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diff --git a/23732.txt b/23732.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6ee76f8 --- /dev/null +++ b/23732.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5511 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Girl of the Klondike, by Victoria Cross + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Girl of the Klondike + +Author: Victoria Cross + +Release Date: December 4, 2007 [EBook #23732] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GIRL OF THE KLONDIKE *** + + + + +Produced by Bryan Ness, Annie McGuire and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +A GIRL OF THE KLONDIKE + +By + +VICTORIA CROSS + +"_Quid non mortalia pectora cogis +Auri sacra fames?_" + +NEW YORK +THE MACAULAY COMPANY + +_A Girl of the Klondike is now issued +in America for the first time +by arrangement with the author._ + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + CHAPTER I A NIGHT IN TOWN 9 + + CHAPTER II AT THE WEST GULCH 49 + + CHAPTER III KATRINE'S NEIGHBOURS 99 + + CHAPTER IV GOD'S GIFT 167 + + CHAPTER V GOLD-PLATED 211 + + CHAPTER VI MAMMON'S PAY 265 + + L'ENVOI 314 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +A NIGHT IN TOWN + + +Night had fallen over Alaska--black, uncompromising night; a veil of +impenetrable darkness had dropped upon the snow wastes and the +ice-fields and the fettered Yukon, sleeping under its ice-chains, and +upon the cruel passes where the trails had been made by tracks of blood. +Day by day, as long as the light of day--God's glorious gift to man--had +lasted, these trails across the passes, between the snowy peaks, the +peaks themselves, had been the theatre of hideous scenes of human +cruelty, of human lust and greed, of human egoism. Day by day a slow +terrible stream of humanity had wound like a dark and sluggish river +through these passes, bringing with it sweat and toil and agony, torture +and suffering and death. As long as the brilliant sun in the placid +azure of the summer heavens above had guided them, bands of men had +laboured and fought and struggled over these passes, deaf to all pity or +mercy or justice, deaf to all but the clamour of greed within them that +was driving them on, trampling down the weak and the old, crushing the +fallen, each man clutching and grasping his own, hoarding his strength +and even refusing a hand to his neighbour, starving the patient beasts +of burden they had brought with them, friends who were willing to share +their toil without sharing their reward, driving on the poor staggering +strengthless brutes with open knives, and clubbing them to death when +they fell beneath their loads with piteous eyes, or leaving them to +freeze slowly where they lay, pressing forward, hurrying, fighting, +slaughtering, so the men went into the gold camps all the summer, and +the passes were the silent witnesses of the horror of it all and of the +innocent blood shed. Then Nature herself intervened, and winter came +down like a black curtain on the world, and the passes closed up behind +the men and were filled with drifts of snow that covered the bones and +the blood and the deep miry slides, marked with slipping tracks where +struggling, gasping lives had gone out, and the river closed up behind +the men and the ice thickened there daily, and the men were in the camps +and there was no way out. + +And now, in the darkness of the winter night, in the coldness in which +no man could live, there was peace. There was no sound, for the snow on +the tall pines never melted and never fell, the water in the creeks was +solid as the rocks and made no murmur, there was no footfall of bird nor +beast, no leaf to rustle, no twig to fall. + +But beyond the silent peaks and the desolate passes, beyond the rigid +pines, low down in the darkness, there was a reddish glow in the air, a +strange, yellowish, quivering mist of light that hovered and moved +restlessly, and yet kept its place where it hung suspended between white +earth and black sky. All around was majestic peace and calm and +stillness, nature wrapped in silence, but the flickering, wavering mist +of light jumped feverishly in the darkness and spoke of man. It was the +cloud of restless light that hung over the city of Dawson. + +Within the front parlour of the "Pistol Shot," the favourite and most +successful, besides being the most appropriately named saloon in Dawson, +the cold had been pretty well fought down; a huge stove stood at each +end of the room, crammed as full as it would hold with fuel, all windows +were tightly closed, and lamps flared merrily against the white-washed +walls. + +At this hour the room was full, and the single door, facing the bar, +was pushed open every half minute to admit one or two or more figures to +join the steaming, drinking, noisy crowd within. It was snowing outside. +As the door swung open one could see the white sheet of falling flakes +in the darkness; the air was full of snow--that cruel, light, dry snow, +fine and sharp like powdered ice, borne down on a North wind. The +figures that entered brought it in with them, the light frosty powder +resting on their furs and lying deep in the upturned rims of their seal +caps. + +There had been a successful strike made that afternoon, and the men were +all excited and eager about it. Every one pressed to the "Pistol Shot" +to hear the latest details, to discuss and gossip over it. There was as +much talk as digging done in Dawson. Men who had no chance and no means +to win success, who owned no claims and never saw gold except in another +man's hands, loved to talk work and talk claims and talk gold with the +rest. It was exhilarating and exciting, and there was only that one +topic in the world for them. They were like invalids in a small +community afflicted by a common disease who never meet without +discussing their symptoms. They were all invalids in reality, all +suffering from the same horrible plague and fever, the gold fever that +was eating into their brains. + +At one end of the bar counter, between it and the back wall, a girl was +standing idly surveying with indifferent eyes the animated crowd that +moved and swayed round her, the men jostling each other in their efforts +to push up to the thickly surrounded counter. She was tall rather than +short, and her figure well made, showing good lines even in the rough +dress she was wearing; long rubber boots came to her knees, where they +met her short buckskin skirt, and above this, in place of bodice, she +wore merely a rough straight jacket drawn into the waist by a broad +leather belt, in which was stuck, not ostentatiously but still +sufficiently conspicuously a brace of revolvers. Her hair was cut short, +and only a few dark silky rings showed themselves beneath the edge of +her sealskin cap, pushed down close to her dark eyebrows. The dark eyes +beneath looked out upon the scene before her with a half-disdainful, +half-wearied expression which deepened into scorn now and then as she +watched the bar-tender rake over the counter double and three times the +price of a drink in the generous pinch of gold dust laid there by some +miner almost too drunk to stagger to the bar. She had a very attractive +face, to which one's eyes would wander again and again trying to +reconcile the peculiar resolution, even hardness of the expression with +the soft, well-moulded features and the sweet youthful lips full of +freshness and colour. The miners took very little notice of her, and she +certainly made no effort to attract it, leaning listlessly against the +bar with one elbow on the counter, a silent and motionless spectator of +all this excited eager humanity. There was no thought in their mind, no +word on their lips just then but gold. Gold! gold! The thought possessed +them with a grip on their brains like the grip of fever on the body, and +the word sounded pleasant as the sweetest music to their ears. Gold! The +syllable went round and passed from mouth to mouth, till the very air +seemed to be getting a yellow tint above the grey fumes of tobacco. + +Amongst the last batch of incomers was a slim young fellow of twenty odd +years, and when he had worked his way with difficulty up to the crowded +counter, he found himself near the girl's corner. She looked at him, +letting her dark eyes wander critically over his face. He formed a +strong contrast to the figures around him, being slight and delicate in +build, with a pale good-looking face that had a tender sympathetic +expression like a woman's. Feeling the girl's gaze upon him, he glanced +her way, and then having looked once, looked again. After a series of +glances between drinks from his glass, the furtive looks began to amuse +the girl, and the next time their eyes met she laughed openly, and they +both spoke simultaneously. + +"You're a new comer, aren't you?" she said. + +"I haven't seen you here before," was his remark. + +"You might have done, I should think," answered the girl carelessly; +"but I don't come here very often, although my father is running this +place." + +"Are you Poniatovsky's daughter?" he asked in surprise, unable to +connect this splendid young creature with the ugly little Pole he knew +as the proprietor of the saloon. + +The girl nodded. "Yes, Katrine Poniatovsky is my name--what's yours?" + +"Stephen Wood," he answered meekly. + +"What have you come here for--mining?" she asked next. Although her +queries were direct there was nothing rude in the fresh young voice +making them. + +The young fellow coloured deeply, the rush of blood passed over his face +up to his light smooth hair and deep down into his neck till it was lost +beneath his coat collar. + +"No--yes--that is--well, I mean--I do mine now," he stammered after a +minute. + +The girl said nothing, and when Stephen glanced around at her he saw she +was regarding him with astonished eyes under elevated eyebrows. This +expression made the pretty oval face fairly beautiful, and the young +man's heart opened to her. + +"I came with the intention of doing some good here amongst the +people--in a missionary, religious way I mean, but"--and he stopped +again in painful embarrassment. + +Katrine laughed. + +"For the present you've laid religion aside and you're going to do a +little mining and make a fortune, and then the religion can be taken up +again," she said. + +The young fellow only flushed deeper and turned his glass around +nervously on the counter. + +"That's all right," the girl said soothingly, after a second. "This +place is a corner of the world where we all are different from what we +are anywhere else. As soon as men come here they get changed. They +forget everything else and just go in for gold. It's a sort of madness +that's in the air. You'd be able to missionise somewhere else all right, +but here you are obliged just to dig like the rest, you can't help it. +Got a claim?" + +The young man's face paled again. + +"Yes," he answered in a low tone. "It was the claim that tempted me. +It's one of the best, I believe, over in the west gulch, only about ten +miles from here." + +There was a pressing movement round them as some fresh miners came +pushing their way through to the bar, and Stephen and Katrine moved +away, to make room for them, towards the wall of the room; they put +their backs against it and looked over the mass of moving heads towards +the door. + +"Look at this fellow coming in now," Stephen said to his companion +suddenly, as the door swung open, to a mist of whirling whiteness, and +two or three men entered: "Henry Talbot. He has the claim next mine in +the gulch. He has just struck a fresh lot of gold, and he'll soon be one +of the richest men here." + +The girl craned her neck to get a good view between the intervening +heads, and though she had not been told which of the incoming figures +to look at, she fixed her eyes as if by instinct on the right one. A man +of rather tall, slight figure, pale face, and marked features. He made +his way towards the bar, and then catching Stephen's signals to him, he +smiled and came their way. + +"What are you doing down here?" he said, speaking to Stephen but looking +at Katrine, who in her turn was scanning his face closely. + +"Why, enjoying Miss Poniatovsky's society," answered Stephen, with a +bow. His friend bowed too, and then they all three laughed and felt +instinctively they were friends. There is nothing truer than the saying, +"Good looks are perpetual letters of introduction." These three carried +their letters of introduction on their faces, and they were all mutually +satisfied. + +"I know your father quite well," remarked Talbot to her. "This 'Pistol +Shot' has been an institution longer than I have been here, but I never +knew he had a daughter." + +"No," said Katrine, tranquilly, "I daresay not. Father and I quarrelled +a little while ago, and since then I have been living by myself in one +of those little cabins in Good Luck Row. Do you know it?" + +"No," answered Talbot. "I come into town very seldom, only when I want +fresh supplies. I stay up at the claim nearly all the time. Do you live +all by yourself then?" he added, wondering to himself as he looked at +her, for her beauty was quite striking, and she was certainly not over +twenty, yet there was something in the strong, noble outlines of her +figure, in the tranquil calm of her manner, the self-reliance of her +whole bearing, and the business-like way those pistols were thrust in +her belt, that modified the wonder a little. + +"Quite," she said, with a laugh. "Oh, I've always been accustomed to +take care of myself." + +"But don't you feel very dull and lonely?" + +"Sometimes," answered the girl; "but then I would much rather live alone +than with some one I can't agree with." + +Both the men knew the drunken habits of old Poniatovsky, so that they +silently sympathised with her, and there was a pause as they watched +other miners coming in. + +"Well," said Katrine after a few seconds, straightening herself from her +leaning attitude, "I think I will go home now; this place is getting so +full, we shan't be able to breathe soon." + +The men looked at each other, and then spoke simultaneously: "May we see +you as far as your cabin?" + +Katrine smiled, such a pretty arch smile, that dimpled the velvet cheeks +and illumined the whole face. + +"Why yes, do, I shall be delighted." + +They all three went out together: the cold outside seemed so deadly that +Talbot drew his collar up over his mouth and nose, unable to face it; +the girl, however, did not seem to notice it, but laughed and chatted +gaily in the teeth of the wind, as they made their way down the street. +It was still snowing--a peculiar fine powdery snow, light and almost +imperceptible, filled the whole air. Katrine walked fast with springing +steps down the side-walk, and the two men plunged along beside her. Such +a side-walk it was: in the summer a mere mass of mud and melted snow and +accumulated rubbish--for in Dawson the inhabitants will not take the +trouble to convey their refuse to any definite spot, but simply throw it +out from their cabins a few yards from their own door, with a vague +notion that they may have moved elsewhere before it rots badly,--now +frozen solid but horribly uneven, and worn into deep holes. On the top +of this had been laid some narrow planks, covered now by a thick glaze +of ice, which rendered them things to be avoided and a line of danger +down the middle of the path. Katrine made nothing of these slight +inconveniences of the ground, but went swinging on in her large rubber +boots, and talking and jesting all the way. At the bottom of the street, +at the corner, there was a large wooden building, a double log-cabin +turned into a saloon. Lights were fixed outside in tin shades, and the +word "Dancing" was painted in white letters on the lintel. Katrine +stopped suddenly. + +"Let's go in and have a dance," she said, and turned towards Talbot, as +if she felt instinctively he was the more likely to assent. + +"If you like," he answered from behind his collar. "But can you dance in +those boots?" + +"Oh, I can dance in anything," said Katrine, laughing. + +"Oh, don't go in, come on," remonstrated Stephen, trying to push on past +the saloon. + +"Why not?" said Katrine; "it's too early to go to bed. Come in, I'll +pay," and before either of them could answer she had pushed open the +door, and was holding it for them with one hand, while with the other +she laid down three quarters on a small trestle inside, where an old man +was sitting as doorkeeper. + +It was a large oblong room, with a partition running half-way down the +middle, dividing it into the front part, where they were standing and +where the bar was, and the back part, which was strictly the dancing +portion. Stephen sat down on a bench that faced the inner portion, with +the determination of a man who was not to be moved from his seat. At the +other side of the room was a low raised platform, where some very +seedy-looking musicians were sawing out a jerky tune from their feeble +violins. The room was fairly full, and a more heterogeneous collection +of human beings Stephen thought he had never seen. There were miners in +the roughest and thickest clothing, labourers, packers, a few Indians, +some youths in extraordinary attempts at evening dress, some negro +minstrels with real dress shirts on and diamond studs, girls with old +velvet skirts and odd bodices that didn't match; and here and there, +idling against the wall, looking on with absent eyes, one could find a +different figure--that of student, or artist, or newspaper +correspondent, or gentleman miner; one need not despair of finding +almost any type of humanity in that room. + +Talbot looked at the girl's bright sparkling face as they entered, and +then without a word slipped his arm round her waist and they started +over the rough wooden floor. + +"You dance fine," observed Katrine, after a long silence, in which they +had both given themselves up to the pleasure of mere motion. "I guess +you have had lots of practice before you came out here." + +Talbot smiled down into her admiring eyes. + +"Yes," he said, thinking of the foreign embassies, the English +ball-rooms, the many polished floors his feet had known, "in England." + +"My! I expect you're a great swell!" remarked the saloon-keeper's +daughter. + +"All the same," he answered, laughing, "I have never had a partner that +danced so perfectly as you do." + +"Now that's real kind of you," answered Katrine, with a flush of +pleasure, and then they gave themselves up to silent enjoyment again. + +At the end of the dance they came back to Stephen, and found him in the +same corner, watching the room with a doleful sadness on his face. +Katrine, flushed and with sparkling eyes, sat down on the corner of the +step beside him. + +"You look so miserable," she said. "Come and have a dance with me to +cheer you up." + +"I can't dance," said Stephen, shortly. + +"I'll teach you," volunteered Katrine, leaning her chin on her hands and +looking up at him. + +Stephen flushed angrily. + +"It's not that--my conscience won't allow me to." + +"I'll make you forget your conscience," with a very winning smile on her +sweet scarlet lips. + +Stephen turned towards her and looked at her with a sudden horror in his +eyes. The girl looked back at him quite undisconcerted and unmoved. She +saw nothing in what she had said. To her, conscience was a tiresome +possession, that might, she knew, trouble you suddenly at any time, and +if any one could succeed in making you forget you had one, he was surely +entitled to your gratitude. Words failed Stephen, he only looked at her +with that silent horror and fear growing in his eyes. Katrine waited +what she considered a reasonable time for him to reply or to accept her +offer, and then she rose and turned to Talbot, who had been standing +looking down upon them both with amusement. + +"I'm very thirsty, let's go and have a drink," she said, and they both +strolled across the room, and then down into the farther end where the +bar was. They elbowed their way to the counter and stood there waiting +to be served. Most of the men seemed to know Katrine and made way for +her, and she had a word of chaff, or a nod, or a smile or laugh or +friendly greeting, for nearly all of them. Talbot noted this, and noted +also that though the men seemed familiar, none of them were rude, and +though rough enough, there was apparently no disrespect for her. Talbot +wondered whether this was due to her morals or her pistols. + +"Who's your friend?" asked two or three voices at her side while they +stood waiting. + +"Mr. Talbot--one of the lucky ones!" replied Katrine promptly. "He has a +claim up the gulch that's bringing him in millions--or going to," she +added mischievously. The men looked Talbot up and down curiously. Even +in his rough miner's clothes, he looked a totally different figure from +themselves. Slim and tall and trim, with his well-cut head and figure, +with his long neck and refined quiet face, he was a type common enough +in Bond Street, London, or on Broadway, New York, but not so common in +the Klondike. + +"Well, if that's so, pardner," slowly observed a thick-set, crop-haired +man, edging close up to him, "you won't mind standing a drink for us?" + +"Delighted," returned Talbot, with a pleasant smile. "Give it a name." + +The result of taking votes on this motion was the ordering of ten hot +whiskies and two hot rums, the latter for himself and Katrine. Talbot +never drank spirits at all, and the terrible concoctions of the cheap +saloons were an abomination to him. He took his glass, however, to show +his friendliness, had it filled nearly to the brim with water, and then +could hardly drink it. The fluid seared his throat like red-hot +knife-blades. Katrine took hers straight as it was handed across the +counter and tossed it down her throat at one gulp, seeming to enjoy it. + +"Well, Jim," she said to the young miner next her, "what luck have you +had lately?" + +"None," he replied gloomily. "Since I left the old place, I've lost all +along in the 'Sally White.'" + +Talbot thought they were speaking of claims and that the man was +referring to his work, and the next minute when Katrine turned her head +to him and said rapidly, "The 'Sally White' is the third in the next +street," he was rather mystified. He came so little into town, and +mixed so little with the uncongenial life and company it offered, that +he was ignorant of its prevailing fashion, pastime, and vice--gambling. +Fortunes were made and lost across the trestle tables of the saloons +quicker and easier than up on the claims. He did not now take much +notice of what she had said, nor ask her for an explanation. The girl +was handsome and a beautiful dancer, but the company at the bar he did +not appreciate at all, and his only idea was to withdraw her from it. + +"Are you not ready for another dance?" he said, as the violin began to +squeak out another tune. + +Katrine nodded, and they had already turned away, when a voice said over +her shoulder, "You won't quite forget me this evening, will you?" + +Katrine, without turning her head, answered, "You shall have the next, +if you come for it." + +Then they started, and for the next ten minutes Talbot tried to forget, +to be oblivious of the sordid common scene around him, to get a glimpse +back into his old life, which seemed so far away now, as one tries to +re-dream a last night's dream. + +Stephen, sitting in his corner, whence he had never stirred, watched her +sullenly. She was not dancing with Talbot now. Stephen could see that +he, too, was watching her from the other side of the room, standing with +his back to the wall. She was waltzing with a man Stephen had not seen +before, evidently a stranger in every way to the place and the +surroundings. He was a young fellow, sufficiently good-looking, and +danced with as much ease as if he were in a New York ball-room. His left +hand clasped Katrine's and drew it high up close to his neck and +shoulder, his right arm enclosed her waist and drew her to him so firmly +that the two figures seemed fused into one as they glided together over +the imperfect floor. Katrine was giving herself up wholly to the +pleasure of the dance. Stephen saw, as her face turned towards him, that +her eyes were half closed, and a little smile of deep satisfaction +rested on her lips. The young fellow's face showed he was equally +absorbed and lost to his surroundings, and there was something in its +expression, coupled with the peculiar ease and sway of the two blent +forms, which raised a savage and jealous anger in Stephen's breast. To +an absolutely unprejudiced eye, and one that saw only the extreme grace +of the movement, which neither their rough clothes, the uneven floor, +nor the wretched music could spoil, those two figures made a harmonious +and fascinating picture; to Stephen's view, naturally narrow and now +darkened by the approaching blindness of a nascent passion, it was a +sinful and abhorrent sight. When they floated silently close by him the +second time, still lost in their dream of pleasure, and the girl's eyes +fell upon him beneath their drooping lids, obviously without seeing him, +he started up as if to plant himself in their way, then checked himself, +and when they had passed went across the room to where Talbot was +standing. + +"You see her dancing?" he said excitedly, without any preface. + +Talbot nodded. + +"Did you notice how they are dancing? that's what I mean." + +Talbot laughed slightly. "That's not dancing, that's--" + +Stephen flushed a dull red. "It's disgraceful; I'm going to stop her," +he muttered. + +"My dear fellow, remember you only met her this evening." + +"I don't care; she ought not to dance like that." + +"I don't like it myself," answered Talbot, "but _you_ can't interfere." + +"I'm going to." + +"You'd much better not make an ass of yourself," returned Talbot, +putting his hand on the other's arm. + +"Leave me alone," said Stephen, roughly shaking it off, as the two +delinquents, still in the same manner, came moving up towards them. + +Stephen waited till they were just opposite him, then he stepped forward +and seized the girl's arm and dragged it down from the level of the +young fellow's neck where he had drawn it. Both the dancers stopped +abruptly, and the man faced Stephen with an angry flush and kindling +eyes. + +"What the devil do you mean, sir?" he said angrily, advancing close to +Stephen, who had his eyes fixed on Katrine's face, all warm tints and +smiling, as a child's roused from a happy dream. + +He ignored the man and addressed her. + +"You are not going to dance any more to-night," he said with sombre +emphasis. + +The young man's face went from red to purple. He put his hand to his hip +with an oath, and had half drawn his pistol, when Katrine sprang forward +and seized his wrist. + +"Now don't be silly; I'm tired anyway, Dick. I'll dance with you +to-morrow night. This is Mr. Stephen Wood. Mr. Wood--Mr. Peters. Now +let's go and have some drinks. I'm not going to have any fighting over +me." + +She put herself, smiling, between the two men, who stood glaring at each +other in silence. She was annoyed at the dance being broken off, but she +saw in Stephen's interference the great tribute paid to her own +attraction, and therefore forgave him. At the same time she had no wish +to have her vanity further gratified by bloodshed. There was a certain +hardness but no cruelty in her nature. She turned from the men and +strolled very slowly in the direction of the bar, and they followed her +as if her moving feet were shod with magnets and theirs with steel. +Talbot went too, and in a few minutes the four were standing at the +counter with glasses in their hands. + +Peters kept close beside Katrine, and he and Stephen did not exchange a +word. Katrine kept up the chatter between herself and the two other men. + +"May I see you home?" Peters said abruptly to her, interrupting the +general talk. + +"No," returned Katrine, lightly; "to-morrow night, not to-night. I have +my escort," and she smiled at Stephen and Talbot. + +"I will say good-night then," and Peters, after a slight bow to Talbot, +withdrew, taking no notice of Stephen, who since the girl's surrender of +the dance had looked very self-contented and happy, and was now standing +glass in hand, his eyes fixed upon her face. + +"I think I really will go home now," she said. "We've had a jolly time. +I only wish you'd have joined us. Are you always so very good?" she said +innocently to Stephen. He flushed angrily and said nothing. + +A few seconds later they were on the way to Good Luck Row. One of the +neatest-looking cabins in it had a light behind its yellow blind, and +here Katrine stopped and thanked them for their escort. They would both +have liked to see the interior, but she did not suggest their coming in. +She wished them good-night very sweetly, and before they had realised it +had disappeared inside. + +They walked on down the row slowly, side by side. The next thing to do +was to find a lodging for the night, and they both felt about ready to +appreciate a bed and some hours' rest. + +"There's Bill Winters," said Stephen, after a moment's silence. "He said +he'd always put us up when we came down town; let's go and try him." + +"Do you know where his cabin is?" + +"I think so. Turn down here; now it is the next street, where those +little black cabins are." + +They walked on quickly, following Stephen's directions, and made for a +block of cabins that had been pitched over and shone black and glossy in +the brilliant moonlight. When they got up to them the men were puzzled, +each was so like its neighbour, and Stephen declared he had forgotten +the number, though Bill had given it to him. + +"Well, try any one," said Talbot, impatiently, as Stephen stopped +bewildered. They were standing on the side-walk, now a slippery arch of +ice, between two rows of the low black cabins. There was no light in any +of them; it was two o'clock; the moon alone shone up and down the +street. Talbot felt his moustache freezing to his face, and his left eye +being rapidly closed by the lashes freezing together, and that's enough +to make a man impatient. Stephen did not move, and Talbot went up +himself to the nearest cabin and knocked at the door. They waited a long +time, but at last a hand fumbled with the catch inside, and the door was +opened a little way; through the crack came out a stream of warm air, +the fumes of tobacco and wood smoke; within was darkness. + +"Is this Bill Winters'?" Talbot asked, and the door opened wider. + +"I guess it is," said a voice in reply. "Why, it's Mr. Talbot and Mr. +Wood--come in, sirs." + +Talbot and Wood stepped over the threshold into the thick darkness, and +the door closed behind them. There was a shuffling sound for an instant +as Mr. Winters groped for a light, then he struck a match and lighted up +a little tin lamp on the wall. The light revealed a good-sized cabin +with a large stove in the centre, round which, with their feet towards +it, four or five men rolled up in skins or blankets were lying asleep. + +"You want a bed for the night, I expect," Winters went on; "we've all +turned in already, but I guess there's room for two more." + +Wood and Talbot both expressed their sense of contrition at disturbing +him, but Winters would not listen. + +"Oh, stow all that," he said, as he set about dragging forward two +trestles and covering them with blankets. "You two fellows are so damned +polite, you don't seem suited to this town, you don't seem natural here, +that's a fact." + +He was stepping over and about amongst the prostrate forms, and +sometimes on them, but none of them roused themselves sufficiently to do +more than utter a sleepy ejaculation and turn into a fresh position. +Wood and Talbot stood waiting close against the door. It was +half-an-hour before Bill had prepared their beds just as he wanted them, +extinguished the lamp again, and retreated to his own corner. Then +darkness and stillness reigned again over the smoky interior. + +The low trestles on which the men lay were hard and unyielding, and a +doubled-up blanket makes a poor mattress; the air of the cabin was thick +and heavy, and the stove, which was close to Talbot's head, having been +stuffed to its utmost capacity with damp wood that it might burn through +the night, let out thin spirals of acrid smoke from all its cracks. +Stephen did not close his eyes long after they had lain down, and there +was utter silence in the place except for heavy breathings. He lay with +open eyes staring into the thick darkness, a thousand painful wearying +thoughts stinging his brain. Talbot, tired and worn out with bodily +fatigue, but with that mental calm that comes from an absolute +singleness of aim and hope and purpose, fell into a deep and tranquil +sleep the moment his head touched the pillow. He lived now but to work; +the night had come when he could not work, therefore he slept that he +might work again on the morrow. + +When the faint grey light of morning came creeping into the low and +narrow room, which was not very early, as the nights now were far longer +than the days, Talbot was the first of the sleepers to awake. He +refilled the stove, which had burned down in the long night hours, and +then let himself out. + +When he returned Bill and the other men were all stirring, and Stephen +sitting up on his trestle rubbing his red and weary-looking eyes. + +"Well, pardner, what are you going to do to-day?" he asked a few minutes +later, when they had the cabin to themselves for a moment. + +"Going to do?" replied Talbot in astonishment, looking up from turning +the coffee into the coffee-pot, according to Bill's orders. "Why, if we +collect together all the stores we want, and get back to the diggings +this afternoon, we shall have about enough to do." + +"Oh, I meant about the girl." + +"What girl?" queried Talbot, now standing still and staring Stephen in +the face. + +"The girl you danced with last night--the saloon-keeper's daughter, +Katrine Poniatovsky--do you want any more identification?" returned +Stephen, sarcastically, opening his heavy lids a little wider. + +"Well, _what_ about her?" returned Talbot, looking at him expectantly. + +"Oh, well, I didn't know; I thought perhaps we wouldn't go back to-day, +that's all," answered Stephen, rather sheepishly. + +To his sympathetic, impulsive nature, open to every new impression, +easily distracted like the butterfly which may be caught by the tint of +any chance flower in its path, the incident of last night was much. To +Talbot, self-concentrated, determined, and absorbed, it was nothing. He +looked at his friend now with something like contempt. + +"She's so handsome, and dances so well," Stephen went on hurriedly, +feeling foolish and uncomfortable before the other's gaze. + +"I did not come here to dance with girls," remarked Talbot shortly, +going over to the stove, and the entry of the other men at that moment +stopped the conversation. + +They had breakfast together at the rough wood table in the centre of the +room. The coffee was the redeeming feature of the meal: from that bright +brown stream of boiling liquid the men seemed to gain new life; they +watched it lovingly, expectantly, eagerly, as Bill poured it out into +their thick cups. + +The moment the meal was over Talbot crushed his hat on to his eyes, but +before he left the cabin he glanced at Stephen, who was standing +irresolutely by the stove. + +"I shall get all I want," he said, "and be back here by two at the +latest. If you're here then, we can start up together; if not, I shall +go ahead;" and he went out. + +Stephen lingered by the stove, then he and Bill drifted into a +discussion over some of the latest discoveries of gold in Colorado, and +they both fell to wondering how much more had been found since their +last news, seven months old; and they had a pipe together, and then Bill +thought he'd drop down to the "Pistol Shot," and Stephen crushed on his +fur cap as determinedly as Talbot had done and went out--to Katrine's +number in Good Luck Row. