COBALT BLOOM.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11684, 13 July 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

COBALT BLOOM.

(By Mary Synon.)

-Randall and O'Hara fought tho Bush j every milo of their way westward lroui . the end of the Steel to tho Missinaibi. j Tbeyslipped and stumbled in the soggy . nJUskeg ofj tho Transcontuiental Riglit-. of~Way/across the North Country. -They: • broke a transit and had to " borrow ono' l from their ancient enefnies of_ the Groundhog River residency. They found their cache between tho Kapus- , kasing and Crow Creek looted, and the contractor's camp beyond the creek ( burned to blackened squares, that loomed in the" clearing like abandoned forts. Randall grumbled and OHara whistled as. they lifted their canoe and swung into a dog-trot along tho totcroad, where -thero was easy going lor nearly an hour. They were almost cheerful when they came to the jlissinaibi. And at tho Missinaibi tho Bush defeated them. Randalls' foot slipped as he launched the birch-bark thev had' been carrying from their own t • for the crossing of the hair-score rivers that sweep down to James Bay, between the Frederick House and the Rabinakagami. The canoe went from him before he could win back his unsteadien balance. And whilo tho current tossed the craft toward Black Feather Rapid tho two engineers from Number .tight sat on a. fallen log and pondered on the hardships besettinjr men who build railroads through wildernesses. Back of them birches flamed gold against the dull greeii of tamaracs and jack-pines. Before them the river raced ill the aUuring mysteriousness of northern waters. October, winging her way to mellower forests, had drifted trails of her radiance over the dark Bush. But Randall and O'Hara, smoking de- . iectcdlv, flowering at river and woods with the intensity of hatred men leel for inanimate conquerors. They could not go forward without a canoe, niviniming the IVlissipaibi with their instruments and kit-pack was out of the question. They were hungry and they Were tired, and haviug abused each other, they fell into abuse of all engineering in general, and Bush engineering in particular. - > Randall, digging tho _ heel of his moose-hide boot savagelv into the carta mould on the rock ledgo where they sat, emphasised his imprecations bv nervous tappings of the log with his level. ' "Sending us out to correct Nineteen s snrrey is the climax of tho whole blamed deal," lie ended a ierkv peroration. • "Well, Ken couldn t help it. O Hara alwavs took fire at anv implied cnticismof the chief of Residency Number Eijdit. "Bannister gavo him tue ■ ■ said he could?"' Randall iiuug back. "No one can help anything up here We can't help if we lose the canoe. Wo can't help if the cache is looted. We can't help it tr Bush fares • 6weep out camps. And it's certain no can't help it if there's a quicksand that those felfows at Nineteen missed „ "GrninhliiH* never helped anything, O'Hara counselled. tj "It's not hurting anything. "Yo're an old woman,' _ O Hara stated without emotion. "Why did ye come if ye don't like these hazards, and why do ye stay?" lie demanded, with fine disregard of his own previous discontent. /■ _ "Monev." said Randall. . "Faith* there's plenty of that m the North Country, but none of it m the engineering," the Irishman commented. "There's a gold strike up the -\lattugami. Why don't yon go there." "Maybo I shall," Randall said. He set the level down on the ground, and from the inner pocket of his worn corduroy coat drew* out- a tattered map or the mining country to the south. 4 Ever xry mining?" he asked O'Hara. "O'Hara smiled wrih some sardonic recollection. " 'Twas the mining brought me..to the North." lie said. "I was m Cobalt seven weeks to the day after the strike, and I had been in Vladivostok when 1 (heard 1 the news of it. X followed tho bloom all the way down Temiskaming to the Old Fort, and I saw silver enough to build a battleship—alt on - oilier men's claims." _ _ • "Didn't you ever strike it yourself. "Sis days a week on the Ontario side, ami seven on the Quebec. "Why didn't you follow it up? _ "Why haven't-1 gone to heaven? 1 grew tired or the travelling. And there was always the thought in "the back of my'head that some fine boys were buildiiig;a great railroad up here, and that I was missing some glorious occasions of ■revelry. Well, we've had the occasions," Ran,- but- think of the joys ahead of us this minute! "We're due to walk back io.Fourteen and borrow their canoe and .--.-.five days' rations. And in the mean,time we're sure to be hungrier than we _ . pro even-' now. Tf l'd_ stayed- at the . silver -private car or cruising ve on me private yacht." fc Wliy did you quit it ?' - ■ '.Twas not the game for me, ' 0 Hara spid with finality. "And when 1 me: Eenyon in Haileybury 1 threw me arms • around him-and gripped him like the Old Man of the Sea till he brought me back "with him to-Groundhog." "I remember, that day." Randall interposed eagerly. - "Ken had left me :n charge when he went d«JFn the line, and every last thing had gone i wrong. S:eve and I had fought over a difference of two degrees on our estimate of the grade, ana he'd moved from the shack to the office, taking Dan Ferguson with him. I'd fired a youngster that tho Groundhog division was shovinjc along the line because his father was in. Parliament. Oh, 'l'd had » joyous week, and .I'd come to the end of my rope that night I went to meet Iveny-on. "We've : gone through .plenty of troubles since then, Brian, bnt none of them ever hit me the way those did. _ I suppose that having Ken and you with me through tho others made them only half as - , "Oh, you're wonders at consolation, O'Hara remarked. think- it's because I know than when Ken's married things will never be the same," Randall explained slowly, "that I W3nt to quit -the engineering now find take my chances on the . mining. The roalroad will soon be done. Brian, and then ifs the big shift for ris all." "Bur; that's part of the game. O'Hara said, "and to me mind, the best part of it. I'd die if I'd to stay more than.three years in one place." "Bitt you're different, Brian," Randall signed. "From what? From whom' "From me," the young man explained.' "From most- men. I like adventure. I like the work here. And vou know 'how much I think of all the "fellows. Bnt I want money, too. That's whv I'm thinking ef the mining, not for the adventure of it, the way yon do, but for the chance at makjng money". Why, if I were sure of making a strike, I'd qnit the T.C.R. to-night." "And what good would the money you , made do you." O'Hara, asked, "even- if •yon found a claim you could sell for a ' million?" -Randall started at him blankly. "What "good?" he repeated. MWhat good?" -His voice rose shrilly. "Have you forgotten all tho joys that are out

