough for me to hear, “Well, he’s not coming up in one of my trucks. If he wants to go up there, he can find his own way up.”

McClellan said something, but Trevedian turned with a shrug and climbed into the cab of the truck.

McClellan hesitated, glancing at me. Then he came over. “I’m sorry, Wetheral,” he said. “Trevedian says there isn’t room for all of us. I’m afraid we’ll have to leave you behind.”

“And you take your orders from him?”

He glanced at me quickly, a hard, angry look in his eyes. Then he turned away, and he and Creasy climbed into the cab. The engine roared and I stood there watching the truck as it slithered through the mud. The Kingdom seemed as far away us ever.

I went slowly back to the hotel. Mac was in the bar when I entered. “Are ye not going up to the hoist wi’ Jamie?”

“Trevedian refused to take me,” I said.

He growled something under his breath. “Well, I’ve a message for you. Two friends of yours are down at Hundred-and-Fifty-Mile House. Phoned up to find out whether you were still here.”

“Two friends?” I stared at him. “Who were they?”

“Johnny Carstairs and a fellow called Jeff Hart. Said they’d be up here this afternoon to see you if the road wasn’t washed out.”

I turned away toward the window. Johnny Carstairs and Jeff Hart. It was the best news I had had in a week.

It was around teatime that Johnny and Jeff rolled into Come Lucky in a station wagon plastered with mud. And it wasn’t long before I knew what had brought them. Jeff had met Boy Bladen down at Edmonton.

“He said something about that survey being phony,” Johnny said. “He said Trevedian fixed it and then sent his brother up to the Kingdom with the report.” His eyes were hard and narrow under their puffy lids. “He said you could give us the whole story. The road’s just open, so we came over. I was kinda fond of the old man,” he added. He turned abruptly, facing me. “Where’s Trevedian?”

“Up at the hoist,” I said. And then, because I was shocked by the tenseness of his features, I added, “There’s nothing you can do about it, Johnny.”

“No?” He suddenly smiled gently. “I’m madder’n hell. And when I’m that way the meanest critter on four legs won’t get the better of Johnny Carstairs — nor on two legs neither.” He turned abruptly to the door. “C’mon. Let’s go an’ feed.”

Johnny was one of those men whose values are real. I watched him as he sat eating, quiet and easy and friendly, exchanging banter with old Mac. Only his eyes reflected the mood that was still boiling inside him.

McClellan and Creasy were late getting back and we had nearly finished our meal by the time they arrived. “Was it all right. Jamie?” Mac asked.

“Of course it was.” For the first time since I had known him, James McClellan was smiling. “The motor was all right and so was the cable.” He nodded perfunctorily to Johnny as he sat down and got straight on with his meal. “What brings you here?” he asked. “Bit early in the season for visitors, isn’t it?”

“This is Jeff Hart, from Jasper,” Johnny said. “We came over to see friend Bruce here. Understand you wouldn’t take him up to the Kingdom this morning.”

“Peter Trevedian runs the transport here,” McClellan replied sullenly.

“Sure, sure. Peter Trevedian runs you and the whole goldarned town, from what I hear. Did you know about him sending his brother up to old Campbell with the report on that survey?”

Nobody said anything. The table had become suddenly silent. Anger underlay the mildness of Johnny’s tone, and it showed in his eyes.

“You’d better go and talk to Peter Trevedian,” McClellan said awkwardly.

Johnny was lighting his cigarette, and his eyes were on McClellan through the smoke. “I thought you were Trevedian’s partner?”

“Only on the hoist.”

“I see. Not when it cornea to substituting phony survey figures and driving an old man to his death.”

McClellan pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “What are you getting at?”

“Nothing that you can’t figure out for yourself. Know where Trevedian is, Mac?” he asked.

I don’t think the old man heard the question. He seemed lost in thought. It was Creasy who answered, “You’ll find him down at the bunkhouse.”

“Okay. Thanks.” Johnny had turned to the door. Jeff and I got up and followed him. “You boys stay here,” he said. “You can order me a beer. I’ll be thirsty by the time I get through with Trevedian.”

We sat and waited for him by the stove in the bar. He was gone the better part of an hour and by the time he got bock, men from Creasy’s construction gang were filtering in in ones and twos. They were a mixed bunch, their hands hard and calloused — Poles, Ukrainians, Italians, a Negro and two Chinamen.

“Well?” Jeff asked as Johnny slid into the vacant choir at our table.

“Trevedian wasn’t there,” he said, and called to the Chinaman to bring more beer. “I went along and saw Jean instead.” His eyes crinkled as he looked across at me. “Leastways you got yourself one friend in Come Lucky. She’s a real dandy, that girl. If I were a few years younger—” He stopped suddenly, his gaze fixed over my shoulder.

I turned in my chair. Peter Trevedian was standing in the doorway, looking round the bar.

“Why, if it isn’t Johnny Carstairs.” He crossed the room, his hand outstretched. “What brings you up here this early in the year?”

Johnny was in the middle of the room now. He ignored the other’s hand. He was rocking gently on his high-heeled boots, anger building up inside him like steam in a boiler. “I came on account of what I heard from Bladen.”

“Well?” Trevedian had stopped. His hand had fallen to his side. “What did you hear from Bladen?”

“Did you have to play a dirty trick like that on an old man who never did you—”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about! I’m talking about Stuart Campbell! You killed him!” Johnny’s voice vibrated through the silence of the room, “Why did you have to do it like that, striking at him through his—”

“Oh, atop talking nonsense, I didn’t touch the old man, and you know it,” Trevedian’s eyes glanced round the room, seeing it silent and listening. “We’d better go dawn to my office. We can talk there.” He turned toward the door.

“There’s nothing private in what I got to say.” Johnny had not moved, but his hands had shifted to the leather belt round his waist. “What were you afraid of — that he’d talk to some newspaper feller, that he’d tell them what he knew about the dam?”

“What do you mean?” The other had swung round.

“Campbell wasn’t a Tool. Why do you think he let them go on with the construction of the dam at the start of the war without making any demand for compensation?”

“He’d have put in a claim, only Pearl Harbor brought the Yanks into the—”

“It wasn’t Pearl Harbor. It was because he knew the dam wouldn’t stand the weight of the water.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking—”

“Sure you do. I’m talking about the Marie Bell and her cargo of cement. I took a Vancouver shipowner up to the Kingdom in 1940 and he told us the whole thing.”

“The construction of the dam has nothing to do with me — never has had. I just pack the materials in.” Trevedian’s voice had risen slightly. He moved a step nearer. It was like seeing a hull about to charge a matador.

Johnny laughed softly. It reacted on Trevedian like a slap in the face. His head came dawn and his fists clenched. A tingle of expectation ran through the room. “Think I don’t know what packing rates are?” Johnny said. “You didn’t make enough out of transporting the stuff to start a transport and construction company in Alaska.”

“The Government was responsible for building the dam,” Trevedian snapped. “They had inspectors.”

“Sure they had inspectors. But how were they to know you were packing in cement that had lain for a year on the rocks of the Queen Charlotte Islands?”

“That’s a lie.” Trevedian’s face was livid. “All the cement I delivered was from an American company down in Seattle.”

“Sure. They were shipping cement up to Alaska for military installations. One of their ships—”

Trevedian suddenly straightened up. He had got control of himself and his big laugh boomed through the room. “So I’m supposed to have killed Campbell because he knew I’d supplied dud cement for the dam.” He slapped his thigh with amusement. “That’s damn funny. In the first place, I didn’t kill Campbell, and every person in this room knows it. In the second place, that dud cement you talk about seems to be standing up to it pretty well, since the dam’s still there and there isn’t a crack in the whole structure. You want to get your facts right before you come storming up here making a lot of wild accusations.” And still laughing, he turned on his heel and went out into the night.

Johnny came back to our table and knocked back the rest of his beer.

“What’s all this about the dam?” Jeff asked.

“To hell with the dam!” Johnny’s eyes were angry. “But if that rat—” He suddenly laughed. “Well, maybe Stuart was right. If he was willing to let things take their course, I guess I should be too.” He put down his glass. “I’m going down to have a talk with Jean.”

When he had gone. Jeff said, “You know, I’d like to see this dam there’s all the fuss about. Have you seen it?”

“Yes,” I said. “I saw it the other day from Thunder Creek. What I want to do is get up there. I want to see the Kingdom.”

“Thunder Creek’s where they’re building the road, isn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

He suddenly laughed. “Well, what are we waiting for? It’s a fine night and there’s a moon. Let’s go right on up there.”

But some instinct of caution made me hesitate. “It would be better to go up by daylight,” I said. “Could we go up tomorrow? Then you’d get a good view of the dam and I might be able to persuade—”

“Tomorrow’s no good,” he said. “We’re leaving tomorrow.” He got to his feet. “Come on,” he said. “We’ll go up there now.”

“What about Johnny?”

“Johnny?” He laughed. “We’ll leave a message for him. How far do we have to go up Thunder Creek?”

“I think it’s about ten or eleven miles,” I said.

“And the road has only just been made. We can be there and back in an hour and a half. Come on. You don’t need a coat. We got some in the station wagon and it’s got a healer too.”

The road up Thunder Creek was like the bed of a stream. But Jeff never once suggested turning back. A car to him was an expendable item, a thing to fight nature with, and he sang softly to himself as he wrestled with the wheel.

Both he and the car were thoroughly tested before the timber finally fell back behind us and the headlights blazed on the most colossal rock fall I have ever seen. And above the slide — high, high above it — towered the black shadow of the cliff race, a gleam of white at the top where the moon caught the snow caps.

We dropped steeply several hundred feel and fetched up at a square concrete building I lint looked like an enormous pillbox. On the side facing us was a timbered Hinging on which rested a heavy wooden cage suspended by wires to a great cable the thickness of a man’s arm. Jeff stopped the car and switched his spotlight onto the cable, following it up the slope of the slide. It gleamed dully in the light, like the thick thread of a spider, running in a long loop away up the slide until it faded into nothing, reaching beyond the range of the spotlight. Below it two subsidiary cables followed the pattern of the loop.

“Well, that’s it, I guess,” Jeff said. “From what Johnny’s told me, it runs to a concrete pylon at the top of the slide and then in one great loop up to another pylon on the lip of the fault. Quite a place, isn’t it?”

I didn’t say anything. That slender thread was the link bridging the dark gap that separated me from the Kingdom. If I could travel that cable— A queer mood of excitement was taking hold of me.

I pushed open the door. “Let’s have a look in the engine house,” I said.

“Sure.”

Jeff flung me a duffel coat from the back of the car and then we pushed down through the wind to the engine housing. Inside we were out of the wind, but the cold was bitter.

The interior was about the size of a large room. One wall was taken up entirely by a huge iron wheel round which the driving cable of the hoist ran. This was connected by a shaft to a big Diesel engine that stood against the other wall, covered by a tarpaulin lashed down with rope through the eyeholes. A control panel was fixed to the concrete and there was an ex-service field telephone on a wooden bracket. Back of the main engine house was a storeroom, and in it I saw the drums of fuel oil that had been brought up from Come Lucky.

I stood there for a moment, absorbing it all, while Jeff peered under the tarpaulin at the engine. I turned slowly, drawn by an irresistible impulse.

The thing that had been in my mind ever since I had seen the slender thread of that cable suddenly crystallized, and I turned to Jeff. “They had that engine going today, didn’t they?”

He nodded, straightening up and facing me, a frown on his friendly, open features. “What’s on your mind?”

I hesitated, strangely unwilling to put my idea into words, for fear it should be impracticable. “You’re a mechanic, aren’t you?” I said. “Can you start that engine?”

“Sure, but—” He stopped and then he stepped forward and caught hold of my arm. “Don’t be crazy, Bruce. You can’t go up there on your own. Suppose the thing jammed or the motor broke down?”

The thought had already occurred to me. “There must be some sort of safety device,” I said.

He nodded reluctantly. “There’ll be something like that, I guess. If the driving cable were disconnected gravity ought to bring it down.” He took me outside and we climbed onto the cage. It was a big contraption, bigger than anything I had seen in the Swiss Alps. He flashed the beam of his torch onto the cradle where the two flanged wheels ran on the cable. “There you are,” he said. It was a very simple device. The driving cable was fixed to the cradle by a pinion on a hinged arm. If the motor failed, all one had to do was knock the pinion out. The driving cable then fell onto a roller, and a braking wheel automatically came into action. It was then possible to let the cage elide down on the brake.

“See if you can get the motor started,” I said.

Jeff hesitated, then he turned with a slight shrug of his shoulders. “Okay,” he said.

There was a pilot engine for starting the big Diesel. It was a petrol engine with battery starter. It started at a touch of the button. Jeff pulled the tarpaulin clear of the Diesel, turned on the oil, and a moment later the concrete housing shook to the roar of the powerful motor. I went to the car and got another coat and a rug. Jeff met me at the entrance to the housing.

“I don’t like it,” he said.

“I’ll be all right,” I said.

He looked at me, frowning slightly. “Okay. Better take this.” He handed me his torch. “They’ve rigged a phone up, by the look of it. Ring me from the top.” He glanced at his watch. “If there’s anything wrong with the phone. I’ll bring the cage down at nine o’clock, giving one false start to warn you. If you don’t come down then. I’ll run it up again and bring it down every half hour. Okay?”

I nodded and checked my watch with his. Then I climbed onto the wooden platform of the cage. He shouted “Good luck!” to me and disappeared into the concrete housing. A moment later the note of the Diesel deepened as it took up the slack of the driving cable. I watched the loop of the cable level out and become taut. The cage shook gently and then lifted from its staging. The wheels of the cradle began to turn, creaking slightly. The cage swung gently to and fro. I watched the engine housing slowly grow smaller and then I turned and faced the black rampart of the cliff.

It was an odd journey, alone there, slung in space in the moon-filled night. The rock jumble of the slide fell away steeply below me, a checkerboard of black and white. But ahead all was deep in shadow. A great concrete pillar moved toward me and slid past in the night, a vague shape as the cage ran from moonlight into shadow. For a moment the sound of the cradle wheels changed as they ran on the solid fixing of the cable. Then the whole cradle began to tilt sharply and the rate of progress slowed as it began to climb the vertical cliff face. Looking back, the moon-white valley seemed miles away. I could barely see the tiny square block of the engine housing. I seemed hung in space, like a balloonist caught in an updraft of air and slowly rising.

It could have been only a few minutes, but it seemed an age that the cage was climbing the bare rock face of the fault. Then we lipped the top end I was in moonlight again and the world around was visible and white. The concrete pylon passed me so close I could have touched it. The cradle toppled down to an almost horizontal position. Ahead of me now I could see the dam, a gigantic concrete wall, unfinished at the top and crumbling away in the center where the stream ran through. The cage climbed the northern slope of the cleft until I was looking down onto the top of the dam. Then it slowed and moved gently into a wooden staging that finished abruptly at a concrete housing similar to the one at the bottom. The cage stopped with a slight jerk that set the cables swaying.

I climbed stiffly out and looked about me. The dam was below me, looking like some prehistoric rampart built by ancient inhabitants to defend the pass. The unfinished center section, where the water frothed white over a small fall, gave it the appearance of having been breached in some early raid.

All this I saw at a glance and then my gaze swung to the Kingdom itself. It was a natural bowl in the mountains some five to ten miles long; I couldn’t tell the width because a buttress of rock, part of the shoulder of the mountain, blocked my view. The place was completely bare, a white expanse of snow through which ran the black thread of the stream, branching here and there into tributaries that faded rapidly beneath the snow. There was no sign of habitation.

I went into the concrete housing. It contained nothing but the big iron wheel round which the driving cable ran, and some cans of grease. There was a field telephone on a wooden bracket. I lifted the receiver and wound the handle.

Faint in my ear came the sound of Jeff’s voice, “You all right, Bruce?”

“Yes, I’m fine.” It was odd to think of him still down there in the valley with the car outside and the road snaking back to Come Lucky. I seemed to have moved into another world. “I can’t see Campbell’s shack from hero,” I told him. “It’s probably on the north side of the Kingdom, and that’s hidden from me by a buttress of rock. I’ll ring you when I’m ready to come down.”

“Okay. But don’t be too long.”

I hung up and went outside. I stood there for a moment, gazing beyond the buttress to the Kingdom. It was a crystal bowl surrounded by peaks, and it wasn’t difficult to imagine how my grandfather had felt when he had first seen it. Spring would come late here, but when it came it would be splendid and solitary. The light died out of the whiteness of the plateau until it was no more than a distant glimmer. The clouds were thickening up. I turned and climbed the rock-strewn slope to the buttress.

It didn’t take me long to reach it, and from the summit the whole Kingdom lay before me. And there, huddled against the lower slopes of the mountain away to my left, was a low range of buildings half buried in snow.

