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diff --git a/old/61932-0.txt b/old/61932-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 57dfdbe..0000000 --- a/old/61932-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,17859 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Come and Find Me, by Elizabeth Robins - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Come and Find Me - -Author: Elizabeth Robins - -Illustrator: E. L. Blumenschein - -Release Date: April 25, 2020 [EBook #61932] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COME AND FIND ME *** - - - - -Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - - - -Come and Find Me - - - - -[Illustration: Hildegarde] - - - - - Come and Find Me - - By - Elizabeth Robins - Author of “The Magnetic North,” “The Convert,” etc. - - With Illustrations by - E. L. Blumenschein - - “I ... had ambition not only to go farther than any one had - been before; but as far as it was possible for man to go....” - - CAPTAIN COOK. - - “Det er et svært vejarbejde—oppe i det norlige. Med - fjeldovergange—og med de utroligste vanskeligheder at overinde! - Å du store, vakkre verden,—hvad det er for en lykke, det, at - være vejbygger!” - - LILLE EYOLF. - - New York - The Century Co. - 1908 - - Copyright, 1907, 1908, by - THE CENTURY CO. - - _Published, February, 1908_ - - THE DE VINNE PRESS - - - - -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - - Hildegarde _Frontispiece_ - - FACING PAGE - - “Mar’s eyes looked over the little boy’s head into space” 36 - - “It was the teacher of arithmetic to the life, only it was - Bella Wayne” 56 - - “The two girls sat in front of the confident young face - looking out of the silver locket” 100 - - “‘Brethren,’ he said, ‘the angel of the Lord has been with - me. He has shown me great riches’” 186 - - “‘I know you’ll do your best for me,’ Hildegarde said, - anxiously” 232 - - Hildegarde’s mother and Mr. Blumpitty 278 - - “Nearer, my God, to Thee” 412 - - “Coolies crawled up the ladder with vast burdens” 426 - - “‘I suppose you think I have something very valuable here?’” 474 - - “Hildegarde’s ankle turned more than once, and now she - was almost down” 518 - - - - -_TO FLORENCE BELL_ - - - CHINSEGUT, HERNANDO COUNTY, FLORIDA - Jan. 20, 1906 - -MY DEAR F. B.: - -I believe it to be commonly the practice of authors to write the -dedication last. But I, being summoned by the laconic imperative of the -Atlantic cable to exchange London for Florida, and being thereby arrested -midway in what I have always thought of as your book, must needs recover -some of the old impulse that you gave me to begin it, before I can go on. - -I invoke you as I would a breath of your invigorating Yorkshire, for -I am captive in a land of idleness—myself idlest of all the easy, -time-squandering folk that are making believe to finish my house here -upon the sunburnt hilltop. - -This lodge in the wilderness, uplifted like an island above encompassing -seas of green; this wind-swept, sun-steeped place, ought, perhaps (in -spite of latitude and longitude), to give me back without your aid the -picture and the feeling of the North. For the first word I set at the -top of my page, though Indian, would not have been understanded of my -ancient neighbors here. Not the Seminoles, the Alaskans gave us our -name. I and another for whom it means home, pronounced it first to the -rhythm of breakers beating on that wild Bering coast—in the midst of the -pandemonium of the “farthest North” gold boom, we dreamed and planned -the picture I look out upon this morning. It might not seem beautiful to -you, yet, in spite of your wise warning, there have gone into my effort -to make the dream come true the most precious things I had. Into this -Chinsegut, as you know, went, amongst the rest, a great faith. - -So that, however reminiscent of people or conditions long since passed -away, however much of the spirit of the past is garnered here as living -influence, or as debris and as ashes, these were for me infinitesimal -affairs by comparison with the hope for the Future that made me turn -deaf ears to your admonishing. For this was to be a place where my -fellow-dreamer and I should not only rest, but having rested, work as -never before. Our best and biggest room was to be called the Workroom. - -But some strange spell has hitherto hung over that apartment and all the -house, since even the white remodelers of the slave-built dwelling have -found it easier to play than work here. - -As if foreseeing that the added wing, new stable, and the rest, would -take more months a-building than they would need weeks in other climes, -our “workmen,” uneasy perhaps under the misnomer, organized themselves -into a Musical Society. They would lay a brick or rap in a nail, and -then, casting aside trowel or hammer, would catch up fiddle and bow, -horn, or clarinet, trying (since walls had been known to fall at trumpet -blast) whether these could be induced to rise to strains of “Dixie.” One -of the band to whom I owe my not very sound roof, was at least a person -of imagination, as I will make your ladyship admit, if the distractions -here will give me leave to try. These are not solely the growling of -saws, the scraping of planes and of fiddles. I find myself forever -running to and fro like a child in some enchanted playground, wooed by -fifty things at once—but not one of them has aught to do with books or -with any aspect of the art of letters. - -My distractions have to do with such toys as the joy of re-discovering -old friends in all three kingdoms, from the forgotten beauty of palms -standing sentinel-like in sand as white as meal, to the blue heron that -goes sailing by to the lake at our feet. Or I am called early to see the -delicate print of a deer’s foot that passed our very gate; or I must -watch the sun caught at setting in the great ilex, and see the light -spilling into the Spanish moss, soaking into the long draperies, till -they seem to hold refulgence in solution. Or I must go and plan the -hedge of roses round an old burying-ground on the place, or listen half -a morning to a mocking-bird, or steal down in the dusk to my beloved -copse and play eavesdropper to the sullen owl who pretends he doesn’t -haunt the magnolia above the spring. Or I must leave my coveted place of -shade on the north veranda and come to watch our friend, Mr. Tarrypin, -creeping heavily by in the hot sun on his way (I grieve to tell you) to -the soup tureen. (“Lawd, yes. Tarrypin? He jes de same es chick’n, Miss -’Lizbess—once he in de pot!”) - -Even my interviews with the cook, elsewhere so summarily despatched, -are here a thief of time. For our Peter, who learned his craft of the -Cubans during the late war, is the most beguiling of conversationalists. -In beautiful sky-blue, brass-buttoned clothes showing under a spotless -apron, he stands, interlarding his promise to “do it Spanish style,” with -legends learned of his mother who was born in the negro quarters here -in those more sumptuous days when our hill was crowned with the finest -orange grove in all Hernando. Peter will tell you, chuckling, that our -great twelve by twelve-inch cypress beams that turn the edge of the -white carpenters’ tools, were hand-hewn by his grandfather, and by that -gallant woodman “tied and pinned” to frame the house before the “orange” -days—when all cleared land was cotton field. - -But more than by any other creature the spirit of idleness has been -fostered by my four-footed friend, the particular joy of my life here, -Dixie. For I must tell you that one’s love of woods is only whetted by -looking out, as I am told we do, upon two hundred and fifty thousand -acres of virgin forest—the old Seminole hunting-grounds—which swallow up -the white man’s puny clearings so effectually that even a Zeiss glass can -scarcely pick them out. Dixie and I may travel for hours, through tangles -of jessamine-laced live-oak and palmetto, down to dim lakes where the -cypresses stand in water to their “knees” (with all the moss curtains -close-drawn against the sun), and never see a soul. Then, when even in -the open ways of the pine woods we find the warm day quenched in mist, I -let the rein fall slack and trust to that skill of Dixie’s, never baffled -yet, to take me home the shortest way, in spite of night or storm or the -fierce dazzle of tropic lightning. - -If we are late, we know “Uncle” Fielding will be looking out for us. Even -if I fail to distinguish his kind, dark face, I see the whites of his -eyes shining, I hear his rich voice lowered to reproach that I should be -abroad so late in the vast Annuttalagga woods that go to the verge of the -world. - -But Uncle Fielding has his share in my idleness, for he knows the stories -I like best of all. When I’ve gone to sit within the radiance of the -great open fireplace (less for warmth than for sake of cedar scent and -love of the flaring, singing resin in the pine), Uncle Fielding will come -staggering in under the weight of a single log, and having thrown it -down, will tarry awhile. To my polite hope that he feels at home in his -new cottage, he replies with gentle assurance: “I’ll haf to be mighty ole -and mighty painful befoh I leave this hilltop.” With humility I learn to -see myself as the transient one, the visitor, and Uncle Fielding as the -one who rightly is “at home.” Even for neighborly credit and fair regard -I look to him. For when one of the younger generation, or some mere -new-comer ventures: “They say, in the old days, you knew her brother,” -“_Knew_ him?” says Uncle Fielding loftily, “_I raised him_—” and so -re-establishes our respectability in a land that for so many years has -known us only as little-remembered names. - -Can you not see that with the vivid intervention of all this new-old -life—the story you bade me write has in a brief space gone to a distance -so illimitable that beside such a standard of remoteness, Florida is -neighbor to the Pole? I tell you plainly that if this book of yours -is ever to be finished, you must send me something of that influence -that has so often spurred me on before. Once even here, a touch of it, -like your hand on my shoulder, reached me one evening, in spite of -all the hosts of Hernando. Walking about at sunset to count how many -mangoes were growing near the house—I was pursued as far as the great -ilex at the gates by faint intermittent strains of some unearthly -music. I looked up, thinking of those “harps” that Hilda heard and to -whose strains she unsealed the Master Builder’s ears. Again that music! -faint but unmistakable; sad and wild, with its vaguely inciting call. -A little shamefaced for my fancy, I said to one who knew not Hilda: “I -could almost swear I heard harps in the air.” “Yes,” was the answer, -“on the roof,” as though it were the most natural thing on earth that -a carpenter, instead of making us rain-proof, should devise and lash -in place a wind-harp over our heads! I thought how you would have -disapproved that man—and cherished him. - -Although the winds that come sweeping over the Mexican Gulf have cast the -great lyre down from my housetop—nevertheless, now that I’ve invoked you, -I seem to hear the air again—even feel on my shoulder that touch of your -hand with which you sent me forth to try if, in the midst of the London -din, we might not make folk pause an instant, and say with upturned -faces: “Harps in the air!” You and I have heard them for many a year, my -friend. I think I never was with you long, but I caught some note of that -far music. Even with the thick of the world between us, I listen for you -to call the tune that “sends me on.” - - E. R. - - - - -COME AND FIND ME - - - - -CHAPTER I - - -A crisis in the financial world of California kept the men who were -employed in the Palmas Valley Bank of Valdivia hard at work for several -hours after statutory closing time. - -Nathaniel Mar never came home in these days without bringing a black -leather bag full of papers, to work over in the dining-room. - -He had his big desk in there because Mrs. Mar thought it out of place in -the parlor, though the parlor was the quietest room in the house and the -least used, whereas the dining-room was the most frequented quarter of -the modest establishment, and the very place where both the big desk, and -the big man who sat before it, were most in the way. - -For here the family not only ate their meals, but here, in Mrs. Mar’s -rocking-chair, the screams of the infant daughter were drowned in milk -or overcome by sleep; here the two small boys were taught letters and -manners; here, on their mother’s work-table, was reared the ever-renewed -mountain of “mending,” and these the walls that oftener than any others -looked down upon the mistress’s struggles with the “single-handed help”—a -succession of Irish or Scandinavian girls who came, saw, conquered some -of the china, and departed. - -This concentration of family life in the dining-room was not peculiar -to the Mars. Valdivia—all California, indeed all the towns of all the -northern and western states, were full of houses where the shut-up -parlors bore dumb witness to a social habit that was become mere -tradition. - -The forebears of these people, especially those German, French, or -Spanish, had need of a room where they might receive their friends and -talk to them at their ease. But in their descendants this much chastened -need had taken on the air of an indulgence, and was shrinking out of -sight. - -It is true that even the less well-to-do, summoning all their strength, -sometimes gave “parties,” but few houses encouraged the cheerful custom -of having friends “drop in.” And so, no more useless room in any dwelling -than the parlor. Yet so great was the power of this tradition of a lost -hospitality, that people who had almost nothing else over and above the -grimmest necessities, still had their parlor. Discomfort and cramping -of every kind was stoically borne that the sacred precincts might be -preserved inviolate. For what? Nobody ever asked. - -So then, in the dining-room, sat Nathaniel Mar even on this fine Sunday -afternoon, when, as a rule, the desk was shut and the owner gone to -potter in the garden. But the exigency was great, and for once even the -Seventh Day had brought no rest. As he sat there, bent over the desk, -the light fell with such harshness on the man’s foreshortened features, -under the unkempt mop of prematurely graying hair, that you would not -easily have believed him to be under forty odd. - -He was not yet thirty-five. The deep line that dropped from the side -of each nostril, to lose itself in the heavy, dark mustache, gave to -his face a stricken and weariful air. And he sat crooked, with one high -shoulder more hunched than the other. You saw the reason of that when he -got up to shut out the sounds of pan-banging, and fire-irons rattling, -that came in through the inch of open door opposite the one leading into -the hall. Before rising, Mar had felt for his walking-stick, and any one -who noticed how heavily he bore upon it in limping over the worn carpet, -knew why it was that one of his great shoulders was pushed awry. - -He made the same detour in returning to his seat as had carried him to -the kitchen door, carefully cruising round the pitfall presented by a -half-yard or so of extra dilapidation in the yellow-brown carpet. As -you looked closer at what his avoidance made more noticeable, you saw -that a less faded piece had been tacked over a part hopelessly worn and -mended, and how even this newer square had despairingly let go of the -tacks that held it, and been kicked up by some foot less considerate or -more courageous than Mr. Mar’s. The superimposed piece sat now, in a -frayed, rag-baggy condition, gaping with despair, and like some beggar -in extremis by the way, ready to lay hold on the first unwary foot that -passed. - -The entire room wore that indescribable air of settled melancholy that no -one thing in it, not even the carpet, seemed quite ugly or uncomfortable -enough to account for. The furniture was heavy and old. Upon the walls, -besides two or three reconnaissance maps, were some inoffensive prints. -A “Signing of the Declaration of Independence” hung high between the two -windows, and underneath, in oval, gilt frames, were companion pictures of -Mar’s mother and of his father, who had been for many years minister to -Valdivia’s first Presbyterian Church. - -On the opposite wall a good engraving of Lincoln was flanked, somewhat -incongruously, by a photograph of a buxom young woman with a group of -girls behind her—Mar’s wife in her school-teaching days, with her class. -Besides these, an old view of the Lake of Geneva, a print of Cromwell, -and on the wall behind Mar’s revolving chair, an engraved portrait, -bearing underneath it the inscription: John W. Galbraith, President Rock -Hill Mining Co. - -Even if these adornments were of a very mild description, they, at least, -covered several feet of the marbled yellow paper that apparently had been -chosen (and chosen a good while ago) to “go with” the hideous “grained” -woodwork. That it did “go with” that peculiarly perverse soiling and -smearing of inoffensive surfaces, may not be denied. It went far. It -arrived at such a degree of success that all the little room irradiated a -bilious yellowness “clawed” with muddy brown. - -The very atmosphere was not left as nature sent it in at the window. It -halted upon the sill and changed color, like one who gets wind of ill -news. The moment it penetrated beyond the holland blinds it turned sick -and overflowed the room in dirty saffron. - -It may well be wondered why any creature who was not obliged to should -come here. And yet the defeated-looking man at the window did not lack -high companionship. Sunset and the rain, the call of the winds, clouds -of majesty, and mists of silver, not these alone. Daydreams penetrated -the sullen walls. Here, where the rudest emigrant would not long abide, -fair visions made themselves at home—“exultations, agonies”—a field here -for the unconquerable mind no more unfit than many another for the long -battle men call life. - -On this particular July afternoon, Nathaniel Mar had no sooner shut -out one order of disturbance, than another penetrated the room from a -different direction. - -“Sigma!” a loud, clear voice was calling from the region of the stairs. -“Sigma,” and again, “Sigma! Have you set the table? Sigma-a-a!” - -Nathaniel Mar wrote on. - -The door opened suddenly and in came a brisk, rather handsome, dark-eyed -woman, with an infant on her arm. Singularly enough the child seemed to -be as little interrupted in its occupation of sleeping as the father in -his writing. There were certain sounds that both were inured to. Among -others, Mrs. Mar calling “Sigma,” or “Kate,” or “Jane.” But when she -stopped short near the threshold and asked: - -“Where is that girl?” Mar, without raising his eyes from his paper, made -a little motion toward the door he had just shut. - -“I should think,” he said, quietly, “she was probably breaking up the -kitchen stove.” - -Before he finished, Mrs. Mar had opened the other door, and again called -“Sigma!” - -“Yes—yes.” In rushed a little white-headed Swede, fourteen to fifteen -years of age, her sleeves tucked up, her coarse gown tucked up, her fair -skin showing vividly a sooty mark across her forehead, which she had -smudged down her nose and finely shaded off into the red of her cheek. - -When Sigma was calm and collected she walked the floor as if it were -knee-deep in sand. When she was agitated she did not walk at all. She -plunged. Sigma was agitated now. - -“Coom!” she said, lifting a bare elbow toward the kitchen as another -person might point with a finger. “Coom!” and turning heavily she was -about to plunge back into her special domain. - -But Mrs. Mar arrested her. “Why haven’t you set the table? Look at the -time.” She pointed. - -Sigma paused and thought. Following the index finger she recognized the -clock, looked inquiringly from it to the lady, and then suddenly felt -she understood, a thing of almost exciting infrequency. She scuffled -good-naturedly across the room, picked up the heavy timepiece and was in -the act of handing it to Mrs. Mar. - -“Let the clock alone! Put it down, I say. What will she do next? -The table. Table!” She beat upon it briskly with her one free hand. -“_Supper._” - -“Oh, soopra!” says the girl, setting down the clock and lurching -hurriedly toward the kitchen. - -“Stop! Don’t you understand you have to set the table earlier to-day? -Before—you—go—out. Your evening. Understand? Your friend calls for you at -six.” She indicated the hour on the clock face. “Takes you—heaven knows -where. _She_ doesn’t forget if you do. _Your—evening—out._” As Sigma only -stood and stared dully, Mrs. Mar dropped into the rocking-chair with, “I -foresee this girl will drive me demented.” - -Sigma embraced the opportunity to shuffle toward the door again. - -“Where you off to now? You can’t go till you’ve set the table. Here!” -Still with the well-inured infant sleeping on her arm, Mrs. Mar, -remarking in a conversational tone that she was “certain she should go -mad,” pulled open the sideboard drawer and took out the tablecloth. “Put -this on. _Straight_, for a change. Then the mats.” - -The mistress’s eye falling suddenly upon that deplorable place in the -carpet, she was forcibly reminded of the little copper-toed boots that -had wrought the havoc. - -“What are they at now?” she said, half to herself, as she crossed the -room, and, craning her chin over the sleeping child at her breast, she -guided the toe of her shoe under the tacked bit, stroking down the darned -tatters underneath, before she straightened and trod flat the outer -layer. Each time thereafter that she crossed the troubled area her foot, -half-impatient, half-caressing, encouraged the patch to lie still. “What -keeps those children so quiet? Where are they?” - -Sigma, hearing the anxious rise in her mistress’s voice, dropped the -corner of the cloth she was twitching and rushed for the mats. - -“No, no, finish. Here. Straight. Like this.” A moment’s silence, and then -again, “Where are those children?” - -Sigma hurriedly offered her the cruet. - -“Idiot. I am asking you about the children. The—chil—dren. -Where—are—they? Don’t you know? Little boys. Trenn, and Harry, and Jack -Galbraith—where gone?” - -“Oh, Yack! He—” Sigma, with great action of hip and elbow, splurged over -to the window, and motioned away across an empty lot. - -“What, _again_? Here,” Mrs. Mar wheeled upon her husband, “you must hold -the baby a moment. If I lay her down she’ll wake up and scream.” - -As Mrs. Mar hastened out through the kitchen you could hear that she -paused an instant to exclaim aghast at something she found there. - -Mr. Mar had accepted the charge with a curious tranquillity, making the -infant comfortable in the hollow of his left arm. Then he went on with -his writing. - -Sigma returned to the intricate task of setting the table. She did it all -with an excited gravity, as if she were engaged in some spirited game, -putting down plates, knives, and forks with an air of one playing trumps, -and yet not quite sure if it was the right moment for them. When she had -placed the straw mats with mathematical precision, she drew off proudly, -to get the full splendor of effect. When it came to dealing with the -sugar bowl, she glanced at Mar’s bent head, and helped herself to a lump, -became furiously industrious upon the strength of that solatium, and -plunged after spoons and cups. Whenever she made a clatter she stopped -sucking and glanced nervously toward Mar, as if she expected him to rise -and overwhelm her. - -He, with unlifted head, wrote steadily on. - -The child slept. - -Sigma put a worn horsehair chair at head and foot of the table, two high -chairs on one side for the little boys, and an ordinary one on the -other; as she did this last her eye fell on the four cups. She paused -uncertain, till she had noiselessly counted five on her stumpy fingers. -Then, “Oh, Yack maa ha’ en!” she reminded herself, lurched away into the -kitchen and reappeared wiping a cup on a dish towel, one end of which she -had tucked in her apron string. As she was about to deposit the fifth -cup, she glanced at the man bent over the desk, and put her disengaged -hand again in the sugar bowl. Mar turned suddenly in his creaking chair; -Sigma started, and meaning to drop the sugar, dropped the cup instead. -She stared an instant, open-mouthed, as at some unaccountable miracle; -and then, with a howl, flung up her bare arms and fled round the table -on her way to the kitchen, caught her great foot in the carpet-trap and -measured her length on the floor. - -“Look here, you must go into the kitchen to do that.” Mar spoke as one -not presuming to deny that it might be a part of her duty to precipitate -herself on her stomach and howl, but questioning only the propriety of -the spot selected. “I can’t have you doing it here,” he said. - -Sigma was still “doing it,” so far as howling went, but she was also -scrambling up, with her elbow held over her head, as if she counted on a -thumping. From under her bare forearm her streaming eyes looked out at -Mar. Whether the man’s quiet face in the midst of the uproar astonished, -calmed her—she gaped, letting the rude lamentation die in her throat. - -“Men—_Meesis Marr—rr_!” she said under her breath, picking up the cup. - -Mrs. Mar’s husband held out his hand for it. “It’s only the handle,” he -said, and set the cup down on the writing-table, that he might change -the position of the fretting child. For his long-suffering daughter was -at last roused to protest. - -The little maid-servant wiped her eyes, and, with the air of one who is -willing to let bygones be bygones, shuffled a step nearer to the desk. - -“Me—Gif Sigma,” she said, and held out her red arms. - -Mar looked up, understood, and handed over the baby. It was curious to -see the practised sureness with which this female barbarian—who caught -her big feet in the carpet and dropped the china—with what skill she -handled that fragile and intricate mechanism, an infant. Mar watched -her as she stood there, swaying her own thick body back and forth like -a human rocking-chair, holding the child in sure comfort, patting it -softly, and crooning to it uncouth words in a foreign tongue. Miss Mar -understood perfectly, and responded by laying her small pink face against -the scullion’s untidy gown and falling back into slumber. - -The opening of the front door, and voices in the hall—above all one -voice ordaining that certain persons should go up-stairs and _wait -for her_!—made Sigma pause, listen, and then, still holding close the -pacified infant, she beat a stealthy retreat, shutting the kitchen door -behind her with a softness incredible. - -Mrs. Mar, upon her reappearance, was seen to be ushering in by the -shoulder an anxious little boy of eight or nine. As with some force she -conveyed him across the room, his foot caught in the same place where -Sigma had met defeat. But Sigma had not been sustained by Mrs. Mar’s -hand. The lady merely unhooked the boy with an extra shake. Then, with -her free hand, she pulled his chair out from the table, and thrust him -into it. - -“Now, you’re to sit right there, and then I’ll know that at least till -supper-time you won’t be getting my children into any more mischief.” - -Mar had looked up upon their entrance, seemed about to speak, and then -dropped a discreet head over his work. - -“Where’s the baby?” demanded his wife. - -“Sigma—” - -“This precious protégé of yours,” interrupted the lady, again -straightening the carpet with the toe of her shoe; “this precious protégé -of yours has pulled up a plank out of the sidewalk, dragged it across the -field down to the duck-pond, and there I found him, using it as a raft.” - -“_I_ hadn’t used it—not yet.” A world of lost opportunity was heavily -recalled. - -“Oh, no, _you_ weren’t using it.” - -But the irony was lost. - -“Vere wasn’t woom for all of us, so I let Twenn and Hawwy go ve first -voyage. I’m vewwy kind to little boys.” - -“Oh, indeed! So kind you preferred to risk other children’s lives while -you looked on.” - -“Looked on? Oh, no, ma’am, didn’t you see I was workin’ like anyfing?” -He glanced across at his ally. “It was a steamship, Mr. Mar. I was ve -injine. I’m a most glowious injine—” - -“Yes, if you please,” Mrs. Mar broke in. “He’s been propelling the -plank all round the pond with those two poor little innocents on it—the -greatest wonder they weren’t drowned.” - -“It was very wrong,” said Mr. Mar, gravely—then, under his breath to his -wife, “but the water isn’t much over a foot at the deepest.” - -“Quite enough to drown any wretched baby that might fall in—but, of -course, you defend that boy no matter what he—” - -“Not at all—not at all. I don’t approve in the least of his—” - -“And our two little boys mud and dirt from their heads to their heels, -looking like a couple of chimney-sweeps—” - -“No, ma’am,” said the young gentleman from the horsehair chair, in a -conciliatory tone. “Twenn and Hawwy ain’t black, only just bwown.” - -“Brown, indeed! I’ll brown _you_, sir, if you ever do such a thing again -while you’re staying _here_! Harry with his stocking quite torn off one -leg! And Trennor’s only decent breeches—” - -“Vere was a nail in vat board,” Jack explained, conversationally, putting -a finger through a jag in his own trouser knee. - -“Small matter to _you_, if you do ruin your things.” (Jack began to swing -his muddy feet—it was gloriously true.) “But you’ve got to remember that -other children’s clothes don’t grow on gooseberry bushes.” - -“My pants didn’t neever,” returned Jack, sturdily. - -“Keep your feet still and your tongue, too.” - -“Yes ’m.” - -Mrs. Mar was in the act of turning away, after a further slight attention -to the carpet patch, when her eye fell upon the handleless cup on the -desk. - -“Did you do that?” she demanded. - -Mar cleared his throat, and Mrs. Mar for once, not waiting to hear the -horrid details, sat down in her rocking-chair, despair in her face and -the broken cup in her hand. - -“I never saw anything like it. The grate in the kitchen range has just -collapsed, too.” - -“Really? That’s bad—” - -“It’s worse than bad—it’s awful.” - -“We must let the stove people know—” - -“How are you going to do that on Sunday?” - -“Oh—ah—well, it matters less I suppose on Sunday than if it happened on a -week-day.” - -“It won’t matter in the least, of course, to have no hot water to wash -the clothes in, Monday morning. Perhaps _you’ll_ think it matters more -when it comes to eating cold things for I don’t know how long.” - -“I think you’ll find I shall be able to put up with—” - -“Yes, it’s perfectly true, I always find you readier to put up with -disaster than to struggle against it.” - -“How would you propose I should struggle against a broken stove?” - -She turned her flushed face from him. - -“Didn’t I tell you not to kick the table?” she demanded of Jack. - -“Oh! Yes ’m. I forgot.” He curled up the disgraced foot underneath him, -for a reminder that it was to keep still. - -“The furniture,” Mrs. Mar went on, looking round the room, “is quite -dilapidated enough without _your_ making it worse.” - -“Yes, ma’am.” - -“Well, I suppose I must go and attend to those children, and the supper. -But don’t let him kick the furniture, Nathaniel, even if he is the son of -your adored Galbraith. The owner of all that Rock Hill Mining property -didn’t trouble himself much about _you_.” - -“Yes, he did. He was a very good friend,” and Mar made a slight movement -as of one clearing a space in the air before setting to work again. - -His wife, in her progress to the door, halted mechanically in the middle -of the patch, as though the momentary weight of her presence there would -leave behind a subjugating effect. But she murmured absently: “I must -have another hunt for—” Then, turning with sudden animation: “Is it you -who’ve taken away my tack-hammer?” she demanded of Jack. - -“No, ma’am.” - -“Well, understand,” she went on, precisely as though he had admitted his -responsibility for the disappearance of the tool, “understand you’re to -sit there till supper, and this is the last of your playing about that -dirty duck-pond.” - -“I forgot it was Sunday,” he said, penitent. - -“Sunday or any other day—never again.” - -Jack gasped with incredulity, and then, slowly, “You don’t weally mean -we’re never to go to ve pond for ever and ever!” - -“Well, just you try it! And you’ll find yourself going back to school to -spend your holidays with the janitor.” - -In the pause that followed this awful threat Jack murmured: “Never go -a-sploring any more!” and then sat as one paralyzed by an awful and -unexpected blow. - -Mrs. Mar replaced the handleless cup upon the table, and took up the -corner of the cloth to determine the extent of a damage wrought in the -last washing. - -“Everything we possess seems to be giving out at once—like the different -parts of the One Hoss Shay. It’s exactly”—she turned her bright, dark -eyes toward the writing-table, and spoke with a sudden access of -vigor—“exactly as if there was a law that allowed you for months and -years to patch and tinker, to bolster up your rickety furniture, to darn -your old carpets, to reseat your old chairs, to make over the clothes, -to solder the saucepans, and keep things going generally, up to a given -moment. But when that moment comes”—she lifted her finger Sibyl-like in -the air—“every blessed belonging begins to crack, or fray, or creak with -the pangs of approaching dissolution. Are you listening to what I say, -Nathaniel? There isn’t a thing in this house that doesn’t need to be -renewed.” She spoke with a directness that seemed pointedly to include -her husband among the dilapidations. He, half-absent, half-speculative, -looked round upon objects familiar to him from childhood. - -“Who’d ever think,” pursued his wife, “who’d ever think that we’d been -married less than eight years? But this is what comes of not furnishing -new when you first set up housekeeping. If you don’t get nice things when -you marry you never get them.” - -“Some people,” said Mar, “seem to like old furniture.” - -“Let them have it, then!” Her quick gesture presented the entire contents -of the house to the first bidder. “_I_ say for young people to begin life -with the battered belongings of their fathers and mothers is a mistake.” - -“Well, my dear,” returned her husband, with some dignity, “it’s a mistake -you had no share in. But,” he added hastily, “we had no choice.” - -“No,” she said bitterly, “we’ve had very little choice.” - -“We did once,” said Nathaniel Mar. - -In the pause she looked down at the patch on the carpet. - -“And we ignored it,” he finished. - -“Oh, if you are going back upon that old foolishness.” She turned -abruptly and set down the broken cup. - -“You didn’t think it so foolish when I first told you about it.” - -“Oh, didn’t I!” - -“No. It made just all the difference then.” - -“What difference, I’d like to know, did it ever make?” - -“It made you say ‘Yes’ after you’d said ‘No.’” - -“The more fool I,” she said, and left the room. - - - - -CHAPTER II - - -The big man and the little man sat and looked at the patch on the carpet, -till for one of them the ragged place disappeared. - -A big tear splashed on the grimy little hand. - -But out of the mist, a voice: “Can’t you think of any safer sort of -games?” - -The balked navigator sniffed audibly, and with the back of his hand he -made a dirty smear across his wet face. “We don’t any of us seem to care -much about vem, if vey are too safe.” - -“H’m,” and with a faint smile Mar resumed his writing. - -Jack Galbraith sat quite still, for him, with the disgraced foot tucked -under him. But Mar, without raising his eyes, was conscious as a woman -might have been, of the frequent journey of the small hand across the -eyes, and now and then the more efficacious aid of a sleeve employed to -clear the watery vision. - -Presently, “After I ’most dwownded ve childwen, I expect she wouldn’t let -me wead my twavel book. What do you fink, Mr. Mar?” - -The gentleman addressed laid down his pen, but still looking at it, -“Well, I don’t know,” he said cautiously. - -Whereupon Jack Galbraith gave way openly to tears. - -“You’re not going to forget,” said the man, with no great show of -sympathy, “you’re not going to forget that however much a boy’s father -leaves him, America hasn’t got any use for an idle man.” - -“It’s Mrs. Mar makes me sit here doin’ nuffin’,” the child indignantly -defended himself. - -“Oh, for the moment, yes. But when the time comes to choose what you’re -going to do, Jack—if I’m not at hand to talk it over, think about civil -engineering. It takes a man about, and on more intelligent terms than my -profession—” - -“Yes,” Jack threw in upon the ground swell of a heavy sob. “I shouldn’t -like sittin’ countin’ money in a bank,” and while he caught his breath he -looked about drearily, as if already he saw himself an imprisoned cashier. - -“Sitting in a bank isn’t the profession I chose, either. I am—I was a -surveyor,” said Nathaniel Mar. - -“Oh—h?” inquired the child, in his surprise forgetting to continue the -celebration of his private misfortunes. “Did _you_ use to go all over -everywhere wiv a spy-glass and a chain?” - -“Yes, the members of the Scientific Corps are expected to go ’ all over -everywhere.’” - -“Clear wound ve world?” - -“Well, _we_ didn’t go round—we went the other way, the way that takes you -to the top.” - -“Did you get clear to ve vewwy top of ve world?” - -“Nobody’s ever been clear to the top.” - -“Why hasn’t anybody?” - -“Tough job!” - -“Was it tough job to go where you went?” - -“It wasn’t easy. Some of our work lay quite near enough to the arctic -circle.” - -“But I expect you liked it a lot better van—” He paused, looked about, -and felt gloom return upon him. If Mar was thinking so was Jack -Galbraith. Again he dragged his rough sleeve across his hot, little face. -“Ain’t it perferly awful sittin’ still?” he observed. - -“Yes, it’s pretty awful,” agreed Mr. Mar, glancing out of the window. - -“Was it up vere you found ve parlor bearskin and Mrs. Mar’s white fox?” - -“Yes, it was up there.” - -“You’re sure if I’m a engineer or a surveyor _I’ll_ be able to go up vere -where you found—” - -“Certain to be able to go somewhere.” - -“Why can’t I go where you did?” he asked, querulously. As Mr. Mar did not -answer at once, “Isn’t vere any little fing left to be done up vere?” - -“Oh, lots! But you see I went there in ’65—going on ten years ago, when -people thought they’d like to have a telegraph line between Asia and -America. So some of us went to survey the Alaskan part of the route (only -it wasn’t called Alaska then) and decide the best course for the line -that was to meet the one coming across from Siberia.” Again Nathaniel Mar -studied the end of his pen. - -“Yes,” said Jack, blowing his nose with an air of faintly reviving faith -in life’s possibilities. “Yes, and vere you met ve bear, and Mrs. Mar’s -white—” - -“We got some furs and truck, but we didn’t get the telegraph line.” - -“Why didn’t you?” - -“Well, you see, only a few years ago people laughed at the idea of an -Atlantic cable. But while we were hard at work up yonder surveying and -clearing and setting up telegraph poles, didn’t some other fellows prove -the possibility of an Atlantic cable by just going and laying it! So we -were recalled.” - -“But you had got pwetty far, anyhow.” - -“Yes, we got pretty far.” - -“You got to where ve foxes turn white and ve bears—” - -“Yes,” said Mar, reflectively, and then there was a pause. - -Jack looked at him. “Couldn’t you tell me about when you got vat bear, -or”—in the tone of one grateful for small favors—“or how you found Mrs. -Mar’s white—” - -“I don’t seem to remember anything specially interesting about the bears -or the foxes.” His far-off look gave the little boy a sudden feeling of -being abandoned by his one friend. He stood it for a moment, and then -suddenly twisted his lithe body round and buried his face in the crook of -the arm that clutched the chair back. Mar raised his eyes and seemed to -come home from some vast journey. - -“Something curious did happen to a man I knew up there,” he said, in that -friendly tone Jack knew so well. “A fellow who was knocking round the -Russian Redoubt at St. Michaels, with the rest of the Scientific Corps, -waiting for the revenue cutter that was to take us back to San Francisco. -We got pretty tired waiting—” - -“Pwickers in your feet?” Jack interrupted, suddenly. Mar stopped short, -for although Jack had uncovered his face to listen he was engaged in -making the most surprising grimaces. “I’ve got awful pwickers myself,” he -said. - -“Prickers?” - -“Yes. Oh, oh, my foot’s full of champagne.” Gingerly, and with further -contortions of countenance, he stretched the cramped foot out. - -“Champagne?” Mar had echoed. “What do you know about champagne?” - -“Once—papa’s birfday. Oh, oh, my foot’s full of it!” - -“If it’s gone to sleep you’d better stamp,” recommended his friend -gravely, and Jack applied the remedy with apparent relief after the first -awful shock. He stood cautiously twisting about to restore circulation -while Mar went on: “Yes, we got pretty tired hanging round St. Michaels, -and one day two of the party took a boat and went off to an island to get -birds’ eggs. While they were out a storm came up. An awful storm,” he -assured his inattentive listener, but Jack was still gloomily twirling -about, trying his numb foot, and not taking any stock apparently in a -story that didn’t boast a bear in it, or even a white— - -“I never in my life saw anything like it,” Mar went on. “The gale churned -up the sediment of Norton Sound into a boiling, yellow froth. The sleet -gave up trying to come down, and took to shooting horizontally, as -straight as a charge of musketry, and wherever it hit bare flesh—” He -shook his shaggy head at the memory. - -“_I_ wouldn’t mind a little fing like vat!” said Jack, loftily. - -“Well,”—Mar accepted the implied criticism with meekness,—“what they -minded most was that they couldn’t steer a course. It was going to be -great luck if the boat lived at all in such a sea. She was driven north -first. Neither one of the men knew just where it was they’d got to, but -any kind of land was a pretty good sight. They were almost as glad to get -near it as they were to get away from it.” - -“Why didn’t vey like it?” Jack didn’t so much as pause in his twirling to -inquire. - -“Well, it wasn’t a very pretty place for landing purposes.” - -“Ho!” said the young gentleman with careless superiority, “I don’t mind -where _I_ land! One time I landed wight on top of a earfquake!” - -“Ah!” said Mar, gravely, “that was pretty daring; but you may depend it -wasn’t in as bad a place as the one I’m talking about. Horrible steep -cliffs sheer down to the shore. Boulders piled helter-skelter. Couldn’t -see much through the dimness of the sleet and the dazzle of the spray, -still, they saw enough to know it wasn’t the harbor they were hoping for. -But to get the boat out of that boiling surf alive—no, it wasn’t easy.” - -Mar caught the first look of keenness that crossed the tear-stained -face—the sudden taut aspect of the slim little body, and he knew -perfectly well that the modest young navigator before him was saying in -his heart, “Ah, now, if _I’d_ been there.” Thus encouraged, Mar went on: -“Things had been bad enough out in the open sea, but here you were being -driven straight on the rocks, and the wind—you don’t know anything yet -about what the wind can do when it tries.” - -“What kind of fing?” - -“It cut the top off those great waves as clean as you can slice the -peak off a hillock of ice-cream; and the water was hurled at you, not in -spray, but in masses, you know—masses that never broke till they struck -the men or the boat—except when the wind veered, and then the water -masses were flung clean up on the cliffs, as neatly as you could throw -a bottle of soda on our roof here and never see a drop spilled till the -glass burst on the slates.” - -Jack nodded and seemed to forget his twirling, though he stood with his -body slightly askew, ready to begin again. - -“They’d never have got out of that boiling caldron alive if the wind -hadn’t changed.” Mar wagged his head in a final sort of way, and turned -in his revolving chair to pick up a fallen paper. - -“Is vat all? And vey did get home—” - -“No, that’s not all, and they didn’t get home. Only one of them got -anywhere.” Mar bent his big body slightly forward and clasped his hands -round the good knee. The other leg was stretched straight out in front of -him, stiff and lifeless looking. - -“They kept afloat for several hours,” he went on, “only to be wrecked -after all, a mile or two beyond an ugly looking cape called Nome.” - -“Wecked! Were vey weally wecked?” - -Mar nodded. In an emergency so great Jack did not scruple to turn his -back on the stool of penitence. He came and planted himself on wide apart -legs, directly in front of Mr. Mar, and stood there waiting. But Mr. Mar -seemed to be thinking less about Jack now, and he stared steadily at the -hole in the carpet. - -“What happened to ve little boat?” - -“The little boat was rapidly converted into little flinders.” - -“Ven how could ve men get away again?” - -“That’s what one of the men would have liked somebody to tell him.” - -“Weren’t vere any people vere on vat land?” - -“Not a soul.” - -“Where was ve ovver man?” - -“He had been washed out of the boat—he—it was hard to say where the other -man was.” - -“Didn’t his fwiend look for him?” - -“Not just then. The first thing the friend did was to tear up his shirt.” - -“Gwacious! Was he as mad as vat?” - -“No, he wasn’t mad, but he wanted some strips to tie round a wound he’d -got.” - -“Oh! And when he’d done vat?” - -“Then he went up on the tundra.” - -“What’s ve—” - -“The tundra is the great, rolling plain. They call it ‘the steppes’ in -Siberia. A few inches below the arctic moss that covers it, it’s frozen, -even in summer, as hard as iron. And it never melts. It’s been frozen -like that for millions of years.” - -“Why did ve man want to go up on ve—ve—?” - -“Well, he seemed to think he’d like to go to sleep. So that’s what he -did. He slept a long time. When he woke up he went down to the beach, and -the first thing he saw was his friend. It looked as if the friend had -been sleepy, too. He was taking his ease down there on the sand, in a -tangle of seaweed. His face was hidden. The other one went down to him, -as fast as his wound would let him, and he called several times. Then he -took hold of his friend’s shoulder and shook him. But the friend never -stirred—he was dead. Up there, above the line of seaweed and driftwood, -either he or the surf had flung his rifle—the butt rather battered, but -nothing a handy man couldn’t put right; only a rifle isn’t much good -without cartridges. By and by, the live man dug a grave for the dead one -up above tide line in the sand; and when he had buried the body, he sat -down and wondered how long it would be before the end would come for -himself. While he sat there tinkering at the rifle, a couple of natives -came down the coast.” - -“Cannibals?” In his excitement Jack dropped on the floor like a -small Turk, with his legs curled under him. But he had steadied his -precipitate fall into that position with a hand on his friend’s leg—and, -as ill-luck would have it, not the good leg, but the stiff, forbidding -member that poor Mar dragged about the world with the help of his stout -walking-stick. Now, to touch that leg would have been like touching the -leg of a table, if somehow it hadn’t been more like touching a corpse. -Jack’s friend didn’t seem to mind. But the boy felt the contact the more -keenly for the fact that Mar felt it hardly at all. That was the horror -of a wooden leg—that it couldn’t feel. Jack snatched away his hand as -if it had been burned. But Mar was saying calmly, “Cannibals? Oh, no. -Esquimaux, quite good fellows. They must have seen white men and firearms -before, for they took a deep interest in the rifle. The castaway made -them understand he was hungry. They nodded and pointed back the way they -had come. The white man got up and hobbled away with them.” - -“What made him hobble?” - -“Oh—a—it’s quite common after a wreck—you’ll notice people often hobble -for a while. Well, they went along the beach, till they came to a place -so rocky it drove them up on the edge of the tundra; and up there the -white man saw across the plain to the nor’ard, a low line of hills -streaked with snow. And there was one bare peak in particular that stood -out very plain. It looked only about eight or nine miles away, and you -could see quite well there was something curious about it. Yes, it was -queer.” - -“What was ve matter wiv it?” - -“It had a curious-shaped top. Even from the coast it didn’t look natural. -You’d swear it was a monument of some kind. The natives didn’t seem to -know anything about it. There was a river flowing down from the hills -through the tundra to the sea, and all the mouth of it was choked with -driftwood, though there wasn’t a tree in sight and hadn’t been all along. -Beyond the driftwood, a long sand-spit ran out into the sea, and spread -itself right and left, parallel to the coast, and on this sand-spit were -a lot of little driftwood huts, skin boats drawn up, and people in fur -standing round a fire. The two Esquimaux took the white man across in -a boat, and told the other Esquimaux about him. And they gave him some -food, fish. Everybody took so much interest in his rifle that he had to -sit on it. They talked a good deal, but the white man didn’t know what -it was all about. So he ate and slept, and ate and slept, always with -his rifle under his arm. When he got tired of eating and sleeping, the -castaway sat and looked at the sea. Never a sail. And sometimes he would -turn and look at that queer peak over beyond the tundra. He gathered -that these people didn’t live here on this sand-spit—they were only -camping. Kind of Esquimaux summer resort. No, they couldn’t take him to -a white settlement. They knew nothing about any white settlement. Then -he would show them, he said. Let them bring down their best boat, and he -would give his gun to them if they’d take him off there to the southeast, -to St. Michaels. They shook their heads and bustled away. The white man -saw with horror signs of a beginning to break camp. Where were they all -going? Over the hills? No, on up the coast by sea. When?” Mar pantomimed -their answer—placed his two hands palm to palm, laid his head down on -them sideways and shut his eyes, opened them briskly, and took hold of -his stick as if about to start on a journey. - -Jack was grinning with delight. “Was _vat_ ve way vey said ‘to-morrow -morning?’” - -“Just like that. They were going off the very next day!” - -“Not goin’ to leave vat poor man all alone vere, were vey?” - -“No, they seemed quite ready to take the castaway and his rifle along. -But”—Mr. Mar looked so grave that Jack came closer still—“to go up yonder -with them to their underground winter home seemed to the castaway almost -as horrible as to be left behind. Well, he had a day anyhow to think it -over. His wound was still pretty painful, but he felt whatever happened, -he ought to go over the tundra to that queer hill and take a look at -the situation from the top. He must have been feverish, or he’d have -realized that he wasn’t fit yet for hard exercise, and that there wasn’t -a ghost of a likelihood of a settlement on the far side, since these -natives knew nothing about it. Then you see, there was the awful danger -that on this last day a rescue party should sail hopelessly by while he -was away, or a whaling schooner pass, that he might have hailed. But no. -He had got it into his head that if he could only reach the top of that -glacier-carved height, all his troubles would be at an end. But he did -have the sense to guard against the natives making off in his absence. He -got one of the boys to come along with him. - -“How old was vat boy?” - -“Oh—a—about your size, but four or five years older, and very clever at -throwing the bird-dart. No, I’ll tell you about that another time. They -set off across the tundra. It wasn’t easy walking. It wasn’t walking at -all. It was jumping from one moss knoll to another, or wading to the -knees in the spongy hollows. But he’d look up at the peak and say: ‘Once -I’m _there_—’ All the same, he had to call a halt several times. He’d -find a dryish place, and he’d sit down and stare about him. They had -long lost sight of the sand-spit. Even the sea had disappeared. To right -and left, as far as you could see, tundra, tundra, nothing but tundra, -a few pools shining in the hollows, and acres of sedge and moss, and -low-growing ‘scrub-willow.’ Nothing else. Just this featureless plain -till the land met the ocean and the ocean met the arctic ice. Suddenly, -‘What’s that?’ says the white man, and he pointed sou’west. The native -stared. The light plays you queer tricks on the tundra. You often see -lakes and ships and cities that aren’t there. But this didn’t look like -a mirage, it was too simple, too distinct. Just two sticks stuck in the -tundra. They might be one mile away, they might be ten. But there those -sticks stood as clear against the blue sky as a couple of bean poles on a -prairie farm.” - -“Vey _weren’t_ bean poles!” said the prescient listener. - -“No,” agreed Mar. “The white man decided it must be some driftwood -contrivance of the natives. Only the remarkable thing about it was, that -he hadn’t noticed it before. For a thing like that is apt to strike -you in a country where there wasn’t a tree for a hundred and fifty -miles to the south’ard, and not one between you and the Pole. Well, he -felt he’d know more about those sticks, and he’d know more about a lot -besides, when he’d got to the top of the hill. So they went on; but the -hill was a good way off. The ‘little white patches’ turned out to be -vast fields of rotten snow. You went in up to your waist. The native -jabbered, and seemed to be pointing out that it was better to go the -long way round. There was less snow, and there didn’t seem to be such -a chaos of talus—broken rock, you know—tumbled down from the peak. And -the peak wasn’t a peak. It was more like a queer-shaped, flat stone set -on a rock pedestal. ‘It’s all right,’ the man kept saying to himself, -as they pushed on, ‘I shall feel it was worth it, once I’m on the top.’ -And they went on and on. All of a sudden the man looked up, and realized -that the feeling that had been haunting him was justified. The rock up -there was like a giant anvil. So like, it was almost uncanny to think -nature could have carved a stone with such whimsical exactness. ‘Just -wait till I get up there,’ he said again, half-laughing to himself; ‘see -if I don’t hammer out _something_!’ and he forgot his wound and how it -hurt him to walk, and he jumped across a water hole to a higher knoll -and saw that the ground on the other side fell gently down to a shallow -valley. And the valley held a little stream in its lap. The white man -realized when he saw that, how thirsty he was. He hadn’t dared to drink -out of the standing pools on the tundra, and he went as fast as he could -away from the anvil, and down the slope to the running water. He saw a -dash of something white on the edge of the bank, as he hurried down to -the creek, and he knew in the back of his head that it was a little heap -of weather-bleached bones that shone so, off there in the grass. But he -never stopped till he stood by the bed of the stream. He took up the -water in his double hands and drank. It was good water, and he’d never -been so thirsty before in his life. But the water spilled away through -his fingers, and he felt he should never get enough. So he balanced -himself over some stones, and he lay on his stomach, and reached his lips -to the clear water. He drank and drank, with his half-shut eyes fixed on -a spark of mica, that caught the light and was shining like a diamond -under the water. No, it wasn’t mica. He saw plainer now. He leaned over -a little further, and picked the bit of pyrites out of the wet gravel. -The Esquimau boy saw the white man stand up as suddenly as if he’d been -stung. But he held on to the thing he had taken into his palm, and he -lifted his hand, like this, several times, and he turned the thing over -and over, weighing it. One place in the stained, brassy-looking thing had -been scratched, and every time the light caught that new abrasion, it -glinted. The white man took out his knife and cut the substance. It was -gold!” - -“_Weal_ gold?” said Jack Galbraith, gathering up his sprawled-out body -with a squirrel-like quickness. - -“Real gold,” answered Mar. “‘Any more stuff like this about?’ the white -man asked. The native looked at the nugget, and shrugged indifferently. -The white man dug about in the gravel with his hands and a sharp stone, -and then he sat down and thought, with his eyes on the place where the -nugget had been. The Esquimau boy got out his bird-dart, and went off -a little way after a jack-snipe. The white man knew he ought to make a -miner’s assay.” - -“What’s vat?” - -“That’s ‘panning.’ If he’d had a round pan like Sigma’s bread pan, he’d -have put some sand and gravel in it, and he would fill it to the brim -with water, and he’d wash the sand and gravel round and round, picking -out all the stones and letting off the water little by little, with a -circular motion—so. And all the lighter sand and stuff would get washed -out; and by and by, if the miner knows his business, any gold that may -have been in that sand, every particle, is left behind in the bottom of -the pan.” - -“Gwacious! Vat _would_ be luck!” said Jack, with enthusiasm. - -“No, it isn’t luck. It’s skill and specific gravity.” - -“Why didn’t ve man twy it?” - -“He hadn’t any pan. He hadn’t even a shovel. I’ve seen it done very -cleverly with a shovel. I’ve seen it done with a saucer. He had nothing. -How was he going to find out if there was any more of that stuff there? -Had this one nugget by any chance been dropped? No, that was absurd. Who -could have dropped it? But he looked up the bank where the bones shone, -and out of the coarse grass a skull grinned at him. Not a wolf’s skull, -or a deer’s, as he’d thought. A human being’s—a white man’s, perhaps. -Had the nugget belonged to him? Had he brought it from some valley far -away, and lost his bit of gold as well as his life here under the shadow -of the great stone anvil? The graver the man got down there by the water, -the broader the one on the bank seemed to grin. Suddenly the living man -got up, and ran toward that heap of bones as if he couldn’t rest till -he’d found out what the joke was the dead man was laughing at. He picked -up the skull, and he saw it was a white man’s.” - -“How could he see vat?” - -“He looked at the teeth. They were splendid. Good as any savage’s—all but -one—one was filled. When he saw that, the castaway knew that probably -this white man, who had been here before him, had dropped that nugget -in the creek—or it had been washed down there after the wolves had torn -the dead man’s clothes. But who could tell! ‘Look here,’ the live man -asked, ‘what _did_ happen?’ But the other wouldn’t say a word, just went -on grinning in that irritating way of his. So the live man picked up two -stones, and got out his big clasp-knife, and he went at that skull with -might and main, sawing at it with the knife (which was no good at all), -and hammering with first one stone and then another, working away like -one possessed.” - -“Did he weally fink he could make ve skull tell him somefing?” and Jack -Galbraith laughed aloud at so foolish an adventurer. - -“Seemed as if he thought he’d get _some_ satisfaction out of it, from -the way he kept on. By the time the Esquimau boy got back with the -jack-snipe, the white man had hammered away everything from that skull -except the round basin of the cranium—this part, you know. The Esquimau -boy was horrified, and made signs of disapproval. - -“‘Just you wait,’ said the white man. He took the bone bowl down to the -bank. He filled it full, and three times he ‘panned’ the gravel of that -creek. _And every time he got gold!_” - -“Gwacious!” said Jack, in an excited whisper. - -“Yes,” agreed Mr. Mar, “when he saw colors the third time he just poured -the stuff wet into his handkerchief, and told the Esquimau boy he was -ready to go now. As he went up the bank, he passed the bones again. ‘I -wonder if he knew!’ the castaway thought, and as he went on he thought -more and more, and he got solemner and solemner. He said to himself: ‘A -gold mine will do me just about as much good as it did Old Bones, if I -have to stay up here with the Esquimaux. We’ll go back the other way,’ -he called to the boy, and the boy didn’t think much of the plan. But the -white man kept looking all round in every direction, to see if there was -the least little trail leading anywhere, or the smallest human sign. Only -those bones shining so white down there on the bank! The castaway went -on, feeling pretty sick and anxious, till he looked straight up and saw -off there against the blue, that great anvil, plainer than ever. The nose -quite sharp and finely cut, the top as flat as our dining-table, and the -waist gouged in exactly as a real anvil is. ‘Well, I won’t give up going -to the top,’ he said out loud, ‘and if there _are_ any settlements—’ It -was a crazy thing to do, but he did it; and when he got to the top he -saw something he wouldn’t have seen in time, if he hadn’t climbed Anvil -Rock.” - -“What did he see?” Jack gathered together his sprawled-out body and sat -up. - -Mar’s eyes looked over the little boy’s head into space. “No settlements. -Beyond the creek, barren hills to the north. No hope that way. East and -west the tundra stretched to the horizon line level as the ocean. No hope -right or left. He turned round and saw off there to the south the coast -where he’d been wrecked, and the sand-spit the Esquimaux were making -ready to leave, and beyond that, against the horizon—what was that! He -nearly fell off the rock. For a two-masted schooner was lying a couple of -miles off the shore. Two masts! It flashed over him those were the two -poles he’d seen sticking up above the tundra, several hours before. Well, -he got down off that rock double quick, and he nearly killed himself -tearing back to the coast, and signaling the ship. He was only just in -time—they were weighing anchor.” - -“Well,” said Jack, with a long breath of relief, “it _was_ a good fing he -climbed vat funny hill!” - -“Y—yes,” said Nathaniel Mar. His tone was hardly satisfactory. - -“Didn’t he get back to his fwiends all wight?” - -“Oh, yes, he got back all right.” - -“What did vey say when he told vem about ve gold?” - -“He didn’t tell anybody about that just then.” - -“Why not?” - -“If he had, somebody might have rushed there and cleaned the whole creek -out, before he had a chance.” - -“Oh! How soon did he go back?” - -“He—he didn’t go.” - -Jack sat there wide-eyed. “W—why didn’t he?” - -[Illustration: “Mar’s eyes looked over the little boy’s head into -space”] - -“Well, you see, he had a pretty bad time with that leg of his.” - -“Oh, it was his leg, was it?” - -“A—yes—his leg. He kept waiting for the doctors to cure it. Instead of -curing it they kept cutting off little bits of it.” - -“Ow! Well—and after vat, when it _did_ get well.” - -“It didn’t.” - -“And was he lame always, like you?” - -“Something like me.” - -“Why didn’t _he_ get a store leg, too?” - -“He did, I believe—ultimately.” - -“And wasn’t it any good?” - -“It wasn’t quite the same as the one he’d lost.” - -“Oh, no.” Jack realized that, with a creep down his back. He could still -feel the dreadful touch of it on his fingers. “But I suppose he sent -somebody else up after vat gold?” - -“N-no.” - -“Well, what _did_ he do?” - -“He—he got married.” - -“Oh—h. And after vat?” - -“Then he got a post of some sort—not easy to get, still harder to leave.” - -“And—” - -“And then he got some children. Oh, he was always getting things, that -fellow! Once it was intermittent fever. Anyhow he had to stay where he -was.” - -“Ven who got ve gold?” - -“Nobody. Not yet.” - -“Ve gold is waitin’ vere now?” Jack jumped to his feet with dancing eyes. - -“So—a—so he says.” - -“Oh—_oh_!” Then with an air of fiery impatience: - -“What you say vat man’s doin’ now?” - -“He—well—I understand he’s hanging on to that post.” - -“Hangin’ on a post!” Jack colored as Mar laughed, and added hurriedly, -“Just waitin’ to see if vat leg won’t get better, I s’pose.” - -“Waiting for—several things.” - -Jack came closer. “Oh, _doesn’t_ he mean to never mind his leg, and go -back some day?” - -“I wouldn’t be surprised if he had times of thinking he would go back -_somehow_. After he’s educated his children, and got them off his hands, -and can afford to take risks. Or, if the worst comes to the worst, his -sons will go one day.” - -“Or _I_ might go,” said Jack, quickly. - -Mar smiled and fell silent. Jack walked away with his hands in his -breeches pockets, and his eyes big with dreams. The opening of the door -made them both start. - -“Didn’t I tell you not to get out of that chair till supper?” Mrs. Mar -demanded. She stood there with the butter dish in one hand and the milk -pitcher in the other, snapping her bright eyes at the culprit. - -He for his part had turned about sharply, and he fell from the infinite -skies with a bump. - -“I—I—” he stammered, backing against the bookcase. - -“It’s on the lower shelf,” said Mar, calmly. “The heavy brown book.” Jack -turned again, utterly bewildered, but following the direction indicated -by Mr. Mar’s walking-stick. - -“That’s ‘Franklin’s Second Voyage,’ next the dictionary. Yes, that’s what -I want. I think,” he went on to his wife, as Jack stooped to obey him, “I -think I must always keep a small prisoner in here, to hand me things out -of my reach.” - -She answered nothing as she set down the butter and the milk, but she -kept her eyes on Jack. - -“Oh, yes,” he was saying hurriedly, “vis is Fwanklin.” He carried the -book to his friend. - -“Fwanklin!” repeated that gentleman with affectation of scorn, as he -opened the book. “Now, sir, go back to your seat and practice your R’s. -It’s ridiculous for a boy of your age to be talking baby talk.” - -“Yes, sir,” said Jack, getting very red as he returned to his place. Mrs. -Mar stood at the sideboard making a dressing for the salad. Every now -and then she looked over her shoulder. But Jack sat impeccable in the -penitential chair, saying softly, but with careful emphasis: - -“Awound ve wugged wocks ve wagged wascal wan. Awound ve,”—but his eyes -were too shining to show a mind properly bent upon the course pursued by -that particular wascal. - -After supper, while Mrs. Mar was putting Trennor and Harry to bed, Jack -Galbraith looked everywhere he could think of for his book. No, Mr. Mar -hadn’t seen it. “Here, I’ll lend you mine. You’ll understand some of the -chapter about,”—and he turned the pages till he found the place, and he -put in a slip of paper. “There! Franklin didn’t find what he was looking -for, but he’s written the best travel book I know.” - -“Oh, fank you, sir.” Jack took the big volume in both arms, and was -making off with it. - -“And look here, Jack, about that other fellow—the man who did find -something up there, you and I won’t tell anybody about that.” - -“Oh!” He stopped and nodded at Mar over the great book. “All wight. But I -may speak to _you_ about it sometimes—” - -“When we’re alone.” - -“All wight. Hasn’t he,” Jack lowered his tone to conspirator’s pitch, -“hasn’t he ever told anybody but you?” - -“Oh, he’s told one or two. But in confidence, you know. People he can -trust.” - -Jack pulled himself up proudly. “I can keep secrets like anyfing.” But -again he lowered his voice, and smiling delightedly, “What do vey say,” -he demanded with lively anticipation, “vose ovvers, when vey hear about -it?” - -Mr. Mar did not answer instantly. - -Jack drew nearer, still clasping the great book. “Oh, _do_ tell me what -vey say.” - -“They—they think he dreamed it.” - -“B—b—but,” Jack stuttered with indignation, “doesn’t he show vem ve -nugget, and ve handkerchief wiv ve—” - -“No,” said Mar, sadly. “He lost that handkerchief somewhere on the -tundra.” - - - - -CHAPTER III - - -Not for several years had Mar made mention of the far northern experience -which, beside laming him for life, had as yet but one visible effect upon -his circumstances—that of ruining his credit as a man of judgment among -those nearest to him. - -People had recognized Nathaniel Mar as one marked out for misfortune, -when, upon his father’s death, he had been obliged to give up his -theological studies, and come back from college, to take the first -thing that offered him a little ready money for the assistance of his -mother. His modest salary as surveyor’s clerk was presently augmented, in -recognition of his good draftsmanship and his surprisingly quick mastery -of the new field. But it was not till the work he did the following -year, over in the Rock Hill district, brought him the friendship of the -prosperous young mine owner Galbraith, that Mar found an opportunity -of following the more scientific side of his new profession. It was -Galbraith who got him the post on the Coast Survey, that led to Mar’s -joining the Russian-American Expedition. - -After his return the handsome schoolmistress, who had reluctantly said -“no” to the penniless surveyor, consented to look with favor upon the -Discoverer of Gold in the new territory of Alaska. - -But she warmly opposed Mar’s design of going to Rock Hill to share the -great secret with his friend Galbraith. No, indeed! The Rock Hill mining -magnate was in small need of “tips.” It was clearly Mar’s duty to give -the men of Miss Trennor’s family the first chance of joining in this -glorious scheme that was to enrich them all. - -When Harriet Trennor called the Trennor brothers “the men of her -family,” she made the most of what was a second cousinship. It was even -the case that she was not on very good terms with those go-ahead young -gentlemen; for the Trennors, in spite of their prosperity, had never, -as she expressed it, “done anything” for her. It had been for the sake -of her old father that they had bestirred themselves sufficiently to -recommend Harriet for the post of assistant superintendent of the Girls’ -College of Valdivia. But after providing her with an opportunity to -leave their common birthplace in St. Joseph, Missouri, the Trennors and -their respective wives had, in point of fact, neglected Miss Harriet to -such a degree, that there would be a certain magnificence in her heaping -coals of fire on their heads. She, the poor relation, whom they had so -little regarded, would put it in the way of men merely well-off to become -millionaires. They would learn her worth at last! - -Yes, yes, Nathaniel must keep the great secret close, till the Trennors -(who were in New York on their yearly business trip) should have -returned. But the affairs of the brothers took them to Mexico, and their -home coming was further delayed. - -While they tarried acute pneumonia appeared upon the Rock Hill scene, and -carried off John Galbraith. Little part in Mar’s grief at the loss of his -best-loved friend was played by the thought that now he could not count -upon his “backing.” Galbraith took with him out of the world something -that to a man of Mar’s temperament meant more. And at that time he looked -upon himself as possessor of a secret that any capitalist in the country -would hold himself lucky to share. It was not till the return of his -wife’s cousins that he found there could be exceptions to this foregone -conclusion. - -As enterprising dabblers in real estate and mining, and with the Palmas -Valley Bank behind them, the Trennor brothers were constantly being -approached by people with schemes for making millions. Such persons, -though almost invariably as poor as Mar, were not often, the Trennor -brothers agreed, ready with propositions so fantastic. - -Alaska was in those days further away from men’s imaginations than -Patagonia. The few people who had anything to say about the newly -acquired territory, used it only as a club to belabor the then secretary -of state. What had he been thinking of to advise his foolish country -to pay seven millions for the barren rocks and worthless ice-fields -that astute Russia, after one hundred and twenty-six years’ attempt at -occupation, was so ready to abandon! - -“Worthless!” retorted Secretary Seward’s friends. “Why, the Seal Islands -alone—” - -“Yes, yes, the Seal Islands _are_ alone on the credit side of the -transaction. Seward gave those seven millions for the two little -Pribyloffs, and the value of Alaska may be gaged by the fact that it was -just thrown in.” - -Was it to be believed, the Trennors asked, was it _likely_ there was gold -in a place where fellows with such keen noses as the Russians—they shook -their heads. Both of them shook their heads, for the Trennor brothers -always did everything together. Who could believe it had been left for -a man like Mar—besides, that gold should be up there was dead against -the best geologic opinion of the day. The precious metal had never been -found under these conditions. There were reasons, scientific reasons, -as anybody but Mar would know, why gold couldn’t exist in just that -formation (they spoke as if the vast new realm boasted but one). And, -finally, even if there _was_ gold in such a place, how the dickens was it -going to be got out? - -It was in the talk about mining facilities that Mar’s own faith suffered -the first of many hurts. - -He was obliged to concede that these astute young men were well-informed -as regards the difficulties and disappointments of mining, even in a land -where transport was easy, food cheap, and labor plentiful—a land blessed -by running water and perpetual summer. No less was Mar constrained to -admit that this gold he believed he had found was hidden in a barren -corner of the uttermost North, where not even an occasional tree promised -timber for sluice boxes, where the winter was nine months long, and -where, even in summer, the soil six inches below the surface was welded -with the frost of ages. - -They were surprised, the Trennors said, that any one should expect them -to take stock in such a— - -Oh, he didn’t (Mar hastened to defend himself), he didn’t at all -expect—it was only that his wife had begged him to come to them first. - -And they smiled. They always smiled when Mar’s mad notion was mentioned. -Even after it ceased to be actually mentioned, they had for his mere name -a particular kind of tolerant, distant-cousin-by-marriage smile that said -“poor Mar,” with an accent on the adjective. - -The new Mrs. Mar was at first boundlessly indignant with her kinsmen. -“Never mind,” she adjured her husband, with flashing eyes; as soon as he -should be able to travel, they would go up there themselves. She seemed -unobservant of the fact that his spirits were not raised by her kind -proposition. They would have no trouble, she assured him, in finding -worthier partners to join them in the great scheme when once they had -“made sure.” - -“Made sure?” said Mar, wincing; “but I _have_ made sure.” - -“Yes, yes, of course. Still you did lose the nugget—and the gold dust, -too.” - -For the first time Mar changed the subject. - -“You haven’t anything _to show_,” she persisted. To which he answered -nothing. - -Shortly after they were married, Mar’s mother became very ill. The -following spring she died. Mar’s own health and spirits were a good deal -lowered by the surgical torment he was called on periodically to undergo, -as amputation followed amputation. - -Meanwhile, without waiting to “go up there and make sure,” two efforts -on Mrs. Mar’s part to interest moneyed men in her husband’s discovery, -resulted not alone in failing to convince any one else that this was a -fine opportunity for investment, but ultimately in undermining her own -faith. - -With the coming of her first child she prepared to cast overboard the -wild hope (she saw now that it _was_ wild) of a fortune up yonder in the -ice-fields, and showed herself wisely ready to make what she could out of -the saner possibilities life presented in Valdivia. Her cousins had been -right. She wouldn’t admit it to them—not yet—but it was a crazy scheme, -that notion of gold in the arctic regions! - -Dreamer as he was, Mar missed nothing of the intended effect when she -first ceased to talk about his discovery—ceased to plan all life with -that fact for its corner-stone. Her initial silence hurt him probably -more than the half-veiled taunts of a later time. It was all the -difference between the shrinking of an open wound and the dull beating of -an ancient cicatrice. - -Not only, as time went on, did she resent the illusion she had been -under, but, as is common with women of her type, her husband’s greater -significance since motherhood had come to her, made her increasingly -dread that foolish infatuation of his. She foresaw that a continued faith -in the value of his “find” would stand between him and energetic pursuit -of fortune in any other direction. So it was that the North was not -merely for her, as time went on, the type of a shattered dream—it came to -be her and her babies’ rival in this man’s thoughts. This man—who owed -to them all his thoughts, all his faith and energy—he was divided in his -allegiance. - -And not in dreams alone might he desert them. He might even conceivably -insist, against all rational advice and plain duty, he might insist on -going back there! The mere idea of his fatuous clinging to the old plan -came to exercise over her an almost uncanny power for misery. Not that he -continued openly to admit his preoccupation. But it was there—she was -sure of that—in his head, more properly in his heart, his refuge, his -darling, his delight. She came to feel for it the hatred, and to have -before it the involuntarily nerve recoil, that lies for some wives in -the thought of another woman. What if she never succeeded in rooting the -fancy out of his brain? How was she at least to make sure of preventing -his squandering time and money in pursuit of it?—now, when she could not -go too, and when his going would mean (as she honestly thought) disaster -to her and to the children and the humiliation of falling back for -cousinly help on those wise young Missourians, who had seen at once the -madness of the scheme. - -She patched up the breach with her two kinsmen, and induced them to offer -her husband a small position in their bank. - -_That_ would hold him. - -But although she succeeded in seeing the cripple made teller—as a first -step, she was firmly convinced, on the road to a partnership—she was not -delivered from her fear. The unspoken dread that he might throw aside -the humble, though precious, “sure thing” for this chimera beckoning -from the North—the dread of it became the main factor in their spiritual -relation. For not only did she never free herself from her grudging love -of the man—and never, therefore, from her shrinking at the prospect of -separation—not only did she conceive of him in the American way as the -property of his family and bound as bondsmen are to serve them to the -end, but in addition to all that, more and more as the years went on, did -she come profoundly to disbelieve in the validity of his story. - -“Do you still think you may go back there one day?” she burst out on -one occasion, looking darkly at the reconnaissance map that hung on the -dining-room wall. Mar mumbled something about the satisfaction in the -verifying of an impression. - -“Verifying _what_? How do you verify pure fancy?” Then turning suddenly -upon him, “If ever you do go, you’ll only be giving a fantastic reason -for a restless man’s longing to leave his home.” - -At moments conceived by her to be critical, she would toss at him the -reproach of his well-known visionariness, and all their old foolish hope -and its utter loss would be held up to scorn in her saying, apropos of -something quite foreign: “That’s like some one I once knew who wanted -people to believe in a miracle. But not without proof, he said. He -_had_ proof—absolute proof—only he’d lost it.” Or, less offensive, but -for Mar no less pointed, the form of skepticism his loss of the nugget -had crystallized for her, “You’ve got to have something to _show_ to a -Missourian.” - -This was later not only adopted by her boys as a favorite family gibe, -but introduced into their school, and thence spread abroad as a foolish -and pointless saying sometimes will, no one quite knowing why, till all -of that generation, whatever their origin, would say with a wag of the -head: “You’ve got to _show_ me—I’m from Missouri,” whenever they wished -to announce themselves acute fellows by no means to be taken in. - -As to the particular matter that gave rise to the saying, Mrs. Mar’s -strong personal feeling about it was augmented by outside circumstances. -Stories of failure in gold mining were too rife and too well-attested -not to have a significance difficult to disregard. Blameless misfortune -as well as wholesale swindling, were so much the order of the day in the -West, that men of business like the Trennors, when they wanted to promote -some mining scheme, must needs have recourse to the gorgeous East. -New York had plenty of money for “wildcat” schemes. But no place, the -wise would tell you, like conservative old Boston for floating a risky -concern. New Englanders were at that distance which lends enchantment. -For them gold mining is still a form of romance—the mere thought of it -goes to the head like wine. - -But Valdivia was neither near enough to the mining centers to catch -the fever, nor yet so far away but what her citizens mightily feared -infection. Had not their townsman, Ben White, lost his head and his -fortune over at Huerfano Creek? Wasn’t there young Andrews for a warning! - -No catastrophe of this kind in their little world lost through Mrs. Mar’s -agency any of its ironic usefulness as illustration. She succeeded not -only in making her husband doubt the wisdom of giving up a sure thing in -the bank, to claim an unworkable gold mine, but little by little, as the -rain and the weather wear away the sharp outlines of a stone inscription, -so for Nathaniel Mar the years and the unbelief about him brought a -gradual blurring of the picture, till even to himself its early outlines -were a little dimmed. - -To revive its actuality, more than for any other purpose, nearly ten -years after he had told the story to little Jack Galbraith, he told it -again to Mr. Elihu H. Cox. The man listened with such a look in his big, -fishy eyes, in a silence so galling, that Mar interposed hurriedly: -“And there’s one capital thing about it. It’s safe enough. If the gold’s -there, it certainly won’t run away,” and abruptly changed the subject; -though to hear himself saying “if it’s there,” rankled in his memory like -apostasy. He would never tell the story again till his boys were grown -and he told it to them. _They_ would believe him. They, with youth and -four sound legs between them, they would go up there and justify the long -faith. - -For fear that he might die before they were old enough to be -indoctrinated, he wrote out as circumstantial an account as he could -between intervals of black despair at finding how dim were certain -details. He grappled with the horror and saw it recede before the -draftsman’s skill and his peerless satisfaction in preparing careful -diagrams and a map to larger scale. There was an effect of mathematical -accuracy about these illustrations of his account that gave him back his -confidence. If there was any trifling difference between these data and -those furnished upon his return, the apparent discrepancy lay in the -essential impressionism of mere words. The compass and the rule can’t -lie. He put the precious document away with his will, in the vault of -the Palmas Valley Bank, but he did not put away the thought of it. On -the contrary, he kept it by him day and night, turning it over in his -mind with the rich comfort of the man who reflects that he will leave to -his children a handsome inheritance and a fund of gratitude. Something -in this case that partook of the nature of a paternal life-insurance—the -kind of thing that had not profited, could not profit the giver, except -as it profited him to feel that for all his appearance of being one of -life’s failures, he yet had insured his children against the meaner -assaults of fortune. For this “policy” that he held for them was “paid -up.” Oh, yes, Nathaniel Mar had paid heavily—not yearly, but daily, -almost hourly, for his lien upon the riches of the North. - -The thought of the gold-shotted creek between the Great Stone Anvil and -the arctic circle comforted him not least when he looked at his little -daughter. It was good to know—the knowledge helped him through many a -difficult hour—that Hildegarde would never be forced to join the ever -fuller ranks of the bread-winning women. It would be no hurt to her that, -however great an heiress she might be, she had been frugally brought up. - -There was something large and fine and tranquil about the -Scandinavian-looking girl, whom her parents had called by the stately -northern name with more luck than attends many a christening—since it is -well-known Victoria is, like as not, to take on an aspect depressed and -down-trodden; Grace to turn out clumsy and hideous; while Ivy shows a -sturdy independence, and Blanche and Lily grows swarthy as a squaw. - -But the fact was that the little Mar girl was named Harriet Hildegarde, -and was even called “Hattie” till she was nearly twelve, when, after -remarking one day, “I don’t look like a Hattie, and I’m not going to be -a Hattie,” she refused thereafter to hear the obnoxious diminutive and -quietly but firmly coerced her family and her schoolmates into saying -“Hildegarde,” if they wanted her to notice them. - -Mrs. Mar was grieved to find that her only daughter had no conspicuous -talents, and was not even a girl of spirit—lacked, moreover, the will -to cultivate that affectation of being spirited, which goes in America -by the name of “brightness.” But she was not a bad sort of little girl -after all; she got her lessons, and played games with a certain boyish -gusto, and gardened with a patient devotion that her mother thought -worthy of a better cause. But Mrs. Mar consoled herself for the girl’s -lack of brilliancy by reflecting that Hildegarde was probably going to be -handsome and that men were great donkeys and might never find out that -she was slow. - -Hildegarde herself was conscious of her shortcomings—without the -knowledge overwhelming her. Life was going to be very good, even if -she wasn’t at the head of the class, or a shining light at the school -commencements. She had no talent for music, and quite as little for -recitation. It was something to hear her saying, in the famous garden -scene— - - “Geh’ falsche gleissnerische Königin - Wie du die Welt so täusch’ ich Dich—” - -in a tone of unruffled courtesy and with a brow serene. When the fiery -Madeleine Smulsky took her off with, “This is Hildegarde laying dark -plots—now she’s doing foul murder,” and proceeded to translate her -friend’s large tranquillity into the feverish terms of picturesque -wickedness, the effect was distinctly diverting. Even Hildegarde laughed. -For she got over “minding.” It was when she was quite little that she had -suffered most, and from the scorn of her own family. Her brothers were -both “such very bright boys,” and her mother she knew to be enormously -clever. It had been painful to feel that beside these richly dowered -ones, she was “next door to an idiot.” She made no outward struggle -against the verdict of her family, accepting it as many a young creature -will, without a doubt of its being as just as final. But, fortunately, -hers was a nature too sane and sunny for her to run the risk many -children do of coming nervously to dread, and so making true, a prophecy -having no foundation in necessity. When she discovered that she had -competent hands—hands with which she could perform all manner of pleasant -domestic miracles—that gradually, and because of her, the house was -transformed and the garden made to smile; that, moreover (assuring her -of a hold upon the fine arts, too), she could tell ghost stories that -made her school friends gibber with excitement, the girl felt agreeably -conscious that her destiny after all was maybe larger than the family eye -had been able to discern. - -When Hildegarde was sixteen a new pupil appeared at the Valdivia School -for Young Ladies. A little girl hardly twelve, delicate, pretty, -appealing, yet self-sufficing; so backward in some of her studies, and -so advanced in others, that she could not be entered in either the upper -primary or lower academic classes, but was sent to recite arithmetic and -geography with the infants, Latin with the first academic girls, and -French with the second collegiates—young ladies four to six years older -than little Bella Wayne. - -She was a boarder, and it was said her parents had put her under the -special care of Miss Gillow, the principal. She even had special dishes -cooked for her, and the fact that these “milk puddings” (as it seemed -they were called) were plainer than the food set before the other -boarders, did nothing to mitigate the offensiveness of the distinction. -Certainly the principal accorded the “new girl” so many privileges that a -strong party sprang up against her. - -Hildegarde, even before a certain day of wrath, had found herself -unconsciously absorbed in watching this thin slip of prettiness, who -looked as if a puff of wind would blow her away, who ought to have -carried herself humbly, if not actually depressed, in her capacity of -unclassifiable new-comer, and who yet walked about with her little nose -in the air, as if she despised Valdivia, and especially scorned the -critical young ladies of Valdivia’s celebrated school. - -It did not help her good standing that she showed herself indifferent -to an opportunity of joining the Busy Bees. Now, the Busy Bees were a -very popular organization which not only sewed on alternate Saturday -afternoons at the rectory, but danced with an equal regularity, in -various other places, and organized a bazaar once a year in the Masonic -Hall. Besides the gaiety of this function, there was a fine flavor -of philanthropy about the regular application of the proceeds to the -clothing and educating of a little Hindu girl, who was able strangely -soon to write pious letters to the young ladies of Valdivia—letters in -which she seemed to get even with her benefactors by saying that she -never forgot to pray for them. The Bees had had the joy of deciding by -what name their protégé should be christened. As there were three Marys -and six Trennors among them, the little Hindu was called Mary Trennor, -and every properly constituted girl felt pledged for Mary Trennor’s -material and spiritual welfare—that is, every girl in Valdivia whose -fortunate social condition permitted her to aspire to wear the badge -of the Golden Bee. It followed that the new girl was not properly -constituted when she declined the honor. It was even apparent that -her heart was not in the right place. For when Beatrice Trennor most -forbearingly showed the new girl the framed photograph of the Hindu -convert, in order to stimulate interest in the cause, Miss Bella Wayne -turned from it with the observation, “She’s ugly. I shan’t do a single -thing for such a hideous little girl. I don’t think they ought to be -encouraged.” - -It was plain, therefore, that she thought too much of good looks, and was -a stony-hearted monster. - -“Serves her right,” said primaries, academics and collegiates all with -one voice, when Bella Wayne, having for a week daily put the arithmetic -class to shame, was banished to Miss MacIver’s room to spend two hours in -austere solitude over the lesson of the day. - -Hildegarde had got special permission to go for ten minutes after school -hours to visit Madeleine Smulsky (also a boarder), who was in bed with -a violent cold. Coming down-stairs, as Hildegarde passed Miss MacIver’s -room she saw the door cautiously open. A spectacled eye gleamed strangely -low down in the aperture for one of Miss MacIver’s height, and then the -owner of the eye, as if reassured by the look of things outside, opened -the door a little wider, and the apparition stood fully revealed. Miss -MacIver, many inches shorter than anybody had ever seen her before, and -narrowed in proportion, the familiar crochet shawl hanging dowdily over -one shoulder, the stiff-held head ornamented with the front of sandy -curls, a gouty finger held crookedly up, the effect of cold in the nose -faithfully reproduced as the voice twanged out: - -“Neow young ladies, observe—” It was the arithmetic teacher to the life, -only it was Bella Wayne, with her perky little nose supporting huge round -spectacles, and her baby mouth pursed in severity repeating the rule, -“One or bore of the decibal divisiods of a unid are galled a decibal -fragtion.” - -Hildegarde had stopped, stared, and was seized with uncontrollable -giggles. Madeleine Smulsky, hearing these demonstrations, got up out of -bed and made all haste to thrust her bare toes through the banisters, -and crane a tousled head far enough over the rail to discover what was -happening below. Her ecstatic merriment induced Miss Wayne to come -further into the hall, and reprove her with a supple young finger stiffly -crooked, and speaking not only with a cold in the head, but with that -intolerable click in the nose of the sufferer from chronic catarrh— - -“I would lige yeou do observe there is a sbezial beaudy aboud the -laws of bathebadigs—” Again the dreadful noise in the impudent little -nose. Madeleine’s attempt to suppress her laughter brought on a fit of -coughing, which, with a spasmodic suddenness, choked and died in her -throat. For all of a sudden there were three figures in the hall below, -and one of them was the real Miss MacIver, saying to herself in miniature: - -“And now, Miss Wayne, you may take off my shawl, and my skirt, and my -glasses.” (Not a syllable about the opulent front.) “And in ten minutes -go and report to the principal.” - -[Illustration: “It was the teacher of arithmetic to the life, only it was -Bella Wayne”] - -As the real Miss MacIver, six feet of indignation, turned away trembling -with fury, she looked back an instant over her shoulder to say: “You or -I, Biss Wayne, bust leave Valdivia—” - -But Bella had already vanished into the room of penitence, and was -feverishly pulling off her strange habiliments. The bare toes of Miss -Smulsky had been hurriedly withdrawn from between the banisters, and any -girl but Hildegarde Mar would have been fleeing down the staircase, “and -so home.” But she walked quietly away, her large deliberateness even a -little emphasized as she went, weighed down by fearful speculation as to -what form of retribution would overtake the wicked, new girl. - -Hildegarde went to school the next morning ten minutes earlier than -usual. No one yet in the big school-room, so she wandered restlessly -through the empty halls, wishing she dared go up-stairs and compare -notes with Madeleine. From a window at the back, looking out on a group -of eucalyptus trees and a mass of syringa, she saw little Bella Wayne -sitting very subdued on the topmost of two stone steps; slate on knee and -pencil poised, but eyes fastened on a woodpecker tap-tap-tapping at the -tree. - -Hildegarde went out and spoke kindly to the unlucky little girl. “What’s -happened since—?” - -“Nothing much,” and Bella put up her chin. - -“Are you—are you going away?” - -“Me? No.” And with that she dropped her slate and pencil on the step, -dropped her face into her two hands, and wept. - -Hildegarde thought she had misheard—it must be that Bella was crying -because she was expelled. After all Hildegarde had expected she would be -expelled. What she had not expected was that she, one of the big girls, -would be so sorry to hear that this was the last she should see of little -Bella Wayne. Hildegarde picked up the broken slate, and tried to think of -something comforting. - -“I was _sure_ they’d send me home,” Bella sobbed. “But they w-won’t! Not -even if I d-don’t beg her p-par-don.” - -“And you _want_ to be sent home!” - -“Of course!” Bella got out a handkerchief three inches square and dabbed -her eyes. - -“Was that why you did it?” - -“No. It _would_ have been if I’d thought she’d come and catch me. -But—no—I did it because—oh, because there wasn’t any other earthly thing -to do in that room!” she said, with a burst. Then, more collectively: -“Were you ever in Miss MacIver’s room?” - -“No. I’ve always been rather afraid of Miss MacIver.” - -“Well, wait till you’ve seen her room—and her family! You’ll be ’fraider -than ever. The only pictures she has in there are photographs of a lot -of nightmarey people all just like her. Oh, it was dreadful being shut -up there with millions of MacIvers! I did everything I could think of -to forget ’em. I looked at all her dull books. Then I smelt all her -bottles—_they_ aren’t so dull. Do you know she’s got seventeen on her -wash-stand?” - -“Not bottles!” - -“Bottles. When I’d smelt them all—some very queer—what else _was_ there -to take your mind off those pictures but to try on her things?” - -The three-minute bell began to ring, and Hildegarde went back to the -school-room. - -Bella did not reappear among her kind for twenty-four hours. Some said -she’d already gone home. Others said no, she was waiting till her mother -came for her. Certainly Miss MacIver made no sign; but her cold seemed -better. - -Upon resuming her place the next day, Bella, still with her nose in the -air, publicly announced that she had begged Miss MacIver’s pardon. - -“How did they make you do it?” Hildegarde asked the little girl at recess. - -The wicked Miss Wayne was again sitting solitary on the stone steps among -the shrubbery at the back, holding on her knees a new slate, the lower -part covered with neat little figures—the upper elegantly decorated with -dragons. - -“_No_body made me,” answered Bella, while she carefully shaded the -scaly coil on the monster’s tail. “The door was a little bit open—Miss -MacIver’s door—and I saw her packing up. Then she looked out and caught -me peeking at her.” - -“Heavens!” breathed Hildegarde, so overcome she sat down. “What happened -then?” - -“Oh, I went in.” - -“She called you?” - -“No.” - -“You didn’t go in without being made to?” - -“Yes, I did.” - -“Gracious! How _could_ you, Bella?” - -“I thought I’d better. I went in and asked her pardon.” - -“What did she say?” - -“She just”—the outrageous Bella made the obnoxious clicking in her nose. -“Do you know she’s only got two dresses?” - -“Yes, I’ve noticed.” - -“But she’s very well off for fronts.” - -“Is she?” - -Bella nodded. “Got three.” - -“You don’t mean to tell me, Bella Wayne, Miss MacIver’s got three false -fronts!” - -“Yes, she has. And the weeest little, teenty-weenty trunk, she’s got. But -it’s quite big enough. I could see she hadn’t anything, hardly, to put -in it. Only bottles and fronts. After I’d begged pardon, and was going -out, I suddenly thought she must be pretty poor, even if she did have -such a lot of—do you suppose it’s because she can’t afford hats? Well, I -don’t know. Anyhow I asked her what school she was going to after this. -She said she didn’t know. Then I looked at those nightmarey MacIvers and -asked her if she was going home. She suddenly began to look awfuller than -ever. I saw _she_ was thinking about the MacIvers, too, and it was ’most -more than she could bear. So I ran back and begged her not to go. I said -I did so need her.” - -“You needed her?” - -“Yes, to—to teach me decimal fractions.” Bella brought out the words a -little shamefaced. Then, hurriedly, as if to forestall misapprehension: -“Oh, I _said_ I knew it wasn’t much of an attraction for her—of course, -it must be perfectly horrid to have a girl like me in the arithmetic -class. But, after all”—Bella paused, and then, with the air of a -discoverer of one of the deeper mysteries of nature—“after all, Miss -MacIver _likes_ hammering those disgusting rules into girls. What -she hates is to think there’s a girl going round without those rules -somewhere inside her. So I just told her that wherever she was going -she wouldn’t find anybody who knew as little about fractions as I did. -I was certain I told her, perfectly certain, that she could show me -all about ’em if only she wasn’t going away. One thing was sure as a -gun—I was never going to let anybody else teach me! She said something -about that. It was the first time she spoke, and she stood like this, -with her flannel petticoat in one hand, and a bottle in the other. But -I just said: ‘Seven people have tried it already, and _you_ know if -they succeeded. There’s only one person in the world that can make me -understand those disgusting rules.’ And I went quite close to her, and -I said: ‘Miss MacIver, cross my heart and hope I may die, if ever I let -anybody else _speak_ to me about fractions!’ So we agreed it was her duty -to stay. But now the awful thing is I’ve _got_ to do these sickening -sums! Isn’t it terrible what a lot of trouble you can make for yourself, -just all in a minute?” - -“Well, I hope you’ll stick to your part of the bargain, Bella,” said the -big girl, smiling. - -“Got to—got to!” said the luckless one, flourishing her pencil over the -biggest of the dragons. “If I don’t she’ll go away and starve with the -rest of the MacIvers; or drink up all those medicine bottles, and die in -a wink—like that!” - -“Look here, shall I just see if you’re going the right way about it?” - -“Oh, _thank_ you,”—Bella relinquished the slate with alacrity—“only be -careful not to rub out my dragons. They keep my mind off the MacIvers.” - -And that was how the friendship began. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - - -Nathaniel Mar made the mistake of thinking that you can put off to a -given date impressing your good judgment on those who share your life. - -Trenn and Harry had an affection for their father—that he without -difficulty inspired—but in their heart of hearts they were a little -ashamed of their love for him, as a species of weakness. They frankly -despised his _laissez-aller_ way of life, and looked upon him as a -warning. Their mother had seen to that. - -The Mar boys, however, had shown business capacity from their childhood, -when instead of buying “peanut brittle” and going to the circus, they -saved up their money to invest in hens. They made what their mother -called “a pretty penny” by selling fresh eggs to the neighbors. The -thriving young tradesmen made even their mother pay for whatever she -required, and she “planked down the cash” without a murmur. It was a -small price for the holy satisfaction of seeing that her children were -early learning the value of money. - -Mar got less pleasure out of his sons’ budding business instincts. He was -even obviously annoyed when he discovered that Trenn helped Eddie Cox -with his lessons, not out of good comradeship, but at the rate of “two -bits” for each half-hour’s aid. - -“It’s ugly,” said Mar, with unusual spirit. His wife felt obliged to -point out that she herself had been engaged in very much the same -occupation, when he first met her. The “ugliness” of being paid for -helping people with their studies had not oppressed him then. - -“You were their teacher,” said her husband. - -“And Trenn is Eddie’s teacher while he’s teaching him!” Then as Mar -opened his lips, she quickly closed the argument by adding, “Besides, -_Eddie’s_ father has made money and Trenn’s father hasn’t. Eddie Cox will -have to buy brains all his life—he may just as well begin now.” - -Trenn Mar was not yet nineteen when he was so fortunate as to have two -business openings. One was to go down to a ranch in southern California -and round up cattle for Karl Siegel, and learn all he could for Trenn -Mar. The other, to enter the employment of Messrs. Wilks & Simpson, of -the Crœsus Creek Mining Company. - -Trenn’s father meant him to take the latter—in fact he had put himself to -an uncommon amount of trouble to get his son this opening. But Trenn was -all for the cattle business. “Besides, look at what Siegel offers. It’s -wonderful! Those men usually expect a young fellow to buy his experience. -But Siegel—” - -“Yes,” agreed Mar; “it looks better to start with, but that’s not the -main thing. You must look ahead.” - -Trenn opened his brown eyes. He even grinned. “Why yes, I mean to.” - -“With Wilks & Simpson you’ll get the hang of the best managed -placer-mining property in California.” - -“But that whole blessed country is prospected already. There’s no money -in it for me.” - -“That’s precisely what there is in it.” - -Trenn looked about the room, impatient to be gone. What did his father -know about money? Less than many a sharp boy of twelve. - -“Sound mining knowledge,” he was saying, “will be very useful. Not only -for itself, but because it will bring you into business contact with -mining men.” - -“What good’ll that do me?” demanded the boy, impatiently. “_We_ haven’t -got any capital.” - -“No, _they’ll_ have the capital. You’ll have something more rare.” - -“What?” - -“A great property to develop.” Then he told his son the story of the -shipwreck, and of those wonderful hours on the farther side of Anvil -Rock. Trenn sat and stared. Mar wished he would stop it. It got on his -nerves at last, those round, brown eyes, keen, a little hard, fixed in -that wide, unwinking gaze. - -“So that’s why I say let the cattle business go. Take the small salary -that Wilks & Simpson offer, study practical mining, and wait for your -chance. In any case, by the time Harry’s left the High School you’ll have -some valuable experience to bring into the partnership.” - -Trenn got up and crossed the room. - -“Yes, that’s the place,” said Mar, excitedly, thinking the boy’s goal was -the brown and faded reconnaissance map. But Trenn walked straight past it -to the window, and stood looking out, to where the duck-pond used to be, -and where now a row of pretentious little pseudo-Spanish “villas” shut -out the prospect. And still he didn’t speak. - -“What I consider so important, is not the practical knowledge _per se_, -though I think it a very real value. Not that so much, as the fact that -through associating yourself with that kind of enterprise you are brought -into relation with just the men you’ll need to know. If I hadn’t gone to -Rock Hill I would never have met Galbraith. The longer I live, the more -I realize it’s through _people_—through having the right sort of human -relationships, that work is best forwarded. Here have I lived for nearly -twenty years with a secret worth millions, and for lack of knowing the -right men—” - -“Why did you never tell Charlie Trennor?” the boy turned round to ask. - -“Oh, Charlie Trennor! He’s not the sort. But, as a matter of fact, I -did once mention the circumstance to the Trennors. Many years ago. But -they are men who”—Mar stumbled—“they’ll never do anything very big; they -neither one of them have a scintilla of imagination.” And then, in sheer -excitement, speaking his mind for once: “There never was a Trennor who -had.” - -“I expect,” said the boy, doggedly, “there’s a certain amount of Trennor -about me. I never noticed that _I_ had any imagination to speak of.” - -Mar was conscious that his own spirit was contracting in a creeping -chill. But he said to himself it was only because he had made the mistake -of criticizing his wife (by implication) before her son. It was right and -proper that Trenn, on such an occasion, should range himself on the side -of his mother’s family. Mar’s conception of loyalty commonly protected -him from appearing to pass adverse judgment on the Trennors. But he was -excited and overwrought to-day. _He_, not Trenn. All through the story, -that for Mar was of such palpitating importance, this well-groomed -youth had kept himself so well in hand, that his father, looking at -the “correct,” cool face, had somewhat modified the presentment of the -narrative, had cut description, emotion, wonder, and come to Hecuba as -quickly as might be. And yet now that, with as business-like an air -as he could muster, he had revealed his great secret—handed over the -long-treasured legacy—something still in the judicial young face that -gave the older man a sensation of acute self-consciousness, made him in -some inexplicable manner feel “cheap.” - -But he would conquer the ridiculous inclination. - -It was for Mar an hour of tremendous significance. He had been waiting -for it for eighteen years. “After all,” he said, making a fresh start, -“you don’t need imagination in this case. You need only to use your eyes—” - -Trenn lifted his, and the use he made of them was to look at his father. -Didn’t say a single word. Just looked at the heavily-lined face a moment -and then allowed his clear, brown eyes to drop till they rested on the -toes of his own immaculate boots. - -Hardly more than three seconds between the raising and the lowering of -the eyes. Not a sound in the room. And yet between the meeting of that -look and the losing of it, Nathaniel Mar passed through the most painful -crisis of a life made well acquainted with pain. - -There is a special sting in the skepticism of the young. They should be -full of faith, inclined even to credulity. Fit task for their elders, the -checking of too generous ardor. But for the elder to detect the junior in -thinking him foolishly enthusiastic, childishly gullible—there is, in -that conjuncture, something to the older mind quite specially wounding. -It passes the limit of mere personal humiliation. It takes on the air of -an affront against the seemliness of nature. The elder has betrayed his -class and kind—has laid open to callow derision the dignity of the riper -years. - -Mar waited. And little as he looked like it he was praying. “Oh, my boy, -believe me! Have faith that what I say is so. And then I’ll have faith -that all the loss will be won back, through _you_, Trenn. I’ll take heart -again. It all depends on you. We’ll do great things together, Trenn—you -and I—oh, believe, believe!” - -But Trennor Mar sat there on the narrow ledge of the window-sill -absolutely silent, with his brown eyes on his shining boots. - -“I was wrong,” said his father, humbly. “I have put you off the track by -using the word imagination. It has no place here. I speak to you of fact.” - -Trenn got up with the brisk air of one who remembers he has business to -transact, then pausing for a moment with an eye flown already to find his -hat, “I might,” he said obligingly, “I might try to get up there some -vacation, and have a look round.” - -He “might.” He might _try_. During some idle interval in the real -business of life. Once on the spot he would condescend to “look round.” - -Even his own son could not take the thing seriously. - -Well, it began to look as if, after all, they might be right—his wife, -Charlie and Harrington Trennor, Elihu Cox, and now Trenn. Mar, the man -who believed he had a gold mine in the arctic regions, was a sort of -harmless monomaniac. Sitting there in a sudden darkness that was dashed -with self-derision (much was clear in those scorching flashes), Nathaniel -Mar met the grim moment when to his own mind he first admitted doubt. - -Groping by and by for comfort, he touched the heart of sorrow with -“Nothing like this can ever happen to me again.” - -It was true. In that hour something precious went out of his life. No -one, not even Trenn, had any idea what had happened. But every one saw -that Nathaniel Mar was changed. - - * * * * * - -Trenn went to work on Karl Siegel’s ranch, and Harry presently announced -that he meant to join him. No, he wasn’t going to finish at the High -School. Trenn had an opportunity to go in with Siegel on a new deal, and -Harry could be made use of, too, if he came _now_. Such an opportunity -might never repeat itself. Mrs. Mar was of the same opinion as the boys, -and Harry was in towering good spirits. - -His father wondered dully. Ought he not give his younger son the same -chance he’d given the elder, even if, like Trenn, Harry should fail -utterly to see how great it was? - -Mar shrank from a second ordeal, and yet he knew that, vaguely enough, he -had been depending on Harry’s helping him to bear Trenn’s indifference -and unbelief. Had he not for a year now, in any lighter hour, invariably -said to himself: “After all, I have two boys. Perhaps Harry will be the -one”—yes, he must tell Harry, or the boy might reproach him in time to -come. - -Trenn’s letter had arrived in the morning. All day Mar revolved in his -head how he would present this other “opening” so that Harry— In the end -he resolved to take the papers out of the safe, and simply turn them over -to his son, as though the father were no longer there to give the story -tongue. Mar took the precious packet home with him the same afternoon. -Harry was out. That evening he was late for supper, and he came in full -of the outfit he’d been buying. - -“Buying an outfit already!” his father exclaimed. - -“Of course! _I_ don’t mean to let the grass grow—” - -“Nor Trenn, apparently. I hadn’t heard that he was financing you.” - -“He isn’t. I had a little saved up, and mother gave me the rest.” - -Mar stared through his spectacles, and met the bright roving eyes of the -lady. - -“_You_ gave him the rest! How were you able to do that?” - -“Oh, I have a pittance in the City Bank.” - -The rival concern. Even Hildegarde gaped with astonishment at -this revelation. Mrs. Mar had not trusted any one to know of this -nest-egg—savings out of the “house money,” the inadequacy of which had -been so often deplored. She seemed to be torn now between regret that its -existence should have been revealed, and pride that she had wrung it out -of conditions so unpromising. - -“Yes,” she said, with a spark of anger in her eye, “and you’ll be kind -enough, Nathaniel, not to break your arm, or get yourself disabled in -any way, for there’s nothing left now for a rainy day. Unless _you_ have -looked ahead as I’ve struggled to—” - -He knew that she knew he had not “looked ahead” in her sense of laying by -a secret hoard, but the form of her mandate pricked him. - -He glanced at the desk for comfort. He had, after all, “looked ahead” in -another fashion—as Harry would see. But—again he fell back before the -check of an outfit already bought for another purpose. And Harry was -talking all the time that he was eating—telling his mother about his -prospects and about the letter he had written in answer to Trenn’s. - -Already he had written! Without an hour’s hesitation, or an instant’s -consultation with his natural adviser. Ah, no, his true “natural adviser” -had obviously been invoked, and had responded by offering him the sinews -of war. Mar, looking down into his plate, or for occasional refreshment -of the spirit into Hildegarde’s soft, young face, was nevertheless -intensely conscious of the vivid alert personality at the other end of -the table. His wife was, as usual, not content to contemplate with idle -tranquillity the fruit of some achievement in the past. Strange contrast -to her daughter’s faculty for extreme stillness, Mrs. Mar presented the -stirring spectacle of a person who was always “getting something done,” -and commonly getting a number of things done at once. If it was only -while the plates were being changed, she would pull out of the yellow -bag suspended at her belt, a postcard, and with an inch length of pencil -would briskly write an order to some tradesman, or she would jump up to -straighten a picture or set the clock on three minutes, or “catch any odd -job on the fly,” as Trenn used disrespectfully to say in private. Even on -this important and exciting occasion, she was not content merely to eat -her supper, listen to Harry’s outpouring, and throw in shrewd responses -from time to time. - -Her handsome features wore that look of animation the spectacle of -“getting on” ever inspired in the lady, her eyes glittered like pieces -of highly polished, brown onyx, and while she put food into her mouth -with the right hand, the left, by a common practice, executed five-finger -exercises up and down the cloth, between her plate and the end of the -table. But to-night she broke into a fantasia—the pliant little finger -curled and tossed its tip in air, playing a soundless pæon to celebrate -Harry’s entrance into the business of life. - -For Mar, in circumstances like these, to hold wide a different door—had -there ever been a moment less propitious? - -“You ought to have shown me the letter before you sent it off,” he said. - -“I would, only I knew you’d think I ought to catch the afternoon mail. -There was barely time. And the letter was all right—I’m sure it was. I -told Trenn either he or Siegel had got to pay me from the start. I don’t -ask much, I said, but I’m worth something if I _am_ a raw hand. I wrote -the sort of letter Trenn can show to Siegel. I piled it on about the -interruption to my studies, and about father’s preferring me to stick at -books a year or two more.” - -“It was ingenious of you to discover that fact,” said Mar, quietly. - -“Oh, they mustn’t think I’m too keen, you know.” - -Mrs. Mar nodded as she wound up her silent accompaniment with a chord. -But if she followed the implied course of reasoning, not so the boy’s -father. - -“If you’ve written in that vein,” said Mar, slowly, “it seems to me still -more premature to have ordered your outfit.” - -“Oh, that’s all O.K.,” said Harry, genially condescending to soothe his -father’s fears. “Of course I’m _going_. Trenn’ll understand. He’s got -a long head, old Trenn has!”—and he exchanged secure smiles with his -mother—“I had to write as I did, don’t you see”—again Harry obligingly -reduced his tactics to simpler terms to meet the slower comprehension of -his father—“just to make Siegel understand he needn’t expect to get me -for nothing. I’m not coming in on the ‘little brother racket.’ No, sir! -Old Siegel’s got to pay me something from the start, or how can I be -supposed to know it’s a good thing? Siegel’s got to _show me_! I’m from -Missouri.” He made the boast with his pleasant boyish laugh, pushed back -his chair, and walked about, hands in pockets, head in air, describing to -his mother how fellows often did better to take their pay in cattle, and -little by little get their own herd, and little by little get land. Often -they ended by buying out those other fellows who started with capital. -She would see! He and Trenn weren’t going to take anything on trust. -“They’ll find they’ve got to _show_ us,” he said, squaring himself before -a lot of imaginary Siegels. “We’re from Missouri!” - -Mar, sitting silently by, rose upon that word, and tied up the loose -papers that he had laid out on his writing-table. He returned them to -the office bag, finding himself arrived at wondering what he had better -say if the day ever came when Harry should reproach his father for not -telling him about— - -But Mar was borrowing trouble. - -Trenn had already told him. - -And they had laughed together. “Isn’t it just _like_ him!” Harry had -said, and slapped his knee as one who makes a shrewd observation. - - * * * * * - -After all there was a kind of rough justice in it. It had been Galbraith -who had made it possible for Mar to go to Alaska. It was fitting that it -should be his son who should share in the benefits. - -Mar spent part of the following Saturday afternoon in drafting a letter -to the son of his long dead friend. He took uncommon pains with it and -he copied it several times. It had no need to be long, for Jack would -remember the story. He could not, of course, be expected to interrupt -those postgraduate studies, whatever they were precisely—studies which -twice already had been dropped, as Mar supposed, while Mr. Jack went -cruising about the world in his steam-yacht. But in the nature of things -the completion of his preparation for the business of life must be near -at hand, for young Galbraith, the most energetic and ambitious of men, -was in his twenty-fourth year. Never was such a glutton for work before. -Even when he went off pleasuring in his yacht, he went to places not -renowned for recreation, and his boon companions were geographers and -biologists and such-like gay dogs. - -He might, at all events, without prejudice to these final studies, -begin to lay plans either for going himself to Alaska presently, or -for sending some one else. The best course would be for him to come -at once to Valdivia to see his old friend, and to talk things over. -Mar thought it advisable to enclose in his letter a sketch of the most -interesting section of the Alaskan coast. He could have drawn it with -his eyes shut, now, but he got up, hobbled round the desk, and took -down the reconnaissance map from between the pictures of his father and -mother. At the same moment, and while he was in the act, Mrs. Mar came -in, with that air, especially her own, of one arriving in the nick of -time to save the country. Her errand, however, was the one Saturday -afternoon invariably brought, the conveying here of the week’s mending -for Hildegarde’s attention; the fastening of the book-rest on the table’s -edge, the propping up of some volume in the French or German tongue, and -the laying ready at one side of a stump of lead-pencil for the marking of -pregnant passages. In front of these Mrs. Mar would establish herself in -the rocking-chair, with her knitting, or crochet, or some other form of -occupation not requiring eyes. - -“Hildegarde! Hildegarde!” - -“Yes, mama,” came in through the open window from the garden. - -“I’m ready!” When wasn’t Mrs. Mar “ready!” But she announced the fact -with a flourish of knitting-needle, as she rocked back and forth and -scrutinized her husband. “I’m glad,” she said, briskly, “to see you -taking down that old eye-sore.” Her eyes pecked at the faded map. “It’s -high time it was thrown away.” - -Her husband paused in his halting progress back to the writing-table. -“Time it was thrown away?” - -“Yes. Isn’t that what you’ve got it down for?” - -“No.” - -“What are you going to do with it, then?” - -Mar seemed not to hear. He turned his back on the rocking-chair, and -propped the map up in front of him, against the mucilage pot, very much -as his wife had propped Eckermann for his regular Saturday conversation -with Gœthe. - -But Mrs. Mar was never inclined to let her observations go by ignored. “I -can hardly suppose you want to have it lumbering up the place here any -longer.” As still he took no notice, “It certainly isn’t decorative.” A -pause long enough for him to defend it, if he’d been going to. “Perhaps -you’ll tell me what’s the good of keeping it.” - -“Perhaps you’ll tell me what’s the harm.” - -She could, easily, but she forbore. - -She only agitated the rocking-chair yet more violently, clashed her -knitting-needles as she turned the stocking in her quick, competent -hands, and with a glance at the clock said briskly, as the door opened: -“Come, come, Hildegarde. You’re nearly three minutes behind time.” - -The girl carried her bowl of roses over to her father’s open window, and -set it carefully down. Hildegarde was the one person in the world Mrs. -Mar never seemed to fluster. As the girl’s eye fell on the big envelop -addressed in Mar’s bold writing, “Oh!” she said, pausing, “have you been -hearing again?” - -“Hearing what?” came sharply from the swaying figure on the other side of -the room. - -“You’ll read it to me after we’ve done our German, won’t you?” whispered -the girl, caressingly, as she leaned a moment on the back of Mar’s chair. - -“Read it to you? Why should I?” he said, nervously, as he laid a piece of -blotting-paper over his letter. - -“You always do,” she pleaded. But if Mr. Mar imagined that his daughter -was begging to hear the letter he himself had just written, Mrs. Mar -made no such mistake. She was well aware whose communications had power -to stir the “stolid” Hildegarde. - -“You never told me,” the lady arraigned her husband’s back, “that you’d -been hearing again from young Galbraith.” - -Hildegarde, under the electric shock of the spoken name, seemed to feel -called upon to make some show of indifference. She inspected the pile -of mending with an air of complete absorption in the extent of the -damage. Her mother was saying: “I haven’t heard anything about that -gentleman”—(oh, wealth of ironic condemnation the accomplished speaker -could throw into the innocent words “that gentleman!”)—“not since -the letter he wrote from the barbarous place you didn’t know how to -pronounce, and couldn’t so much as find on the map!” - -“Haven’t you?” said her husband. “Well, you soon may.” - -The girl’s lowered eyelids fluttered, but the prospect of soon hearing -something on this theme left Mrs. Mar collected enough to say: “No -earthly use to darn that.” - -“N-no,” agreed the girl. - -“Lay a piece under. Match the stripe and cut out the fray. There’s some -like it in the ottoman.” - -Hildegarde went and kneeled down before the big deal “store-box.” Its -lid, stuffed and neatly covered, made a sightly receptacle for endless -oddments. - -Mrs. Mar, as she clicked her needles and oscillated her entire frame, -kept her eye on the place where she was going to dash into Eckermann the -instant Hildegarde was settled to her sewing. But true to the sacred -principle of doing something while she was waiting, Mrs. Mar thus -delayed, saw it to be a timely moment to put Jack Galbraith in his proper -place. It was not the sort of thing you could do thoroughly once, and be -done with. Like house-cleaning, it required to be seen to periodically. -“Well, what’s the _epoche-machende_ news this time?” As her husband made -no haste to answer, “He’s always ‘going to break the record,’ that young -gentleman! I never knew anybody with so many big words in his mouth.” - -The stricture was deserved enough to gall Jack’s friend, who moved -uneasily in his revolving chair. But he kept his eyes on the map he was -drawing and he kept his lips close shut. - -“I see precious little result so far,” she was beginning again. - -“The result,” interrupted Mar, “will be judged when he’s finished his -life-work, not while he’s still preparing for it.” - -“Preparing! Bless me, isn’t he old enough to have _done_ something, if he -was ever going to?” - -“If he were going into business, yes. Science is a longer story.” - -“One excuse is as good as another, I suppose, when a man wants to please -himself. It’s like Galbraith to call his fecklessness by a highfalutin -name. ‘Science,’ ‘Investigation,’ ‘Anthropology.’ Humph! But it does -_sound_ better, I agree, than saying he likes satisfying a low curiosity -about savages. It isn’t even as if he wanted to convert them. Not -he! Likes them best as they are: filthy and degraded. ‘Philology?’ -Tomfoolology!” - -It was more even than the tranquil Hildegarde could bear. “Hasn’t he -done something wonderful about ocean currents, papa? Didn’t you say that -was the real reason why he went that last time to—?” - -“Yes. It was a piece of work that brought him recognition very creditable -to so young a student.” - -“_Whose_ recognition?” Not hers, the critic of the rocking-chair seemed -to say. But Mar took no notice. “And where’s that book he was boasting -about six months ago? The one that was going to shed such valuable new -light on the—the—Jugginses of No Man’s Land. So far as I can see by the -feeble light of the female intellect, the Jugginses still sit in the -dark. Haven’t you found that roll of seersucker yet, Hildegarde? Upon my -soul!”—faster flew the needles, harder rocked the chair—“compared with -you a snail is a cross between an acrobat and a hurricane.” - -The girl only laughed. “Here’s the horrid stripey stuff, hiding at -the very bottom!” She laid the roll aside, and with a neat precision -proceeded to put back all the things she had taken out, for Hildegarde -knew, if not properly packed, the ottoman would overflow. - -“Now, make haste,” urged her mother, “if anything so alien is possible to -you. I’m certainly not going to read to you while you’re fussing about on -the other side of the room.” Then, not deterred in her unswerving attempt -to improve the shining hour, Mrs. Mar flung a quick look at the bent back -of her husband, and proceeded to put in the time in clearing up one of -his multitudinous misapprehensions. - -“What _I_ can’t forgive Jack Galbraith is his ingratitude to you.” - -Again Mar moved a little in his creaking chair, but halted this side -speech. Hildegarde, busily repacking, turned her blonde head toward her -mother, saying: “Ingratitude! Why, he’s perfectly devoted to papa! That’s -why I like Mr. Galbraith.” - -“Devoted, is he? Well, he’s got odd ways of showing it. When he was a -troublesome, inquisitive little pest, he used to reveal his devotion by -coming twice every year to turn our house upside down, and get our boys -into every conceivable mischief. Glad enough to plant himself here then, -when nobody else would be bothered with him. But his devotion to your -father doesn’t carry him the length of coming to see him nowadays. Why, -it’s fourteen years since Jack Galbraith darkened these doors, and—” - -“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if he were to darken them very soon,” said -Mr. Mar. - -“What!” said Mrs. Mar, so surprised she allowed the rocking-chair to slow -down. - -Hildegarde stood transfixed, with the top of the ottoman arrested, half -shut. - -“Yes,” said Mr. Mar, steadily, and in complete good faith, as he slipped -the diagram into the envelop. “I’m expecting him out here this spring.” - -“Jack is coming!” Hildegarde said to her heart. “Wonderful Jack is -coming! Dear Jack! Dear, _dear_ Jack! Oh, the beautiful world!” - -“Indeed!” said Mrs. Mar, beginning slowly to rock again, “and what’s he -coming for _this_ time?” - -“Perhaps, as Hildegarde is fantastic enough to think, he may be coming to -see me,” Mar answered. - -His wife’s laugh had a tang of shrewdness. “You’ll find he has business -of some sort to attend to in California, if he _does_ come!” - -“Just now you were complaining that he didn’t attend to business -anywhere.” - -“My complaint—no, my regret—is, that gratitude isn’t in the Galbraith -blood.” - -“You have no good reason for saying that.” He spoke with uncommon -emphasis. - -But Mrs. Mar’s spirit rose to meet him. “I have the excellent reason that -I know enough about the father as well as the son to form an opinion. I -don’t forget how your ‘greatest friend’ died, leaving you his executor -and leaving you nothing else. Not a penny piece out of all that money.” - -“I don’t see why my friends should leave me money—” - -“No, nor why you should get it any other way! Don’t let me hurry you, -Hildegarde, but if you’ve quite finished mooning about in the corner -there, I’d like to mention that it’s exactly twelve and a half minutes -since I called you in to your German, and there’s the Missionary Society -at half past four, and choir practice at seven, and before we can turn -round Mrs. Cox will be here about electing the new secretary to the -Shakspere Club, and if I’d known you were going to squander my time like -this I’d have stopped to make Harry his last Washington pie before—” - -“Yes, mama. Now I’m settled.” - -Hildegarde took the seat opposite her mother and silently applied the -seersucker patch. While Mr. Mar, behind the screen of a much-hunched -shoulder, copied with infinite care the “eye-sore” map, Mrs. Mar knitting -all the while at lightning speed, rolled out the German uninterruptedly, -till a ring at the bell was followed by sounds of Mrs. Cox being shown -into the parlor. - -Mrs. Mar had known no one so well in Valdivia all these years as Mrs. -Elihu Cox. Mrs. Elihu was considered “a very bright woman,” and it was -no doubt so, since even Mrs. Mar did not demur at her renown. They met -seldom, outside of church, the Shakspere Club, or the Mission Society, -yet each had admitted things to the other that neither had admitted to -any one else. Even to-day, when there was definite business to arrange, -they talked of other matters than the vacant secretaryship. They -presented each other with views upon domestic service, education, and -husbands. - -“I left Mr. Cox supremely happy,” said his spouse, in that tone of -humorous scorn by which many women try to readjust the balance between -the sexes. “Yes, supremely happy, clearing out his desk. He does it once -a month. Nothing Mr. Cox does brings him so near absolute bliss, except -wandering about the place with a hammer and nails.” - -Both women smiled at the inveterate childishness of the lords of creation. - -And then, on a sudden, Mrs. Cox was grave. One might laugh at the odd -ways of men with any woman. It is the universal bond that binds the -sex together; the fine lady feels it no less when she condoles with -her washer-woman upon a stay-at-home husband,—“Yes, yes, a man in the -house all day is dreadfully in the way,”—and their identity of sentiment -bridges the difference in fortune. But Mrs. Mar was one with whom you -might not only laugh over the foibles of the opposite sex, you might even -be grave with her on the same ground—a rarer privilege to the educated -woman. - -“That monthly orgy, that’s such unalloyed delight to Mr. Cox, used to be -a time of great interest to me, too,” admitted Mrs. Cox. - -“Really!” The president of the Valdivia Shakspere Society could hardly -believe it of her friend. - -“Yes. You see, there’s always a great clearance made—a general getting -rid of all sorts of accumulations. I used to watch every time when he -came to the lower left-hand drawer—” Mrs. Cox smiled faintly as one -pitiful of some long-past pain. - -“Well, what was the matter with the lower left-hand drawer?” - -“That was where he kept a faded photograph of Ellie Brezee. I used to -watch to see if _that_ time he was going to throw it away. He never did.” - -“Who was Ellie Brezee?” - -“A sister of Colonel George Brezee—the one that died. That was before you -came to California. Mr. Cox was engaged to Ellie when he was nineteen. -But, thank goodness, my concern about it is among the things that I’m -done with. I don’t any longer sit at home, now, with the tail of my -eye on the lower left-hand drawer while Ellie Brezee comes out for her -monthly airing.” - -“Oh, you disposed of Ellie?” - -“No, oh, no.” - -“He finally threw the picture away himself?” - -“No. Only now, I know he never will.” - -They were silent a moment. “I never _said_ anything, of course; and he -never made any secret about it. I didn’t think it any disloyalty to me -that he should keep it. At the same time”—she dropped her voice—“the pain -the sight of that faded face was to me for years—you think it supremely -silly, I suppose. But then _your_ husband doesn’t hoard up the memory -of some girl that’s been dead and buried for twenty years, so you can’t -understand.” - -“Yes, I can understand,” Mrs. Mar answered, with an eye that saw through -the wall the reconnaissance map of Norton Sound. - - - - -CHAPTER V - - -Jack Galbraith replied to Mr. Mar’s letter by return of post. He -apologized for not writing more at length, but he was up to his eyes -in proof-correcting. He was seeing through the press—(“Yes, yes, but -all that was singularly irrelevant”)—book about his experiences (“Hum! -hum!”), “extreme northern Siberia.” (“_Siberia_, forsooth!”); no white -man had ever been there before. (“And to think he _might_ have spent that -time in Alaska!”) He was “making a genuine contribution to science”—oh, -yes, quite so—“most travelers too imperfectly equipped.” (“He couldn’t -have had my letter when he wrote this.”) The implication was, of course, -that Galbraith’s own equipment left nothing to be desired. He even -touched airily upon his claims to be considered geographer as well as -navigator, electrician, geologist, philologist, biologist, and the -Lord knows what, beside. Yes, Jack had a large way of envisaging human -endeavor, especially his own. But certainly their letters had crossed. -Hum! he had “covered areas in science never before exploited by a single -man.” The result Mar should presently see. For Galbraith would leave -word that a copy of the great work should be sent to his old friend. -It would be two years before he himself could see the thing in book -form. (“What’s this?”) “Off again, to join an expedition!” And wasn’t -it strange? He was going to the arctic as Mar was recommending. Not -precisely to Norton Bay, but (“Then he _had_ got the letter!”) “with the -Swedish explorer Nordenskjöld to see if by good luck” they could find the -North Pole. And why shouldn’t they “come home via Norton Bay?” he asked, -with irresponsible arrogance, adding, characteristically: “I’ll mention -it to the Swede. Perhaps we’ll crawl over the crown of the world and -coast down the shore of Alaska till we come up against your Anvil Rock. -If we do, I promise to go and see after the gold-mine for you. Thank you -for saying I’m to have my share—but thank you most of all for telling me -such a mighty fine story when I was a kid. It had a great deal to do with -the shaping of my ambition, and the direction of my multifarious studies.” - - * * * * * - -And this was Galbraith’s good-by. - -These events had taken place nearly two years before Bella Wayne began -her meteoric career at the Valdivia School for Young Ladies. - -If Hildegarde had recovered somewhat from her disappointment at Jack’s -failure to visit California, her father had not ceased silently to -lament, and secretly to contemn Galbraith’s wounding flippancy in his -choice of a route to Alaska. - -When Madeleine Smulsky’s family took her away to live in Wyoming, -Hildegarde would have been even more desolate but for her espousal -of Bella Wayne’s cause, and consequent preoccupation with that not -altogether satisfactory protégée. - -For Miss Bella had “ways” that were distinctly rasping. She was -abominably selfish, and her big family of brothers and sisters had -spoiled her from the day she could toddle. - -She was, besides, the uncomfortable kind of little girl in whose eyes -you always saw reflected whatever was amiss with you. You might have on -a hat of ravishing beauty, but if your belt had worked up and your skirt -had worked down, Bella’s glance ignored your highly satisfactory top -and fastened on your middle. Not until after she had known Bella Wayne -for some months did Hildegarde begin to divine her own shortcomings in -the matter of dress. No gulf of years, or respect for high standing in -the school, deterred Bella from letting Miss Mar know that she could -never, never wear with success a checked shirt-waist. Why not? Because. -And for the same excellent reason, Miss Mar must have her things made -plainer. No puffing; no shirring. “_I_ can wear ‘fluffery,’ but you -can’t. You’re much too like an old goddess or Boadicea, or some whacking -person like that,” which was tepid and discreet in comparison with many -of her deliverances. She would ask you a highly inconvenient question as -soon as wink, and her own frankness was a thing to make you cold down -your back. An eye that nothing escaped, the keenest of little noses for -a secret, a ruthless finger for any sensitive spot—that was Bella Wayne -at twelve. It was the second time that she was being so kindly helped by -Miss Hildegarde, and yet more than at the reduction of “those disgusting -fractions” Bella looked at her new friend, bent so low over the slate -that her sole ornament, a silver locket, swung against the dado of -dragons, without whose scaly support Bella could never hope to bring her -mind down to mathematics for a moment. She reflected that she had never -seen Miss Mar without that locket. Was there anything inside it? Her -fingers itched to open it and see. It was suspended round the smooth neck -on a narrow velvet ribbon. Bella, supposed to be following the course of -reasoning by which it was to be demonstrated that “since 100 pounds of -coal cost $0.33 per hundredweight, 385 pounds (which are equal to 3.85 -times 100 pounds) will cost 3.85 times $0.33,” she was in reality making -mental calculation of a quite different character, as she studied the -little black velvet bowknot that rested on the milk-white nape of Miss -Mar’s neck, just underneath a flaxen ring of hair. One end of the bow was -longer than the other. - -“Five times three are fifteen. Five and carry one—see, Bella?” - -“Yes.” What Bella saw, with that look of luminous intelligence, was that -the silver locket was sliding into Miss Mar’s lap. - -“Eight times three—oh!” But before Hildegarde could close her fingers on -the fallen trinket, Bella had snatched it up and carried it away behind -the syringas. - -“Give me back my locket!” called Hildegarde. “Give it back this minute!” - -Bella made off to a remoter fastness. Hildegarde pursued her. But -Hildegarde never could catch anybody, and Bella was already the champion -runner of the school. “Bella, I never show that to anybody. I won’t -forgive you if you open it.” - -“Oh, I _must_ see why you say that!” Bella stopped and tried the -fastening. Hildegarde rushed at her, but Bella fled at each approach. At -last the big girl stopped breathless, and tried moral suasion. The little -girl only laughed, and standing just out of reach had the effrontery to -open the locket and make unseemly comment upon what she found within. - -“My gracious! _Isn’t_ he a sweet? Where does he live? Does he go to -church? I’m sure _I’ve_ never seen this bee-yew-tiful young man before. -Girls, do you want to look at Miss Mar’s sweetheart. Come and see this -darling duck!” She summoned the laughing group that had been looking on. - -But Bella only pretended to show them. Every time anybody came near, -she covered the face with her thumb. But Hildegarde, lacking the small -satisfaction of knowing that, worn out with the race and scarlet with -indignation, breathless, outraged, pursued the fleet little villain from -group to group, and after the bell rang, from garden to hall. In vain. - -When Bella appeared at the breaking up of school that day, and restored -the locket, Miss Mar received it in a lofty silence, refusing even to -look at a little girl so ill-mannered and ungrateful. - -But the next day Bella, much subdued by one of her recurrent attacks of -homesickness, red-eyed, a little pinched-looking and woebegone, begged -pardon so prettily, that Miss Mar’s heart was melted. - -“And I didn’t really show it to the others. Ask anybody. I wouldn’t -do _that_. Oh, no!” And then betraying the true ground of this pious -self-control, “Is it your brother?” - -“No.” Hildegarde bent her head over the slate. - -“Who is it?” - -“A friend of my father’s.” - -“Do you love him dreadfully?” - -“Of _course_ not. I never saw him.” - -“What makes you wear his picture?” - -“I only put it in the locket because I hadn’t anything else the right -size. That’s all.” - -“Then why did you make such a fuss when I—” - -“Because I thought it very rude of you to look into somebody else’s -locket without permission. And it _might_ have been something that -mattered.” - -There was that in the unconverted look on the little face which made -Hildegarde hot to her ear-tips. - -But Bella said not a word, only smiled with that returning interest in -life that so readily revives in the breast of the shrewd observer. And -without a “please” or a “will you?” Bella handed the big girl her slate, -with its two days’ accumulation of fractions and of dragons. Hildegarde’s -sensibilities were once more so outraged that for a moment she hesitated -to accept the task so coolly put upon her. - -“I believe you’re a little monster,” said Miss Mar, in her slow way. “I -don’t see why I should trouble myself about you or your arithmetic.” - -“I know why,” returned Bella, unmoved. - -“Why?” - -“Because you’re the nicest of all the big girls.” - -Hildegarde tried to conceal the fact that she was somewhat softened by -this tribute. “I’m not really the nicest,” she said, trying to be modest. - -“Well, perhaps you’re not the nicest, but you’ve got the longest -eyelashes. It’s a good thing they aren’t as light as your hair, isn’t -it?” - -“Well, I don’t know. Fives into—” - -“Yes, you do, you know you’d cry your eyes out if your winkers were as -nearly white as your hair is. What do you do to make your eyelashes so -long?” - -“Nothing. Now pay attention. You reduce thirty-three and a third to -thirds and—” - -“Did your mother keep them cut when you were a baby?” - -“No, silly.” - -“I believe she did.” The next day Miss Bella appeared without eyelashes. -Every individual hair snipped close to the lid. - -“I mean to have mine just like Miss Mar’s,” she told the group gathered -about Hildegarde’s desk. “Hers are so immense they _trail_. I’m sure they -must get awfully in the way sometimes.” - -“Then I wonder you run such a risk. You’d better have left yours as they -were.” - -“Oh, if mine grow out as long as that, of course I shall plait them and -tie them up with blue ribbons.” - -But it was not always admiration to which she treated her patron. - -She was once twitted quite groundlessly with feeling herself obliged to -“mind” Miss Mar. - -“Yes,” she said, laughing a little wickedly. “I _must_, you see. She’s -so massive. Just look at her shoulders. Look at her hips. Even her hair -is massive. See what wobs it goes into.” This conversation took place -in the cloak-room. “Everything about her is so big, it scares a little -person like me. Look at that hat. You’d know it must belong to Miss Mar. -If it was anybody else’s it would be a parasol. But you can tell it’s a -hat because it’s got an elastic instead of a stick. And just look at the -size of that elastic. Why, it’s as broad as my garter.” - -Now and then she would startle Hildegarde’s self-possession by an -outburst of torrential affection. And so it came about that in spite of -Bella’s blithe impertinence, Hildegarde even in those early days thought -of her with sympathy as a lonely little being who was in reality very -grateful for a big girl’s friendship. She would follow at Hildegarde’s -heels like a pet dog, walk with her down to the gate every day after -school, and invent one ingenious pretext after another to keep Hildegarde -standing there a moment longer. Sometimes, when at last she said -“good-by,” there was not regret alone but tears as well in Bella’s pretty -eyes. - -“It must have been a little girl at boarding-school that found out -Friday was an unlucky day,” she announced on one occasion. “It’s the -miserablest, blackest day of the week. Yes it is, Miss Mar. It’s just -hellish.” - -“Why, Bella Wayne! What _awful_ language.” - -“Well, you have to get hold of awful language when you’re thinking of an -awful thing. All to-night, and all to-morrow, and all to-morrow night, -and all Sunday, and all Sunday night, to live through before I see you -again!” The small face worked with suppressed emotion, the small mind -with suppressed arithmetic. Both eventually found outward expression. -“Sixty-six hours!” she said, while two tears rolled out of her eyes. -“Sixty-six hours till you’re back here again. I don’t honestly think I -can bear it this time. I shall die. I know I shall. I feel very strange -already. Would you care if I died? W-would you come to the funeral?” She -choked. “W-what would you wear? You’d look p-perfectly bee-yew-tiful in -black. _Do_ wear black. Oh, I _wish_ I was dead. It would be so nice to -see how you look in black.” - -Hildegarde was touched to find how wildly delighted the homesick little -girl was at the idea of being invited to spend Saturday afternoon at -the Mars—a little anxious, too, was Miss Mar, lest the occasion should -not come up to such ecstatic expectation. Not that the Mar house was -at all the forlorn and dingy place it had been in the days when Mrs. -Mar struggled alone, with a scant income and three babies. The general -impression was that the Mar boys already contributed generously to the -family resources. But the fact was that their mother was ingeniously -making the very most of what “the boys” added to the common purse. The -amount was as yet quite trifling—“of necessity,” she would have added, -for they were both young men who looked ahead. But it was really to -Hildegarde that the little house owed its air of immaculate freshness and -good taste. If she couldn’t play or sing, she could paint—bookshelves, -the floors, even the woodwork. Several years ago she proved that she -could paper a room. She managed to cover the old furniture with charming -chintz “for a song,” and she made curtains out of nothing at all. No one -could arrange flowers better or grow them half so well. When she was -given money for her clothes, she often spent it on something for the -house. Not fully realizing her genius for domestic affairs, she told -herself the reason she did all this was to make the house pretty “for -when Jack comes back.” He might arrive quite suddenly. He did everything -without warning. I may come home from school any day to find him here! -Oh, it lent a wonderful zest to life to remember that. - -Bella was pleased to like Miss Mar’s garden immensely, but even more -she liked Miss Mar’s room, with its white curtains and dimity-covered -toilet-table, and the scant and simple furniture that looked so nice and -fresh since Hildegarde had herself enameled it. When the little visitor -looked round with that quick-glancing admiration and said: “Oh, it’s much -prettier than mine at home.” - -“What’s yours like?” asked Miss Mar, politely. - -“Oh, it’s all pink silk, and I’m sick of it. What made you think of -having everything white?” - -“This, I believe,” said her hostess, nodding at the climbing white rose -that looked in at the window. “But it’s partly that I like things that -wash and that don’t fade.” - -“Well, I simply love your house. I’d no _idea_ it would be like this.” - -“Why, what did you think it would be like?” - -“Oh—a—kind of—no, I shan’t say. You’d misunderstand.” - -Hildegarde felt it prudent not to insist. If you did, with this young -person, you were exposed to the most mortifying results. - -“Who are these?” Bella demanded, inspecting the pictures. - -“My brothers. That’s Trenn and this is Harry.” - -“Will they be at tea?” - -“No, they’re on a ranch in Tulare County.” - -“Why, _we’ve_ got a ranch in Tulare County.” She was still looking -round as if expecting to find something that as yet escaped her eye. -“Where’s—where—a—Show me your—your ribbons and things.” - -“I haven’t got any. We can’t afford ribbons in this family.” - -“Let me see your collars and ties, then.” Hildegarde opened her top -drawer. In the course of turning over collars and handkerchiefs and -little boxes the silver locket came to light. - -“Why don’t you wear it any more?” - -“Oh, I don’t know.” - -Bella leaned her head with its halo of short, brown curls against her -friend, and very softly she beguiled her: “Please, Miss Mar, show me that -friend of your father’s again.” - -Hildegarde hesitated a moment and then she opened the locket. Jack -Galbraith’s face smiled out upon the big girl and the little girl. - -“Did you say you hadn’t ever seen him?” - -“No, he hasn’t been here for sixteen years. Not since he was a little -boy. And he might have been here always, because he was an orphan and his -father was my father’s greatest friend. But some relations of his that -nobody had ever heard of before, they discovered him when he was nine, -and made him come to New York and live with them. But he didn’t like it. -At least—_I_ don’t know—mother thinks _they_ didn’t like it.” - -“Why does she think that?” - -“Because they let him go away to school. And he spent his vacations -canoeing, climbing mountains, and doing all sorts of queer things rather -than live with his relations. Then he went to Harvard, and then he went -abroad and studied. He’s always studying.” - -“Gracious! what makes him do that?” - -“Oh, he wants to find out about everything. And he’s doing it. He’s -written a book with things in it nobody ever heard of before. Father says -it’s a work of genius. Mr. Galbraith was coming here two years ago, when -he’d finished the book, only just then—” - -“I didn’t think,” Bella interrupted with a sigh, “I didn’t think from his -picture he was so awful old.” - -“He isn’t. He’s barely twenty-five.” - -But Bella shook her head. “If a person’s over twenty he might just as -well be a hundred.” - -“Yes, ordinary people. But it doesn’t matter _how_ old a genius is. -Father’s awfully excited about Mr. Galbraith just now, for he’s been away -a year and a half on an arctic expedition and we’re expecting him back -next summer. We may be hearing from him any day after the middle of June. -Father and I often talk about it when we’re alone together.” - -“Why don’t you talk about it when there’s anybody there?” - -“Oh, mother’s always so down on Mr. Galbraith.” - -“What’s she down on him for?” - -“Just because he wants to discover the North Pole.” - -“Well, don’t you think yourself that’s rather—” - -“No, I don’t.” - -“To be wasting two whole years in just hunting round for the Pole? What’s -the good of the Pole, anyway?” - -Hildegarde smiled a smile of superiority. - -“My geography”—Bella invoked authority that even a big girl must -respect—“my geography says—” - -“You’re too young to understand. It’s not the Pole. It’s the glory.” - -“What glory?” - -“Nobody’s ever yet got there.” - -“Why should anybody? Lots of nicer places.” - -“A great many people have tried. A good many have died trying—” - -“Well, that’s a good reason for not bothering about it any more.” - -“Oh, you’re just like—” But filial respect restrained Miss Mar. “I agree -with Mr. Galbraith. He thinks there’s nothing in the world half so -interesting to do.” - -“He _must_ be silly.” - -“No, he isn’t! He’s splendid—” But Hildegarde snapped the locket to, and -hid it under her best handkerchiefs. - -The following Saturday, when Bella asked again to see the locket, Miss -Mar declined to bring it out. Bella begged in vain. She discovered that -her big, gentle friend could be immovable. - -To Hildegarde’s dismay, Bella presently dissolved in tears. “Then may I -s-see the work of g-genius?” - -“Yes, you may look at his book all you like.” She even let Bella take it -away with her to tide her over Sunday. But Mr. Galbraith’s “Winter among -the Samoyedes” had small success with Miss Wayne. “They make me sick, -those people! I can’t think how anybody likes hearing about their dirty -ways,” and she even cast reflections on Jack for wasting his time over -such “horrors.” However, there was another side to it. “What a relief -it’ll be to him to be with _us_ after the Samoyedes!” - -“With _us_!” Hildegarde smiled inwardly. - -Sitting by the rose-framed window one Saturday afternoon, talking as -usual about Mr. Galbraith and how soon he might be expected back from the -Pole, Bella suddenly burst out: “I’m tired to death of saying ‘Miss Mar.’ -I _do_ wish you’d let me call you ‘Hildegarde.’” - -The big girl’s breath was taken away. For the gulf between twelve -and sixteen is a thing hardly passable in that stronghold of class -distinction, a girls’ school. It was rare, indeed, that one of Miss Mar’s -ripe age stooped to help a little girl over a difficulty in her lessons. -It required something of the missionary spirit to take such pity upon -homesickness, as occasionally to give the afflicted one the great treat -of visiting a big girl on Saturday afternoon—but really to go to the -length proposed— - -“I shan’t believe you really love me,” the little girl rushed on, “unless -you say yes. Oh, do say yes. _Everything_ depends on it. I’ll promise -always to say ‘Miss Mar’ before people. But if you’ll let me call you -Hildegarde when we’re alone, I’ll _know_ you’re my best friend. And then -I’ll tell you a secret. I’ll tell you two. _Tremendous_ secrets!” - -It was finally arranged. - -“Now for the tremendous secrets,” said Hildegarde, smiling. - -But Bella was portentously grave, even agitated. “Well,” she said, -bracing herself, “my father’s an Englishman. Don’t tell anybody. Cross -your heart and hope you may die if ever you tell the girls.” - -“All right. Cross my heart and hope I may die. But how in the world—?” - -“It isn’t my fault, you see. And _I’m_ an American all right. I’ve -always wanted to explain to you ever since you were so angelic about -my fractions; it’s because my father’s an Englishman I have to eat milk -pudding. Over there”—Bella flicked a small hand across the American -continent and over the Atlantic deep, to indicate an inconsiderable -island where the natives persist in strange customs—“over there they all -do it. Of course, the minute I’m of age I shall insist on pie.” They -discussed the matter in all its bearings. - -“Now about the other secret.” - -“Well”—even the daring Bella caught her breath and paused. “No, not -to-day. I’ll keep the tremendousest one for another time. But _do_ get -out the silver locket, _dear_ Hildegarde, and let’s look at it.” - -Ultimately she prevailed. The next time Bella came she found a delightful -surprise. The low table was cleared of everything but bowls of roses; and -against the white wall great ferns printed plain their tall and splendid -plumes—leaving free a little space in the middle where, on a gilt nail, -hung the open locket. - -Bella was delighted with the whole scheme. “It only wants one thing to -make it perfect. No, I won’t tell you what it is. I’ll bring it next -Saturday.” - -“It” proved to be a paper of Chinese joss-sticks, and a little bronze -perforated holder. “We must each burn one to him every week,” she said, -setting up her contribution below the dangling locket. - -“I don’t quite know if we ought,” Hildegarde said. “Joss-sticks are -prayers you know—at least the Chinese think so.” - -“Well, of course they’re prayers. That’s why I brought them.” - -While the two joss-sticks sent up into the rose-perfumed air faint -spirals of an alien fragrance, the two girls sat in front of the -confident young face looking out of the silver locket, and talked -endlessly about the owner. - -Hildegarde found it subtly intoxicating to have so keen an auditor—a -sharer even (to the humble extent possible for extreme youth) in the -great pivotal romance of existence. - -And then Bella had such wonderful inspirations. It was she who saw -the larger fitness in Mr. Mar’s habit of going fishing on Saturday -afternoons. What was that but an arrangement of the gods that he should -be so effectually out of the way, that Hildegarde might with safety -borrow from his desk the Galbraith letters. Sitting close together on -a square of Japanese matting, in front of the rose table, an anxious -ear listening for Mrs. Mar’s return from the missionary meeting, the -dark head leaned against the fair, while the two girls read and re-read -those precious documents, in an atmosphere charged with incense and a -palpitating joy. One day, arrived regretfully at the end of the letter -they liked best, Bella bent and kissed the signature. Hildegarde’s -heart gave a great jump. The daring of that deed was well-nigh impious. -Hildegarde, when all by herself, had done the same, but that was -different. - -“Now you know my other secret,” said Bella, very pink—“the tremendousest -one of all.” When the first shock had died away, Hildegarde was left with -a pitiful tenderness before the disarming frankness of such a confession. -Poor little Bella! Why, Jack didn’t even know of her existence. He never -would, till in some rare idle hour of the glorious future, Hildegarde -should tell him of a little homesick girl she had befriended once at -school. - -But Bella could be depended on to break in upon such gracious forecasting -of the future, with a suddenness that made the picture dance, “Which of -us two do you suppose Jack’ll fall in love with?” - -Hildegarde, almost paralyzed by the presumption this implied, barely -managed to bring out, “You’re much too little to think of—” - -“I shan’t be little always.” - -“You’ll always be more than twelve years younger than Mr. Galbraith.” -Hildegarde always said Mr. Galbraith when she wanted to keep the intruder -at a distance. - -But Bella advanced as bold as brass. “_Anyhow_ I think he’ll fall in love -with me.” - -“Of course a person so modest would be likely to appeal to any gentleman.” - -“No, it’s not my being modest he’ll mind about. It’s other things.” - -“What other things?” - -“Well—you—of course you’ve got your eyelashes, and you’re in the full -bloom of womanhood. But _I’m_ in the first blush of youth. I think he’ll -like that best.” - -[Illustration: “The two girls sat in front of the confident young face -looking out of the silver locket”] - -It was the second Saturday in June, and school was breaking up next week. -Mrs. Mar had finished off the Braut von Messina in the dining-room, -and barely begun with the Hindu Mission on the other side of the city. -Hildegarde had retired to her room to watch, not for Bella’s coming -(the window did not command the front), but for Mr. Mar’s going down -the garden with rod and creel. What made him so dilatory to-day? While -Hildegarde wondered, Bella came flying in, shut the door with agitated -care, faced about with cheeks of crimson, hat over one ear and the -whisper, “Hildegarde, I’ve seen him! I’ve seen him! Oh, Hildegarde, he’s -here!” Wherewith she precipitated herself upon her friend’s neck and -hugged her breathlessly. - -“Who, who?” - -“Why, ‘he.’ _He’s_ here! The only man I ever loved!” - -Hildegarde took the dancing dervish by the shoulders. “You don’t mean—” - -“Yes, yes, I do. He came in just before me. He’s perfectly glorious. -Just to look at him makes you feel—makes you think you’ve got windmills -shut up inside you. Everything goes whirling round. And when he asked” -(Bella lowered her pipe to a masculine depth): “‘Is Mr. Mar at home?’ -it sounded so beautiful, I thought for a moment he was talking poetry. -Oh, Hildegarde! _Hildegarde!_” Again she sunk her ecstacy to whispering -as she followed her friend out into the hall. Together they hung over -the banisters. The visitor was talking more poetry apparently in the -dining-room. The two girls stayed suspended there an eternity. At last -with thumping hearts, upon Bella’s suggestion, they went down into the -entry. “We’ll pretend to be putting on our overshoes. I’ll have Mrs. -Mar’s!” whispered Bella, excitedly, ignoring the fact that the continued -fine weather and dusty streets lent an air of eccentricity to the -proceeding. She stopped after drawing on one big overshoe and shuffled -softly to the dining-room door. She put her eye to the keyhole. No use. -Notwithstanding Hildegarde’s whispered remonstrance, she glued her ear to -the aperture. The door was suddenly opened and Miss Bella fell sideways -into the arms of an astonished young man, who said: “Hello, what’s this?” -Hildegarde, drowned in sympathetic confusion, helped Bella to regain her -equilibrium, while she muttered the explanation “Overshoes!” - -“This is my daughter Hildegarde, Mr. Cheviot,” said Mr. Mar, “and this is -our little friend, Bella Wayne.” - -“_Ch-Cheviot!_” stuttered the little friend. - -The young man with the laughing eyes said: “Anything wrong with the -name?” and having shaken hands with “my daughter Hildegarde,” he departed. - -“Did you say his name was Cheviot?” Hildegarde asked her father. - -“Yes. The new recruit at the bank. Seems to be an intelligent sort of -fellow.” - - * * * * * - -With ease and celerity Miss Bella transferred her affections from a -faded photograph, a packet of letters, and a book of travels, to a real -live young man with a square jaw that looked as if he meant business, -but with a ready laugh, too, as if the business were not without its -diverting aspect. Then he had rough brown hair that “fitted” him. Bella -would have told you this was a rarity, most people’s beginning too far -back from the forehead, or growing too much away from the ears, leaving -them with a bare and naked look. Or it grew in a peak. Or it didn’t grow -low enough on the neck and was like a badly made wig, that had slipped -forward. Or worse than anything, it forgot where to stop and grew down -into the collar like Professor Altberg’s, prompting the irreverent Bella -to whisper to her neighbor (while the grave instructor was sitting with -head bent over a Latin exercise): “How far do you think it goes? Do you -suppose he’s hairy _all_ down his back?” - -However that might be, Cheviot’s hair fitted him. Moreover, he had, in -Bella’s estimation, a fascinating, if somewhat mocking air toward little -girls, and he helped one little girl gallantly through the dismal Sundays -by the simple process of sitting in church where she could watch him. -Once in a while in coming out, Bella would catch his eye, and he would -laugh and give her a nod. On the rare occasions of his encountering Miss -Bella at the Mars’, he never failed to stop and mimic her first greeting, -“I’m ‘Ch-Cheviot,’ you know. Now what’s the matter with that name?” which -was vastly entertaining, not to say “taking.” - - * * * * * - -John Galbraith came back to America that autumn, but he stayed in the -East. - -Bella didn’t much care what he did now, for she was thirteen, and in -spite of the ugliness of their Hindu protégée Miss Wayne had joined the -Busy Bees. That was because Hildegarde had told her that Louis Cheviot -went to their dances. Bella saw at once the fitness of her doing the -same. The result was that she seldom waltzed less than twice with the -new hero, who, it must be admitted, was a better batsman than dancer. -But nobody could help “getting through” with Bella as a partner, for -she danced divinely. Cheviot should have been better pleased to get her -for his partner, but it was plain that he was unduly preoccupied about -“my daughter Hildegarde.” Several of the young men were. Bella told -herself with a consciousness of native worth, that she had never minded -in the least before. But this was different. She made up her mind that -if “Ch-Cheviot” goaded her much further by this display of misplaced -devotion, she would just take the misguided young man aside some day and -talk to him “as a friend.” - -She would tell him about Jack Galbraith. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - - -Bella Wayne’s father had been in the royal navy. His health had given -way about the same time as his patience on the vexed question of -non-promotion. He retired from the service, went with his American wife -and family to California on a visit, became enamoured of the climate, -bought a place, and settled there. The three youngest of his seven -children were born in Tulare County, but for him “home” was still -England, however ungrateful. They all went back every second year to -visit his father in Staffordshire, and when Bella’s two sisters found -English husbands, there were three reasons for the recurrent visit to -the old country. The eldest son, Tom Wayne, had made a fortune on the -New York Stock Exchange and married a girl belonging to one of the old -Knickerbocker families. Tom’s country house on Staten Island proved -highly convenient as a half-way station between England and California. -Mrs. Tom was a very charming person, and a certain portion of Bella’s -satisfaction in going abroad lay in the chance it presented of making a -visit to Staten Island, on the way over and back. Nevertheless, as she -never failed to tell Hildegarde on her return, there was no place to -be compared to California, no friend and no “in-law” who could make up -to her for being away from Hildegarde, and she might have added, from -the neighborhood of that obdurate creature with the cold blue eyes and -the colder heart, Louis Cheviot. Those who thought about it at all were -surprised that the friendship of the two girls was not more interrupted -upon Hildegarde’s graduating from the school, when Bella was less than -fifteen. But not upon community of tasks, rather upon something essential -in the nature of each had their alliance been founded—kept vital by wants -in each that the other could supply, excesses in each that the other -helped to modify. They themselves thought their relation had its deeper -roots in a conviction of the peculiar sanctity of girls’ friendships; -a creed to which Hildegarde’s fidelity effected Miss Bella’s actual -adhesion only by degrees and with notable backslidings. - -But even in early days, Bella felt it was highly distinguished to stand -in this relation to one who thought and talked about it as Hildegarde -did. Hadn’t she said in that soft, deliberate way of hers, that it was -capable of being one of the most beautiful things in all the beautiful -world? It was something, she said, no man knew anything about. Why, -they presumed to doubt its possibility even! Ah, they should have known -Hildegarde Mar and Bella Wayne. Men believed that all girls were, at -heart, jealous of all other girls. They thought meanly of the sex. They -pointed to David and Jonathan, to Orestes and Pylades, to instances -innumerable of men’s faithfulness to men. But what bard or legend -celebrates woman’s friendship as toward woman? Well, you see, all the -chroniclers since the beginning of the world have been of the scoffer’s -sex. That was why women’s friendships had never been celebrated—though -men said the real reason was—oh, they spoke blasphemies!—and they hadn’t -known Hildegarde and Bella. It was Hildegarde’s theme, but Bella agreed -to every word. Yes, yes, _their_ friendship would show the world! - -For qualities alien to her own, Hildegarde came to look upon her little -friend with an adoring admiration. Bella’s wit and Bella’s originality, -Bella’s entire “mode of being,” were at once tonic and delight. Then, -too, behind her provoking charm was a finished daintiness, which with -her became elevated into a special quality, distinctive, all-pervading, -a certain strangeness of fragility—a physical fineness like the peculiar -fineness of a flower—a something suggesting evanescence, and having the -subtle pathos of the thing that may not, cannot bide. - -It would have been hard to say which was of most use to the other in -making clearer the riddle of life, or more radiant the beauty of the -world, or more wonder-waking, the mystery of a young girl’s heart. They -read, and walked, and talked, and worked, together, paying their vaunted -friendship a finer tribute than words, however honestly uttered; for they -grew in each other’s company. - -The younger, too, was cured of certain of her more inadmissible “ways,” -while the elder learned from Butterfly Bella many a thing besides the art -of making the most of her beauty. - -Not that Hildegarde despised this last. She had none of the comfort of -knowing it was part of her largeness of nature, that she should take more -easily to beautifying her home than to making the best of herself. Indeed -to the end of time, she required guidance in matters of dress. And who so -well qualified as Miss Bella to give advice. She went further: with her -own ingenious little hands she made the most becoming of “shirt-waists,” -trimmed heavenly hats, and firmly forbade fripperies. - -“No, no, they’re not for the massive.” She applauded her friend for -not wearing trinkets—she didn’t like to see her even with her maternal -grandmother’s emerald brooch. “No, I don’t like you in ‘didoes’ -of any sort. They’re too insignificant for you. You ought to wear -ropes of pearls, or a tiara of diamonds, or better still, something -barbaric—what’s one little lady-like emerald set in a filigree of diamond -chips? Why, it can’t even be seen—on you. Of course the emerald’s a -pretty little stone, and the old setting’s nice. It would shine out on -me, but—well, it’s simply _lost_, you know, on your heroic neck.” - -Hildegarde deplored her size, she carried it even with a sense of -humiliation just as she bore with her lack of elegant accomplishments. -It was pretty terrible to have to put up with being such a great -lump—especially with the ethereal Bella always by to point the advantage -of the opposite. Still, there was no blinking the facts. “You’re right, I -believe, didoes of any sort _are_ rather wasted on me,” Hildegarde would -say meekly, “I must have felt that when I hardly ever wore them—though I -liked them. It takes you, Bella, to explain things.” - -Nothing was ever allowed to come in the way of their spending their -Saturday afternoons together, and if, as time went on, less was heard -about Jack from Hildegarde, it was only because so very much more was -heard about Cheviot from Bella. - -It was a difficult moment when two girls with such lofty ideas of -friendship met for the first time after Cheviot had said to Hildegarde -at a dance: “When are you going to begin to care for me?” She had been so -taken by surprise that she had only smiled and said: “I don’t know,” but -she thought hardly less of Bella at the moment than she thought of Jack. -So the next time that Bella remarked by the way: “Isn’t he perfectly -fascinating?” Hildegarde had hesitated, and she—yes—she was actually -getting red. Bella stared, “Why, are _you_ coming to—to—” - -“No; _oh_, no! Only—” - -“Only what?” - -“It’s dreadfully hard, but I haven’t forgotten our compact. So I suppose -I’ve got to tell you what—what he said to me last night.” - -Bella received the information with a half-hysterical pretense of -carrying it off gaily. “Well, what’s there new in that? As if every -soul in Valdivia hasn’t known for perfect ages that he cares about you -frightfully. I don’t mind _you_. Because you’re Hildegarde, and any man -who didn’t love you must—well, there must be something pretty wrong about -him. I shall give him a whole year—maybe even two, to go on like that, -and then when I’m sixteen, or seventeen at the latest, I won’t have it -any longer.” - -Hildegarde, enormously relieved, laughed and kissed her. “Oh, you nice, -funny child!” - -“Only promise me again, cross your heart and hope you may die, if you -ever keep anything from me about Louis Cheviot.” - -Hildegarde complied and life went on as before—only that Hildegarde -showed herself less ready to fall in with Bella’s ecstasies. An instinct -to forestall a possible jealousy made her cavil from time to time. -“Don’t you think his shoulders are too broad for his height?” - -“No, I don’t, and look how splendidly he carries them. You have to see -him beside a huge man, like Mr. Mar, before you realize—” - -“Yes, yes; _that’s_ true,” Hildegarde hastened to heal the wound. - -“And, anyhow, I don’t think it’s kind of you to run Louis down. I am -always very nice about Jack.” - -The end of it was that Cheviot came more and more to the Mar house, and -seemed so diverted when he found the lively Bella there, that Hildegarde -gave herself up without reserve to the three-cornered friendship. - -He took the girls boating and organized parties to the Tule Lands, and -was altogether a most invaluable ally in the agreeable pursuit of being a -young lady in her first season. - -Still, when Bella praised him absolutely without moderation, “Y-yes,” -Hildegarde would respond, “he is _nice_, only—” - -“Only what?” says Miss Bella, instantly on the defensive. - -“Well, you know I prefer big men.” - -“Of course you do. It’s being so massive yourself. But he’s exactly the -right size for me.” - -“Oh, yes, and he’s quite the nicest of all the Valdivia boys.” - -“Well, that’s going pretty far,” says Bella, with an edge in her voice. - -Then the other, with that recurrent though only half-conscious need to -show that after all, she, Hildegarde, wasn’t dazzled—not being in Bella’s -state, _she_ could see blemishes—the older girl would add: “And yet -somehow for all his niceness, and making us always have a good time when -he’s there, to my thinking there’s something terribly unromantic about -Louis Cheviot.” - -“Now you only say that,” retorts Miss Bella, with sparkling eyes, -“because he’s in a bank.” - -“No—no,” vaguely, “but I don’t believe he’s got any soul.” - -“Just because he isn’t hunting the North Pole!” - -“No. That isn’t the reason. I assure you it isn’t.” - -“Then it _can_ only be because he likes to laugh at everything.” - -“He _is_ pretty frivolous,” said Hildegarde, “and he ridicules -friendship. But no, it’s not that, either. It’s because he’s kind of -chilling. To _me_.” - -“Chilling to you?” Bella beamed. “Oh, do tell me about that.” - -“Sometimes he’s positively rude.” - -“To _you_?” Bella could have danced. - -“To anybody.” - -“Oh, but _when_ was he positively rude to you? How black-hearted of you, -Hildegarde, not to tell me that before! You might have known I’d simply -_love_ hearing about that.” - -Hildegarde laughed. “Why, I haven’t seen you since Thursday.” - -“Was it at your birthday party?” - -“Yes, at the birthday party.” - -“Well, well, how did he do it? What did he say?” - -“It was after we’d all been reading the poem that came with Eddie Cox’s -present. Louis made fun of it.” - -“That was only being rude to Eddie.” Bella’s face fell. - -“Wait till you hear. I defended it, of course, and said: ‘It isn’t as -easy as it looks to make birthday odes.’ ‘It certainly doesn’t _look_ -difficult—to make _that_ kind,’ he said. ‘Then why,’ I said, just to -stand up for Eddie, ‘why have you never written a poem about my airy -tread?’ And Louis said: ‘Well, there may be another reason, but no girl -who stands five foot ten in her stockings and weighs a hundred and fifty -pounds need ask it.’ _That’s_ the kind of thing.” - -It was an incident Miss Bella loved to recall. No man could be really in -love with a girl he had said _that_ to. - -But some months later, Hildegarde was obliged, according to the code, to -report that Cheviot had been “going on” again. - -Bella insisted on having all the “horrid details.” - -“It was last night at the taffy pulling. You know how we’d all been -laughing at his stories of Miss Monk meeting the Carters’ black cow—” - -“Yes, yes.” - -“Well, I was laughing so I couldn’t stop, and it was so warm in that room -the candy was melting. You remember he said—” - -“Oh, yes,” said Bella, with feeling, “_I_ remember. He said you must come -and pull with him.” - -“—out in the porch where the candy and I would cool off.” - -“And you went.” - -“And he made more jokes on the way out. I begged him not to talk any -more, for I’d got into a silly mood and everything he said made me laugh. -‘I know, I know,’ he said. ‘I labor under the fatal disadvantage of the -funny man, but I could make you serious you know.’ And then—then—he had -the impertinence—to kiss me.” - -“Oh, Hildegarde!” - -“Yes. It was dreadfully grotesque, too—our hands were stuck together by -that great yellow rope of taffy, and I could only stammer and get redder. -But I did say I was not going to forgive him. Nobody had ever been so -rude to me before. Then he got awfully serious and said all kinds of -things—” - -“_What_ kind?” - -“And at last he asked me what was wrong with Ch-Cheviot—your old joke, -you know.” - -Bella clenched her hands. Sacrilege! to present _her_ joke to another -girl! She had always imagined that would be just how he would propose -to her. He would say: “Bella, my beautiful, what’s the matter with -Ch-Cheviot?” - -“Well, go on.” - -“If I didn’t like him enough he said, what sort of man _was_ I going to -like? And I thought it only fair to give him some idea, so I tried to -soften it by laughing a little—I’d forgiven him by then, you know, for -he’d said _such_ things—” - -“What things?” - -“Oh, sorry kind of things, and he looked so—so—well, I’d forgiven him. -But I told him plainly that if it ever is a question of the sort of man I -am to care for, it won’t be some one who is just nice and makes me have -a good time. It will be some great, gloomy creature who makes me cry—and -lifts me to the stars. I was laughing, but I meant it—and I said: ‘I’d -worship _that_ kind of man.’” - -“What did he say then?” - -“Well, he looked sort of down I thought, so I said: ‘You wouldn’t let me -worship you, even if I could.’ ‘I’d let you love me,’ he said.” - -“Oh-h. What else?” - -“We went in after that.” - -“And he was just as funny as ever,” said Bella, clutching at frail -comfort. - -“Oh, quite,” agreed Hildegarde. - -It was small consolation to Miss Bella that Cheviot was singular in his -obduracy. Before she was eighteen she was uncommonly well accustomed to -seeing the stoutest masculine defenses go down before her. The two Mar -boys had long been her devoted slaves. And Bella had flirted with both -of them impartially, taking what she felt was only a becoming share in -the interest all Valdivia felt in those go-ahead young men, whenever they -came home for a visit. They were pointed to as models. Look how they “got -on”—they did it visibly—while you looked they seemed to have to restrain -themselves from rising out of your sight. They kept Miss Bella supplied -with candy and flowers and they corresponded with her when she went -abroad. Secretly dreading the fascinations of the Britisher, they asked -in scoffing postscripts how the effete nations were getting on. Bella’s -view of all this was that, provided the young men were “nice,” a girl -could hardly have too many of them contending for her favor. It was what -they were there for. Each time she came home, she brought the Mar boys -a scarf-pin apiece, and pleased them still more by invariably demanding -a cent in return. “I can’t _give_ you a thing with a point. Something -dreadful would happen! you must buy them.” That looked, they felt, as if -she were “taking it seriously”—but which was she taking? - -The year that Bella was eighteen, after a summer in England, she arrived -at Staten Island just in time to celebrate her birthday. She was full of -joy at getting back. - -The conscious approval that she bestowed on the greater splendor of the -American autumn had been generously extended to the profusion of fine -fruit that greets one here at breakfast, to the individual bathrooms, -even to the spacious, drawered, behooked, and shelved clothes-closets -so agreeably numerous in the American house. The same satisfaction with -which she had noted these things consciously revisited her as she trod -the wide, shallow steps of the staircase, that in its descent halted -leisurely upon two broad landings, having each a large unglazed window -opening upon the hall below. The observant young eyes paid a flitting -tribute to the beautiful woodwork of the balusters and the great tall -doors of the rooms she passed, deciding as she went, there’s nothing -nicer than a new American house, unless it’s an old (and a very old) -English one. Even then, to _live_ in, give her the American. - -Like so many of the first generation born in “the States,” this child -of an old-world father was more American in tastes and spirit than -any daughter of the Revolution. But, partly as a matter of physical -inheritance, partly, perhaps, because of her frequent visits to England, -she bore about her still a good deal of the peculiar stamp of a certain -type of English girl. As she came trailing slowly down the wide staircase -of Tom Wayne’s country house on Staten Island, the practised eye would -have little difficulty in detecting a difference between the figure on -the stair and the typical “American beauty,” a something less sumptuous -and more distinguished. Her head held not quite so high, and yet in her -carriage something indefinably more aloof. The longer waist, not quite -so ruthlessly stayed and belted, giving an effect of greater ease; the -longer neck, the shoulders a little more sloping, the eyes less eager -and yet with more vision in them—something in the whole, gracious as the -aspect was, a little reluctant and more than a little elusive. The Paquin -gown Bella had brought back and wore to-night for the first time, was -long, and straight, and plainer than prescribed by the New York fashion -of the moment—a gauze, discreetly iridescent, showing over a white satin -petticoat shifting lights of pink, and pearl, and silver, a gown that -shimmered as the wearer walked, and clothed her in glancing light and -soft-hued shadows. - -Bella knew that she was very early, and she came down slowly, drawing a -long glove up her slim, bare arm. When she reached the square window on -the lower landing, she stopped, laid the other glove on the sill, and -proceeded to button the one she had on. A slight noise in the hall below -made her lean her arms on the broad, polished sill of the opening, and -look down. - -A man stood by a table facing her, but with eyes bent upon the books he -was turning over—a man rather over medium height, sunburnt, with a lean, -clean-shaven face, fair hair, and clean cut mouth and chin. That was all -she had time to take in before he raised his eyes. - -“Oh!” ejaculated Bella, involuntarily, and then after meeting a moment -longer the wide, unwinking, upward look, “How do you do!” she said. - -“How do you do,” echoed the sunburnt man, and he did not bow nor move; -just stood looking at the picture up there on the wall. - -Miss Bella was not as a rule easily embarrassed, but she was conscious -now of feeling a little at a loss. - -“I don’t know exactly why I am in such a hurry to say ‘how do you do,’ -that I can’t wait till I come down. But I do know you, don’t I?” - -“Of course you know me”; but that time he smiled, and Bella said to -herself, how _could_ I have forgotten anybody so—so— - -She picked up her glove with the intention of running down. But, I expect -I look rather nice here in the window, she reflected, and instead of -going down instantly she said: “It’s some time since I was here before.” - -“Yes, it’s a long time,” he answered. His tone pleased her. - -“And I run about the world such a lot, I can’t be expected to remember -everybody’s name just all at once, can I?” - -“Oh, the name doesn’t matter.” - -“Does that mean you aren’t quite sure of mine?” - -“I haven’t the faintest notion of it.” - -“Then how do you know—what made you say, ‘Of course I knew you’?” - -“Because I was sure you did.” - -“Why should I remember you, any more than you should remember me? Are you -somebody very special?” - -“_Very_ special.” - -“Who?” - -“Oh, you’ll hear.” - -“How shall I hear?” - -“I’ll tell you myself.” - -“Well, go on.” - -“I can’t, now.” - -“Why not?” - -“You—you’re too far off.” - -“When I come down, you’ll tell me?” - -“_Will_ you?—will you ever come down?” He was smiling. - -“Why shouldn’t I?” she said, bewildered. - -“I never saw it tried before.” - -“Never saw me try to come down-stairs!” - -“Never, yet.” - -Had he been here that time she sprained her ankle? “Do you imagine I’m -lame?” - -“On the contrary, I’m ready to believe you have wings. Please fly down.” - -“What a very odd person you are! I can’t think how I came to forget—” - -He made no answer. Just stood there leaning against the heavy table, -half-smiling and never turning away his eyes. - -She caught up her glove and ran down several steps, but just before she -reached the open place where the stair turned abruptly, and the solid -wall gave way to a procession of slender pillars, she stopped, overcome -by a sudden rush of shyness. Behind that last yard of sheltering wall -she waited breathless, while you might count seven, and then turned on a -noiseless foot and fled up-stairs, bending low as she passed the square -windows, so that not even the top of her brown head should be visible to -that very odd man waiting for her down there in the hall. - -She reappeared ten minutes later with the first batch of guests, and -while they were speaking to their hostess, the sunburnt man made his way -to Bella, and held out his hand. - -“It took you a long time,” he said. “How did you manage it?” - -“Manage what?” - -“Getting down. You’re the cleverest picture I ever saw on any wall. How -long do they give you?” - -“Out of the frame?” she said, catching up his fancy with a laugh. “Oh, -only long enough to find out what you’ve done to make you the special -person you say you are.” - -“It’s not what I _have_ done, but what I shall do.” - -“Well, I’m very much disappointed. I thought you must be distinguished, -and now I see you’re only conceited.” - -He smiled—he was rather wonderful when he smiled. - -“Of course, I know perfectly well we’ve met before,” Bella went on, “but -I don’t remember who you are.” - -“I’ll tell you some day.” - -“Some day? How absurd. Why not now?” - -“Because the surprise might be too great.” - -She opened her eyes yet wider and laughed as a girl will in recognition -of a point she sees as yet only with the eye of faith. “Didn’t you -promise you’d tell me if I came down?” - -“But you haven’t come down. You are still far out of reach.” - -“It’s ridiculous of you not to tell me your name.” - -“My name wouldn’t mean anything to you—not yet. You wouldn’t know it.” - -“What!” She drew back. - -“But we have met,” he reassured her hurriedly. - -“I felt we must have, but where was it?” - -“I can’t quite remember, either. It may have been when you were Queen in -Babylon and I was a Christian slave.” - -She drew nearer with lit face. “Oh, do you believe in all those -delightful things?” - -“I believe—” he began on a different and lower note and then he stopped -suddenly. Bella’s upturned face silently begged him to go on with his -profession of faith. - -But just then, Bella’s brother, having passed a boring guest on to his -wife, came between the two who stood so oblivious of the rest of the -company. The apparition of Tom Wayne brought Bella back to the every-day -world, and to a half-frightened self-criticism, in view of the long -flight she had taken from it in the last few seconds. - -Her brother laid an affectionate hand on the shoulder of the sunburnt -man, and said, laughing, to Bella: “You must be careful with this person. -He’s the most desperate flirt.” - -Bella winced inwardly, but she disguised the little hurt with smiling -mockery. “Really! I should _never_ have thought it!” - -“Oh, yes, goes off with first one heart and then another. And he goes so -far! That’s the worst of him.” - -“Where does he go?” - -“Lord knows! Let’s see, what God-forgotten place was the last book about?” - -“Oh, you write books? Then you _are_ distinguished—” - -“You aren’t telling me you didn’t know who it was?” exclaimed her -brother. - -“Well, I thought I did, and I’ve been behaving as if I did.” - -There was a general movement to the dining-room, but Tom paused long -enough to say with mock formality: “Miss Wayne, Mr. John Galbraith.” - -“_Oh!_” ejaculated the girl, growing pink with excitement. “Are you -Hildegarde’s Jack?” - -The sunburnt man looked mystified a moment, and then with sudden daring, -“Is your name Hildegarde?” he said. - -This was on the twenty-fourth of September. Six days later she began a -letter to her friend. - - “Oh, Hildegarde! Hildegarde! You’re quite right. He’s the most - wonderful person in the world, and I hope you don’t mind, but - we are engaged to be married—Jack Galbraith and I! It turns - out that he’s an old friend of Marion’s family, and after she - married my brother, when Jack came to see them last winter, Tom - liked him awfully—of course everybody does that—and since then - they’ve all three been great friends. - - “And one of the first things he asked me when he heard Tom - came from near Valdivia, was all about you—I mean your father. - He says such beautiful things about your father, and how kind - he was when Jack was a poor, forlorn, little boy. But oh, - Hildegarde! he’s the most glorious person now you ever saw in - your life. The old faded photograph isn’t a bit like him. I am - sending you a new one, and that isn’t like him, either. But I - am going to get a silver frame for it and I shall be dreadfully - hurt if you don’t put it on the altar-table, with the old - locket and the roses—if you’re really glad of our happiness - you’ll even burn a joss now and then for our sake. I’m - miserable when I think how little good any photograph of such - a person is! You can’t imagine what it’s like when he smiles. - All the whole earth smiles, too. I adore him when he smiles—and - when he doesn’t. I adore him every minute, except when he talks - about Franz Josef Land, or something disgusting like that. But - then he doesn’t do it much—never, except when Mr. Borisoff is - here. Mr. Borisoff is a man I can’t stop to tell you about, - only I don’t like him, and I shall let Jack know some day that - I don’t think he is a good influence. - - “But I began to say that you mustn’t think Jack is the least - solemn as his letters used to sound and as the pictures make - out. In fact, he began our acquaintance by flirting quite - desperately, but he says it wasn’t flirting at all. He meant - all those things! He says they were a profession of faith - upon a miraculous revelation (that’s me—I’m the miraculous - revelation!), and it only sounded flirtatious because I didn’t - realize, as he did, that we had been waiting for one another. - - “He’s waited a good deal longer than I have, poor Jack! He’s - more than twelve years older than I am; do you remember how you - used to throw that in my face? But it doesn’t matter the least - in the world. Besides, you’d never think he was so old—he’s - such a darling; and he talks like a poet, and a painter, and - an archangel, all rolled into one. I am so wildly happy I - can’t write a proper letter, only I do want you to know that - your mother is mistaken, as we always thought. Jack is a - saint—simply a saint. When my father behaved quite horridly, - and said he couldn’t have me marrying a man who went away - for two or three years on long, scientific expeditions, Jack - said he wouldn’t do it any more, though I think it cost him - something to say that. He was quite silent for hours afterward, - and didn’t even notice I’d done my hair differently. And that - horrid Mr. Borisoff was in such a rage. He didn’t say anything, - but oh! he looked. But now he’s gone away, thank goodness, and - I shall try to make Jack not ever see him again. Then another - thing, just to show you what a perfect angel Jack is. My mother - said I was delicate and too young, and things like that, and - she got father to agree that I was only eighteen and was the - weakling of the family, and they made up their wicked old - minds that I mustn’t be married right away as Jack and I had - arranged. And what do you think? Jack said he would wait for - me? A whole year! I cried when they settled that, but wasn’t - he a seraph? Fathers and mothers are very selfish; I shall not - treat my daughters like that. - - “How Jack and I will ever get through a year of waiting is more - than either of us know. I am not coming home till the first - week in December, and Jack’s coming to us for Christmas. And - then you’ll see him! I hope you are pleased that I’m going to - marry the man we’ve talked so much about. It seems like another - bond, doesn’t it? How is Louis Cheviot? I can forgive him now - for always liking you best. I can’t imagine how I ever looked - at him. Oh, Hildegarde, Jack is a perfect—well, I never heard - the word that was beautiful enough to describe him. - - “Good-by, I hear him now out in the garden. Jack is the most - perfect whistler. - - “Your loving and devoted - - “BELLA.” - - - - -CHAPTER VII - - -December did not bring Galbraith—nor even Bella. - -“Jack found he couldn’t leave that odious Mr. Borisoff to settle up some -business all alone, but my brother Tom has got mama to consent to stay -over Christmas with me in New York at Marion’s. So Jack and I shan’t die, -as we fully intended to if we were separated.” - -Just as the girl and her mother, early in the new year, were at last -going home, a cable came from England to say that Bella’s sister, Mrs. -Hilton, had been badly hurt in a carriage accident. - -The cable was couched in the most alarming terms—there seemed to be every -prospect of three little children being left motherless. Bella and her -mother took the first ship that sailed. - - “If we have to stay any time, Jack says he will come over.” - -They did stay, and Jack was as good as his word. Mrs. Hilton did not die, -but she lay for months in a critical condition, and her mother mounted -guard over the new baby and the three other little people. - -Bella meanwhile was amusing herself right royally. - - “I’ve been presented and I’m having a perfect, rapturous time. - - “And now it’s decided we don’t have to wait quite a whole - year—we are going to be married before we come back to America, - some time in the summer. Just think of it, Hildegarde! You and - I not to meet again till I’m married! Oh, do write and say - you’ll love me just as much as ever.” - -Then for a time no more long letters, but a shower of happy little -notes, that descended with tolerable regularity. After that, the wedding -invitation! Ten days’ interval and then two communications by the same -mail. The first: - - “DEAREST HILDEGARDE: - - “Mother and I are just back from a week-end at Tryston. It - was rather dull. All the men were immensely distinguished and - at least eighty. I was glad to get back to town. Hengler’s - Circus has been turned into a skating-rink. We all went - to a delightful party there last week. The wife of the - Governor-General of Canada skated most wonderfully. I wish I - could. Jack didn’t take his eyes off her. Mr. Borisoff has come - to London. I hate Mr. Borisoff as much as ever, if not worse. - - “I haven’t time for more if I’m to catch this post. But - I can’t have you thinking I forget you in my happiness. - Besides, I shall be happier when Mr. Borisoff goes back to his - fellow-barbarians, and leaves me and Jack alone. The next, I - promise, shall be a great, long letter. You’ll see! I do love - you, Hildegarde. - - “From your loving - - “BELLA. - - “P. S. I wish you were here.” - -It struck Hildegarde it was the first time she had said that since Jack -had appeared on the scene. - -The other letter was without date or beginning. - - “Jack and I have quarreled. Oh, if you were here! - - “BELLA.” - -Immediately after, a mysterious cable, that told simply the date of -Bella’s homeward sailing. Had the quarrel frightened her lover and so -hastened on the marriage? But no, for while Bella was still upon the -sea came a formal notice that the marriage was “postponed.” It had been -mailed some days before the cable was sent. - - * * * * * - -Hildegarde’s first feeling upon Bella’s return was that since the writing -of that final note from London, and the dispatching of the postponement -notice, the trouble, whatever it had been, was patched up. Impossible to -think there was a cloud in her sky. Not matured at all; only a little -thinner and, save for that, exactly the same Bella—“unthinking, idle, -wild, and young.” - -But as the minutes went by and she ran from one familiar thing to another -in garden and house, with greeting and gay comment, spinning out the time -till she and Hildegarde should be alone together, the older girl began to -have her doubts. Was Bella as happy as she pretended, flitting about with -all her “dear Mars?” - -Nothing possible to gather from her eagerness to be assured that so far -from being forgotten, she was more than ever an object of interest and -devotion. Nothing new Bella’s little weakness for wanting everybody to -be visibly enlivened by her return from “abroad,” bringing her adorable -frocks (for Bella’s American mama had come into money, and Bella was -helping her to come out of a certain portion), bringing remembrances for -everybody, bringing a whiff of foreign airs, and a touch of something -exciting, exotic, into the lives of stay-at-home folk. Bella had always -been one of those who, however much adored, would like to be adored yet a -little more. She couldn’t bear that any one within reach of her influence -should escape caring about her, and she cast a net uncommon wide. It was -meant to enmesh even Hildegarde’s mother, partly because that lady was so -little lavish in bestowing her affection, but mostly because if you were -much in the Mar house it mattered enormously upon what terms you were -with Mrs. Mar. But, as ill-luck would have it, Bella never thought of the -lady once she was away from her. Though she had brought back scarf-pins -for the boys, and a silver-mounted blackthorn for Mr. Mar, and a quite -wonderful necklace for Hildegarde, there was nothing—nothing at all for -Mrs. Mar—and it was serious. - -Bella never realized the awful omission till, having dispensed the other -gifts, she stood with the rest of the family in the garden, not even -asking where Mrs. Mar was, till looking up, she saw that lady at her -bedroom window carefully trying on a new pair of gloves. “Everything -depends on the way they’re put on the first time.” Bella could hear her -saying it, and she looked up smiling and waving her hand, as much as to -say, “Oh, please hurry down! _You’re_ the person I’m pining most of all -to see again.” But, of herself, Miss Bella was silently asking, “What -_am_ I to do! What will happen if she should see she’s the only one I’ve -forgotten?” Bella’s brain worked feverishly. Glancing down, her eye fell -on a gold pencil she was wearing on a chain. Surreptitiously detaching -this latest gift of her mother’s, Bella slipped it in her pocket, talking -all the time; telling Mr. Mar what it felt like to see sunshine, real -Californian sunshine again; offering up to public scorn the English -girl who had disapproved of the unappreciative Californians for rooting -arum lilies out of their gardens, and throwing them away in sheaves, -which Bella admitted was what they did with the “pest.” “Just like your -American extravagance,” the English girl had said. - -Oh, it was so perfectly heavenly to be at home again! Bella beamed in her -old conscienceless way at poor Trenn, who found a heady tonic—a hope new -born, in hearing the adored one call the Mar house “home.” - -But even while he was savoring the sweetness of that thought, there was -the distracting creature linking her arm in Harry’s, and saying: “Come -away a moment and tell me something I want to know.” - -What could a boy like Harry possibly tell Bella that she could want to -know! - -Harry’s own huge satisfaction in the incident was cruelly damped upon -Bella’s saying: “Does your mother still love stumps?” - -“Stumps! Love s-stumps!” he muttered, in amazement. - -“Yes. You haven’t forgotten how she always kept her pencils till they -were so little nobody else could have held on to them.” - -“Oh, that kind. Yes. Stumps! I see.” - -“Well, does she dote on them as much as ever? Does she pick them out of -the fender, when Mr. Mar has thrown his away? Does she still say: ‘Well, -_I’m_ not so well off that I can put a thing in the fire that’s only -half-used?’ Does she do that the same as ever, or are you all too rich -now?” - -Harry laughed. “Oh, we’ll never be so rich that mother won’t use a pencil -to its last grasp.” - -“Well, then, I’ve got the very thing for her! A nice gold one—pencil, you -know. But rather a stump, too. See?—just her size!” - -Harry looked doubtfully down upon the somewhat massive pencil-case which -Bella had drawn from her pocket and was telescoping in and out. “That’s -an awfully fine one, but I can’t quite imagine mother giving up her—” - -“Well, look here,” interrupted Bella, “Mrs. Mar’s a person you can’t take -risks with. Do you mind going up-stairs and showing her this? Just ask -her what she thinks of it—as though I’d brought it to you, you know.” -Harry departed on the errand, while Bella returned to the others, but her -emissary was back directly with a doubtful face, and Mrs. Mar following -not far behind. - -“Well?” Bella demanded in an undertone. - -“Oh—a—I asked her if she didn’t think it was an awfully fine one, and all -she said was: ‘The Lord was very good. He had delivered her many years -ago from gold pencils.’” - -“What on earth does she mean?” - -“Haven’t the ghost—’Sh!” - -“Oh, how do you do, dear Mrs. Mar!” Bella flew to embrace the lady, who -received the advance with self-possession, but not without a glint of -pleasure. - -Harry still stood with the intended tribute in his hand. Mrs. Mar’s eye -fell upon it critically. - -“Is it true—a—you don’t think much of gold pencils?” hazarded Bella. - -“Oh, if you’re a person of leisure—” - -“What’s that got to do with it?” - -“It’s a pursuit in itself, keeping a gold pencil going.” - -“Oh, no. Look. This one goes beautifully.” Bella took it from Harry and -shot it in and out. - -“That’s just its wiliness. Wait till you _need_ it.” - -“Really this one’s very good. It’s warranted—” - -“_I’ll_ warrant it’ll always be wanting a new lead. Especially at the -moment when you can’t possibly stop to niggle about with fitting one -in. Then you’ll put the thing away till you can take an afternoon off -just to get your handsome gold pencil into working order again. And when -you’ve done that and gone thoroughly into the subject, you’ll find there -isn’t a store on the Pacific coast that keeps your size leads. No lead -in any store will ever fit your pencil. Then you’ll write to New York to -a manufactory. Then you’ll wait a month, maybe two. Then, by the time -you’ve got them, you’ll find the pencil has forgotten how to assimilate -leads. It will break them off short and spit them out. If you try to -discipline the pencil, it’ll turn sulky and refuse to open. Or it stays -open and refuses to shut.” - -“I assure you, Mrs. Mar, _this_ one—” - -“And I assure you, Miss Bella Wayne, that even if you’re under the -special favor of Providence, and none of these things happen, you’ll -still find you can never get the work out of a twenty-dollar gold pencil -that you can out of a five-cent cedar.” - -Bella was catching Harry’s eye and trying not to laugh. - -“And remember what I tell you,” Mrs. Mar wound up, “you’ll have to treat -that gold pencil as you treat Mrs. Harrington Trennor, with reverence and -awe. If you don’t you’ll be sorry. If you lean on it, it will collapse. -If you do anything but admire it, it will teach you better.” Bella -opened her lips—Mrs. Mar stopped her with, “Unless you come to my way of -thinking, you’ll use that pencil in fear and trembling till the merciful -grave offers you a refuge from your slavery. As I told Harry”—she -buttoned the last button on her new gloves (why hadn’t Bella brought -her anything as sensible as gloves!) and she drew down her cuff with -a business-like air—“the Lord has delivered me from many snares; gold -pencils among the rest!” And she marched off toward the gate. - -“Oh, mother,” said Hildegarde, at her side, “how could you! That dear -little Bella brought the beautiful gold pencil for you all the way from -Europe.” - -“Do you suppose I didn’t guess that? Good-by!” She looked back and nodded -to Bella. “I’ve got to go to the missionary meeting now, but I’ll see you -at supper.” - -“Oh, and you’ll tell me the rest then?” asked the wicked Bella, with an -innocent look. - -“The rest!” Mrs. Mar glanced sharply over her shoulder as she laid her -hand on the latch of the gate. “There is no rest for anybody who depends -on a contrivance like that. Whenever I see a person with a gold pencil, I -know it won’t be long before she’s asking me to lend her my wooden stump. -As a rule she likes my wooden stump so well she walks off with it.” - -As Mrs. Mar vanished round the corner, Bella gave way to suppressed -chuckles. Impossible to think she had a care in the world greater than a -rejected gold pencil. - -“Yes, Hildegarde. I’m coming directly; only Trenn hasn’t given me a spray -of lemon verbena yet, to console me for the scandalous way his mother -treats me. Don’t you remember you _always_ give me lemon verbena when -we’re in the garden?” She showed no impatience when Trenn prolonged the -time-honored process—not a bit of it, went on laughing and chattering -there in the sunshine and telling how they thought in England that the -American girl was only keeping up the transatlantic reputation for -“telling tall stories,” when Bella had said that verbena at home was a -tree, and grew to the second-story window. Then having undone in half an -hour any good of peace regained by the “Mar boys” through her absence and -engagement, Miss Bella found her way up-stairs. - -Her vivacity fell visibly from the moment she crossed the threshold of -Hildegarde’s familiar little room. But she commented favorably upon the -new home-worked counterpane, and then, as though without seeing it, -walked past the familiar old altar-table, with its ferny background and -the roses ranged below. There was the big silver locket hung above, like -some peasant’s votive offering at a foreign shrine, and down there in -front of the massed roses was that other picture, that had been new only -a year ago, when Bella’s happiness was born. - -She went straight to the window and stood quite silent, looking down upon -Hildegarde’s flower borders. Then without turning round, “Will you do -something for me?” - -“What?” - -“Take that picture away. The locket, too.” - -“Oh, Bella! Is it as bad as that?” - -“You’ll put them out of sight?” - -“Yes, yes; of course I will.” - -“_Now!_” She might as well have said: I won’t turn round until they’re -gone. - -Hildegarde opened a drawer. “I’ll put them in here till things come right -again.” - -“Things aren’t ever coming right.” - -“Bella!” - -Not till she heard the drawer shut did the girl turn from the window, and -Hildegarde could see that the small face was quivering. - -“Bella, dear!” Her friend swept to her on a sudden wave of pity. “It will -all come right.” - -But the younger girl drew back. Although her tears were brimming she -spoke with a certain half-choked hardness: “I’ve hurried mother back as -fast as boats and trains could bring us; just to be with you again, but -not to hear you say that. I wanted to be with you just because you will -know better. Hildegarde—I—I’d like to stay with you awhile. May I?” - -“I want nothing so much—we all want you.” - -“Trenn, too?” she actually laughed through her tears. What a queer -creature. - -“Trenn, too. Only”—Hildegarde glanced from the empty place on the -altar-table, to the shut drawer—“only you’ll be kind enough not to break -Trenn’s heart as well.” - -“As well as my own?” - -Hildegarde’s face grew hard with the words, “As well as Jack Galbraith’s.” - -Bella, too, was grave enough now; “I haven’t broken his heart. But—I’ve -got a crack in my own. Only”—she lifted her pretty eyes with an air -almost of panic—“only nobody else is to know. You”—she came nearer and -laid a nervous hand on Hildegarde’s firm arm—“you must help me to keep -everybody from knowing.” - -“Dear,” was all Hildegarde’s answer, but she leaned her cheek against -Bella’s thin face. - -“And there’s another thing,” the younger girl went on a little -feverishly, still clinging to Hildegarde’s arm, “I hate talking about it.” - -“Of course. Just at first, it must be—” - -“No, it isn’t ‘of course’ and it’s not only at first. It’s for always. -Most girls talk their love affairs to tatters. I’ve noticed that. I want -you to help me to—to keep my—” Her voice went out upon a sudden flood of -tears. Hildegarde drew her into the window-seat and sat down beside her. -They were silent for a time, until Bella laid her wet face down on her -friend’s shoulder with, “Mind, Hildegarde! We aren’t to talk about it. -Not even you and I. John Galbraith is too—too—” She raised her head, drew -her small hand across her eyes, and then sprang up and faced the window, -as if some enemy without had challenged her. “It may be that I _don’t_ -understand what a great man he is, as Mr. Borisoff says. But, at least, I -know he’s not the sort of person to be chattered over.” - -Hildegarde remembered with a sting how for years she had “chattered” -with Galbraith for her theme. And she hadn’t little Bella’s excuse. -Yes, it was always like this. She was for ever stumbling upon something -dignified and fine in Butterfly Bella. - -The pretty tear-stained face was lifted to the sunlight, and the childish -red mouth, so used to laughter, was pitifully grave, as Bella, staring up -into the square of sky over Hildegarde’s head said: “He is up there!” - -“Jack!” Hildegarde exclaimed in a half-whisper. - -“John Galbraith,” said Bella. “He is way up there, and I won’t be the one -to pull him down.” - -“Oh-h. I was half afraid you meant he was dead.” - -“As good as dead.” - -Fear took fresh hold on the older girl. He is going to marry some one -else, Hildegarde said to herself. Yes, yes; as she looked at poor Bella’s -face, she was sure of it. And now the slim little figure had sunk on its -knees. She leaned against her friend for support. But she looked out -across Hildegarde’s shoulder, searching space through tears. Hildegarde -held tight the childish-looking hands, and asked the last question she -was ever to put about the common hero of their girlhood. “Where is he?” -she said. - -“He’s gone off with Mr. Borisoff somewhere.” - -“You mean you don’t know where?” - -“Somewhere in the arctic.” She hid her face in Hildegarde’s lap. - -They sat so a long, long time. - - * * * * * - -In spite of her year’s absence, Bella found nothing much changed in the -Valdivia situation, except that the Mar boys had “got on” more than ever, -and that their father’s form of progress seemed still more strikingly to -consist in “getting on” in years. - -It was a long time since his wife had given him the credit for doing more -than his share at the bank with a view to promotion to be head cashier, -or even a “silent partner.” Each time a vacancy occurred some one else -had stepped into it; Louis Cheviot had been the last. But Mrs. Mar -learned through the years that the reason her husband accepted increased -tasks was that he was born to bear burdens, as the sparks to fly upward. -If any extra work was “going,” so to speak, it gravitated unerringly to -Nathaniel Mar. As to the question of his reward, what would be gained by -giving a better position to a man who in any crisis could be depended -on to do all the work of a higher office, and never ask for increased -emolument? The only person who ever hinted such a thing to the Trennors -had been Cousin Harriet. The Trennor Brothers’ success (which was -proverbial in Valdivia) had long extended to avoidance of Cousin Harriet. -Certainly Mr. Mar’s life-long ill-luck brought out more clearly the fact -of his boys’ early prosperity. Not that it was enormous as yet, though -quite sufficient to have enabled them to marry, had they so chosen. - -Mrs. Mar’s satisfaction in her sons was checkered by the fact that each -of these otherwise reasonable and enterprising young men clung to his -boyish infatuation for Bella Wayne, long after their boyhood had gone -the way of the years. It certainly did seem as though not till one or -both were cut out by her marrying some one else, would either Trenn or -Harry look at any of the girls Mrs. Mar considered more desirable. Not -that the boys’ mother had been able wholly to escape the general Mar -devotion to the disturber of their peace, but as the seasons passed, and -Bella rejected one swain after another, it became increasingly vexatious -to Mrs. Mar that her sons should not realize and amend the stupidity -of caring about a girl who was more and more under suspicion of being -handicapped by a silly passion for a mad fool who had given up the -substance for the shadow, and had met his due reward—being now these many -months lost in the arctic ice. - - * * * * * - -Hildegarde’s theory that since the unhappy issue of the love affair, -Bella had greater need of her friend than ever before, and Hildegarde’s -own consequent inaccessibility to others was the cause of some -restiveness on Cheviot’s part. His old friendliness for Bella had -vanished. He spoke of her with a humorous disparagement that did him -ill-service with Hildegarde. But he was grave enough sometimes. - -“I never get a word alone with you, nowadays,” he said one night, as he -sat smoking on the steps of the porch at Hildegarde’s feet, while Bella -walked about the garden with Trenn. Hildegarde made some perfunctory -answer, and they sat silent for a time. - -The light wind brought up waves of fragrance from the tangle of roses -under Hildegarde’s window, and the little path stretched away to -indefiniteness in the starlight, till it was lost long before it reached -the garden’s end. The limits of the narrow inclosure, so sharply drawn -by day, were nobly enlarged, lost even, at this hour, in the dim reaches -of green turned silver and black, as the moon came over the tops of the -conifers. - -Down by the arbor vitæ hedge growing things that Hildegarde had planted -sent their souls to her across the lawn, piercing the heavier air of -roses with arrowy shafts of spicy sweetness. - -On such a night no one is alone. Where two go down a darkling walk, -or sit on the steps in the dusk, others gather round them. Invisible -presences—the singers, the beautiful ones, the stern doers of great -deeds—join us common folk, and give us a share in their glory or their -steadfast pain. Hopes of our own, that look too large by day—too dim and -inaccessible, they come walking in our garden at such an hour, beckoning -us or looking, smiling, on. Living men, rumored to be far away, suddenly -stand before us. Women who have been long aloof draw near. All the -barriers go down. Even the dead come home. - -John Galbraith was down there, where Bella’s white gown shone among the -trees, and John Galbraith was sitting between those other two on the -steps. - -And Cheviot knew it. - -Hildegarde was reminded of the visible presence by his saying, in a low -voice, that he understood the reason of his ill-success with her. - -“What do you mean?” - -“Oh, Bella told me. Years ago. When she was so little you thought she—” - -“Told you what?” - -“That you had been in love with John Galbraith since you were sixteen.” - -“But you must see that’s absurd. I’ve never even seen him!” - -“I wish to God you had! Then you might get over it.” - -Hildegarde roused herself to say with equal emphasis, “You are really -talking the greatest foolishness—” - -“Haven’t you got his picture in your room this moment?” - -“I have the picture he—had taken for Bella.” - -“Before he ever met Bella you had a picture of Galbraith. You used to -wear it. Bella said—” - -“You seem to forget you’re talking about what happened when I was a -little school-girl, and about an old—a very old friend of my family. We -all have pictures of Mr. Galbraith—and, why, there’s one of you there, -too.” - -“On the altar?” - -(Oh, Bella! Bella! How could you!) “The one on the flower-table was put -there because Bella asked me to. It’s not there any more. And while it -was, I looked upon it as the future husband of my dearest friend.” - -But the description of Bella sounded suddenly ironic. It hurt. For -Cheviot was the man who all along had laughed at girls’ friendships, and -all along he had known that Bella was capable of— - -“It isn’t that I couldn’t forgive you for not being in love with me,” -he said. “But for being in love with a photograph and a packet of -letters—_no!_ that wasn’t easy. At the same time I knew well enough that -if your life hadn’t been so narrow, you wouldn’t have been so at the -mercy of this one romantic figure in it. If you’d been able to travel, -or even to go to the university—if you’d had _any_ other door open, you -wouldn’t have looked so long out of that one window.” - -A scrap of one of Mrs. Browning’s letters flew across her mind—the dearer -somehow for being a little incoherent, not fitted together at all, yet -finely consequent to the inner spirit—those words: “The pleasantest place -in the house is the leaning out of the window.” - -Ah, it was very true of the Mar house. - -“And your mother,” Cheviot went on, “always ready to puncture any -home-blown bubble with the needle of her wit; mercilessly critical, for -fear her children should have too low standards; ready to flay anybody -alive in the cause of education. Never letting you rest satisfied for -a moment with the attainable—you must always be reaching out—reaching -out—and when you reached out you touched Galbraith.” - -How strangely well he knew—this man. It was odd, but she could never -again think him obtuse, at any rate. That comfort was gone. - -“I was even sorry for you while the engagement lasted,” the low voice -went on, unmindful of the uneasy stir of the figure sitting above him in -the dusk. He took the half-smoked cigar from his lips and laid it by the -pillar. Over the edge of the porch the tip shone red. “I saw how hard it -was for you; you had been weaving romances round Galbraith for years—you -had looked upon him for so long as your special property—” Hildegarde -drew back into the deeper shadow. But by his own suffering urged to win -a companion in pain, he persisted: “And you thought if it had been _you_ -he had met, it would have been you that he—” Hildegarde’s skirts rustled -as if she were getting up—“Look here, I’ve told you before you’ve got a -genius for truth—I’m treating you on that basis.” She said nothing, but -she sat still. “There was a moment,” Cheviot’s voice was unnaturally low, -“last spring, when I knew I was gaining ground with you. It was the -day I came back from Mexico. I came here straight from the station, and -you—you—” She heard him strike his hands suddenly together in the dusk, -and a curious excitement took hold of her. “When I went home, I found the -invitation to Bella’s wedding. It had been lying there for days. Then I -understood. You had had all those days and nights to get accustomed to -realizing it was the end of the old—where are you going? Can’t you even -bear to have me speak of it this once!” - -The white figure was still again. - -“Oh, I understood!” He picked up the cigar again. “I felt just the same -as you did. I knew the ghost that had stood so long between us was -suddenly gone. He had moved out of the way, and you could see that I was -there. For those next days you were—you were—I was full of hope. Then -came word that Bella had broken her engagement.” - -“No, that the marriage was postponed.” - -He waited a moment, seemed about to speak, and then, instead of saying -anything, with a sharp movement he threw his half-smoked cigar across the -whitening silver of the path into the inky blotch the shrubbery made. -Hildegarde’s eyes followed the flying red light till, against a tree -trunk, it fell in a splash of sparks, and was swallowed up in shadow. - -“I shan’t forget,” Cheviot went on, still on that low restrained note, -“the look in your face as you said: ‘I never thought they were suited to -one another. It would never have done.’” - -“_Did_ I say that?” - -“Yes, and I looked up and I saw the ghost was there again, and presently -I saw he wasn’t a ghost any longer, but a real man. An active expectation -on your part—” - -“No, no.” The voice was less denial than beseeching. - -“Yes, a _plan_.” - -The hands that were gripping the wicker chair pulled her quickly to her -feet. “Bella!” she called to the white flicker by the dial. “It’s getting -late!” - -Cheviot stood up, too. “On your honor, Hildegarde—” Was it the moonlight -blanched her, or was she indeed so white? His heart smote him—but, “On -your honor can you deny it?” he demanded. - -“No,” she said, with sudden passion; “I don’t deny it.” And while her -words should have steeled him, her voice brought a lump to his throat. - -“You mean,” he asked, huskily, “to wait till John Galbraith comes back?” - -“I know it’s quite mad—but there! A thing can take you like that. You -_can’t_ change.” - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - - -With the precision of clockwork, every day of his life but Sundays, -Nathaniel Mar walked down the main street of Valdivia to the bank. People -who lived out of sight of the City Hall timepiece, set their watches by -the appearance of the lame man with the stick. He never varied the route, -any more than he altered his time, and both had been exactly the same for -twenty-eight years. - -The other bank cashiers (few of them over thirty) said that, in their -opinion, Mr. Mar had hung on quite long enough. They did not hesitate to -add that his post would have fallen to a younger man years ago had Mar -not been “a sort of relation.” Even so it was pretty steep that an old -codger of sixty should be blocking up the way like that. A bank was no -place for the superannuated, unless, of course, a man was a director. - -So acute was the hearing of the old codger (who was not yet sixty) that -sotto-voce observations of this sort had, from time to time, reached his -ears. - -He saw all about him men, younger than himself, turned out of positions -they had occupied, with usefulness and integrity, for years, and for -no other reason than to make way for some “boy” in his early twenties. -Men of his own standing had from time to time in the past decade raged -hopelessly against this tendency in a nation, where the great god, -Efficiency, demands the fine flower of each man’s life, and looks with -disfavor upon lined faces and whitening hair, even when the capacity for -service is unimpaired. It is part of the doctrine of “_show me_.” There -being any good, or any force not capable of being “shown”—well, it was -doubtful. Best not take chances. - -Mar had sympathized with his contemporaries for being elbowed out of -their places, but he had smiled at one or two who had suffered the common -fate of the American clerk, in spite of having dyed their hair, and worn -jaunty pince-nez instead of “good honest spectacles.” Nevertheless, -Mar’s own secret uneasiness—not being assuaged by hair dye or dissipated -by pince-nez—took the form of making him the more ready to be the -Trennor Brothers’ pack-horse, unconsciously the more eager to oblige any -and everybody at the bank, to “show” from Monday morning to Saturday -afternoon how indispensable he was. He knew they could get no one to do -what he did with the same care and assiduity for the same salary. His -astonishment was, therefore, hardly less than his chagrin, when he found -upon his desk, one morning, a letter from the firm “terminating their -long and pleasant connection upon the usual notice.” - -In the bitterness of that hour he felt that nothing he ever had suffered -before had mattered so vitally. As long as a man has work he can bear -trouble and disappointment—life without work—it was something not to be -faced. For the work, little by little, had devoured everything else, -narrowed down his friendships, cut off his recreations, produced a -brain-fag that made him unfit even for reading anything but newspapers. - -He set instantly about finding another post. The story of the days that -followed—the writing to and interviewing whippersnapper young managers of -flourishing concerns, and of being more or less cavalierly “turned down,” -as the slang phrase went—it would make a book of itself; a tragic and -significant book to boot, and one essentially “American.” - -The Mar boys behaved very well. _They_, at least, were not surprised. -They had, in point of fact, expected the occurrence long before. - -What they had not expected was that the old man “would take it so mighty -hard.” Why, he could scarcely be more cut up if he were alone in the -world—dependent entirely upon his own exertions—instead of having two -fine go-ahead sons, who were getting on in life so rapidly that it really -wasn’t a matter of vital importance whether the old man did anything or -not; for they had every intention of being good to their father. - -They told him so. And he had not shown himself grateful. And _still_ they -meant to be “good” to him. They were “mighty nice young men.” - - * * * * * - -Nathaniel Mar saw clearly by the time the “notice” was up, that he lagged -superfluous. There was no opening for him anywhere. - -The first morning that he had no right to go down to the bank was one of -the most difficult he had known. He went out just the same, at precisely -the same moment, and came in at the usual time. No one knew where he had -spent those hours, but he looked tired and ill when he sat down to the -midday meal. After it was over, he said he thought he would “go up and -lie down.” He had never done such a thing before in his life, at that -hour of the day. The following mornings he spent at his writing-table -in the dining-room, and although there were no screaming children there -now, and the room was bright and pretty, he sat miserably, day after day, -turning over old letters and papers, till in despair he would get up and -take down a book to read. But his thoughts were all “down at the bank.” - -Mrs. Mar dashed in and out, called brisk directions to the Chinaman, -who presided now in the kitchen, and when there was nothing else to do, -she would fly at the sewing-machine. This appeared to be the kind of -mechanism which was worked with the whole human body. The hands traveling -briskly along with the moving seam, head going like a mandarin’s, knees -up, knees down, Mrs. Mar pedaled and buzzed away. - -Her husband seldom spoke. Having retired within himself directly after -the breakfast things were cleared away, he seemed to be averse from -making the smallest movement while his wife was in the room. He sat -there intensely still, even turning the leaf of his book only at long -intervals, surreptitiously, without a sound. It was as though, by a -death-like stillness, he should prove that he was not there. He was -really down at the bank—his motionlessness seemed to say. - -As if Mrs. Mar divined this mental ruse of his, and felt a need to unmask -it, she would look at him sideways, and “What are you doing?” she would -ask briskly. - -“Reading.” - -“That old Franklin again? Why, you’ve read it three or four times -already!” No answer. “Why don’t you get something up-to-date from the -library?” Still no response. “Content just to sit _and sit_!” she -would comment inwardly. Then aloud, “Don’t they want a manager up at -Smithson’s?” - -“No.” - -“Why don’t you try for the secretaryship of the New Pickwick?” - -“Monty Fellowes has got it.” - -“Ah, well, I suppose Monty Fellowes went the length of asking for it.” - -Nathaniel Mar had also gone that length, though the post was beneath a -man of his powers. But he could not tell over again at home the tale of -his failures. Better she should think he hadn’t tried. - -But, oh, the very look of him sat upon her spirit, and still she looked. - -“You’ll be ill if you stay in the house so much. Remember you’ve had a -walk twice a day for going on thirty years.” No answer. His immobility -made it a positive necessity for her to get up and poke the fire -vigorously, or do something with might and main. That was a thing _he_ -had never tried in his life—to do something with might and main! And that -was why he was stranded like this now. A man of only fifty-eight! Why, -she herself—Harriet T. Mar—was fifty-nine. And just see how _she_ took -hold of existence—very much as she gripped the poker. Oh, it was a trial -living in the same house, and all day long in the same room with a “logy” -man! He was more sodden with failure every day he lived. Misfortune -acted upon him like an opiate. Ha! If she—Harriet T. Mar—were _ninety_, -misfortune would sting her into action. At the mere thought she sprang up -and stung her husband, or the imperturbable Mongol in the kitchen, or -the gentle Hildegarde. But truth to tell, though that girl _looked_ such -a tender, simple creature, it was as little rewarding to wrestle with -Hildegarde as with Mar, or the stolid Chinaman. - -Indeed, the more the mother bustled the quieter grew the girl—not at -first consciously as a form of protest, but by a process of natural -reaction that was largely responsible for Hildegarde’s seeming calm to -the verge of insensibility. - -Mrs. Mar never wholly realized how much to the mother’s exuberant energy -the daughter owed her impassive air. These influences playing about -sensitive people produce a curious rhythm in family life. Nathaniel Mar’s -supineness made his wife seize the reins and ceaselessly whip up the -horses of their car. Mrs. Mar’s frantic urging of the pace, the dust and -noise and whip-cracking of her progress, produced not merely a yearning -for peace in Hildegarde’s mind, but a positive physical need to simulate -it. People talk much of the value of good example, forgetting that we are -sometimes shown there is nothing so salutary as a bad example, since out -of example is wrought not merely the impulse toward imitation, but often -a passionate realization of the advantage of “another way.” - -There was always in the Mar house one person with an eye upon the -clock—why need you wear a watch? - -No need for you to spur on a servant, or make example of a tardy errand -boy. There was always Mrs. Mar to do these things with a swingeing -efficacy. Those who live with the Mrs. Mars of the world do not realize -that they owe their own reputation for sweetness largely to the caustic -temper of some one else. Under Mrs. Mar’s roof you may “cultivate -kindness” and not suffer for it. Away from her drastic influence, you -yourself will have to apportion grace and discipline more evenly. - -So various is life that we have sometimes a chance of learning from -people’s vices what their virtues could never so deeply have impressed. - -Something of this the “slow” girl arrived at. - -The day Mrs. Mar and Hildegarde went off to spend a week down at the -ranch with the Waynes, the two came into the dining-room to say good-by -to Mr. Mar. It was to be “a house-party,” and Cheviot and Mr. Mar had -been asked, too. Cheviot had accepted—“from Saturday night till Monday -morning”—but Mar had declined to go for any length of time whatever. - -“A body would think he had affairs too important to leave! Well, good-by, -Nathaniel. Don’t let hot cinders fall on the new hearth-rug. Take care of -yourself, and I _hope_ you’ll have some news for me when I come home.” - -Upon their return the following week, he was found sitting in exactly the -same place, in the precise attitude, and one might almost think with the -same old book on his knee open at the self-same page. - -“Upon my soul!” ejaculated Mrs. Mar, stopping short on the threshold, -while Hildegarde went forward to kiss her father. “No need to ask if -you’ve found anything to do! You haven’t even remembered to put on a -little coal.” She fell upon the poker and punished the flagging fire. -“Have you been sitting there like that ever since I went away?” - -Mar drew himself out from Hildegarde’s embrace, took firm hold on his -walking-stick and rose to his feet. He looked huge, as he towered above -the two women, and rather wonderful, as both of them had often thought of -late. Even the flippant Bella had said, “He’s more and more like Moses -and the Prophets.” - -“As to sitting here”—he looked down sternly on his wife—“you may as well -understand, Harriet, that this is the house I propose to sit in till I -go out lying down. Only not in this room. I agree with you as to the -unfitness of that.” He limped over to the kitchen door, opened it, and -said, “John, will you light a fire in the young gentlemen’s bedroom.” - -Mrs. Mar stared a moment, and then went up-stairs to take off her things. -It was no secret between her and Hildegarde that “after all” they stood -a little in awe of the head of the house. The girl, however, knowing -herself a privileged character, attempted to smooth things over with a -little jest. She linked her arm in his, and told how her mother, on the -way down in the train, had produced the book rest and a minute pencil -from her traveling-bag, had fastened the rest on the back of the seat in -front of her, to the surprise and inconvenience of the occupants, had set -up the French biography, put on her spectacles, got out her crochet and -read her “Lucien Pérey” and crocheted for dear life (or for the Hindus -rather) every minute of the time that she was being rushed along by the -express to Fern Lea; “and Louis Cheviot leaned over and whispered in my -ear, ‘Your mother’s losing time with her feet.’” - -But Mar’s faint smile was pretty grim. “Your mother has all the virtues, -my dear, but she’s a woman of an implacable industry.” - -With the help of John Chinaman and the grocer’s boy, that very afternoon -Mr. Mar got his big desk established in “the spare chamber” that had been -Trenn’s and Harry’s room, and still was theirs when one or other of them -was in town,—which was often enough whenever Bella was staying at the -Mars’. - -But whether it was that uncomfortable as the old quarters had been, it -disturbed Mar to change them after thirty years, certainly, in spite -of his pronouncement to his wife, he did not “sit” at home as much -after this. He made a habit of going down town after breakfast, to the -San Joaquin Hotel “to read the papers,” really to smoke in peace, and -exchange views on the political situation, or the Cuban atrocities, with -chance travelers or old habitués. - -Then came the day when Spanish incompetence and cruelty found a rival -excitement. In a remote region of British North America gold had been -discovered. The veterans in the San Joaquin reading-room pooh-poohed the -notion—all but Nathaniel Mar. - -From the beginning he took the Klondike seriously. Not long before -everybody was doing the same. Instead of quickly exhausting itself the -excitement grew. Had diamonds been discovered in Dakota, the matter would -have been a nine days’ wonder, and then died as the easily accessible -fields were reached and appropriated. Paradox as it might appear, it was -owing to the forbidding circumstances under which those pioneers of ’97 -found their treasure, that made the appeal “Klondike” so irresistible to -the marvel-loving fancy of the world. The papers overflowed with accounts -of the awful hardship and the huge reward—combination irresistible since -history began. And if any Missourian said “show me!” he _was_ shown. The -actual nuggets and the veritable dust, displayed in a bank window, made -would-be miners of men as they passed, or as they meant to pass and stood -riveted, staring, seeing there a type of what they might attain unto, if -only they had much courage and a little money for an outfit. Who lacked -the first? Who could not, for so alluring a purpose, collect the second? - -The trains to the ports of San Francisco, Seattle, Victoria, were -crammed; the north-bound ships overflowed. Unenterprising, indeed, any -store on the Pacific coast that did not advertise some essential to a -Klondike outfit. People talked with as much earnestness of the science of -life under arctic conditions as they before had discussed Spanish misrule -in the South. Even for the vast majority who had no hope of being able -to join the rush, the great problem of transportation and the value of -evaporated food stuffs, obscured many an issue nearer home. - -The one man that he was on fairly intimate terms with, yet to whom Mar -had not mentioned the new craze, was Cheviot. It was the kind of thing he -would be certain to scoff at. People at the San Joaquin had noticed that -scoffing at the Klondike annoyed Mr. Mar, and they wondered a little. Mar -had quite made up his mind not to give Cheviot’s skepticism a chance for -expression. If you were unwary you might easily think, “So sympathetic -and understanding a young man can’t help taking fire over this burning -question.” And then Cheviot would show you how easily he could help it. -Watch him playing with his little nephews and nieces and you’d say, “So -kind to children, he will be kind to the childishness in me.” And behold -he wasn’t. He was an “awfully good fellow,” but he expected a man to be -grown up—and few are. - -Mar’s anticipation of what would be Cheviot’s views about the new -craze were very much Hildegarde’s own. Her astonishment was therefore -well-nigh speechless, when, on the occasion of his next visit, after ten -minutes’ general conversation in the garden, Cheviot said, “By the way, -Hildegarde, I’ve come to tell you I’m going to the Klondike.” - -“You!” and she stared at him in silence till she could reassure herself -by saying, “Nonsense!” - -“It may be nonsense, but I’m going.” - -“You _can’t_ be in earnest!” - -“Quite.” - -She stood, watering-pot in hand, her big eyes wider than ever he had seen -them, and a look on her face certainly disturbed, even annoyed. - -It wasn’t very nice, this feeling as if the bottom were dropping out of -existence. He had no right to make her feel like that. - -Very neatly he switched off the head of a withered flower with his stick, -and began, “The Klondike—” - -“It’s rather horrid of you,” Hildegarde interrupted, “but of course I -know—you—you’re only seeing how I’d take it—” - -“I shan’t be here to see how you’ll take it.” - -She set down the watering can. “You surely won’t dream of doing anything -so foolish—so—so—dangerous.” - -He didn’t answer, and she walked beside him down the path to the lower -gate. When they got beyond the group of conifers, she stopped. “You -simply mustn’t.” - -“Why do you say that? You don’t care where I go.” - -“You know quite well I do.” - -He didn’t even look at her, and he shook his head. Then, after a little -pause, “Who knows, you might even come to feel differently about -things—if—if—” - -“Do you mean”—Hildegarde drew herself up—“if you came home a millionaire?” - -“If I didn’t come home at all.” - -“What?” - -“At least for a long time, like—” - -“I certainly hope”—nervously she forestalled the utterance of that -other name—“that you won’t do anything so disappointing to all your -old friends. It’s the kind of fortune-hunting expedition for the -ne’er-do-well. It isn’t for a man like you.” - -“Well, I’ve thought it over,” he said, “and I’ve come to the conclusion -that I’m best out of Valdivia for a time. You see, Hildegarde, you’re too -used to me.” - -“I’m _not_ ‘too used.’” - -“Too certain of me—yes, you are. I’ve been uncommon helpless in the -matter. I’ve got nothing of the actor in me. I can’t be near you, and -inspire you with the smallest doubt as to how things are with me. The one -thing I can do is _not_ to be near. And that’s what I’m going to do.” - -She wrinkled up her white forehead with a harassed attempt to keep her -wits about her, and not be betrayed into rash professions. “You can go -away from Valdivia for a while, if that idea is so attractive, without -going to the horrible Klondike.” - -“Yes, I could go to Pasadena or some seaside resort, so that I could come -running back, as I did last year from Monterey, on the first hint that -you might be missing me a little. No, all that’s been tried. It doesn’t -work. I must go to some place where I _can’t_ take the first train back; -where I won’t live through the day expecting a letter from you. It isn’t -easy in these times for anybody to be really ‘out of reach.’ When we all -know that we’ve only to go to the nearest telegraph office for news, we -can’t know what it would be like utterly to lose some one—unless death -teaches us. The nearest approach to the sort of thing I mean—this side of -Kingdom Come—is the Klondike.” - -“Oh, Klondike, Klondike! I’m sick of the very sound of those two -syllables. There’s something uncanny about them. People have gone mad -since they heard the ugly word, but not you!”—to give her words more than -common emphasis, to insure winning the day, she laid her hand on his arm, -and said again, with soft deliberation—“Not you, Louis.” - -“You’d like me to stay here and suffer. Yes, I know that.” Her hand -dropped from his sleeve. “But I shan’t stay here,” he went on unmoved, -“and pretty soon I shan’t suffer—so much.” - -From that old, recurrent touch of hardness in his voice and air, she -once again recoiled. “Well, I’ve said all I mean to say. You must please -yourself.” - -“Pleasure is of course what one expects in the Klondike.” - -They walked in absolute silence back to the porch. Hildegarde went in -at once, saying “good-night” over her shoulder, and quite sure that as -usual he would follow her. But he stayed behind for fully twenty minutes, -talking with Mr. Mar, who was smoking out there in the dusk. Hildegarde -turned up the electric light in the parlor, and moved about the room, -picking up and putting down one book after another. How many of them he -had given her—that provoking person who stayed so long talking to her -father! By and by she heard her own name called. Was that her father? How -curious his voice sounded! - -“Yes,” she answered, but made no great haste. When at last she reached -her father’s side, she couldn’t see where Cheviot was. She looked round -in the dim light, and a little sharply, “Has he gone?” she said. As the -words fell on the quiet air, she heard the gate shut. The sound jarred. -It gave her a sensation as of a being abandoned. The house was very quiet -to-night. - -“Gone? Yes. Where’s your mother, Hildegarde?” Mar asked with unheard-of -briskness. - -“She’s over at the Coxes’.” - -“Ah!” A moment’s pause, and then, “To think of Cheviot! Cheviot of all -men! Weren’t you surprised?” - -“You aren’t talking about the Klondike?” - -“What else should I be talking of?” he demanded unreasonably, for after -all there were other topics. - -“Do you think he really means it?” Hildegarde asked. - -“_Means_ it?—with a year’s leave granted, and his ticket in his pocket? -He’s been getting ready all this week. That’s why we haven’t seen him. -Sails Wednesday.” - -“Not—not really!” - -“Off to ’Frisco to-morrow,” said her father, still in that odd brisk -voice—“four days to see about his outfit. He—it’s a queer world!—he said -Trenn had been into the bank this afternoon, and offered to grubstake -him. But Cheviot’s got money. So anything he finds will be his own. -Trenn! H’m! _Trenn!