world ? Don't yon remember "the -plays and the music and- the grand . hotels? Don't- you think of the lights • and* the crowds Don't you ever ache for leisure and luxury? Oh. I know yon ftiink" I'm just t materialist."' he continned defensively against O'Har-a's silence. "but if you'd lived' all the years I did in the torture of there being never-half enough money far us to beep tip wiiff" the parade, you'd want money, arnd the things that only money would get-yon. Why all I can remember of my childhood is the scrimping and saving we all had-to suffer. I never gnw a circus when I was a youngster. _ Will- yon believe-that? And I lived- in a good house and had good clothes! Did yon ever .stand in front of a candy shop, looking in at all the bonbons in the window, and longing and praying that '. some benevolent old gfentleman would efcbp and ask you what-you wanted?" "Ldidn't live in a town," O'Hara parried. ■ - • ""Well, that was my childhood, always near-enough to the candy shop to know what every bonbon looked like, and always .knowing that my lack of money was .the window between." The bitterness in.his tone was so poignant that it stirred O'Hara "Might I ask ye." theother queried, "why, in .the name of common-sense, ye:, ever took up the engineering? . There's no slower way in .the world to". riches." - • /

• " "Don't'l know it?" Randall retorted. '-I've often wondered' why" I 'did -not hold to'the dream. I worked like, a Turk to :n»ake - tbf» grade, too. Perhaps,", he "musedj "it was-because an engineer T of-the Port-Huron tunnel corps let rme run-his * motor-beat-" It was the first real ■fan'l'd ever had, that knocking . around with those men that summer."