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +AT THE WEST GULCH + + +Talbot made his start back to the cabin later than he intended; he had +knocked at Winters' cabin before leaving the town, but all the occupants +were out, and there had been no response. + +It was afternoon, and already the uncompromising cold of evening had +entered into the air; the sky was grey everywhere, and dark, almost +black, in front of him; it seemed to hang low, frowning and ominous, +over the desolate snowy waste that stretched before him: there was no +snow falling yet, only the threat of it written in the black and dreary +sky that faced him. His cheeks and chin felt stiff and frozen already, +as if a thin mask of ice were drawn over them, and his eyes were sore +and tired from the continuous glare of the snow. The little pony beside +him plodded along the path patiently, and his master at intervals drew a +hand from a comfortable pocket to lay it encouragingly on his neck, at +which familiar caress the pony would throw up his head and step out +faster for some paces. Talbot felt sorry for the little beast toiling +along under his heavy though carefully packed burden of stores, cans of +oil, loaves, and every sort of miscellaneous provisions, and would have +spoken cheeringly to it, but his lips felt too stiff and painful to form +the words, and so man and brute toiled along in silence over the trail +under the angry sky. As he walked, Talbot's thoughts went back +involuntarily to the picture of Stephen sitting smoking by the stove in +the snug interior of Bill Winters' cabin; he felt instinctively, as +surely as if he had seen it, that he would so sit through the +afternoon, and by evening he would be finding his way down to the +nearest saloon and pass the hours there with Katrine; and he compared +him vaguely with himself, tired with tramping through the town from +store to store, half frozen while he stood to pack the pony, and now +labouring up alone to his cabin in the gulch. + +He wondered dimly whether it would turn out that he should ever realise +a reward for his toil, whether he should live to get out of this icy +corner of the world, or whether he should die and rot here, caught in +this great snow-trap, in this open grave, where the living were buried. +He wondered a little, but his mind was not one inclined to abstract +thought. He spent very little time in retrospection, reflection, and +contemplation, very little time in thinking of any sort, and on this +account possessed so great a stock of energy for acting. Each human +being has only a certain amount of energy supplied him with which to do +the work of his life. Thinking, speaking, and acting are all portions of +this work, and whatever of his energy he consumes in any one, so much +the less has he for the others. Thinking, the formation of ideas, is +hard work; speaking, the expression of ideas, is hard work; and acting, +the carrying out of ideas, is hard work. It is false to suppose that the +first two are natural, instinctive, involuntary movements of the brain, +and that only the last requires effort. + +Talbot thought very little and spoke very little. His ideas came to him +in simple form; they were not elaborated in his mind nor in his speech, +they turned into actions immediately or died quietly without giving him +any trouble or wasting his time. A decision once made he carried out. He +never thought about it afterwards, or frittered away his strength in +hours of torturing doubt as to whether it was a good one to have made, +or whether some other might not have been better. Once made, he kept to +it, good or bad, leaving it to chance whether he died or succeeded in +his attempt to carry it out. And this conservation of energy in all +other mental processes resulted in a splendid strength for action and a +limitless endurance in the carrying out of his decisions. + +And as he walked now he thought very little, except in a resigned way, +of the physical discomfort he was enduring, and of the time when he +should reach his cabin. Dusk had already fallen before he came to the +gulch, and he had to strain his eyes to find the narrow trail which +descended the side of the gorge. His log cabin, carefully and solidly +constructed, stood half-way down the northern slope of the gulch, on a +sort of natural platform formed by the vagaries of the now narrowed +stream in its younger and wilder days. Beneath the cabin stretched his +claims, 500 feet of dry soil on the slope of the hill, 100 feet this +side of the stream and fairly in the creek, and 100 feet on the farther +side, a stretch of 700 feet in all, and of a quality that made it at +that time the richest claim for fifty miles round. Shafts, reaching down +to bed rock, were sunk all over it, and great mounds of frozen gravel +beside them showed how untiringly they had been worked. In addition to +these, the man's native energy had prompted him to drive a tunnel +horizontally for some distance into the side of the hill that rose +steeply behind the cabin. The tunnel pierced the hill for 100 feet, and +at the end a shaft had been sunk to bed rock, and it was from here at +present that the highest grade ore was coming. Moved by an instinct to +protect what he intuitively felt would be his richest possession, Talbot +had built his tunnel in one solid block with the cabin, and closed its +outer end with a huge door, well provided with bars and bolts. So long +as this door was successfully held, no claim-jumper could penetrate into +the tunnel or reach the shaft at the end. By this means, too, a double +protection was afforded the living cabin, though of this he thought +comparatively little, for the face of the cabin presented nothing but +its one small window and this huge solid door. Upon opening this you +found yourself in the tunnel; if you kept straight on you reached the +shaft; if you entered the small door upon your left hand you found +yourself in the interior of the living cabin. + +The gulch ran east and west, and at sunset at some times in the year a +red light from the dying sun would fall into it, like a tongue of flame, +and the whole gulch would seem on fire. At such moments Talbot would +cease his work and stand looking up the gorge, with the red light +falling on his face and banishing its careworn pallor. No one knew what +he was thinking of in those moments, whether he was recalling Italian +or Egyptian skies that had been as fair, or whether for a moment some +vanished face seemed to look at him from out those brilliant hues, or if +merely the great sheets of gold that spread above the gulch brought +visions of that wealth he was giving his best years to attain. No one +who met him knew much about him, except that he was an Englishman, had +travelled much and experienced many different forms of life, and finally +come to the Klondike,--but why this last? He was believed to have been +rich before he came: was it merely to increase his wealth, or was there +some other reason? Was there any one awaiting his return? There were +several portraits in his cabin of soft and lovely faces, but then the +number was confusing, and the most curious of the men who worked under +him could not come to any satisfying conclusion. All they knew was that +he worked harder than any common miner, that his reserve was unbroken, +and his life one continual self-denial. There were thirty men in all who +worked for him, and by them all he was respected and feared rather than +liked. There was a chilling reserve wrapped about him, an utter absence +of ingenuousness and frankness of character, that prevented any +affection growing up amongst the men for their master, and his attitude +towards them was summed up in the answer he gave to an acquaintance who +once asked him how he got on with his men, if he had any friends amongst +them. Talbot had raised his dark, marked eyebrows and merely said +coldly, "I don't make friends of miners." + +Stephen Wood's cabin was a little higher up the gulch by several yards, +and the claims of the two men had been staked out side by side. A great +friendship had grown up between the two, such a friendship as common +danger, common privations, common aims, and Nature's awful loneliness +drives any two human beings in each other's proximity into. But besides +this friendship there was a quiet liking on Talbot's part for this weak, +impulsive, boyish character, so unlike his own, and on Stephen's side a +warm admiration for all Talbot's qualities that he could not and yet +wished to emulate. He, as others, was completely excluded from the elder +man's confidence, and knew nothing of his past or what was likely to be +his future; but then Stephen was one of those people always so deeply +absorbed in himself, his own aims and views, that he really never +noticed that his manifold confidences were never returned in the +smallest degree. He would come over to Talbot's cabin in the evening, +seat himself on the opposite side of the fire, and talk incessantly. +Talbot would allow him to do so until he felt too much bored, when he +would rise and quietly tell him to go. Stephen would hastily apologise +and retire, to return the following night quite unabashed, with more +views and aims to impart. In the first week of their acquaintance Talbot +had heard all about his home life--about the little English village, and +the red brick, ivy-covered school-house, where he had been master since +he was eighteen; of the village schoolmistress he had loved, because she +was so good, and had abandoned, presumably for the same reason; of his +doubts, fears, hopes, wishes, and intentions,--and after ten months he +knew no more of Talbot than he did the day of their first meeting. + +The cabins of the men employed by both Stephen and Talbot were dotted +over the gulch, some higher and some lower than their own; while a +number of the men lived some distance off, a few of them even having +lodgings in the town. + +When at last Talbot reached his cabin door this evening darkness had +completely fallen; there was no light from within to guide him, but +with his half-frozen fingers he managed to unlock the outer door, and he +and his tired beast went in together. The first thing he thought of when +he had closed the great door behind him and lighted up the passage, was +to unpack the animal and put him up in the stable which he had built +opposite his own cabin door; and it was fully an hour before, having +seen the beast comfortably installed, he turned into his own room and +struck a light. Here there was only one living thing to greet him, and +that was a shabby little black cat that leaped off the bed in the corner +and came purring to meet him. One morning he had found this cat lying on +his claim with a broken leg and carried it back to his cabin, where he +had set the leg and nursed the miserable little creature into recovery. +Denbigh, his foreman, who had seen Talbot sitting up for two whole +nights to watch the helpless animal, had carried away the impression +that the cold, quiet, hard and selfish man, as he appeared to the +miners, had another side to his character that they never saw. It was +this other side that the kitten was familiar with, and she came mewing +and purring with delight towards him. Talbot, who was ready to sink to +the floor with exhaustion, stooped and stroked the animal, which +followed his steps everywhere as he set about lighting up his stove. It +was very quiet, there was absolute silence all round him, and every step +of his heavy boots on the wooden floor, every crackle of the igniting +wood in the stove, seemed a loud and important sound in the stillness. +It was always very quiet at the gulch, Nature's own solemn quiet, except +in the summer time, when she filled it with the laughing voices of a +thousand streams and rills. + +That evening, when his domestic arrangements were all put into working +order, his fire blazing, his coffee boiling on the hob, and his table +laid, he sank back in his chair with a weary sigh, his hand idly +stroking the cat, which had jumped purring on his knee. It seemed lonely +without Stephen, and he foresaw that probably many evenings would pass +now without his society. + +The next morning, when it was yet barely light, and the gulch was +holding still all its damp black shadows of the night, Talbot was out +tramping over the claims, showing his men where to start new fires, and +carefully scanning the fresh gravel as it was thawed and dug out. All +his men had a pleasant salutation for him as he passed by, except one, +who merely leaned over his work and threw out his spadeful of gravel +savagely, as Talbot stopped by the fire. He took no notice apparently of +the man, and after a second's survey passed on to the next fire. The man +looked after him a moment sulkily and returned to his work. He was a +huge fellow, some six feet four, and with a massive frame and head to +suit his height. He had been working for many months with Talbot now, +and was a valuable labourer on account of his great strength and +capacity for work. At first he had been rather a favorite with Talbot, +and there hung now in his cabin a first-class six-shooter, the gift of +his master when he first came up to the gulch. + +Dick Marley had had a devoted admiration for Talbot until the last few +months, when it had turned into a bitter, sullen resentment over a +matter with which in reality Talbot had absolutely nothing to do. Dick, +being a hard and constant worker, had managed to save out of his liberal +wages quite a considerable sum, and this he had entrusted to a man on +his way to Seattle to invest for him in securities. After a time the man +disappeared, and Dick discovered his securities had never been bought, +and that he was in fact robbed and cheated. In his first rage and +disappointment he cast about unconsciously in his mind for some one +besides himself to lay the blame upon, and finding no one he grew daily +more and more morose. Hour after hour, as he worked upon the claims, his +thoughts would revolve sullenly round his loss, and the offender being +beyond his reach, his anger burned against any and every man near him, +and apparently chiefly against his employer. + +A week passed before Stephen reappeared at the gulch, then one evening +after dark, when Talbot was sitting back in his chair, dozing after the +cold and fatigue of the day's work, a loud banging came on his outer +door, and when he opened it, Stephen, looking very flushed and animated, +came into the quiet little room, laden with packages and with a general +air of city life about him. + +"Well, old man, how are you? Hello, Kitty!" this as he stumbled over the +little black cat at his feet. "Well, I've had such a glorious time! I +wish you'd stayed down there too: that girl is just the finest creature +I've ever seen. Have you anything for a fellow to eat?--I'm perfectly +famished. Look here, I've brought you up some cans of things and a +bottle of rye, the very best. I say, you look dreadfully blue--what's +the matter?" + +"Life in the west gulch in the winter isn't particularly exhilarating," +answered Talbot, quietly, as he went about his preparations for +Stephen's supper. + +"How have the men been--all right?" questioned Stephen, as he took off +his coat and settled himself in the best chair. + +"They have been working pretty steadily, but I notice a difference in +them since that fellow Marley has been here. He has been stirring them +up, doing a lot of mischief, I think." + +"You must assert your authority, I suppose," remarked Stephen +pompously, stretching his feet out comfortably in the cheerful blaze. +"Perhaps he doesn't know who's master here." + +"He will very soon find out then," returned Talbot, so grimly that +Stephen looked at him sharply. "Well, what's all your news?" asked +Talbot, as if desirous to get away from the question of his men. + +"I don't know that there is much, except I've been having a good time. +You've looked after my ground and seen to the workings, haven't you? +Thanks, I knew you would, and so I felt I could stay down town a little: +you're a better hand at managing men than I am, any way,--women too, for +that matter; do you know that you impressed Katrine awfully? She has +talked about you to me--you are so good-looking, so distinguished, she +wants to know whether you are a Count or a Prince in disguise, and all +sorts of things." + +Talbot smiled. "It is extremely kind of her," he said quietly. + +"Oh, I know she's not the kind of girl you admire," said Stephen, in +rather a nettled tone. "You wouldn't look at a saloon-keeper's daughter +simply because she _is_ a saloon-keeper's daughter; you like a girl in +your own rank, all grace and dignity and good manners, and awfully +clever and intellectual, and gifted and educated, and all that." + +Talbot merely laughed and remained silent, a habit he had which +successfully baffled questions, innuendoes, and suppositions alike. + +"And any way your passions are engaged somehow, somewhere." + +"How do you know that?" asked Talbot, with a hardening of his mouth. + +"Know it! why, otherwise you could not lead this dog's life as you do, +and you could not be indifferent to a beautiful girl like Katrine,--for +she is beautiful, she's not 'pretty' or 'nice,' but she's downright +beautiful," returned Stephen, emphasising his remarks by striking the +table. + +Talbot said nothing, but put more wood in the stove in silence. + +"Your supper is ready now; if you are famished, as you said, you'd +better have it, and discuss Miss Poniatovsky afterwards," he remarked. + +Stephen turned to the table. "Won't you have something too?" he said. + +Talbot shook his head. "No, thanks; I'm not hungry." + +"You ascetic creature, you never are," replied Stephen, as he began to +carve into the cold bacon. + +"Well, you know how I detest her surroundings," he began again after a +few minutes, "and drinking, and saloons, and almost everything she does, +but then I can't help liking her. She's so different from any girl I've +ever seen. She attracts me, she holds my thoughts so, and if I could get +her to give up all that, if I could alter her views--" + +"You would be doing away with that difference from others that is the +basis of your attraction," put in Talbot, dryly. + +"Well," returned Stephen after a minute, in a sulky tone, "we are all +like that,--a man falls in love with a girl, because she _is_ a girl, +and then immediately wants to turn her into a married woman." + +Talbot laughed. "Good!" he said. "You are quite right." + +"It's the altering process we like, and we want to do the alteration +ourselves. I showed her my pocket Greek testament yesterday," he +continued. + +"And was she interested?" inquired Talbot, dryly. + +"Not so much as she was in the shooting gallery," admitted Stephen. "I +told her how a bible at a man's heart had often saved his life, and she +said a pistol had done that too, and she'd rather trust the pistol." + +Talbot laughed. "You say you like altering. I should think in Katrine +you've a splendid field. If you want to get her down to the +schoolmistress pattern, you've employment for a lifetime!" + +Stephen flushed, as he always did at any allusion to the girl he had +loved as the type of all virtues, and yet had tired of. Good people are +always more or less interested in and attracted by the wicked, while the +wicked are not generally the least interested in nor attracted by the +good. Stephen was drawn towards this reckless daughter of the saloons +partly through the sense of her general badness, it formed unconsciously +a sort of charm for him, whereas his goodness did not act at all in the +same way upon her. To her eyes it was his one great drawback, an +overwhelming disadvantage. + +He finished his supper in silence, and the two men drew in close to the +fire to smoke. That is to say, Stephen did the smoking, as he did the +talking. He consumed Talbot's tobacco, and filled Talbot's cabin with +its fumes. Talbot himself did not smoke. + +Stephen's return to his own claim freed Talbot from the double share of +work he had been doing for the last week, and he remained on his own +claims all day, tramping from one end to the other, directing where a +new shaft should be made, overseeing closely all the work that went on, +and doing a good deal of it himself; and in those days he became more +clearly conscious than ever of the difference that was growing up in his +men's manner towards him. There was a veiled insolence in their replies +to his questions, a certain want of promptness in obeying his orders, +which caused a curious gleam to come into the quiet grey eyes as, +apparently without noticing it, he passed on. + +He did not speak of it, not even to his foreman, Denbigh, the man whom +he liked and trusted most. He was accustomed to manage his own affairs, +and rarely took counsel with any one. He was one of those men who are +born with the gift of governing others. He was an organiser, an +administrator, by nature. Had he been born to a throne, his kingdom +would have been well ruled from end to end, and rarely if ever embroiled +with other nations; and the same spirit that would have ruled a kingdom +showed itself here in the ruling and management of his seven hundred +feet of ground. + +He never bullied, never swore, no one had ever seen him in a passion. He +gave his orders in a pleasant friendly voice, his manner was quiet, even +to gentleness, but he had a way of getting those orders invariably +carried out that was hard to analyse. If he said a thing was to be done, +it was done, and no one knew of an instance where it was not. He never +countermanded an order, and never receded from a position once taken, +even if in his own heart he recognised later it was an unwise one. But +the forethought and caution, the deliberation in decision that were his +by nature, made the occasions on which he regretted an order very +seldom, and if such there were, no matter, the order stood. He himself +looked upon his word as irrevocable, whether given in promise or +command, and instinctively all who came in contact with him looked upon +it in the same light. The men, when they made engagements with him and +stipulated certain terms for certain work, and other details, never +asked for paper, and even refused it when offered. Whatever came from +those silent, resolute lips they knew unalterable, unanswerable, final, +and absolute; they all trusted his word completely, and it passed +amongst them as other men's bond. + +Everything on the claims was well organised, all was kept in smooth +working order. The men had exact hours of work, exact time for changing +off, each his specified work and place on the ground, each his tools, +for which he was accountable as long as he worked there. + +Talbot's forethought even went far enough to provide for the +happy-go-lucky and mostly ungrateful creatures who had no idea of +providing for themselves. He established a sick fund, and to this each +of the men who worked for him was obliged to subscribe a trifle out of +his weekly wages. Then in their not infrequent sickness there was +alleviation and comfort waiting for them. If the miners were not his +friends they were his dependents, and as such he cared for them and +looked after them. He was always friendly in manner to them, always +ready to help and assist them, to attend to their wants, to listen to +their complaints, and settle the frequent disputes amongst themselves, +which they invariably brought to him for decision. If he had not +instilled affection into them, they felt an unlimited faith and +confidence in his absolute justice. + +"He's hard, real hard," they said amongst themselves, "but he'll never +go back on you;" and that was the received opinion amongst them. + +Although he was conscious now of the feeling growing up amongst his men, +he appeared to ignore it entirely. As long as his instructions and +commands were carried out, he affected to be in ignorance whether it was +with a smiling or a scowling face. He felt certain that the disaffection +owed its origin to the man Marley, and he expected every day that some +matter would bring this man and himself into a personal conflict, in +which he meant to conquer, and he preferred to wait for this to happen +than to, in any way, take an initiative step in bringing the covert +hostility to light. + +It was his method. On the same principle, when one of his debtors, +having completely lost his head in blind rage against a quiet order that +he should pay what was due, shook his fist in the other's face and +threatened to wipe the floor with him, Talbot did not knock the man +down, as some might have done. He simply remarked in his dryest tone, +"You'd better try it," and for some reason or other the man did not. +Shortly after the money was paid. + +So now he simply stood his own ground, saw that his work was properly +done, and waited until the man courted his own punishment. In the +meantime, the men mistook his forbearance, his quietness, his smoothness +of tones and manner for weakness, and Marley, a bully by nature, and +quite incapable of understanding his employer, grew elated and +triumphant. + +Stephen had been back at the gulch a fortnight or more, when Talbot +found late one afternoon some of his tools broken, and this, combined +with other work he had to do in town, decided him to go down that +afternoon and return the following day before daylight failed. He got +ready, locked up his house, and called upon Stephen to say he was going. +Stephen looked quite surprised, Talbot went to town so seldom, and then +began to chaff him upon his motives and intentions. + +"As it happens, I'm going about some mending of spades," Talbot +returned. + +"Are you sure it's not the breaking of hearts?" Stephen laughed back +from the fire by which he was sitting. "Well, you'll see Katrine any +way. Tell her--" + +"My dear fellow," interrupted Talbot, impatiently, "I'm not going to see +her. I shall have as much as I can do to be back here before mid-day +to-morrow," and he went out before the amazed Stephen could say another +word. + +"Going down town and not going to see Katrine! why, he must be mad," +ejaculated Stephen mentally; "wonder what his own girl's like anyway." +Then he tossed himself back on the rug and looked at a little +postage-stamp photograph Katrine had given him of herself, which he had +stuck on the fly-leaf of his Greek testament. + +The following morning, before it was fully light, found Talbot toiling +up to the west gulch on foot. He had made an early start, as he wanted +to be back before the men began work, and the air hung round one and +against one's cheek like a sodden blanket in the dusky dawn. It took him +over three hours to make the distance, and when he reached his cabin he +felt chilled through. All his muscles were stiff and numb from the long +climb. He felt a longing to sit down and rest and get a little warmth +kindled in his half-frozen limbs. The first thing that encountered him +at the main door, which led into the block composed of his own cabin and +the tunnel, was a sheet of smooth ice, only an inch deep perhaps, but +glazing over the ground from where he stood to his own door. He saw at +once what had happened: the waste water from the workings had been +diverted from its proper outlet, and had simply run freely at its own +will over the level ground. Talbot's face darkened as his eyes rested on +it. It was Marley's business to see that the egress for the water was +kept free and unblocked with ice, and only yesterday he had given him +orders to attend to it. It was the second or third time he had returned +to find the entrance to his own house almost impassable. Crossing over +with difficulty the frozen stream, he looked into his cabin. There was +about a foot of muddy water and ice covering the floor and floating his +slippers and some pairs of socks he had left by the hearth. The fire was +out, and the lower part of the stove filled with mud and water. The bed +was completely soddened, the blankets and quilt dabbling in the water. +He did not go beyond the threshold. After a minute's survey he turned +and walked down the tunnel leading to the shaft where he knew the men +were working. + +"Marley!" he called down the shaft. + +"What is it?" came up from below in a surly tone. + +"You have allowed the waste to run into the tunnel again, and my cabin +is flooded." + +"Well, clean it out then!" + +"I think that is your business," answered the dry cutting tones from +above. "Come up at once, and see to it." + +"I'm not going to swab out your blasted, dirty old cabin," shouted +Marley hoarsely from the bottom of the shaft. "Do it yourself." + +A strange look came over Talbot's quiet face. It whitened and set in the +darkness. He knew his men were gathered about Marley, listening to what +passed, and this open defiance of his authority, this public insult +before them, angered him excessively. He made his answer very quietly, +however, only his voice was peculiarly hard, and the words seemed to +drop like ice on the men standing listening below. + +"I allow no one to speak to me like that here," he said. "This is the +last day that you work on the claim." + +"I'll work here as long as it suits me," retorted Marley, with an oath. +"You can't turn me out." + +"We will see about that," returned Talbot, in the same even, frigid +tone, and he turned away from the pit and walked back to his flooded +cabin. + +He found Denbigh had arrived there. It was close to the luncheon hour by +this time, and he was doing what he could to get rid of the water. He +looked up, and saw at once from the other's face there had been some +unusual incident. + +"What's up?" he inquired, standing still, with his mop in his hand. + +"That fellow Marley is making all the trouble he can," returned Talbot. +"I have just told him he has got to get out, that's all." + +Denbigh's face fell. "I think it's a bad job," he remarked after a +minute. "You know what a desperate devil he is; he would kill you, I +believe, if he had to give up his work." + +"Well, he has been trying to boss this business for some time now," +returned Talbot, "and I am tired of it. To-day he finished with a gross +insult before a lot of the men, and it's time, I think, to show him and +them who is boss here." + +"Couldn't you overlook it?" replied Denbigh, tentatively, with a scared +look on his thin face. + +"I have no wish to," replied Talbot, coldly. "There is bound to be +trouble some time. It may just as well come now as later." + +Denbigh opened his mouth to make a further protest, but Talbot stopped +him. + +"Don't let us discuss it any further, please," he said curtly, and +Denbigh closed his mouth and dropped back on his knees to his +floor-mopping. + +Talbot drew out his pistol, glanced over it, and buckled it round his +waist. + +When the room was reduced to some appearance of dry comfort again, the +two men sat down to their luncheon in silence. Talbot was too excited to +swallow a mouthful of the food. Although so calm outwardly, and with +such absolute command over his passion, anger was with him, like a flame +at white heat, rushing through his veins. + +As they sat they heard the miners tramping by the cabin door, and saw +their heads pass the window as they went out to get their mid-day food. +Denbigh himself, as soon as he had finished, made an excuse and +departed. He was eager to join his companions before they came back to +work and hear some more delectable details of the row than he could get +from Talbot. When all his men had filed out from the tunnel, Talbot went +into the passage and walked up to the heavy wooden door and shut it, +barring it with a steady hand. This was the main entrance to the shaft, +and at the present time the only one. The door was never, under ordinary +circumstances, closed, but stood open all day for the men to pass in and +out to their work. When he had fastened it he walked back, turned into +his own cabin, and took up his place at the window. From here he could +see the men as they came back. They began to return earlier than was +their wont, knowing that trouble was in the air, and each one was +anxious to be on the spot for the crisis. All through the lunch hour +Talbot's words and the possibility of Dick Marley being obliged to +"quit" was the sole topic of conversation. + +Dick talked largely, and with a great many of the miners his oaths, and +the imputations of cowardice he heaped on his employer, carried the day. +Some of the others, quieter men with keener perceptions, merely listened +in silence, and shook their heads when appealed to for an opinion. + +"I dunno. He's got grit," remarked one between mouthfuls of bread and +bacon, in response to a sanguinary burst of Dick's. + +"He's a slip," answered Dick, contemptuously. + +"But a dead sure shot." + +"He'd funk it," said Dick, his face paling