_” he repeated, as though he couldn’t get over it. -Then it seemed to dawn upon him that Hildegarde had been unprepared for -something else than her brother’s part in the affair. “I thought Cheviot -said he’d been talking to you about it—had said good-by.” - -“I—I didn’t believe he was in earnest.” - -“Why not?” demanded her father a little harshly, and then, perceiving -that her incredulity might have other grounds than disapproval of the -enterprise in itself, he said more gently: “He talks very sensibly about -it, my dear. A man can’t save much at the bank—he may go on for thirty -years and find—Cheviot has seen what that may come to. He gives himself -a nine months’ holiday, with the chance of its turning out the most -profitable nine months of his life. _I_ didn’t discourage him.” - -Hildegarde sat down on the step. “Oh, you didn’t discourage him,” she -repeated dully. Behind her own sense of being wronged in some way, as -well as disappointed, she was conscious of an unwonted excitement in her -father. - -He, sitting there in the dusk, puffing out great clouds of smoke, was -oblivious of everything except that the old pride of discovery had awaked -in him, and the fever of his youth came back. - -“Even Cheviot! And think of _Trenn_!” That Trenn should be looking -about for some one to send to the North on this errand—it touched the -topmost pinnacle of the fabulous. And yet, why not? The country was -aflame. Thousands starting off on an uncertainty to try for the thing he, -Nathaniel Mar, had been certain of. - -“Hildegarde, where is your mother?” - -“I told you, at the Coxes’.” - -“Oh, at the Coxes’.” - -“Why, father?” - -“Would you like to know the reason I didn’t discourage Cheviot from going -to the—” - -“Yes, father,” said the girl dully. - -“Then come nearer.” - -She moved toward him. Feeling a little dreary, she came quite close. She -laid her head against the one strong knee. - -In a vigorous undertone, the voice with new life in it told why Nathaniel -Mar didn’t blame any young man—there was more treasure in the North -than even the Klondiker dreamed. Mar had known it all along—and then -the story. In spite of the girl’s listlessness when he began, he could -feel directly that the thing was taking hold of her. She was intensely -still; that was because she was being “held,” and small wonder! It was a -better story than he had realized. It took hold of him even, who knew it -so well. Before he got to the end, his voice was shaking, and he leaned -forward thirsting to see an answering excitement in the young face at his -knee. But the darkness shrouded it, and he went on. He wished she would -speak or move. Always so still, that girl! Now he was telling her of his -home-coming from that barren coast in the North—explaining, excusing -what, by this new lurid light of the Klondike, seemed inexcusable—his -never going back. He tried to reconstruct for her the obstacles—huge, -insurmountable; the long illness, and the new wife; the post at the bank; -the children, poverty, skepticism and the obscuring dust of the years. -And lo! as he disturbed these ashes, he saw afresh the agonies they -hid—remembered with a growing chill, what had befallen before whenever he -told this story; saw the tolerant smile of the smug young bankers; saw -the dull embarrassment in Elihu Cox’s eye; heard Mrs. Mar leading the -family chorus, “You’ve got to _show_ me!” - -Even Hildegarde might ask—he hastened to forestall the dreaded word. -“There was nothing to _show_,” he said, “absolutely nothing to prove it -wasn’t a dream.” And she made no sign that for her either it was more -than fantasy. - -He wondered miserably why he had told her. “Of course it was all long -before anybody had heard of the Klondike,” he said, and he drew a heavy -breath. “The theory was, that geologically speaking, gold couldn’t exist -up there, and even people who weren’t geologists agreed it couldn’t be -got out if it _was_ there”—all the confidential earnestness had vanished -out of the voice, and he paused like one very weary. “Nobody believed—” -He tried to go on, and to speak as usual, but memory, master of the show, -brought up Trenn—Trenn with the look he had worn the day his father had -told him the great secret. Mar drew back into the deeper shadow. But the -critical boy face found his father out, and stung him in the dark. - -He was an old fool. What had possessed him to rake it all up again. Oh, -yes, he said bitterly in his heart, there was one member of his family -who hadn’t yet smiled and said, “_Show me._ I’m from Missouri.” It was -Hildegarde’s turn. - -“Well, my girl,” he ended miserably, “that’s the story that nobody -believed.” - -Hildegarde lifted her head and put up her two hands, feeling in the dark -for his. But Mar shrank back. Not from Hildegarde herself could he in -that hour take mere sympathy, craving hopelessly as he did with the long -thirst of years a thing more precious than pity—the thing that he once -had had and had no more. - -Like a man who utters his own epitaph, “I lost faith myself,” he said. - -“But I have found it, father!” and there was joy as well as the sound of -tears in the thrilling young voice. - -“Found—what did you say, Hildegarde?” - -“That I believe the gold’s there, waiting!” - -“Ah—h—h!” He bent over her with a sound that was almost a sob. “Then I—I -believe it, too!” - - - - -CHAPTER IX - - -Louis Cheviot was one of those who reached the Klondike in the autumn of -’97. - -A lucky chance brought him the opportunity of going shares in a lay on -Bonanza, with a man whose fitness for “pardnership” Cheviot had tested -coming over the awful Pass and shooting the Hootalinqua Rapids. - -The two had washed out ten thousand dollars apiece by the end of June. -They had the prospect of making an even better thing of it the next year. -Cheviot left his partner to carry on the development of the lease, and -for himself, turned his bronzed face homeward. - -He was as certain now as before he had garnered this experience that for -wild life, _qua_ wild life, he had no taste. That it should be so was -partly, strange as it may sound, a result of the cool and balanced mixing -of the elements in him. He had no physical sluggishness to be sloughed -off by harsh impacts, no mental inertia to be hammered into action by -hard necessity, no crust of chrysalis that must be broken before the -winged life might emerge, no essential wildness of spirit that needed -training, no excess of ungoverned ardor that needed cooling in the -northern frosts. - -And so it was that he was coming home with little gain but bullion, since -he had gone forth with smaller need than most of the lesson learnt in -chastening the body, or the lightening revelation of some crashing danger. - -He could endure hardship with reasonable patience for some reasonable -end, but the gains of civilization were in his eyes too excellent to be -even temporarily abandoned without a sense of heavy deprivation, which -affected him like a loss of common dignity. - -Even though he hadn’t one he loved the idea of home. He loved his friends -and all the friendlier aspect of the earth, gardens, ordered communities -of his kind, and all man’s device for socializing life and regulating the -unruliness of nature. - -And there was Hildegarde—who had not answered either of his two letters. -Why was that? He felt a contraction of the heart as he refused to allow -himself to formulate surmise; yet if any one had come and said to him, -“Galbraith’s in Valdivia,” he would have felt it no surprise. - -Some friends of his were going out by the Yukon River route. He knew -it to be unlikely that he should return to this part of the world. As -well see that more western aspect of it, too, since he might do so in -congenial company. - -It was really the company that decided him—that was responsible for a -circumstance that changed the entire course of his own and several other -lives. Instead of going back as he had come, by the shorter way, he found -himself, at the end of July, with seventeen hundred miles of river behind -him waiting at the mouth of the Yukon for the San Francisco steamer. - -He heard with surprise that there was a letter for him at the -post-office. The more strange, if true, since his coming to St. Michaels -was less than mere chance—it had been unlikely in the extreme. - -However, upon demand, an envelop appeared in the window of the little -post-office. Before ever it reached the hand of the man waiting without, -he recognized Hildegarde’s writing. He tore it open to read a hurried -resumé of what she said she had already written him at length, to Dyea -and to Dawson, and now repeated, on the bare possibility of his taking -the American route home. For her father was just setting out by that same -route to the far North, and by the same ship that carried her letter. -His plan of campaign was not generally known, and all she could say with -certainty was that he would be at St. Michaels some time in August. -And she greatly hoped that if Cheviot should be passing that way, or -even if he found that he could arrange to go there without too great -personal cost, Hildegarde hoped, and even begged, that he would look -out for her father. She “quite approved,” Cheviot read with incredulous -eyes—(Hildegarde! who had thought the expedition mad for a man young -and sound as an oak)—she quite approved her father’s going. At the same -time she did not forget that he was no longer young, and being so lame -was at a disadvantage. “Good Lord! I should say so!” The upshot was that -she “lived upon the hope” that Cheviot would bring her news of Mr. Mar. -The ideal thing would be that they should come home together. If Cheviot -brought that about she would be “unendingly grateful.” - -No syllable about Galbraith. - -Cheviot went straight to the Alaska Commercial Company’s hotel and looked -through the names registered since the season opened. Not a Mar among -them. So the ship that brought the letter had not brought Mr. Mar—for -this was the only conceivable place he could have stayed in. It was no -small personal relief to Cheviot to conclude that wiser counsels had -prevailed. - -The same afternoon it was noised about the office that a steamer had just -been sighted. After all, Mar might only be delayed! While most of the -population rushed down to the beach, Cheviot scribbled a hasty note and -handed it to the clerk. - -“If a man of that name should come in on this ship—” he began. - -“He hasn’t gone back yet,” interrupted the clerk, studying the -superscription. - -“You don’t mean he’s here already?” - -“Well, he _was_.” - -“When? It can’t be the person I mean?” - -“Lame man, about sixty? Yes, yes, remember him perfectly. Couldn’t quite -make him out, for he didn’t seem to care a tinker’s curse about getting -to the Klondike. The boys set him down finally as a sort of a missionary, -because” (with a laugh) “he seemed so ready to go the wrong way.” - -“Which way?” - -“Up the coast to Golovin Bay.” No, he hadn’t come back. A trader from -Kwimkuk, who had been down for supplies, said Mar was staying up there -at the Swedish Mission. That was all the clerk knew. He was turning the -pages back to the entries of the previous summer. “That’s the man!” And -there was Mar’s unmistakable signature staring Cheviot in the face. - -“But that’s ’97,” he said bewildered. He pulled out Hildegarde’s letter, -and looked again at the date. It was a year old. - -Shortie Hinkson stopped sweeping out the office to say: “One o’ them -missionary fellers come down here from Golovin Sat’day. No, he ain’t gone -back yit. I seen him only a while ago goin’ by the A.C. office.” - -When a few minutes later, among the crowd down by the old Block House, -the missionary was run to earth, Cheviot found him a great tow-headed -Swede, looking as if he had been not so much cut out of wood as hacked -out, and with a very dull implement at that. Close at his elbow, and -appealed to now and then for verification of some statement, was a thin -little dark man, with glittering black eyes and a turn for silence. - -The tall missionary was bargaining about some “canned stuff” with the -great A.C. Company’s agent, Captain Seilberg. This magnate, leaning -against one of the mounted cannon the Russians had left behind in ’67, -was looking through a spy-glass at the ship discernible on the far -horizon, while between ejaculatory oaths he “did business” with the -rugged Lutheran. Waiting for a chance to introduce himself, Cheviot -wondered aside to a bystander why those two talked English to each other. - -“Oh, Seilberg’s a Norwegian.” - -“No, a Dane,” put in another, overhearing. - -“I thought,” said Cheviot, “they could all understand one another after a -fashion—all Scandinavians.” - -“Scanda who? Well, anyway, they’re too thick on the ground in Alaska for -us to bother about fine distinctions.” - -“Yes,” agreed the customs officer, as Cheviot pressed forward to speak -to the missionary, “so far as we’re concerned they’re all Scandahoojians -together.” - -Certainly Mr. Christianson knew Mr. Mar. Mr. Mar was still at the Mission -House up at Kwimkuk. How to get there? The big missionary turned to his -silent companion, who still stood gloomily by. Mr. Björk and he wouldn’t -mind taking back a passenger in their boat. They were going just as soon -as they’d settled matters with Captain Seilberg. - -“Vell, _I_ von’t keep you,” says the great man cavalierly, shutting up -the spy-glass with a snap. “Dat’s not de _Trush_, Got dammer!” and he -turned testily away. Mr. Christianson followed with words about rebate on -“damaged cans.” Mr. Björk followed Mr. Christianson, deaf to Cheviot’s -questions about Mar, eyes fixed in abstraction on the red-brown scoriæ -under foot. - - * * * * * - -The two “Scandahoojians” and their passenger left St. Michaels the next -day in the little sail-boat _St. Olaf_, managed with no small skill -by Mr. Björk. It was the rugged Christianson, however, who issued the -orders, and strangely enough, considering his aspect, supplied the social -element and the information. If you saw Christianson alone, you would -have thought him one of the grimmest works of God, but seeing him beside -Björk you would find him almost genial. - -What chiefly occupied Cheviot, as the _St. Olaf_ sped through the windy -drizzle, was a growing wonder as to how Hildegarde’s father had come -to be stranded up here all these months, and how a man accustomed to -creature comforts, a cripple, and close on sixty—how had he endured the -conditions of life at “Golovin!” What _were_ the conditions at Golovin? -Curious to know, for Hildegarde would ask—afraid to know, for Hildegarde -must be answered, he kept seeing in flashes and as through the eyes of a -girl, all the probable harshness of the old man’s adventure. - -Cheviot’s questions about Golovin were interrupted by Mr. Christianson -somewhat narrowly—eliciting an account of how the mission prospered; what -the native population was; how many were converts; and other matters not -strictly to the point Cheviot had in mind. - -“Yes, _oh_, yes! Dere is great acti-_vitty_. You can see in our reports. -Ve make great progress. Ve bring de true light to many who sat in -darkness. But ve arre poore—meezerabble poore. Nobody knows, what haf not -lief dere, how harrd de life. Eh, Björk?” - -Björk, sheet in hand, gloomily assented, without the aid of speech. - -Cheviot caught his glancing eye. “Are you—a—a—at the mission, too?” - -The dark man studied the course and held on his silent way. - -“Oh, yes. Mr. Björk ees von of os. He is not long dere—but he understand. -Ve haf great need of vorkers. So he come.” - -“You mean you sent home for Mr. Björk?” - -Mr. Christianson stared a moment. “Send home? Oh, it is far to Sveden. -Heaven is nearer.” - -It was Cheviot’s turn for mystification. - -“Vhen ve need helpers,” Mr. Christianson explained, “ve pray for dem. God -send os Mr. Björk.” - -He spoke with a curious matter-of-factness. - -“Oh,” said Cheviot, “and—a—how did Mr. Björk know where to find you?” - -“He see Kwimkuk in a visshun. He see de Mission House and he see me, too. -Eh, Björk.” - -The helper nodded with preternatural gravity. - -“Where were you,” said Cheviot, “when you had the vision?” - -“On board a whaler. Dat’s where Björk was,” proudly Christianson answered -for him. “On de whaler up in Grantley Harbor, vhile I am down dere at -Kwimkuk praying for help.” - -“But how could he leave his ship?” - -“Leedle boat,” said Christianson, laconic for once. - -“Oh, the captain let him off?” - -Christianson shook his pale locks. “You do not know vhat dey are—dose -whaling captains.” - -“You don’t mean”—in his astonishment Cheviot addressed the dumb navigator -again, as if given such a theme even he must at last find tongue—“you -don’t mean you,” and then he halted, for there is something about the -impact of the word “deserted” that men shy from, “you don’t mean you left -the ship without leave?” Björk’s face never changed. - -But not so Christianson’s. He regarded his acolyte with a somber -enthusiasm. “It was yoost like Björk. Say noddind. Yoost follow de call. -Dat’s Björk!” - -“Pretty big risk, I should have thought.” - -At which, somewhat to Cheviot’s surprise, Björk gave a sharp little nod -and Christianson showed his long yellow teeth in a rather horrible smile. - -Cheviot felt egged on to say, “Don’t they shoot deserters up here?” - -“_Yes!_” said Björk, speaking for the first time. - -“If dey find dem,” amended Christianson. - -Björk’s little eyes glittered. His thin lips moved faintly, as if they, -too, would have smiled had they ever learned the trick of it. - -“And you came straight to Kwimkuk?” persisted Cheviot. - -“No, he land oop by Sinook,” Christianson said. “He see dat not de place -he vas shown in de visshun, and dose whaler fellows after him de next -day. Björk hide in de scrub villow, and creep along vid hands and knees. -After two days he come to a native camp. Next morning he see out dere dat -_Seagull_ comin’. But he haf anodder visshun. He know now he haf to get a -squaw to hide him in de bottom ob a kyak, and take him like dat down de -coast to Golovin. Terrible long journey! I am down dere on de shore, when -de squaw beach de boat. I see Björk crawl out de hole in de middle, half -dead, and look round. Look all round. Den I hear him say in Svedish, ‘Dis -de place!’ and I say, ‘Vad Plads?’ leedle surprised, and he come right -away up to me, and he say ‘De Lord sent me.’ So I see he vas de man I -pray for.” - -“Oh! And when he isn’t managing a boat—up at the mission, what does Mr. -Björk do?” - -“Oh, he help,” said Christianson, with unshakable satisfaction in the -answer to his prayer. “Better as anybody he can preach.” - -“_Preach?_” echoed Cheviot, not believing his ears. - -“Yes, Björk not talk _mooch_, except vhen he is in de pulpit or vhen he -haf a refelation.” - -Well, they were odd Hausgenossen for Hildegarde’s father! “How long had -Mr. Mar been with them,” Cheviot asked. Ten or eleven months. He had got -to St. Michaels too late last year to reach the Klondike. He just had -time to go and take a look at Golovin Bay, when the winter overtook him -at Kwimkuk. So he stayed there. - -But this summer? Well, he was taken ill just about the time the ice went -out of the bay—no, no, he was all right now. Mrs. Christianson had nursed -him. Christianson didn’t know what Mar’s plans were—doubted if anybody -did; though he was laying in supplies for some sort of excursion. He once -had an idea of going all the way to Teller Station to see the Government -reindeer. That was Mar’s stuff, there, in the boat. Of course it was -little use now to go to the Klondike. Besides, what incentive had a man -of that age to face the hardships of prospecting in the arctic? It was no -matter if such a man had not great fortune. He wouldn’t know how to use -it. He had not, Mr. Christianson was sorry to say it, but Mr. Mar had not -the true light. - -From which Cheviot gathered that Mr. Mar had not contributed all he might -to the cause of Righteousness. But it was a relief to know that he had -not been in straits. “He seem to haf blenty to bay his bills”—so why had -he come up there, caring neither for money nor for missions? Here Cheviot -caught the momentary gleam in Björk’s little eyes. A question in them, -but unspoken, like all else that went on in the close-cropped bullet -head. Cheviot became aware that his old friend had somehow succeeded in -making himself an object of intense curiosity to these queer folk. - -They liked Mr. Mar, though—Christianson tried to catch Björk’s eye, but -the dark one declined confederacy—though Mr. Mar had done something a -little while ago that made a great deal of trouble. - -“Hein? Veil, it vas like dis. Von of our great deeficoolty is de -vitchcraftiness of de natives. Not a season go by vidout dey have to tie -up some von.” He pursed his wrinkled lips and slowly shook his colorless -locks. - -“Oh!” said Cheviot, feeling his way. “How long do they keep them tied up?” - -“Till dey confesses, or till dey dies.” - -There was need then of the missionary in this savage place, where -Hildegarde’s father had had to spend a year of his life. - -“And if they confess, it’s all right, is it?” asked Cheviot. - -“If dey confess, and if dey go and get a piece of de fur, or vhatever it -is, dat dey’ve cut off de clo’es of de person dey been vitching, and if -dey give it back, and promise ‘never again.’” - -“And then they’re forgiven?” - -“Yes. Sometimes dey’re stoned, sometimes dey’re yoost spit at and den let -to vander avay—but dey’re forgiven.” - -“Oh, like that? Well, I wonder they trouble to confess.” - -“Dey like it better dan to be dead.” - -“Dead?” - -“Burnt.” - -“Really? They went as far as that? But now, you mission people, I -suppose, have put a stop to such goings on!” - -“Ve are not greater at Kwimkuk dan Saul at Endor.” - -Cheviot stared. - -“But Mr. Mar,” the missionary went on, “he vill be viser dan de Prophets. -He tink dere are no more any vitches. Not even vhen he see dat Yakutat -girl dey call Omilik—not even vhen he see vhat she have done. But von -day Mr. Mar hear some noise, and he go down to de beach, and he see -de girl tied to de tall stone ve fastens our boats to. He see dey -been beating her, and now dey pile up de driftwood round, and he, not -understanding”—the missionary explained, with an air of forbearance—“he, -not understanding, he try to interfere. Dey very mad of course. Dey send -for me. I tell Mr. Mar I _know_ dis girl have vitched a baby and two men. -De vomen all know it—everybody but Mr. Mar know it quite vell. Mr. Mar -get very excited and say he not believe it. Dey bring de baby; he say, -‘Dat a sick baby, anyhow.’ He not understand at all. Dey go on vid making -de fire. Mr. Mar yoost goin’ to do someting foolish, vhen de girl cry -out, ‘I confess. Yes, yes, I do all dem tings!’ ‘Dere, you _see_!’ I tell -Mr. Mar. So dey make de vitch go and bring de little pieces vhat she cut -off de baby coat, and off de men’s clo’es for to vitch dem vid. Dey all -holla vhen dey see dose tings. All but Mr. Mar. He say de natives dey all -done dat; dey all steals pieces off everybody in the settlemint; cause -dey so ’fraid anybody get sick, dey be called vitches; and if dey not got -any pieces to give up, dey know dey shall be burnt. ‘So dey all keeps -plenty ’gainst de evil day,’ says Mr. Mar. - -“He mek so great foos, I tell dem yoost to tie de girl so she not wriggle -out, and leave her dere like dey done Chuchuk last year. So dey does dat. -Ve all goes avay. - -“Von day and night. Two day and night. Tree day and night. Dat girl yoost -de same. Dey cooms to me and says, ‘Somebody gif dat vitch to eat.’ I say -nobody vill do a ting like dat. Dey say dey sure. Next night dey vatch. -Dey see Mr. Mar go down vid bread and vater. You can tink dey are mad. It -is good I am dere. I say, ‘Vait! I vill talk vid Mr. Mar.’ I do dat.” - -His faded white-lashed eyes grew sterner still as he recalled the -interview. - -“Well, what happened?” - -“It vas for me a moment of great responsibeeleetee. De more ve talk, de -more I see it ees for Mr. Mar a matter of sentiment. _No_! of _nairves_! -For os it ees a matter of religion. Ve live vid dose people. Ve teach -dem. Ve feed dem in time of famine. Ve nurse dem ven dey are sick. But -ven dey do vat the Yakutat voman haf done—” - -His low, booming voice went out across the surf, leaving behind a trail -of menace like the deadened roll of a distant gun. - -“What then?” - -Cheviot’s eyes were held by the fiery look on the rugged face. Impossible -to doubt the burning sincerity that gave its ugliness that moment of -almost uncanny power. - -“Mr. Mar see it no good to say dere is no more any vitches vid dat -Yakutat voman at our door. So he say ve shall not be crool even to a -vitch. Den I tell him, ‘A man also or a voman dat haf a familiar spirit -or dat is a vizard shall surely be put to death; dey shall stone dem vid -stones; dere blood shall be upon dem. For all dat do dese tings are an -abomination unto de Lord.’” - -After a silence, “What did he say to that?” Cheviot asked. - -“Hein—hn—hn!” Christianson shook back the square cut hanks of tow that -fell from under his hat. “Not even Mr. Mar,” he said, with an air of -triumph, “not even Mr. Mar talk back to Moses!” - -But the good man’s satisfaction seemed short-lived. He was grave enough -as he went on, “Big storm in de night. Next day no vitch dere.” He waved -a great bony hand toward Kamchatka. - -“Vitch gone off vid de vind.” - -Then, lowering his voice as though out there in the sea hollows listeners -might be lurking, he bent forward: “If dey vas to know Mr. Mar go down in -de storm, and cut de raw hide for let dat vitch go!—” Again, with grim -foreboding, he shook the hanks of tow. - -“Ve all like your friend, but ve sorry see any yentleman tink he know -better as de Bible.” - - - - -CHAPTER X - - -Cheviot found Hildegarde’s father practically a prisoner. - -His board and lodging had been too welcome a source of revenue to the -mission for Christianson to feel called upon to smooth the way for his -departure, and Mar had been some time in grasping the fact that his -plan of hiring a boat and a couple of natives to go up the coast for -a “look at the country,” was hopelessly knocked on the head since his -interference in the matter of the Yakutat witch. Not a native in the -community who felt safe with him since that episode. The lame man was in -league with the powers of darkness. - -Mar’s pleasure at seeing Cheviot was genuine, but not as unmeasured as -you might expect. And when, almost before the first shower of questions -and answers had begun to abate, Cheviot flung in information as to when -the next ship was leaving St. Michaels, Mar assumed the subject to be of -interest only to Cheviot. Pressed further about his own plans, the elder -man said evasively they were not very settled, and changed the subject! -Cheviot was nonplussed. Was Mar only waiting till they were clear of -the Mission House? No, for they were out fishing the whole of the next -day, and most of the days following, and still Mar talked of any and -everything save of going home. Was he waiting for funds? Surely not now -that Cheviot was at hand. He seemed inexplicably satisfied to sit all -day over a trout pool up the river (despite the pestilential mosquito), -or in a boat in the bay fishing for tom-cod; and all the evening -playing chess in the bare mission parlor, in the midst of a company -sufficiently singular. Shady fellows from the Galena camp above White -mountain; prospectors expelled from Cook’s Inlet, lousy, filthy-smelling -natives come upon one pretext or another, weird missionaries dropped -down from places no man but themselves seemed ever to have heard of; a -reindeer-herder in the Government service, though a “Scandahoojian,” -like the majority at the Golovin Mission, and highly welcome albeit -hardly on the score of his piety. For “Hjalmar,” as Christianson called -him, was the one who jibed most at the morning and evening prayers, and -particularly at the long grace before meat, with its delicate proposals -to the Almighty that He should induce those present to save their souls -by giving to the Golovin Mission. With the same breath that thanked Him -for “dis dy bounty,” the Omnipotent was reminded that if this agreeable -state of things was to continue, people must pay not only for the meal, -but for the Cause. - -Mar listened, or didn’t listen, with an air of respectful quiescence, and -ate his meals unabashed. But he commiserated Cheviot, “How this must make -you long for your Valdivia luxuries. Well, when do you go back?” - -“Whenever you’re ready.” - -Mar showed as little gratitude as pleasure. - -“You mustn’t think of waiting for me,” he answered shortly. - -Cheviot was profoundly perplexed as to what he ought to do. Mar was -not a man that any one could comfortably catechize, but to go away -and leave him here with public opinion so against him; for Cheviot to -present himself to Hildegarde, knowing he had left her father on this -inhospitable shore, to all intents and purposes a prisoner—it was not to -be thought of. - -Mar’s favorite scheme for a good day’s fishing was to row across to the -river mouth where some Englishmen, several years before, had made a camp. - -In the sheltered hollow a little way up the stream they had built a -cabin, so well, that although long deserted it still offered refuge from -the drenching rain, or from the unshut eye of the sun, and even from -the greater torment of mosquitoes. For Mar had learnt the value of the -Esquimau use of a “smudge.” On the way to the cabin he would gather two -handfuls of arctic moss, of straw and some aromatic smelling herb, twist -all together in two wisps and set one alight on the flat stone that -formed the threshold and the other smoldering in a rusty pan upon the -sill of the single window, with the result that the mosquitoes fled. In -great comfort Mar and Cheviot would proceed to make tea, and eat their -sandwiches—at least, Cheviot ate his. He noticed that although his friend -never disposed of a third of what he brought, he did not the next time -bring any less. Quite suddenly one day it dawned upon Cheviot why. For -although the crackers and cheese and sandwiches that were left were -always carefully put away in a tin cracker-box, the box on their return -was invariably empty. - -And Mar never seemed the least surprised. - -Was it that he could not bring himself to abandon the poor wretch he had -rescued; could that be at the root of his delay? But why did he not take -Cheviot into his confidence and get the girl out of the country if she -were in hiding hereabouts? Was it conceivable that Mar— - -Cheviot got little further in his speculations till the morning when Mar, -in the act of making a cast, said under his breath and without moving a -muscle, “There’s that fellow again!” - -Cheviot turned just in time to see Björk’s head disappear behind a bunch -of tall reeds that grew in the hollow by the little fresh water stream -below the cabin. “What’s he lurking about like that for?” - -“I’m afraid he’s on the track of a poor, wretched girl,” and Mar told -the story of the Yakutat witch, but with additions not creditable to Mr. -Björk. - -“It’s usually an old woman, here as elsewhere, that’s accused and set -upon, but this girl can’t be above seventeen, for she hadn’t been long -out of the Bride’s House.” - -“The what?” - -“Oh, the horrible igloo where they confine the marriageable girls for -half a year. They stay in there, in the dark all that time, never seeing -the face of man; and they come out cowed, and fat, and pallid; and then -they’re for sale as wives. Those that no man takes are looked down upon, -and left to shift for themselves and must earn their own living. The -Yakutat girl was pounced on instantly by a man she hated for some reason. -He took her off, but she escaped and made her way to the mission. Nobody -was at home at the time but Björk and me. I saw her come in, and I saw -her come flying out of the mission parlor wilder even than she’d entered -it, and go tearing down to the village. She found shelter there, for -a while, with the woman who had brought her up. But public opinion was -all against her; and when it was found that the reason her ‘husband,’ -Peddykowchee, didn’t come and get her, was that he was ill, they said -she had bewitched him. His younger brother said she’d done the same to -him, and then a miserable little baby—oh, it was a ghastly business. -’Sh—” and Mar fished in silence for a full hour, with occasional sharp -glances through the alder thicket behind him, down among the reeds by the -deserted cabin. - -The next day the store left in the cracker-box was found to be untouched. - -“She’s seen Björk!” said Mar under his breath. “She’s afraid to come any -more.” - -“Why don’t you help her to get out of the country?” Cheviot asked, -setting alight the smudge on the window-sill. - -“I was planning that when you came, but I don’t want to mix you up in any -such ticklish business.” - -“It’s no more ticklish for me than for you.” - -“Oh, I’m blown upon already. The people here have been red hot about it. -They haven’t cooled down yet.” - -“They never will,” said Cheviot. - -“No,” agreed Mar, “but I’ve made the cause mine, you see. After you’re -gone—” - -“I’m not going till you do.” - -“That’s nonsense.” - -“If you like,” said Cheviot. - -“It’s on account of that letter of Hildegarde’s?” - -“Whatever the reason is, I’m going to stay if you are, and you may as -well let me in for my share of the fun.” - -“Your ‘share!’” repeated Mar reflectively, and stroked his long gray -mustache. - -“I was arranging to get the girl away,” he went on presently, “when you -came. I had bought this boat and made a habit of being out all day.” - -“Exactly! All we need is provisions.” - -“No, I sent Christianson to St. Michaels for provisions. They’re at the -mission now.” - -“Of course, we brought them up with us! Then we’ve nothing to do but to -get the stuff into the boat.” - -“Without exciting suspicion.” - -“And pick the girl up somewhere on the coast.” - -“—before they realize we’re gone for good.” - -“Surely you and I could start off on an excursion together without -exciting suspicion. Why, you told them when you first came, you were -going up the coast, ‘to have a look at the country,’” he added, -remembering Christianson’s phrase. - -Mar studied him an instant with uncommon intentness. - -“What is it?” laughed Cheviot. “You look as if you couldn’t make up your -mind to trust me.” - -“No, I’m making up my mind I will.” Again he paused for a moment, and -then, “I am too old to do the thing alone,” he said. - -“Well, I can manage the boat, anyhow.” - -“Oh, the girl can row as well as a man, but I must have a partner.” And -sitting there in the deserted cabin Nathaniel Mar, for the last time, -told how a hundred and odd miles further up the coast he had panned out -gold with a dead man’s help when he himself was young. - -And when he had said it, that thing befell him that overtook any -enthusiast in talking to Louis Cheviot. Mar saw his story on a sudden in -a comic light. Clear now, its relationship to twenty “tall stories,” fit -matter for a twitch of the humorous lip, a hitch of the judicial shoulder. - -The unconscious Cheviot had choked off many a confidence just by that -look of cool amusement. - -“I’ve always said,” Mar wound up, preparing hastily to withdraw again -into his shell, “I’ve always said it would ‘keep,’ and it _has_ kept -close on thirty years.” - -“Well, it won’t keep much longer,” said Cheviot briskly. - -“Why not?” A tremor shot through the man with the secret. - -“Why? Because it’s in the air.” - -Mar clasped and unclasped his big walking-stick as if about to rise. - -“Before another year,” Cheviot went on, “the whole of Alaska will swarm -with prospectors.” - -“Do you think so?” - -“Sure. Why, it’s begun. I don’t believe there’s a single Yukon tributary -where there isn’t a man wandering about this minute with a shovel and a -pan.” - -“The Yukon! Well, that’s a good way to the south!” - -“Those men that stopped at the mission last night—they were miners.” - -“They—they were after galena!” said Mar, almost angrily. “They knew that -fairly good ore had been brought down Fish River off and on since ’81.” - -Cheviot laughed. “Well, if you imagine they won’t so much as look for -gold, let’s smuggle your witch to St. Michaels and take the first -steamer home. _I’ve_ had enough of the North.” - -“You say that because you don’t really believe I’ve discovered a second -Klondike.” - -“Why shouldn’t I believe it? And haven’t I turned my back on the Klondike -we all know exists?” - -“Those men that came to the mission yesterday,” Mar said hurriedly, -“they—they were going to Fish River, weren’t they? Not—not up the coast?” - -“No, no, that’s all right,” Cheviot reassured him. “All I meant was that -somebody hereabouts had only to whisper ‘Gold!’ for this whole country to -swarm.” - -“I know—I know. But we’ll have the start, Cheviot.” - -Mar pulled himself up by the aid of his stick, and dragged the rude soap -box table out of its shady corner, into the light nearer the window, a -light but little obscured by the faint smoke wreaths that curled about -the pan and sent abroad a slightly pungent breath, agreeably acrid, -except to the summer pest. Mar’s excitement found little expression -in his face, but, so to speak, came out at his finger tips. He could -hardly hold the piece of paper he had pulled from his pocket. Up to ten -minutes ago he had felt almost as far from his ancient purpose as though -he still sat on the high stool in the inner room of the Valdivia bank. -Now, and within the last few seconds more especially, fulfilment seemed -breathlessly near. Sitting on one side of the soap box, with Cheviot -opposite, Mar traced on the back of an envelop the land-locked inner Bay -of Golovin, the outer bay, and from Rocky Point a broken line on up the -coast. - -“This,” he said, shading a little strip bordering the shore, “this is -the sand-spit where I found the Esquimau camp. Here’s the crooked river, -with its mouth full of wood. Only six or seven miles to the north is the -anvil-shaped mountain.” - -The two men, bending low over the soiled envelop, were too absorbed to -notice the glitter just above the window-sill; eyes narrowed to evade the -smoke; two mere points of light to the right of the rusty pan with its -haze of smoldering incense. - -Mar’s pencil whispered over the paper in the silence. - -Then he spoke. “From this broken range on the north three or four streams -come trickling down to the coast. The one on the west here winds round -from the north side of the Anvil, and it was just at this point, as I -remember—just here,” and the pencil shook as if in doubt, or refusing to -commit itself, till Mar planted the point so firmly on the paper it made -a dent as well as a mark. “_Just here I found the gold._” - -When finally Cheviot raised his eyes the glitter was gone from the sill. - - * * * * * - -While the two in the cabin laid their plans and made a list of provisions -and requirements, a man was creeping on hands and knees, through willow -scrub and reeds, down to the boat that lay moored in the cove below the -cabin. - -Christianson sat talking to Hjalmar the herder, of the Government project -of introducing reindeer among the Alaskan natives, when the door of the -private office was flung wide. They looked round and saw Björk standing -there. - -On the sallow mask a strange light shining. The hard lips twitched in a -recurrent rictus, showing a dog-like gleam of sharp eye-tooth, while the -rest of the mouth held rigid. If the tremendous force that locked the -lean jaws was lost upon the onlooker, it must have been the insane light -in Björk’s eyes that made the reindeer-herder whisper, “He’s got a fit.” - -But Christianson had only flung back his long, straight hair, and grasped -the rude arms of his big chair. - -“Björk,” he said, “iss it a visshun?” - -“Ye—h—h!” Björk answered through shut teeth. An instant longer he stood -silent, with his hairy hands clenched, and a barely perceptible forward -and backward swaying of the tense body. Then, with an effort as of -forcing steel to part, he opened his welded lips and said rapidly in -Swedish, “Have we not fed the hungry?” - -“Aye,” said Christianson. - -“Have we not nursed the sick? Have we not preached the Gospel to every -creature?” - -“Aye, aye,” from Christianson. - -“Have we not kept the law?” With each question nearer and nearer Björk -brought the black menace of his face. - -“Have we not had the faith that moveth mountains? Have we not served in -hardship? Have we not waited in poverty till this hour?” - -“_Till_ this hour?” said Christianson, getting up slowly out of his chair. - -Björk arrested his own dreamlike advance with a suddenness that seemed to -wake him. He stopped, looked round, and clutched at the back of a chair. - -“Shut the door,” he commanded. - -His chief obeyed. When Christianson turned round again, Björk was -staring over the reindeer-herder’s head, piercing the infinite depths of -space, while he held tight to every-day existence by the back of a chair. - -“Brethren,” he said, “the angel of the Lord has been with me. He has -shown me great riches.” - -Hjalmar the herder pulled himself together and shook off his growing -nervousness. There was nothing uncanny in this after all. A vision of -riches was only too common since the Klondike had crazed men’s brains. -Björk saw that even Christianson looked less moved. - -“I tell you,” the seer burst out, “this is the answer to all our prayer, -the reward of all our work. The angel took me westward up the coast. I -see it now!” He unlocked his clutching hands, raised them outstretched -on a level with his eyes and with hypnotic slowness moved the right hand -east, the left one west. - -“A sand-spit,” he said, “where the heathen gather. Beyond—a flat country, -where no tree grows. But the river mouth is choked with sea-drift. A -strange shaped hill. One of old Thor’s workshops. Where _he_ hammered the -sword of the gods, _we_ shall forge weapons against the ungodly. Weapons -of gold. For the river of that country—the angel showed me the sands of -it! And the sands, Christianson, the sands were full of gold!” - -The herder looked at Christianson and Christianson looked at the herder. -The herder shook his head. - -Christianson sat down again in his great chair. - -“I tell you,” said Björk solemnly, “I see that ‘promised land’ plainer -than ever I saw Kwimkuk. Plainer”—he raised his voice—“than I see you -two.” - -But he saw them very plainly. His look leaped from one face to the other, -and rage gathered on his own. - -“You sit there like stone. You are deaf. You are like dead men. I—I—” He -looked about the room wildly as if he had forgotten where the door was. -“I would go alone, but I must have provisions. I must have help with the -boat—help with the—” - -“Y—yes, yes,” stuttered the old missionary. - -“And the angel said, ‘Go first to Christianson.’” - -“Yes, yes. Of course, I—” - -“‘But tarry not,’ said the voice. ‘If Christianson receive not the good -tidings, go take the news to another.’” He seemed now to locate the door. -He made two steps in that direction, saying, “Me—I obey the voice.” - -“I, too, obey,” said Christianson hurriedly. “I will come Saturday.” - -“_Saturday!_” Björk’s burning impatience blew the end of the week to the -end of the world. “I tell you _to-morrow_ will be too late! It must be -to-day. It must be this hour.” - -“Why?” demanded the herder, but he, too, was on his feet. - -“Ha! You will ask questions! No wonder the angel comes to me.” Again he -turned about and rushed at the door. Christianson intercepted him. Björk, -with a convulsive movement, flung him off. - -“The voice said, ‘This is the hour you have prayed for, but if it passes -in idleness, pray no more—_pray no more_!’” Björk’s voice rang out with -a tragic authority. “‘For this is the hour when your feet should be shod -with swiftness and your hands be full of cunning.’ It was the voice said -so.” Björk’s fingers were on the latch. “Me—I obey.” He opened the door. - -“Come, Hjalmar,” said Christianson. - -[Illustration: “‘Brethren,’ he said, ‘the angel of the Lord has been with -me. He has shown me great riches’”] - - - - -CHAPTER XI - - -Hildegarde’s sense of anxious responsibility had grown with every month -that passed after her father sailed out of San Francisco harbor. Bound -for—“the Klondike!” people exclaimed with envy, rather than asked in any -doubt. - -“No—no,” he had said, and then hastily—to keep outsiders off the -track—“well, perhaps. Who knows?” Who _didn’t_ know! And, after all, why -should any man stay at home who wasn’t obliged? - -It was natural that no one else should take Mr. Mar’s enterprise as -seriously from the start as did his daughter. For she knew how large had -been her share in it. She had been the first, the only one, to cheer him -on. She it was who had got “the boys” to finance the undertaking. She who -had broken the fact to her mother. But for his daughter, Nathaniel Mar -would not now be—where was he? How faring? Many a time Hildegarde’s heart -contracted sharply, as in silence she framed the question. Her own fault -that she couldn’t answer—her fault that half Valdivia could no longer -set their clocks by the big, lame man’s passing—her doing that he sat no -more of a morning in the warm, sunny room of the San Joaquin, sending -out smoke and absorbing news. Others sat there in peace and safety, -discussing their absent townsman; and Hildegarde sat at home trying to -keep at bay the thought: if anything dreadful should happen to him! - -It had eased her a little to write to Cheviot, and beg him to look out -for her father. She was tempted to say, “Bring him back safe and there’s -nothing I won’t gladly do to prove—” But she had pulled herself up in -time, and only promised an unending gratitude. - -The steamer _President_, which had taken Mar north, brought on her return -trip a brief letter from him, saying merely that the journey was safely -accomplished as far as St. Michaels. His family knew they would probably -not hear again till the following summer. - -Life was easier when Bella was there. To her one might say, “Will he come -back by the first boat in June, or shall we only have letters, do you -think?” And say it in one form or another so often that, but for reasons -unavowed, the speculation would have wearied friendship. - -But Bella was full of sympathy and tonic suggestion, always prepared to -pore over northern maps, always ready to discuss probable conditions “up -there.” - -What a friend was Bella! “I’ve _talked_ of a standard,” Hildegarde -thought humbly, “but she lives up to it—in these days.” It was a shame -ever to remember the lapses long ago. - -And how intelligent she was! How curiously well informed! But Bella was -always surprising you. - -“I keep thinking about him in the night. I lie awake wondering if he’s -cold,” Hildegarde confessed, and Bella, why, to look at her face you’d -think she knew all about that lying awake and wondering—did the same -herself. “Father does so love a fire. Don’t you remember when all of us -would be baking he used to draw closer to the hearth?” - -“That was only because he lived so much indoors. He’ll be _quite_ warm in -that beautiful furry sleeping-bag. He’ll probably sleep better than he’s -done since he was a child. They all do.” - -“Who do?” - -“Oh—a—people who—go to the Klondike.” - -Another time, “I am haunted by the certainty that he didn’t take enough -provisions. Trenn says that in intense cold people eat a great deal more -than—” - -“That’s true,” said Bella sagely, “but it’ll be all right. People are -very good to one another in such out-of-the-way places. They always share -with anybody who runs short.” - -“How do you know?” - -“Well, that’s what the accounts all say.” - -“What accounts?” - -“Oh, in the—the papers.” - -“I never see any such accounts. It’s all horrors—freezing and starving to -death. Besides, father will be the one to do the sharing and then have to -go without. Oh, _why_ did I help him to—” - -“Don’t be absurd,” Bella said, almost angrily. “In any case _he’s_ not -gone beyond the reach of supply depots.” Neither met the other’s eye. - -“But suppose his money gives out—it will give out if it’s true they -charge two dollars for a potato. He never could keep any money in his -pockets. Oh, it’s all very well for you, _your_ father isn’t sitting on -an iceberg starving to death.” - -A queer look came into Bella’s little face. It was there, now and then, -and gone like a ghost, leaving a troubled tenderness behind. - -“It’s not as if he were near a settlement, as the Klondikers are to -Dawson City,” Hildegarde went on, yearning for reassurance. “The place -father was going to is quite uninhabited, except by a few Esquimaux. -Often I can hardly eat for thinking—thinking”—her voice caught—“maybe he -is hungry.” - -“That’s impossible. He’s much too sensible and clever.” - -“What good is it to be sensible and clever if you’ve got nothing to eat?” - -“But being sensible and clever will help him to find things to eat.” - -“How do you make that out?” - -“Oh, as far south as that—” - -As far _south_? Was she out of her mind? - -“There are plenty of ptarmigan and rabbits and things, where Mr. Mar is.” - -“Are there? But he’s lame. How can he go shooting—” - -“Other people can, especially the natives, and you may be sure your -father will have his share. Besides, he’ll fish. Mr. Mar’ll like that -part of it.” - -“How _can_ you be so heartless!” - -“What do you mean?” - -“How is my father to fish in rivers frozen hard as iron?” - -“Through holes in the ice, of course!” Bella defended the idea warmly. -“You’ll see,” she spoke as if she’d personally tested the efficacy of the -device; “you’ll see they’ll get fish all winter that way.” - -“How _do_ you know? Now don’t say you get it out of the newspapers, for I -never see these things, and I look for nothing else.” - -“No, I found that in a book.” - -“What book?” - -It turned out to be a two-year-old volume upon Arctic Exploration. On the -fly-leaf Bella’s name and the date, 1896. A whole year before Cheviot -went to the Klondike, or Mr. Mar to Alaska. The year that— - -The light that had glimmered broke in a flood. - -“Let us read it together, Bella,” said Hildegarde softly. - -“No, there’s a newer one I’ve just sent for. We’ll read that if you like.” - -They finished it at the Waynes’ country place. “I wish,” said Hildegarde, -“we had another book about—” - -“There are plenty more.” Bella unlocked a little chest. It was full of -nothing but books, and the books were about nothing but arctic life and -exploration. For nearly two years, Bella had been buying and reading -everything she could hear of published on the subject in America or -Europe. - -Hildegarde hung above the store. “We must go through them all together. -It is the most fascinating reading in the world.” - -“It is the most horrible in the world. The most ghastly, it makes you -ill. But, yes; I agree with you one can’t _not know_.” - -They read the books together. Even the honest-hearted Hildegarde, who -began with her father agonizingly present in her mind, abandoned him -presently to his probably less terrible fate, and pushed forward with -strange men on their farther journey; fitting each new fortune or -mischance to the One on the other side of the world, never mentioned -either by her or Bella. Though Hildegarde kept her oath not to speak -Galbraith’s name, she felt a strange new excitement now in saying “He” as -for her father, yet thinking of the One who had gone farther afield even -than Cheviot, and much, much farther than Mr. Mar. Each girl played with -the ruse. It gave to reading and speculation a subtilty—a spirit—that -never flagged. - -And now spring was here. Although still far too early for such -forecasting, both felt the need of returning to Valdivia, to be within -easier reach of papers, of telegrams, and of returning travelers. For -all the world knew when once the spring was come up yonder, the summer -followed hard. How natural it was to be looking forward to something -great and wonderful that was to happen in June! Hildegarde and her father -had done that as long ago as when the girl was in her early teens and -Jack Galbraith expected back from his first arctic enterprise. What more -natural than that Hildegarde and Bella should be doing very much the -same to-day. To call their expectation by Mar’s name, merely gave it -manageability. For, apart from Bella’s interdiction, the word “Galbraith” -was, in this, like a hot iron. If it were to be touched in safety, some -shield must come between you and the too ardent metal. “Galbraith” would -scorch. But wrap “Mar” about the forbidden name, and you could use it to -significant ends. - -Summer and Mr. Mar! Oh, Mr. Mar served well as symbol of that mightier -issue, that both dared hope for out of this year’s opening of the ice -gates of the North. - -And yet the month of wonder, June, went by without a word or a sign -coming down from the top of the world. - -July brought a letter from the Klondike—Cheviot’s second. He had done -well, and he was coming home. Hildegarde might look to see him by the -next boat. No word of Mar; plain he hadn’t had Hildegarde’s news when he -wrote. Not the next boat, however, nor the next, brought Cheviot, nor any -word of Mr. Mar. - -“I don’t know how I should get through this time but for you, Bella.” -Hildegarde and she were seldom apart. - -Not till mid-August came the sign from Mar, a letter written from -a queer-sounding place in early June, a letter strangely short and -non-committal. He had reached St. Michaels too late the previous autumn -to go any further than Golovin Bay, before navigation closed. He would -push on as soon as travel was practicable. He was well. He sent his love. -And no more that summer. No more up to the time the boats stopped running -in the autumn. - -Cheviot had not come after all. And silence, like the silence of the -grave, wrapt the fate of that Other, on the far side of the world. - -“I shall burn a joss to those who travel by land or by sea, by snow or by -ice,” said Bella, one day in December, and she lit the stick of incense -on the flower altar, whence no heathen smoke of prayer had risen for a -couple of years now. But more prayers than ever before had been offered -up in the little white room. And what need of a face on the wall above -the roses? The picture was not really shut away in a drawer. Vivid in -each girl’s mind, it was borne about as faithfully, as in the old days, -when on Hildegarde’s breast in a setting of silver it hung on a velvet -string. - -Now and then Bella remembered Cheviot, and when she remembered him, she -spoke of him. Sometimes she spoke of him when she was thinking of him -little enough. As on the night when she wasn’t well, and Hildegarde, -sleeping on the sofa in her friend’s room, had waked in misery over a -dream she’d had. Bella was lying wide-eyed in the dark, “A dream about—?” - -“Yes,” Hildegarde said hurriedly, “a snow-storm in the night, in the -wind; a slipping down into blackness. I thought I saw him fall, and I -knew it was the end.” - -“They go by contraries. Your father’s quite well and happy.” Hildegarde -had not said the dream concerned her father, but she offered no -correction. - -“Still,” Bella went on, “for the moment it makes one feel—I’ll tell you! -we must have a little light to comfort us.” - -“No, no; it will hurt my eyes,” Hildegarde was surreptitiously crying. -But Bella was already up, and before Hildegarde could forestall her, she -had opened the door across the hall leading into the opposite room, and -there she was striking a light. Hildegarde