It shouldn’t have taken me long to reach them, for it was not more than a mile, but the going was very slippery, the snow frozen into a hard crust. But I was making fair progress when all hell broke loose. There was a steady roaring on the mountain slopes above me. The wind came with a drift of powdery snow whipped up from frozen ground, and behind the wind came snow, heavy, driving flakes that were cold and clinging, that blinded my eyes and blanketed the whole world that only a moment before had been so bright and clear in the moonlight.

There was no question now of fighting my way back to the top of the hoist. I knew the direction in which the homestead lay and I made for it, head down against the blinding fury of the blizzard, cursing myself for a fool, for not realizing how quickly the mood of mountains can change.

After a struggle that seemed endless, I found myself in the shelter of a group of buildings — low, log-built barns stretching out like two arms from a central ranch house that had doors and windows. I felt my way along the log face until I found the door. It yielded to my touch and I stumbled inside, closing it after me.

The place was cold, cold with the gripping chill of a room that has had no heat in it for a long time. I fumbled for my lighter and in the tiny flame of it I saw a big, ghostly room full of shadows. The walls were of log, the ceiling and floorboards of split pine planks, and there was the gaping hole of a huge stone chimney. On a table stood a lamp. It still had oil in it and I removed the glass chimney and lit the wick. When I set the chimney back the warm lamplight flooded the place. I stood back and stared at a room that might have been constructed by one of the pioneers that had moved into the Fraser River country a hundred years ago.

The place was dominated by the huge stone chimney which broadened out just below the rafters to a big open fireplace. The grate still held some half-burnt pine logs and a great heap of ash. The beams and rafters that supported the roof were rough-hewn, the marks of my grandfather’s ax plainly visible. Most of the furniture was handmade, but there were a few small pieces that had been imported. A door to the right led into a kitchen. On the other side of the living room was a bedroom. The bed was unmade. Clothes were strewn around — heavy ski hoots, an old pair of jeans, a buckskin jacket beautifully worked with beads, an old and battered hat.

I felt as though I were an intruder in a private house, not the sole legatee of a man four months dead come to look over his property. The place was cold, it was true, but it wasn’t dump. He’d built it well on a good rock foundation and with a double lining of timbers, packed with sawdust and straw, and double windows. It was a living part of Stuart Campbell. Everything I was looking at had been made by him at great cost of labor and ingenuity. I gated slowly round the room with a strange feeling of tenderness for the man who had made it. This was the place that they wanted to drown with their dam.

A pool of water was forming at my feet. There were logs piled in a big bin beside the fireplace, logs brought in by Johnny and his party when they had returned. There was a box of ax chippings and sawdust. In a few minutes I had a fire blazing in the hearth and had stripped off my clothes. I went through into the bedroom and got some things of my grandfather’s — a pair of jeans, a plaid shirt and a big fur-lined jacket.

I lit a cigarette and went over to the desk. It was in the bottom drawer that I found what I was looking for — rolled sheets of cartographic paper and a black leather-bound book. The seismograms were quite incomprehensible to me. I rolled them up and put them back in the drawer. Then I opened the book.

This was what I had hoped to find. On the first page was written: An Account of the Efforts of one Stuart Campbell to Establish the Truth that there is Oil in the Rocky Mountains. The report was written in ink. All the entries were dated beginning with March 3, 1911 and going straight through to the entry made on the day of his death.

I turned back to the beginning and read with fascination the account of his discovery of oil in the valley of Thunder Creek:

This day, whilst on a visit to my old friend, Luke Trevedian, I was involved in the terrible disaster that overtook the gold-mining community of Come Lucky. The avalanches developed rapidly into a great slide that engulfed all the mine workings and spread for a whole mile across the flats of Thunder Creek. For the nest week everyone labored for the release of miners trapped in the workings. But it was hopeless.

There followed more details, and then this passage:

... 11th March: I was able to push up the valley of Thunder Crook, the snows having largely mulled. Imagine my astonishment on finding that the whole head of Thunder Valley had broken away. The awe inspiring night of a new cliff face, unmarked by vegetation and standing stark and sheer for hundreds of feet, was meet instructive regarding the strata of the country... In going down to slake my thirst I saw a black slime on the rocks at the edge of the swollen creek. These rocks were newly broken off and should have had no mark of vegetation. The waters of the creek were running dark and thick with a curious viscosity, and though they were swirling and thundering among the rocks, they did so smoothly... It was a river of oil. What proportion was oil and what was water. I could not tell, but the deposit on the rocks was undoubtedly crude oil. It was the biggest seep I had ever seen. I made great efforts to climb up the slide to the source of the seepage, but shortly offer midday it begun to snow. Further falls of rock occurred and I had the greatest difficulty in getting safely down.

13th March: It snowed all day yesterday and I waited with the greatest impatience to take Luke and others up to the oil seep. Today we managed to get through, but alas, fresh falls had occurred and there was no evidence that we could find of any seep, nor could I discover any truce of the original seep, though I searched the course of the creek wherever possible. I had great difficulty in convincing my companions that what I had seen two days ago—

I had read enough to remove any lingering doubts. The rest could wait. I went into the kitchen and in the cupboard found tea in a round tin, crackers and canned meal. I ate, then went into the bedroom, got Home blankets and stretched myself out in front of the fire. I felt desperately tired. I was worried, too, about Jeff down there alone at the bottom of the hoist.

I don’t remember much about that night. Once I got up and put more logs on the fire. Mostly I slept in a coma of exhaustion. And then suddenly I was awake. It was bitterly cold, the fire was a dead heap of white ash, and a pale glimmer of daylight crept in through the snow-covered windows.

I rebuilt the fire and got myself some breakfast. The warmth and the food revived me, and as soon as I had finished, I carried out a quick inspection of the premises. The place was built facing south, the barns spreading out from either aide of the house like two arms. Fortunately, Bladen’s trucks were in the barns and it didn’t take me long to find the spools containing the recordings of his final survey. I slipped the containers into my pocket and, after getting some food in case Jeff had stayed all night at the foot of the hoist, I set out. The snow was deep in places and I was very tired by the time I staggered into the concrete housing of the hoist. I went straight over to the telephone, lifted the receiver and wound the handle. There was no answer. A feeling of panic crept up from my stomach. It was entirely unreasoned, for I could always return to the ranch house.

I tried again and again, and then suddenly a voice was crackling in my ears, “Hullo! Hullo! Is that you, Bruce?” It was Jeff Hart.

A sense of relief hit me and I leaned against the ice-cold concrete of the wall. “Yes,” I said. “Bruce here. Is the hoist working?”

“Thank God you’re okay.” His voice sounded thin and far away. “I was scared stiff you’d got lost. Were you okay up at Campbell’s place?”

“Yes,” I said. And I told him how I’d found it.

“You were pretty lucky. I’ll got thorn to send the hoist up for you. Johnny’s here. He’ll come up with it. I’m just about all in. What a night! Okay. She’s on her way up now.”

My decision not to sell Campbell’s Kingdom, the land I owned in the Canadian Rockies, made my name — Bruce Campbell Wetheral — an object of hatred in the town of Come Lucky, British Columbia.

My grandfather, Stuart Campbell, had died convinced there was oil in the Kingdom. He willed the land to me, with the request that I prove his theory correct. Although my physician had told me I had only a few months left to live, I determined to try to carry out my grandfather’s last wish.

I took as partner a man named Boy Bladen, who had made a survey in the Kingdom the year before. The experts who analyzed his survey reported that there couldn’t be oil in the Kingdom, but Boy was convinced someone had doctored his survey figures.

It sounded logical. Henry Fergus was building a dam just below the Kingdom right now. If I found oil on my land, Fergus would have to abandon his project. Another man who might have falsified the report was Peter Trevedian, who was working for Fergus, hauling supplies for the dam up on his mountain hoist.

Boy went to Calgary to check the old survey figures. He wired me that the report was false, and told me I could find his original records in a truck up in the Kingdom. A few nights later, with a friend, I went to the foot of Trevedian’s hoist. We started it and I went up the mountain. A storm forced me to spend the night there, but in the morning I found Boy’s reports and returned to the hoist.

With the help of these new figures, we might be able to prove there was oil in the Rocky Mountains — if I could only live long enough to find it.

IV

Ten minutes later the cage dropped into its housing with a solid thud, and Johnny was there, gripping my hand as though I’d returned from the Arctic. “You goldarned crazy fool!” That was all he said, and then he went over to the phone and rang for them to take us down. He didn’t talk as we dropped through space to the slide and the concrete housing at the foot of it. I think he realized that I was just about at the end of my tether.

As we dropped into the housing at the bottom I noticed that Jeff’s car had gone. In its place was one of the transport company’s trucks. Johnny had to help me over the side of the cage. Now that I was out of the Kingdom my body seemed weak and limp. The engine of the hoist died away and a man came out of the housing toward us. My vision was blurred and I didn’t recognize him. And then suddenly I was looking into the angry black eyes of Peter Trevedian.

“Seems we got to lock our property up out here now,” he said in a hard voice.

“Cut it out. Trevedian. Can’t you see he’s dead beat?” Johnny’s voice sounded remote, like the surgeon’s voice in an operating theater just before you go under.

I don’t remember much about that drive, just the blessed heat of the engine, and the trees coming at us in on endless line of white. Then we were at the bunkhouse and Jean was there and several others, and they half carried me up to the hotel. The next thing I knew, I was up in my room and my body was sinking into warm oblivion, surrounded by hot-water bottles.

It was getting dark when I woke. Johnny was sitting by the window reading a magazine. He looked up as I stirred. “Feeling better?” he asked.

I nodded and sat up. I hadn’t felt so good for a long time. And I was hungry too.

He rolled a cigarette, lit it for me and put it in my mouth, saying, “Boy got in today. Wants to see you as soon as you feel okay.”

“Boy Bladen?”

“Yes. He’s got an Irishman with him — a drilling contractor name of Garry Keogh. And your lawyer feller, Acheson, rang through. He’s coming up here to see you tomorrow. That’s about all the news, I guess. Except that Trevedian’s madder’n hell about your going up to the Kingdom.”

“Because I used his hoist?”

“Mebbe.”

“Did McClellan object?”

“Oh, Jimmy’s okay. He was just scared you’d gone and killed yourself... Oh, I nearly forgot.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out on envelope. “Mac asked me to give you this.”

It was a long envelope and bulky. It was sealed with wax. I turned it over and saw it was postmarked Calgary. “That’ll be Acheson,” I said. “Another copy of the deed of sale for the Kingdom. He just doesn’t seem able to take no for an answer.” I put it on the table beside me. “Johnny, do you think you could get them to produce something for me to eat?”

“Sure. What would you like?”

“I wouldn’t mind a steak. A big, juicy steak.”

He cocked his head on one side, peering at me as though he were examining a horse. “Seems the Kingdom agrees with you. You look a lot better than when we saw you at Jasper.” He turned toward the door. “Okay. I’ll tell Pauline. All right for Boy to come up?”

I nodded. “What’s the time?”

“A little after seven.”

I had slept for over twelve hours. I got up and had a wash. I was still toweling myself when footsteps sounded on the stairs. It was Boy Bladen and there was something about the way he erupted into the room that took me back to my school days. He was like a kid bursting with news. The man with him was big and heavy and solid, with a battered face and broken teeth. His clothes, like himself, were crumpled and shapeless. And in that shapelessness as well as in the loose hang of his arms, the relaxed state of his muscles, there was something really tough.

“Bruce, this is Garry Keogh.” I found my hand engulfed in the rasping grip of a fist that seemed like a chunk of rock. Garry Keogh looked like an all-in wrestler, but his eyes were those of a dreamer, with a twinkle of humor in them that softened his face to something friendly. “He says he’ll take a chance on it.”

I stared at the big rig operator. “Are you serious?”

“And why wouldn’t I be?” He was Irish, but he spoke slowly, as though words were an unaccustomed commodity. It gave emphasis to everything he said. “Boy’s impetuous, but he’s no fool. I never met Campbell. I heard he was a crazy bird. But then, the story of every strike is the story of men who were thought crazy till they were proved to have slaked a mine.”

“But I don’t own the mineral rights of the Kingdom,” I said. “Didn’t Boy tell you? They were mortgaged to Roger Fergus by my grandfather’s company, and now that he’s dead they’ll pass to his son.”

Garry Keogh turned to Boy. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

“But—” Boy was staring at me. “Louis Winnick told me the old man had given him back the mineral rights. The day after you saw Roger Fergus he sent for Louis Winnick. He said he’d left him a legacy under his will. He told him about your visit and instructed him that he was to give you all the help you needed, free of any charge. He said it was a condition of the legacy. He wouldn’t have done that unless he’d known you were free to go ahead and drill in the Kingdom if you wanted to. You haven’t heard from the old man?”

I shook my head.

“You’ve had no communication from him at all, or from his lawyers?”

“Nothing,” I said. “The only mail I’ve had—” I stopped then and turned to the table beside the bed. I picked up the envelope and split the seal. Inside was a package of documents. The letter attached to them wasn’t from Acheson. It was on Bank of Canada notepaper and it read:

On the instructions of our client, Mr. Roger Fergus, we are enclosing documents relating to certain mineral rights mortgaged to our client by the Campbell Oil Exploration Company. Cancellation of the mortgage is effective as from the date of this letter and we are instructed to inform you that our client wishes you to know that from henceforth neither he nor his estate will have any claim on these rights, and further, that any debts outstanding with the company referred to above, for which the so documents were held as security, are canceled. You are requested to sign the enclosed receipt and forward it.

I opened out the documents. They referred to the mineral rights in the territory known generally as “Campbell’s Kingdom.” There followed the necessary map references. I passed them across to Boy.

“You were quite right,” I said.

Boy seized hold of them. “I knew I was. If Roger Fergus said he’d do a thing, he always did it. Louis said he was pretty taken with you. Thought you’d got a lot of guts and hoped for Stuart’s sake you’d win out.”

I thought of the old man, half paralyzed in that wheel chair. I could remember his words: “fine pair we are,” And then: “I’d like to have been able to thumb my nose just once more at all the know-alls in the big companies,” There was a lump in my throat as I remembered those words. “I’m glad you came. If your doctor fellow’s right, we’ll maybe meet again soon.” It would be nice to tell him I’d brought in a well. But I wished he were in the thing with me. I needed somebody experienced. I looked across at Keogh and then at Boy, the two of them so dissimilar, but neither of them capable of fighting a big company.

Keogh looked up from the documents Boy had passed him. He must have Been the doubt in my face, for he said, “What do you plan to do, Wetheral — go ahead and drill?”

I hesitated. But my mind slid away from the difficulties. I could see only that old man sitting in the wheel chair and behind him the more shadowy figure of my grandfather. Both of them had believed in me. “Yes,” I said. “If Winnick reports favorably. I’ll go ahead, provided I can get the capital.”

Keogh fingered his lower lip, his eyes fixed on me. They were narrowed and sharp — not cunning, but speculating. “You’d find it a lot easier to raise capital if you’d brought in a well,” he murmured.

“I know that.”

“Boy mentioned something about your being willing to split fifty-fifty on all profits with those who do the development work.”

I sat down on the bed, trying to think ahead. “Yes,” I said. “The company is prepared to share profits on that basis between itself and all those who may contribute to operations that result in a discovery well prior to the flooding of the Kingdom.” I was choosing my words carefully, realizing that a lot might depend on them. “In the event of the hydroelectric scheme being abandoned, the offer stands for two years from the time I sign a contract. If, after that period, the operations have not produced oil at the surface, then the agreement automatically terminates and all costs of development are the responsibility of those concerned and are not to be regarded as in any way a charge on the company.” I paused. It seemed all right, “That’s my proposition,” I said.

Ho nodded abstractedly, stroking his chin. Then suddenly he looked up. “I’ve been in the oil business over twenty years now and I’ve never had a proposition like this made to me. It’s the sort of thing a drilling contractor dreams of.” He turned to Boy. “If Winnick’s report on that recording tape is optimistic, then you’ll go up to the Kingdom and do another survey. Okay?” Boy nodded. “If the proposition still looks good, then I’ll come up here again and look over the ground.” He hesitated, staring down at me, “I’ll be frank with you, Wetheral. This is a hell of a gamble. I’ve made a bit on the last two wildcats I drilled. But I’m still only good for about a couple of months operating on my own. But if it looks okay, then it’s a deal.”

“Fine,” I said.

“Then it’s a deal.” He smiled gently to himself, “I guess when a man’s finished expanding, he’s finished living.” He turned abruptly to the door. “Come on, Boy. Time we had a drink... You care to join us, Wetheral?”

“Thank you,” I said. “But I’ve got some food coming up.”