a little. "He'd never stand +up to me. He's got no fight in him. Why, he's managed that claim there +now for two years and he's never so much as fired a shot over it. Now +that fellow Robinson wot's got the claim a mile farther up the creek, +he's the boy for me. Why, he hadn't been there two days before there was +trouble, and at the end of the week we was reckoning up he had made five +corpses over it." + +He looked round the circle, and there was a murmur of admiring assent. + +The old miner nodded his head slowly as he munched his beans. + +"Yes, that's Talbot's way; he's just as smooth as butter as long as you +know he's the boss and act accordin', but jest as soon as you begin to +try and boss him, you'll know you have your hands full." + +Dick took another pull at the tin whisky bottle, and tightened his belt. + +As the men returned to their work they were surprised to see their +employer leaning idly against his window, and still more surprised when +they passed round to the main entrance to find the great door shut. +Talbot came himself and let each man in, in turn as they came up, +shutting the door afterwards. Their curiosity at this unusual state of +things was great, but there was a look on the pale, stern face they +encountered on the threshold that froze all open question or comment, +and each man went by silently to his work. When they got down towards +the shaft and out of hearing, however, their tongues were loosened +again. + +"'E's waiting for Dick to come back, that's what he is," volunteered one +of the miners; "and somehow or other I don't feel jest dying to be in +Dick's shoes when he do come." + +There was no dissent openly offered to this guarded opinion. Most of the +men hung about in the tunnel, and seemed unwilling to quit the scene of +the coming contest. + +At last, among the final batch of men, Marley came sauntering past the +window. Talbot's eyes flashed as the tiger's when the brush crackles. +He walked out to the great door and flung it wide open. Dick fell back a +step, and the little crowd of miners who accompanied him closed in round +the two, open mouthed and eyed, to see the battle. + +"You can't come in," and the sentence had an accent of inflexibility +that made it seem like a drawn sword across the entrance. + +"To hell I can't!" returned Dick, a dull red flush coming over his face. + +"No, you can't," Talbot replied in the same calm, incisive way, that +contrasted strongly with the coarse, whisky-thickened tone of the other. + +"Oh well, I guess I'm coming in any way," answered Marley, and he made a +step forward. A slight motion of Talbot's right hand to his belt was his +only answer. + +Marley stopped, put his own hand, half involuntarily, to his hip, +remembered he had no revolver with him, and turned pale and red in +confusion. + +By this time the loud voices and talking at the door had brought the +remainder of the men upon the scene. Those who had already passed into +the shaft left their work and came up behind Talbot in the tunnel; those +in front pressed a little nearer. Talbot stood now completely surrounded +by the crowd of rough working men. Marley's adherents were in full +force. He was quite alone. He did not glance round them. He did not +think of himself, nor of his own danger should two or three of them back +up their fellow and commence to hustle him. He felt nothing but a cool +though intensely savage determination to subdue this burly brute, to +defend his position and title, though it cost him his life. + +"There can be only one boss here," he said coldly, as Marley hesitated +before him. "If you are not satisfied who it is, go to your cabin and +get your six-shooter, and we will settle it here on the dump." + +There was a movement and a murmur of satisfaction amongst the men. Now +this was coming down to business and giving them something they could +understand. Here was a man willing to defend his rights in a good, +square stand-up fight on the spot, and they one and all agreed in their +own minds that he was the right sort. They glanced at Dick expectantly, +and some said to themselves he weakened. They were not going to take +sides with either party. One of the men was their friend and +fellow-worker, the other was their employer. The two had a difference, +and they could settle it between themselves. They had no business to +interfere. All they had to do was to stand round and see a square fight +and "with'old their judgment," as they said afterwards, talking it over +in the bar of the "Pistol Shot." They waited, and Dick hesitated. He +felt his opponent's eyes upon him; he glanced round the men, they were +watching him. + +"Fetch your six-shooter," commanded Talbot again, with increasing +sternness, and Dick, feeling he must do something, nodded sullenly and +turned away towards his cabin. He strode up the incline in the direction +of the miners' dwellings, and Talbot, whose brain seemed to himself half +splitting with nervous, angry excitement, began to pace up and down a +short length before the door, waiting for him to come back. He did not +order his men away, and they stayed in their places. + +The excitement was intense amongst them as they waited; not one of them +shifted his place on the log or bank where he had sat down; they hardly +seemed to draw their breath. All their eyes were fixed upon Talbot. He +walked up and down in front of the door, his arms folded, his revolver +still in its case on his hip. The men watched him curiously. His face +was very white and exceedingly determined. + +The afternoon was placid and lovely. The temperature was not within many +degrees of zero, but the gold of the sunshine was bright, and the air +dazzlingly clear. It was absolutely still, not a leaf rustled, not a +breath stirred. Nature was in her calmest, gentlest mood; nowhere could +there have been a more tranquil arena to witness the passions of men. +There was perfect silence, except for the crack of the ice sometimes as +it split beneath the firm, resolute steps of the man pacing up and down. +His face was set as a stone mask, as immovable and as calm, but the +passion of anger increased within him as he waited; a mad impatience for +his adversary to return grew at each step that he walked to and fro, +with the insult of the morning echoing in his ears. + +At last he stopped in his walk and fixed his gaze on the road which led +to the miners' cabins. All the men's eyes followed his, and they saw +the figure of their fellow-worker coming slowly down towards them. A +huge, hulking form, contrasting strongly with the slim one of the man +waiting for him. Some of the miners glanced up at Talbot, wondering +silently if he "funked it," but there was something in that attitude and +that iron countenance that reassured them and stirred a dull admiration +in their hearts. Talbot ceased to walk up and down. He planted himself +directly in front of the wide open door and waited there. Passion and +excitement had dilated his pupils until the usually calm light grey eyes +looked black; his nostrils quivered slightly as he watched his enemy +coming up. As Marley drew nearer, the miners noted with satisfaction his +enormous six-shooter swinging in his belt; the sunlight caught the steel +at every other step forward he made. Their hearts beat fast with keen +anticipation. There would soon be some fine shooting, and one dead man +perhaps, or two, for Marley meant business; and as for the other, he +looked like the devil himself as he stood there. And he was a fine shot, +there was no mistake about that. Denbigh stared hard at him with round +fixed eyes. He was thinking of the nights when he had watched Talbot +teaching Dick to shoot straight--teaching the very man he had sent off +now to get his pistol to shoot himself with! He remembered how Talbot +had stood with Marley at this very tunnel's mouth and showed him how to +snuff a candle at thirty yards! And Denbigh stared and glowed with +admiration. Marley drew nearer down the path, his heavy crunching steps +echoing through the serene and frosty air. A few minutes more and he was +close upon the eager, expectant, silent circle; the men watched him with +their breath suspended. On he came, sullenly, filled with a sort of +dogged, brutal animosity against the man he had wronged and insulted. He +stepped between the men, who made a short line, and then into the clear +open space, facing Talbot. + +For the first time he looked him full in the face, with a fugitive, +fleeting glance, and his eyes shifted away. His pace slackened, but he +did not stop; his feet dragged loosely over the rough snow and gravel, +his huge form seemed to shrink together, to lessen; while to the +fascinated eyes of the men watching the two, that slight figure at the +doorway, motionless as a statue, seemed to dominate the scene. Marley +felt a peculiar, sick paralysis stealing over him, a curious tugging +back of his muscles when he tried to get his hand to his hip, a +strangling feeling in his throat: that glance seemed petrifying him. The +absolute fearlessness, the indomitable will that filled it, seemed to +overcome him. + +The very fact, perhaps, that Talbot had not even yet drawn his pistol, +the extreme coolness that relied upon the swiftness of his wrist to +draw it at a second's notice, staggered and scared him. He remembered +the skill that had long been his admiration, and that he had at last +learned to imitate, the sureness of aim and eye, the dexterity and +quickness of that hand, and his tongue fairly cleaved to the roof of his +dry mouth. He struggled to draw his revolver, but his arm refused to +obey his will. Yet it was not wholly cowardice that swept over him in a +sickly tide. As he had met those scornful, indignant eyes, there had +rushed back to his mind a thousand small benefits conferred upon him by +this man, a thousand instances of friendliness, the memory of the first +days they had worked together, how he had slept under his roof, fed at +his table, how, more than all, he had been given by him and instructed +in the use of this very weapon that now would be turned to the giver's +own breast. A horror of killing this man, of wounding him, firing upon +him, combined with his terror of being killed, swept over him, and +between these he felt cowed and beaten, unable to stand up and face him, +unable to do anything but drag one trembling foot behind the other and +go by, keeping watch from the side of his eye that that deadly pistol +was not drawn upon him. But Talbot never moved, simply stood and watched +him too, with fixed eyes; and Marley, overwhelmed by some power he did +not understand, as if dragged forward against his will, without another +look at his opponent, passed by them all and went on slowly down the +road leading to the town. Not a word was spoken, not a breath was drawn, +no one moved. They watched his retreating figure, some half hoping, half +expecting, some half fearing, he would turn and shoot from a +distance,--all wondering greatly, and a little overawed. Then, as he +neither turned nor looked back, but kept steadily ahead, his large +figure well outlined against the stretches of white snow, his +six-shooter glistening in the sun, his head hanging down, till at last +by a turn in the road he was lost to view, there was a long-drawn breath +of surprise and wonder, a general turning of the eyes to Talbot. It was +a victory, though a bloodless one, and they felt it. Each one felt that +the conqueror was before them. Talbot said nothing. He simply stood +aside from the door, to let the miners who were outside enter. The men +took it as a signification that they were to recommence work, and +hastened to obey. They did not dare to speak to him, not even to +congratulate him. They were awed into submissive silence before him. Not +a sound was uttered. The men filed silently into the tunnel like cowed +sheep into their pen, leaving their master standing motionless in the +sunshine. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +KATRINE'S NEIGHBOURS + + +Good Luck Row was a little row of small, insignificant cabins towards +the back of the city, and at right angles to the direction of the main +street. Dawson faces the Yukon, and its main thoroughfare lies parallel +with the river. In the summer, when the Yukon and the Klondike, that +joins it just above, are free, the waters of the two rivers united come +rolling by in jubilant majesty, tossing loose blocks of ice, the +remnants of their winter chains, on their swelling tide. They form a +little eddy in front of the city, and their waters roll outward and +swirl back again to their course, as if the great stream made a bow to +the city front as it swept past. Here in the summer, with the steamboats +ploughing through the rocking green water, and the sun streaming down +upon the banks crowded with active human beings, glinting on the gay +signs of the saloons and the white and green painted doors of the +warehouses, with the brilliant azure sky stretched above, and far off +the tall green larches piercing it with their slender tops,--in the +summer this main street is a pleasant, cheerful sight; but now, with the +river solid and silent, the banks black and frozen, and the bleak, +bitter sky above, it looked more desolate than the inner streets of the +town, more uninviting than Good Luck Row, which had little cabins on +each side, and where the inhabitants overlooked their opposite +neighbours' firelit interior instead of the frozen river. The side-walks +of the row were like the other side-walks of the city, a wealth of soft +mud and slush and dirt through the warm weather, and now frozen hard +into uneven lumps, big depressions, and rough hummocks. The cabins were +uniform in size, small, with one fair-sized window in the front, beside +the door, which opened straight into the main room, where the front +window was. At the back there was another smaller room with a tiny +window, looking out over a black barren ice-field, for Good Luck Row was +on the edge of the town. + +Katrine lived at No. 13. This cabin had been the last to be occupied on +account of its unlucky number, but Katrine only laughed at it, and +painted it very large in white paint upon the door. Here Katrine lived +alone, though her father, the little stunted Pole who kept the "Pistol +Shot," was one of the richest men in the city. + +And because she lived alone some of her neighbours declared she was not +respectable. As a matter of fact, she was more respectable than many of +the married women living in the row, and Katrine knew many a story with +which she could have startled an unsuspecting husband when he came into +town after a week or two's absence prospecting or at work on the claims; +but she did not trouble about other people's affairs; she gave her +friendship to those who sought it, and heeded not at all those who +condemned her. + +On an afternoon about three weeks after her first meeting with Stephen, +Katrine stood in front of her little glass in the corner of her cabin, +smoothing her short glossy hair; when this was flattened with +mathematical exactness to her well-shaped head--for Katrine was always +trim and neat in her appearance--she turned to the table and wrote on a +slip of paper, "I'm next door;" this she pinned to the outside of her +door, and then locking it went into the next cabin in the row. She had +grown quite accustomed to Stephen's visits now, and generally left a +note on her door when she went out, in case he should come unexpectedly +in her absence. The cabin she entered presented a different appearance +from her own. There was the same large stove opposite the door, the same +rough table in the centre and wooden chairs round, but the floor was +dirty and gritty, quite unlike Katrine's, which always maintained a +white and floury look from her constant attentions, and the stove looked +rusty and uncleaned. The small square panes of the window, too, hardly +let in any light, they were so obscured by dust inside and snow frozen +on to them without. By the stove sat a young woman, in whose face +ill-health and beauty struggled together for predominance. Her hair, +twisted into a loose knot at the back of her head, was of the lightest +gold colour, like a young child's, and her face brought to one's mind +the idea of milk and violets, the skin was so white and smooth and the +eyes so blue. This was the beauty which no disease could kill, but +ill-health triumphed in the livid circles round the eyes, the drawn +lines round the faded lips. Katrine entered with her brightest smile. + +"Well, Annie, are you better to-day?" she asked. + +The woman rose with an unsteady movement from the chair, and before she +could answer burst suddenly into a rain of tears. "Better? Oh, Katie, I +shall never be any better! But I wish I could go home to die!" + +Katrine advanced and put her arms round her, drawing the frail +attenuated form close against her own warm vigorous frame. + +"What nonsense!" she said gently. "You are not going to die at home or +anywhere yet. Why, Will is going to make a big strike, and take you home +to live in style all the rest of your life." + +"No," sobbed the girl,--for she was no more than a girl in age,--falling +back in her chair again. "No, it won't come in time for me." + +"Where is Will?" asked Katrine, looking round. + +"He's just got a job up at the west gulch on Mr. Stephen Wood's claim," +returned the other. "Oh, I am that thankful he's found some one to +employ him at last." + +"Yes, it's delightful," returned Katrine, absently, as she sat down on +the other side of the rusty stove and looked round the dirty, cheerless +room. It was due to her urgent pleading with Stephen that Will had +obtained the place on the claim, but his wife did not seem to know, and +Katrine did not tell her. + +"But then it don't lead to nothing," continued Annie, despairingly. "He +can't look out for himself if he's working another man's ground." + +"Well, he only does a few hours' work, I believe, and has the rest of +the day to look round for himself," returned Katrine. + +"It don't amount to much, anyway; this time of the year there ain't no +day to speak of," replied the other, gazing plaintively through the dim +glass of the window. "And then if he do see a bit of land he fancies, +why, he can't buy it, he's got no money." + +"I think Mr. Wood will advance him enough to buy any ground he thinks +well of," replied Katrine, gently. + +"Mr. Wood!" repeated Annie, opening her sunken eyes wide with the first +display of interest she had shown. "Why should he help my man along?" + +"I don't know," returned Katrine, evasively, with heightened colour; +"but he told me he would do so, and I know he will. How is Tim to-day?" +she added suddenly, to divert the conversation. + +The mother looked round. + +"Tim!" she called; "where is that child? Katie, you go and look if you +can see him in the wood-shed." + +Katrine crossed the room to the lean-to attached to the cabin and looked +in. On the floor of the wood-shed, with the happy indifference to the +cold usually displayed by Klondike infants, little Tim sat on the floor +with a pile of chips beside him. Great icicles hung from the rafters +above him, and his tiny hands were blue with cold, but he was +contentedly and silently piling up the wood on the frozen ground. +Katrine picked him up and carried him into the next room, and put him by +the fire at his mother's feet. He did not cry nor offer any resistance, +but when put in his new location looked round for a few minutes, and +then calmly leaned towards the stove and began to play with the cinders +in place of his vanished wood chips. + +"What a good little fellow he is!" said Katrine, leaning over him. + +"Yes; he's his mother's darling, that's what he is!" returned the other, +stooping to smooth the curly head that was only a shade lighter than +her own. + +"Will you have some coffee?" asked Annie presently, looking helplessly +towards the dirty stove, where a feeble fire was burning sulkily amongst +the old wood ash. + +"No," returned Katrine, cheerfully; "you must be getting tired of +coffee. I brought you some tea for a change," and she extracted a neat +little packet from one of her pockets. "May I do up the fire and make +some for you?" + +"Why, it will make you so dirty; that stove is in an awful state," +replied Annie, looking over the other's neat dress and figure dubiously. + +"I don't mind that. Pick up the baby," Katrine answered, rolling up her +sleeves and displaying two rounded muscular arms white as the snow +outside. "You'd better move farther out of the dust," she added, going +down on her knees before the stove. Annie picked up the child and +retreated to a chair by the window, from where she watched the other +with a sort of helpless envy. + +"Lord! I've grown that weak lately I can't do nothing," she said after a +minute. "You know how nice I used to keep the place for Will when we +first came." + +Katrine nodded in silence, and two bright tears fell amongst the wood +ash she was taking from the stove. She did remember the bright, active +young wife, the united little family moving into the cabin next her only +a year ago; she remembered the interior that had always been so neat and +clean and cheerful to receive Will when he came home, the unceasing +devotion of his wife, and the mutual love and hope that had buoyed them +up and made them face all hardships smilingly. Then she had watched +sorrowfully the gradual deterioration of the man under the constant +disappointment; she had met him more and more frequently in the +saloons, less and less at his home. She had seen day by day the rapid +decline of the bright, beautiful young creature he had brought with him +into this poor faded wraith dragging herself about in the neglected, +cheerless cabin. + +"You'll get stronger again in the warm weather," she said after a +minute, when her voice was steady. + +"You wouldn't say that if you'd seen what I saw on the snow this morning +when I'd been coughing there back of the wood-shed," returned Annie, +drearily leaning her tired head against the dingy pane. + +"What do you mean?" asked Katrine, looking up apprehensively. "Blood?" + +The other nodded in silence, and there was quiet in the cabin except for +the crooning of the child. Then Katrine rose from the hearth impulsively +with a flushed, lovely face and the ash dust on her hair and dress. She +went over to Annie and drew her head on to her strong, warm bosom. + +"Oh, you poor, poor thing! What can we do?" she said desperately. + +"Nothing," murmured Annie, closing her eyes in the girl's soothing +embrace, "unless you could persuade Will to take me home, and nobody +could do that now, he's so set upon the gold. That's the second bleeding +from the chest that I've had this month; now the third'll do for me." + +She shivered as if from cold, and Katrine kissed her and hastened back +to her work at the fire. It is not a pleasant nor an easy thing to do to +clean out a stove that has been left to itself for a week or more and +fresh fires kindled on the old ashes every day, but in a few minutes +Katrine had the work completed and the fresh wood crackling and filling +the stove with red flame. Then she made the tea rapidly, and neither of +them spoke again till Annie held a great tin mug of it to her white +lips. Katrine pulled her chair close to the stove again, and took Tim on +her own lap, where he found a new toy in her cartridge belt. Annie +sipped from her mug and gazed absently into the flames. + +"Lord, we were so happy," she said musingly, a little colour coming into +her face under the influence of the hot tea and the warmth from the +re-invigorated fire. "We had the nicest little home down in Brixham. I +daresay you don't know where that is?" Katrine shook her head. "It's +just the prettiest, sweetest village in the world, down in Devonshire; +and we had a cottage there, quite in the country, with pink roses all +over the front,--I can smell those roses now. Oh, it was lovely; and +Will had regular work all the time, and he was the best husband woman +ever had. He used to bring his wages in Saturdays, and say to me, +'Annie, old girl, ain't there enough there to get you a new ribbon for +Sunday or a fresh sash for the baby?' He never spent a penny for drink +nor tobacco. And Sunday we'd go out on the downs and stand looking at +the sea; it do come in so splendid there, and the wind from it seems to +put new life in yer. We was as happy and as well as could be, all of us; +and then them newspapers got to printing all those tales of the gold in +the Klondike, and Will he just got mad like, and nothing would do but he +must sell the house and come out here. He thought he'd come back so +rich; well, so he may, but he won't have no wife to go back with." + +She lay back in her chair, and Katrine, gazing at her white face and +transparent hands, said nothing. + +"I'm glad I stuck to Will, though," the woman went on softly after a +minute, "and didn't let him come out here alone. A wife's place is by +her husband wherever he goes, and I'd rather die with him than be +separated. But there, I do hate the name of gold. It broke up our home, +it's broke up our lives, and it's just killed me, that's what it's done. +And what's the good of it? Why, as I said to Will before we came, 'We +can't be no more than happy, and we're that now.'" + +Katrine said nothing. She was one of those women who in society would +have gained the name of a good conversationalist, for she always +listened attentively and spoke hardly at all. + +It grew rapidly darker outside and began to snow a little, the peculiar +sharp, small snow of Alaska. The two women could hardly see each other's +faces in the gloom, when Katrine rose and offered to light the lamp. + +"There ain't no oil left," returned Annie, drearily. "I just sit in the +dark most of the time; I don't mind as long as I have a bit of fire. It +do seem more lonesome though when you've no light," she added with a +sigh. + +"Haven't you any money to buy it with?" + +Annie shook her head. "Not till Will comes back." + +"Well, here's enough to keep you in oil for the next three months," said +Katrine, taking a little object from her belt which looked like a +well-filled tobacco pouch and putting it on the shelf above her head. + +"What's that? dust?" said Annie. "Where-ever do you get so much money?" +she added, staring at her. + +"I won that last night," returned Katrine, lightly. "I do have such +luck. I wish you could come, Annie, and see the fun we have down town of +a night, instead of moping up here; and I do have such luck," she +repeated again with a half sigh. "I don't know what I'd do if it should +change. I'd have to be bar-keep for a living, I suppose. Think I'd make +a good bar-keep?" she said, getting up and stretching her arms above her +head. All her full lissom figure was revealed to advantage by the +attitude, and the firelight fell softly on the gay, bewitching face, +slanted over to one shoulder as she put the question. + +"I do that," replied Annie, with emphasis. "Your bar would always be +crammed by all the chaps in the place, my dear." + +Katrine laughed. "I'm glad you think so. I'll bring you some of my oil +to burn for to-night, and then I must be off earning my living." + +She went into her own cabin and brought back a can of oil with her, +trimmed and cleaned and lit Annie's lamp, and then with a kiss bade her +good-bye till next day, and took her way down to the main street. She +had only a little dust in her belt, just enough to start playing with, +and if luck should go against her she would have to return empty handed; +but then she always trusted to luck, and it had never forsaken her. Her +mode of life, precarious and uncertain, dangerous and unsatisfactory as +it might seem to an onlooker, never troubled her. She was in that state +of glorious physical health and strength which lends an unlimited +confidence to the mind, a sense of being able to cope with any +difficulty which might suddenly present itself, when every present or +possible trouble looks small, and when mere life itself, the mere +sensation of the blood being warm in one's veins, is a joy. She loved +the excitement, even the uncertainty of her life, and she had more +friends in the town than she could count, who would be glad to lend her +all she needed if her luck failed. + +That night, when Katrine lay fast asleep in her small inner room, her +curly head tucked down comfortably under the rugs, she dreamed she heard +a knocking on her door. The sound seemed faint at first, but grew +louder, and after a minute she woke up, lifted her head, and listened. +Yes, there was a tapping on her door, she heard it quite distinctly. +She got up immediately, slipped into her fur coat and boots, and taking +one of her pistols in her hand, went to the door. That there was danger +in answering such a summons at such an hour she knew quite well, but +that did not hinder her. She was accustomed to live with her life in her +hand, and she felt instinctively confident of being able so to hold it, +and meant to keep a tight grip on it. When she opened the door it was to +a vivid moonlight, clear and brighter than day; the whole white world +was shining under it. + +"Annie!" she exclaimed as her eyes fell on the slight, feeble figure +muffled in a blanket that stood on her steps. "What is the matter? Come +in," and she put the door wide open and stood back for her to pass. + +"Oh, Katie," she said, seizing the other's hands when they stood inside +the room, "forgive me for waking you, but I want Will. I feel I'm going +to die to-night, and I can't without him--I can't," and she burst into a +flood of tears broken by short sobbing coughs. She had slipped to her +knees and was holding Katrine's hands in a feverish clutch. The blanket +had fallen from her head and shoulders, and showed to Katrine that she +was still in her day dress; it did not seem as if she had been to bed at +all. There was a dark, half-dried stain upon the front of her bodice. + +"I'm dying! Oh, Katie, it's so dreadful all alone there. Will you go and +bring Will to me? Oh, do." + +Katrine looked down upon her as she tried to raise her to her feet. The +fire was still burning brightly and filled the room with light. Many +people older than Katrine would have laughed at the woman's statement in +face of her ability to come to them and make it, but Katrine's keen +perceptions read much, too much, in the bright glazed eyes that looked +up at her, in the hoarse grating tones that came from the sunken chest, +and the feverish grasp of those burning fingers. She stooped down and +put her arms round the kneeling figure and drew her up. + +"Why, of course I will. I will bring him to you. But you are only ill, +dear; you're not dying." + +"Oh, I may not, I know; but if I should, and he not here! Katie, can you +go now?