followed her, still a little -dazed by the vivid horror of the dream, and when her eyes fell upon her -own little white bed, she flung herself down there, and buried her face -in the cool pillow. - -“You aren’t crying, are you, Hildegarde, over a silly dream? Look here, -I’m lighting a joss for Mr. Mar.” - -A little silence. - -“I’ve lit another,” said Bella’s hurried voice, still over there by the -table, “one for Louis.” Hildegarde, with face half-hidden, imagined -rather than saw, that three slender smoke feathers were curling above the -flowers, drowning the meeker fragrance of the roses. - -She lay there feeling the oppression of the dream fading, and a waking -oppression take its place. Yes, they “went by contraries.” Galbraith -hadn’t fallen and been swallowed in the gaping maw of a crevasse; but -when he came back, what was going to happen? He belonged to Bella. But -he had left Bella. And he had belonged first of all to Hildegarde. What -would befall friendship in that coming wrench! - -“Go back to bed, Bella; you’ll be worse.” - -“You must come, too.” - -Hildegarde made no answer. - -“You can’t lie there with all these flowers in the room. I didn’t know -you hadn’t set them out. The doors can’t be left open either.” - -“The windows can.” - -“I shan’t go unless you come, too.” - -Hildegarde forced herself to get up. Bella put out the comforting light. -But some things show plainer in the dark. Those symbols on the altar, -they were only tendrils of smoke by day, or in the glare of gas. Now -they were sparks of fire puncturing the blackness of the scented room. -One fiery eye to watch over the fortunes of Nathaniel Mar, one to shine -for Cheviot, and an unnamed third to pierce the darkness that shrouded -the fate of that Other. Even when the two girls turned their backs, and -groped their way to Bella’s room clinging hold of each other in the -dark, the third spark not only shone before their inner vision still, it -pricked each bosom with its point of fire. - -What would happen when he came back? - -Each wondered, and each held faster to the other with fear in the bottom -of her heart. - - * * * * * - -Meanwhile, life outwardly went on pretty much the same. With Trenn and -Harry, Eddie Cox and other swains, the girls went to parties and picnics, -to concerts, and the theater, and did all the usual things. The one -unusual thing those days brought was the Charles Trennor fancy ball. It -was going to be a great affair, and Valdivia conversation for weeks had -begun by some such statement as, “I’m going as the Goddess of Liberty. -What shall you be?” - -Of course Trenn and Harry were coming up for the great occasion, and -their costumes called for endless consultation with that great authority, -Bella. They had, moreover, told their sister she might on this occasion -be as glorious as ever she liked, and they would “foot the bill.” -Hildegarde deeply appreciated such generosity, but what was more to the -point, did Bella? - -She only said: “Yes, Hildegarde’s going to be glorious. But I don’t think -it’s the kind of glory you can buy.” - -Even before the Mar boys had come forward in this magnificent way, Bella -had decided that Hildegarde must go as Brunhild. Her gown was to be white -cloth, embroidered with silver dragons—strictly adapted from an ancient -Norse design. She was to wear silver sandals on her feet; on one bare arm -would be a buckler, a spear in her right hand, and on her fair hair a -silver helmet. - -Bella was going as Amy Robsart, and that was easy enough. It was those -dragons of Hildegarde’s that took the time; and, as Bella had said, they -wouldn’t have been easy to buy. She and Hildegarde were embroidering -them every spare minute, day and night. Even now, though almost, they -were not quite done, which was a pity. Trenn and Harry were coming up -from Siegel’s again this evening—the excuse, the necessary inspection -of Brunhild, at Bella’s express invitation. For this had been the one -costume not ready in time for the “dress-rehearsal” two nights before, -when Bella and “the boys” had put on their Elizabethan finery, and -peacocked about in great spirits. - -“I want your brothers to be what they call ‘knocked silly’ when they -first see you, Hildegarde. You must be all dressed and ready, and we can -turn up the bottom of the skirt and work at that last dragon while we’re -waiting.” - -In pursuance of this plan, the two girls had gone up-stairs directly -after supper, though it was hardly probable the boys could get there -before half-past nine. - -Mrs. Mar sat waiting for them in the parlor, on that side of the center -table where the book rest supported an open volume. She rocked while she -waited, and she crocheted while she rocked. At times she glanced at the -clock—not once at the open book. Not for her own edification was the -volume there, but for the enlargement of Hildegarde’s literary horizon, -while she and Bella stitched at silver dragons. But this latest choice -in standard works had not pleased any one. Victor Hugo was much too fond -of fiery love-scenes to prosper with Mrs. Mar, but the miserable man -had become a classic, and after all, Hildegarde was old enough not to -be infected. Bella—she read everything, the minx! Although Hildegarde -was in her twenty-fifth year, Mrs. Mar knew her so little, she felt no -assurance that the girl would keep up her languages, or read “the best -things” in any tongue, without her mother’s dragging her by main force -across the flowery fields of belles lettres—as though over stubble and -through brake. - -Listening to Mrs. Mar’s reading of a classic was an experience of some -singularity. For if she macerated descriptive bits with a chin-chopper -despatch, to get them out of the way (not disguising the fact that she -considered these passages in the light of the salutary self-torture that -no disciplined life should evade, any more than vaccination or a visit -to the dentist), she did far deadlier things to scenes of sentiment or -passion. These she approached with a sturdy determination not to give -in to their nonsense, to make them at all events _sound_ like sanity by -sheer force of her own impregnable common-sense—a force so little to be -withstood, that it could purge the most poetic page ever written. It -made even Victor Hugo sound as reasonable as the washing list. If you -didn’t inwardly curse or secretly weep, you must have laughed to see how -effectually she could clip fancy’s wings, slam the door on sentiment, -bring high passion down to a sneaking shame, and effectually punish a -great reputation. In short, listening to Mrs. Mar reading romance was so -sure a way, not only to strip it bare of its traditional glory, but to -rob it of every chance of “going home,” that Hildegarde, as soon as she -got wind of what was the next work to be attacked, hastened to borrow it -of Bella, devoured it alone, and so got a first impression that could -more or less hold its own against the maternal onslaught. It is but -fair to say that to any comedy passage Mrs. Mar gave excellent effect, -and, by way of appreciation, a grim smile peculiarly her own; while for -a spirited encounter between wits sharp and merciless, she had open -approval. - -“That’s something like!” she would say. “Old Dumas” (or whoever it might -be), “he can do it when he likes!” and the great one was patted on the -back: “_This_ man’s going to live.” - -Bella had known that Mrs. Mar would sit in the half-light till even she -could see no longer. But Hildegarde was not suffered to make her entrance -in the dusk. Bella ran in first and “lit up.” She did not stop to draw -the blinds, she was in too great a hurry; besides, it was nice to let -in the mild and beautiful night. “Now, Hildegarde! Look, Mrs. Mar,” and -Bella ushered in a living page from an old Icelandic Saga; “isn’t she -glorious?” - -Mrs. Mar pecked at the regal figure with her hard, bright eyes, “White -doesn’t make her any slimmer,” she said. - -“Oh, it wouldn’t do for Brunhild to be a mean, little, narrow creature.” - -“That helmet, too! It makes her look ten feet high.” - -“She wants to look high!—_and_ ‘mighty!’ and she does. No, no, stop -Hildegarde, you _mustn’t_ take it off.” - -“Just till we hear the boys coming. It—it’s—” Hildegarde contracted her -broad brows under the helmet’s weight. - -But Bella flew to the rescue. “Don’t, don’t! Hands off! What does it -matter if it _is_ heavy? You must get used to it. You’ve got to be a -heroine!” she wound up severely, “so don’t expect to be comfortable!” -and Bella pulled a chair under the drop-light. “Sit here where Trenn and -Harry can see you the minute they open the door. Now we can go on with -the last dragon while we’re waiting.” - -Mrs. Mar cleared her throat, “‘Acte Cinquième. La Noce.’” And the two -girls, raising their eyes from the work, saw through the open window, -in front of them, not the close-massed syringa underneath, nor the -soft Californian night above, but “une terrasse du palais d’Aragon,” -in the town of Saragossa, four hundred years ago. And no sense visited -them of any jarring contrast between the picture of the world in the -yellow-backed book, and the picture of life as they knew it best. Thanks -to the poet that lives in most young hearts, even Victor Hugo’s gallant -vision of a civilization that was old before California was discovered, -brought no envious sense of the difference between then and now—rather a -naïve surprise that those others so far away, so long ago, should have -understood so well. - -Older, more self-critical, they might have lost this sense of -comradeship—might have gone over to the gray majority that insists only -the past is picturesque, or that if any grace remains unto this day, -it must needs be far removed from places we know well, precariously -surviving under other skies, speaking an alien tongue. Those who would -persuade us there is no scene in our every-day life but what is sordid, -barren, or at best (and worst) meanly commonplace—stuff unfit for poetry -or even for noble feeling—what do the carpers by such comment on our -times but confess an intellect abject, slavish, blind. To find the beauty -and the dignity that lie in the difficult familiar days that we ourselves -are battling through, to detect high courage in the common speech, to -get glimpses of the deathless face of romance as we go about the common -streets, is merely to know life as it is, and yet to walk the modern -world as gloriously companioned as any Viking or Hidalgo of the past. - -So true is early youth’s apprehension of these things, that not even Mrs. -Mar could make wide enough for envy or embarrassment the gulf in the two -girls’ minds between an Old World bandit chief, and a New World soldier -of fortune. The transition, that to the sophisticated seems grotesque, -between the Hernani of 1519 and the modern American pursuing perilous -ways to the Pole—this feat was accomplished without misgiving, although -in Saragossa, “on entend des fanfares éloignées,” and in Valdivia an -indefatigable woman, on the other side of the street, was strumming the -old tune, renamed, “The Boulanger March”; and now Mrs. Mar was beginning -Scene III with an air of cold distrust, that Bella foresaw would mount by -well-known degrees to a climax of scorn. - -The lady turned the page. - - “‘Mon âme - Brûle—Eh! dis au volcan qu’il étouffe sa flamme,’— - -“How long are they going on like this, I wonder?” she interrupted herself -to durchblätter the pages. - - “‘Ah! qui n’oublierait tout à cette voix celeste!’” - -And more fingering of the leaves. “Four more solid pages of this sort of -thing,” she announced. “Well, if the rest of the world has stood it, I -suppose we must.” And she went on— - - “‘Ta parole est un chant où rien d’humain ne reste—’” - -And on, in a measured staccato, exactly as if she were adding up a column -of figures, or telling off yards of tape. - - “‘Doña Sol. - Viens, ô mon jeune amant, - Dans mes bras.’” - -Bella dropped the silver dragon, and with, “Wait, Mrs. Mar, _dearest_ -Mrs. Mar!” she seized the book. - -“What’s the matter with you?” - -“This is _my_ part!” said Bella, shutting the volume convulsively. “I -know it every bit.” - - “‘Voilà notre nuit de noces commencée! - Je suis bien pâle, dis, pour une fiancée?’” - -And on to— - - “‘Mort! non pas! nous dormons, - Il dort! c’est mon époux, vois-tu, nous nous aimons, - Nous sommes couchés là. C’est notre nuit de noce. - Ne le réveillez pas, seigneur duc de Mendoce, - Il est las. Mon amour, tiens-toi vers moi tourné. - Plus près—plus près encore—’” - -Hildegarde, with tears, put out her hand and took Bella’s. No word, just -the clasp of hands, till they fell apart to work. - -“H’m,” said Mrs. Mar dryly. “I suppose you’ve seen Sarah Bernhardt go on -like that.” - -“No, oh, no. I don’t like Sarah in this. I do it much better.” - -“A good many people seem to be able to put up with the other lady.” - -But Bella, smiling, shook her head, as she drew a new strand of silver -thread through her needle. “I don’t like seeing her make dear Doña Sol -so—so snaky, and so wildly unnatural.” - -“Well, if you think Doña Sol’s _natural_—” - -Bella laughed. “You’d think she was nature itself compared to Sarah.” - -“People said the same thing about Curly what’s-his-name.” - -“Curly?” - -“Yes, the Englishman who acted with the red-haired woman.” - -“Oh, you mean Kyrle—” - -“Curl! Is that how he calls himself? Well, I’m sure I’ve no objection. I -liked him. But people went about saying _he_ wasn’t natural.” - -Bella looked up. “Did you think he was?” - -“Certainly not. But I’m a person who likes _acting_. I don’t want them -natural.” She wound up in a tone of delicious contempt, “I can see people -being natural every day of my life, without paying for it.” - -Bella laughed. “Oh, I’m _so_ glad I know you, dear Mrs. Mar!” That lady, -unmoved by the tribute, began to do her duty by the notes. Bella never -listened to notes, and by and by her little face took on again the -tragic look with which she had declaimed, “La fatalité s’accomplit.” - -Bella was a good deal changed in this last year. Hildegarde, looking at -her paling beauty, was sometimes stricken with fear. “What should I do -without her!” - -The postman’s ring. Bella jumped up without ceremony in the middle of -Note 2, and ran out to see what had come. Only a paper. It wasn’t the -postman. Merely the little boy outrageously late with “The Evening News.” - -Bella returned to her dragon—Mrs. Mar read on. - -After all, who could be sure but what that paper lying there—how did -Bella know but it had a Norwegian telegram in it, saying word had come of -the rescue in the arctic of a party of Russians under an American leader? -Or no, the leader had done the rescuing—against awful odds. Not Bella -alone, but two entire continents were celebrating his name. For this was -the intrepid explorer of whom nothing had been heard for nearly four -years—who had been given up for dead, by all but Bella Wayne. - -And this man—oh, it made the heart beat—this man had discovered the Pole. -That was why he’d been so long away. It took four years to discover the -Pole. But it was done. The whole civilized world was ringing with his -name. And natural enough. It was the greatest achievement since Columbus’ -own, and the hero’s name was— - -No, no, it wouldn’t be like that at all. He would want Bella to be the -first to know. The next ring at the door would be a telegram for her. Or -no, he would hardly want to break so long a silence in that brusque way. -No, he would write her a beautiful long letter—telling her—explaining— -No! Far more like him just to appear. Without writing—without -telegraphing. Just take the swiftest steamer across the Atlantic, and -the fastest train across the Continent, and some evening like this, she, -little thinking it the hour that should bring such grace, she would lift -up her eyes and there he would be!—standing before her. Not only without -a long explanatory letter, without words, her face would be hidden in his -breast. - -“There!” Mrs. Mar interrupted an alternative soliloquy of Don Carlos, and -Bella started. “They’re early! There are the boys, now!” - -“I don’t hear them.” But as Hildegarde spoke the words she was conscious -of steps on the graveled path, that wound its rather foolish way round -this side of the house, leading nowhere. No one ever walked there but -Hildegarde herself, cutting or tending flowers. She glanced at Bella, and -saw in the wide hazel eyes a light she knew. - -On the step came crunching gravel. Bella’s needle arrested half through -a stitch, and all Bella’s face saying, “John! John Galbraith!”—and only -Hildegarde, through her eyes, hearing. But even Mrs. Mar was under some -spell of silence and strained expectation. Now the firm tread paused, and -there—there, in front of the low uncurtained window, above the syringas, -showed the head and shoulders of a man. Not Trenn, not Harry. Who? -Hildegarde held her breath. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - - -“Was it—_could_ it be?” Bella asked mutely, with wildly beating heart. - -Hildegarde, too, was wide-eyed and pale, though even in the dusk, plain -to see the vigorous upstanding figure was not a bent old man’s. Bella -felt the happy blood come flooding back about her heart; only to ebb -again with a suddenness so mighty, that it seemed to withdraw from her, -not gladness only, but volition and all feeling—seemed to want to carry -out life itself upon its backward tide. - -For the man had trodden down the flowers in the border, and pushed his -way through the syringa thicket. He stood at the open window, looking in. - -“Well, Mr. Louis Cheviot,” said Mrs. Mar, with an affectation of -calmness, “where did _you_ drop from?” And then Hildegarde’s helmeted -figure rose up like some spirit of woman out of another time. But she -stood quite still, and she looked as if she knew she was dreaming. - -Cheviot vaulted over the low sill, and came toward her with eyes of -wonder. “What’s all this for? Why are you like that?”—but he had grasped -her hand. - -“That absurd thing on her head? It was to show the boys,” explained Mrs. -Mar. “A ball—” - -“Are you _sure_ you are you?” Hildegarde found her voice at last. - -“Much surer than I am that you are you. I saw your light from the street, -and I felt I couldn’t possibly wait to go round and ring the bell. I -thought I must come and look in and see what you were like, though I must -say I didn’t expect—” He was shaking hands with Mrs. Mar now, but he -glanced over his shoulder at the tall white figure and past it to Bella. -“I believe I’ve succeeded in scaring at least one of the party. How do -you do, Bella? Feel me. I’m not a ghost!” - -“My dear boy,” interrupted Mrs. Mar, speaking in her most matter of fact -tone, “sit down and tell us all about it.” She at all events was not too -agitated to put her marker in the book before she closed it, and she took -up her crochet. - -Hildegarde was still standing there, but she had taken off the helmet and -held it in her hand. “Are you—are you alone?” she asked. - -“Yes, alone.” - -“I suppose you’ve heard nothing of Mr. Mar?” said Mrs. Mar, who had never -in her life been heard to refer to that gentleman in any more intimate -fashion. - -“Oh, yes, I have.” Cheviot sat down. Hildegarde still stood there. “I was -with him between five and six months.” - -“With father! Has he been to the Klondike, too?” - -“No; but I’ve been to Golovin.” - -“Your last letter, nine months ago, said you were coming by the next -boat,” Mrs. Mar arraigned him. - -“Yes, but I hadn’t heard from Hildegarde when I wrote that.” - -“What difference did that make?” - -“The difference of my following her suggestion to look out for Mr. Mar. I -had to go to Golovin to do it.” - -“Is that where he is now?” demanded his wife. “Why on earth hasn’t he -written?” - -Cheviot felt in his inner pocket, as he said, “No, Mr. Mar’s at Nome.” - -“At Nome!” - -“He—he’s not ill?” faltered Hildegarde. - -“No, on the contrary, he’s better than he’s been for years.” - -“Then what on earth’s he doing at Nome?” demanded Mrs. Mar. “Why didn’t -he go to the place he’s been talking about for all these—” - -“He did.” - -“Well?” and then, with her peculiar incisiveness, “What’s he got to show -for it all?” - -Cheviot did not wonder that Mar would rather not return to face -that particular look in the polished onyx eyes. “I don’t know,”—he -hesitated—“that there’s very much to show—as yet.” - -“It oughtn’t to surprise anybody.” The lady turned the highly polished -stones in her head with an added glitter. - -“When is he coming home?” asked Hildegarde, with a pitiful lip. - -“Perhaps next summer.” - -“Perhaps!” echoed the girl. - -Even Mrs. Mar stopped crocheting a moment. “Hush, Hildegarde. Let him -tell us.” But she must not be supposed to be over-anxious. “Have you just -come? Have you had anything to eat?” - -“Oh, thank you—in the train. First of all, I must give you the letters -he’s sent.” He handed one to Mrs. Mar, and one to Hildegarde. Another he -laid on the table under the lamp. It was addressed to Messrs. Trennor and -Harry Mar. Mother and daughter hurriedly read and exchanged letters. - -“Well, Miss Bella, how’s the world treating you?” and Cheviot talked on -in his old half-ironic fashion to the pale girl putting away a heap of -tangled silver thread in a work-box. - -Mrs. Mar’s eye, grown even harder and brighter in the last moments, fell -upon the envelop under the lamp. She did not scruple to tear it open. But -there was little enlightenment even in the epistle to “the boys.” - -“He says you’ll give us the particulars.” Mrs. Mar flung the notice at -Cheviot as if plainly to advertise her intention to hold him responsible -if those same particulars were not reassuring. - -Cheviot told briefly how he had found Mr. Mar at the mission, how an -eavesdropper had overheard their private talk, and how Mr. Mar reached -his journey’s end only to find that the thirty-year-old secret had been -filched from him, and other men (who hadn’t known it but three days), how -they had gathered in the harvest. - -“Not all—surely father got _something_?” - -“By the time he reached Anvil Creek he found it staked from end to end.” - -Mrs. Mar was plying the crochet-needle with a rapidity superhuman. “Of -course he’d be too late,” she said, with a deadly quietness. “Give him -thirty years’ start, and he’ll be too late.” - -“It was an outrage that a handful of men should have been able to gobble -the entire creek,” said Cheviot hurriedly. “The laws will be changed, -beyond a doubt. They’re monstrous. Every miner has been able to take out -a power of attorney, and he could locate for his entire family, for all -his friends—even for people who don’t exist.” - -“And those missionaries took it all!” - -“Not the missionaries. They were chivvied out of the game by a reindeer -herder they’d let into the secret. It’s too long a story to tell you -now, but the herder gave the missionaries the slip, and got word to some -friends of his. The rascals formed a district and elected a recorder. -By the time we got there, there wasn’t an inch left for the man who’d -discovered the gold.” - -In the pause Hildegarde hunted wildly in her mind for something to -say—something that would prevent her mother from speaking—but the girl’s -tongue could find no word, her mind refused to act. - -Fortunately, the story had reduced even Mrs. Mar to silence. - -“In the end Christianson and Björk didn’t fare much better than Mr. Mar, -though I believe they got something. But the herder and his friends are -millionaires.” - -It was more than one of the company could bear. Mrs. Mar got up and left -the room. - -Cheviot met Hildegarde’s eyes. There was that in his face that gave her -the sense of leaning on him in spirit—of being in close alliance with him. - -“Poor, poor father!” she said, in a half whisper. “Does he take it -dreadfully to heart?” - -“Well, you can imagine it wasn’t an easy thing to bear.” - -“No, but why isn’t he here—we’ll all help him to bear it.” - -Cheviot looked at the door through which Mrs. Mar had disappeared. His -eyes said plain as print, “Will she?” - -“But father must come home!” Hildegarde broke in on the eloquent silence, -as though upon some speech of Cheviot’s. “What is he thinking of—he -doesn’t mean—” - -Her agitation was so great she hardly noticed that Bella had finished -putting the things away in the work-box, and was leaving the room. The -moment she had shut the door, “He can’t face it,” said Cheviot. - -“Oh, but that’s madness. He must be told that we—that I—he _must_ come -home. Why, it’s the most dreadful thing I ever heard of in my life, his -bearing it all alone.” Her tears were falling. “Tell me—there’s nothing -in the letters—Louis,”—she leaned forward—“you and I always tell each -other the truth, don’t we?” - -“I’m afraid we do,” he said, with his old look. - -“Then tell me _what’s in father’s mind_. What has he said to you?” - -“That he will stay up there till—somehow—he has either made his pile, or -made his exit.” - -The girl laid her head down beside the shining helmet on the table, and -wept convulsively. - -“I had to tell you.” Cheviot had come close to her, and his voice was -half indignant, half miserable. - -Blindly she put out a hand and grasped his arm. “Thank you—you—you have -been good. His letter to me says that you—that you—Louis!” Suddenly she -lifted her wet face, “I _am_ ‘unendingly grateful.’” - -“Well, I hope you’ll get over it.” He drew his arm out of her grasp, and -walked about the room. - -Hildegarde followed him with tear-wet eyes that grew more and more -bewildered. “I can’t understand how you’re here. I thought navigation -wouldn’t be open for a month.” - -“Nearer two.” - -“Then, how—how—” - -“I came out with dogs over the ice.” - -She stared incredulous. “_How_ did you come?” - -“Round the coast of Norton Bay, down across the Yukon, and over to the -Kuskoquim, and then by the old Russian route to Kadiak Island.” - -“How in the world did you know the way?” - -“Part of the time I had native guides.” - -“Wasn’t it a very terrible journey?” - -“I don’t know that I’d do it again.” - -“And when you got down to Kadiak Island?” - -“I waited a week for the boat.” - -“They run in winter!” - -“Yes. Kadiak comes in for a swing eastward of the warm Japanese current. -The boats ply regularly to Sitka.” - -“It must have taken you a long time to do all that first part on your own -two feet.” - -He didn’t answer. - -“When did you see father last?” - -“On the morning of the 8th of December, when I cracked my whip over my -dog-team and turned my back on Nome.” - -“Heavens! Why, that’s—” - -“Over three months ago.” Most men would have paused a moment for -contemplation of their prowess or at least of their hardships, but -Cheviot was ready to put his achievement at once and for ever behind -him—ready, not only to imagine the general interest somewhere else, but -to lead the way thither. “To be exact, it was three months and sixteen -days ago; but your father was all right when I left him, and he had -supplies.” - -“Has he any friends?” - -“He’s got a dog he’s very thick with, and he’s got a comfortable tent.” - -“A tent, in that climate!” - -“It’s all anybody has. No lumber for cabins; little even for sluices, -hardly enough for rockers—to rock out the dust, you know. Wood is dearer -than gold.” - -“_A tent!_” - -“I assure you there was only one thing he was really in want of.” - -“What was that?” - -“Some way to get word to you. He knew you’d be anxious. He wants you not -to take his failure to heart. He thinks a great deal about that, because -he says you helped—” - -“Yes, yes.” - -“He wanted me to make it quite clear to you that in spite of everything -he wasn’t sorry he’d tried it. And you mustn’t be sorry either. You must -write to him, Hildegarde, and reassure him.” - -She nodded and turned away her face, but she put up her hand like one who -cannot bear much more. - -“He was _afraid_ you were fretting about him. I never saw him more -awfully pleased and glad than when I made up my mind to come out over the -ice.” - -“That appalling journey! You did it for him?” - -“No, I didn’t.” - -He waited, as if for a sign, and then, speaking almost surlily, “I did it -for myself,” he said. “I’d been away long enough.” - -“Yes,” said Hildegarde, “yes, indeed.” - -“I couldn’t bear it any longer, sitting there in the dark and cold, and -the”—she raised her eyes—“the—oh, it’s not such a bad place as people -make out; if you aren’t eating your heart out to know—” - -“What’s father doing?” she asked hastily. - -“Waiting to hear from you. Waiting, like everybody else, for the ice to -go out.” - -“What will he do when the ice goes out?” - -“He’s got some claims,” Cheviot lowered his voice to say. “He doesn’t -want anybody but you to know, for fear there’s nothing in them. But -as soon as the frost is enough out of the ground to yield to pick and -shovel, he means to rock out a few tons of gravel and _see_.” - -“Do it himself!”—then, as Cheviot did not answer at once, “It’s simply -dreadful! It’s—I can’t bear it.” She hid her face. - -“Don’t, Hildegarde. I wish you wouldn’t cry.” - -“Are you going back there?” - -“No, oh, no; I’m not even going back to the Klondike.” - -Mrs. Mar opened the door behind them. “It must be hours since you made -that miserable meal in the train,” she said. “Come in here and have some -supper.” - -Cheviot would have declined but that he knew he must some time submit to -a tête-à-tête. Best get it over. - -After the dining-room door shut behind her mother and Cheviot, Hildegarde -still sat there. The only movement about the white figure under the lamp -was the salt water that welled up constantly and constantly overflowed -the wide, sad eyes. The handle of the other door turned softly—a girl’s -face looked in. - -“Bella”—the motionless figure rose out of the chair and the one at the -threshold came swiftly in. “Bella”—the voice was muffled—“my father—my -father doesn’t mean ever to come home.” - -The incoming figure stopped. “Do the letters say that?” Bella asked, -awestruck. - -“No, Louis says so.” - -“Well, I think it was very heartless of him.” - -“No, it wasn’t. I made him. It would have been infinitely worse to be -always waiting.” - -“To be always waiting _is_ perhaps the worst,” said Bella, with lowered -eyes. - -“Yes, worst of all.” - -Bella roused herself and came nearer to her friend. “But for Mr. Mar—why, -it’s impossible—don’t you believe it, dear. It’s absurd to think—” - -“He’ll never come back. You’ll see he’ll never come back, unless—” - -“Unless?” - -“Unless”—Hildegarde cleared her tear-veiled voice—“unless some one goes -and brings him home.” - -“Louis Cheviot?” - -“Don’t you see, he’s failed. He’s been enormously kind;—he’s been -wonderful, but he couldn’t get my father to come home.” - -“Are you thinking one of the boys might?” - -Hildegarde shook her head. “They couldn’t make him.” - -“Who could?” - -She looked round the room with eyes that again were filling. But they -came back to Bella’s face. “Father would do it for _me_,” she said; -“don’t you know he would?” - -“Well,” said the other, staring, “if not for you, for no one.” - -“Yes, yes, he’d do it for me!” Hildegarde moved about the room with a -restlessness unusual in her. She went to each window in turn, pulled down -the blinds and drew the curtains; and still she moved about the room. -Excitement had drunk her tears. Her face was full of light. - -Bella did not stir, but no look or move of Hildegarde’s escaped her. -She fixed her eyes on the gleaming dragons that crawled at the hem of -Hildegarde’s skirt. The voices in the next room were audible, but not the -words. - -Across the street the tireless female had again struck up her favorite -march. - -“You’d have to go alone,” Bella said presently. - -“Yes, I’d have to go alone.” - -“It’s an awful journey.” - -“I suppose so.” - -“Yes, and the people—the roughest sort of people.” - -“I wouldn’t be afraid—at least, not much.” - -“_I_ shouldn’t dare to.” - -“No, no, you’re younger. And besides, even if I were the younger, I’m the -one who could do it.” Not often that Hildegarde laid herself open to a -charge of arrogance. “Yes,” she said, with rising excitement, “_I_ could -do it, only”—and the high look fell—“it costs a great deal.” She stood -quite still looking down upon Brunhild’s shield, that showed on the dark -carpet like a tiny circular pool of gleaming water. Still that maddening -piano over the way! “The boys wouldn’t help me,” Hildegarde thought out -loud, “they’ve already—they’ll be disgusted enough as it is.” She sat -down, still with her eyes on the shield, as if she didn’t dare lose -sight of it a moment. “Of course mother wouldn’t dream—” After a little -pause, “And Louis would say I was mad. But I must think—I must think!” -She leaned her tilted chin on her hand, and still like one hypnotized she -stared at the metal disk shining there in the shadow. “I must find a way. -Father shall not be left up there another winter.” - -Nothing more, till Bella brought out quite low the words, “I could get -you the money.” - -“_Bella!_” Hildegarde dropped her hand and sat back. “Would you?” - -Instead of answering, “I wouldn’t dare to go myself,” Bella said. - -“Oh, _you_ couldn’t possibly.” (Had Bella really meant that she -might lend—) “Even if there were any need of it, _you_ couldn’t go.” -Hildegarde’s lips only were saying words, her mind was already faring -away on an immense and wonderful journey, that she—_she_ was competent to -undertake. “You aren’t the kind, anyway,” she wound up bluntly, coming -back. - -“Nobody would think you were the kind either—nobody but me.” - -“Yes, yes. You’ve always understood that I wasn’t a bit like what people -thought,” and, indeed, few who supposed they knew Hildegarde Mar but -would have been surprised at the look in her face to-night, for once -betraying not alone a passionate partizanship with her father’s stranded -and embittered existence, but the glow that even the thought of “going to -the rescue” may light in a generous heart, and reflect in the quietest -face. - -“You could do anything you meant to,” said Bella, marveling a little at -the new beauty in her friend, “anything. But this—you’d have to be very -brave to go on such a—” - -“No, I wouldn’t. I _long_ to go.” - -No great surprise to Bella after all, this admission that Hildegarde, the -reticent, the cold, was really burning with all sorts of eagerness that -had never been suffered expression. - -But there was something more here to-night. Like many another, Hildegarde -could have gone through hardship and suffering for the sake of any one -she loved, but the look on her face as she sat there under the light, -revealed the fact that this journey Bella shrank from even thinking of, -that Hildegarde herself had called “appalling,” made yet its own strange -appeal to the girl, apart from love of her father, independent of the joy -of service. - -“You think if I did it, it would be because I’m brave and a good -daughter, and things like that. No, it’s none of those things. It’s -because, while other people have been going to New York and to Mexico, to -London and to Paris, and—and—the farthest places, while they traveled -north, south, east, west, I’ve sat here in this little house in Valdivia, -and sewed and planted a garden and heard everybody else saying good-by, -and listened to that woman over the way playing ‘Partant pour la Syrie,’ -and have still stayed here, and sewed, and gardened, and only _heard_ -about the world. I’ve done it long enough! I’m going to the North, too!” -Hildegarde stood up with eyes that looked straight forward into space. A -movement from the other seemed to bring the would-be traveler back. “If -anybody will help me,” she said, turning her eyes on Bella’s face. - -The younger girl was on her feet. In the silence the two moved toward -each other. Bella lifted her arms and threw them about Hildegarde’s neck. -“I’ve told you I’ll help you.” - -“I love you very much already, but if you’d do that for me—” The shining -eyes pieced out the broken phrase. - -Bella turned her graceful little head toward the dining-room door. -Cheviot had raised his voice. But they couldn’t hear the words. - -“There’s only one thing”—Bella spoke in a whisper—“just think a moment; -all those hundreds of miles with a dog team over the ice, in an arctic -winter. If anybody else had done such a thing we should never have heard -the last of it. The world wouldn’t be long in having another book on -heroism in high latitudes. But we all know _that_ man”—she moved her head -in the direction of the voice—“we’ll never hear of it again. He’s done -that gigantic journey just for you,”—Hildegarde disengaged herself—“and -to be with you again. And here you are planning to go away. It isn’t my -business, but I think you’ll be making a terrible mistake, Hildegarde, if -you—” - -Her friend turned from her with unusual abruptness. - -“He’s nicer than ever,” Bella persisted. “He’s charming. I always said -so.” - -“And I always said”—Hildegarde stopped and looked at Bella with an odd -intentness. “You’re a nicer girl than you used to be.” - -“Thank you,” said the other, smiling faintly, but she saw that she had -failed. - -“And I don’t mean because you’re willing to help me in this.” - -“What do you mean?” - -“There’d be only one thing that could prevent my letting you lend me the -money.” - -“Well, you certainly needn’t worry about paying it back.” - -“It would take two or three years, but that could be managed now that -Trenn and Harry want to give me an allowance. It isn’t that.” - -Bella waited wondering. - -“It is that I couldn’t take a great, great help from you, and go so far -away, carrying anything in my heart that—that I’d kept hid—anything that -concerned you.” - -A quick fear leapt into Bella’s face. - -“For one mightn’t come back, you know,” the other added. - -“There’s only one thing we’ve never straightened out,” said Bella, “and -that’s _my_ tangle.” - -“I have my share in the thing, I mean. But as I said, you couldn’t do -now—what you did—when you were little.” - -“Oh!” Bella drew a sharp breath of relief. “When I was little I know I -was a beast.” - -“You told Louis Cheviot about the altar, and the patron saint; about—” - -“Yes,” said Bella hastily. “It was pretty mean of me, but I was only -twelve.” - -“It wasn’t only when you were twelve.” Gratitude, common prudence, should -have bridled Hildegarde’s tongue, but there was something of the judgment -day about this hour. Hearts must needs be opened and secrets known. “It -was after,” she went on, driven by this new necessity to leave nothing -hidden if she was to take Bella’s help, “it was six years after—when you -were eighteen. You had gone away knowing quite well how—how I was feeling -about—You knew how I was feeling. Yet you could write pretty heartlessly, -considering all things. That gay letter about your engagement. You could -write with that insincere air of expecting me to be as happy as you were.” - -“You surely see it would have been unpardonable of me to have sympathized -with you. I _had_ to assume you didn’t care. You would have done the -same.” - -“No, I wouldn’t.” - -Bella looked at her. “That’s true,” she said, quite low. “You would have -shown that you were sorry for me, even in the middle of being happy -yourself. You could have done it and not hurt. But I couldn’t. I didn’t -know how. The nearest I could come to it was just to pretend I thought -you’d got over it—that you didn’t care any longer.” - -They looked at each other a moment without speaking. Bella with quivering -face glided forward. - -“Dearest, dearest”—she took Hildegarde’s hand, she caught it to her -breast. “You aren’t going to let him—the Other—spoil _two_ lives!” - -“At least I’m ready to risk what’s sure to happen.” - -“What’s sure to happen?” - -“His coming while I’m away.” Hildegarde flung out the words with a -passion Bella had never seen in her before. “Yes, that’s what will -happen. I shall have waited for him at home here all my life _till_ this -summer. And this summer, while I’m gone, he’ll come to Valdivia. You’ll -see! He’ll come.” - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - - -No prevision of Hildegarde’s as to Cheviot’s disapproval of her plan -approached the degree to which he fought against her going to the North. - -Mrs. Mar, secretly dismayed at her husband’s willingness to stay away -indefinitely, was not ill-content for once to see the “stolid Hildegarde” -stirred to action. It satisfied a need in the mother, that the daughter -had never ministered to before. Hildegarde was the sort of girl who could -take excellent care of herself, and her health was superb. She had no -important concerns such as the boys had to chain them at home. She was -not the mother of a family, nor even president of the Shakspere Society. -The welfare of the Hindus would be wholly unaffected by her departure. -The journey was quite unlike that terrible one involved in going to the -Klondike. It could be made in a comfortable ship; the whole of it by sea. -Her mother would go with her to the steamer, and Hildegarde would stay on -board till her father met her at the Alaskan port. - -But they had all reckoned without Cheviot. - -He refused to take the idea seriously at first, and when he did—oh, he -was serious enough then! - -“The maddest scheme that ever entered a sane head!” Hildegarde had no -conception of what such a journey was like. The ships were the most -uncomfortable in the world. Freight boats, with no accommodation for -women. The food appalling. The company—oh, it didn’t even bear talking -about! - -But Cheviot did talk of it, to Bella, when he discovered her complicity, -and so effectually he talked that she withdrew her support. - -Hildegarde was speechless with indignation. What spell had he cast that -Bella could “go back” on her word. Truly a thing to depend upon—Bella’s -friendship. - -“Oh, please try to understand. I was always frightened at the idea, even -before Louis told me—” - -“Why should you be frightened,” said Hildegarde sternly. “It isn’t as if -I were a rescue party and my little journey were to the other side of -the world. I shouldn’t sail from Norway, and I shouldn’t catch up with -anybody in Franz Josef Land.” - -“Hildegarde! You’ve never spoken to me like that before in your life.” - -“No, I’ve never admitted before that you’d failed me.” - -Bella, with flushed face, got up to leave the room. “You think I’m -backing out only because of what Louis says. But I meant to tell you it -would have been terrible to me to be responsible for your going, after -what you said that night Louis came home.” - -“What did I say?” - -“That this summer, while you’re gone—” - -“Well?” - -“There will be news.” - -“You mean from—” - -“Yes,” Bella steeled herself. “As soon as I’d got you out of the way—” - -Hildegarde winced; rather dreadful that she should have said that to -Bella—too like what the average male critic would expect. “Did I say -_you_, Bella? I only meant fate.” - -“You were sure he would come this summer. Stay and see.” - -“It’s only if I’m not here that John Galbraith will come.” - -Hildegarde had a final interview with the arch culprit, Cheviot. - -“I had no idea you could be like this,” she said, toward the close. - -“Then it’s as well you should know.” - -It ended in a breach. He came no more to the house. Hildegarde passed him -in the street with lowered eyes. - -And Bella had gone home. - - * * * * * - -The spring went creeping by. - -Now June was gone. Even July. Still no news. - -“You see,” said Hildegarde dully, “father isn’t coming back.” - -August was waning—not even a letter. And from that other more terrible -North, no syllable of the tidings, that to reach those two waiting in -California, must come round by the old world, and all across the new. - -“He is dead,” Hildegarde said to herself, and it was not of Nathaniel Mar -that she was thinking. - -The boys had generously sent their father both money and advice. He was -recommended to use the sight draft on the Alaska Commercial Company, for -the purpose of buying his home passage by the very next ship. - -At last, when the season was drawing to a close—news! - -Not that expected—but something no man had looked for. - -Gold had been discovered in the sands of the Nome beach. - -Men who had been stranded there—arriving too late for a claim on the -creeks—a broken and ragged horde, were now persons of substance and of -cheerful occupation, that of “rocking out” fifty to a hundred dollars a -day upon the beach at Nome. The gold was not here alone, but under the -moss and the coarse grass of the tundra. It clung to the roots when you -pulled up the sedgy growths. It was everywhere. What was the contracted -little valley of the Klondike compared to this! - -“The greatest of all the new world gold-fields has been found. A region, -vaster than half a dozen Eastern States, sown broadcast with gold-dust -and nuggets. Easy to reach and easy to work.” - -Here was the poor man’s country. If you didn’t want to rock out a fortune -for yourself, you could earn fifteen dollars a day working for others. - - “The beach for miles is lined with miners’ tents. Anvil City - (hereafter to be called Nome) is booming. - - “Building lots that six months ago were worth nothing, to-day - bring thousands of dollars. - - “Where a year ago was only a bare, wind-swept beach on Bering - Sea—one of the most desolate places to be found on earth and - beside which the Yukon country has a fine climate—there is - to-day a city of several thousand people, surrounded by the - richest placer-diggings the world has seen.” - -The gold-laden miners returning to Seattle by the last boats of the -autumn, told the reporters with a single voice, “The world has known -nothing like Cape Nome.” - -Tongues went trumpeting the mighty news, pens flew to set it down, and -telegraph operators flicked the tidings from one end of the earth to the -other. - -The word “Nome,” that had meant nothing for so long to any man but Mar—it -became a syllable of strangest portent; stirring imaginations that had -slept before, heralding hope to despairing thousands, setting in motion a -vast machinery of ships and of strange devices, and of complicated human -lives. - -New lines of steamships bought up every craft that could keep afloat; -companies were formed to exploit the last new gold-saving device; men who -had fallen out of the ranks, returned to the struggle saying, “After all, -there’s Nome!” - -“And this is the moment Mr. Mar will naturally choose for turning his -back on the North.” It was so that his wife successfully masked her -secret anxiety for his return. It was as if she resented so sorely her -growing uneasiness about him—fought so valiantly against the slow-dawning -consciousness of the share she had in his exile, that she must more than -ever veil secret self-criticism by openly berating him. Above all she -must disguise the impatience with which she awaited his return “this -autumn, at the latest.” “Now,” she would say, “now that even he couldn’t -fail to make a good thing by staying, he—oh, yes, to be sure, _he’ll_ -come hustling home!” If only she had been the man! - -One of the last boats brought a letter. There _was_ gold in the beach -sand, Mar wrote, but every inch was being worked over and over, and its -richness had been exaggerated. The place was overrun with the penniless -and the desperate. The United States military post established there was -powerless to maintain law and order. Drunkenness, violence, crime, were -the order of the day. The beach was a strange and moving spectacle. - -“Spectacle! He goes and looks on!” was Mrs. Mar’s way of disguising her -dismay. He returned the boys’ money, “since it was sent for a purpose so -explicit.” He was “staying in.” - -Other letters, brought by the same steamer, told what Mr. Mar had omitted -to mention: that typhoid fever was at work as well as those gold-diggers -on the famous beach. - -Men were dying like flies. - - * * * * * - -The third winter came down, and the impregnable ice walls closed round -“the greatest gold-camp on the globe.” - -“Typhoid! Even if he escapes the fever, he will stay up there till he -dies, unless—” Hildegarde was glad she had not yet bought anything for -the coming season. In spite of her brothers’ allowance she would become a -miser—hoarding every coin that came her way. She would make her old gowns -do, even without Bella’s transforming fingers. She thought twice even -about spending car fare. To eke out her resources she would sell Bella’s -beautiful presents, and the first boat that went north in the spring -should carry Hildegarde to her father—or to his grave. - -It was gray business waiting for this first summer of the century. What -news might one expect from a man lost four years ago between Norway and -Franz Josef Land? What from that other in the nearer-by North, where men -dug gold and fought typhoid? What fatality was it that made of all hope -and all desire a magnetic needle? Hildegarde remembered how Bella, to -the question, “Why do you suppose there’s this mania among us for the -North?” had answered, “I don’t know, unless it is that we have the South -at home. Perhaps Hudson Bay people and Finlanders dream of the tropics. -I don’t know. But I’ve heard nothing so afflicts a Canadian as hearing -his country called ‘Our Lady of the Snows.’ I think there never was such -a beautiful name. But it may be because I live with orange blossoms all -about me.” - -Certainly it was harder waiting without Bella. Together each year they -had hoped for news. Now apart, they feared it. - -Oddly enough, what helped Hildegarde through the heavy time was the -establishment of an understanding, half incredulous, wholly unavowed, -between her and her mother. It appeared she had Mrs. Mar on her side—else -why did that lady save up every newspaper reference to the new gold-camp -to read aloud as Hildegarde sat at her sewing. The most transcendent -classic ever penned would be put aside for— - - “‘Extracts from the note-book of Mr. McPherson, the third man - to strike pay on the beach. - - ‘(They are absolutely correct, as I saw his diary and the mint - returns for the gold, which were at the rate $19 an ounce, - yielding him nearly $10,000.) - - ‘Aug. 11th.