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When the twenty-seven men of the outfit had straggled into the yard surrounding the big corral the chuck-wagon, bearing the cook and his assistant, trailing a little behind, and followed by the horses of the remuda with the wrangler hurling vitriolic language in the rear Harlan was standing beside Purgatory near the corral fence in front of one of the bunkhouses.
With guides who knew the waters, they ran the rapids below Fort George safely, and moored at Quesnel, the entrance to Cariboo, on the 11th of September four months after they had left Canada. Quesnel was at this time a rude settlement of perhaps a dozen log shacks chiefly bunkhouses and provision-stores.
Somewhere near, within a mile or two, was the first settlement with its sawmill and its bunkhouses, its one store and its few cabins, with flat mountains of sawdust on one side of it, and the evergreen forest creeping up to its doors on the other. Surely they would find life here, where there had been man power to hold fire back from the clearing.
But the men of the outfit watched him out of the corners of their eyes; as they passed him to go to the bunkhouses, they shot inquiring, speculating glances at one another, full of curiosity, not unmixed with astonishment over his continued silence. It was when, drawn by the wonder that consumed them, they gathered in a group near the door of one of the bunkhouses, that Harlan moved toward them.
Linton left her to stand there, while he made his way into one of the bunkhouses, where, with an appearance of unconcern that he did not feel, he watched the coming rider. And when he saw the rider head his horse straight for the gate of the patio, Linton grinned widely and sought some of the other men in the cook-house.
You can tell that damned son of yours that! Understand? He's aimin' to get even for what I'm doin' tonight, he'll find me at my place alone waitin' for him! Now, get goin'." Mrs. Lawler did not answer. She took up the reins and sent the horse forward, past the bunkhouses and the corral and the ranchhouse through the valley and up the long rise that led to the great plains above.
There were huts only in the skeleton. They were dotted about in a fashion apparently without order or purpose. Yet long before the falling of the first snow, order would reign everywhere and man's purpose would be achieved. The bunkhouses, the stores, the offices, the stables, they must all be ready before the coming of the "freeze-up." Summer is the time of preparation.
And as the outfit faded into the southern distance, Harlan, walking near the larger of the two bunkhouses, came upon Linton. Harlan grinned when he saw the other. "You didn't go with the outfit, Red?" he said. "Seems a foreman ought to be mighty eager to be with his men on their first trip after he's appointed." Linton's face was pale, his gaze was direct. "Look here, Harlan," he said, steadily.
On the second day following his return to consciousness Lawler had called in a contractor and had made arrangements for reconstruction. A temporary cabin to be used afterward by Blackburn had been erected near the site of the bunkhouses, and into this Lawler and his mother moved while the ranchhouse and the other buildings were being rebuilt.
But something of the deep emotion Blackburn felt was reflected in Lawler's eyes from the time he heard the story. During the many days he had spent in the little hotel room recovering from his wound and in the long interval of convalescence that followed a small army of workmen had been engaged in rebuilding the Circle L ranchhouse, the bunkhouses, and the other structures.
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