“Okay. Be seeing you before I leave.”

He went out. Boy hesitated. “It was the best I could do, Bruce. Garry’s straight and he’s a fighter. Once he gets his teeth into a thing, he doesn’t let up easily. But I’m sorry about Roger Fergus.”

“So am I,” I said.

He had taken the spools containing the recording tape out of his pocket and was joggling them up and down on the palm of his hand. “Funny to think that these little containers may be the start of a new oilfield.” He stared at them, then slipped them into his pocket. “Jeff lent me his station wagon. I’ll get over to Keithley tonight, so that it’ll catch the mail out first thing in the morning. We should get Louis’ report within three days.” He seemed about to say something further, but instead he just said “Good night” and went out.

I lay back on my bed. Things were beginning to move and I wondered whether I’d have the energy to handle it all. Acheson would be arriving tomorrow. Probably he’d have Henry Fergus with him. Once they knew my intention—

There was a knock at the door and Jean came in. “How’s the invalid?” She had a tray of food and she put it down on the table beside me. “Pauline was out, so I did the best I could, Johnny said you were hungry.”

“I could eat a horse.”

She was over by the window, standing there, staring at me. “It’s all over the town that you’re going to drill a well up in the Kingdom.”

“That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, but—” She hesitated. “Bruce, if Henry Fergus decides to proceed with the dam, you’re headed for trouble.”

“I know that.”

“And if he doesn’t, then the people here will be sore, and they’ll get at you somehow. Johnny wasn’t exactly clever in making an enemy of Peter.”

“Appeasement is not in his line.”

“No, but—” She gave a quick, exasperated sigh and sat down in the chair.

“You don’t seem to realize what you’re up against, any of you. Boy I can understand, and Johnny. But you’re English. You’ve fought in the war. You know what happens when people get whipped up emotionally. You’re not a fool. It’s as though you didn’t care — about yourself, I mean.”

“You think I may get hurt?” I was staring at her, wondering what was behind her concern.

“You’re putting yourself in a position where a lot of people would be glad if an accident happened to you.”

“What are you trying to tell roe?”

“That you’re going about this business so clumsily that you’re going to get hurt. How do you think you’re going to get a drilling rig up to the Kingdom? From now on, Trevedian will have a guard on the hoist. He won’t even allow your rig to move on his new road. Even supposing you did get the rig up there, do you think they’d let it rest at that?” She got to her feet with a quick movement of anger. “You can’t fight a man as big as Henry Fergus, and you know it.”

“I can try,” I said.

She swung round on me. “This isn’t the City of London, Bruce. This is the Canadian West. Now you come out here from England and start throwing down the gauntlet to a man like Henry Fergus. Henry isn’t his father. He isn’t a pioneer. There’s nothing lovable about him. He’s a financier and as cold as six inches of steel.” She turned away to the window, “You’re starting something that’ll end on a mountain slope somewhere out there.” She nodded through the block panes of the window. “I know this sort of business. I was two years in France with the Maquis till they got me. I know every trick. I know how to make murder look like an accident. You’ve made it so easy for them. You have an accident. The police come up here to investigate. Whatever I may say, and perhaps others, they’ll hear about your crazy stunt last night, and they’ll shrug their shoulders and any that you were bound to get hurt sooner or later.”

I had finished my steak. “What do you suggest I do, then?”

She pushed her hand through her hair. “Sell out and go back borne.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper.

“That wasn’t what you wanted me to do when I first came to see you. You wanted me to fight.”

“You were a stranger then.”

“What difference does that make?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She came and stood over me. Her face had a peculiar sadness. “This happened to me once before,” she said in a tired voice. “I don’t want it to happen again.” She suddenly held out her hand. “Good-by, Bruce.” She had control of her voice now, and it was natural, impersonal. “I’ll be gone in the morning. I’m taking a trip down to the coast. It’s time I had a change. I’ve been in Come Lucky too long.”

I looked up at her face. It was suddenly older and there was a withdrawn set to her mouth. “You’re running out on me,” I said.

“No.” The word came out with a violence that was unexpected. “I never ran out on anybody in my life — or anything.” Her voice trembled. “It’s just that I’m tired. I can’t—” She stopped there and shrugged her shoulders. “If you come out to Vancouver—” She hesitated and then said, “I’ll leave my address with the Garrets.”

“Would you really like me more if I threw in my hand because the going looked tough?”

Her hands fluttered uncertainly. “It isn’t a question of liking. It’s just that I can’t stand—” She got hold of herself with a quick intake of breath. “Good-by, Bruce.” Her fingers touched mine. She half bent toward me, a sudden tenderness in her eyes. But then she straightened up and turned quickly to the door. She didn’t look round, and I was left with the remains of toy meal and a feeling of emptiness.

I went round to see her in the morning, but she had already left, traveling to Keithley with Max Trevedian and Garry Keogh in the supply truck. “Did she leave any message?” I asked Miss Garret.

“Only this.” She took a piece of paper from the heavy rolltop desk in the corner. “It’s her address in Vancouver.” Her sharp, beady eyes quizzed me through the lorgnette. “Do you know why she left so suddenly, Mr. Wetheral?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t.”

“Most extraordinary. I can’t understand it. My sister and I are very worried.”

“Didn’t she give you any explanation?” I asked.

“No. She just said she needed a change and was leaving.”

“Ruth,” her sister’s voice called from the other side of the room, “don’t forget the little box she left for Mr. Wetheral.”

“Of course not,” Ruth Garret answered a trifle sharply. “It’s in my room. I’ll get it for you.”

As she went through the door, her sister scurried across the room to me. Her thin, transparent hand caught hold of my arm. “You silly boy,” she said. “Why did you let her go?”

“Why?” I was a little taken aback. “What could I do to stop her?”

“I wouldn’t know what men do to stop a girl running away from them. I’m an old maid.” The blue eyes twinkled up at me. And then suddenly they were full of tears. “It’s so quiet here without her. I wish she hadn’t gone. She was so warm and — and comforting to have around. It was — like having a daughter here. And now she’s gone.” She began to sob. “Youth is very cruel — to old people.”

I took hold of her by the shoulders, feeling the thin frailty of her bones. “Stop crying, Miss Sarah. Please. Tell me why she went away. You know why she went, don’t you?” I shook her gently.

“She ran away,” she sobbed. “She was afraid of life-like Ruth and me. She didn’t want to be hurt any more.”

“Do you know anything about her before she came to Come Lucky?”

“A little — not much. She was in France, a British agent working with the resistance. She operated a radio for them. She was with her father, and then, when he was killed, she worked with another man and—” She hesitated and then said, “I think she fell in love—” Her voice trailed off on a note of sadness.

“Was he killed — this fellow she was in love with?”

She nodded. “Yes, I think so. But she wouldn’t talk about it. I think she used up a whole lifetime in those few years. She is a little afraid of life now.”

“I see.” Footsteps sounded on the stairs and I let go of her shoulders.

“Here you are.” Ruth Garret held out a small mahogany box to me. “I almost forgot about it. She gave it to me Inst night.”

“Did she say anything when she handed it to you?”

“No. Only that it was for you. The key is in the lock.” I looked at her and knew by the way her eyes avoided mine that she had opened it and knew what was inside. She hadn’t intended to give it to me.

“Is there any message inside?” I asked.

She stiffened angrily. “No.” She turned away and walked out of the room, holding herself very erect.

Her sister suddenly giggled. “Ruth doesn’t like to be found out. I shall have to be very deaf for at least a week now.” Her eyes twinkled at me through her tears. And then, with a sudden disconcerting change of mood, “Please go to Vancouver and bring her back. I shall miss her terribly.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shan’t be going to Vancouver.”

“Will you let pride—”

“It isn’t pride,” I said. “It’s common sense.” On a sudden impulse, I bent down and kissed her forehead. “Thank you for telling me a little about her. And if she does come back, tell her to stayaway from the Kingdom. Tell her to go back to Vancouver till it’s all over.”

“Till — it’s all over?”

“Yes. Till it’s all over.” I went out onto the boarded sidewalk then and walked slowly back to the hotel, the little mahogany box clutched under my arm. Johnny Curs fairs and Jeff were just leaving, I left the box in my room and walked with them down to their car. I hadn’t seen Boy that morning and I asked about him.

“He’s gone off into the mountains,” Johnny answered. “He’s like that. As long as Keogh was here he was full of optimism. But now he’s like a broody hen.” His fingers dug into my flesh as he held my arm. “Bruce, you know what you’re doing, do you?”

“I think so,” I said.

He nodded slowly, looking me straight in the eyes. “Yes, I guess you do. You don’t care, do you?”

“How do you mean?”

“About life — and death. It doesn’t scare you the way it does most people.” He bit on the end of the matchstick clamped between his teeth and spat the chewed end of it out. “If you want me, phone Jeff. If I’m in Jasper, I’ll come. Understand?” His hand gripped mine.

“That’s good of you, Johnny,” I said.

He climbed into the station wagon and a moment later they were slithering down through the mud to the lakeside.

I walked slowly back to the hotel. The big barroom was empty, the whole place strangely silent and deserted. My friends had gone. I had nothing to do now but wait for the arrival of Acheson. I climbed wearily up to my room. The mahogany box lay on the bed where I had tossed it. I picked it up and went over to the window, weighing it in my hands, speculating about its contents and oddly reluctant to open it.

With a quick movement of my fingers I turned the key in the lock and opened the lid. Inside the box there was something wrapped up in a silk scarf. I took it out, still wrapped, and held it in my hand, feeling the hardness of the metal, the old, familiar shape of it, I had stripped one of these from the dead body of an officer of the 21st Panzer Division and I’d carried it in my holster over two thousand miles of desert warfare.

I unwound the silk scarf, and the Luger fell into the palm of my hand as naturally as that other had done all those years back. My finger curled automatically to the trigger. The black butt of it was notched as mine had been. I counted seven notches. And above the notches was scratched a name — Paul Morton.

I sat down on the bed, staring at the thing. Paul Morton! Paul Morton was the name of the man who had been my grandfather’s partner in the flotation of the Rocky Mountain Oil Exploration Company, the man who had run out on him with all the capital of the company. Could it be the same Morton? I searched quickly in the box, but there was no message, nothing but four spare magazines, all loaded. I wondered how Morton had come to possess a Luger. And I wondered also how Jean Lucas had become the owner of Morton’s gun.

There was a knock on the door. I slipped the ugly-looking weapon under my pillow. “Come in.”

It was Pauline. “There are two men here asking for you, Bruce.”

Acheson! “Tell them I’m coming down right away.” I slipped the Luger into my hip pocket. The action was quite automatic and I found myself smiling at it as I went downstairs. Jean was being a little overmelodramatic. They might play it rough, but not that rough. And yet the odd thing is that I’m certain the presence of that gun in my pocket gave me confidence. It was as though the years between the end of the war and that moment were wiped away and I was back in command, with men under me and a life to be lived for the day only. It was a good feeling. I liked it. It seemed to give me buoyancy and energy. And when I found myself face to face with Acheson and Henry Fergus, I almost laughed, thinking of how they’d have made out at Knightsbridge in the African desert with only a couple of tanks left and the whole ring of dunes spitting flame.

“Let’s go into the bar,” I said. “We can talk there.”

Henry Fergus was a tall, spare man with a slight stoop to his shoulders. He came straight to the point. “How much do you want, Wetheral?”

“I’m not selling,” I said.

“What was this drilling contractor doing out here?” Acheson asked.

“Is that any business of yours?” I demanded. “I suppose you’ve been talking to Trevedian?”

Acheson nodded. “If you’re thinking of drilling up in the Kingdom, I have to remind you that you don’t own the mineral rights. They were mortgaged to Mr. Fergus’ father. Now that he is dead—”

“Just who are you acting for, Acheson?” I said, “Me or Fergus?”

His eyes widened slightly at my tone, and the florid coloring of his smoothly polished cheeks deepened. “For both of you,” he said sharply. “And it’s lucky for you that I am, otherwise Mr. Fergus here would never have considered the idea—”

“That’s a lie,” I said. “Fergus was considering completing the dam over a year ago. It was only because his father insisted on a survey first that construction was postponed until the year.” He stared at me, his mouth slightly open. “You’re not acting for me, Acheson,” I said. “You never have been. You’re acting for Fergus here. As for the mineral rights, I suppose you didn’t bother to check with the Bank of Canada about who has them now?”

“What are you getting at?” Fergus demanded.

For answer I pulled out my wallet and handed him the covering letter I had received with the documents. He read it through slowly. Not a muscle of his face moved. Then he passed it across to Acheson. I watched the solicitor’s face. He wasn’t a poker player like Fergus.

“How did you get these?” he demanded angrily. “What yarn did you spin the old man?” He turned to Fergus. “I think we could challenge this.”

I leaned back. “Now I know where I am,” I said. “When you get back to Calgary, Acheson, will you kindly lodge all the documents relating to Stuart Campbell with the Bank of Canada? And I warn you, I’ll have them checked by a competent and honest lawyer.” And then, before he could recover himself, I added, “Now, perhaps you’ll leave us to discuss this business privately, since it no longer concerns you.”

He sat storing at me for a moment, his mouth open, quite speechless. Then he turned to Fergus, who had lighted a cigarette and was watching the scene with the detachment of a spectator.

“I think,” Fergus said, “Wetheral and I will get on better on our own.”

Acheson hesitated. In the end he pulled himself to his feet and left us without a word. Fergus watched him go and then leaned toward me. “It seems you’re a good deal cleverer than Acheson gave you credit for. Suppose we put the cards on the table. The Larsen mines are low-grade ore. I want cheap power permanently in the hands of the company. Therefore, I shall go ahead with the completion of the Solomon’s Judgment dam and in due course — about five months from now — the Kingdom will be a lake. I have full powers to do this under the legislation passed by the Provincial Parliament in February, 1939. You can either accept my offer — which is sixty thousand dollars — or we can go to arbitration.”

“Then we go to arbitration,” I said. “And if there’s oil up there—”

“There’s only one way for you to prove there’s oil up there,” he said, “and that is to drill a well.”

I nodded. “That’s exactly what I intend to do.”

He smiled. “Then you’ll have to drill it with a bit and brace, for you won’t get a rig up there. I’ll see to that. Better face it, Wetheral. The courts won’t grant you anything like sixty thousand in compensation.”

“We’ll see,” I said. “You’ve already monkeyed about with a survey and caused the death of an old man. That won’t look too good if it comes out in court.”

But he just smiled. “You think it over.” He got to his feet. “And don’t do anything foolish. Remember, Campbell was a crook and his record wouldn’t help you any if you got yourself into the criminal courts.” He nodded to me, still with that thin-lipped smile on his face, and turned to the door. “Acheson! Acheson!” His voice gradually faded away as I sat there, rigid, my hands gripping the edge of the table, my whole body cold with anger.

At length I got to my feet and went slowly up to my room. I was standing at the window, staring up to the twin peaks of Solomon’s Judgment, when old Mac came in. His face was sour and his burr more pronounced than ever as he told me I could no longer stay at the hotel. I didn’t argue with him. The gloves were off and I began to pack my things...

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 malted to him. He was guardedly optimistic. “All I can Bay 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 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 stayed on in Calgary. I had a lot to see to. Acheson’s office handed over all the documents and by the time I had unraveled 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.

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 was a kindhearted 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 a hospital. But I refused. 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 was going to die I wanted to die up in the Kingdom.

A week later, very weak and exhausted, I staggered down to Winnick’s car and we headed north for Edmonton and Jasper. Winnick drove hard and about three-thirty in the afternoon we topped the foothills and saw the white wall of the Rockies ahead of us. We spent the night at Jasper, and Johnny Carstairs and Jeff Hart came to see me in my room. I remember something that Johnny 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.”

“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 plowed through the mud of the newly graded road to Come Lucky. Now that I was in the mountains again I fell 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.

We didn’t turn up to the bunkhouse, but continued straight along the lakeshore 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 smoke through the trees. A man came out of it as we drew up, and through the open doorway we 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.”

“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.”

Winnick 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,” he said.

“You won’t get a pass nut of him,” I said.

“Of course I will,” he said.

We were running out of the timber and he swung the car up toward 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 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 Fergus 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 his friends. I knew he was a cold-blooded devil, but I never the thought he’d try 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.”

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 drop 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 posed 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 another 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 right.”

“Where’s the pony trail start?”

“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 Jake 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 bard 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 not 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 bunkhouse. “It’s Luke Trevedian’s old place.”

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

As I walked down the street I saw Peter Trevedian come out of his office and get into the truck parked by the bunkhouse, He drove down to the lakeshore and turned up toward 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. A big saddle horse stood tethered to the railing of the veranda and it pricked its ears at me as I knocked on the front door. The door was flung open and Max Trevedian stood there, staring at me, his mouth agape. His eyes slid toward the shape of the bunkhouse.

