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Updated: May 7, 2025
He'd been working for me two or three months then, in the flooded river, most of the while. Now, is there any sense in that kind of man?" Mattawa appeared disconcerted, and his hard face flushed. "Well," he explained, "I felt I had to see you through." He hesitated for a moment with a gesture which seemed deprecatory of his point of view. "It seemed up to me."
Nasmyth let her go, but he did not know that she signed to Mattawa, who was then busy hewing out a big redwood log. The axeman strolled after her into the Bush, and then stopped to look hard at her as he uttered an inquiring, "Well?" "Tom," said the girl, "can't you understand that it would be very much wiser if somebody told me exactly how Mr. Nasmyth got hurt?" The axeman nodded.
The men set to work, two or three of them running recklessly along the rounded top of the slippery trunk, which rolled a little as it hammered upon the rock. Mattawa, with a big crosscut saw, crouched on the half-submerged pile of stone, and a comrade, who seized its opposite handle, held himself somehow on the second trunk by his knees.
They obeyed him, and Mattawa looked down at Nasmyth again. "I guess the thing's not serious," he commented. "Well," said Nasmyth ruefully, "in one way, I think it is. You see, store clothes are dear, and this is the only pair of trousers I've got." There was a little laugh from the others, and he knew he had done wisely, when they clumsily expressed their satisfaction at his escape.
"Now," Jake growled, "you light out of this. I don't know that I've anything against you." Nasmyth had his back to the door, and he did not see the grizzled Mattawa, who was supposed to be one of the strongest choppers about the settlement, standing a little behind him, and watching him and Jake attentively.
Then the doubt appeared an injustice to Geoffrey Thurston and those who had followed him through frost and flood and whirling snow, and, with a color on her forehead, and a light in her eyes, she pressed home the key. Then there was bustle and hurry. Julius Savine raised his hand, and Tom from Mattawa whirled high the unfurled flag.
Now, it seemed, all that severe effort was to be practically thrown away, but he recognized that his comrade was right. It was wiser to make sure of two feet than to wait until somebody set the law in motion and stopped the work. "Yes," he assented simply; "I guess it has to be done." Mattawa entered with the magazine, and Nasmyth laid out several sticks of giant-powder near the stove.
"You ought to have a few dollars in hand," remarked Nasmyth, who was quite aware that this was not exactly his business. "Are you going to start a ranch?" Mattawa appeared to smile. "I have one half cleared back in Ontario." "Then what d'you come out here for?" Gordon broke in. "To give the boy a show. He's quite smart, and we were figuring we might make a doctor or a surveyor of him.
I notice two holes yonder. We'll drill a third one, Tom." Nasmyth had been in the saddle since sunrise, in bitter frost and whirling snow, but he picked up a hammer, and Mattawa seized a drill. There was no room to swing the hammer, and Nasmyth struck half crouching, while, chilly as the heading was, the perspiration dripped from him, and the veins rose swollen on his forehead.
The man from whose grip he hoped he had escaped was the one who had helped Leslie out of a difficulty. Black Christy found, however, that a life of virtuous toil grew distinctly monotonous, and one morning, when Mattawa Tom's vigilance was slack, he departed in search of diversion in the settlement of Red Pine, which lay beyond the range.
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