He lowered'his voice and continued hesitatingly, "3ly mother died that winter. My father wasn't the sort of man who'd "row up-stream. There were four of us. My aunt-took the others, but I was tho oldest, rind so I hustled for myself. I sold papers in Detroit and made enough money for my board in; a: boys' - homo -.while I my. course - at high-school.; • I 'beat-, my -way to. Boston on a freight, and I worked my way through the Tech. _ It took me two years longer ih*n it did the other fellows, but I. made it." A sudden selfi conscious fear of revelation halted • his speech again. _ • 7 "And don't ye think," O'Hara asked him, "that there's something profession ye work so hard to win."Oh, I don't know," said Randall wearily. "Here I've been in tho Bush for three years, and I'm only one step higher up than I was when I came. The ladder's too long. I suppose I d keep trying to climb it, though, it 1 were off in a country where there was no gold rush. But every week a story •comes up the line of some man who s striking it rich down in the gold camps." ' "And every week some prospector stumbles back Chis way, hopeless and broken." ... . "That's the chance again- With the whole North Country one big gold held, how could I help getting the fever.-' He studied the torn map attentively. "I'm sorry to leave Eight," ho said, "but I don't see any other way.' O'Hara ignored the question that lurked behind Randall's evident assertion. He whistled "The Enniskillen Dragoons" to tho end twice before Randall spoke again. "I suppose 111 miss tho old crowd," he ventured wistfully. _ . "Steve came back," was the cold comfort he received. "If I'd had Steve's chance, you couldn't have pried mo loose from it with a track-jack." "Will ve stop tapping that level." O'Hara demanded. "If we ever cross this river, we'll have need of it." Randall ceased to beat the log, and directed his energv toward driving his Iwot heel into the solid rock. There fell a •long silence"that savored of antagonism, while bnsh and river murmured their unceasingly plaintive undertones. Suddenly Randall stopped the crunching and "stared unbelievingly at the rock he had uncovered. Then he went down on his knees, bending over it tensely. "Brian," he said, his voice thrilling high in excitement, "would you know could go that far?" O'Hara turned slowly from his survey of the river. The light in Randall s eyes flamed to his own. "What is^ it. he cried. "Where is it ?" "Here." Randall choked over his announcement. He pointed to the yellowish streak that lay on tho gray rock. "Is it really gold?" he pleaded. O'Hara did not answer. With. his clasp knife lie was scraping away the moss from the rock. Randall watched him breathlessly. O'Hara's lips were pursed for whistling, but no sound came. The yellow streak showed broader and deeper as his steady strokes cut away the over-laying earth. "Tear those out," he ordered Randall, v.hen ho came to the thick roots of a young birch. Randall, tugging at the tough sapling, caught the glint of yellow the full length of his shadow from him. "Over there," he pointed. "Do you think—do you think that the vein cuold go \that far?" O'Hara calculated the distance and the direction squintingly. "Strip tho rock oyer toward it," he commanded. "Work this wa~. and I'll meet you." To them it might have been an hour that they knelt on- the ledge, speaking no word, to each other while they toiled over their task. Great beads of sweat stood on Randall's brow. The fingers that pulled at roots and threw aside moss were icy. O'Hara worked steadily, calmly, his lips still pursed for the whistling that would not sound, till he flung aside .the clasp knife ana measured with his eye the length of the streak that glinted brilliantly at him in the sunshine. Then triumphantly rose the dragoon's farewell to Enniskillen. "Well?" Randall's question shrilled over the whistle. ."Ye can leave your resignation from the service with Ken," he sard, "as ye pass the place on your way out to tho registrar's office." "Do you mean that —Randal] had crawled i>ver toward O'Hara, and now arose, catching at his wrist—"we've really struck it? Struck it rich?" O'Hara pushed back his hat from his forehead. The tension that had tightened his shoulders while he worked was loosening. His voice had no ring of enthusiasm or of mirth as he answered Randall's gasping eagerness of question. "I've seen gold at tho Rand," ho said, "and I've seen gold on the Wallaby Track- I worked on tho road up to' Cripple Creek and Victor, and I saw gold there. And as suro as I came from Conneniara, yo'vo got gold enough hero to make a mine that'll set ye with tho millionaires ov Cobalt." "Are you sure?'' Randall's eyes,