--it's so late, and so cold, and so far. I don't see how you +can." + +"He's working up on Mr. Wood's claim at the west gulch. I suppose if I +go to Mr. Wood's cabin he can tell me where to find Will." + +"Oh, yes, yes," returned Annie, eagerly, a crimson flush now lighting up +each cheek; "go straight to Mr. Wood and ask him for Will. One of Will's +ponies is down here, back of our house; you can take him and ride up. +Oh, it may kill you to go; I ought not to ask it. Oh, what shall I do?" + +Katrine laughed. "Kill me!" she said. "It would take more to kill me +than that, I think. I shall be up there and Will down here before you +know where you are. Now you've just got to drink this brandy while I go +and get some things on. You're just fretting for Will, that's what is +the matter with you. I believe you will feel all right when you see him +again." + +She put the trembling woman into a chair, and went back to her room to +put her clothes on. She noticed that her boots, which had been damp the +night before, had frozen to the ground, and she had to break them from +it by force. + +"I shall be lucky if I get back with my feet unfrozen," she thought to +herself, looking regretfully at the warm bed she had left; but it never +once, even remotely, occurred to her to refuse the unwelcome mission. +She put on all her thickest garments, buckled her pistols on her hip, +and went back to Annie, who was crouching over the fire in the next +room. + +"I had better take the pony," she said; "he'll get me there and back +quicker than I can walk, if you think the little animal is up to it." + +Annie nodded. "He's well fed," she said, "and has had nothing to do +since Will's been gone." + +Katrine shut the stove up, and the two women went out together. + +It was a still dead cold without, the sort of night on which your limbs +might freeze beyond recovery, and without your knowing it, so insidious +and so little aggressive was the cold. + +"You go in and keep warm," said Katrine; "I'll find the pony and manage +him," and she pushed Annie gently within her own door, and went round to +the shed at the back of the cabin where the pony was. Her hands in that +short time had grown so stiff with cold she could hardly put the saddle +on and fasten the girth and straps. The pony knew her, and pricked his +ears and snorted while she was getting him ready; he had been idle in +his stable two days, and by this time was willing to welcome any change +in the monotony of life. When she had adjusted everything carefully by +the light of the strong moon falling through the little window, she +threw herself cross leg upon his back and rode him out of the shed. +Annie had her face pressed eagerly against the back window of her cabin, +watching for her to appear. Katrine smiled at her, lifted her fur cap +above her head for an instant as a man would do, and then the next +moment was cantering away over the snowy waste that stretched behind +Good Luck Row. She went at a good pace, urged on by that last glimpse of +the pale face, with the terrible look of haunted fear on it, pressed to +the window. + +The temperature was very low, but the absence of wind and dampness in +the air made the cold bearable. Katrine, haunted by the fear of +frostbite, kept pinching her nose and pulling her ears and banging her +feet against the pony's side to keep the blood stirring in them. Inside +the first half-hour she was away some distance from the lights of +Dawson, and nothing but great snowy stretches lay around her. + +That night up at the west gulch it happened that neither Stephen nor +Talbot had gone to bed. There is little to choose between night and day +there, since half of the day hours are dark as the blackest night, and a +man can sleep in them as profitably or more so than in the moonlit hours +of the night. Three o'clock in the morning had come, and the two men +were still sitting talking on each side of the stove, with an opened +whisky bottle on the table between them, in Stephen's cabin, when the +dull sound of a horse's footfall broke the blank silence of the gulch. +Both sprang to their feet on the instant, and Talbot drew his pistol +from his belt and stood listening with it in his hand. + +"I always said we oughtn't to keep our gold up here," said Stephen, and +his face whitened. + +Talbot held up his hand to enjoin silence, and they waited while the +sound of hoofs moving slowly over the treacherous and uneven soil came +nearer. Then there was a pause, which seemed to the men inside endless. +Then two distinct taps at the door. Talbot, who was nearer it, made a +forward movement, but Stephen caught his arm. + +"What are you going to do?" he whispered. + +"Open it and fire," returned Talbot, laconically, and he pushed back the +latch and raised his revolver as he opened the door. + +Stephen was close behind him, and Talbot almost stepped upon him as he +drew back with astonishment the next instant. Katrine jumped from the +pony's back and stepped over the threshold without invitation. + +"How lucky I am to find you up!" she exclaimed, and then seeing Talbot's +hastily lowered revolver in his right hand she burst out laughing. "So +you were going to shoot, were you?" she said, drawing out her own. +"Well, I was quite ready; I have been all the ride. I am sorry I +frightened you." + +"Frightened us!" repeated the two men in a breath, with an indignant +glance. + +"Oh no, of course I didn't mean that," rejoined Katrine, laughing. +"Disturbed you, I should say. Oh, Stephen, give me some of that whisky; +I am almost dead with cold." + +Her face did indeed look frozen white with cold under her fur cap, and +her dark eyes shone in it with a liquid splendour that made Stephen's +heart beat tumultuously against his side. He poured out some of the +spirit for her and pushed her gently into a chair, commencing to pull +off her thick gloves for her. + +"I want Will Johnson," she said, with her customary directness. +"Stephen, I've come up to fetch him. He's one of your men. Tell me where +I can find him." + +"What do you want with him at this time of night?" questioned Stephen, +while Talbot silently extracted a plate of bread and bacon from the +cupboard and put it on the table at her elbow. + +"I don't want him for myself," she answered mischievously. "His wife has +sent me up to find him; she thinks she is dying, and wants to see him +to-night. Where can I find him?" + +"His cabin is a little higher up the gulch, but you mustn't go there; I +will go after him," said Stephen hastily. + +"I don't know," replied Katrine; "I'd better ride up there and then take +him on home with me, hadn't I?" + +"Ride back again to-night!" exclaimed Stephen. "What madness! It was +bad enough to make the ride once. She mustn't think of it, must she, +Talbot?" and he turned to his friend for corroboration. + +"Certainly not, I should say," returned Talbot, in his quiet but final +way. "I will ride up to Johnson's place and send him down home, and you +can make Katrine comfortable here." + +The girl sprang to her feet. + +"Why, what an idea!" she said, with a flush on her pale cheeks. "I only +came to you to find Will. Of course I can't stay here all night." + +"Your mission will be accomplished, won't it, if Will goes to his wife?" +returned Talbot quietly. "There is no need to risk your life again. +There is no good in it; besides, it will save time if you let Will have +the pony at once to take him back. You can have one of ours in the +morning." + +She looked up at him. She admired Talbot exceedingly. His voice was so +invariably gentle and quiet, so different from all the voices that she +heard round her daily. Stephen's, though his resembled it, had not the +same curious accent of refinement. His manner, too, had the same extreme +gentleness; and yet beneath this apparent softness she knew there +existed a courage that equalled any in the whole camp. He looked very +handsome too, she thought, at this moment, as she met a soft smile in +his eyes, and her tones were more hesitating as she repeated-- + +"I think I ought to return." + +"Well, I'm going to despatch Will for you," replied Talbot, turning +away. "I leave it to you, Stephen, to persuade her to stay," and he +walked out. A second later they heard the pony's hoofs going up the +narrow trail past the cabin. + +"You can have my room; I'll sleep here on the floor," remarked Stephen. + +The girl got up. + +"No," she said in her most decided tone. "I'll stay if you let me sleep +here on the floor, or I'll go home. Turn you out of your own comfortable +bed I will not." + +"Go home you can't," said Stephen in an equally decided tone, "so I'll +make you up a bed here just in front of the stove." + +He went into the next room, and Katrine, left alone, drank up her whisky +and gazed round the cabin. It was not at all an interesting interior, +and had not the faint suggestions of artistic taste that redeemed +Talbot's. A few prints were on the walls, seemingly cut from illustrated +papers and principally consisting of views of cathedrals and school +buildings, which Katrine's eyes wandered over without interest. At the +farthest end from her there were some stout shelves nailed against the +wall, and on these rested a row of flat tin pans; between the pans were +pushed one or two books, and she recognised amongst them his Greek +testament. She rose and strolled over to the shelf, and standing on +tiptoe looked into the pans. As she thought, they contained thin layers +of gold dust. She was standing there looking into them when Stephen +returned and came up behind her. + +"They look fine, don't they?" he said. "That's a thirty dollar pan." + +Katrine turned, and looking up was startled by the eager light in his +face and the greed written in every line of it. For herself, reckless, +happy-go-lucky gambler that she was by nature, gold had little value for +her except to toss by the handful on the tables to buy half-an-hour's +excitement. With a sudden movement she seized the fullest pan by the rim +in one hand and the Greek testament beside it in the other, and danced +away from him to the other side of the room. Stephen turned with an +involuntary cry, and followed her with anxious eyes. + +"Now which would you rather lose?" she said, laughing. + +His eyes were fixed upon the pan, which was heavy and as much as she +could support with one hand. He dreaded each minute to see it tip up and +its golden treasure pour out on the floor. + +"Oh, I don't know. Don't be foolish," he said in a vexed tone. + +Katrine sidled up to the window. + +"Answer, or I'll--" + +Stephen turned white. He felt she was capable of doing any mad thing +when he met those mocking, sparkling eyes. + +"Oh--I--I--would rather lose the book," he stammered, in an agony to see +the gold safely put back. "I could replace that, you know." + +Katrine advanced to him, balancing the pan as if weighing it. + +"Stephen, this is very heavy," she said, looking him straight in the +eyes. + +"Let me take it from you," he said, eagerly stretching out his hands. + +"Do you know what makes it so?" she said, still balancing it and still +looking at him. "Your soul is in it!" and she gave it back to him. + +Stephen reddened angrily, and took both the book and the gold from her +and replaced them sulkily on the shelf. Katrine had turned her back and +walked over to the fire, humming. + +"What a royal couch you've made me!" she remarked, breaking the awkward +silence that followed, and looking down on the pile of red blankets he +had spread in front of the stove. + +He had, in fact, stripped his own bed and collected blankets from every +corner to make a comfortable resting-place for her. Before Stephen could +answer he was summoned to the door. Talbot looked in upon them, but +would not come inside. + +"I've sent Will off," he said; "he swore like anything, but he is gone. +No, thanks, Steve, I won't come in. I'm tired, and going to my own cabin +now. See you at breakfast. Good-night," and before Katrine could thank +him he was gone. + +The two thus left entirely alone in the deep quiet of the gulch to pass +the night together looked at each other for a moment with a shade of +silent embarrassment. But the girl, accustomed as she was to take care +of herself in all sorts of situations and surroundings, and endued with +a certain fierce chastity of nature, recovered herself instantly and +spoke quite naturally. + +"I feel tired too, and would like to go to sleep now, if I may." + +"Certainly," said Stephen. "You have this room to yourself. The stove +will burn till daylight, and you have the whisky if you feel cold in the +night. Good-night." + +His tone was very formal, for he would so much have liked it to be +otherwise, and without looking at her he took a match from his pocket +and went into the other room, shutting the door after him. The girl +waited a moment, then she shut the door of the stove and threw herself +down on the soft pile of blankets, and drawing one of them over her to +her ears, drew a deep, contented sigh, and was peacefully asleep in a +few seconds. + +The next morning Stephen rose stiff and cramped from his denuded bed. +When he was completely dressed he silently opened his door and crept +noiselessly into the adjoining room. The girl was not yet awake, and he +stole softly over to the bed on the hearth and looked down at her. She +lay warm and sleeping comfortably amongst the blankets. She was fully +dressed, just as she had been the previous evening, except that two or +three buttons were unfastened at the collar of her dress, and allowed +the solid white neck to show beneath the rounded chin. The little head, +with its mass of dark silky curls, lay inclined towards the stove, and +the curled rosy lips had a softer smile than they generally wore in the +daytime. Stephen leaned over her, entranced and breathless. As his eyes +followed the dark arch of the eyebrows, the sweet delicate contour of +the cheek, he forgot the horror he felt of her sometimes in her waking +moments, forgot the hideous background of the saloons, forgot all the +evil there might be in her, and bowed before that supreme power that +human beauty has over us; he worshipped her as he had never worshipped +his God. For a few seconds it was enough for him to gaze on her, then +came an overwhelming impulse to stoop and kiss the soft youthful lips, +to touch them even if ever so lightly. If he could without awakening +her! But no, she was his guest, under his roof and protection. All that +was best in his nature rose and held him motionless like a hand of +iron. After a few seconds Katrine stirred, and Stephen, feeling she was +about to awake, would have moved away, but his eyes seemed fixed and as +impossible to remove from her face as one's hands are from an electric +battery. The next minute her lids were lifted, and her eyes, two wells +of living light, flashed up at him. + +"Good-morning," she said, sitting up. "How dreadfully pale you look, +Stephen! What is the matter?" + +"Do I?" he answered, with a forced laugh, feeling the blood, which had +seemed to rest suspended in his veins for those few seconds, rush to his +heart again in great waves. + +"You do indeed," she said, getting up. "I expect you want your +breakfast. Tell me what I can do to make myself useful." + +She shook her hair straight, fastened the collar of her bodice, and, was +dressed. She needed no toilet apparently, but looked as clean and fresh +as a rose waking up in its garden. + +"Nothing," returned Stephen hastily. "Go over and tell Talbot to come in +to breakfast, if you like; I'll have it ready when you come back." + +Katrine looked round regretfully, as if she would have liked to stay and +help him; then concluding she had better do as she was told, she took up +her fur cap and went out. + +The west gulch looks magnificent in the first early light, with all +degrees of shadows, some black, some dusky, some the clearest grey, +lingering in its snowy recesses, and the first glimpse of gold falling +down it from the east. Katrine stopped and gazed up at the impressive +beauty above and around her: trees in the gulch, now covered with a +thick snowy mantle, stood assuming all sorts of grotesque forms, and +extending their arms as if calling the spectator to their cold embrace. +It was beautiful, but to Katrine it seemed so silent, so overawing, and +so death-like, that she shivered as she looked up and down from the +flat plateau where she stood, and hurried on the few necessary yards to +Talbot's cabin. + +When they came back together they found Stephen had all in readiness, +the fire blazing on the hearth and the breakfast waiting on the table. +He made Katrine sit at the head and pour out the coffee for them, which +she did with pleased, smiling eyes. Talbot said good-bye to her and went +out to his claim immediately it was over, and Katrine and Stephen were +left alone. He said he would go and get a pony for her and Katrine rose, +but then Stephen hesitated and did not go after all. He turned to her +instead, and came back from the door to where she was standing. + +"Will you listen to something I want to say to you?" he said, his heart +beating wildly. + +"Why, certainly I will," the girl answered simply, and she sat down in +the chair behind her and folded her hands. Then she looked up +inquiringly, waiting for him to begin, but Stephen's voice was dried up +in his throat. He stood in front of her, one damp hand nervously +clasping the back of a chair, unable to articulate a word. Confusion and +excitement overwhelmed him, and he stood turning paler and paler, +staring at the proud, handsome face framed in the living yellow sunshine +before him. At last he felt he could not even stand, and he turned away +with a groan and sank down on the nearest chair with his face in his +hands. Katrine, who had been watching him anxiously for the last few +seconds, sprang up and went over to him. + +"What is the matter?" she said, laying her hand on his shoulder. "Are +you ill?" + +"No, oh no," said Stephen, catching the little hand in both of his. "No, +I want to tell you I love you. Do you care for me? Will you marry me +right away, and come up and live here with me?" + +His voice had come back to him all right now, and he turned and gazed +eagerly up at her. + +Katrine did not answer immediately, but she did not withdraw her hand +that he was pressing hotly between his own, and a faint smile that came +over her face showed she was not displeased; and here Stephen missed his +cue--he should have taken the hesitating figure into his arms and kissed +the undecided lips. In the sudden awakening of womanly feeling, in the +momentary excitement, in the glimpse into passion, Katrine would have +consented, welcoming as her nature did any new emotion; but Stephen was +embarrassed and afraid. Fear and uncertainty held him back, the kiss +burned ungiven on his own lips, and Katrine uninfluenced by passion +could think clearly. + +What! come up here and live in this deathly quiet, away from even such +amusement as the camp offered? Submit to all his tiresome religious +conversations, and, above all, give up those feverish nights of +excitement? the hazard and the stimulus of the long tables and the +little heaps of gold dust? and her free life, her incomings and +outgoings, with no one to question her? No, it was an impossibility. + +The next thing Stephen knew was that she was smiling and looking down +into his eyes, shaking her head. + +"No, Stephen, I can't do that. I like you awfully, and should like you +to come and see me; but I wouldn't do for your wife at all, and if you +knew all about me you wouldn't want it either." + +Stephen clung fast to her hand. + +"What is it that I don't know?" he said desperately, putting, as people +always do, the worst construction he could upon her words, and at the +same time feeling he would forgive her everything, and in a sort of +background in his brain contemplating the figure of the forgiven +Magdalen at the feet of Christ. + +Katrine dragged her hand away suddenly. She was not going to tell him +she was a gambler and devoted to the excitement of the tables. She knew +that if she did their pleasant talks in the evenings would be at an end. +He could never come to see her without thinking it his duty to try to +reform her; and as she knew she was not going to reform, what would be +the good of it? + +"What does it matter to you? I am not your wife, and am not going to be; +I am an acquaintance. If you like me as I am, very good; if you don't, +no one cares." + +Stephen got up and faced her. He was as white as the snow outside. + +"You make me think the worst by refusing to confide in me." + +Katrine laughed contemptuously. + +"I don't care a curse what you think! Haven't I just told you so? Great +heavens," she added, with a burst of conviction, "it would never do for +us to marry! Never! Your one idea is to curtail a person's liberty." + +"No," answered Stephen quietly, "not liberty in a general way; only the +liberty to sin and do evil, the liberty to be ignorant and do things +which have terrible consequences that you don't know." + +He looked very well at this moment, his pale ascetic face and +sympathetic eyes lighted up with enthusiasm. Katrine looked at him and +then smiled with her quick, impulsive smile. + +"Stephen, you are a good man, and perfectly charming at times; but I am +not a good woman, and don't want to be, and we should never get on. So +don't let's bother any more about this question at all." + +An exceedingly pained expression came over Stephen's face, and Katrine +was quick enough to feel that from her words he judged her errors to be +other than they were. In a few words she might have cleared his mind +from the idea of her actual immorality, but she was too proud to stand +upon her own defence before him; besides, if her faults were not of that +class, he would want to know what they were, and in his eyes a girl that +gambled and drank and swore, and preferred the dance halls and variety +shows to the mission church any day, was quite bad enough; so she +concluded in her thoughts, "It doesn't matter if he is mixed." + +Stephen at the moment was afraid to press her further, and did not know +quite how to treat her; but he was not wholly discouraged, and he +thought it best to retain the ground he already had. + +"Well, I shall be in town in a few days," he said, "and I shall come to +see you as usual, mayn't I?" + +"Of course," returned Katrine, and they did not speak again till they +were outside and she was mounted at the head of the trail. + +What a morning it was! The crisp air was like a bath of sparkling +sunlight; the untrodden snow glittered everywhere. Far above the trail a +ridge of dark green pine broke against the pale azure of the sky. +Stephen leaned against the pony's side and gazed into the warm, lustrous +eyes. + +"Good-bye, my darling--my own darling perhaps some day." + +"I don't think so," she answered, with a mischievous smile, and set the +pony at a trot down the trail. + +She had to pass Talbot's cabin on her way back, and as she approached +she saw him a little way up the creek surrounded by his men. She reined +in her horse to a walk as she passed, and contemplated him. His figure +always pleased and arrested her eyes--it had a certain height and +strength and grace that marked it out distinctly from others; and then +what an advantage it was, she thought, he had no religion and believed +in none of those things, and, in short, was quite as bad or worse than +she herself was. She walked her horse on slowly, thinking. Somehow it +seemed to her that life in his cabin would be far more piquant and +amusing than in Stephen's. Yet he neither drank nor gambled, and as for +the dance halls and theatre,--well, he had told her he liked dancing; +and what a waltz that had been they had had together! But life with +Stephen! He would be too good for her, and too stupid. She had a vague +sense that what she lived for, excitement, he condemned in all its +forms. Just what she cared for in drink, in play, in the dance, the +electric pleasure of them, was just what he shrank from as a wile of the +Evil One. Even the religious services of the High Church he condemned +for the same reason. No, it would never do; life with him would be as +cold as the snow around her. She was glad that her answer had been as it +had. There was a level place in the trail here, and she put the horse +to a gallop, and so came into town with her cheeks stung into rich +crimson by the keen air, and her spirits exhilarated and ready for any +mischief going. + +She went at once to No. 14 in the row, and found Will sitting by his +wife's bedside like a model husband. The girl was lying down, her weak +white hand clasped in and nearly hidden by the swollen, rough red hand +of the miner. She gave a little cry as Katrine entered, and buried her +head under the blanket. + +"You are not angry with me for sending you up when it wasn't really +necessary?" came a smothered voice. + +Katrine flung herself on her knees beside the bed and put her arms +impetuously round the thin form under the coverlet. + +"Angry with you for not dying!" she said, between laughing and crying. +"Why, I think you're the best girl in the world, and Will's a pretty +good doctor, too!" she added, glancing up at him. + +Will coloured and looked a little uneasy, remembering his oaths of last +night when he was roused to a ten-mile ride; but Katrine couldn't or +wouldn't notice anything amiss. She said sweet things to both of them, +and then, unwilling to rob Annie of any part of Will's company, she +withdrew to her own cabin. + +Two or three weeks passed, and dreary weeks they were. The temperature +fell below the zero mark and stayed there, the sun hardly ever shone, +the whole sky being blotted out as behind a thick grey curtain. The few +hours of daylight that each twenty-four hours brought round was little +more than a dismal twilight. Times were dreary, too, provisions ran +scarce and very high, and the cheerless cold and darkness seemed to +paralyse the energies of the strongest and lay a grip upon the whole +town. Many months of the winter had already gone by, and strength and +spirits were beginning to flag; health and courage had worn thin, and +men who had faced the bitterness of the cold with a joke when it had +first set in felt it keenly now like the rest. In Good Luck Row matters +were worse than anywhere else in the town; the occupants were mostly +very poor, and the pressure of the high prices was sharpest upon them. +In addition to all else they had to suffer, typhoid broke out amongst +them, and another horrible fear was added to the terror of the cold. In +the universal gloom that hung over the city, under the mantle of +darkness, want and starvation and fear and disease wrangled together, +while Death walked silently and continually about the darkened streets. +During all this time Katrine was about the only one who kept up her +spirits and courage. She was the light and comfort of the row, there was +not a cabin in it that had not been brightened and cheered by her +smiles and benefited by her gifts. She was absolutely without fear +herself. The quality seemed to have been left out of her composition, or +perhaps it was only that her great physical health and strength made her +feel unconsciously that it was impossible for any harm to come to her. +She went in and out of the fever-stricken cabins all day, doing what she +could for each one of the inmates, and always with her brilliant smile, +which was a tonic in itself, and half the night she would sit gambling +in the saloons, winning the money to spend upon her sick patients the +following day. + +As soon as Stephen learned that typhoid had broken out in the row, he +came down to her and urged her to marry him and come away to the west +gulch, if only as an asylum. But Katrine simply laughed and joked, and +would not listen to him. Then he begged her to look upon herself merely +as his tenant; he and Talbot would share the same cabin, and she could +occupy his in perfect peace and security, and be safely away from the +depressing influences of the town and its disease-laden atmosphere. Then +she grew very grave, and said simply in a sweet tone that echoed through +all the chambers of his heart-- + +"Dear Stephen, you are very good to be so anxious for me, but I'm not a +bit anxious for myself. I should feel like a coward if I went away from +the row now. These people are so dependent upon me, and I can do so many +little things for them. I feel it's a duty to stay here, and I'd rather +do it;" and Stephen had kissed her hand passionately and gone back to +the gulch, more in love with her than ever. + +She saw very little of him, and was too busy to think about him or note +whether he came or not, having so many anxieties on her mind just then, +of which the heaviest was the girl-wife Annie in the next cabin. Since +the semi-crisis in her illness, over which Katrine had helped her, there +seemed to be little change in her condition from day to day. That is, +the change did not show itself externally; within the delicate +structure, the disease, aided by the cold, the foul damp air of the +town, and hopeless spirits, crept steadily and quickly on, but gave +little or no outward sign, and Katrine hoped against hope that she could +possibly tide her over the time till Will perhaps made a strike and +could take her away. She knew how the sick woman clung to this idea. For +months now she had been shut off from all communication with the outer +world, she never saw a paper or a book, she could not move from her +cabin, her whole sphere was bounded now by its four rough walls, and so +the one idea that was left to her starved brain and heart was that Will +should make a strike. And as a weed runs over a bare and neglected +garden, so will one single idea completely absorb and fill a neglected +brain, and grow and grow to gigantic strength. This was Annie's one +idea; she brooded over it, pondered over it, nursed it, slept with it, +and talked to Katrine of it with burning eyes, till the latter felt if +it could only be fulfilled the joy of it would almost cure her. And it +might be fulfilled, she knew, any day. It was early days in the Klondike +then, and plenty of good ground lay around waiting to be discovered. She +heard from Stephen that Will was steady and energetic, had given up +drink, and was set upon the idea of prospecting for land of his own. +Katrine's heart beat hard with pure sympathy as she heard, and she +begged Stephen as the one thing he could do for herself to facilitate +Will's efforts in every way and aid him for her sake. Meanwhile, her own +care was to keep the fragile creature who was living upon hope still on +this side of the Great Divide. And to this end she worked night and +day. She kept her cabin clean and well lighted and well warmed. She +bought and made soup, and gave fabulous prices for meat and wine, and +sat with her long hours cheering her with stories heard in the saloons +and picked up in the streets, and scraps of news from the gulch and +farther points. + +The disease seemed so quiescent that Katrine began to hope more and more +that she should be rewarded, and one morning a hurried note scribbled in +pencil was brought in to Annie while Katrine was scrubbing the cabin +floor, telling her in a few ill-spelt words that Will thought he might +get in to town that night. A bright flame of colour leaped over the +woman's pale face, and then the next moment faded as her hands with the +note in them fell listlessly to her lap. + +"He ain't made no strike yet," Katrine heard her mutter to herself. + +"You don't know," rejoined Katrine, looking up flushed and warm from her +hard work. "He may have some good news to tell you any way." + +Annie merely shook her head and gazed out of the window. + +"He'd have told me," she murmured, and that was all. + +Katrine had a long and heavy round of visits to make that day, and for +two long hours she sat motionless by a dying woman's bedside, fearing to +withdraw her hand, to which the poor terrified enterer into the Valley +of the Shadow was clinging. In her arms, and with her tired head on +Katrine's young bosom, the woman drew her last breath; and Katrine, +feeling her own soul wrenched asunder and her body aching with strain +and shock, came round in the afternoon to Annie. She would not say a +word to her of the death-bed from which she had come. With an effort she +talked of cheerful things, of the spring-time that was on its way to +them, of the pleasure of seeing Will again, and so on, till her head +ached. She did a few domestic offices for the girl, and then feeling she +must break down herself if she stayed longer, she said she needed sleep, +and if Annie could take care of herself for a time she would go and lie +down. Annie noticed how heavy the lids were over her eyes and begged her +to go at once, though a strange fear, like a child's of the dark, came +over her. + +"Will will be soon with you now--the best company," Katrine said, with a +tired smile; "and if you want me, a knock on the wall here will bring me +to you," and Annie was left alone. + +As the afternoon closed in her cough seemed to grow more and more +troublesome; the pain in her chest, too, had never been so bad; she had +to keep her hand there all the time as she laboured round the room +putting everything to rights, making sure that the cabin was neat and +tidy against Will's return. At last she sat down in the circle of hot +light round the fire, and little Tim crawled into her lap. She put her +arms round him and held him absently. She was thinking over Katrine's +words. The Spring! were they really near it? "so near," she had said, +"it was almost here." Her eyes looking upwards to the darkening windows +caught the old and smoke-hued almanac pinned up to the wall beside it. +She set the child down, and getting up walked slowly over to it and ran +one trembling finger down the dates. Each one from December, when they +had first hung it up, had a heavy black line against it, where she had +scratched it out with eager fingers; only the last days had no mark +against them. She had been too weary, too heart sick, to note them any +longer. What did it matter to her when the Spring came? the almanac for +her would have come to an end before that. But now a fresh gleam of +hope seemed to have entered her heart, and with a feverish movement she +drew the old stump of pencil from her pocket and scratched off the +unmarked days, and then stood gazing at the date of that day; they were +still far, far from the Spring--too far. Oh, to go back in the Spring, +to escape from this prison of darkness, this country of horror and +starvation and misery, to be back once more in her home in the Spring! +Her mind fled away from the dreary interior of the darkening cabin. She +stood once more in the rich grassy meadow with the golden sunlight of an +evening summer sky warm around her, the song of the birds in her ears, +the hot scent of the meadow-sweet in her nostrils, before her the little +narrow path leading to the cottage that seemed to bask sleepily in the +yellow glow. She made a step forward with dilated eyes, then the cough +seized her, the vision dissolved and fled. Again the cabin with its +blackened rafters enclosed her. She turned from the calendar. What was +the Spring's coming? It might come, but they would not go back. What +right had she to think of it? They had made no strike, and had not Will +sworn he would never go back without the gold? This accursed gold! If +they could but have found it as others had! She put her hands to her +head to drive away the thoughts, they were familiar and so useless. She +had thought them over and over again so often. As she went back to the +fire she noticed one of Will's woollen shirts lying on a chair. Why, +that was the one she had meant to wash that morning! How could she have +forgotten it? And now perhaps she would not get it done before he +returned. Her heart began to beat, her limbs trembled. How weak and +queer she felt this afternoon! Still, she would do it somehow. There was +hot water on the fire that Katrine had put there. She lifted with an +effort the great iron kettle from the fire, and with that in one hand +and the shirt in the other she went into the adjoining sloping roofed +compartment that served as scullery, wood-shed, pantry, and wash-house. +It was many degrees colder here, and the long iron nails that kept the +boards together overhead had sparkling icicles on them that glittered as +the firelight from the inner room touched them, and she could hardly +draw her breath. Nevertheless she walked over to the wash-tub and poured +in the water, and set to work with shaking hands. "Had ever shirt seemed +so large?" she wondered vaguely, and her thin arms moved slowly, lifting +it up and down with difficulty. It seemed getting so dark, too. She +should have lighted the candles, it wouldn't look so cheery for Will if +he came back to find the cabin dark. But was this only the twilight +falling? No, it was in her eyes. She leaned heavily on the edge of the +wooden tub, trembling, the floor unsteady beneath her, a strangling +suffocation in her throat, a swimming darkness before her eyes. A sense +of terrible loneliness pressed in upon her, and then suddenly she knew +that in the chill of that dark twilight she was alone with Death. He had +come for her at last. + +Oh, to have had Will's strong arms round her, a human breast to lay her +head down upon, and so die! A nameless terror possessed her, overwhelmed +her; she started from the wash trestle. There was a sudden cry, "Will! +Will!" and she fell forward on the damp flooring, a little eager scarlet +stream of blood pouring out from the nerveless lips to stain the +soap-suds under the trestle. + +The child sitting playing in the ring of warm firelight in the adjoining +room heard that last cry, and startled, dropped his toys, looking with +round eyes to the blackness beyond the open door. He listened with one +tiny finger in his mouth for many minutes, but no further sound came to +disturb him from the wash-house, and he went on playing. + +An hour passed perhaps before Will set foot in Good Luck Row, and he +tramped up it with a sounding pace. There was fire in his eyes, the +blood ran hard in all his veins, his rubber boots had elastic springs in +their soles. Yet he carried an extra weight with him. There was +something in his pocket in a buckskin bag that burned his hand as if it +had been red-hot iron when he touched it. As he came to No. 14 and saw +the windows dark he merely hurried his pace, and hardly stayed to lift +the door latch, but just burst through the half-opened door and brought +his huge burly frame over the threshold. + +"Well, Annie, my girl, we've struck it at last," he shouted at the top +of his voice, "and you shall come home right away. Where are you, Annie? +Didn't I say wait a bit for me?" + +He had entered by the wash-house, but the darkness was thick, almost +palpable, before his face and revealed nothing. He went forward to the +open door, beyond which the burned-down fire gave only a faint red +light, and his foot kicked something heavy on the floor. With a curious +feeling gripping his heart, he stopped dead short where he stood and +fumbled for a match. Then he struck it, and in its sickly glare looked +down. "Annie, my dear!" he called in a shaking voice, and bent down +holding the match close to the upturned face. The light played for an +instant upon it and went out. "Annie!" he called again, and the word +broke in his throat. + +A thin wail went up from little Tim in the dusk of the inner room. Where +the man stood was silence and darkness. His strike had come too late. +His wife was dead. + + * * * * * + +Half-an-hour later a man burst into the "Pistol Shot." It was between +hours, and the bar-tender was just going round lighting the lamps; the +place was nearly empty, only a few miners were standing at the end of +the counter, talking together. The new customer staggered across the +floor as if already under the influence of drink, kicking up the fresh +sawdust on the ground; then he reached the counter and demanded drink +after drink. He tossed the whiskies handed to him down his throat, and +then retreated to a bench that stood against the wall and sat down +staring stupidly in front of him. The little group of men looked at him +once or twice curiously, and then one said-- + +"Why, it's Bill Johnson, who's just made a strike. Come up, boys, let's +congratulate him." + +The men moved up to the motionless, staring figure, and one of them +slapped him on the shoulder. + +"Say, Bill, old man, you're in luck, and we'll all drink your health. +Got any gold to show us?" + +The sitting figure seemed galvanised suddenly out of its stupor. Will +raised his head with a jerk, and the men involuntarily drew back from +the glare of his bloodshot eyes. He put his hand to his pocket and drew +out a small dirty buckskin bag. He dashed it suddenly on the ground with +all his force, so that the sawdust flew up in a little cloud. + +"Curse the gold!" he said, and got up and tramped heavily out of the +saloon. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +GOD'S GIFT + + +They buried Mrs. Johnson very soon. As one of the neighbours sensibly, +if rather crudely, remarked, "Their cabins were too small for them to +keep corpses knocking around in them." And so the second day after her +death, in a flood of thin, sweet sunshine, they buried her who had so +loved the light and the sun, and had longed so wearily for them through +so many days. + +Katrine and Talbot stood side by side at the open grave. He had been in +the town that day and met Katrine on the street, learned from her where +she was going, and accompanied her. He knew something of all she had +done for the dead woman, and he watched her now with interest and +surprise at her composure. Katrine's face was unmoved, and her eyes +were dry through it all. + +"Another that gold has killed," she said to him as they turned away, and +her face looked grave and grey in the flood of the cold sunlight. + +Will was not present. He was down at the "Pistol Shot." He had been on a +big drunk for the past two days, not even returning to his cabin at +night, and the body of his wife would have lain unguarded had not +Katrine brought her fur bag and slept beside it each night on the +deserted hearth. Little Tim had been taken in by a neighbour, all the +mothers round seeming anxious for the honour after it was known that +Will had "made his strike." + +They walked in absolute silence for some time up the incline. Talbot was +going back to the west gulch, and Katrine said she would walk a little +of the way in that direction too. The afternoon was bright and clear, +and the air singularly still, so still that the intense cold was hardly +realised. The rays of sunshine struck warmly across the snow banks piled +on each side of the narrow path they were treading. The sky was pale +blue, and the points of the straight larches on the summit of the ridges +cut darkly into it like the points of lances. There was something in the +atmosphere that recalled a day in late autumn in England. They were +nearing the top of the ridge, and both had their gaze bent on the narrow +ascending path before them, when suddenly a tiny object darted into the +middle of it and ran up the opposite bank. On the instant Katrine drew +one of the pistols from her belt and fired. The little dark form rolled +down the bank, dropped back into their path, and lay there motionless. +It was a fine shot, for the tiny moving thing was fully thirty yards +from them and looked hardly the size of a dollar. Talbot glanced at her +with startled admiration. He himself never shot except for food or +other necessity, and wanton killing rather annoyed him than otherwise, +but here the skill and the correctness of wrist and eye were so obvious +that they compelled him to an involuntary admiration. + +"You are a good shot!" he exclaimed, looking at the bright, clear-cut +face beside him, warmed into its warmest tints by the keen air and the +continuous mounting of their steps. + +"But not a good woman," she answered shortly, quickly reading the +thoughts that accompanied his words. She did not look at him, but +straight ahead. + +"You might be both," he said, with a sudden impulse of interest and +regret. + +Katrine laughed. + +"I don't know," she said lightly. "Good women are not usually good +shots. You don't generally find them combined. But any way, what have I +to do with goodness? I don't need it in my business." + +He did not answer, and they walked on in silence till they came up to +the little dark lump in the road. It was a small marmot. Katrine glanced +at it and passed on. Talbot stooped and picked up the scrap of +blood-stained fur. + +"What did you do it for?" he asked curiously. + +"Practice, that's all," she answered. + +"Don't you feel sorry to kill merely for the sake of practice?" + +"No. I should have been sorry if I had wounded it; but it's a good thing +to be dead, I think. I wouldn't have shot unless I had been almost +entirely sure I should kill it." + +There was another silence, and then she said suddenly, "One must keep up +one's practice here, going about as I do in all sorts of places and +making my living as I do. These," and she tapped her pistols, "are my +great protection. Only last night a great brute leaned over me and +wanted to kiss me--would have done, only he saw I should shoot him if he +did." + +"Would you shoot a man for kissing you?" replied Talbot in an astonished +tone, elevating his eyebrows. + +"Yes. Why, I'd rather be shot than kissed!" exclaimed the girl fiercely, +with an angry flush on her smooth cheek. + +Talbot looked at the contemptuous, curling lips, at the whole beautiful +hard face beside him, and walked on in silence, wondering. Her momentary +anger was gone directly, and they were good comrades all the rest of the +way. + +At the point where she stopped to say good-bye to him, she held out her +hand: "Thank you for coming to the burial with me, it was good of you," +and she pressed his hand with a grateful smile. + +It was about a fortnight later on, one of those dreary grey afternoons +of late winter, nearly dark already, though still early by the clock, +and the mercury in the thermometers had gone out of sight and stayed +there. Katrine came tripping along a side street on her way back to the +row, warm in her skin coat, and her face all aglow and abloom under her +fur cap. She had turned into the "Swan and Goose" saloon on her way up, +had put in half-an-hour over a game, and won a fat little canvas bag +stuffed with gold dust; had thinned it out somewhat in hot drinks across +the bar, and now, warmed through with rum, and light-hearted, she was +returning with the bag still well lined in her waist-belt. + +She had recovered from the great shock of Annie's death. Her nature, +though essentially kind, was not of that soft, tender stamp that +receives deep and painful impressions from other's sufferings. She would +exert herself strenuously for another, as she had done for Annie, but +it was not in her nature to sorrow long or deeply for the irrevocable. +There was a certain hardness and philosophy in her temperament that her +life and surroundings and all her experience had tended to develop. And +in Annie's death there was nothing striking or unusually sad in this +corner of the world, so crowded with scenes of suffering, so filled with +pathos of every form. There were women hoping and waiting, and longing +and starving, in every street of the town, she knew; sickness and sorrow +and death looked her in the eyes from some poor face at every corner. +Annie had been but one poor little unit in the crowd of sufferers, but +one example of the misery of the town, the plague-stricken town, the +town stricken with a curse--the curse of the greed of gold. + +Matters had brightened very much in Dawson lately, a new feeling of hope +and fresh life had gone through the town. The weather was less severe, +the days were lengthening, the skies were brighter, the sickness had +died out, and people went about their work looking cheerful again; and +Katrine, freed from her anxieties and nursing, felt her elastic spirits +bound upwards in response to the general brightness of the camp. + +She came along humming behind her closed lips, and then suddenly turning +a corner, stopped dead short with a horrified stare in her eyes. She had +come round by one of the lowest dens in the city. Katrine knew it both +inside and out, for there was no place from hut to hut in Dawson that +she was afraid to enter. The door was standing open. It opened inwards, +and there was a group of men, some inside and some outside, and amongst +them they were forcing into the street a drunken woman. The entry to the +place was beneath the level of the ground, and reached by a few uneven, +miry steps, and up these the unfortunate was blindly stumbling under a +rain of blows, pushes, and curses. She was old, and her hair streamed in +ragged streaks across her bloodshot eyes, her tawdry skirt was long, and +got under her unsteady feet. Just as she had managed to totter to the +topmost step, a young man in the group behind her struck her a heavy +blow between the shoulders. She tripped in the long skirt and trod on +it, tearing it with a ripping sound from the waist, and fell forward, +striking her face on the uneven frozen ground. Katrine sprang forward, +but before she could reach her the woman had staggered to her feet and +turned to face her tormentors, the blood streaming now from her cut +lips, her trembling hands vaguely grasping at her torn skirt and trying +to keep it to her waist. A roar of laughter burst from the men at the +pitiful sight, and then died suddenly as they recognised Katrine. She +stepped in front of the old woman, and faced them with a scorn in her +eyes beyond all words. Then she turned in silence, put her arm round the +helpless creature's waist, and supported her frail, tottering steps over +the slippery, uneven ground. For an instant the men stood abashed and +ashamed, then when the spell of those great fearless, scornful eyes was +removed, their natures reasserted themselves, and a general laugh went +round. + +"Birds of a feather!" shouted one, mockingly, as the two retreating +figures disappeared in the gathering darkness. Katrine heard it, and +winced; but she did not relax the hold of her supporting arm, and by +gentle and repeated questioning managed to elicit from the helpless old +being where she lived. Katrine turned her steps in the given direction, +and drawing out her handkerchief wiped the blood from the old woman's +face, and smoothed her straggling grey hair back behind her ears. When +they reached her cabin at last, Katrine saw that the stove was black +and empty. There was no light of any sort in the place, and the freezing +darkness of the interior chilled her through. She would not leave the +old woman until she had lighted a fire and candle for her and got her to +bed; then, without waiting to listen to the mumbled and incoherent +thanks showered upon her, she went out gently and on to her own place. +She felt in a very serious mood as she made her cup of coffee and cooked +herself a plate of bacon, and then sat down in the red glow of her +well-tended hearth to her solitary meal. + +"Birds of a feather!" that hateful sentence echoed round her, until the +silent walls themselves seemed taunting her. Was she not, after all, +really akin to that old woman, and might she not some day end like her? +What was all her own drinking and card-playing and knocking about in the +saloons to end in? She shivered, and threw a frightened glance round +her. This girl, who would have laughed all sermons, advice, and +admonitions scornfully aside, was almost startled now into a sudden +reformation by the chance object-lesson of this afternoon. She could not +forget it, and in the silence the whole scene rose up vividly before +her. She began to long for Stephen to come and break the silence, and +glanced impatiently at the clock many times. He was coming in to town +that night, she knew. It was a relief such as she had never experienced +when at last he arrived, and she had not her own company only any +longer. + +She was unusually silent all the evening. Stephen did not try to force +her into conversation; he was content to sit on the opposite side of the +hearth and let his eyes rest upon her in silence. She was paler, he +thought, as he watched the orange light from the flames play over the +oval face and throw up its regular lines. She was sitting sideways to +him, gazing absently into the heart of the glowing coals, and her +shadow, formed by the lamp between her and Stephen, fell strongly and +clearly outlined upon the opposite wall. Stephen sat in his corner and +gazed at it through half-closed eyes. He had been working hard all day, +and in the keen, biting air; the warmth and the rest were grateful to +him. The silence in the room had lasted so long that he began to feel +drowsy under the influence of this quiet warmth. He watched the shadow +sleepily, and dreamy fancies floated across his brain. The clean-cut, +delicate profile was magnified to colossal proportions on the blank +wall. So it seemed to Stephen that beautiful presence would dominate his +life, fill in completely the blank of his colourless existence, as the +large shadow filled the wall. Then, as his gaze followed its outlines, +he saw what his eyes had not found before: a huge upright line of shade, +formed by her chair back, ran up beside and mingling with the other +lines. It seemed to curve over towards her shoulder, and then a few +seconds more, and to Stephen's drowsy gaze, the harsh line expanded into +a hideous grotesque figure. Out of those few shades upon the wall there +leaped a picture to his eyes: the girl, and at her side, bending over +her, a hideous devil, a strange vampire, hovering nearer or farther, in +blacker or lighter shades, as the flames in the fire rose and fell. +Stephen watched in a fascinated stupor, and then suddenly, as the light +died down in the grate and the shade leaped out nearer and blacker, he +started to his feet with a sudden exclamation. + +The girl started too, and looked up. "What is it?" she asked. + +Stephen pointed to the wall. Katrine turned, the blaze sprang up on the +hearth, the shadows were gone, the illusion vanished. + +"What is it?" she said again, wonderingly. + +"Oh, nothing--a hideous shape on the wall," stammered Stephen. "I was +watching your shadow, and another seemed to come up and threaten it. +Imagination, I suppose--perhaps I had fallen into a dream," he added +hurriedly, fearing she would laugh at him. + +But Katrine did not laugh: she looked at him gravely and in silence. In +her mind she was pondering a question, hesitating, half fearing to speak +to him, half impelled to, and half held back, and the equal opposite +forces acting on her mind kept her silent. + +Stephen, unused to her present mood, felt perhaps she was annoyed or +wearied, and drew out his watch. It was past ten. + +"I will say good-night," he said, rising. + +Katrine got up too. Her face paled yet more, her bosom rose and fell +quickly. "Take me away from here," she said abruptly and suddenly. + +She had been thinking all the evening how she would approach the subject +with him, and then at last his leave-taking had startled away all her +circuitous phrases and left her only the crudest words at her command to +express her meaning. + +Stephen was startled and confused, but his voice was very tender as he +took her hand in his and said, "I don't understand, dear; what do you +mean?" + +He felt her hand tremble in his. She looked up at him appealingly. Her +eyes seemed frightened and uncertain. She was more womanly at this +moment than she had ever been. To Stephen she was infinitely more +fascinating than she had ever been. Accustomed to her bright, fearless +independence, admire that as he might, in this weakness, whatever its +cause, she was irresistible. + +"Well, I mean," she said, speaking nervously, but with an effort to +control her excitement, "the other day you spoke of our being married, +and I said I couldn't stand a quiet life. Stephen, I will marry you now, +and go anywhere with you. I will be content with any life, any +monotony--only take me from here at once! I loathe this place, this +life." She stopped suddenly, and a wave of crimson blood swept over the +white face. "I want to be taken away," she repeated. + +Stephen looked at her a moment in silence, with a sense of apprehension +and alarm. He could not do as she asked; he was not free--his claim held +him. + +"I don't know quite what you mean," he said, a little stiffly, though he +felt he did know. "It would be quite impossible for me to go away now; +my whole heart's in the work, and I've sunk all I had in it." + +"Yes; and your soul too," said Katrine suddenly, looking at him with +shining eyes and a calm face. "You're a slave now to your gold, the +same as we all are here--a community of slaves," and she laughed. + +Stephen grew red, and looked confused, alarmed, and angry, all at the +same time. + +"Nobody would go now," he said, remonstratingly, "and leave ground like +that. It would be insanity. Ask Talbot, ask anybody if they would." + +"Talbot!" repeated Katrine, scornfully; "he's the worst slave of all; +but then he never preached about his soul, and wanting to reform +people." + +"No one can reform you if you won't reform yourself," replied Stephen, +coldly; and there he spoke the truth. + +"Who was it who has put in our prayer, 'Lead us not into temptation, but +deliver us from evil'? Here I live in temptation: I am always thrown +into evil. If I were not--" Her voice was very quiet, and had a strange +pathetic note in it. It ceased, and then there was silence. + +Stephen felt as if a hand were laid on his lips and crushed down the +voice that kept struggling from his heart. A second more, and then the +girl laughed suddenly. + +"Oh, I was stupid! I did not know what I was saying, did not mean it +anyway. It's quite right for you to stick to your claim and the idea you +started with, and so on. You will make a great success if you do, and +that is all you want!" + +Her tone was jesting and cynical as ever now--the usual hardness had +come back to her face. The moment of submission, of confidence, of +repentance, had passed--a moment when she could have been moved and won +to any life he wished, and he had lost it. He felt it. Yet how could he +have done otherwise? + +"Forget what I said--quite," she added; "and go now. It's getting late, +and I want to get down to the saloons." + +A thrill of horror went through Stephen, as she knew it would. He gazed +at her blankly with a horrible feeling, as if he were murdering +somebody, clutching at his heart. + +"What are you waiting for?" she said, impatiently. "Why don't you hurry +back to your claim?" + +"Katrine ... I--" he stammered, staring at her, but even as he looked a +great wall of gold seemed to rise between them and shut her from him. +"Forgive me," he muttered brokenly; "I can't give it up now." + +"Good-night," said Katrine, and he turned and fumbled for the door +handle and went out. + +When he was gone Katrine turned to her small square of looking-glass +that hung beneath the lamp on the wall. + +"What a fool I was to-night!" she said, looking at the sweet reflection +and smiling lips. + +A few minutes after Stephen had gone, a slight figure, muffled up to the +eyes, slipped out of No. 13 and hurried with quick steps down the +uneven footway of Good Luck Row. + +That night Stephen climbed to his cabin with his head on fire and a +singing in his ears. A terrific struggle was going on in his breast. He +felt the path of duty was clear to him now, and equally that he did not +want to follow it. He had tried to shut his eyes to it; tried to believe +that it was not clear, that he did not know what was right or necessary +to do, and therefore that he might be excused if he did not do it, but +he could close his eyes no longer. They had been dragged open to-night, +and he could not wilfully close them again. As he strode up the narrow +little snow path leading to his cabin he felt that he knew his duty, and +he groaned out aloud in the silent icy night. + +To leave now meant to endanger, perhaps to sacrifice, the million +dollars that he felt in a month or two he could take out of his claim; +and to stay meant to endanger, perhaps to sacrifice, a human soul! A +million dollars, a human soul! These two ideas possessed him. A million +dollars, a human soul! the two thoughts rang alternately through his +brain until it seemed as if voices were crying them out upon the +soundless air. According to his religion, spirits combated for the soul +of man, and it seemed to Stephen that night as he mounted the solitary +path under the far-seeing eyes of the frosty stars above him, that +spirits really fought around him, good and evil, for the victory. "A +million dollars!" shouted the evil ones, "do not throw them away." "A +human soul!" wailed the others, "do not let it fall into evil." His +sensitive, excitable mind trembled before the crisis. His own soul +shuddered and sickened, for he seemed to see the hosts of greed of gold, +and they were stronger than the hosts of light. And Stephen himself now +was badly equipped for the conflict. He felt and recognised with dismay +he had not the strength and the fervour now that had brought him +through former battles. He was as a warrior that has fallen asleep and +awakened to find his arms grown rusty while he has been sleeping. + +Gradually for the last six months the lust for gold had been eating into +his spirituality and destroying it. You cannot serve God and mammon: had +he not entered into the services of mammon, and been held there by the +rich rewards? + +He thought of the rich pans he had been getting out. There was no claim +like his in the camp. There was no man more envied nor considered more +lucky than he. Yes, mammon had paid him well in the six months he had +served it, showered upon him more than God had done in six-and-twenty +years; and here was God's gift, a human soul, a sweet human life, he +could save and make his own--and Stephen groaned again, for he felt that +the gold was dearer to him. How could he have so changed, he wondered. +A year ago he would have laughed at the idea of a million dollars being +a bribe for him to sin. He looked into his heart now and found there was +nothing there but a passion for gold, gold! It was a yellow rust that +had eaten into his Christian's sword. + +Then his thoughts strayed to the girl he had just left, and her bright +fresh face seemed to sway before him as he walked. His excited fancy +painted it upon the snow banks at his side. She was so young, she seemed +so fresh and lovely, it was impossible to think of her as tainted +already with vice and sin. It was only if she were kept in this +snow-bound prison, this mournful land of darkness and suffering, where, +as she said, she had no place nor aim, that she would fall as those +bright meteors were falling now far in the distant darkness. He could be +her deliverer, her saviour, if--if he could. + +In the icy cold of that arctic night, great drops of sweat broke out +hotly on Stephen's forehead as his brain was wrenched to and fro in the +struggle. He tried to bribe even himself, tried to let his thoughts +dwell on his passion for the girl, tried to think of the mere human +sweetness that would go hand in hand with his victory over evil. If he +won that bright clean soul for God, would he not also win that loved +human form for himself? But even the voice of passion was drowned in the +clamour of the greater greed. + +The next morning, as soon as it was light, Stephen went out to his +claims. None of his men had come up to work yet. Stephen stood and +looked over the stretch of ground beneath which he believed his fortunes +lay. A light covering of snow had fallen on it during the night and lay +about a foot deep in one unbroken sheet, not even the mark of a bird's +foot disturbed its blank evenness: the claims looked very cold and +drear in the dull dusky grey light of the dawn under that leaden sky. +But Stephen's heart beat quickly as he gazed upon them. What did it +matter that cold, dreary, surface, when the gold lay glowing underneath! + +Stephen felt as only a man of his sensitive conscience could feel his +defeat of the previous night. His heart, all his better nature was +crushed under a sickening load of mortification, and he sought +desperately to find relief and justification for himself in +contemplating the treasure for whose sake he had accepted it. As in +other circumstances a man would solace himself for all sacrifices by +gazing on the face of a mistress for whom he had relinquished worldly +ambitions, and find excuses for himself in her beauty, telling himself a +hundred times she was worth it all; so Stephen now gazed upon his +claims, for which he had given up his scruples, his principles, his +conscience, and his God, and tried to hug to himself the comfort that +they were worth it. After a few seconds he tramped across the frozen +snow to the line marked out by the banks of gravel where they had been +at work the previous day. + +That evening he could not stay in his cabin, he felt restless and ill at +ease. A nervous sense of anxiety hung over him. He seemed to himself to +be expecting some misfortune. His nerves, weakened by the lonely life he +had been living for the past months, and exhausted by the sleepless +hours of the previous night, kept presenting picture after picture of +possible ills. He looked over both his revolvers, to make sure they were +in good order for defence if he were attacked that night. Then he drew +his fur cap tightly down on his forehead and went out. The stillness of +his own cabin and the clamour of his own thoughts were unbearable. The +night was still and starlit, the air keen and thin as a knife-blade. +Stephen strode along the narrow frosty path, and took the road down into +the town. On his way he passed Talbot's cabin. It was lighted up. The +little window made a square of yellow light in the darkness; the blind +over it was drawn only half-way down. Stephen stepped up over the bank +of frosted snow and looked in. The great fire lighted up the whole of +the small interior, and threw its red light up to the cross logs in the +roof. In the centre of the room, at a table. Talbot sat working. There +were some sheets of paper before him, and he held a pen in his hand with +which he was checking off some figures. His face was turned to the +window; it looked pale and tired, but there was a curious expression of +extreme tranquillity upon it--a settled, serene patience that struck the +onlooker. He sat there working on steadily, motionless, calm as a figure +in stone; and poor Stephen, torn in the struggle of his desires, +slipping into the cold slough of self-condemnation, and burnt with the +fever of greed, groaned aloud as he stood outside. Then he turned from +the window and plunged back through the snow to the path that led to the +town. He wanted to see Katrine, and yet he hated the thought of facing +her after their parting of last night. What must she think of him? With +her quick mental perceptions she would have seen through and through his +miserable mind; seen that the gold had got hold of him, held him now, +and that his boasted religion had no power against it. No, he thought, +he could not face her--he was still some distance from the town; then as +he drew nearer, the unappeasable desire to see her and hear her fresh +bright voice came over him. When he reached Good Luck Row he went +straight to No. 13. He might have saved himself the trouble of his +decisions. Katrine had decided for him whether he should see her that +night or not. The window was dark; he tried the door, it was fastened; +she was evidently not there. A chill ran over Stephen from head to foot, +and then he recognized how much he had really wanted to see her. He +stood outside the door a long time; the row was quiet, there were few +passers. He waited, hoping to see her come up each minute--perhaps she +had only gone out on some errand; but the minutes passed and he grew +cold standing there, still she did not come. At last Stephen moved away +from the door and wandered disconsolately down the row. He went on +mechanically, not heeding where his footsteps took him, and found +suddenly that he had reached the main street down by the river. There +was no darkness nor quiet here, all the stores had their windows wide +open, and the light from them poured out upon the black slippery mass of +ice and melted snow that lay over the frozen ground. The saloons were in +full blast, brilliantly lighted and filled with noisy crowds of miners. +The dance halls, of which there were some dozen along the street, seemed +doing a good business. A shooting gallery that had been fixed up in a +tent was not only filled inside, but a crowd of men and some women were +gathered round the tent entrance, pushing and pressing each other in +their efforts to get in; the glare from the flaming lights inside fell +on their faces, and Stephen glanced eagerly over them to see if Katrine +was amongst them. He passed on, disappointed. There was another tent a +little farther on, where a cheap band was playing, and a board outside +announced in pen-and-ink characters the attraction of a "Catherine Wheel +Dance." The crowd here was even larger, and lights were fixed outside +flaring merrily in the frosty air. Stephen walked on, past the stores +and warehouses, past the noisy crowded saloons, past the brilliant dance +halls and the variety show tents. It was to him all a hideous, tawdry, +glaring mockery of merriment; and on the other side of him was the +sullen blackness of the frozen river. He walked on until he had +outwalked the town front, outwalked the straggling tents, till he had +left the noise, and light, and laughter behind him. When he glanced +round he saw he had nothing but the river and a waste of darkness beside +him. There was an old log in his path; he sat down upon it and looked +back to the mist of light that hung over the town, then his gaze +wandered back disconsolately and rested on the ice-bound river. + +Katrine had passed that day wretchedly too. She had been down idling in +one of the saloons through the afternoon, but the old resorts seemed to +have lost their charm. The old pleasure had gone, and the stimulus would +not come back. The cards looked greasy and dirty and revolted her, and +the drink seemed to turn to carbolic acid in her mouth. She left at +last, and went home to her lonely cabin and flung herself down in the +dark in the chimney corner and tried to sleep, but horrible faces danced +before her, and women with grey hair and wrinkles, with her own face, +stared at her from the walls. + +She was still lying face downwards on the skins, half dozing now after +that long conflict with horrible visions, when a light and very timid +tap came on the door outside. She got up and went straight to it; her +face was flushed and tear-stained, and her hair ruffled and in disorder, +but she never thought to go first to the little square mirror that hung +in the corner to improve her appearance before admitting visitors. As +she threw open the door, the stream of hot light showed Stephen upon the +threshold white as a spectre, chilled almost to death by his vigil at +the river, with a strained smile on his lips and a great hunger in his +eyes. His conscience reproached him: he knew he had not come bravely +with his hands full of the sacrifice, having conquered himself, and +ready to lay down all for her sake; but like a coward, still in the +thrall of his money-lust and yet longing to attain her too, unable to +give her up. He knew all this, and stood timidly as the friendless dogs +will gaze through an open hut-door, wistfully, expecting to be driven +away with blows; but Katrine met him with neither harsh words nor looks, +she just simply put out both her warm hands and drew him in over the +threshold. The welcome, the smile, the warm touch overcame him. + +"Katrine," he muttered suddenly, as she closed the door and barred it, +"if I--if--I gave--up," and then the words died, strangled in his +throat. Katrine held up her hand. + +"Don't begin to talk about anything like that," she said, gently pushing +him down on the chair by the hearth, "till you are warm again. Where +have you been freezing yourself like this?" + +She was busy lighting the lamp and setting her little old blackened +coffee-pot over the flames. Stephen told her of his long lonely tramp by +the river, and watched her with keen eager eyes as she made the coffee +and poured him out a cup. + +"Now drink it all quick," she said imperatively, handing him the boiling +mixture, from which the steam came furiously. + +"It's like the ordeal by fire," answered Stephen, meekly taking the cup. +With a heroic effort he swallowed three parts of it, and colour began to +come back to his face. + +Katrine observed this, and sat down contentedly on the floor in front of +the ambitious fire, that seemed trying to leap up the chimney through +the roof. + +"Stephen," she said very slowly and gently after a minute, "it was +selfish of me to ask you to leave your claims. I've been thinking of it +all day. I won't do it, and I will come and help you work them." + +Stephen felt the room whirl round him as he heard. Was he not in some +rich, warm dream that would dissolve and leave him suddenly? His claims, +those golden claims! and Katrine too--he seemed to see her dressed in +gold, framed in gold, gold in her eyes and hair. Her movement, as she +turned to look at him, brought him back to realities. + +"Do you mean it?" he said, stooping over her and catching her hands +almost roughly in his. She met his feverish eyes with a bright, tranquil +smile. He looked at her keenly for an instant, and involuntarily an +exclamation broke from his lips: "Katrine! it's too much happiness for +any man!" + +Perhaps the gods above, who eye jealously the lives of mortals, here +made a note of this remark in their pocket-books. + +Katrine knitted her brows angrily. "I don't think so," she said. "You +had better hear what sort of girl I am." + +Stephen turned pale, and leaned down over her as she sat on the hearth, +her head against his knees. The cabin was full of the warm red +firelight, that leaped over the walls and up to the rough blackened +rafters above them. It glistened on the silky dark hair beneath his +hand, and fell ruddily over the smooth oval face turned up to him. +Stephen looked down at her and felt content. + +"No, no," he said hastily; "never mind anything in the past; we will +efface it all; we make a fresh start from to-night." He would have +stooped and silenced her with a kiss, but an arrogant look came over her +pale face, and she pushed him back with her hand. + +"No, I don't like that idea. We must have things cleared up and tidy +before we marry. You must know the truth from me, and then you will +know how to meet any one who comes to you with talk about me afterwards; +and they may come, for I'm known in all the saloons of Dawson." + +Stephen shuddered. + +"If they keep to the truth about me, you must just accept it; if they +tell lies, you'll just shoot them." + +Again a cold thrill passed through her lover. To talk of +shooting--taking a human life--murder--as though it were no more than a +snapping of the fingers! His mind flew on a sudden bound of remembrance +back to the little school teacher in the village of Arden, who could not +bear the sight of a rabbit's blood on the trap, and whose quiet days +were spent between the village schoolroom and the village church; yet he +knew he had never loved that little teacher as he loved Katrine, that +she could never rouse him as this woman did whom he believed to be an +epitome of evil, who, as she lay now in the firelight by his feet, +reminded him of the emblem of sin that crept into man's Eden. Yet it was +a pleasure--what pleasure to be near her, to touch that smooth skin! But +what was this pleasure?