“It’s all right,” I said. “Your brother’s gone up Thunder Creek. May 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. 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 hanging on the walls.

I turned and faced him, trying to measure his mood. 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 hand indicated the room — “this is not his.”

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 toward 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.

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, “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.”

“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.” 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.”

“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 killed 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 homes. I’ve a big 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 aid house. Max was making his way slowly toward the stables. I knew then that we’d get up to the Kingdom. I didn’t like trading on the man’s simpleness. But it had been the only way. I turned and went into the hotel, feeling a sense of pity, almost of affection for that great, friendless hulk of a man.

A 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 hoofs 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. 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.

We moved off, Max leading the pack horse, I following and Winnick bringing up the rear. We went through thick brush and black pools dammed 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. 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.

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 toward the dam two trucks stood motionless, connected to the ranch house by the tracks their tires 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 looked at the peak rising above us. “Perhaps they are together — my father and Campbell.” He turned to me. “Tell Campbell I have done what you ask.” He clapped his heels to his horse’s Hanks and turned back the way he had come, trailing the pack horse behind him.

“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!”

The mountain create were Hushed 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 Bound wave 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 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 the bed that my grandfather had used for so many years. And as I slid into a half coma of sleep I know that I wouldn’t be going back — that this was my kingdom now.

I slept right through to the following morning and woke 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 barn 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 me to reply. “Louie has been up all night, computing the results. We’ve all been up most of the night. I knew it was an anticline. 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 tint 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. 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 graduate of 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 seismographic 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. “Now you know you’re on an anticline, why not let me try and interest one of the big companies in this property?”

“No,” I said, staring out toward the ring of the mountains. “There isn’t a chance of that, 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 Bunk in that project will make it that much mare 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.”

When I made my decision to drill for oil in the Canadian Rockies, I realized that even if I did bring in a well, I might not live to see it.

My name is Bruce Campbell Wetheral. On the day my physician told me I had only a few months left to live, I also learned that I had inherited from my grandfather, Stuart Campbell, a tract of land in the Rockies called Campbell’s Kingdom. My grandfather had spent his life trying to prove there was oil in the Kingdom, and his last request to me was to prove him right.

Apart from my fatal illness, there were other obstacles I had to overcome. A man named Henry Fergus was financing the construction of a dam just below the Kingdom that would be completed in about five months — and flood the Kingdom. Also, the only way to get drilling equipment up to the Kingdom was on a hoist owned by Peter Trevedian, who worked for Fergus. I knew that Trevedian would never let me use the hoist.

My partner, Boy Bladen, had made a survey of the Kingdom which Louis Winnick, an oil consultant and surveyor, found encouraging. I took Winnick to the Kingdom. On the way up, we discovered that Trevedian had posted guards around the hoist and along the road that went part way up the mountain.

Winnick reminded me I’d lose everything if the Ham was finished before I found oil. And Winnick warned me, “Henry Fergus will go a long way to see that his money isn’t thrown away.”

V

There was nothing new in what he said. 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 two A.M. on the morning of Tuesday. We’ll meet you there with horses.” I gave Winnick the letter to take down.

Winnick left the 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-by to him and thanked him for all he’d done. I sat there watching his Email 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 toward 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 glasses?” 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 asked.

“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 toward 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 balks of timber bolted together in an upright position. There were the remains of an old boiler and a shapeless mass of machinery.

“What’s that pile of junk there?” I asked Boy.

“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 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.

Shortly after midday on Monday, Boy left Bill and Don drilling the second shot hole in the longitudinal traverse and we saddled our homes and started out for the Saddle and the pony trail down to Thunder Creek. As we neared the crest of the Saddle windblown drifts of snow stung our faces. The going became treacherous and we had to lend the homes. Boy leading the spare as well as his own. On the crest we met the full force of the wind.

“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. The going was easier, once we reached the timber, though we were hampered by soft drifts of deep snow. Gradually the woods became denser and the trail clearer. In thick timber it was well blazed by the deadfalls that had been cleared by ax and saw, some of them so old that it was probably my grandfather who had cleared them. In places the trail zigzagged down almost sheer slopes patterned by the gnarled roots of the trees that clung precariously. In other places we passed through lightly timbered glades deep in grass where game tracks crisscrossed, and several times we mistook one of these tracks for the trail.

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 swath 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 ground sheet. 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 taillight. Darkness closed in round us again and we listened as the sound of its 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.

It was nearly three A.M. when the darkness began to glow with tight and we heard the sound of a car. Boy pushed forward to the edge of the road and flagged it down. 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 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 the creek. “Is there a truck behind you?” Boy asked Garry.

“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 re 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 drowsy. We settled down in the seats then and slept till the first gray 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.

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 on the waters of Thunder Creek.” He shook his head. “It’s a hell of a risk.”

“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. “You know, if this location were just beside a good highway, I guess I’d be crazy enough to fall for your proposition, but bow 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. 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 aerie. 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. 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.”

Garry 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 truckloads of pipe. Then there’s the rig, draw works, all equipment, tools, spares, everything. And casing.” He hesitated and looked across at Boy. “We’d have to take a chance on that. In this sort of country it might be all right. Well, say six trucks. That’ll mean a minimum of four to five hours at the hoist. Now bow 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 understanding 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 understand 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, provided Win nick 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 be required from the tune Garry came in, to the time he brought in a well, presuming that he did, would have to be trucked in one operation. It worked out at seven vehicles. Seven separate trips on the hoist, with difficult loadings before 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, bunt, stand in for anyone sick and generally organize 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. There would be no going down for things we had forgotten. We should 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 saw no reason to scare Garry 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 shout 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 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 onto his horse. “Be seeing you. Bruce.” He waved his hand and started up toward the Saddle.

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. 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.

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. 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 it looked like. My own 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 higher up the mountain until we could look down on the deep shadows of Thunder Creek. Lights twinkled below us, marking the camp, and an updraft 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 wore 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 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 if 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 organized.”

“Then we’ll have to disorganize 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.”

On May twenty-ninth, Boy completed the longitudinal traverse 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 June fifth. I would get in touch with 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 was optimistic, I asked him to drop a hint here and there among 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 gray bulks half hidden by mist. 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 wire 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 armor 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 colors of flowers like a huge meadow.

I stopped and stared down at it, absorbing the warmth of the sun, thinking how beautiful it was. I wondered how the Kingdom would look when ail its beauty was a sheet 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. 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.

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 and some lengths or wire.

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 prefabricated constructions trucked in from the sawmills. 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 center of the main street.

It was near midday and several of the old men were in the Golden Calf for a lunchtime 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. “Getting tired of living up in the Kingdom?” he naked 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.”

I slit open the envelope. It was from Boy and had been handed in at Calgary the day before, June first:

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.”

As I turned to go, he said, “A friend of yours was asking about you. 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 Luger she had given me, 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 onto my horse and rode back down the street, lost in my own thoughts and the memory of that last time I’d Been Jean, wrought-up, unhappy and strangely close to me.

But at the sight of the open door of Trevedian’s office I put all thought of her out of my mind. This 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 were more filing cabinets, another desk, 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 out, 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 realize 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 oil rig up to the Kingdom, you are crazy.” 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 realize, 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’s 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 welt, 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. “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 forgot 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. “Good luck to ye. And if I should see Jeannie?” He cocked his head on 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 hard-baked gravel of Come Lucky’s street. Through the open door of his office I caught a glimpse of Trevedian; 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 lakeshore, and there were gophers standing like sentinels on the mounds of their burrows. Beaver Dam Lake was still and dark, mirroring the green and brown and white of the mountains beyond. 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 toward 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 was content to wait and see what I was up to.

We reached the bend that concealed the road gate and its guard, and I struck, up into the timber. We came back onto the road about half a mile above the guard hut. 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. 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 aide. The road swung away to the right and we could see it zigzagging 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 onto the road again. We forced the horses up the slope and came out onto a rocky platform that looked straight up the valley to the slide and the sheer cliff of the fault.

About a mile farther on we came out onto 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 onto 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 drat 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 while 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 bole, like the entrance to a sand martin’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 tightly, sealing the holes. I marked the spot with the branch of a tree and we rode on.

About half a mile farther 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 onto 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 lakeward. 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 be ran his own rig and he had to live. His approach to the whole thing was entirely different from mine.

The following morning broke in a gray 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 thunderheads 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 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 shook his head. “Snow more likely. The wind’s from the east.”

“Snow?” It might be even better than rain. “Have you brought that telephone equipment?”

“It’s in my pack.” He went over to the two saddle bags he had dropped onto the ground and got out the instrument. “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 Hundred-and-Fifty-Mile House?”

“Six, seven hours.” He hesitated, glancing up at the mountains. “If the snow is heavy he may bog down, you know.”

“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 be occupied with maintenance and not prepared to move till the fifth. But I needn’t have worried. Garry was one of those men who think ahead. When I asked him how soon he could get moving, 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 road by eleven-thirty tonight?”

“Sure.”

“I don’t want you earlier,” I replied. “I want you there dead on eleven-thirty. The timing in important. What’s our 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 am. 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 tarts. 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,” cut in quickly. “See you at eleven-thirty. Good-by.”

I unclipped 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 of 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 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. At a result of that call, he should leave immediately, going up the road toward the hoist on foot. If he hasn’t left by eleven-twenty-five get your horse and come back down the road as far as you con 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 be 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 kinds want to see a rig operating up there now.” He grinned and waved his hand as he walked his horse oat 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. The next five minutes seemed endless.

Finally it was eleven o’clock. “Come on,” I said. “Time we were moving.”

As we walked up toward the road, lights cleaved the darkness away to our right. 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 upward through the timber, already whitening under the curtain of snow swirling down through the gap in the trees.

A moment Inter I was climbing a fir tree that stood close against the telephone wires. I had my phone box slung round my neck. I clipped the wires on and waited, my eyes on my watch. At eleven-fifteen exactly I lifted my receiver and wound the handle in a single long ring. There was no answer. I repeated the ring. Then suddenly a voice was crackling in my ear, “Valley guard.”

I held the mouthpiece well away from me. “Trevedian here!” I bawled, deepening 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 abort cut—”

“But, Mr. Trevedian, there’s a truck 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 abort 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 trees, 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 ear. 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. I reached into my pack, pulled out a pair of pliers and cut both wires close by my clips. The clips sprang free and I packed the telephone away and climbed down.

“Got rid of the guard?” Boy asked.

“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. Every now and then I glanced at my watch, and as the minute hand crept slowly to the half hour my nervousness increased.

Suddenly Boy’s hand gripped my arm. 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 the black 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 signaled Boy to clamber on and swung myself up onto 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 far 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 heaven’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-second 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 minute you might just as well not have run over from Hundred-and-Fifty-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.”

I had taken the law into my own hands. In the next few hours I would either get my oil-drilling rig up to Campbell’s Kingdom, high in the Canadian Rockies, or get killed.

My name is Bruce Campbell Wetheral. On the day my physician told me I had only a few months left to live, I learned I had inherited the Kingdom from my grandfather, Stuart Campbell. My grandfather had spent his life trying to prove there was oil in the Rockies, and his last request to me was to prove him right.

My partner, Boy Bladen, found a driller named Garry Keogh, who was willing to gamble his equipment on our project for two months. Our problem was to get Keogh’s six trucks up to the Kingdom.

A dam was being built just below my land. It would be finished in a few months, and then my land would be flooded.

Peter Trevedian owned the hoist that went up the mountain, but he was working exclusively for the dam, and he refused to haul my trucks up or even let me use the public road that went through his property.

Without taking anyone into my confidence, I made preparations. Garry’s trucks were to meet me at 11:30 P.M. I tapped into Trevedian’s telephone line and, posing as Trevedian, ordered the valley guard off his post.

Garry’s trucks arrived. Before he went farther he insisted on knowing what arrangements I had made. I lost my temper. “Get going!” I shouted. “My plan works on split-second timing! You’re a half minute behind schedule now... if you miss it this time, there won’t be another chance!”

VI

Garry hesitated, but I think the earnestness of my voice convinced him as much as my words. He motioned to the driver, and 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’m 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.”

As we rounded the bend where the guard was posted I saw that the gate was swung open and I caught a glimpse of the deserted guard but as we passed, and then we were climbing.

I glanced at my watch. Eleven-thirty-six. The guard should be on the short cut now. A figure loomed suddenly in the headlights — a figure on horseback, ghostly in his mantle of white.

At a gesture from me the driver checked. “Bruce?” Bill called. And then, as he saw me leaning out toward him, he shouted, “It’s okay! He’s on the trail now!”

“Fine! See you at the Kingdom!”

His “Good luck!” came faintly as we swung away to the first of the hairpins.

That first bend had me in a panic. 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. 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. Just beyond that you’ll find a place where you can turn off to the right into the brush. Get all the vehicles parked in under the trees and all facing outwards, ready to go 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 grinned.

“That’s right,” I said. 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. I dropped to the ground.

One by one the trucks passed me... three... four... five... and then I was Hogging down the last truck, jumping for the running board. “I’m Bruce Wetheral!” I shouted to the driver. “Pull up a moment, will you?”

“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 farther on.” I pulled out the box containing batteries and detonating plunger, slung the coil of wires over my shoulder and flicked on my torch. “I’ll be about five minutes,” I said.

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 connected the batteries, checked my connections carefully and then grasped the handle and plunged it down.

There was a terrifying roar, that went on and on, 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.

The results couldn’t have been better. The whole cliff face had fallen outward, spilling across the road and over the precipice beyond. I tugged the wires free and went back to the truck.

The driver was out on the road. “What in hell was that?” he asked.

“Just blocking the rood behind us,” I said. “Can you pull your truck over so that I can reach those telephone wires?”

I got my telephone equipment, clipped on to the wires, cut the lines behind the clips, 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! 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?”

“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? 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.

“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. I felt tired. Would he bring them all down? Everything depended on how scared he was of Trevedian.

Slowly I climbed down and back into the cab. “Okay,” I murmured as I sank back into the seat. “Let’s go and join the others.”

The driver was staring at me. His face looked white and scared in the dashboard tights. The heavy Diesel coughed and roared, the tanker ground forward around the curve of the hill, down the straight, run to the swamp ground, and then Garry was there, guiding the driver as he backed the tanker alongside the other trucks.

“What was that noise?” Garry naked as the driver cut his engine. His face, too, looked scared in the faint light from the cab.

“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?”

“That’s about it,” I said.

“But, hell, man, that’s a criminal offense!”

“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 I lost 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.

“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.”

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 ft truck rumbled past. Another truck followed a few minutes afterward, and then another. 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 soy something, but then closed it again. “Okay,” he said.

One by one, the trucks pulled out and swung onto the road. I followed in the last truck. Our headlights nosed the red taillight of the truck ahead. The hill was short and steep. For an awful moment I thought we were going to get stuck. But a moment later we were lipping the top of the hill and running down to the torrent.

A hundred yards beyond the bridge I had my driver stop and I ran back to fit my battery wires. The explosion was much sharper this time. 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 farther on we caught up with the taillight 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 comer of his eye, 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.

“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.

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 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. They must have forgotten about us, I guess. We didn’t know what was going on.”

I said, “Well, you’d better get going as fast as you can. Trevedian wants everybody down there.”

“Why didn’t you boys stay there?”

“We had to clear the road,” I said quickly. “Besides, this stuff has to be up on top and 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 bobble of talk. Then the men began to drift away to their hut. I signaled the driver to go on, and we rumbled into the trees and down the slope to the edge of the slide. There a whole circle of lights blazed 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 breathed. That fool Butler had failed to collect the guard.

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

He shook his head. “Nobody’s allowed to touch the engine except the hoist men.”

“This isn’t routine!” I yelled at him. “This is an emergency! Don’t you know what’s happened?” He shook his head. I leaned closer. “Better keep this under your hat. 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 layer underneath is formed of. And we’ve got to do it damned quick.” I caught hold of his arm. “Hell, man, what do you think we’re doing up here when one of our own trucks is buried under a fall? But Trevedian wouldn’t let us stay. 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 doorway 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 ten thousand dollars’ worth of damage already tonight.”

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!” 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?” Some carried picks and shovels. “If we could have one of your trucks—” he said.

I hesitated. Much as I wanted to get rid of them, I didn’t dare risk one of the trucks. “Are you just laborers 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 shown how eet works yesterday.”

“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?”

“But my orders—”

“Damn your orders!” I screamed, catching hold of him by his coat and shaking him. “This stuff has got to be up there, first thing! And because of your blasted Trevedian and this dam, we’re up here instead of helping to dig out one of our pals. But 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 hero 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 onto the staging. These men will help you load and secure... Boy, you ride up with the first vehicle and supervise the off-loading 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. “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 little Italian engineer grinned at me. 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 and I had come in quite openly.