over-bright, bored more insistently than " his voice into O'Hara's knowledge. "Quito sure?" j . ' "Oh, gold's *an uncertain tlung, * O'Hara said, "as uncertain in the rough 5 as it is in sovereigns. The vein may J shy off under the river at ten feet be 7 c low. There's no surety that 'tis not a 1 false pocket. But I can tell you this, ~ r and this is true as gospel—there's not a ' mining promoter in the North to-day who wouldn't buy the chance from ye ' for a price that's moro money than ' vo've ever thought to see in one check." 5 He squinted quizzically at Randall's * immovability of blank astonishment. ' "Faith, if ye don't know enough of ' mining to stake a claim after ye've I found it," he said, "ye deserve to bo , tricked bv me. Here, measure from the Right-of-Way and the river, and I'll stake it for ye." Ho threw the circular tape along the rock. But Randall failed to catch it. He had gone down as limply as it O'Hara's command had been a shot, and 1 lay, fnco forward, shaking with sobs, over the glittering surface. "By the Slippers of the Prophet," said O'Hara, "I've never seen this way of taking good fortune before." He knelt beside tlie'boy. shaking him roughly. "Come co vourself!" he told him. The sobs, roujih and rasping. continued until O'Hara jerked Randall up. "Now bo a man," he said, "even if ye'vo found the Klondike." . ""What'll we do with it? Randall asked in a desperate attempt to seem practical. "Yo'll do whatever ye damn please, said O'Hara. "But half of it s yours, Randall protested. . . "Not one inch of it. said the Irishman, with decision.. "I left- the service once for the mining. I'll not do it again. Life's too short for these little excursions." "But you don't have to leave the scr-

vice," Randall went on, trying to regain liis self-control by argument, "just because yon happen to find a gold- vein an<i seii it for whatever you can fret?" "One of the sure rules of the Canadian Government? is thai'; no engineer.in its employ can prospect. If you want to play the mining cn.mo ye'll have to quit the engineering." "Do ycu think —" Randal was easping his old manner with continued speech—"that; the nile means that an engineer hasn't a right to the find he makes before he quits the service?" "Sure, that problem's your own," O'Hara informed him. _ " Randall on him passionately. "It's easy for you to sit in- judgment, Brian O'Hara." he said, his words coming like the tumble of rapids over rocks, "when all your life you've had the one thing you wanted. Yo_u wanted adventure, and' you've found it in fifty corners of the world. You ■wanted friends, and you've found them wherever you struck a tra't You dfcn't care anything about money. Yon've never felt the gnawing | need of it. And so" so. can_sit here, mak- J ing ms choose between friends and money, for that's -ius-t what- you're doing. You know what you boys at , Eight mean to me. Ken and Jean, and Stive, and Don. You know that I haven't friends or family or sweetheart t down at the front, as.the others of you j have. You know that I value the good . ■ opinion you. all .have of me. and, now you're making me feel that if I profit by ] my find I'm going back on" you. I know that I'm not a traitor inwantinsr to strike.it -rich, but you make me believe ■; that I am. It's cot right, Ivtell you. j It's not-fair!" , . . i

''Stop . there." . The hard ring in O'Hara's voice halted the sweep of Randall's outburst. 'This.ncrt pghf>,. per"haps, that -ye, should'have to moke a fliarii choke, but 'tis njrfc;.changing..the. I fact that* y«" do. And! I'm not ."the one who's forcing the choice upon ye. .Cong before I was born tlie world was doing