--was it also evil? What was this passion? His +thoughts flew onward feverishly, and then Katrine's voice struck across +them and brought him back to outer consciousness again. + +"Listen," she was saying, "while I tell you all, and _then_ we can start +afresh, as you say." + +Stephen put his hand over his eyes, and waited in silence. He dreaded +unspeakably what he thought he was going to hear, and with a man's moral +cowardice would have deferred her confession, slurred over and tried to +forget her wrong-doing, rather than hear and forgive it. They had +changed places since he had asked her that morning in his cabin to +confide in him. + +"Well, to begin with," went on her clear, soft voice, "I drink--I like +drinking. You think it wrong to drink anything but water; I like wine +and spirits, anything that excites me, and I can drink with any man in +town. But I have never been drunk, Stephen, you understand that. Then I +like all kinds of gaiety, and like to spend all my time dancing and +laughing, and what your friend Talbot calls 'fooling.' And I gamble," +Katrine paused a second before she said the decisive words, and then +went on rapidly, "oh, Stephen, you don't know, I haven't told you, but I +love the tables. I can sit up all night and play with the boys; I love +excitement, I love the winning and raking in the gold dust. I spend all +my nights playing; it's what I live for in this awful place." + +There was silence, then Katrine's voice broke it again-- + +"Now you think that so wicked, I bet you don't want to marry me now." + +There was a half laugh with a sad ring in it as she looked up to his +covered face. Now Stephen heard, but the words fell on his ears dully; +he was waiting in strained painful tension for what was to come. It was +true he loathed gambling as a hated vice, and but for the apprehension +that gripped his mind her confession so far would have been horrible to +him. Still it was as a Christian that he abhorred these things. What he +expected to hear he would have abhorred as a man and a lover; and the +former abhorrence is considerably milder than the latter. + +"Go on," he said at last, in a stifled voice. + +"There is nothing more," returned Katrine, dejectedly. + +She thought she was being condemned and despised, and to none is that a +cheering feeling. Stephen sat up suddenly, and then bent over, clasping +his hands round her waist, lithe and supple even in her rough clothing, +and drew her up to him. + +"Is there nothing?" he whispered eagerly in her ear. "Have you nothing +more to confess to me?" + +Katrine gave herself up to his embrace, a delicious sense of peace and +protection and warm comfort stealing over her such as she had never +known. + +"Nothing," she murmured, with her soft lips close to his ear and her +silky curls touching his neck. She felt Stephen grasp her close to him, +and a tremor ran through his whole frame. + +"Have you never lain like this in a man's arms before? never felt a kiss +on your lips?" he persisted, holding her to him with a fierce intensity +of growing passion. + +"Never, never," Katrine answered, opening her calm dark eyes and looking +straight up to his. + +Stephen met their gaze for one long second, a proud, tranquil, fearless +look that sunk deep into his soul and poured balm into every wound she +had ever made there. The next moment she felt a torrent of hot kisses on +her face, a pressure that almost stifled her on her breast, a murmur of +"Darling, my darling," and knew nothing very clearly any more except +that she was loved and very happy. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +GOLD-PLATED + + +The next afternoon, when Stephen returned to the west gulch and Talbot +heard his news, he said he was glad, and meant it. Life at the gulch was +very desolate and dreary, and such a bright glad presence as the girl's +would alleviate the monotony and disperse the gloom. + +For the following week both men were busy preparing Stephen's cabin for +her reception and trying to impart to it a bridal appearance. The hands +were left to do the work on the claims, and Talbot and Stephen were too +busy indoors to even oversee them. The cabin was large and well built. +It stood looking across the gulch, and half-way down it, over the tops +of the dark green pines and facing towards the western horizon, where +the pink lights played and the little sundogs gambolled in the fall of +the short grey snowy afternoons. Stephen was down in town once in the +week, and came back with his pony laden with mysterious packages, and +when Talbot came in in the evening he found Stephen on his knees, +tacking down strips of carpet by the bed in the inner room. Narrow +curtains had also been nailed up beside the window, and altogether the +cabin presented a luxurious appearance. + +"This is quite magnificent," remarked Talbot, strolling about with an +admiring air. + +"D'ye think so?" replied Stephen in a pleased tone, lifting a flushed +face from his tacks and sitting back on his boot heels. "She's awfully +handsome, isn't she? Say, it's strange to come to a hole like this and +meet the handsomest girl you've ever seen!" + +"She is very handsome," assented Talbot, sitting down by the stove and +stretching out his frozen feet before it. He was in the other room, but +close to the open door leading into the bedroom, and facing Stephen as +he sat on the floor with the screw of tacks by his side that had been +paid for in gold. + +"And good, too, eh? good at heart, don't you think? Only not exactly +religious, of course," he continued. + +"No, she's not very religious," returned Talbot, with the dry, hard tone +in his voice that his subordinates knew and hated. + +"But it's not every one who says, 'Lord, Lord, that shall enter the +kingdom of heaven,'" quoted Stephen; "you remember, Christ said that," +he pursued in an anxious tone, peering up at the other for +encouragement. + +Talbot gave his slight, quiet laugh. + +"You've got the handsomest girl in the place," he said, "and a very +nice, charming one, too. I don't see what more you want." + +To his strong, determined character this perpetual straining after a +religion that was cast to the winds first at the temptation of gold, and +then at a saloon-keeper's daughter's smile, was rather contemptible. + +"And 'there's more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth,' etc.," +Stephen continued, anxious to persuade himself into a comfortable frame +of mind. + +"Has Miss Poniatovsky repented?" asked Talbot, still more dryly. + +"Why, yes; I told you all she said. She won't gamble any more." + +Talbot was silent; through his mind was running a line of Latin to the +effect that wool once dyed scarlet can never recover its former tint, +but he said nothing. + +It did not take Katrine long to prepare for her wedding. There was no +such thing as buying a trousseau in Dawson. She gathered together her +coarse woollen underclothes, her stout short dresses, and thick boots, +and packed them in two flat cases, such as can be strapped to a burro's +side, and these were to be all she would take up to the cabin in the +gulch besides her wealth of natural beauty. She did go to many of the +stores around, buying trifles such as might happen to find themselves +there and suit her: a small looking-glass here, a ribbon or a piece of +lace there, and as she leaned across the rough trestle counter she +generally remarked to the storekeeper, "I'm going to be married." She +said it in the shyest, happiest tone imaginable, and a little blush +stole over her smooth cheeks. In this way the news got round to +Katrine's old friends and associates. She would have liked to have told +them herself, but the old hunting grounds were forbidden to her now, and +Stephen's wishes made a barrier between her and the entrance of all the +saloons. He had tried to make her give him a solemn promise never to +enter one again, but this Katrine would not do. + +"I can't be tied like that," she had said. "Something might occur to +make it necessary for me to go into one of those places; and if I had +promised you in this way, I could not. You have said you don't wish me +to go; I have said I won't. Isn't that enough?" And Stephen had looked +into the clear dark eyes and had said "Quite." + +The day of Stephen's marriage, the day when Katrine was to arrive as a +bride at the west gulch, was calm and still. There was no wind and no +snow falling. The sky stretched black and gloomy above the plains of +snow; it was a day of the Alaskan winter, but still a good day for that. +Stephen had gone down the previous day, and slept the night in Dawson. +Talbot was waiting at the cabin to receive them on their return. As he +stood at the little window that overlooked the trail, waiting for the +first glimpse of them, and staring across the dismal waste that ran into +grey and dreary mist in the distance, a great revolt stirred in his +usually calm and philosophic breast--a sudden longing swept over him for +the blue skies and warm air of the lands he was accustomed to, and a +wilder longing still for a glimpse of the sunlight held in two eyes that +were fairer than any sky. He shut his teeth hard, and his hand closed +tightly on the window frame. "Only a little longer," he muttered to +himself, and then far in the distance came a soft silvery tinkle of +bells. Recalled to himself, he relaxed his face in a pleasant smile, and +went to the door and opened it. In a second or two they came in sight, +riding single file up the narrow trail, the girl first and Stephen +following. She wore a large skin coat of some shaggy fur which concealed +her figure, though not its splendid upright pose, and on her head was a +small fur cap of some light colour, white fox or rabbit. Beneath showed +her dark glossy hair curling upwards over the brim, and her glowing +face rich and fresh as a Damascus rose. + +Talbot was greatly struck. The realisation of her beauty came home to +him very forcibly in this cold, envious light of open day. "Stephen's +not such a fool, after all," was his inward comment as he went forward +to meet them. As he lifted her from her pony and bade her welcome to the +cabins and the west gulch, she smiled down upon him. What a mysterious, +magic thing human beauty is, and the human smile! It seems to light the +dreariest sky, people the loneliest landscape. Where there is a human +smile to reflect one's own, not even a desert seems desolate, not even a +prison cell seems cold. Talbot felt this very strongly in that moment. +As the warm, bright, laughing, youthful face looked into his, the sun +seemed to have suddenly burst out upon that dreary snowy plain, and as +the two men escorted her over the threshold it seemed to both that they +were throwing open the door not only to her concrete self but to the +abstracts, warmth and light, and gaiety and laughter, and that these all +flowed in with her into the simple rough interior, transforming and +illumining it. + +Katrine was delighted with her new home; she walked about examining +every detail and showing her joy and pleasure in each little trifle that +had been prepared for her. She had a very soft voice and manner when she +chose,--she was too young yet for her gambling, drinking, and rough +associates to have spoiled,--and Stephen stood in the centre of the +room, flushed and silent with the fulness of his pleasure, following her +eagerly with his eyes. After all, in this world of ours, everything +stands in such close relation to its surrounding objects and +circumstances that there is no absoluteness left. Or you may consider it +the other way, that the feelings are absolute and always the same. A +millionaire bridegroom could not receive more pleasure from the +pleasure of his bride when viewing the mansion he had prepared for her, +than Stephen did now from Katrine's approval of his log hut, and her +thanks and smiles were as sweet over a little wooden shelf tacked +against the wall, as if a two thousand dollar chandelier had called them +forth. + +Then Stephen took her arm and drew her into the next room, and here she +was so shy and nervous she could not look about at all. Stephen took off +her cloak and all her outer wraps, and then made her come and see her +reflection in a little square looking-glass that he had obtained for her +at quite a high price; but Katrine could not face the mirror, and hid +her blushing cheeks and downcast eyes on his shoulder instead. Stephen +put his arm round her. "You don't regret what you have done?" he asked +in alarm, pressing her close to him. + +"No, oh no, dear Steve, only it's all so strange; let's go back to the +other room." + +They returned, as she wished, and found that Talbot had laid the dinner +for them,--a dinner he had spent all the morning in preparing,--and they +sat down to it with a gaiety that made up for the shortness of supplies. +After dinner they drew close round the fire and prolonged the roasting +and eating of chestnuts and drinking whisky throughout the +afternoon,--for whisky was there, strongly as Stephen objected to see +her drink it; still it was their wedding day, and he let it pass. As +darkness came down a whirling snow-storm swept through the gulch; they +could see the thin sharp flakes fly past the window on the cutting wind, +and hear the whistling roar of the storm as it struck and beat upon the +cabin. They only flung more logs into the stove, and gave a backward +glance over their shoulders from time to time towards the window. By +nine in the evening, when Talbot was leaving them to go to his own +cabin, it had calmed down a little, though the wind still moaned in the +hollows of the gulch. + +Stephen and Katrine stood at the window a second after he had gone, +looking out into the curious misty whiteness and blackness commingled of +the night. + +"I am sorry there should be such a storm the first day you are here, +darling," said Stephen softly, putting his arm round her waist. + +"Why, what does that matter? I do not mind, I have you to protect me. +You will always now, Steve, won't you, from everything? I don't want +ever to go back to that gambling life again." + +He drew her into his arms. + +"Of course, of course I will," he said, kissing her. "I will always take +care of you." + +Her arms were interlaced about his neck, they looked into each other's +eyes, and neither knew any more whether it was a storm or a calm in the +night outside. + +For the first few weeks after their marriage Katrine was more than +happy, and it seemed to those lonely beings, sheltered from the savage +siege of Nature only by those frail little cabins built by their own +hands on the edge of the snow-filled gulch, that a new life had +blossomed for them suddenly--a perfect spring in winter. The girl's +wonderful health and unfailing spirits were in themselves a delight, and +she was possessed of such a sweet and even temper, that it seemed to +smooth out and round off the hard edges of their rough, comfortless +existence. Nothing seemed to have the power to disturb her, the most +irritating and annoying incident never even brought a frown to her face; +it filled her with consternation for the men, and an immediate desire to +smooth it over for them, if possible to prevent their being ruffled by +it. For herself, she seemed above the reach of any circumstance to +disconcert. One morning the men had an instance of this. They were all +three living together in Stephen's cabin now. That is to say, Talbot +took all his meals there, and used it as his own home in every way, +except that he still went back to his cabin to sleep. It had seemed +cheerless to both Katrine and Stephen for Talbot to be eating alone a +few yards from them, and though it gave the girl more work, and for that +reason Talbot was slow to accept the arrangement, she herself coaxed him +into it. They came in late from the claims to lunch, and found her +bending over the fire, with flushed cheeks and happy eyes. She was +stirring a great saucepan of inviting looking and smelling stew, that +she had spent the whole morning in preparing. The large handle of the +pan projected from the stove some distance, and as Stephen threw off his +overcoat he managed in some way to tip up the saucepan with a sudden +jerk that sent the contents half into the fire, half over the girl's +bare arm, from which her sleeve was rolled to the elbow. She did not +utter a sound as the scalding liquid ran burning over her flesh, but +Talbot saw her face grow deadly pale with the sickening pain. After a +second of agony, when she found her voice, and Stephen was remorsefully +spreading fat over the blistered, cracking flesh, the first thing she +said, with her eyes full of disappointed tears, was, "Oh dear! how +unlucky! Now you won't get anything hot for lunch." And as soon as a +bandage was twisted round her scalded arm, she was over at the cupboard +collecting all the best of her cold supplies and laying them out on the +table. + +There was not a word of anger or reproof to Stephen for his +carelessness, not a word of her own pain. The great sorrow that she was +anxious to smooth over and atone for to them was that they would have to +put up with a cold luncheon! + +Her one idea, the sole thought that occupied her, was to make these two +men happy, at any cost to herself. All day she studied how she could +make their life, so hard and rough smoother for them, how she could +alleviate the labour and monotony of it. She rose in the morning long +before either was awake, and had the fires blazing, wood brought in, +water melted out, and the coffee made by the time they came into the +sitting-room, looking white and sleepy in the flare of the common +candles. All the house work they had formerly found hard, when counted +in addition to their outside labour, she took entirely upon herself, and +insensibly they both felt the relief very great. There was no coming +home now, worn out and frozen, to a cheerless cabin, and being obliged +to chop wood and light fires and split ice before they could get warm +and rested. A glowing hearth, a laid table, a smiling face, always +awaited them. Often coming up from the dump at the lower end of the +claim, they could see the square patch of red light flung out from the +window on the snow, bidding them hurry in to the welcome warmth and +light inside. + +The daylight only lasted them now from ten to two, and for these hours +the men worked out of doors. During their absence the girl went out on +shooting expeditions of her own. She had invented a modified snow-shoe, +broad and short, with slightly curved-up ends, and with these strapped +on to her lithe feet, her fur coat fastened up to her chin, and her fur +cap drawn over her ears and to her brows, she defied the fall of the +mercury, and skimmed over the snow as silently and swiftly as a shadow +moving. + +She enjoyed these long, lonely excursions, with her heart kept warm by +the hope of discovering something she could bring down with her pistol +or her shot-gun, and carry back as a surprise and a treat for the men +for supper. There was not much indeed to be found; but a small breed of +snow-bird was prevalent, and quite a flock of these would very often +follow or precede a snow-storm, and whenever Katrine's keen eye caught +sight of the little dark patch that a cluster of them made against the +snow, she would glide swiftly over in that direction, and have eight or +ten of them swinging at her belt to take home. They were small, but +cooked as she knew how to cook them, they were a delicacy beyond price +to the men who for months had tasted little but beans and hard bacon. +Katrine felt quite happy if she could return through the suddenly +falling gloom of the afternoon and cross the darkened threshold just as +the men came back, half frozen, from the creek, and show her cluster of +victims swinging by their long-necked heads from her waist. + +She thought of them, planned for their comfort, and worked for them all +day; while to her husband she was absolutely devoted, and one would +think that for such devotion a few smiles, a kiss, and some kind words +was a small price to pay. Yet after the first few weeks, and even during +them, Stephen, who worked all day to secure his mining gains, would not +even exert himself to that degree to return the affection that was worth +all his claims put together. One kiss given before he went out to his +work in the morning would have made Katrine happy all day, one tender +inquiry on his return would have amply rewarded her for all her labours, +yet he invariably went out to the claims without bestowing the one, and +returned without making the other. Hard work, privations, loneliness, +even the absence of all the amusements she had delighted in, would not +have broken her spirits; she would have accepted them all cheerfully, if +her husband had only thrown over them the little light and warmth of his +affection that she longed for. Each day she hoped it might be +different; but no, he grew more and more absorbed by the gold fever that +was eating away his heart and brain, and the girl grew more and more +depressed and resentful. "It would be no trouble to him," she murmured +to herself over and over again, as she stood at the wash-tub, wringing +out his shirts, or knelt on the floor of the cabin scrubbing the boards, +"just a kiss or a smile." + +She did not in the meantime relax any of her attention to him. Her smile +for him was always as sweet when he returned, her efforts to please him +as untiring, but in her heart her thoughts turned more and more +constantly day by day to the idea of leaving him, of returning to her +own life, where at least she had not been tormented by this perpetual +hope and expectation and disappointment. + +Stephen never dreamed that the girl's thoughts were as they were; though +if he had done so, he probably would not have altered his own +course--for Katrine in several angry outbursts had appealed to him, had +told him how she hungered after, not great and difficult proofs of his +love, but the little ones, the trifles, how he was starving and killing +her love for him by his neglect of it, and he either could not, or would +not, understand. But that she contemplated ever leaving him never +crossed his brain, any more than the conception of the passionate hate +she felt for him at times when he left undone some trifling thing, that +if done, would have roused an equally passionate access to her love. He, +jaundiced with this mental yellow fever, thought his rich claims, his +great wealth, had probably had some influence on the daughter of the +Polish Jew when she accepted him. He relied, in fact, on his wealth, and +on the material advantages she would gain by clinging to him, to hold +her to him. And with Katrine this was a rope of sand. She cared no more +for Stephen's wealth and for his claims than if they had been ash +heaps. There was not a touch of avarice, of calculating greed, in her +whole character, and to gratify her own impulse she would have cast all +material advantages aside. From Stephen she wanted love, and that only, +and this was the only chain that could hold for an instant her proud, +independent, reckless will. + +There were the makings of a splendid character in the girl, all the +foundations of all the best qualities in her: a little care, a little +culture bestowed on them, and she would have developed into a fine and +noble woman; but Stephen's eyes were blinded by the glare of the gold he +saw in his visions, and the far greater and more wonderful treasure, the +living human soul, that chance had given over to his care, unfolded +itself slowly before him in all its beauty, and he could no longer see +it. To Talbot it seemed incredible that Katrine through her mere +physical beauty did not obtain a greater hold upon him, that she seemed +so unable to absorb him, that she could not triumph over him by the road +of the senses. Talbot himself was absorbed in his work, but even he, the +onlooker, the outsider, felt the influence of this brilliant young +presence that had come suddenly into their sordid life, like the sun +rising in radiant majesty over a barren plain. The common table at which +they sat seemed no longer the same now that she was at the head, with +her beautiful figure rising above it, and her laughing, lovely +nineteen-year-old face looking down it. To him, those liquid flashing +eyes, and arching brows, and curled red lips seemed to light, positively +light, the small and common room. But the eye grows accustomed to beauty +and ceases to heed it, just as it grows accustomed to, and ceases to +heed, ugliness and deformity, especially where there is no standard, no +measure for it, no comparison with other objects. Just as any +shortcoming, any mental or physical defect that a man hardly notices in +a woman he loves, when alone with her, becomes painfully apparent to him +when he sees her surrounded by others, so does her beauty strike him +when reflected in other eyes, and pass unheeded when seen only by his +own. Katrine was alone, there was no other woman's face to either rival +or be a foil to hers, and after the first six weeks her beauty ceased to +sting and surprise Stephen's senses. She, as it were, became the +standard, since there was no other. And there is no absoluteness about +beauty, nor our admiration for it. When we say we admire a woman because +she is beautiful, we mean we admire her because she is more beautiful +than other women. If all others were the same as she, she would cease to +be called a beautiful woman, and if there were none others than she, +then she would simply be a woman for us. We could not know whether she +was beautiful or not. Man's senses are made not to perceive, but to +compare, and he cannot judge except by comparison. Talbot knew all this, +and he could not help feeling sorry that a girl such as this should be +so isolated with them, and that the man who possessed her should realise +his good fortune so little. He suggested often, for the girl's sake, +excursions down into the town; but Stephen, partly from his religious +views, and more from his anxiety not to waste a minute of his literally +golden time, always frowned down the question, and though the girl +looked at him wistfully she never complained against his decisions. She +seemed to have completely accepted the idea that her marriage meant the +renunciation of all the things she had delighted in, and if her marriage +had given her more of what she had hoped for, she would have been +contented with the change. + +One evening, when Stephen was out in the shed at the back of the cabin +stacking up some wood by the light of a candle stuck in a chink of the +logs, Talbot and the girl were sitting idle on each side of the stove, +and somehow, though Talbot seldom opened his lips on such matters, +seldom in his life offered opinion or advice to others, they had now +been speaking of her marriage, and Stephen's attitude towards her. + +There were tears in her great eyes, and her under lip quivered and +turned downwards like a wet rose-leaf. + +"He is so _very_ wrapped up in all this digging business, why did he +want to marry me at all?" she said, in a sort of helpless childish +wonder. + +Talbot was silent, looking at her, and then instead of answering her +question, said-- + +"Why don't you make him notice you more? why can't you appeal to him?" + +"Appeal to him!" she repeated; "it's no use. Why, he is +gold-plated--eyes, ears, touch, everything, all plated over; you can't +reach him through it." + +"Have men nothing like affection in them?" she said, after a minute. +"Have they nothing between their mad bursts of passion and a cold +incivility? What do they do with all the charming ways they have before +they possess a woman? Stephen was so gentle, so nice, so interested, +when he used to visit me down town; and now you see how rude and hateful +he is very often. Why do they change? I have not changed. I am still as +attentive, as eager to please him, more so, than when he came to my +cabin. Oh," she added, after a minute, "I'm getting so tired of it all, +I feel I'd like to throw it all up and go back to my own life and +freedom. All the men are so civil and so nice and so devoted as long as +a woman does nothing for them," she said simply, not fully realising +perhaps the terrible ironical truth she was half-unconsciously uttering. + +"I could love him immensely," she added, stretching out her arms; "oh, +he could have such a love from me, if he wanted it; but as it is, I +don't see much use in my staying with him. I feel I'd like to go back to +my own life and forget I ever married him." + +"Oh, you must not do that," said Talbot, startled out of his usual calm, +and fixing his eyes on her; "pray don't think of such things." + +"Do you think he would care?" she said, opening her eyes in her turn. + +"I'm sure he would," Talbot answered, with so much emphasis and decision +that the girl sat silent and impressed for some seconds. + +"Why is he not more amiable then?" she asked. + +"It's men's way," returned Talbot, not knowing exactly what to say, and +accidentally hitting the truth completely. + +"They're fools," replied Katrine, angrily, while the hot tears fell +thickly into her lap. + +Stephen came in at the moment, and though Katrine made no attempt to +conceal the fact that she was crying, he took no notice of her, but +began talking to Talbot about the wood. + +"We shall have to take the sleigh to-morrow and go up the gulch and get +some more wood somehow, if we can. There's only a few bundles left," he +said, blowing out the candle and dragging some heavy logs over to the +fire. + +"Can I come with you?" asked Katrine, looking at him with her soft +pathetic eyes, still brimming with tears. + +"Why--yes--I suppose so," returned Stephen, slowly opening the stove and +looking in. + +"I shall enjoy it so much," answered Katrine, her face beginning to +sparkle with its accustomed smiles. "We have not had a sleigh ride +together once, have we? I'd like to go with you better than anything. +You'll like it too, won't you?" + +"I don't know; it's a confounded nuisance having to leave the claims a +whole afternoon, I think." + +Katrine got up suddenly from where she was sitting and walked into the +next room without a word. Her tears were dried, her smiles killed. + +The following day was clear and bright, and a cold, pinky-looking winter +sunlight filled the air. Katrine and Stephen started early, and Talbot +did not expect them back till dark. He was out on the claims all the +morning, and came in to his lunch late and did not go out again +immediately. It was a day for a half-holiday, and all his men left +early; the claims were deserted, and Talbot found himself in solitary +possession of the gulch. He felt restless and unsettled, and walked +about his little bare room in an aimless way quite unusual to him, and +the early part of the afternoon had passed away before he realised it. + +In one of his walks he went up to the window and stood looking out. The +gulch always impressed him; it had a solemn melancholy majesty and +desolate grandeur that is not easy to define in words: an icy splendour +by moonlight, and a horrible gloomy beauty towards the fall of the day. +It was at this time that Talbot stood looking out at its rugged edges +and the snow-drifts turning grey as the sunlight left them, and +listening with a sort of mechanical tension to the unbroken and +oppressive stillness round him, when his eye caught sight of a man's +figure, moving slowly towards the house. It had appeared so suddenly +where for hours there had reigned unbroken silence and loneliness, that +Talbot started a little with sheer surprise; and then another appeared, +and another. They were coming, one behind the other, singly, round the +corner of the house, and as they emerged into view on the level platform +in front of it Talbot looked them over and saw at a glance to what order +they belonged. + +"As tough a crowd of claim-jumpers as I have seen," he murmured to +himself as he watched their movements. They did not seem very decided or +certain, nor well agreed amongst themselves. There were six in all, and +they advanced towards the house in a loitering way, pausing once or +twice to talk with each other, and glancing over the cabin. They were +all dressed alike, in large slouch hats, thick boots and high leggings, +and short coats with a belt round the waist, from which depended their +enormous six-shooters. As they finally, in their loitering fashion, +neared the door, Talbot walked to it, threw it wide open, and asked them +what they wanted. They hung back from the door a little and looked at +each other, and then one said he had a lease on the claims from General +Marshall. + +"I am the only person who has power or authority to give a lease on +these claims," returned Talbot in a short, hard voice. + +The men hesitated. Talbot looked pretty tough himself as he stood there +facing them, clothed in buckskin from head to foot, his head nearly +touching the lintel of the doorway above him, his revolver on his side, +and behind him looming the tunnel, a gaping mouth of blackness. + +The men shuffled their feet on the snow and grinned at each other +uneasily. It did not seem they could work the game of bluff here that +they had thought out in the town. + +"Well, that's your opinion," returned the leader in a bantering tone, +while the others closed in nearer the threshold in a jeering circle; +"but a lease from General Marshall's good enough for us, and I guess +we're coming in." + +"You'd better try it," returned Talbot, and he slammed to the heavy door +in their faces, and fastened it on the inside. + +He expected them to force it, and he hastily dragged together some sacks +of rich dirt that were lying in the tunnel and piled them up, forming +quite a respectable barricade. Behind these he took his stand, his +revolver in his hand. With six against one he felt they must win in the +end, but he thought he could put a bullet through half of their number +as they advanced, and he'd sell his claim and his life dear. + +He waited some moments, but nothing happened. There was silence outside, +and after a second or two he stepped back to his sitting-room and looked +out of the window. A council of war was taking place seemingly. The men +had all withdrawn to a little distance, where there was some old tin +piping. They had seated themselves on this, and were now in earnest +conversation. Talbot stood at the window and watched them with a dry +smile. He could tell their talk almost from their expressions and their +gestures. It was one thing to come up and bluff a man out of his +property, and walk in and take it as he walked out; and another to force +a narrow tunnel against the straight, steady fire of a fearless devil +like this. They could overpower him in the end, there was no doubt of +that; but then when they walked in it would be over his dead body, that +was clear, and several others besides him, for he was known to be the +quickest, straightest shot in the district, and could certainly get away +with some of them. It was this part they did not like, for each man felt +he might be the one to be picked off and stretched stiff in the tunnel. +So there was considerable parleying and hesitation amongst them, and +Talbot stood motionless at the window watching them as they sat there, +and noting the length of their six-shooters that dangled down the sides +of their legs. At last there was a concerted movement amongst them: they +got up with one accord, and without another glance at the cabin walked +slowly away across the plateau in front of the house and round the +corner of it towards the town trail, the way they had come. Talbot +watched them disappear in the grey light of the gulch with surprise, and +then drew a deep breath. He hardly knew whether he felt relieved or +disappointed. His blood was up then, and he would have liked to send a +bullet through a few of them. He roamed about restlessly for some time, +and went to the back of the house to a little square window, and from +there watched the last of them mount the trail and disappear from the +gulch. Then all was silence and solitude again, in the swiftly falling +darkness. He turned into his sitting-room, and stirred the fire into a +blaze and lighted up the lamps--his lamps always burned well and +brightly, being kept scientifically clean and trimmed with his own +hands,--then he flung himself into a chair and sat there gazing into the +flames, his revolver beside him on the table. He half expected the men +to return, and his ears remained attentive to the slightest sound +without. But there was nothing, absolute stillness reigned all around +him; not a crackle of the frosted snow nor the fall of a leaf broke the +grave-like silence. + +When the other two came in, he told his afternoon's adventure in the +quietest, simplest way possible, and the fewest words. The girl listened +with flushing cheeks and sparkling eyes. + +"What fun!" she said at last when he had finished, and kicking off her +snow-laden boots as she sat by the stove. "And you held off six men by +the 'power of your eye?' what a convenient eye that is! I don't see +you've any need to carry a six-shooter! I wish they'd come back +to-night, we'd give them something of a reception." + +Talbot laughed, and looked pleased at the praise from her bright young +lips. Stephen only looked anxious. + +That night they sat up rather later than usual, and Katrine was quite in +a pleased state of expectation. No visitors made their appearance, +however, and at last Talbot left to go to his own cabin. + +"Now, if they come in the night," remarked Katrine, laughing, as she +said good-night, "don't slay them all with your eye, mind, but give me a +chance." + +Talbot promised to use his eye mercifully, and Katrine and Stephen put +their lights out and went to bed. + +It seemed to Katrine she had been asleep some time, when she awoke +suddenly and put her hand on her husband's arm. "Steve, I hear steps." + +"Nonsense," murmured Stephen, drowsily; "it's your fancy. Go to sleep." + +But Katrine's ears were like those of a wild animal, quick and not to be +deceived. + +"Go to sleep yourself, if you can," she retorted, and sprang up in the +darkness, found her day clothes, and hustled them on. There was silence +now outside, but Katrine hurried all she could, and then with one +revolver in her belt and one in her hand went into the other room. +Suddenly, and without the slightest warning, there was a crash, a sound +of tearing and splitting wood, and the door was crushed inward, letting +in a blast of icy air. There was pitch darkness within and without. +Katrine answered immediately by two shots fired in succession; there was +a heavy groan, a muttered curse, and some shuffling of feet outside. +Katrine, standing flat against the wall to avoid offering a mark for +wandering shots, chuckled inwardly and waited. A second later a shot +came in return, but the bullet went high. Katrine heard it whizz into +the wood somewhere between the wall and roof. + +She stood motionless, listening. Just in front of her, on the other side +of the room, was the stove, and in this there still glowed an +unextinguished portion of log, making one small spot of blood red in +the surrounding darkness. Katrine fixed her eye on this glowing spot. To +enter farther into the cabin the men must pass between it and her. She +raised one of her revolvers into a line with it. When that spot was +obliterated, she would know, however silently they moved, the enemy had +advanced, and in that second she meant to fire; the stove was high, and +a man passing in front of it would have that red spot in a line with his +heart. + +With her heart beating fast with exultation, and not a tremor in her +steady fingers, she waited motionless as a statue against the wall. She +was not a girl of a cruel nature, but her husband lay behind that slim +partition on her right, and unarmed, for Stephen would never carry a +pistol, and she would have shot unhesitatingly each man in succession +that tried to pass her to him. There seemed to be some talking outside +and a trampling of feet on the broken wood of the door, and then +suddenly the soft red fire spot was eclipsed in the total darkness +around, and on the instant Katrine's finger had pulled the trigger. +There was no groan this time after the shot, only a heavy thud and a +crash as a falling body struck some fire-irons by the stove. The red +spot glowed out of the darkness again and stared Katrine cheerfully in +the eyes. There was a confusion of voices outside: Katrine could hear +the thick oaths and one man apparently enjoining another to come out of +there and have done with the business. Katrine smiled as she heard. She +guessed that the man addressed was the one that lay now between her and +the stove, and his ears were for ever closed. In the same moment she +heard the inner door open, and for an instant Stephen appeared, pale and +in his night clothes and with a flaring candle in his hand. With a +spring like a leopard Katrine had reached him and put her hand over the +flame of the candle, crushing it out beneath her palm. The darkness she +knew was their only shield. By their voices and their footsteps she +could tell the men without numbered not less than four or five. Once let +a light reveal to them that the house was held only by a single girl, +they could overpower her in a few seconds. It was only that horrible +pitchy darkness, out of which those deadly shots came ringing with such +precision and promptness, that filled them with the idea that the cabin +was protected by a body of desperate and straight-shooting miners. It +was the fears of the besiegers now simply that was protecting the +besieged. + +"Go back," she said, with her lips on his ear, "unless you can find a +pistol, and be ready to shoot," and she pushed him within the door +again. + +She stood as before, in an even line with the red bull's-eye of the +stove, and listened; there was still a scraping of feet and muttering +of voices outside, but not so near the door, and she wondered if the +enemy were going round the cabin to attack it from another side. +Suddenly a shot rang out in the stillness outside, then another, and the +ball came through the window behind her and passed over her shoulder; +there seemed to be a rush and stampede towards the door. She turned and +faced it, raising both revolvers, and as she heard the wood of the +fallen door split under the trampling feet, her fingers had almost drawn +the triggers to welcome the incomers, when out of that cold blackness +beyond the door came a slight cough. Katrine's hand dropped to her side, +a sick, cold horror came over her as she realised what she would have +done in the next instant. That was Talbot's cough. One second more of +silence, one more step forward, and her shot would have found his heart. +She reeled where she stood, against the wall, with the sickness of the +thought. She could not shoot again now: he was there outside amongst +them--and Stephen, was he there too, or inside? Talbot, she supposed, +roused by the noise, had come out and attacked them between the two +cabins. Then what she had said to Stephen recurred to her. Suppose he +had searched and found a gun, and should come out from the inner room, +he would not count upon Talbot's presence any more than she had done; he +would naturally shoot at the first who crossed the threshold, as she +herself had done; he would shoot in the dark, by her orders. The +thoughts flashed quicker than lightning through her brain. The horror of +the situation, this uncertainty, this killing blindly in the confusion +and the darkness, was too great to be borne. The danger now was greater +than even the light could bring. She dropped the pistols on to a stool +beside her, drew a match from her pocket, and heedless of the perfect +mark she herself offered now, struck it and held it over her head. In a +second, the body across the hearth, the wrecked door, and two pale faces +looking in at her from the opening, leaped into sight; the enemies, the +living ones, were gone. A pool of blood beyond the threshold, and blood +on the splintered wood, and their dead companion, only remained. For a +moment the three faces, all pale with fear and anxiety, not for +themselves, but for each other, stared nervously into each other's eyes +in silence. Then Katrine broke it with a laugh, and brought down the +match from over her head and put it to the lamp on the table. + +"Oh, you frightened me so," she said, as she turned up the wick and made +it burn, and the men stepped over the door and came in. "I thought I +might kill you." + +She looked up at them both in the lamplight, as if to reassure herself +they were really there alive. + +Talbot laid his six-shooter on the table. + +"You frightened me," he returned, jestingly. "I wouldn't come under that +straight fire of yours for anything. The men outside were easier to deal +with, they got so scared with you shooting in here and me shooting in +their rear; they thought we were a band of a dozen at least." + +"I'd no idea you were there," murmured Katrine, shuddering still, as she +moved from the lamp to the fire, and began drawing the half-burnt logs +together. + +"Stephen climbed out of the back window and came round to me, but the +first shot had already wakened me; I was getting my clothes on when he +came," answered Talbot, walking over to where the dead man lay between +the hearth and the door, and surveying him. "Some of your good work, I +see," he said, after a minute. "This is one of the lot that came up +yesterday afternoon. Tough-looking chap, isn't he? Well, you see I did +not kill them all. I gave you the chance you asked for," he added, +looking at her with admiring eyes. + +"And haven't I made the most of it?" she returned, lifting her flushed +face, sparkling with smiles, from the fire. + +Stephen had crept in, pale-faced as the corpse itself, and stood now +staring at it in a dumb horror. He could not understand how Talbot and +his wife could laugh and jest with that terrible object lying motionless +between them. Had the danger and excitement turned her brain, he +wondered, and looked at her apprehensively, but Katrine gave no sign of +mental or physical collapse. She looked smiling and well pleased with +herself, and was stirring the fire and settling the coffee-pot over the +flames as if nothing the least startling or disconcerting had occurred, +as if no cold body was lying stretched there by the threshold. Stephen, +reassured for her, let his eyes travel to the corpse, and then, with a +sort of groan of horror, sank back on a chair with his face covered in +his hands. Katrine looked up quickly from the fire, and then went over +to him, putting an arm softly round his neck. + +"What is it, Steve, dear? you weren't hurt, were you?" + +"Oh, to have killed him! to have killed a man, how horrible!" muttered +Stephen, without lifting his head. + +Katrine looked amazed. "Well, but he would have killed us if he could," +she answered. "You kill a mosquito if it annoys you, and that's right. +You only kill a man if he tries to kill you, that's quite fair." + +"But a murderer!" and Stephen shuddered. She felt the shiver of horror +under her hand. + +"Isn't it better to be a murderer than murdered?" she asked, with a +little smile, feeling she had an unanswerable argument. + +"Murdered, your body is killed, murderer, your soul," came back in the +same stifled voice. + +Katrine was silent. She was thinking what a nuisance it was to have a +soul that needed so much looking after, never seemed to do any good, and +was always obtruding itself and spoiling your best moments of fun in +this life. + +"We'll take him away," she said softly, after a minute, noticing that +Stephen kept his fingers closely locked over his eyes, as if to shut out +some fearful sight. "Talbot, let's take him out," she said to their +companion, who stood with his back to the fire watching them. Stephen +made no sign. + +Talbot and the girl walked over to the body. It was stiffening rapidly, +and the wide-open eyes glared up glassily to the black rafters of the +cabin. + +"Might this be useful?" said Talbot, stooping over the man and half +drawing the second large revolver from his belt. + +"No, take nothing," answered Katrine, hastily; "we want nothing." + +Talbot let the weapon slide back to its place, and they both bent down +and lifted the corpse between them. Talbot walked backwards over the +cabin door behind him. It was dark outside--a thick, pitchy darkness, +with only a grey glare close to the ground from the snow. + +"Let's take him to the gulch," whispered Katrine, "and send him down it; +it will worry Stephen so if he sees him again." + +It was only a few yards to the edge of the ravine; they moved towards it +cautiously and stopped upon the brink. + +"Are you ready?" Talbot asked in a low tone, and Katrine whispered back +"Yes." There was a heavy thud, then a soft rolling sound, and then +silence, as the drift snow in the bottom of the gulch received and +closed over its gift. They waited a second, then Talbot stretched out +his hand towards her, found her arm in the darkness, and they both +walked back together. + +"It's a pity Steve is so sensitive," said Katrine, plaintively. "I just +saved him, and his house, and his precious gold, and everything, +to-night, and he does not like me a bit for it." + +"I think you are a very brave little girl," said Talbot, softly. + +"Do you?" returned Katrine, in a pleased voice; and Talbot felt that she +turned her face and looked up at him in the darkness. "Steve and I don't +fit very well, do we?" she added, with a sigh; "and he does not fit this +life. Somehow, I don't believe we shall ever leave this place alive--I +have a presentiment we shan't. You will--you'll make a success and go +back; but we shan't." + +Talbot did not answer, as they were at the cabin. + +Stephen met them at the door as they came in, with a white stricken +face. "Where have you put it?" he asked in an awed, trembling whisper. + +"Down the gulch," replied Katrine, composedly. "Now, Steve, you're not +to worry about it any more--it was a necessity." + +She glanced round the room and saw that Stephen had been too much shaken +to think of putting it in order. The coffee-pot stood where she had left +it, and the coffee was boiling over and wasting itself in the fire. She +ran to it, took it off, and began pouring it into the cups on the table; +as she did so the men noticed blood dripping from her wrist into one of +the saucers. + +"Oh, yes," she said indifferently, in answer to Stephen's startled +exclamation, "I thought I felt my sleeve getting very damp and sticky; +there's a graze on the shoulder, I think, and the blood has been +crawling slowly down my arm, tickling me horribly. Let's see how it +looks!" + +She unfastened her bodice and took it off, seemingly unconscious of +Talbot's presence. He stood silently by the hearth watching her, and +thought, as he saw her bare white arms and full, strong white neck, how +well she would look in a London ball-room. Stephen, all nervous anxiety, +was examining her shoulder. A bullet had gone over it, leaving a furrow +in the flesh, where the blood welled up slowly. Katrine turned her head +aside and regarded it out of one eye, as a bird does. Stephen bent over +her and kissed her, murmuring incoherent words of remorseful sorrow. +Katrine flung her arms round him and laughed. + +"Why, I am delighted! it's been quite worth it, the fun we've had +to-night. That's all right--it will be healed in a couple of days; just +tie it up with your handkerchief." + +It was an easy place to bind, by passing the bandage under the arm, and +this, by Katrine's directions, Stephen did, with trembling fingers. +Talbot had turned away from them, and occupied himself by fixing up the +door and stuffing the chinks where the wood had broken. When this was +done and the bandaging finished, Stephen brought a shawl from the other +room and wrapped it round the girl's shoulders, and they all drew in +round the fire in a close circle with their cups in their hands. + +Their common danger and the sudden realisation of how much they were, +each of this lonely trio, to the other; how easily any one of them might +have been taken from the circle that night, and how irreparable would +have been the loss, drew them all closely together as they had never +been before--that delicious chord of sweet human sympathy that lies deep +down, but ever present, in the human breast, vibrated strongly in their +hearts, and they sat round the cheery blaze, talking and laughing +softly, and looking at one another, and then smiling as their eyes met, +for mere lightheartedness. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +MAMMON'S PAY + + +This little excitement quite delighted and pleased Katrine. She had +spoken just the truth when she said she wished something like it would +happen every day; and the only thing that spoilt the fun of it was +Stephen's dejection and the persistently depressed way he looked and +felt over it. After a day or two the pleasant sense of life having +something worth living for passed away again, and the time seemed +heavier and slower than ever. Day followed day in a dreadful monotony, +and the girl visibly lost health and spirits. She changed a good deal, +and both men noticed it. She lost her wonderful sweetness and evenness +of temper and her bright smiles, and became fretful and irritable, +discontented, and sharp in her replies. In the long winter mornings now +she would not spring up in the early darkness as formerly, but try to +fall asleep again after waking, and put her arm across Stephen and tell +him there was no use of getting up, that the day was long enough anyway, +and it was too dark to do anything; and then she would abuse him if he +insisted on getting up in spite of her, and let the breakfast wait so +long, that after a time the men drifted into the habit of having it +alone, and going out without seeing her. Katrine had grown to hate the +day, to hate every minute in fact when she was not sleeping, and to try +to make the night last as long as possible. Stephen noticed all this, +and spoke to Talbot about it in distress. Talbot merely said, "Perhaps +it's her health; you'd better ask her." Stephen did so, and found there +was a reason for her apparent illness, which delighted and consoled him; +but when Katrine flew into a passion, declared it was detestable, that +it would take away her freedom and her power to ride and enjoy herself, +Stephen was shocked and grieved, and said he was disappointed in her; +whereupon Katrine replied she hated him, and Stephen quoted scripture +texts to her till she ran out of the cabin and rushed across to Talbot's +in a passion of sobs and tears. At least, she knew he would not quote +texts to her. Talbot did all he could to smooth out matters between the +two, and after that Katrine spoke very little; she took refuge in a +dejected silence, and grew paler each day. It was only when the men had +gone out to work, and she was left alone with a great pile of things to +mend, work which she hated, that she would go to the door and stand +looking out over the grey waste under the snow-filled lowering sky, with +the tears rolling silently down her checks. From where she stood she +could see, through the greyish air, the men working far down at the +other end of the claims, and the long line of trenches and the banks of +frozen gravel; sometimes, in the light fog, made of the tiny sharp +snow-flakes, sifting through the air, they would look misty, like ghosts +or shadows; and sometimes the dulled click and scrape of the spades +would reach her. + +"Slaves, slaves, just like slaves," she would think, watching the +muffled-up figures continually bending over their work; "and they're +digging graves, graves." And she would think of Annie, and the grave +Will had been digging for her while he dug for gold. A red sun, dull as +copper, hung above them, and sometimes the great Northern Lights would +send up a red flame behind the horizon; and to Katrine it seemed like a +blood-covered sword held up by Nature to warn them off a land not fit +for men. One afternoon, when the sun looked more sullen and the sky more +threatening than ever, and the men moving at the end of the claim +looked no more than mere blots in the cold mist, she stood watching the +steady red blade shoot up in the ashen sky, and began comparing its +colour to other things. "It's as red," she said to herself softly, "as +Hearts and Diamonds;" and then her thought wandered to the cards +themselves, and she thought of the hot saloons at nights crowded with +faces, and the tobacco smoke in the air, and the jabber of voices, and +the laughter of the miners, and their oaths and jokes and stories, and +their friendly ways to her, and the admiration on their rough and +sometimes honest faces, and the long tables and the spat, spat of the +falling cards as they were dealt, and the chink of the glasses and the +hot spirits burning your throat, and then the feeling of jollity, and +then the warmth and life and cheeriness of it all. Her eyes brightened +and her chest heaved a little as she leaned against the lintel. If she +could have one night of it again! And here, what would it be when the +men came back? Supper, and then Talbot and Stephen talking of their +work, and the probable value of the claims, and the pans they could +make, and what the dirt would run to, and then dismissing the whole +subject as impossible to decide till the spring came and they could wash +the gravel, and then having so dismissed it, they would fall to +speculating again what the spring would show them the dirt was worth, +and so on all over again from the beginning. Oh, she had heard it so +often, nothing, nothing but the same topic night after night, and after +that, cups of coffee, of which she was sick, or water, and then reading +a chapter of the Testament, and then going to bed, and Stephen too dead +tired to give her a good-night kiss. If they had had a game of cards in +the evening now, all together, and become interested in that and +forgotten to talk of their claims, and some good whisky after it, or +cleared out one of the cabins and had a dance there with some of the +hands who lived near, and a man to whistle tunes for them if there was +no other orchestra; but no! Stephen thought that cards were wrong and +wouldn't have them in his house, and whisky too, and dancing worst of +all, and only the sin of avarice and the lust of gold was to be connived +at there. As she stood there, the thought slipped into her mind quite +suddenly, so suddenly that it surprised herself, "Why not go down to +town and have a good time as she used?" Her heart beat quickly, and the +old colour came into her cheek. She glanced at the dull, coppery sun +growing dimmer and dimmer behind the thickening snow fog, and the pink +light flickering on the horizon, at the dim figures of the men and the +grey wastes on every side. There was a thick silence, broken only by a +faint far-off click of a shovel from the trenches. There would be +half-an-hour's more daylight, half-an-hour before the men returned to +miss her. She would get a good start anyway. She turned into the cabin +again, her face aglow and her eyes sparkling. She knew that Stephen +would be fearfully angry with her--she had not been once to the town +since her marriage--but she had a stronger nature than Stephen's, and +felt no fear of his anger. + +"He thinks I am a reformed character," she muttered contemptuously to +herself, as she put on her thick rubber boots. "Well, I told him there +was only one chance to reform me, and that was to take me away from +here, and he wouldn't do it." + +She built up the fire in an enormous bank, and left the men's slippers +and dry socks beside it. Then she slipped into her long skin coat, and +crushed the fur cap down on her eyebrows and pulled it over her ears. As +she went out she took a long look at the claims--the men were still busy +there. "Slaves," she muttered. She closed the door with a sharp snap and +left the key hanging on it, as was usual when she was inside. Then she +turned her face to the town trail, and set off at a long steady stride +through the dead silent air. The town was within easy walking distance +for her, and though it would be dark before she reached it, that +mattered very little, her eyes were strong and almost as good as a wild +cat's in the dark. On every hand the sky seemed to hang low and +threatening over the earth, and the air had the grip of iron in it, but +Katrine pushed on at the same even pace without even an apprehensive +glance round. Her spirits rose as she walked. She felt the old sense of +gladness in her youth and strength and health, and in her freedom, and +she bounded along over the hard, glittering snow, full of a mere +irresponsible animal pleasure, such as moves the young chamois in his +bounds from rock to rock. Darkness had come like a blot upon the earth +before she had done half the distance, but now she had the twinkling +lights and the reddish haze of Dawson before her. Her own eyes +brightened as she caught sight of them, and she hastened her steps. By +the time night had fairly settled down she came into the side streets of +the town. Dawson is an all-night town, and things were in full +blast--saloons, shooting-galleries, dance-halls, and dog-fights going on +just as usual. She noted with satisfaction that nothing seemed to have +altered a little bit since she saw it last, and as she turned into Good +Luck Row, to walk down it for old acquaintance' sake, a big, +disreputable old yellow dog she had fed through last winter, came +bounding up and leaped all over her in delighted recognition. Katrine +was pleased at this welcome, and spent quite a time at the corner with +him, asking how many dog-fights he had had lately, and being answered +with short triumphant barks that she took to mean he had demolished all +the small dogs of that quarter. Then she went on and passed her own +former house, and saw to her surprise it was vacant, and so was Annie's +next it. That looked as if Dawson was not pressed for space. As she was +turning out of the row she saw ahead of her another old acquaintance, +this was a human one, and Katrine felt as if she had quite slipped back +into her own life as she hailed him. + +"Sam!" she called gently. "Hello, Sam!" + +The miner turned, and as soon as he saw her a broad, genial smile +overspread his countenance and stretched his mouth from one edge of his +fur ear-flaps to the other. + +"Why, Kate, you down here again; you've cut the parson fellow, eh?" + +"Oh, no," said Katrine hastily, reddening a little; "I'm just in town +for a day or so. How's your wife?" + +"Well," answered Sam slowly, as he put himself at her side and slouched +heavily along the side-walk with her. "She's all right--leastways I +reckon she ought to be; she's in 'eaven now." + +"Oh, Sam!" said Katrine, in a shocked voice, "is she dead? How did she +die? when?" + +"Why, I reckon it was the cold like, she kind of froze to death. When I +got home one night the fire was out, and she was just laying acrost the +hearth; the room was awful cold, and there warn't no food neither--I +'spect that helped it. I'd bin away three or four days, and the food +give out quicker than I thought, and the firin'. I arst a doctor here +wot it was, and he said it was sincough or sumthin'." + +"Syncope?" suggested Katrine. + +"Yes, that's what 'e said; but I sez it was just the cold a ketchin' of +her heart like, and stopping it." + +"What were you doing?" asked Katrine. + +"Why, I was out arter gold, o' course." + +Katrine shivered. They passed the "Sally White" at that moment, with +its flaring lights and noise of merriment within. + +"Let's go in, Sam, and get a drink. Your tale has pretty near frozen +me." + +They turned in, and as Katrine pushed open the door there was a shout of +recognition and welcome from the men round the bar. The door fell to +behind them, shutting out the icy night. + + * * * * * + +When the light failed, and the night had come down on the claims like a +black curtain let fall suddenly, the men left the ground, and stiff with +cold, their muscles almost rigid, plodded slowly and silently back to +the cabin. The hired men dispersed in different directions, some going +down town and some to their cabins near. When Stephen and Talbot entered +they found the fire leaping and crackling as if it had just been tended, +and both men sat down to change their boots in the outer room. The door +into the bedroom was shut, and they supposed Katrine was within. They +were too tired and frozen to speak, and not a word was exchanged between +them. After a time Stephen got up and went into the inner room; there +was no light in it, and the door swung to behind him. Talbot, with a +white drawn face, leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. + +When Stephen entered he thought Katrine was probably asleep upon the +bed, and crossed the room to find a light. When the match was struck and +a candle lighted, he stared round stupidly--the room was empty. He +looked at the bed, Katrine was not there; then his eyes caught a little +square of white paper pinned on to the red blanket. He went up