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.

I stayed inside the engine housing. I was safe there. Nobody could talk to me against the roar of the engine. Shortly after two-thirty the Chinaman brought down big jugs full of thick soup, piping hot, and a great pile of meat sandwiches. A couple of trucks were up by then. Another was just leaving. We sent one jug 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 realized he was scared. “It’s all right,” I said. “You won’t see anything. It’ll just be cold as hell.”

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 onto the staging. “It’ll just be like a road then.”

He nodded. And a moment later he was on his way, a white, blood lens 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 next to last 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.

Ho didn’t say anything, but I noticed that his eyes kept straying now to the roadway up to the camp. Suppose Butler and his gang had smelled 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 was going on. My hands gripped each other, my eyes alternating between the road and the big iron coble 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. 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 onto 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 grayness 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.

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 onto 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 hoard a ship. “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-Ted hot soup, and men moving about, talking excitedly, laughing, pumping my hand. And then I was lying in a bed. 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 be was grinning and saying that the rig would be set up before nightfall. When I went down to the drilling site the next morning I found the rig erected and the draw works being lightened down on the steel plates of the platform. The traveling 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 ready 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.

“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 rides on the site as well.”

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

Garry chuckled. “Mebbe he’s had enough.”

I turned away. I didn’t like it. The natural thing would have been for Trevedian to show up. 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 Tuesday morning, Garry spudded in. I stood on the platform and watched the block come down and the bit lowered into the hole. We had started to drill Campbell No. 2.

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. I went into the kitchen and began peeling potatoes for the evening meal.

Half an hour later I heard a 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. I went out into the gray 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 face looked strained and almost sad.

“Mac said you needed a cook?” Her voice was toneless.

“Yes,” I said. I couldn’t think of anything more to say. And yet there was a singing in my blood as though the Bun 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 toward me. She stopped when she reached the doorway because I was blocking it. We looked at each other a moment.

“Why did you come?” I asked at length.

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. One section of his evidence 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 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.

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. What a fool I’d been not to get bold of the account of this case before starling 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 wondering what 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 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, talking trivialities, carefully avoiding anything personal. And then, after 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 onto 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. 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 four A.M., Boy and I were taking it in turns to stand guard on the rig, Moses acting as watch dog.

We were soon settled into a regular routine. 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 leas cold. And all the time the alfalfa grew and the Kingdom was carpeted with lupines and tiger lilies and a host of other flowers.

And in all that period 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 the Campbell land stopped and the 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.

All the time I had the uncanny feeling that we were all waiting for something to happen. Fergus couldn’t ignore us indefinitely. He didn’t dare let us bring in a well. And there was Trevedian. Jean’s phrase — 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 toward the dam.

And then the blow fell. It was on July fourth. 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 had and occasionally snow. As usual, I had Moses with me, and the Luger was stropped to my belt.

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 leaped for the door. I opened it and be 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 scared my eyeballs with the hot blast of it. It was followed almost instantly by another — two 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 unrecognizable bundle of clothing heading for the dam. And behind him came Moses in great bounds. The figure checked, turned, and as Moses leaped 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 midleap, 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 that a bullet had furrowed his shoulder. He was bleeding badly and his right front leg would support no weight.

I made a quick round of the remaining vehicles to check that there was nothing smoldering. 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. And yet when I reached the house it was in darkness. They were all fast asleep and blissfully ignorant of the disaster. For disaster it was; the attack had been made on the one thing that could stop us dead. Without fuel we could not drill.

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 he 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 — tell Garry that two of his trucks were gone and all his fuel. He didn’t say anything when 1 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 pays up, that’s all.” We went into the hut then. “Cigarette?” He thrust the packet toward me. As we lit up, he said, “It might have been worse, I guess. The whole rig could have gone.” He leaned bock and closed his eyes, drawing on his cigarette. “We’re down around four thousand. Fortunately, the rig tank was filled up yesterday. That’ll get us down a couple hundred more feet. 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.

“H’m-m. 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 a short time 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.

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, much as to say, “Sorry I didn’t get the swine 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 tit 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 she got up and went out into the kitchen. I went over to the window. Dawn had broken and the wisps of ragged cloud were lifting and breaking up. I went out to the barn where I slept, got my things together and look them across to the stables.

As I was saddling up, Jean came in. “What are you going to do?” she asked.

“Get in touch with Johnny,” I said. “See if he’ll pack the fuel up for us.”

“You’re going atone?”

“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. 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 lift.

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 us out onto the edge of a sheer drop of several hundred feet.

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 Johnny,” 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.”

“By whom — Trevedian?” I asked.

“Of course not. By the boys you fooled. You actually got some of them to help you load the trucks onto 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.

“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. No words were exchanged between us, but out of the corners of my eyes I could see he was smiling.

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 toward 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 tired. You’re damn lucky it was only a dog that got hit.” I turned toward 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 Johnny 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 is no trouble.”

“Where’s Jean?”

“She is with Miss Garret, I think.”

“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 fake 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 recognized, 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.

“That’s him!” he shouted. “That’s the rat!” And he began to run toward us. The others followed at his heels, and they were almost on us as we unhitched our ponies and swung into the saddles, I heeled my animal into a canter, and side by Bide 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 color Baring 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?” He leered at Jean and then let his filthy tongue run riot.

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 toward 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. I saw the man hesitate, glancing round at his companions, and then, with sudden truculence born of the herd, he mouthed 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 round him. We hit the dirt of the street and I felt his breath hot on my face as it was forced out or 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 slack, 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?” she called.

“Yes,” I said, struggling to my feet.

“Then get on your horse.”

She leveled her gun at the hunch 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 saddle bag, and in silence we turned and rode down the street and 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.

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, 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 you were running away and then suddenly turned and laced 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 thin 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, Paul Morton, and how he treated your grandfather. That’s 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 hall 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, dosed my eyes and was instantly asleep. It was cold when she woke me, and the valley was deep in shadow. We ate the low 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, won pure Victorian melodrama. Sarah Garret was particularly affected, talking in whispers, a high color 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, and yet the reality of it was there, in our need of a safe place to stay the night, in the two burned-out trucks up in the Kingdom.

I knew that Peter Trevedian would stop at nothing to keep me from bringing in an oil well in Campbell’s Kingdom. His men had destroyed two of our trucks and had burned most of our fuel for the oil rig. If nothing else worked, I realized that Trevedian might even try to have me killed.

My grandfather, Stuart Campbell, had left to me, Bruce Campbell Wetheral, all his land in the Canadian Rockies. He had spent his life trying to prove there was oil in the Kingdom, and his last request to me was to prove he was right.

I didn’t have much time, though. A man named Henry Fergus was building a dam just below my land. When it was finished — which wouldn’t be long now — my property would be flooded. Trevedian, who owned a hoist that went up the mountain, was working exclusively for Fergus, and he wouldn’t let us use the hoist at any price.

We were down to about 4000 feet when Trevedian’s men sabotaged our fuel supply. We had enough left to drill another few hundred feet. The only way to get fuel up to the Kingdom was to pack it in on horses.

Jean Lucas, our cook, and I went down to the town of Come Lucky to see what we could arrange. In the town I got into a fight with some of Trevedian’s men. They would have killed me, but Jean held them off with a gun.

After I made arrangements with my friend, Jeff Hart, we left town. That evening we circled back and went to the house of the elderly Garret sisters to spend the night. We would be safe there — if none of Trevedian’s men found out we were still in town.

VII

Shortly after our meal, when we were sitting having coffee, Pauline arrived. Johnny would meet me at 150-Mile House tomorrow 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.

Thai 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 cluttered with china bric-a-brac. For a long time I lay awake, looking at the stars, my mind 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.

“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 illumined the room, 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. Dresses of satin and silk piled up on the floor, beautiful lace-edged nightgowns, 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 jewelry.

“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. If was gold, studded with amethysts, and the amethysts matched the color of her eyes and both gleamed as brightly in the candlelight. “This was my favorite.”

“Why have you shown me all this?” I asked again.

She sighed and put the brooch back. Then she closed the lid of the box and signaled 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 fiancé?”

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. An Englishman. 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 up 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 money my father gave me. Jean told us what had happened up in the Kingdom. I would like you to know that you do not have to worry about money. You have only 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. Good night.”

That visit from Sarah Garret I treasure 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 lakeshore 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. On my own, I found a mood of depression creeping over me.

But when Johnny 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. 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 corralled at a homestead a few miles west of Beaver Dam Lake.

On the fifteenth of 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 twenty-four hours to pack that first five hundred gallons up to the Kingdom.

The atmosphere when we came down into the Kingdom was one of tense excitement. Just before we arrived, an Imperial Oil scout had ridden in. With this recognition from the outside world and with the arrival of the fuel, enthusiasm was unbounded.

Two days later the four of us brought a second five hundred gallons up. By the time we packed in the second load of fuel they were past the five thousand mark and going strong.

I remember Johnny 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 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 No. 1, I couldn’t tell anybody this, I just had to brace myself to combat the sense of defeat when it came.

As the days went by, the suspense became almost unbearable. We were drilling through quartzite and making slower progress than we had hoped. Some of the drilling crew were in touch with men working on the dam and from them they learned that the completion date was fixed for August twentieth. 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. Just after nine on the morning of August fifth 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.

At length I could stand the suspense no longer. I drew Garry to one side saying I wanted to talk to him alone. He walked back with me to the ranch house. “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. You don’t seem to realize 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 had burst open and Cliff Lindy, the driller on shift, came in. There was a wild look in his eyes.

“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 drilling two feet.” He caught hold of Garry’s arm. “For Pete’s sake,” he said, “let’s get out of here before we’re all of us broke!”

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 hits and wearing out your rig for nothing,” Cliff 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,” Cliff 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. We want to haul out.”

Garry didn’t say anything for a moment. He stood there rasping his lingers along the line of his jaw. “I wonder how thick through this Bill 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 about four days’ drilling,” Cliff said. “And what’s below the sill, when we get through it? I ain’t a geologist, but I’m not such a foot as to expect oil-bearing country directly below a volcanic intrusion.”

Garry nodded slowly. “I guess you’re right, Cliff.” He turned toward 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 came—” She hesitated and then finished on a note of tenderness, “To break it to you.”

Somehow her tone took the edge off my anger. “Thanks, Jean.”

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 dong myself into the one armchair. Probably Stuart Campbell had flung himself into the selfsame chair when he got the news that drilling was no longer possible on Campbell No. 1. 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.

Jean put the tray down and came and stood near me. Her hand reached out and touched my hair. Without thinking, I grasped it tightly. 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 suddenly I remembered what Maclean-Hervey had said, and 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 and the rig was silent. They were as angry and bitter as I had been.

I think Garry had already decided to pack up and write off his two months in the Kingdom. But something happened the next morning that roused the Irish in him, and suddenly altered the whole atmosphere of our camp. We were all at breakfast when there was a knock at the door and Trevedian came in. We all sat and stared at him, wondering what he wanted. I saw Garry’s big hand clench into a fist, and Cliff 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 our bitterness and anger. “I’ve brought a telegram for you, Wetheral. Thought it might be urgent.”

I got to my feet, wondering why he had 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.

“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 of getting them to drill deeper. 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 fifty thousand 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 to one side. Trevedian was smiling. “If you want to get your trucks down, that’s what it’s going to cost you.”

The muscles of Garry’s arms tightened. “You know I couldn’t, pay it. I’m broke. We’re all of us broke.” He took a step toward 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 heaven’s sake be reasonable, Trevedian.”

“Reasonable! 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 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 tins. You don’t seem to realize what you’re up against.”

“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 Winnick’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 out of here and tell your boss, Henry Fergus, that the gloves are off!”

He stood there, his mouth ball open, as though he was about to say something further. “You heard what Wetheral said.” Garry was moving toward him, his hands low at his sides, 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 out.

For a moment we all stood there without moving. Then Garry came over and grasped my hand. “By heaven, 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 had to go back to Calgary.

“Did you really mean you’ve got a backer?” Cliff 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 swine.” 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 pock animals Johnny and I had before. He’s to have them corralled at Weasel’s Farm on the other side of Beaver Dam Lake in three days’ time — that’s the eighth of August. I’ll meet him there. Tell him to have all supplies laid on ready. I’ll wire him the money at Keithley.”

“I’ll do that.” His big hand grippe my shoulder. “You look like you weren’t strong enough to hold your own against a puff of wind. But by heaven, you’re tougher than I am.” He turned toward the door. “C’mon, 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 Hill 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, and 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 and I didn’t say anything. 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 then. 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. Sarah Garret answered my knock. 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 rumor 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 color in her 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 while 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 realize,” 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 know that I had 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 I 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 house 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 band on my arm and led me out. She paused at the front door. “Are you going to marry Jean?”

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.

I flew into Calgary from Edmonton on the morning of August seventh to be met by Calgary Tribune placards announcing: Larsen Company’s Dam Nearing Completion. I deposited the gold in the hank and arranged for the necessary funds to be mailed to Boy at Weasel’s Farm, and then went on to my lawyers. There I learned that the case I had come to fight had been dropped. I asked Letour whether this was as a result of my threat to seek an injunction restraining Fergus from flooding the Kingdom, but he shook his head. No application for an injunction had been made and he explained to me at some length the legal difficulties of making such an application. He advised me that my only hope was to bring in a well before the flooding of the Kingdom. The scale of compensation likely to be granted by the courts would then be so great as to make it impracticable for the Larsen Company to proceed with the project.

I went back to my hotel feeling that my trip to Calgary had been wasted. Not only that, but Fergus was apparently so sure of himself he didn’t consider me worth bothering about. And since Trevedian was undoubtedly keeping a watch on the rig, I could well understand this. He must know by now that we were in bad country and drilling only two feet per hour.

I would have pulled out of Calgary the next morning, only something happened that evening which radically altered my plans. I hadn’t been near the Calgary Tribune, feeling it would be a waste of time and that they had now lost interest in our drilling operations. However, I had phoned Winnick and I suppose he must have let them know I was in town, for the editor himself rang me up in the afternoon and asked me to have dinner with him. And when I got to his club I found he had a CBC man with him, and the whole picture suddenly brightened, for the CBC man wanted me to broadcast. The reason for his interest was in the copy of a big American magazine he had with him which contained an article beaded:

OIL VERSUS ELECTRICITY

Will the dream of an old-timer come true? Will his grandson strike oil up in his Rocky Mountain kingdom or will the men building the dam flood the place first?

The author was Steve Strachan, the Calgary Tribune reporter who had visited us.

This sudden interest in what we were doing gave me fresh heart. I stayed on and did the broadcast, for I was already subconsciously working toward obtaining the best compensation I could from the courts. Upon what they awarded me depended the extent to which I could repay those who had helped me. I made it clear, therefore, both in the broadcast and in the article I wrote for the Calgary Tribune, that we were into the igneous country that had stopped Campbell No. 1 and that given a few more weeks we should undoubtedly bring in a well.

This false optimism produced immediate dividends, for on the morning after the broadcast Acheson came to see me. He looked pale and angry, which was not surprising, since Fergus had sent him with an offer of a hundred thousand dollars. I was very tempted to accept.

Then Acheson said, “Of course, in view of the publicity you have been getting, we shall require a statement that you are now of the opinion that Campbell was wrong and there is no oil in that area of the Rockies.”

I went over to the window and stood looking out across the railway tracks. To make that statement meant finally branding my grandfather as a liar and a cheat. It would be a final act of cowardice.

“Would Fergus agree to free transportation of all vehicles and personnel down by the hoist and over the Thunder Valley road?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll think about it.”

He glanced at his watch. “You’ll have to think fast then. This offer is open till midday.”

“What’s the hurry?”

“Fergus wants to get rid of the whole business.”

He left me then, and for an hour I paced up and down the room, trying to balance my unwillingness to accept defeat against the need to repay the men who had helped me. And then the bellhop came and I knew why they had been in such a hurry to get a decision out of me. It was a telegram from Boy, dispatched from Keithley:

THROUGH SILL AT FIFTY-EIGHT HUNDRED. DRILLING TEN PER HOUR. EVERYONE OPTIMISTIC SECOND CONSIGNMENT FUEL ON WAY. BOY.

I stared at it, excitement mounting inside me, reviving my hopes, bursting like a Hood over my mood of pessimism.

I seized hold of the phone and rang Acheson. “I just wanted to let you know that half a million dollars wouldn’t buy the Kingdom now,” I told him. “We’re in the clear and drilling ten feet an hour. You knew that, didn’t you? Well, you can tell Fergus it’s going to cost him a fortune to flood the Kingdom.”

