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?”