to it, +unpinned it slowly, and read it with trembling fingers. Talbot, waiting +in the other room, hungry and thirsty, got up after a time and began to +lay the supper. This done, he made the coffee, and when that was ready +and still Stephen had not reappeared, he rapped at the door. There +seemed a muffled sound from within, and Talbot pushed the door a little +open. Inside, he saw Stephen sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at +the paper in his hand. + +"What's the matter?" said Talbot. + +Stephen handed him the paper in a blank silence, and Talbot took it and +held it near the candle. This is what he read:-- + +"I have gone down to the town to get a little change and to relieve the +dreadful monotony of this life. Don't follow me; just leave me alone, +and I'll come back in a day or two. There's no need to be anxious. You +know I can take care of myself." + +Talbot laughed quietly, and walked back into the sitting-room. + +"Well, she gives you good advice," he said; "I should follow it. Let her +have a day or two to herself--a day or two of liberty. She'll come back +at the end all the better for it." + +Stephen followed him into the firelight; his face was the colour of wood +ash, and his eyes looked haggard and terrified. With all his faults he +really loved his wife, in his own narrow, limited, selfish way, +intensely. + +"Oh, Talbot! to think she's gone back to it all! How awful!" + +Talbot gave a gesture of impatience. He understood the girl so much +better than Stephen ever had that his methods seemed unreasonably +foolish to him. And now he was excessively tired and cold and hungry, +and his supper seemed of more importance than a world full of injured +husbands. + +"You can't wonder at it, old man," he said. "This life must be +intolerable for a girl like that." + +"Why? how?" questioned Stephen, blankly. + +"Oh, so quiet; no excitement." + +"But women ought to like quiet, and excitement's sinful," returned +Stephen hotly, becoming the Low Church missionary school-teacher at +once. + +Talbot merely laughed and shrugged his shoulders, but his laugh was not +friendly, and there was an angry light in his eyes. + +"What am I to do?" asked Stephen mechanically, still standing, the +pallor and the horror of his face growing each minute. + +"I've told you. Let her have the few days' enjoyment she asks for; then +her heart will reproach her, and she will come back to you." + +"But she might think me indifferent," murmured Stephen, his voice almost +choked in his throat. + +"I shouldn't leave her long. If she does not return the day after +to-morrow, then you might go; but if you go now and attempt to force her +back, you'll probably make a mess of it." + +"But think--my wife--" + +"That's all right," returned Talbot, looking at him and understanding +what he was thinking of. "In one way, at least, you know she is a good +girl. She will only gamble a little and drink and get very jolly, and +she'll come back to you in a day or two with no harm done--what are you +doing?" he broke off suddenly, as Stephen began to tear off his slippers +and socks and get his thick wet boots on. + +"I'm going after her," he said sullenly, in a thick voice, "to bring her +back home here--alive or dead." + +"It will be dead probably, and you'll be exceedingly sorry," returned +Talbot in a cutting tone. + +Stephen made no answer, but continued fastening his boots. + +"You'd better have your supper before you go out again," remarked +Talbot, sarcastically. + +Stephen made no reply. When he had his boots on he put an extra +comforter inside his fur collar, put his cap on, and walked over to the +door. There he hesitated and looked back. Talbot sat unmoved by the +fire, his profile to the door. Stephen stood for an instant, then came +back to the hearth. + +"Talbot!" he said, standing in front of him. + +The other looked up. "Well?" + +"Come with me. Help me to find her and bring her back." + +Talbot compressed his lips. + +"Aren't you capable of managing your own 'wife yourself?" he asked. + +"You have so much influence with her," said Stephen, pleadingly. + +"I suppose I only have that influence because I am not quite a fool," +returned Talbot angrily, commencing to pull off his slippers. + +He was angry with Stephen, and feeling excessively wearied and +disinclined for further effort. He hated to turn out again, and his +whole physical system was craving for food and rest. But he was not the +man to resist an appeal in which he saw another's whole soul was +thrown, and angry and annoyed as he was with Stephen, he still disliked +the idea of letting his friend go out alone in the Arctic night on such +an errand. It seemed to him supremely ridiculous for Stephen to have to +call in another man's aid in these personal matters, but then he was +more than twice Stephen's age, and had got into the habit of making +excuses for him. So, tired and exhausted though he was, he dragged on +his frozen boots again, and prepared to accompany Stephen. + +"You'd better have some of this first," he said, pouring out a cup of +the coffee he had made, which stood ready on the stove. + +They each took a cup standing, and then turned out of the cabin, locking +the door behind them. The atmosphere and aspect, the whole face of the +night, had changed since the girl started. The fog had lifted itself and +rolled away somewhere in the darkness. The air was now clear and keen +as the edge of steel. The stars were of a piercing brilliance, and all +along the black horizon flickered and leaped a faint rosy light. The two +men, stiff, tired, and aching, took much longer to accomplish the +distance than the girl had done with her light, eager feet, and when +they got down to the town the night was well on its way. At the bottom +of Good Luck Row, which is, as explained already, one of the first +streets you come to, on the edge of the town, they halted and took +counsel as to where they would be most likely to find the object of +their search. + +"Perhaps she's gone up to the 'Pistol Shot,'" suggested Stephen. "We'd +better go up to old Poniatovsky." + +"She hasn't come down to see her father, I should imagine," remarked +Talbot, in his dryest tone. + +But Stephen persisted she might be there, and so they tramped straight +across towards the main street and turned into the "Pistol Shot." They +pushed their way unheeded through the idle, lounging, gossiping crowd +within, found their way behind the bar, and asked for Poniatovsky. The +little Pole came out of his back parlour and met them in the passage. He +listened to their story, his long pipe in one hand, his mouth open, and +his own vile whisky obscuring and clouding his brain. + +"Wot! she haf run away?" he exclaimed, as Stephen paused; "and who is de +cause? Is it this shentleman here?" and he stared up at Talbot's slight, +tall figure, imposing in its furs, and at the finely-cut, determined +features that presented such a contrast to Stephen's weak boyish face. + +"No, no," said the latter angrily; "she hasn't run away at all. She has +only come down here for an hour or so. I thought she might have come +here to see you." + +"No," replied the Pole deprecatingly, shrugging his shoulders and +spreading out his hands, "I haf not seen her. If she come here, I shut +the door upon her. I say, 'I vil haf no runaway wives here.' My fren, +before you vos marrit did not I say, a truant daughter make a truant +wife. She haf left me first, now she haf left you." + +He had taken Stephen by the front of his coat, and was pushing in his +words by the aid of a dirty forefinger. + +Talbot abandoned Stephen to argue the matter out with his drunken +father-in-law, and strolled back through the passage, through the +bar-room, and then stood, with his gloved hands deep in his fur-lined +pockets, at the saloon door, looking up and down the street. Presently +one of the wrecks of the night came drifting by, a girl of nineteen or +so, with her cheeks blue and pinched in the terrible cold under their +coat of coarse paint. He signalled to her, and she drifted across to +him, and stood, with her hands thrust up her sleeves, in the light from +the "Pistol Shot." + +"I expect you've seen the inside of most of the drinking-houses +to-night," he said, speaking in a kind voice, for the pitiful, cold face +of the girl touched him; "have you seen anything of Katrine Poniatovsky, +a girl who used to live here?" + +"Wot's she like?" the girl asked sullenly. She was so hoarse that she +could hardly make the words audible. + +"A tall girl, dark, and very handsome." + +"Yes, I seed her, not more'n an hour ago, in the 'Cock-pit.' She's +a-makin' more money in there than I can make if I walk all night. Curse +her! She sits there, and the devil sits behind her, a-playing for her, I +know; but she'd better look out--you don't play with that partner long." + +"The 'Cock-pit.' That's on the other side, isn't it, away from the +river?" Talbot's heart sank a little as he recognized the name of the +worst den for gambling in the whole town. + +"Go down here, and turn to your left. Any one will tell you where the +'Cock-pit' is," said the girl, with a hollow laugh. + +Then she lingered in the light, and looked at Talbot wistfully. He put +some money into her hand. "Go into the warmth," he said kindly, "and get +yourself something." + +Then he turned back into the saloon to find Stephen. He met him, having +broken away at last from the fatherly advice of the Pole, and brushing +the front of his coat down with his hand. He was very flushed and angry. + +"You'd better waste no more time," remarked Talbot, calmly. "She is down +at the 'Cock-pit,' playing." + +Stephen gasped. "How did you find out that?" he asked. + +"I've just been told by one of the habitues. Come along at once." Both +the men went out, and Talbot, following the girl's directions, marched +on decidedly, scarcely noticing Stephen's questions, which he could not +answer. + +"I don't know," he said, for the fiftieth time, to Stephen's last absurd +query as to how long she had been there. + +The houses became poorer and shabbier as they walked. Even in log-cabins +there is a great difference marked between the respectable and the +disreputable. And the figures that passed them from time to time, though +more rarely here in this quarter, looked of the toughest, most +cut-throat class. + +"How can she like to come here alone?" exclaimed Stephen, with a +shudder. "I wonder she is not afraid. I'm surprised she has not come to +some harm long ago." + +Talbot smiled to himself inside his fur collar and said nothing. The +girl's absolute fearlessness was the point which he admired most in her +character, and the immunity from danger seemed in her case, as in +others, the natural accompaniment of it. Fortune is said to favour the +brave. Misfortune certainly seems to spare them. + +"I think this is the place," said Talbot at last, and they stopped +before a large, but old and dirty-looking cabin. It was sunk beneath the +usual level of the ground, and reached by some crooked, slippery steps. +At the foot of these steps was a sort of yard, which you had to cross +before reaching the cabin door itself. What was in the yard, or what its +condition was, it was too dark to see, but a sickening smell came from +it as the men descended the steps, and the ground seemed slippery or +miry in places above the frozen snow. The windows of the cabin in front +gave out no light whatever, but that there was light inside, and very +bright light, was evidenced by that which burst through the chinks all +over it. + +"I shouldn't wonder if I stumbled over a corpse next," muttered Talbot, +as he slipped and almost fell in the darkness on a slimy something under +his feet that reminded him of blood. They got up to the door and tried +the latch. It would not yield; then they thumped on it with their gloved +fists. + +The latch was drawn back by some hand inside, and the door opened just +wide enough to admit them, and was pushed to again. Stephen and Talbot +found themselves in a crowd of loiterers inside the door, who apparently +took no notice of them beyond a sodden stare. + +It was a long, low room that they entered, so low that it seemed to +Talbot the ceiling was almost upon their heads. The atmosphere was +stifling, evil-smelling beyond endurance, and so clouded with tobacco +smoke that they could not see the farther end. + +A long table covered with green cloth took up the centre of the room, +and all round the walls were ranged smaller ones. The place was full +when the two men entered, all space at the centre table was occupied, +the side tables were filled, and men standing up between blocked the way +up the room. The windows at the end were barred and shuttered, not a +breath of outer air could enter. The cheap lamps nailed at intervals +along the grimy walls were mostly black and smoking, adding their acrid +fumes to the thick atmosphere. There were very few women present, some +painted, worn, unhappy-looking creatures, hovering like restless +phantoms round the tables where the thickest crowds were, that seemed +all. Stephen looked round on every side with haggard face and anxious +eyes. She was nowhere near the door, and after a hurried survey of all +those lower tables they forced and pressed and pushed their way towards +the other end. At last they caught sight of her. She was sitting at a +small table, with her face turned towards the room, intent upon the +game. Her cheeks were flushed with excitement. She had flung her fur cap +aside, and her ruffled black hair lay loose upon her forehead. The +collar of her bodice was open and turned back a little from her round +white neck. She looked, with her soft young face, like a fresh flower +dropped by chance into this evil, tainted den. Talbot gave her a keen +scrutiny as they approached, and understood Stephen's infatuation. As +for Stephen himself, his heart went out to her, and he was filled with a +bitter self-reproach and sudden resolutions. His love and his darling! +How could he have let her be found here! His claims and his gold, they +might all go. He would take her away in safety at once. He would not +hesitate again. + +When they reached the table they saw there was a large stake on the +cloth between the two players. Her companion was a youngish man, +seemingly a miner, dressed in the roughest clothes. Neither looked up +till both men were close by them and between them and the lights. Then +Katrine raised her eyes and started violently as she recognised them. +Her face flushed deeper, and her eyebrows contracted with annoyance. +Stephen went round to the back of her chair and laid his hand on her +shoulder. + +"Come away; oh pray, come away," he said, in an imploring tone. It was +all he seemed able to articulate. + +"I'm just in the middle of a game," she answered petulantly. "You +mustn't interrupt me." + +"But it isn't safe for you to be here." + +"Stuff! I used to be here every night before I married you!" + +A death-like pallor overspread the man's face as he heard. He could not +believe her, could not realise it. Had she indeed been here night after +night? + +"Why do you come here and interfere?" she continued pettishly, looking +up from Talbot to his companion. "I always have such luck, and I'm +likely to lose it if you worry me." + +The young miner sat back in his chair, thrust both hands in his pockets, +and stared rudely at the intruders. He did not mind the interruption as +much as she did, since he was losing, and had been steadily ever since +he sat down to play with Katrine, and doubts and angry questionings of +his opponent's methods began to stir in his dull, clouded brain, as +toads stir the mud in some thick pool. + +"You ought not to be here at all," said Stephen hotly. + +"Well, why shouldn't I make money as well as you?" returned the girl +quickly, with a flash of scorn in her dark eyes, and Stephen whitened +and winced. + +"Haven't you made enough for one night, in any case?" interposed Talbot +quietly. + +"Yes, I think I have," she answered, with a glance at the glistening +pile on the cloth. "I'll come," she added suddenly, "if Jim's no +objection. What do you say, Jim?" she asked, looking across to the young +fellow, who had been a sulky, silent spectator of the whole scene. +"Shall we quit for to-night?" + +"If you give me back my money," he answered. "That's mine," he said, +pointing to the pile. "It's my money, gentlemen; she's been winning all +the evening." + +"Yes, I always do have luck," retorted Katrine. "I told you so when we +began." + +"You may call it luck; I don't," muttered the miner, his face turning a +dusky purple. + +"And what do you call it?" returned Katrine, white with anger in her +turn at the insinuation, while Talbot, who saw what was coming, tried to +draw her away. + +"What does it matter? Come away; leave him the money." + +No one in the room noticed what was going on in their corner. The others +were all too busy with their own play, absorbed in their own greed; +besides, squabbles over the tables were of such common occurrence, they +ceased to excite any curiosity. + +"I shan't," returned Katrine, shaking herself free. + +The oily, smoky light from above fell across her face; it seemed to +bloom through the foul, dusky air like a rose. + +"It's my money--I won it." + +"Yes, by cheating," shouted the miner, forgetting everything but the +approaching loss he foresaw of the shining pile. + +"You lie," said Stephen, hoarsely. "She has not cheated you." + +The miner staggered to his feet, and before any of them realised it he +had drawn his pistol and fired. His hand was unsteady from drink and +rage, and the ball passed over Stephen's shoulder and went into the +wall behind him. Talbot tried to draw Stephen to one side. The miner, +blind with anger, half conscious only of what he was about, and drawing +almost at random, turned his revolver on Talbot. Like a flash Katrine +interposed between them, and Jim's bullet found a lodgment in her lungs. +She had fired also. The shots had been simultaneous, and the miner fell, +without a groan, without a murmur, forward across the table, carrying it +with him to the floor. The gold pile scattered amongst the filthy +sawdust on the ground. Katrine sank backwards into Talbot's arms, and +her head fell to his shoulder like that of a tired child falling to +sleep. + +In an instant they were surrounded by an eager inquiring throng. All the +tables, with some few exceptions, were deserted; the players all crowded +up to the end of the room, and Stephen and Talbot were carried back to +the wall by the pressing crowd. Some of the men raised the body of the +miner; he was dead. The people pressed round, and one glance at the set +face told them. A momentary awe spread amongst them, and the men who had +raised the body carried it to a bench and laid it there. Stephen, pallid +as the dead man himself, looked round in desperation on the staring +crowd. + +"Is there a surgeon or a doctor here?" he asked. + +Katrine heard him, and raised herself a little in Talbot's arms; he was +standing against the wall now. She turned her eyes towards Stephen and +stretched out her hand. + +"It's no use, Steve, dear," she said; "I'm done for. Don't worry with a +doctor. I shall be gone in five minutes." + +Stephen dropped on his knees and seized the little soft brown hand +extended to him, covering it with kisses. + +"Oh no, no, don't say it," he said in a voice suffocated with anguish, +heedless of the staring faces around. Some of the mob looked on with +interest, some turned back to their own tables, others went down on +their hands and knees to scrape up the scattered gold dust that had +mixed in the trampled sawdust. + +"Lay me a little flatter," she murmured to Talbot, and he sank on one +knee and so supported her, her head resting on his arm. + +"If we could get her to the air," Stephen exclaimed. + +"No, the moving pains me; let me be," she replied. "I tell you I'm +dying." + +Stephen groaned. + +"Pray then, pray now. Oh, Katie dear, pray before it is too late. Aren't +you afraid to die like this, in this place?" + +Katrine shook her head wearily. "No, I don't think I've ever been +afraid," she murmured. + +"Did I kill him?" she asked a second later, opening her eyes. + +Talbot looked down and nodded. Stephen's voice was too choked for +utterance. + +"I'm glad of that," she murmured, letting her eyes close again; "I never +missed a shot yet." + +"Oh, Katie, Katie," moaned Stephen. The room was black to him; it seemed +as if he saw hell opening to swallow up for ever his beloved one. + +Katrine opened her eyes at his agonised cry. + +"Now, Steve, it can't be helped; I'm dying, and it's all right. I only +don't want you to worry over it. Nothing is worth worrying for in this +world. And I guess we'll all meet again very soon in a warmer place than +Alaska." + +Stephen, utterly broken down, could only sob upon her hand. + +Talbot felt a sort of rigor passing through the form he held, and +thought she was dying. He was stirred to the innermost depths of his +being by her act. She had stepped so calmly between him and death, given +up her life with the free generous courage of a soldier or a hero. + +"Why did you come between us?" he asked, suddenly bending over her; "why +did you do it?" + +The calm light eyes looked down into the dark passionate depths of the +dying girl's pupils, and a long gaze passed between them. What secrets +of her soul were revealed to his in that instant when they stood face to +face with only Death between? Then Katrine turned her head wearily. + +"I don't know," she answered faintly; "mere devilry, I think." And she +laughed. + +The laugh shook the wounded lung. Her face turned from white to grey, +her teeth clenched. There was a spasm as of a sudden wrenching loose +from the body, then it sank back, collapsed, motionless, against +Talbot's breast. + +The two men carried her out between them. The crowd made way for them, +standing on either side in respectful silence. Such incidents were not +uncommon, and excited nothing more than a dull and transient interest. +They took her out, and the gold for which two lives had been sacrificed +was left unheeded, scattered in the dust. They went out the way they had +come, through the noisome court, up the narrow flight of rotten, +slippery stairs into the pure icy air. + +Stephen turned to Talbot and took the girl's body wholly into his arms. + +"I want to carry her up to my cabin," he said in a choking voice, and +the other nodded. + +The night was glorious with the deadly glory of the Arctic regions; the +air was still, and of a coldness that seemed to bite deep into the +flesh; but overhead, in the impenetrable blackness of the sky, the +stars shone with a brilliance found only in the north, throwing a cold +light over the snowy ground. To the south and east, low down, burned two +enormous planets, like fiery eyes watching them over the horizon. + +Slowly the two men walked over the hard ground. Not another living being +was within sight. + +Stephen walked first with heavy, uneven steps, and his breath came +quickly in suppressed and sobbing gasps. Talbot followed closely, deep +in painful thought. All had happened so suddenly. The whole horrible +tragedy had swept over them in a few minutes; she had passed away from +them both for ever. His brain seemed dazed by the shock. He could not +realise it. He saw her dark head lying on Stephen's shoulder. It seemed +as if she must lift it every second. He could not believe that she was +lifeless, lifeless, this creature who had always been life itself, with +her gay smiles, and light tones, and quick movements. Now, she and they +were blotted out for all time. She had died against his breast, and for +him. That was the horrible thought; it came into his brain after all the +others, suddenly, and seemed as if it must burst it. And why, why should +she have done it? Her last words rang in his ears, "mere devilry." So +she had always been; reckless, open-handed, generous, she had often +risked her life for another, and now she had given it for him. And in +her last words she had tried to minimise her own act, tried to relieve +him of the burden of a hopeless gratitude. But for all that he would +have to bear it, and it seemed crushing him now. That she should have +given her life, so young, less than half his own, so full of value and +promise, for his! It seemed as if a reproach must follow him to the end +of his days. + +He walked as in a dream. He had no sense of the distance they were +going, hardly any of the direction, except that he was following +mechanically Stephen's slow, uneven, halting footsteps, and watching +that little head that lay on his shoulder. Once when Stephen paused, he +stretched out his arms and offered to take the burden from him, but +Stephen repulsed him fiercely, and then the two went on slowly as +before, how long he did not know, it seemed a long time. Suddenly, in +the middle of the narrow pathway before him, Talbot saw Stephen stagger, +fall to his knees, and then sink heavily sideways in the snow, his arms +still tightly locked round the rigid body of the girl. Talbot hurried +forward and bent over him, feeling hastily in his own pockets for his +flask. Stephen's eyes were wide open and gazed up at him with a +hopeless, despairing determination that went to Talbot's heart and +chilled it. + +"I can't go any farther, not another step," he muttered. + +Talbot had been searching hurriedly through all his pockets for the +flask he always carried. + +"Good God!" he exclaimed, "I haven't got it; I must have dropped it +coming up here, or they stole it in that hell down town." + +Stephen feebly put up his hand. + +"Don't trouble, I don't want it. I am just going to lie here and wait +with her. Was she not lovely?" he muttered to himself, raising himself +on his knees and laying the body before him on the snow. + +The sky above them arched in pitchy blackness, but the starlight was so +keen and brilliant that it lighted up the white silence round them. +Stephen, on his hands and knees, hung over the still figure and gazed +down into the marble face. The short silky black hair made a little blot +of darkness in the snow, the white face was turned upward to the +starlight. Talbot, looking down, caught for an instant the sight of its +pure oval, its regular lines, and the sweet mouth, and the passionate, +reasonless face of the man crouching over it, and then looked +desperately up and down the narrow lonely trail. They were five miles +from the town, a little over three from the cabins. Glistening whiteness +lay all around, till the plains of snow grew grey in the distance; +overhead, the burning, flashing, restless stars; and far off, where the +two planets guarded the horizon, the red lights of the north began to +quiver and flicker in the night. + +The man on the ground noticed them, and straightening himself suddenly, +looked towards them. + +"The flare of hell!" he muttered, with staring, straining eyes; "it's +coming very near." + +Talbot saw that his reason had gone, failed suddenly, as a light goes +down under a blast; he was delirious with that sudden delirium born of +the awful cold that seizes men like a wolf in the long night of the +Arctic winters. + +For a second the helplessness of his situation flashed in upon Talbot's +brain--alone here at midnight on the frozen trail, with a madman and a +corpse! + +He saw he must get help at once, and the cabins were the nearest point +where help could be found. He could get men who would carry Stephen by +force if necessary, but would he ever live in the fangs of this pitiless +cold till they could return to him? He stood for one moment irresolute, +unwilling to leave him to meet his death, and that horrible fear that he +read in those haggard eyes watching the horizon, alone; and in that +moment Stephen looked up at him and met his eye, and the madness rolled +back and stood off his brain for an instant. He beckoned to Talbot, and +Talbot went down on his knees beside him on the snow. + +"My claims," muttered Stephen; "those claims will be yours now, do you +understand? I've arranged it all with that lawyer Hoskins, down town. +They were to be hers if anything happened to me, but we shall both go +to-night, and they will be yours. She said I had sunk my soul in them, +Talbot; she was right. The gold got me, I neglected her; I let her slip +back into evil; I've murdered her for the claims. They are the price +hell paid me. But you keep them. All turns to good in your hands. They +can't harm you. Keep them. They are my grave." + +"Stephen, rouse yourself! You are alive! you've got to live," said +Talbot desperately, shaking him by the shoulder. "I am going now to +bring men back with me to help you home. You've got to live till I +return, do you hear?" + +Stephen had turned from him again and put his arms round the motionless +form before them. + +"They are coming nearer," Talbot heard him mutter; "but they shall burn +through me first, little one;" and he stretched himself across the +corpse as if to shield it from the approaching flames, and far off the +red eyes of the planets sank nearer the horizon, but still seemed to +watch them across the snowy waste. + +Talbot felt the only one thin thread of hope was to go as fast as his +fatigue-clogged feet could move up to the cabins, and he rose and faced +the homeward trail. He felt the hope of saving Stephen was just the +least faintest flicker that ever burned within a heart; still there was +the chance--the chance that, even should he be already in the sleep that +ends in death when he returned, they could rouse him from it and drag +him into life again. He forced his heavy feet along, and with a great +effort started into a run. His limbs felt like lead, and all his body +like paper. The long hours of cold and fatigue, the excitement, the rush +of changing emotions he had gone through, had been draining his +vitality, but he called upon all that he had left and put it all into +the effort to save his friend. He knew that any one second lost or +gained might be the one to turn the balance of life or death, and he +urged himself forward till a dull pain filled all his side, and his +temples seemed bursting, and the great lights before him swam in a +blood-red mist. + +Stephen, left alone, raised his head and gazed round him once, then he +laid his cheek down on the cold cheek, pressed his lips to the cold +lips, and his breast upon the cold breast just over where the bullet had +ploughed its way through the flesh and bone. The night gripped him +tighter and tighter, and slowly he sank to sleep. + + + + +_L'ENVOI._ + + +Noontide in June. A sky of the clearest, palest azure, and a rollicking, +swelling, tumbling sea, full of smooth billowy waves chasing each other +over its deep green surface--waves with their white crests blown +backwards, throwing their spray high in the air and seeming to laugh and +call to each other in gurgling voices; and between sea and sky the +liquid golden sunlight filling the warm, throbbing air, spreading itself +in dazzling sheets upon the water, and glinting in ten thousand +glittering points on the flying spray thrown up by a steamer's screw. It +was the steamer _Prince_, homeward-bound from Alaska, carrying +passengers and a cargo as rich and yellow as the sunshine. And as if it +knew of its precious and costly charge, the steamer cut proudly through +the turbulent water, cleaving its straight passage homeward, homeward. +On the deck of the boat, leaning back idly in a long chair, his calm, +grey eyes fixed on the receding shores, where the golden sunshine seemed +palpitating on their perilous loveliness, Talbot was sitting, with the +freshening breeze stirring his hair and bringing to him the breath of a +thousand spring flowers on the land. He was returning, and returning +successful, with his work accomplished, his toil over, his aim achieved, +and amongst all the lines of pain stamped on his pale and quiet face +there was written a certain triumph, that yet perhaps was not so much +triumph as relief. It was just four months since that terrible night +when he had lost both his comrades, just a little less than four months +since he had seen them both laid side by side in their lonely grave in +the west gulch; and those four months would ever be a blot of horrible +blackness on his life. Should he ever be able to forget the blank +desolation that had closed in upon him night after night as he sat by +his lonely hearth or paced the floor, his steps alone breaking the awful +stillness? Yet he had forced himself to stay and face it, had continued +his work and his method of life unchanged. His men had noted little +difference in him. He had stayed the time he had appointed for himself, +had accomplished his self-appointed task, and at last, when the summer +burst in upon the gulch and loosened all Nature's fetters, he found +himself also free; and now, like a black curtain rent in twain and torn +from the bright face of a picture, the clouds of the past seemed falling +away, leaving his future clear to his gaze. It stretched before him +bright as the laughing sunlit sea beneath his eyes. If they could but +have shared his joy, if they could have had their home-coming, his +fellow-toilers, his fellow-prisoners! and the salt tears stung his lids +until he closed them, shutting out the vivid yellow light, as he +thought of the desolate grave in the gulch. + +The fresh, cool air fanned his face and the sun smiled upon him, a loose +piece of canvas of an awning near him flapped backwards and forwards +with a monotonous musical sound, the plash and gurgle of the tumbling +waves fell soothingly on his ears. Gradually sleep came over him gently, +and enwrapped his strained, wearied body, his sore bruised mind. + +When he opened his eyes again it was afternoon. The steamer was still +flying onward, but the sea was quiet and smooth, and lay still on every +side in the sun's rays as a pool of liquid gold, and the shores of +Alaska had vanished, lost in a burnished haze of light. + + +THE END. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's A Girl of the Klondike, by Victoria Cross + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GIRL OF THE KLONDIKE *** + +***** This file should be named 23732.txt or 23732.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/7/3/23732/ + +Produced by Bryan Ness, Annie McGuire and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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