I slammed down the receiver without waiting for him to reply. The crooks! They’d known we were through the sill. They’d known it by the speed at which the traveling block moved down the rig. That’s why they’d increased their offer. I was laughing aloud in my excitement as I picked up the phone and rang the editor of the Calgary Tribune. I told him the whole thing, how they’d offered me a hundred thousand and they’d known all the time we were in the clear. “If they’ll only give us long enough,” I said, “we’ll bring in that well.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “We’ll run this story and I’ll write a leader that won’t do you any harm. When are you planning to go up there?”

“I’ll be leaving first thing in the morning,” I said.

“Okay. Well, don’t worry about transport. I’ll have Steve pick you up in the station wagon around nine. You don’t mind him coming up with you?”

“Of course not.”

Early the following evening Steve and I arrived in Jasper. There was little snow on the mountains now and it was still warm after the blistering heat of the day. It was only that evening, as I sat drinking beer with Jeff, that I realized I had been over a week in Calgary and hadn’t felt ill. “It’s our dry, healthy climate, I guess,” Jeff said. I nodded abstractedly, thinking how much had happened since that first time I had come through Jasper.

The next night we bunked down in the straw of the Wessels hayloft and early the following morning we rode round the north shore of Beaver Dam Lake, and when we emerged from the cottonwood, there, suddenly, straight ahead of us, were the peaks of Solomon’s Judgment. I reined in my pony and sat there for a moment, staring at them, thinking of the activity going on up there, bearing the clatter of the drill, seeing the traveling block slowly descending. Jean would be there, and with luck—

I shook my reins and heeled the pony forward. My eyes were dazzled for a moment by the flash of sun on glass. It was a lorry moving on the road up to Thunder Creek. Another and another followed it — materials for the dam moving up to the hoist.

“Seems to be a lot more traffic on that road now,” Steve said.

I nodded and pushed on up the trail. I didn’t want to think about that dam. I hoped they were behind schedule. Already it was the sixteenth and their completion date was supposed to be the twentieth. Only four more days.

We made good time and soon Moses was barking a welcome to us as we rode up to the ranch house. Jean came in as we unsaddled. Her eyes were bright in the gloom of the stable, and as I gripped her arms and felt the trembling excitement of her body, the place seemed like home.

“Have we brought in a well?” I asked her.

And when she shook her head I was almost glad, for now that I was back in the Kingdom I felt all the old optimism.

“The boys are working shifts round the clock now,” she said. “They’re determined that if it’s there, they’ll get down to it.” The tightness of her voice revealed the strain they were working under, and when we went out into the sunlight I was shocked to see how tired she looked.

“Let’s go down to the rig,” I said. “I’ve got some mail for them and a lot of newspapers.”

“Sure you’re not too tired?” She was looking at me anxiously. “I was afraid—” She turned away and stared toward the rig. “They’ve nearly finished the dam,” she said quickly. “A week ago they took on fifty extra men.”

“When do they expect to complete it?”

“In two days’ time.”

Two days! I turned to Steve. “You hear that, Steve? Two days.”

He nodded. “It’ll be quite a race.”

“Better get yourself settled in,” I told him, and Jean and I set out for the rig, Moses limping along beside us. We didn’t talk. Somehow, now that I was here it didn’t seem necessary. We just walked in silence and across the deep grass came the clatter of the rig like music on the still air. I began to tell her what had happened in Calgary, but somehow the publicity I had got seemed unimportant. Up here only one thing mattered — if there was oil, would they reach it in time?

The strain I had seen in Jean’s face was stamped on the face of everyone I on the rig. They all crowded round me, wanting to hear the news from Calgary, eagerly scanning the papers I had brought and searching the bundle of mail for their own letters. The atmosphere was electric with fatigue and the desperate hope that was driving them.

“Did you see Winnick?” Garry asked me. His voice was hard and terse.

“Yes. He’s been over the seismograms again. He thinks we’ll strike it around seven thousand or not at all.”

“We’ll he at seven thousand the day after tomorrow.”

“Have you taken a core sample since you got clear of the sill?”

“Yes. I don’t know much about geology, I guess, but it looked like I Devonian, all right, to me.”

“We’ll just have to make it,” I said.

“Oh, sure. We’ll make it.” But his voice didn’t carry conviction. He looked dead heat.

“Seen anything of Trevedian?”

“No.” He turned and stared toward the dam. His battered face looked crumpled and old in the hard sunlight. “I wish we’d got a geologist up here. If we do strike it, as like as not it’ll be gas and we’ll blow the rig to hell.”

“If you do strike it,” I said, “you won’t need to worry about the rig.”

“It’s not the rig I’m worrying about,” he snapped, “It’s the drilling crew.” He gave a quick, nervous laugh. “I’ve never drilled a well without knowing what was going on under the surface.”

His manner as much as his appearance warned me that his nerves were strung taut. It was not surprising, for there were only nine of them to keep the rig going the twenty-four hours, and it needed four men on each shift. Pretty soon both I and Steve Strachan were doing our stint. I did the shift from eight to twelve, and by the time I had been called at four to go on duty again, I began to understand the strain they had been working under. I came off duty at eight, had some breakfast and turned in.

I hadn’t been asleep more than an hour before I was wakened with the news that Trevedian had arrived and wanted to see me.

He was in the main room of the ranch house and he had an officer of the Provincial Police with him, Garry was there, too, and he held a sheet of paper in his hand.

“Trevedian’s just served us with notice to quit,” he said, handing me the paper.

It was a warning that flooding of the Kingdom under the provisions of the Provincial Government Act of 1939 might be expected any time after August eighteenth.

“The dam’s complete, is it?” I asked.

Trevedian nodded. “Just about.”

“When are you closing the sluice gates?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the day after. As soon as we’re ready.” He turned to the policeman. “Well, Eddie, you’ve seen the note delivered. Anything you want to say?”

The officer shook his head. “You’ve read the notice, Mr. Wetheral. I’d just remind you that as from ten o’clock tomorrow morning the Larsen Company is entitled to flood this area, and that from that time they cannot be held responsible for any loss of movable equipment.”

“Meaning the rig?”

He nodded. “I’m sorry, fellows, but there it is.”

One or two of the drilling crew had drifted in. Trevedian shifted his feet nervously. He knew enough about men to know that it only needed a word to touch off the violence in the atmosphere.

“Well, I guess we’d better get going,” he said.

The policeman nodded. In silence they turned and went out through the door. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. At length Garry said, “Better get some sleep, boys. We’re on again in an hour and a half.”

“Any chance of bringing in a well between now and ten o’clock tomorrow?” Steve Strachan asked.

Garry rounded on him with a snarl. “If I knew that, do you think we’d be standing around looking like a bunch of steers waiting for the slaughterhouse?” And he flung out of the room, back to his bunk.

When I went on shift at midday the drill was down to six thousand, six hundred and twenty-two feet. When we came off again at four, we had added another forty-three feet. It was blazing hot and the sweat streamed off me, for we had just had the grief stem out and added another length of pipe. I stood for a while, staring across to the dam. The silence there was uncanny. Not a soul moved. I mopped my forehead with a sweat-damp handkerchief. There wasn’t a breath of air. The whole Kingdom seemed silent and watching, as though waiting for something. A glint of sun on glasses showed from the rock buttress. They were still keeping us under observation.

“I don’t like it,” a voice said at my elbow.

I turned to find Boy standing beside me. “What don’t you like?” I asked, and already I noticed my voice possessed that same sharpness of strain that the others had.

“Just nerves, I guess,” he said. “But it’s crazy sort of weather, this, with no thunderheads and the mountains burning up under this sudden wave of heat. It’s as though—” He paused there, and then turned away with a shrug of his shoulders.

That night at dinner a brooding silence reigned over the table. It had the stillness of weather before a storm. It was in tune with the sultry heat of the night. The faces of the men gathered round the table were thin and tired and shiny with sweat. They sat around till eight, waiting for the change of shift. Every now and then one of them would go to the door and listen, his head cocked on one side, listening for some change in the rhythm of the rig, waiting for the news that they’d brought in a well.

But the shift changed and the drilling went steadily on, the bit grinding into the rock six thousand, seven hundred and thirteen feet below the surface, at the rate of ten and a half feet per hour. I got some Bleep and went on shift again at midnight. Jean was still up, standing by the stable, looking at the moon. She didn’t say anything, but her hand found mine and gripped it.

Boy passed us, going to the rig. “There’s a storm brewing,” he said.

There was a ring round the moon and though it was still as sultry as an oven, there was a dampness in the air.

“Something must break soon,” Jean whispered. “I can’t stand this suspense any longer.”

“It’ll all be over tomorrow when they flood the place,” I said.

She sighed and pressed my arm and turned away. I watched her go back into the ranch house. Then slowly I walked down to the rig. Garry was driller on this shift and Don was acting as derrick man. We sat on the bench beside the draw works, smoking and feeling the drill vibrating along our spines.

“What’s that over there, beyond Solomon’s Judgment? Looks like a cloud,” Garry said.

A breath of wind touched our faces. There were no stars. It looked pitch-black and strangely solid. The wind was suddenly chill.

“It’s the storm that’s been brewing,” Boy said.

I don’t know who noticed it first — the change in the note of the drawworks Diesel. It penetrated to my mind as something different, a slowing up, a stickiness that deepened the note of the engine.

Boy shouted something, and then Garry’s voice thundered out, “The mud pump, quick!” His big body was across the platform in a flash, Don and I had jumped to our feet, but we stood there, dazed, not knowing what was happening or what had to be done. “Get off that platform!” Garry shouted up to us. “Run, you fools! Run for your lives!”

I heard Boy say, “We’ve struck it!” And then we collided in a mad scramble for the ladder. As I reached it I caught a glimpse of the traveling block out of the tail of my eye. The wire hawsers that held it suspended from the crown block were slack and the grief stem was slowly rising, pushing it upward. Then I was down the ladder and jumping for the ground, running blindly, not knowing what to expect, following the flying figures of my companions. The ground became boggy. It squelched under my feet. Then water splashed in my face and I stopped, thinking we’d reached the stream. The others had stopped too. They were standing, staring back at the rig.

The grief stem was lifted right up to the crown block now. It was held there for a moment and then, with a rending and tearing of steel, it thrust the rig up clear of the ground. Then the stem bent over. The rig toppled and came crashing to the ground. The draw works, suddenly freed of their load, raced madly with a clattering cacophony of sound. And then, in brilliant moonlight that gave the whole thing an air of unreality, we watched the pipe seemingly squeezed out of the ground like toothpaste out of a tube.

It was like that for a moment, a great snake of piping, turning and twisting upward, and then, with a roar like a hundred express trains, it was blown clear.

“Garry! Garry! Garry!” Boy’s voice sounded thin against the roar.

We splashed back toward the rig, searching for him. We stumbled against pieces of machinery, scraps of trucks that had been flung wide by the force of gas.

“Garry!”

A shape loomed up in the gloom. A hand gripped mine. “Well, we struck it!” It was Garry and his voice trembled slightly.

I’d been too dazed to consider the cause of the disaster, I still couldn’t believe it. “You mean we’ve struck oil?”

“Well, we’ve struck gas. There’ll be oil down there, too, I guess.”

“It hasn’t done your rig much good,” I said. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Oh, to hell with the rig!” He laughed. It was a queer sound, violent and trembling and rather high-pitched.

“We’ve done what we came up here to do. We’ve proved there’s oil down there. And we’ve done it in time. Come on. Let’s rout the boys out. Steve must see this. He’s our independent observer. This is going to shake the Larsen outfit.” And that high-pitched laugh sent out its trembling challenge again to the din of the gas jet.

It wasn’t until we were headed for the ranch house that I realized that the moon had vanished, swallowed by the inky blackness that was rolling across the night sky. Halfway to the house a gust of wind struck us. From the slopes of Solomon’s Judgment came a hissing sound that enveloped and obliterated the sound of the gas. And then, suddenly, a wall of water fell on us. It was a rainstorm, but as solid as if a cloud had condensed and dropped. Lightning ripped across our heads, momentarily revealing my companions as three half-drowned wraiths. And then the thunder was incessant.

Somehow we reached the ranch house. Nobody was up. The place was as silent as if it had been deserted. We stripped to the huff and built up the fire, huddling our bodies close to it and drinking some rye that Boy had found. There seemed no point in waking the others.

There was nothing to see and the storm was so violent that it was quite out of the question to take them down to have a look at the well. We drifted off to our bunks, and as my head touched the pillow I remember thinking that everything was going to be all right now. We had proved there was oil in the Kingdom. My grandfather’s beliefs were confirmed, my own life justified. And then I was asleep.

It was Jean who woke me. She seemed very excited about something and I felt desperately tired. She kept on shaking me. “Quick, Bruce! Something’s happened!”

“I know,” I mumbled, “We didn’t wake you because there was a storm.”

I rolled out of my bunk and pulled a coat on over my pajamas. I was really rather enjoying myself as she took hold of my hand and pulled me through into the ranch house and over to the window.

I don’t know quite how I had expected it to look by daylight, but when I reached the window and looked out across the Kingdom, drab gray and swept by rain, I stood appalled. There was nothing to show we’d ever drilled there or ever had a rig there. I was looking out across a wide expanse of water. It began just beyond the barns and it extended right across to the slopes of the mountains on the farther side. Trevedian had closed the sluice gates and the Kingdom was already half flooded. It was a lake, and the wind was driving across it, plowing it up into waves and flecking it with white. “Oh, God!” I said, and I dropped my head on my arms.

My name is Bruce Campbell Wetheral. On the day my physician told me I had only a few months left to live, I learned that I had inherited the Kingdom from my grandfather, Stuart Campbell. He had spent his life trying to prove there was oil in the Rockies, and his last request to me was to prove he was right.

I found two partners, Boy Bladen and Garry Keogh, and we started drilling. But from the very beginning we knew we were taking a gamble that we might lose. I had proved there was a fortune in oil in Campbell’s Kingdom, a plateau high in the Canadian Rockies. But I lost my race against time. The whole Kingdom was now flooded in the waters of a man-made lake.

A man named Henry Fergus was building a dam just below the Kingdom. When it was finished the entire Kingdom would be flooded. Also, Peter Trevedian, who worked for Fergus, had been trying to sabotage us ever since we started. For months the race was close. Then one evening Trevedian came to our camp with a notice that the dam was done and that the Kingdom would be flooded at any time. After ten o’clock the next morning, he would not be responsible for any of my equipment.

But that very night we struck gas, indicating there was oil just below. A storm broke out and we went to bed.

The next morning when I woke up, the Kingdom was flooded and our oil rig was completely covered. Trevedian had been watching us the night before and closed the dam’s sluice gates ahead of schedule.

Conclusion

Steve Strachan did his best to try to visualize the blowing in of the well as we had seen it, but I knew he wasn’t really convinced. He knew how tense we all were. I suppose he fell that in those circumstances a man is capable of seeing something that never really happened. He did his best. He made polite noises as we described every detail of it. But every now and then he’d say, “Sure I believe you, but just show me something concrete that’ll prove it really happened.”

But what evidence had we? Soaked to the skin, we trudged along the shores of that damned lake, looking for a slick of oil, or stood searching the spot where the rig had been, trying to locate the bubbles that the escaping gas must be making. But little whitecaps frisked across the spot and even through glasses we could see no sign of bubbles.

I remember Garry standing there cursing while the rain streamed down his lined face as though he were crying. We were huddled there in a little bunch by the edge of that sudden lake, our faces gray, exhaustion and despair stamped on our features.

“If only they’d waited till the time they said,” Boy murmured.

Garry turned to me. “Remember the water we ran into when we got clear of the rig? They were flooding then, flooding up to the rig, just in case.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Damn it! One more day!” There was all the bitterness of a gambler who had lost in his voice, “Our only hope is to persuade them to drain the Kingdom.” His voice was high and taut. “Come on, Bruce. We’d better get over there and have a word with them.”

I nodded reluctantly, afraid he might do something stupid when faced with Trevedian, He was at the end of his tether and his big hands twitched as though he wanted to get them around the throat of some adversary. We took two horses and cantered along the shores of the lake, below the buttress and across the rock outcrops to where the wire ran down the mountainside and into the water. They had seen us coming and there was a little group waiting for us. There was Trevedian and the policeman who had come with him the previous day, and two of Trevedian’s men with rifles slung over their shoulders.

For a moment we sat on our horses looking at them and they stood looking at us. Trevedian waited, his small eyes alert, watching us curiously. The policeman said nothing.

Words suddenly burst from Garry’s lips with explosive force, “What do you mean by drowning my rig? You gave us till ten this morning!”