that to men who came to the crossroads. Sometime, somewhere, every mother's son of us has to make his choice between two roads, wanting them both. Ye think that I've made none:' Ho stared ab Hand-all's implacable back, then struck a piatch on the rock. "Back in Coiiiiemara, he said, liftlit-ini?:liiS-pipeand.c.axefuPyextinguisni-ng the* 5 match- before' he" flung it "pack • into the muskeg, "there was a wide white road, that led from the door . of our house away off to the lulls. From the tj-znc that I could remember anything as all I wanted-to go journeying there. Ye know the way a road; can call to ye ? All the beautiful adventures in the world were somewhere along that road, waiting for mo to catch up with thein. I dreamed and I dreamed! of the trai oiling,, till-one day 1 could bide it no longer. 'l'm going, I said to me ; uncle, 'to the end of the white road. "I think now of the laugh 111 his eyes, though 1 didn't see it then. ._ l!s . "- long road, Brian,' be said, 'jut ;f 3'° re sure lis vour way, take it, lad- " V fi"-ure of fun I must have been on the horse as I started away one blithe morning, when all the Irish 4»lls blue and the white ribbon of road slid on before me. I'd been riding well on town id night" —he gave Randall a keen look to make sure that he was heeding him—"and then X came to the by-way. Faith, I've seen some beautiful places m me wanderings since then, but never another so lovely as the by-ways, gold, and green, with the late afternoon shadows Hickering under the beaches. _ With never a thought oi: the hills I turned. 'Twas a pleasant way, and many pieasant people did X meet. But when ic was ne.ii iv dark I came to the end of the path* and divvle a. thing was there for mo to do but go back to th© high-road. The next day when I was jogging along me uncle overtook me. ' T-isslowjere "cing,' ho said, for he was a wise old racing squire, 'for one who s chosen his " 'I went down the by-way,' I told

'" 'Twas n< good- lesson,' lie told'* me, 'for remember, Brian, that when your heart was hungered for ono road', all the other ways of the world are out blind alleys.'" . Randall moved his shoulders impa"Siiure I never thought the time wouiid come." O'Hara went on, wnen I'd forget that-■lesson. But youth has a. way of forgetting soon," lie mused. •'A lung way from Oonnemara- I went down, the blind alley again. I d been working on.'the Trans-Siberian, till I was crazy for civilisation of any kind. Uno d!av'l had Russian row with the chief of division. I flung mo job ,higher than, the Chinese Wall, took me Stake, and went to Japan, as last as Oriental ways would take me. led have said that I enjoyed the most vivicl time that a whi-Je man ever lived through ill Tokio. I said so rneseir. There's, no need of expanding the details. 'Tis enough to tell ye that through some queer happenings I; came to be a Russian secret! agent there. "l'was a glorious adventure, beating the little brown men at their own game of 1-spy. And! there was a girl. Mis voice softened to tenderness for an instant. "Sho wasn't the - only woman I've loved, but I did—carc. see, she cared for me wlrie the game was runniiitT to the end, and' 1 w-as thinking inostlv of the game. I was up oil the firino- lines when the end came. I h ose brown devils made her pay 'the price. I faugh; them through the Avar with the memory of lier in me heart- And "wlien * the war was done I knew tiiat I was at tho end of another blind alley. _ But I kept drifting. A man does dTiit ott there in the East. Then Cobalt called. : -Vfterwa.rd I found Kenyon. Ive come : back to tho highway. 'Tis me own ' road. Bit; I'vo como hack with the ' sadness of knowing that I'tt have sa-vc-d j ineself and others if only I'd .st'ayed . there." , . , , "But you've had travel .and' you ve had adventure," Randall objected, : with surly ignoring of the deeper chords of O'Hara's philosophy. '"lt's because ' I want them, that I want money." ■ O'Hara. scratched his head reflect-ive--1 lv. "JD'ye know where Villa Marie is.'" lie asked. "The little French town in the crescent of tho bay on Lake Temiskaming where they have tho ; races? When were ye there? Last ! summer? Then ye may big French-Canadian who kept chasing himself round in a circle from the hanlc to the mining supply store, and back-again to the bank?" "Hyacinth Plesseau? Randall unbent to inquire. "The same. He's the plutocrat of Villa Maris.. He owns the silver mine that started the Quebec shore rush;" Tho Irishman relighted his pipe. ''l met Hvacinth before he struck the Co- ' bait," "ho said. "He. was a happy-go-lucky Canayen who'd been through all ' the Bush up here. He knew every factor from the Abitibi to Rupert's House. He'd beeai in the Peace River country before any of ilie later ...explorers'. He'd known the Yellow Head Pass before ever a preliminary survey man got a, sight of it. He'd sailed or paddled on every river of Canada. Hewas tho'last of the voyageurs, was Hyacinth. "We used to sit in the little tavern oil the street behind the church, Hyacinth and I, trading tales of the places we'd explored. He was prospecting in the hope of finding.silver enough to outfit him for an expedition arouiKl the north-west shore of Hudson Bay. That was his clream. "The; Gobalt bloom," Ira used to tell mc, waving has long arm to include the horizon, "is for me of all the colors that the good God has made. For the rest of them," he would shrug his shoulder toward the miners who used to taunt- him because. of his of the land, " the bloom has but one color, the red pink that shows them where the silver may hide. But for me, Hyacinth Plesseau, the bloom-glows in colors the rainbow knows not, silver of dawns, purple of twillights, amber of sunlight that glistens on rivers, and shines on Arctic seas. It is bright with all the gold of dreams, my friend. It is lovely with all the rose tints of 'hope." It is of the color of to-morrow, my bloom of the Cobalt." _ —- "Hyacinth Ple.?seau fouml silver. He stumbled on it in his own dooryard sifter he'd raked the shores of .Temiskaming. But he's never outfitted tlis expedition, although he's the: richest man in north-western Quebec. He never sails the rivers now. He never goes farther from Villo Marie than Haiieybury. He's too busy to travel, he'll tell you. He's watching the silver •that comes from his_mine. Ho doesivt even see that the rock from which it comes i 3 rose-p'nk. For, like other men,he's lost the dream in grasping tlie substance." "I see the point," Randall said. "All of it ?" O'Hara asked the question in sadness. "That's the choice ye must make, Ran. not the choice between work and leisure, not the choice between adventuring like a roystcrer, or touring I'kc a prince. Not the choice between friends and money, but the choice between the color of dreams and the substance of silver. . If ye stay on the path ye chose for yourself in those days when ye had all the world before ye." the dreams all go with ye to the "end. But if ye leave it for any. other, ye'll never again see tho beauty of the bloom." He pulled his old hat far down over his eyes. "I said 'twas no choice between his friends and money, Ran," he added, in a voice die tried to change to flippancy, "and ! . as far. as.l'm concerned, 'tis true. I'll stay your friend even, if ye're ricTi as old O'Brien of Cobalt." Randall's hand, that 'had been gripping a point of rock through the length of O'Hara's monologue, moved slowly, over the stone till it grasped the hand ■of the other man. "I guess that there!s. more in the world than money," - lie said. "I'm going to stay." O'Hara started at him through misted eyes. "By the Slippers of the Prophet!" he said, "ye're the best man of us all!" But Randall laughed uncertainly as he rose to Tiis feet. "It wasn't hard." he tried •to explain, "when I -remembored how Hyacinth chased himself around that little square. _ Shall we start back ? We've a' long hike to Fourteen "