“My warning referred to the house and buildings.” Trevedian glanced at his watch. “It’s now nine-twenty. You’ve forty minutes to get clear of the buildings.”

“But what about the rig?” Garry demanded. “What right had you—”

“You could have moved it,” Trevedian cut in.

Garry turned to the police officer. “Were you up here last night when they began flooding?”

The man shook his head. “No, I came up here this morning, in case there was trouble.”

“Well, there’s going to be plenty of trouble!” Garry snapped. “Do you realize you’ve drowned an oil well? We struck it at approximately two-fifteen this morning.”

Trevedian laughed. “Be damned to that for a tale!” he said.

“You know it’s true!” Garry cried. “Don’t ever let me get my hands on you or as sure as heaven I’ll wring your neck.”

“It seems I was right in insisting on police protection up here.” Trevedian smiled. He glanced at his watch again. “Better get your things clear of the ranch buildings now, Wetheral,” he said. “I’m going to finish flooding now.” He turned away.

“What time did you come up here?” I said, addressing the policeman.

“At eight o’clock this morning,” he answered.

“Were you up here last night when they began flooding?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Mr. Trevedian didn’t expect any trouble until this morning.”

“You mean he was prepared to deal with it himself during the hours of darkness?”

The other shrugged his shoulders. “My orders were to be up here at eight this morning.”

“Are you here as an official of the Provincial Police or has the company hired you as a watchdog?”

“Both,” he said rather tersely.

“I see,” I said. “In other words, you’re employed by the company and lake your orders from Trevedian. That’s all I wanted to know.” I turned my horse. “We’re wasting our time here,” I said to Garry, “This will have to be fought out in the courts.”

He nodded slowly and we rode back to the ranch house in silence. His face looked drawn and haggard. He didn’t say anything all the way back, but I was very conscious of the fact that he’d lost his rig, everything he had worked for during more than fifteen years. It deepened the mood of black despair that had gripped me since I woke up and found the Kingdom had become a lake overnight.

When we reached the ranch house we were greeted with the news that the water was rising again. All our energies were concentrated then on salvaging what we could. We loaded Boy’s vehicles with all our kit and movable equipment and drove them up to the edge of the timber. Jean and I harnessed the horses to an old wagon we found, and in this way I managed to get some of my grandfather’s belongings out. And then, as the rain slackened and a misty sun shone through, we made camp in the shelter of the trees and drank hot tea and watched the water creep slowly up to the ranch house. By midday the place ray grandfather had built with his own hands was a quarter of a mile out in the lake and the water was up to the windows. It was the end of the Kingdom.

That night my feet and hands were swollen and painful and my heart was thudding against my ribs. I felt exhausted and drained of all energy, certain that now my time was up and the end had at last come. I slipped off into a sort of coma, and when I woke sometimes Jean was there, holding my hand, sometimes I was alone. The moon was bright and by craning my head I could just see out of the back of the truck that the ranch house had disappeared completely, swallowed by the waters. There was no sign left that my grandfather had ever been in the country.

I felt better in the morning, but very tired. I slept intermittently and once Boy came and sat beside me and told me he had been over to the dam and had phoned Trevedian from the control room. We were to have the trucks at the hoist by midday tomorrow. I lay back, realizing that this was our final exodus, that the rest of the business would be conducted in the stuffy, soul-destroying atmosphere of a courtroom. There would be weeks, maybe months of litigation.

I couldn’t face that. Jean seemed to understand my mood, for she kept assuring me that it would be all right, that the lawyers would look after it all and that we’d get the compensation required to repay everyone. And then, late in the evening, Johnny rode in with a couple of American newspaper boys, the same who had been up with him the previous fall when they had found the body of my grandfather.

I remember they came in to see me that night. They were a surprisingly quiet, slow-spoken pair and somehow their interest in the whole business as a story put new heart into me.

“But who’ll believe us?” I said. “Even Steve Strachan, who was up here with us, isn’t entirely convinced.”

The taller of them laughed. “He’s not used to this sort of thing,” he said. “We are. We’ve put the four of you through a detailed cross-examination. And it’s okay. The detail is too good to have been fabricated. Soon as we get down I’ll send off my story, Fergus will have half the North American continent gunning for him by the time I’ve finished writing this up. And by a stroke of luck we’ve got pictures of the Campbell homestead and the whole Kingdom before they flooded it.”

Early next morning we started out toward the dam, but it was well after midday by the time we turned the base of the buttress and ground to a halt at the cable terminal. There wasn’t a soul there. Boy went down to the dam and disappeared down concrete steps into the bowels of it. The silence was uncanny. The dam was a flat-topped battlement of concrete flung across the cleft that divided the peaks of Solomon’s Judgment. On the Thunder Valley side it sloped down like a great wall into the gloom of the cleft. On the other side the lake of the Kingdom swept to within a yard or so of the top. The wall of concrete seemed to be leaning into the lake, as though straining to hold the weight of the water in check.

Boy came up out of the smooth top of the dam and climbed toward us, a puzzled frown on his sun-tanned face. “Not a soul there,” he said. “And all the sluices are fully open.”

“Isn’t there a phone down in the control room?” Jean asked.

Boy nodded. “I tried it, but I couldn’t get any answer. It seemed dead.”

We stood there for a moment, talking softly, wondering what to do. At length Garry said, “Well, anyway, the cage is here. We’d better start loading the first truck.”

As Don moved toward the instrument truck there was a sudden splintering sound and then the noise of falling stone. It was followed by a faint shout, half drowned in a roar of water. Then a man came clambering up the side of the cleft. He was one of the engineers and he was followed by the guards and another engineer. They saw us and came running toward us. Their faces looked white and scared.

“What’s happened?” Garry called out.

“The dam!” shouted one of the engineers. “There’s a crack! It’s leaking! The whole thing will go any minute!” He was out of breath and his voice was pitched high with fright.

We stared at him, hardly able to comprehend what he was saying — convinced of the reality of it only by his obvious fear.

“Have you told thorn down below?” Steve Strachan asked him.

“I can’t. The phone was cut in that storm the night before last. It’s terrible. I don’t know what to do. There are nearly a hundred men working down on the slide where they’re going to build the powerhouse. What can I do?”

“What about the phone in the cable house?” I asked.

“Yes, yes, of course. But I don’t, think there’ll be anyone in the lower housing, not until six this evening.”

Everybody was talking at once now, and I watched the engineer as he ran stumbling to the cable terminal. If there was nobody at the bottom to get his warning. I looked at the lake. It was six miles or more across, and in the center it would be as deep as the dam was high — over two hundred Feet.

Jean’s hand gripped my arm, “What can we do?” Her voice trembled and I saw by her face that she, too, was picturing that effect of a breach. But the dam looked solid enough.

The others were already scrambling down to have a look at the damage. I followed. Johnny came slithering down with me. And from the top of the dam itself we looked down the smooth face of it to a great jet of water fifty feet long and two or three feel, across. It was coming from a jagged rent about halfway down the dam face, and all around the hole were great splintering cracks through which the water seeped.

“It’s that cement they used on the original dam!” Johnny had to shout in my ear to make himself heard above the din of the water. “It was old stuff and it’s cracking up! The fools!”

As we turned away from the appalling sight, the engineer who had gone to the hoist to try to telephone came slithering down to us. “There’s nobody there,” he shouted.

“Can’t you go down and warn them?” Johnny asked.

“There’s nobody down there, I tell you,” he almost screamed. “Nobody hears the telephone! There’s nobody to work the engine!”

I was looking up toward the hoist, remembering the night Jeff and I had examined the cradle together to see if there was a safety device to get the cage down if the engine packed up.

“How long before this dam goes?” I asked the engineer.

“I don’t know. It may go any minute. It may last till we have drained the lake.”

The American newspaper correspondent came along the top of the dam toward us. He had been out in the center with his photographer, who was taking pictures regardless of the danger. “Why don’t these guys do something — about the boys down below. I mean?”

“What can we do?” the engineer demanded petulantly. “We’ve no phone, no means of communicating.”

I called to Boy and together we climbed the side of the cleft to the hoist. Jean caught up with us just as I was climbing into the cage. “What, are you going to do?” I was already looking up at the cradle, seeing what I needed to knock the pins out that secured the driving cable to it. Her hand gripped my arm. “No! For heaven’s sake, darling! You can’t! They’ll be all right! They’ll have seen that flow of water coming down—”

“If they have, then I’ll stop the cage on the lip of the fault.” I gently disengaged her fingers. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll be all right.”

She stared at me, her face suddenly white. I think she knew as well as I did that the chances of the men working down there having noticed an increase in the How or water from the dam was remote. “Why you?” she whispered. “Why not one of the men who belong to the dam? It’s their responsibility.”

I turned away and climbed into the cage. I couldn’t explain to her why it was better for me logo. “Hand me that bit of timber, Boy.”

He passed it up and I knocked the pins out. As the last one fell to the floor I had my hand on the brake lever. The driving cable dropped free onto the rollers and the cage began to move. I hauled down on the lever and brought the bottom braking wheel into action, forcing the suspension cable up between the two traveling wheels.

I turned to find Joan clambering into the cage. “I’m coming with you, too,” Boy said, climbing in after her. His face was white under his Ian. I didn’t know it then, but he was scared of heights, other than from the air.

“So am I,” Jean said.

I stood there, looking at them, wondering how to get rid of them. It was crazy for more than one to go down. There was a rope on the end of the lever and a pulley in the floor. I slid the rope through the sheaves or the block. Then I called to Boy. “For heaven’s sake,” I said, “get Jean out of here! Pick her up and throw her out!”

He nodded. I was still holding the rope. “Please go, Jean!” I called to her. But she clung to the side and Boy picked her up, fighting her to get her hands clear, and then, leaning far out, he put her over the side. At that moment I let go the rope, caught him by the legs and lipped him over after her. As he fell, the cage began to move.

Looking back, I saw the two of them standing there, watching me. And away to the right, below them, was the great sweep of the dam, with the wall all starred with cracks and the brown water spouting from the huge rent. I stared at it wondering what it would he like up here, hanging in space, if the whole thing burst wide open, imagining the lake pouring through, thundering in a roaring mass only a few feet below my feet and then tumbling in a gigantic, fantastic fall over the lip of the fault.

Then the pylon on the top of the fault was coming toward me, and I hauled on the rope, slowing the cradle up to walking pace. Thunder Valley opened out in front of me. I crawled up to the pylon and stopped. I could see the steep, timbered slopes of the valley, the glint of Beaver Dam Lake, but the rocks on the Lip of the drop hid the slide. I inched past the pylori. The cradle tipped. I hauled on the rope. The rocks slid away below me and suddenly I was hanging in space, and there far below me was the slide with the pylon, and beyond it the concrete housing of the hoist. It was all very minute and unreal. I felt my knees beginning to shake. I don’t think I have ever been so frightened of anything in my life. For there below me the slide looked like an ant heap. Everywhere men were moving about, working on the foundations of the powerhouse. I was committed to go down there, and if the dam should burst— The pylon and the cable housing stood right in the path of the flood. They would be swept away and the cable would swing loose. I should be dashed to pieces against the face of the fault.

It was probably only a few seconds that I hesitated there, not finding the courage to commit myself irrevocably to that awful drop, but it seemed like an age. Then at last I eased the tension slightly on the rope, and the cage dropped down from the lip, seeming to plunge sickeningly on the steep drop down the cliff face. Nervously I strained at the rope till I was hardly moving. But as I gained confidence in the brake system I let it move faster, so that soon I was past the steepest point and leveling out in a long glide toward the pylon on the slide top. Once I looked back, fearful that the dam was breaking up behind me and the pent-up waters of the lake were thundering over the edge of the fault.

The pylon slid by and then I was running almost free to the concrete housing. Below me I saw men pausing in their work to look up at me, faces gleaming white in the sunlight. I shouted to them that the dam was breaking, as I swung over their heads, and they stared at me with vacant, uncomprehending expressions. Either they didn’t believe me or they didn’t understand what I was saying, for I started no panic; they just stared at me and then got on with their work. And then I was past them and dropping down to the housing. I slid into it gently and climbed out and started back up the roadway to the site where they were working. I reached a bunch of trucks unloading materials. I yelled to the men around them to get them moving back to the camp where they would be safe.

“The dam’s breaking up!” I shouted at them. I climbed to the cab of the first truck and signaled with the horn to the men working on the site. “Get back to the camp!” I shouted to them at the top of my voice. “The dam’s going! Get back to the camp!”

My voice seemed a thin reed in the vastness of the place. It was lost in the clatter of the concrete mixers and the din of metal on stone. But here and there men were stopping to stare at me and then talk to the men working near them. One or two dropped their tools and moved toward me. I kept on shouting to them, my throat, dry with fear and the sweat running out of every pore. I hadn’t realized it would be so difficult to get them started up to the camp to safety. But here and there men began to move, and in a moment it seemed the word buzzed through the whole site and they began to move away from the slide toward the timber, slowly, like bewildered sheep.

And then Trevedian was there, shouting at them, telling them to get back to work. “What are you?” he roared at them. “A bunch of yellow-bellies to be fooled into hiding away in the woods because this fellow Wetheral is so mad at us for drowning the Kingdom that he comes down here shouting a lot of nonsense about the dam? He’s a screwball, you know that. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been drilling for oil up there! Now get back to work and don’t be so easily fooled!” He turned and came toward me. “You get the hell out of here!” he shouted. His face was dark with anger.

The men had stopped, standing uncertainly where they stood. My eyes lifted involuntarily to the cleft between the peaks. Was it my imagination or was the veil of white that wavered down the face of the fault wider and bigger. My legs felt weak and my throat was dry. I had to suppress a great desire to run.

I shouted to them again to get clear while they could. “Do you think I’d risk coming down the hoist on the brakes, leaving my friends up there, if the situation wasn’t serious? There was a hole a yard wide halfway down the dam when I left! It will be a lot bigger now! Any minute the whole thing may collapse! The original structure was built of dud cement!” I glanced up again at the cleft. “Well, if you won’t save yourselves, I can’t help it! I’ve done my best!” I jumped down from the truck and started to run. I thought that would get them moving. Trevedian thought so too. Doubt and uncertainty and the beginnings of fear showed in the faces of some of those nearest to me. He swung back toward me, started forward to intercept me and then stopped. “Max!” His voice was sharp, domineering. “Max, stop him!”

I glanced quickly toward the timber. It was about fifty yards away, and between me and it stood the huge, bear-like figure of Max Trevedian.

“Get him, Max!” Trevedian turned to his men. “And you, stay where you are! Why, we’ve only just built the dam! We’ll soon see what all this is about!... Max! Get hold of him!”

Max had already started forward, moving toward me at a shambling run, his great arms swinging loose. I stopped. “Don’t be a fool, Max! Stay where you are!”

I heard Trevedian telling his men to stay where they were, telling them he’d soon find out what all this was about, and then my hand touched the gun in my pocket. “Max!” I shouted. “Stay where you are.” And as he came steadily on, my fingers, automatically finding the opening to my pocket, slipped in and closed over the butt of the gun. I took it out.

Max was not more than thirty yards from me now. I glanced quickly up toward where the men were standing in a close-pocked huddle. They were scared and uncertain. Once Max reached me, I knew I’d never get them moving in time. It was Max or them — one man or nearly a hundred.

“Max,” I screamed, “stay where you are!” And then, as he came on, I raised the weapon slowly, took careful aim at his right leg above the knee and fired.

The report was a thin, sharp sound in the rock-strewn valley. Max’s mouth opened, a surprised look on his face. He took two stumbling steps and then pitched forward onto his face and lay there, writhing in pain.

“You swine! You’ll pay for this!”

I swung round to find Trevedian coming at me. I raised the gun. “Get back!” I said. And then, as he stopped, I knew I had the situation under control for the moment. “Now get out of here, all of you!” I ordered. “Any man who’s still around in one minute from now will get shot! And get to high ground! Now get moving!” To start them, I sent a bullet whistling over their heads. They turned then and made for the timber, bunched close together like a herd of stampeding cattle. Only Trevedian and the man who was with him stood their ground. “Get your brother out of here to safety,” I ordered him.

He didn’t move. He was staring at me, his eyes wide and unblinking. “You must be crazy,” he murmured.

“Don’t be a fool!” I snapped. “Come on! Get your brother out of here!”

“That dam was all right. Government engineers inspected it at every stage. We had engineers in to inspect it before we started the work of completing it.” He shook his head angrily. “I don’t believe it. I won’t believe it.” He turned to the man beside him, “We’ll see if we can get them on the hoist phone. If not. I’m going up there. Will you run the engine for me?”

“Don’t be a fool,” I said. “Every moment you delay—”

“Oh, go to hell!” he shouted. “Come on, George!” They started at a run for the cable terminal. For a second I considered tiring, trying to stop them. But my fractional hesitation had put them out of effective range. Maybe he’d make it.

I turned away and went over to where Max lay with his body doubled up over a big splinter of rock. His face was bloodless and he was unconscious. His right leg was twisted under him and blood was seeping onto the stones, a crimson splash in the sunlight. I got hold of him by the arms and began to drag him over the rocks. He was incredibly heavy. Each time I paused I called toward the line of the trees, hoping one of the men would have the guts to come back and help me. But the timber seemed silent and empty. In shooting Max I had finally convinced them of the urgency or the danger, just as I had convinced Trevedian himself.

Foot by foot, I dragged Max’s body along the stone-packed road, up the hill to the timber. Every few yards I had to pause. I heard the Diesel start up and saw the cage move out of its staging, Trevedian still working on the cradle, tapping home the pins that locked the driving cable to it.

I suppose I was about halfway to the timber when I paused and glanced up once again at the cleft between the two peaks that towered high above us. The cage was halfway up the face of the fault, a small box swaying gently on the spider’s silk of the cable. And then my eyes lifted to the pylon at the top and suddenly I froze. A solid wave of water and rock burst from the lip of the cliff. The pylon vanished, smothered and swept away by it. And as the water spouted outward over the cliff edge a distant rumbling reached my ears. It. went on and on, sifting down from above, echoing from slope to slope and from the face of the cliff. I remember seeing the cage sway violently and watching the brown flood fall with slow deliberation down the fault, frothing and spouting great gouts of white as it thundered against ledges and outcrops, smashing away great, sections of the rock face with its force, Hinging them outward and down. And I stood there, rigid, unable to move, fascinated and appalled by the spectacle.

A shattering roar filled the whole valley as that monstrous fall of rock and water hit the base of the fault and came thundering on in a mighty, surging wall down the slide. I saw the pylon at the top of the slide smashed to rubble and I remember how the cable suddenly broke and the cage began to swing slowly in toward the cliff. And then I was suddenly running, climbing desperately toward the timber, I heard the angry thunder of those pent-up waters crash down the valley behind me and then the swirling fringe of it reached out to me, sent a line of trees crashing as though cut by a great scythe, caught at my legs and buried me in a frothing flood of water.

I struck out madly, reaching up toward the surface, gasping for breath. Then I was flung against something and all the breath was knocked out of my body. Pain ran like a knife up my right leg. Something swirled against me and I clutched at it, felt the soft texture of clothing and hung on. Then the water sank, my feet touched ground, and as pain shot through me again, almost blacking me out, the branch of a tree curled over me and I clutched at it, holding on with the grip of desperate fear.

I must have passed out, for when I next remembered anything I was lying on the sodden earth, still clutching the branch with my right hand, my left hand twined in Max’s jacket. He was lying face down beside me, his left ear almost torn off by a jagged cut that had opened to show the white of his jaw bone. And just beyond Max, only a few yards below us, a colossal flood of brown water went ripping and roaring down Thunder Creek. The valley was a cataract a thousand yards across, and the face of the slide was a monstrous series of falls and rapids. And in the center of this violent rush of water great rocks were on the move, grinding slowly down through a welter of foam. And on the fringes the scene was one of mad devastation, timber and earth and brush swept clean down to the bare rock by the first rush of the waters. I stared at it all through a blur of pain, saw the peaks of Solomon’s Judgment and the lake spilling through the cleft, felt the sun blazing down on me and passed out again.

I think it was pain that brought me round. I heard a voice say, “It’s his leg all right.” I opened my eyes to see two faces bending over me. And then they began to move me, and I was screaming as the pain ran up my right side, splintering like sparks of electricity in my brain.

For hours it seemed I alternated between periods of blessed unconsciousness and periods of searing pain. I remember the noise and jolting of a truck, the sound of voices, the feel of a spoon against my teeth and the smell of brandy. I think I must have asked at some time about Max. At any rate, I knew somehow that he was alive. And then there were starched uniforms and the smell of ether and the jab of a needle.

I woke at last, to full consciousness in a little room where the blinds were drawn against, the sunlight. There was a movement beside me and a hand closed over mine. I turned then and saw Jean bending over me. Her face was pale and drawn, but her eyes smiled at me. “Better?”

I nodded, trying to accustom myself to the surroundings, to her presence. It was so quiet after the roar of the waters. My right leg was wooden and solid, my chest stiff and painful. It hurt to breathe and I had to force myself to speak.

“I’m in a hospital, aren’t I?” I asked her.

She nodded. “Don’t talk. And don’t worry. You’re all right. You’ve broken a leg, a collarbone and three ribs. The doctor says you’ll be fine in a week or two.”

“And Max?”

“Fractured skull and his left arm’s broken. But he’ll be all right. There’s a bullet wound in his leg, but it’s not serious.” Her hand reached out, touched my forehead, and then her fingers were sliding through my hair in a caress. “Don’t worry, darling. Everything’s going to be all right.”

I lay back and closed my eyes. I felt very sleepy. Her voice seemed a long way away. My mind was drugged. Her voice got fainter and fainter. She was saying something about the rig, about newspapermen, about them knowing now that we’d struck oil. It didn’t seem important any more and her voice faded entirely as I slid into sleep again.

When next I woke the room was dark. I lay there for a long time, my eyes open, seeing nothing in the darkness. I was thinking what a waste of effort this was, this struggle back to life. Why couldn’t I have died there, quickly and easily in the flood of the burst dam? And then I remembered Max and how I had held him against the tearing grasp of the flood, and I was glad. God had been good to me. He had given me time to get the men away from the slide, and we’d brought in a well. And suddenly words were forming on my lips and I was thanking God that I had been able to achieve so much.

Slowly light filtered into the room and day dawned, gray and thick with cloud mist. A nurse brought breakfast in to me. “Well, how’s the great oil man this morning?”

I stared at her and she laughed. “You don’t imagine anybody’s discussing the international situation, with you here in town, do you?” She put the tray down on a bed table and swung it across me. “Now, you stay quiet and eat that egg. It’s time you got some food inside you. And I brought you the papers, so that you can read all about yourself. Doctor Graham said he reckoned that was about the best tonic for you he had in the hospital. And here’s a letter for you.”

I took the envelope and slit it open. Inside was a single sheet of paper, most of which was filled with signatures. The letter was very brief and as I read my eyes blurred.

The Golden Calf,

Come Lucky, B.C.

Dear Mr. Wetheral: This letter, signed by all of us who were working on the site of the power station, is to tell you how grateful we all are to you. If you had not risked your life and come down the hoist to warn us, not one of us would be alive today. We sure are sorry that you are in hospital because of this and wish you a speedy recovery. We will do what we can to express our gratitude and in the meantime we would like you to know that you can count on the undersigned at any time to do anything to assist you.

There followed three columns of signatures, spreading over on to the back — names that were of Polish, French, Italian and Chinese origin as well as English.

I looked up at the nurse. “What day is it?” I asked her.

“Friday.”

And the Kingdom had been flooded on Tuesday. “I’ve been out a long time,” I murmured.

“Not as long as you will be if you don’t get some food inside you,” she said as she went out.

As I ate my breakfast I read through the papers. They were full of the disaster. But there was the story of the well we had brought in too — interviews with Garry and Johnny, and in one of them a long feature article headed: There’s Oil in the Rocky Mountains. The writer was Steve Strachan, and in it he acknowledged the quotation as belonging to Stuart Campbell, and made it clear that the old man was now completely vindicated. I put the paper down and lay back, suddenly completely happy.

The doctor came in then. He gave my broken bones only a cursory examination and then started to go over me thoroughly, listening to my breathing, taking my blood pressure, feeling my pulse, listening to my heart beat, and all the time asking me questions.

“What’s the trouble, doc?” I asked him.

“Oh, just a routine checkup.”

But I knew this wasn’t routine for a man with a broken leg and a few broken ribs. And when they wheeled in the X-ray apparatus, I knew he was on to the real trouble.

“You’re wasting your time,” I said, and I told him what Maclean-Hervey’s verdict had been.

He shrugged his shoulders and I bit my lip as they shifted me to get the screen and X-ray tube in position. “How did you know?” I asked him.

“Jean Lucas told me,” he answered.

“Jean!” I stared at him, wondering how Jean knew.

They were some time taking the photographs and when they had finished they made me comfortable and trundled the equipment out. The doctor was not in the room, but he returned a few minutes later. “All right, Mr. Wetheral? I hope they didn’t cause you too much pain moving you.”

“No,” I said. “It just seemed pointless, that’s all.”

He nodded and drew up a chair beside me. “Does it occur to you that for a man who was given two to six months to live way back in the spring you’ve been remarkably active lately?”

“There seemed no point in conserving energy,” I murmured.

“No, no, of course not.” He hesitated, and then said quietly, “There have been cures, you know.”

“Have there?” I looked at him, seeing his broad, rather serious features through a blur of pain.

“Aye.” He nodded. “There are such things as spontaneous cures. We don’t know the cause of them. I wish we did. Some change in the chemistry of the patient, maybe — or a psychological readjustment. Anyway, once in a while it happens.” He leaned forward, his large gray eyes peering down at me from behind the thick-lensed glasses. “Listen, Mr. Wetheral. I don’t want to raise any false hopes. We’ll know soon enough when they’ve developed those X-ray plates. There’s just a chance, that’s all.” There was a glint of excitement in his eyes now. It showed in his manner, in the way he spoke. “I can’t believe a case as desperate as yours must have been when Doctor Maclean-Hervey gave you that verdict could have gone on for five months, living the way you have been, unless the condition had improved. You’ve been eating well and instead of getting weaker, you’ve got stronger.” He suddenly sat back, taking his glasses off and polishing them. “I shouldn’t really have spoken to you about it. I should have waited till I had the X-ray results. But—” He hesitated and got to his feet. “It’s a most interesting case, you see. I didn’t want you to feel that I was just taking the opportunity to examine you out of curiosity.” He smiled suddenly. “You must be about as obstinate a man as your grandfather, I guess. Anyway, I’ll be back just as soon as I’ve got a picture of what’s going on inside you.”

He left me then, and for a while I lay there, thinking over what he had said. I felt suddenly restless. The mood of excitement I had seen reflected in the doctor’s eyes had communicated itself to me.

Almost unconsciously I reached for the papers and began reading Steve’s article again. I was still rending it when the nurse showed Jean in. She was followed by Johnny and Garry.

“We just looked in to say good-by,” Johnny said. “Garry’s off to Edmonton to see about a new rig and I’m going up to the Kingdom.” He came and stood over me, his eyes narrowed as though he were looking straight into the sun, a lazy smile on his lined face. “You look pretty comfortable lying there, Bruce.”

“What are you going up to the Kingdom for?” I asked him.

“Well, that’s what I come to see you about, I guess.” He rubbed his chin awkwardly. “You see, the boys who were working on the power station have got together and put up some dough. A few of them are coming up to the Kingdom with me and my two Americans to clear up Campbell’s place and make it snug for the winter. The rest —” He hesitated. “Well, it’s like this, Bruce: they came to me and asked what they could do about it. They’re a decent bunch and they felt sort of bad about you lying here in hospital and all of them fit and well. I didn’t know quite what to say, but I hinted you were figuring on settling down around this neighborhood, so they’ve decided to buckle to and build you a house down by the ford at the entrance to Thunder Valley. You know, the place we camped.”

“But I couldn’t possibly allow them to do that,” I said. “They’ve got their living to—”

“Now, listen, Bruce,” he cut in. “They feel had about this. It’s their way of showing they’re grateful to you. You just, got to accept it. It’s a sort of—” He glanced at Jean, and then said. “Well, anyway, they want to do it, and nothing’ll stop them, I guess.” He moved awkwardly to the door. “I must be going now... You coming, Garry?”

The big drilling contractor nodded. “I just wanted to say I’m glad you’re O.K.” He gripped my left hand. “And I’m proud to be associated with you.” He coughed in embarrassment and added quickly, “I’ll go down to Calgary and see Winnick. Things will begin to hum now. I’ll tell him you’ll be in to see him as soon as you can. I’ll see you I hen and find out whether you want to sell out to one of the big companies or whether you plan to develop the area yourself.”

He turned quickly and went out, leaving me alone with Jean. She hadn’t moved all the time they had been talking. I glanced at her face. It. was very pale and she seemed nervous. “You look much better,” she murmured, her eyes sliding away from mine. “Doctor Graham’s very pleased with you.”

An awkward silence fell between us. She moved toward the window. “Did Doctor Graham say anything to you?” She had turned to face me.

I closed my eyes. She looked so cool and fresh and radiant.

“How did you know I had it?” I asked her.

“Sarah Garret told me.”

“She shouldn’t have. I told her because—” What was the use of talking about it? I felt tired now. “I want to sleep,” I murmured. Anything to get her out of the room, to avoid having to look at her and have her eyes and face and body reproaching me for the future that might have been. “Please, Jean,” I whispered. “Leave me. Let me go to sleep now.”

There was no sound in the room, only a tense silence. Then I heard her move. “Not until I’ve said something,” she said gently. I opened my eyes to see her bending over me. A shaft of sunlight touched her hair, rimming her face in gold. Her hand touched my face, smoothing my forehead. “I’m not leaving you, Bruce. Whether you marry me or not doesn’t matter, but you’ll just have to get used to having me around.”

I stared up at her for a moment and then closed my eyes. I think I wanted to hold the memory of her face, that little smile that spread up into the eyes. “The doctor may be wrong,” I murmured.

“If you weren’t injured I’d slap you for that.” Her voice trembled slightly. Then she bent over me and her lips touched mine. “I seem fated to fall in love with men who are under sentence of death.” Her fingers touched my temple and then I heard her footsteps cross the room, the door closed and I was alone.

I lay there, feeling relaxed and happy. I wasn’t afraid of anything now. I wasn’t alone. Even the pain seemed dull as I sank slowly into a deep sleep.

It is winter now and the mountains lie under a white mantle of snow. I am writing this, sitting at the desk my grandfather made. Johnny brought it down from the Kingdom with him. Through the window I look across a clearing in the colt on woods to the ford where the waters of Thunder Creek glide, swift and black, to the lake. Someday that clearing will be a garden. Already Jean has a library of gardening books sent out from England and is planning the layout. We are full of plans — plans for the house, plans for the development of the Kingdom, plans for a family. It is just wonderful to sit back and plan. To plan something is to have a future. And to have a future is to have the whole of life.

As you’ve probably guessed already, the miracle did happen. Doctor Graham was right. The X-ray pictures showed no trace of what had threatened me. How it happened nobody seems to know. I can only quote the letter I received from Doctor Maclean-Hervey.

Dear Mr. Wetheral: Doctor Graham has sent me full details of your case, together with the X-ray photographs he has had taken. I can only say that I entirely agree with his view that you are completely cured and have no need to worry for the future.

You must be wondering now whether I was correct in my original diagnosis. For your benefit, I am sending Doctor Graham copies of the X rays taken at the London Hospital, together with a copy of the case notes I made at the time. You might like to frame one of the pictures side by side with Graham’s X ray as a reminder that you have confounded the experts! I need hardly add that I am delighted that you have.

Doctor Graham will doubtless have told you that occasionally canes of spontaneous cure do occur. The causes are not known and the instances are few. In your case I am inclined to the view that it may be largely psychological. You underwent a sudden and complete change of environment, coupled with the acquisition of an intense interest — or, since I understand you have recently got married, I should perhaps say interests. This, together with the fact that you become involved in a struggle outside yourself, may well have given you an overwhelming interest in living which you had not before. All this is not strictly within orthodox medicine, but in a case of this sort it is necessary to look beyond the laboratory and the operating theater. It is perhaps nearer to the miracle than to medicine.

Finally, may I say how happy I am to be able to record in this instance a complete reversal of my expectations, ft is cases like yours that place our medical achievements to date in their proper perspective and give to the profession that desire to go on searching diligently for the cure of this unknown disease, I wish you every success and if ever you come to England I hope you will come and see me.

Yours sincerely,

Douglas Maclean-Hervey.

On the wall behind me is a big frame, a sort of montage of pictures and documents. There are the X-ray photographs, before and after, Maclean-Hervey’s letter, a picture of Campbell No. 2 before it blew in, a photograph of the dam, the original of my grandfather’s will and the document signed by Roger Fergus returning to me the mineral rights of Campbell’s Kingdom. There in that frame is the whole story of the last six months. Now I have put it down on paper. What the future has in store, I do not know. What does it matter? The great thing is to have a future. We will begin drilling operations up in the Kingdom as soon as the snows melt. Maybe I’ll end up a millionaire. But all the money in the world cannot buy what I have now.

Content

Hammond Innes
Nothing to Lose

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