"I wonder," said O'Hara, "if I did right? Perhaps, now-— —" - "Sliut up,"-said "Randall, "and for -your trouble, carry-that rod." He was gathering up their instruments and obviously avoiding any sigbi of the gold that "flaunted; the gray: rock. But O'Hara unused. "I/et'.s tell none of the boys ai> home," he said seriously. "Ken ancisJean, would feel as. we do, and I'd-, •hate.to expose a- Scotchman to the ter-, ribletemptatiqn.'' .. Like a .flash, .-came the • impish"- smile of the : esperb stagemanager of the Tracscontinentaltcqme-

dies. "Have ye any objection," heasked Ilnnda 11, "if I'd communicate this great discovery to Eraser of Six? I've had mo own grudge against him ever since he reported ine to the chief clerk at Quebec." .. ■ „ "I don't care anything about it-, said Randall.' - ..." ." ! Tis/the jvise old cobbler.who. gojeks to 'life'' last,'* O'Hara sang 'as "lie slung his kit-pack on his shoulders. "There'll be money in the world when we're old, Ran, and sure, there were never pockets in a'shroud." ' ' . , .". , The song drifted into a repetition of the Dragoon's mournful farewell. .Randall joined it bravely as lid fell, into step with O'Hara. Tile gold was glinting jusi" as brightly an hour later while j they were dog-trotting down the toteroad, past the burned camp and the looted cache, on their way to Fourteen.