—Macomber and Levy: about a mile and a half from - Anvil City. Here I got a nugget weighing $4. The nugget was - found in the sand, about 250 feet from low tide. Jim Dunsmuir - and William Bates told me that they had averaged $40 per day - rocking. They were about eleven miles south of Anvil. Price, - on No. 8 Anvil, Sunday, 20th of August, sluiced out $6,400 - in seven hours, with six men. Lindblom took out $18,000 in - eighteen hours, with six men, August 14th. - - ‘Aug. 29th.—Leidley made a wooden caisson and sunk it about 250 - ft. beyond low tide, and got from fifteen to fifty cents per - shovel. I did not see this experiment, but I believe firmly - that the richest part of the beach is beyond low tide. - - ‘There will be more money come out from Nome than came from the - Klondike.’” - -“Here’s a column headed— - - “‘A REGION RICHER THAN PIPE-DREAMS - - “‘Nome defies all theories and every precedent. Its greatest - mines have been found, and its greatest fortunes have been made - by men who knew nothing of mining. Gold has been discovered by - lawyers and doctors, dry-goods’ clerks, plow-boys, barbers, - fiddlers and politicians, in a thousand places where old - miners would have sworn, and did swear, it was impossible. - Millions of dollars in glittering dust and nuggets have been - thawed out of frozen rubble and moss, and washed from ocean - beaches and other unheard-of depositories by young divinity - students, country printers, piano professors and didapper - dandies, whom nobody ever suspected of knowing grindstones from - thousand-dollar quartz, or iron pyrites from free gold.’” - -Mrs. Mar read on, intoxicating herself. “Here’s a woman who was up there -in the summer when the beach gold was found. She’s brought home $15,000, -and a claim she refused to take $38,000 for.” - -But if there was anything about typhoid in the paper Hildegarde had -to find it out for herself. Little by little she knew that however -deterred her mother had been by Cheviot’s onslaught the spring before, -she was either consciously or unconsciously coming to look favorably on -Hildegarde’s old plan. - -What the inexperience of the girl could not guess was that Mr. Mar’s -absence had taught his wife several things. And that lady had no -inclination to gather another year’s harvest of the bitter fruit. If -Hildegarde could get him to come home, Hildegarde ought to be supported -in spite of Cheviot and the boys. But real confidence between them was -so little easy, that the girl said nothing to her mother of her plan to -raise money by selling the beautiful necklace and the other things that -Bella had from time to time brought home to her from abroad. Hildegarde -would go to a man she could trust—“the family jeweler,” as they called -the individual whose high office had been to restore the pins to brooches -that Mrs. Mar’s energetic fingers had wrenched off, and to mend Mr. Mar’s -grandfather’s watch-chain when it broke, as it used, two or three times -every year. - -To the family jeweler, then, Hildegarde took her box of treasures. “What -are they worth?” - -The little man screwed a glass in his eye, and examined rare stones and -renaissance enamel with an omniscient air. - -“I know you’ll do your best for me,” Hildegarde said anxiously. - -“Of course—certainly, Miss Mar. Not very new, are they?” - -“New! Oh, no—they’re so old they’re very valuable.” - -“Yes. H’m. Yes.” - -“I need all you can possibly get me for them, Mr. Simonson.” - -“I’ll examine them thoroughly, Miss Mar, and let you know.” - -As she went out, there was Bella coming down the street. Acting on an -impulse, Hildegarde turned off the main thoroughfare, pretending not to -see. But it made her heart sore to think, “Bella in Valdivia, and not -with us! I not even to know!” - -Miss Wayne went into the familiar Simonson’s. “Was that Miss Mar who was -here a moment ago?” - -“Yes.” - -“Oh, is it broken? That’s the necklace I got for her in Rome.” - -“No, not broken. I suppose you don’t remember what you gave for it?” - -Miss Bella put on her most beguiling air, and took the old man into her -confidence. She would buy the things herself and pay him a commission, -and he was not to say but what a San Francisco dealer had made the -two-hundred-dollar offer. - -[Illustration: “‘I know you’ll do your best for me,’ Hildegarde said, -anxiously”] - -When she got back to her hotel she telephoned to Cheviot. - -The next day that young gentleman had an interview with Hildegarde’s -brothers down at the ranch. They were even boisterously of Cheviot’s -opinion. They would simply refuse their consent to their sister’s -undertaking such a journey. But to Cheviot’s anxious sense they spoke too -airily. Too certain they could prevent the abomination. - -“Don’t antagonize her, you know,” warned Cheviot. “Make her see the -reasonableness of our—of your objection.” And the boys agreed. - -Even before Cheviot had made money in the Klondike, and come home to be -made a partner in the bank; the Mar boys had looked upon him, not only as -a probable, but as a highly desirable brother-in-law. - -They soothed his natural indignation at Hildegarde’s foolishness, and -they told him they’d meet him at the bank after giving her a talking to. - -They were late for the appointment, and the moment they appeared in the -room behind the public offices, Cheviot saw they had not prospered. - -“Hildegarde’s the most pig-headed creature in the universe!”—and a few -more illuminating details. - -“But why didn’t you tell her—” - -“Told her everything. Water on a duck’s back.” - -“But what did she say?” - -“‘Women have done it before.’” - -“It’s not true!” cried Cheviot, jumping up. “The world has never seen -anything comparable to what this year’s rush to Nome will be. The mob -that will be going—” - -“She quotes the Klondike, ‘That was worse,’ she says, ‘yet there were -women among the men who got there, lived there, and came home.’ Damn it! -it’s true, you know!” - -“It isn’t true. The Klondike was a totally different proposition. The -people who got to the Klondike the year of the rush were all picked -men—a few women, yes, I admit, a few women—God help them. But the mob—a -rascally crew enough, lots of them—but they were men of some means, men -of brawn and muscle and mighty purpose or, simply, they didn’t survive. -If they weren’t like that, they turned back as thousands did, from -Juneau, from Skagway, from Dyea—or they fell out a little further on. -Didn’t I see them on the Dalton trail and the Chilcoot Pass, glad to -lie down and die? I tell you, only the hardiest attempted it, and only -the toughest survived. _That’s_ the sort of pioneer that peopled the -Klondike. Nome’s another story. Nome’s accessible by sea. Any wastrel -who can raise the paltry price of his passage can reach the American -gold-fields. Any family disgrace can be got rid of cheap by shipping him -to Nome. Any creature who’s failed at everything else under the sun has -this last chance left. Be sure he’ll go to Nome—_with Hildegarde_! Good -God! Drunkards, sharpers, men—and women, too (oh, yes, that sort!), and -people hovering on the border line of crime or well beyond it—_they’ll_ -fill the north-bound ships. Hildegarde alone with such a crew!” Cheviot -jumped to his feet. “I’d infinitely rather a sister of mine were -struggling with a pack on her back over the Chilcoot Pass along with the -Klondike men of ’97, than see her shut up on board a ship with the horde -that will go to Nome.” - -He walked up and down the little inner office, his eyes bright with -anger and with fear. And he added terrors not to be put before the girl -herself, but for the mother, if Hildegarde should be obdurate. “Make her -understand that Nome this summer will be the dump-heap of the world.” - -“I did,” said Trenn, distractedly. “I gave her my opinion of what they -were like—those other women she quoted who had gone. It wasn’t even news -to her!” - -“What! She accepted that?” - -Trenn looked profoundly humiliated. Any nice girl would have pretended -she couldn’t credit such a state of things, even if she’d heard them -hinted. But Hildegarde had said gravely, “Yes, I know what you mean, -miserable women have done it for horrible ends. It’s that that makes me -ashamed to hesitate. Can’t a girl venture as much for a good end as those -others for—” - -“Oh, Hildegarde’s mad!” said Trenn, with a flush on his handsome face. - -“Nevertheless, she’ll go,” said Harry. - -“But Mrs. Mar! What’s she about?” - -Cheviot went to see. - - * * * * * - -“You surely don’t mean to let her go?” - -“My good man, I’d like nothing better than to go myself.” - -“Then why don’t you?” demanded Cheviot rudely. - -Another woman might have pointed out that she was in her sixty-second -year. No one would have expected such an excuse from Mrs. Mar. There -was something in her face Cheviot had never seen there before, as with -obvious unwillingness she brought out the answer, “Hildegarde can do -this errand best. At least, as far as concerns her father. Of course”—she -recovered some of her native elasticity—“if _I_ went I’d get a claim, -too. You’d see! I’d come home with a fortune. I doubt if Hildegarde does, -though she has more in her than I’ve sometimes thought. Hildegarde won’t -come to any harm.” - -Cheviot, too outraged for the moment to speak, got up and looked blindly -for his hat. When he found that, he had also found his tongue. “The only -comfort I can see in the miserable affair is that she’ll find two hundred -dollars isn’t nearly enough. There isn’t a place on the globe where -living costs as much as it does at Nome.” - -“She’s been saving up her allowance for a year.” - -Cheviot threw down his hat. “I tell you it would be mad for an -able-bodied man to go with less than a thousand dollars margin.” - -“Hildegarde can’t raise anything like that. But she’ll have enough to get -her there, and something over.” - -Cheviot looked at her. “You mean she’s ready to go without even enough -for her return expenses?” - -“She says she can leave the question of returning.” - -“She knows we—her brothers will send out funds to get her back!” groaned -Cheviot, beginning to walk up and down. “And she, _Hildegarde_, is -willing to embarrass her father by being a charge on him?” - -“She won’t stay long. And Nome lots are selling for thousands. Her father -has at least the land his tent stands on.” - -Cheviot struck his hands together in that startling if infrequent way -of his. It made even Mrs. Mar rather nervous. “Go and argue with her -yourself,” said the lady, with raised voice and a red spot glowing on -either cheek. “I shouldn’t be able to move her. I never have been able to -move Hildegarde. That’s the worst of these quiet people.” - -“You say that, and yet you aren’t really opposing her.” - -“Me? No,” said Mrs. Mar, fixing him with unflinching eyes. “I’m making up -the deficit.” - -Cheviot had never before longed to murder a fellow creature. “You -realize, of course,” he said quietly, “she isn’t even sure of finding her -father alive.” Angry as he was, when he saw the look that thrust brought -to Mrs. Mar’s face, he was sorry he had presented it so mercilessly. -“What she’ll probably find,” he hurried on to say, “is that Mr. Mar has -gone to the Casa da Paga. That was his plan. Or the Fox River—or God -knows where.” - -“If she goes as far as Nome, she’ll be able to go still further,” said -Hildegarde’s mother, though her voice wasn’t as steady as her words -implied. - -“I understand you, then, at last!” Cheviot stopped before her with -anger-lit eyes. “You are ready to see a young girl—” - -“Not every girl.” - -“A girl like Hildegarde.” - -“Precisely, one like Hildegarde. She can do it.” - -“Poor Hildegarde!” burst from his lips, and the implication, “to have -a mother like you,” would have pierced many a maternal breast. But it -glanced off Mrs. Mar’s armor and fell pointless. - -“Hildegarde Mar”—with an air of defending her daughter from Cheviot’s low -opinion of her—“is a person of considerable dignity of character.” - -“Do you think it necessary to tell me that?” - -“Singularly enough, yes. And to add that I who know her best, have never -yet seen her show any sign of not being able to take proper care of -herself.” - -“Under ordinary conditions. But, as I told the boys—” - -“A woman who can’t take care of herself under conditions out of the -ordinary, can’t take care of herself at all.” - -Again Cheviot opened his lips, but Mrs. Mar, grasping the arms of her -rocking-chair, indoctrinated the purblind man. “The truth is, that a -girl in good health, who hasn’t been kept in cotton, and who hasn’t been -seared by men’s going on as you’re doing, is far abler to cope with life -than—than—” She pulled herself up an instant, seeming to feel that after -all man is hardly worthy to know the whole truth upon these high themes. -But she thought extremely well of Cheviot, or she would never have -permitted him to speak to her as he had done. And he loved Hildegarde. -“The truth is,” she went on, “Hildegarde is quite right about this. -There’s no reason why she _shouldn’t_ go half as strong as the reason why -she should.” - -“The reason! You think it’s on account of Mr. Mar. It isn’t. Bella will -tell you Hildegarde _wants_ to go on this degrading journey. She said -everybody had traveled about and seen the world but her. She had never -been farther than Seattle to see Madeleine Somebody.” - -“That’s true.” - -“You see! Hildegarde is full of curiosity about—things.” - -“Why not?” - -“Oh, why indeed! But the fact opened my eyes to how much—how little Mr. -Mar’s welfare has to do with her crazy scheme.” - -“It hasn’t opened your eyes very wide, Louis.” Mrs. Mar shook her head -with the air of one looking back over a long road painfully traversed. -“Nobody shrinks more from a fuss and a falling-out than Hildegarde. This -winter, without Bella, and without you, and without—It hasn’t been easy -for Hildegarde. She would have given in about Nome long ago, but for—” -Mrs. Mar suddenly leaned forward again, and speaking hurriedly, “Somehow -or other Hildegarde _knows_. I believe she’s known all along.” - -“Knows what?” - -“What her father meant to do.” - -“About not coming home?” - -“Yes.” - -“She knows that because I told her.” - -“You knew it!” - -“Yes.” - -“And yet”—she gripped the arms of the rocking-chair, and her eyes -shone—“you come here to get me to prevent the only step being taken—” - -“No! Only to protest against Hildegarde’s taking it. Good heavens!”—he -was losing his self-control—“Hildegarde is—” - -“Well and strong, and no such fool as you seem to think.” - -He set his square jaw. “A little young for such a—” - -“Twenty-six.” - -“You forget or don’t know she’s also—attractive.” - -“Attractive!” Mrs. Mar repeated with a weight of contemptuous meaning. -“Since what you imply is so little a credit to your sex, I may be allowed -to say she has shot at a mark with her brothers, and if it’s necessary, -she can carry a revolver.” - -“Good God! And you’re her mother!” - -Mrs. Mar sprang to her feet. “Yes, I’m her mother, and that I didn’t -myself suggest her going to get her father to come home, is only that I’m -under the spell of the old foolishness about women. The fact is, that -we’re much better able to look out for ourselves than men are—yes, stare -as much as you like! It’s so. You’re all _babies_, I tell you, and if the -women didn’t look after you, you’d be _dead_ babies!” - -Cheviot snatched up his hat a second time and walked to the door. Mrs. -Mar, seeing him going off like that with never another word, and with -that fixed wretchedness on his face, quickly crossed the room and took -hold of his arm, as his hand was on the door knob. “Hildegarde is only -going to do in a more open way what women are always doing,” she said. - -Cheviot turned angrily, but so astonished was he to see tears on her face -that he stood speechless. - -“Some woman said it in a magazine the other day,” she went on, “but every -woman who’s good for anything is doing it.” - -“Going to Nome!” - -“Going out to the battlefield in the evening to look after the wounded.” - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - - -Hildegarde wrote to Madeleine Smulsky, now Mrs. Jacob L. Dorn. -Madeleine’s husband, being a Pacific Coast importer in a large way, might -be able to advise in which of the fleet of steamers advertised to sail -from San Francisco, and certain to be the first boat of the year to reach -Nome—in which should a traveler put trust. - -The answer brought Mr. Dorn’s somewhat scornful profession that he -knew nothing whatever about the hastily formed San Francisco lines, -and little good about the mushroom companies of his own city, but if -Hildegarde thought of sailing from Seattle he would look into the -matter for her. Seattle was the better port, being the natural gateway -to the North (Hildegarde could hear Mr. Dorn saying that), in witness -whereof the bustling, booming city swarmed already with more prospective -passengers than there were ships to float them—all wisely laying in their -provisions, buying machinery and outfit in that best of all places—San -Francisco? oh, dear, no! in Seattle, the City of the Future! Hildegarde -must at all events come and visit the Dorns. Under the guidance of -Madeleine’s husband, she would probably find out that, at best, the -journey to Nome was impracticable for a lady. - -The middle of April found Miss Mar a guest of the Dorns. Jacob L. seemed -presently to abandon all idea of dissuading his wife’s friend from -carrying her wild scheme into execution, but he pointed out the little -need there was to rush blindly into avoidable difficulties. Better ships -were in process of being chartered for the northern service, in view of -the undreamed-of demand. The season, moreover, was late this year. Those -earlier, inferior vessels (schooners and what not) that were to get off -before the middle of May would only spend the time “knocking about the -North Pacific, among the icebergs.” - -So Hildegarde waited while Mr. Dorn looked thoroughly into the question. -Even looking into it seemed perilous. It told on the gentleman’s health, -as one might suppose. When Hildegarde had been only a few days under his -roof, her host took to his bed with congestion of the lungs. - -Madeleine absorbed in nursing the husband had little time for the friend. -Hildegarde was suddenly thrown on her own resources. But she felt it -would be impolitic to write that fact to Valdivia. From one shipping -office to another, from Southwick’s Great Outfitting Emporium to the -Baumgarten Brothers’ Wholesale Provision House, she went in quest of -information; threading her way through the bustling streets, where among -the featureless thousands, day by day she often saw the figure of the -frontiersman in broad-brimmed hat and brown boots, laced to the knee; -or the weather-beaten miner, in “waders” and brown duck or mackinaw. -“_They’re_ coming to Nome!” she would say to herself, looking on them -already as fellow-travelers. One feeling much with her is perhaps really -rather new in woman’s experience, among the many things called “new” -that are yet so old. It seems as if never before her generation could -it have been a matter of course to a girl like Hildegarde Mar, that she -should feel instinctively it would be as absurd to treat these bearded -frontiersmen with condescension, as to be terrified of them. Not that -she analyzed the situation. It was too simple for that. Her feeling was -merely that these uncouth fellow-creatures were possible friends of -hers. As she met and passed them, or in imagination “placed” them in her -coming experience, her mental attitude was singularly untarnished by the -age-old anxiety of the unprotected female casting about for a champion. -Something less self-centered than that, something kindlier, less the -child of fear. Cheviot might have qualms, but man was not for Hildegarde -her natural enemy. A woman alone was not obliged to peep furtively about -for shelter, or for some coign of vantage, like one pursued in a hostile -land. Not his immemorial prey, she; but like him the possible prey of -circumstance, with ignorance for her arch-enemy as well as his. Those -booted and sombreroed men—some of them at least—had already met and -overcome the common enemy. They would be masters of the situation up -there. Herself the mere ignorant human being, eager to learn, innocent -of class-illusion, intensely alive to “differences,” yet knowing which -of them were only skin-deep, or rather education-deep; young, yes; -attractive, too; a girl going into a strange new world who yet goes -fearlessly, hopefully, carrying faith in human nature along for her -shield and her buckler. If this is an apparition new upon the earth, then -perhaps the modern world has something to be proud of beyond the things -it has celebrated more. - -Not that she encountered no difficult moments. She was stared at, and -she could see that she was speculated about. Well, that was no killing -matter. Perhaps it was because she was so tall. When in the thronged and -noisy offices she was crowded and pushed by an excited horde—though shown -no special disrespect as a woman—she was certainly not comfortable, and -was even a little forlorn. When a brow-beating passenger-agent vented his -ill-temper upon her refusal to buy a ticket forthwith without waiting -“to inquire further,” she felt the man’s rudeness keenly, absurdly. But -it was not till some “masher” of a clerk spoke to her with a vulgar -familiarity that discomfort went down before humiliation in the thought, -“What would Louis say if he knew?” However, the clerk soon saw his error, -and the tall, quiet girl was taken at a different valuation. Men, even -the most ignorant men, learn these lessons more quickly than is supposed. -But, oh, it wasn’t easy to do the work of preparation alone! comparing, -eliminating, deciding all by oneself. For at every step, upon every -question, one encountered conflicting testimony. Every store-window that -one passed displayed things “Indispensable for Nome.” Every ship that -sailed was the best, and bound to be first at the goal. Now and then to -some one of the besieging hundreds at the offices, Hildegarde would put -a question. The women looked askance. The men answered civilly enough. -But if they knew little more than Hildegarde, they entertained darker -fears. And still, and always, testimony was in conflict. The firm that -impressed her most favorably, whose office she had just left “to think -it over”—why they, it seemed, were a set of thieves. Passage on one of -their ships meant ten to twenty days’ starvation on short rations of sour -bread and salt horse. Heavens, what an escape! But that other firm she -was on her way to interrogate—they were traffickers in human life! Didn’t -she know they had been buying disabled craft of every description, even -hauling up abandoned wrecks out of the sea, sweeping the entire Pacific -for derelict and rotten craft that they might paint and rename, and make -a fortune out of crowding such crazy vessels full of ignorant human -cattle for Cape Nome? - -But these people, proprietors of the New Line, in whose offices they -stood—their ships if starting later were at least seaworthy. Seaworthy? -’Sh! Their ships didn’t so much as exist. These men only waited, -postponing sailing dates on one pretext or another, till they had got -your money and filled, and over-filled, the lists of their phantom ships. -When they’d done that, you’d see! They’d pocket their thousands and -abscond into Canada. - -While Hildegarde waited hesitating, even on the smallest and least -faith-inspiring boats the passenger lists rapidly filled. And still every -train that thundered into the Seattle station disgorged its hundreds -clamoring to be taken to Nome. Already, since Hildegarde’s arrival, a -number of schooners and several steamers, with flags flying and bands -playing, had gone forth to meet the early ice floes. Would these daring -ones get any further, after all, than the Aleutian Islands before -June? “You’ll see they’ll have to put in at Dutch Harbor for a month!” -Hildegarde saw men; standing in dense crowds on the wharves, shake their -heads, as they watched each ship go forth on the great adventure. - -“All my life,” thought the girl, “I shall remember the port of Seattle, -when the first boats went to Nome.” - -There were those who might seem to have more cause than Hildegarde Mar -to remember that unprecedented spectacle. For to the wonderful “Water -Front” sooner or later every creature in Seattle found his way—commonly -to suffer there some strange, malignant change. Even the quiet ones began -to emit strange sounds, and to tear about as if afflicted with rabies; -the most self-controlled went mad among the rest. They fought their way -through the barriers, men and women alike; they screamed about their -freight upon the docks; hurrahing and gesticulating, they saw maniac -friends off, on ships whose decks were black with people, whose rigging, -even, swarmed with clotted humanity, like bees clinging in bunches to the -boughs of a tree. - -In the “orderly” streets of a great city, a girl like Hildegarde would -have been remarked, followed, probably accosted. She had had experience -of that even in Valdivia, where nearly every creature knew who she was. -In the vast and eager crowd on the Seattle water front she passed with -little notice and wholly unmolested. Every one had business of his own. -If the man who pushed against you till he nearly knocked you down was -not an excited passenger rushing for the next ship, he was a company -agent seeing off a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of machinery; or he -was the gentleman in a smaller way of business, who was beating up trade -in the neighborhood of the Last Chance Bazaar. Here and there on a tiny -temporary platform, nearly swamped by the crowd, or standing insecurely -on a jostled barrow, merchants whose ages ranged from eight to eighty, -offered you something you’d bless them for every hour of your life at -Nome. Here an improved sort of prospecting pan—you had only to carry it -up to lat. 62° to fill it full of gold all day long. There was a Nome -mosquito-mask, fastened like a gallows’-cap on the face of a stiff, pale -figure of wax, lifted high in air, rigid, travestying death—horribly -arresting. There was every kind of waterproof—hat, coat and boot; for, -that summer at Nome meant nothing but rain, was the one point upon which -every one agreed. By way of object lesson, “rockers” for separating Nome -gold from Nome sand are being jogged to and fro upon the wharves; vendors -of patent medicine are crying one another down; a different concentrated -food is proclaimed at every corner, a new gold “process” every ten feet -and bedlam all around you. Copper plates; pickaxes; shovels; and—“Here -y’are! The last thing out! Compound-corkscrew-screw-driver-monkey-wrench, -’n’ can-opener. All y’ grub goes to Nome in cans. Y’ll starve to death -right plumb in the middle o’ plenty, ’nless y’ get this yer noo -compound-corkscrew-screw-driver-monkey—” The rest is drowned by the -_dernier cri_ in “Nome sto-o-o-ves! Burn-oil-burn-wood-burn-coke-burn- -anything-in-hell-and-never-burn-the-dinner! Nome sto-o-o-ves!” Other -hawkers so hoarse you heard nothing but “Nome! Nome!” as if they had -it there—a nostrum you might buy at home. - -Hildegarde’s mind went back to the old reconnaissance map in the -dining-room. She so little she must climb upon a chair to read in her -father’s fine, clear writing, the name opposite a tiny projection in -the coast line. It had been a place only he seemed to know about. Now on -every sign, on every lip, Nome! Nome! Nome! - -Overheard fragments among new-comers at the shipping offices, no more -“Which boat?” but “Can you, even by paying some feller a bonus, get -anything in the shape of a ticket before June?” - -The element of chance was not to be eliminated. It must be faced. On her -way to the office of the Line she had first affected, she saw swinging on -in front of her, hands in overcoat pockets, shouldering his way through -the throng, one of those same high-booted, wide-hatted men of whom she -had said at first, “He’s going, too!” But this man had been marked out -by his air of enjoying the enterprise. Most people, even away from the -maddening water front, bore about with them a harassed, or at best, -preoccupied countenance, the majority sallow and seamed and weary. This -wide-mouthed young giant with the fresh complexion—he was one of whom -you felt not only “he knows,” but “he knows it’s all right.” Now, if he -should be on his way to secure a passage at this same office, Hildegarde -would take it as a lucky omen. But he carried his tall figure swinging -by. His back seemed to say, “No, thank you. I know too much to be taken -in by the _Golden Sands Company_.” Hildegarde went past the Golden Sands -Company herself, without quite intending to. The ruddy-complexioned one -was stopped by a fussy little, middle-aged man, who said, “Wonder if you -can tell me where the Centrifugal Pump Company’s offices are?” - -“What?” says the red-cheeked giant as Hildegarde went by. “You mean -Mitchell, Lewis and Starver?” - -“Y-yes,” said the fussy man. “Are they all right, do you think?” and the -rest was lost. What a pity she couldn’t go up as simply as that, and ask -his Giantship about the boats. But no. He was a rather young giant, and -a little too enterprising-looking. No, better not. He stared at people. -That wasn’t the sort of man she’d ever spoken to. - -She hadn’t analyzed it, but with all her simplicity and all her sense of -freedom, she was acutely sensitive about making any avoidable move that -might be misconstrued. The unfortunate women of the world had spoiled -things. Not only for themselves—for others, too. She crossed the street -and went back toward the “Golden Sands.” Glancing over her shoulder, she -saw the giant part from his interlocutor and disappear in the office -of Hankin & Company. So that was the best line! Slowly she retraced -her steps, turning over in her mind all she’d heard about Hankin & -Company. Perhaps even without this last indication the evidence did point -Hankinward. She went in. Craning over heads, and peering across shoulders -she saw the huge young man talking to the agent. She edged her way nearer. - -“You’ll have plenty o’ time to load your stuff. The _Congress_’ll be at -the docks Toosday.” - -“Sure?” - -“Dead certain.” - -The giant nodded and strode out on seven-league boots. A moment later -Hildegarde had laid $125 down before the alcohol-reeking, red-eyed, -nervous agent, who seemed to feel called on to explain that he’d been up -all night “on the water front, seeing off the _Huron_.” While he made out -the voucher, huskily he congratulated the young lady that an intending -passenger by this best of all ships had had a fit on the water front the -night before, and was probably dying now “over at the Rainier Grand.” His -wife had been in half an hour ago about reselling the ticket. And that -was it. Number twenty-one. He handed Hildegarde the slip of gray-blue -paper which transferred to her the dying man’s right to a first-class -berth on Hankin & Company’s Steamer _Congress_, sailing from Seattle to -Cape Nome on the 19th of May. - -Now for a decision amongst the contending outfitters and provision -dealers. - -She had studied well the prospectuses, the “folders” and the hand-books. -She had made notes and lists. She knew she must provide herself with: - -“_A tent and two pair dark blue Hudson Bay blankets._ - -“_Water boots._ - -“_Several yards stout netting._ - -“_Leather gaiters._ - -“_Cowboy’s hat._ - -“_Canvas bag, with shoulder strap._ - -“_Oil stove, and oil._” - -To this, upon her mother’s initiative, she proposed to add a pistol; on -her own, four pounds of chocolate and a handsome supply of peppermints. - -She had culled from newspapers, books, and advertisements at least -six different lists of the kind and quantity of food one would need. -Already she had ordered several cases of mineral water, but she was -still pondering “evaporated eggs,” “desiccated potatoes,” “malted milk -tablets,” and “bouillon capsules,” as she stood in one of the great -provision houses that very day she had got her ticket. - -The place was crowded. Here, as elsewhere, a few women among the many -men; both sexes equally bent on business. While she waited in the throng, -a clerk who, with difficulty, had been making his way to her, interrupted -a query modestly preferred by a little weather-beaten woman in black. As -if he had not heard the one who spoke, of the one who had said nothing he -asked, “Is anybody looking after you?” - -“As soon as the lady has finished—” began Hildegarde. The rusty one -glanced at her fellow-woman in some surprise, and said again to the -clerk, “I just stepped in to ask you to be sure to have a keg of -witch-hazel ready to go out with our stuff. You ran out of it last year.” - -“Oh, are you Mrs. Blumpitty?” - -“Yes.” - -“Have you given your order?” The clerk’s manner had changed, he had -plenty of time now. - -“Mr. Blumpitty will step in to-morrow about it. He is quite a little -rushed to-day, hunting around for a place to sleep in.” - -“There’s a good many doing that,” said the clerk. “There hasn’t been a -room vacant at a hotel for a week.” - -“I guess that’s right. And we got a party of twenty-eight this time. I -only wanted to jog you about that witch-hazel.” She was moving off. - -Hildegarde stood in the way. “Are you going to Nome?” asked the girl. - -“Yes.” - -“Do you mind telling me what you are going to do with witch-hazel, up -there?” - -“A person wants witch-hazel everywhere.” - -“Why do they?” - -“Best doctor in the world.” - -“What’s it good for?” Typhoid was in the ignorant mind. - -“Good for anything. Burns, cuts, bruises, anything.” - -“Oh!” Down at the foot of the list, after peppermints, went witch-hazel. -Again the little woman showed signs of moving on. But she looked back at -Hildegarde over her shoulder and, as if to imply: this much I leave you, -even if you _are_ too good-looking to inspire confidence. “Witch-hazel -ain’t like those noo things they advertise. It’s been tested.” - -“Oh, has it?” - -She didn’t know much, this young lady. “Guess it _has_,” said the little -woman. “In every country store in my part of the world, you’ll find a -keg of witch-hazel!” and with that she would have been gone but that the -crowd pressed her back. - -“What is your part?” asked Hildegarde. - -The woman looked round at her suspiciously. “Maine.” - -“You come all the way from Maine to go to Nome?” - -She nodded. “Guess everybody here but you is goin’ straight to Nome.” Her -eye fell on Hildegarde’s pencil, suspended above the list held too high -for the little woman to know its exact nature. “Noospaper woman?” she -said, putting the most charitable construction on the presence here among -the hard-featured horde of a person like this. - -Hildegarde had been asked that question before. “No,” she said, and saw -her credit fall in the rusty one’s eyes. “But I’m going to Nome, too,” -the girl hastened to add, wishing to recover ground. But it was plain she -had only further damaged herself. - -“Oh,” said the witch-hazel advocate, moving off with some precipitation -through a momentary opening. - -Hildegarde found the clerk who had seemed to know Mrs. Blumpitty. “Have -you heard what boat she’s going by?” - -“No,” said the clerk, “but she’ll go by the best, I bet.” - -“Why do you say that?” - -“Well, she’s one o’ the few that knows the ropes. She was there last -year.” And he was called away. - -She might know Hildegarde’s father! - -Early the next day the girl reappeared at Baumgarten’s. No, she wasn’t -going to give her order just yet. She was waiting to see Mrs. Blumpitty. -So the Baumgarten Brother turned from her to advise a customer against -taking saccharine instead of sugar. “You’ll come to hate the taste -even in tea and coffee, and, as for eating it sprinkled on anything, -you’ll find you simply can’t.” A group of people were hotly discussing -vegetables, and whether to take them desiccated or “jest as they are.” -The new ones “not in yet,” the Baumgarten Brother admitted; “and the old -ones sure to sprout,” said some one else. A Klondiker gave his views: -“Take ’em dried. Lot less freight on the boat. Lot easier packed about -afterwards.” A babel of voices rose: “Tasteless,” “No good left in ’em,” -“No feeding power.” Another voice: “Who cares about how easy it is to -take somethin’ that’s no good?” “People go on about evaporated food -jest as if it was the Klondike and the Chilcoot Pass all over ag’in. -’Tain’t. Nome’s a different proposition.” The Baumgarten Brother was -instructed to put down half the order in dried and half in fresh. Then -a detachment went away to see opened and to taste a new brand of canned -cooked sausages. People stood about with pickles and shavings of “chipped -beef” and cheese samples in their hands, nibbling and looking thoughtful. -Others ate butter off the end of a penknife, and said, “It ain’t no -better ’n margarine, an’ costs more.” When for two hours and ten minutes -Hildegarde had stood there against the low columnar wall of piled tomato -cans (a kind of basaltic formation, showing singularly regular “fracture” -and wide range of color-stain), the clerk of yesterday gave her a stool -to perch on in the corner. Many of the crowding faces were grown already -familiar. There was the fresh-complexioned giant. He came in with a -pleasant towering briskness, and stood talking to one of the Baumgartens. -As Hildegarde watched him, she told herself she was glad that man was -going on “her” ship. Then reflecting, “Why, I’m staring at _him_ now!” -she turned away her eyes, and there suddenly was Mrs. Blumpitty, with -a thick-set, dun-colored husband—his face a grayish-yellow, his hair a -yellow-gray, his eyes yellow, with pale gray irises. - -Hildegarde descended from the high stool and made her way to the couple. -“Is it true you were at Nome last summer?” - -“Yes.” Mrs. Blumpitty drew closer to the dun-colored husband, as if more -than ever mistrustful of the tall young lady. - -But Hildegarde took no notice of that. “I wonder,” she said, “if you met -a Mr. Mar up there?” - -The woman looked at her husband, and he looked straight along his nose. -It was a long nose, and it seemed to take him a great while to get to the -end of it. - -Hildegarde couldn’t wait. “Yes, Mr. Mar,” she said eagerly, “Mr. -Nathaniel Mar.” - -“I don’t think—” began the woman. - -“Oh, please try to remember. He is very thin and tall, with bushy hair. -I feel sure you’d remember him if you thought a moment. He is the kind -people remember.” - -Something in the trembling earnestness of a person who looked as -self-possessed as Hildegarde had its effect. - -“You can know people up there pretty well and never hear their names. -Nome is like that. I may have seen him.” - -Oh, how close it brought him to hear the dun-colored husband saying, “I -may have seen him!” - -“A young man?” asked the wife. - -“No,” said Hildegarde, and she was shaking with excitement. “He is gray, -and he—he is very lame.” This bald picture of her own drawing suddenly -overcame her. “Try,”—she found herself catching at the rusty arm—“try to -remember. He is my father.” - -“Oh, your father,” said the woman in a different tone, and the vague man -turned his pale eyes on Hildegarde as though only now fully aware of her. - -“Lame! There was a lame man. No, I never spoke to him.” - -“We weren’t much in Nome,” the woman explained. “Our claims are out on -Glaysher River, and we were at our camp there most of the time.” - -Hildegarde leaned against the brilliant dado of Delicious Tomato Soup, -and she looked so disheartened the man said, “Was you thinkin’ o’ goin’ -out?” - -“Yes, I’m going to him.” - -“Big party?” - -“No, no party at all.” - -“You’re not goin’ alone?” - -“Yes, I’m the only one of my family who has time.” - -The pale eye fell on Hildegarde’s list, which she still had in her hand. -“If your father’s there you won’t have to take supplies.” - -“I must go prepared for—anything.” And she turned her face away. - -After a pause, “You got anybody to advise you?” said the man. - -“No.” - -The rusty woman looked at the vague man, and the vague man looked at Van -Camp’s Soup. - -“Where are you at?” he said presently. - -Hildegarde stared. - -He pushed back his black slouch hat and sadly mopped his yellow-gray -brow. It was warm to-day. The crowd at Baumgarten’s made it seem warmer -still. “Which hotel?” asked Mr. Blumpitty. - -“I’m not at any hotel. I am at Mr. Jacob Dorn’s.” - -“Jacob L. Dorn’s?” - -“Oh, do you know him?” - -“No, I don’t know him, but I know his firm.” It was plain the name had -impressed both Blumpittys. - -“What boat you goin’ in?” asked the yellow-gray man. - -“The _Congress_.” - -“Oh!” - -“What’s the matter with the _Congress_?” - -Blumpitty shook his head, murmured, “—pretty hot,” and slowly divested -himself of his overcoat. That done he stood revealed in black from -head to heel. Something inexpressibly funereal about him now, that -the dun-colored coat had masked. “Pity you didn’t know about the _Los -Angeles_,” he said dolefully. - -“What is there to know about her?” - -“She’s goin’ to be fitted up in style.” - -“Oh, I shan’t mind style.” - -“We’re goin’ on the _Los Angeles_,” said the little wife. - -“I do mind that—not going with you.” Hildegarde looked into the woman’s -weather-beaten face, and felt regret deepen. - -From columns of Van Camp Mr. Blumpitty raised his weary eyes and they -fell on an acquaintance in the crowd. You saw that even the teeth of the -dun-colored husband were yellow-gray. But the effect of his watery smile -was altogether gray, and without suspicion of any hue less somber. It -made you think of a dripping day in November, with winter all before you. -But lo! it was the cheerful giant Blumpitty had recognized. How long had -he been there at Hildegarde’s elbow. - -“What’s that I heard you sayin’ against the _Congress_?” he demanded of -Blumpitty. “_Congress_ is the best boat goin’.” - -“We couldn’t get passage for all of us on the _Congress_,” said Blumpitty -meekly. - -“And we didn’t want to be divided,” contributed Mrs. Blumpitty. - -“We’re sure the _Los Angeles_ is all right.” - -“What makes you sure?” - -“Becuz she’s just fresh from the Gover’mint service.” - -The giant laughed, and took out a big silver watch. Hildegarde saw with a -start of surprise that it was past luncheon time. - -“They _do_ keep you hangin’ around here.” Blumpitty looked wearily at the -crowd. “Guess I’ll go and make an appointment with Baumgarten for right -away after breakfast to-morrer.” He moved off with the giant at his side -and the small wife at his heels. - -Hildegarde hurried back to Madeleine’s, where behold Mrs. Mar and Harry! - -“The boys began to fuss when they read in the papers about Mr. Dorn being -ill.” - -“Oh, it’s all right—about me, I mean,” said Hildegarde. - -“I told you it would be,” Mrs. Mar said to Harry. “Now, here we are -in a town where every hotel is full to overflowing, and Jacob Dorn -dying—to judge by the way Madeleine behaves. But she always was a little -theatrical—that girl.” - -“No, her husband is very ill. I feel I oughtn’t to be here myself, -really.” Obvious enough Hildegarde’s dismay at the apparition of her -family. Ignorant as she was, already she had learned how little help -the average person could be about this undertaking. The Blumpittys were -different. She told about them. - -Mrs. Mar no sooner heard of their existence than she said: “Now, if you -could travel with a respectable couple—” In vain Hildegarde pointed -out she was going on another ship. Anyhow, those people could tell -Hildegarde things—they could advise. Anybody but Hildegarde would have -had them here and pumped them well. The girl, in a subdued voice, -reminded her mother that it was a house whose owner lay dangerously ill. - -“The very reason! Mr. Dorn isn’t advising you, as he promised. You must -find some one who will. Oh, you _are_ slow-witted! Where are those people -staying with their foolish name? You don’t even know their address? Well, -upon my soul, it’s a good thing we did come, after all! How you’ll ever -be able to get on by yourself, _I_ don’t know.” In a trice Mrs. Mar had -despatched Harry to scour Seattle, to ransack every hotel register in the -place, “And don’t come back here without those Blumpittys.” - -When, at four o’clock, there was no news either of Harry or them, -Hildegarde and her mother set out together—having told the Japanese -servant to keep anybody who called, as they’d be gone only half an hour. -If the Blumpittys, Mrs. Mar said, were not among the crowds in the -principal street, they’d very probably be on that water front Hildegarde -had written about. - -But no, not a Blumpitty to be seen. On their way home—the giant. “He -might know—he’s a friend of theirs,” Hildegarde said. - -Without an instant’s hesitation Mrs. Mar accosted him. - - - - -CHAPTER XV - - -“My daughter thinks you know a man and his wife of the name of Blumpitty.” - -“Yes, ma’am,” said the giant, pulling off his broad hat. - -“Do you know where they are to be found?” - -“I just now left Blumpitty up in the Stevens House bar.” - -“In the bar! The man drinks?” - -“Oh, no, not to say _drinks_,” said the cheerful one, smiling broadly. - -“What’s he doing in the bar then?” - -“Just talkin’ to the boys.” - -“Then will you go right away and ask him—” - -“There’s Harry!” Hildegarde was making signals. - -“Well, _you’re_ not much good at finding people,” his mother greeted him. -“But we’ve got Blumpitty.” - -“Oh, how d’you do,” said Harry, prepared to accept the giant in this -rôle. Hildegarde explained, and the final move in the mission was -committed to her brother. The ladies were to go home and trust Harry to -“bring Blumpitty along.” They were reassured when they saw the giant -disposed to accompany the expedition. - -Within an hour, there was Blumpitty haled before Mrs. Mar, like a -criminal before his judge. - -“Well!” Mrs. Mar glanced from her son to the clock. “And you wouldn’t -have found him even at this hour but for Hildegarde and me.” Harry’s -answer to this (and to Hildegarde’s, “Remember, we must speak low, -Mr. Dorn’s room is just above”) was to whisper, as if divulging some -tremendous secret, “Mr. Blumpitty.” Then, still more significantly, “_My -mother._” My mother fastened her bright eyes upon the stranger who had -obliged her by responding to her call. Plainly she was not prepossessed. -The giant had either been wrong, and Blumpitty _did_ drink (in which case -Mrs. Mar was wasting her time), or else the man naturally looked “logy”—a -fatal way of looking. - -“Please sit down, Mr. Blumpitty,” said Hildegarde, speaking very low. Mr. -Blumpitty, more than ever with the air of a mute at a funeral, deposited -himself on the extreme edge of a chair. - -“You see,” said Harry, by way of breaking the chill of his mother’s -reception, “you see, Mr. Blumpitty wasn’t on any hotel register.” - -“Why weren’t you?” demanded Mrs. Mar, as though this were a damning -charge. - -“No room anywhere,” said Blumpitty sadly. - -“Oh, I hope you found a place to sleep in—” began Hildegarde. - -“Wa-al, yes, after huntin’ around two whole days.” - -“Two days!” says Mrs. Mar, ready to nail him for a liar at the start, and -so save time. “There’s a night in the middle of two days.” - -“Ya-as. We wished they wusn’t.” - -“Where did you sleep?” - -“Didn’t sleep much.” - -“Where did you stay?” - -“In the station.” - -“Station!” Visions of his being “run in” assailed Mrs. Mar. “What -station?” - -“The G. N. W.,” he said indistinctly. - -“The Great North Western Railroad Station,” Harry translated, with a -reassuring look at the man. - -“You slept in the waiting-room?” - -“Some of us slept.” - -“Oh, dear, I hope you’ve got nice quarters at last?” said Hildegarde. - -“Wa-al, we got three rooms. But,” gloomier than ever, “we got to pay for -’em.” - -“What do you want of three?” demanded Mrs. Mar. - -“Three ain’t too many fur twenty-eight people.” - -“Twenty-eight! What are you doing with so many?” - -“Takin’ ’em to Nome.” Had the destination been the nether regions, he -couldn’t have said it more as one who had left hope behind. - -“Bless my soul!” said Mrs. Mar, with a vision of the crowded train she’d -come by, and the yet more crowded streets she’d hunted through for this -same Blumpitty. “What are they all going to do there?” - -Blumpitty smiled a faint world-weary smile. “They kind o’ think they’d -jest natchrully like to get a share o’ this gold that’s layin’ around up -there.” - -“Oh, you’re a prospecting party.” - -“I guess we’ll do some lookin’ around.” - -“Twenty-eight of you!” exclaimed Hildegarde under her breath. “In three -rooms!” - -The man nodded slowly, and his yellow-gray eyes seemed to have a vision -of them. “Layin’ in rows,” he said sadly. - -“How dreadful!” breathed Hildegarde. In truth it had a morgue-like sound. - -“No—o,” he drawled. “No—o. Me and Mrs. Blumpitty, we do kind o’ miss it, -not havin’ any winder. It’s only a closet though,” he said, as if not -wishing to hurt the feelings of anything so small and unpretentious. “And -the rest of our people are all right. Some parties have had to mix up, -but I been able to get a room for the men, _and_”—he spoke with a weary -pride—“_and_ one for the ladies.” - -“Ladies in your party!” exclaimed Harry. - -“Ya-as. Five, not countin’ Mrs. Blumpitty.” - -“What kind?” demanded Mrs. Mar, at the same moment as Harry asked, “What -are _they_ going to do up there?” - -“Oh, they’re all right,” said Blumpitty, thinking he answered both. -“Miss Leroy Schermerhorn’s goin’ to keep the books, and be secretary and -business woman to the Company.” - -“What company?” says Mrs. Mar. - -“Blumpitty & Co.,” says Mr. Blumpitty. - -“Bless my soul!” says Mrs. Mar. - -“Remember Mr. Dorn,” whispered Hildegarde. - -“Do I understand your wife is going along—” Mrs. Mar began on a lower -note. - -“Yes, oh, yes. I couldn’t do it without Mrs. Blumpitty.” - -“Where does she come in?” - -“Everywhere. Little bit o’ woman, so high. You’ve seen her.” He turned to -Hildegarde. She nodded, smiling. “Don’t weigh more’n ninety-six pounds. -Worth twenty or’nary size people.” - -“What does _she_ do up there?” - -“Everything. Keeps it all together.” He looked round with a melancholy -wistfulness, as if he felt keenly the need of Mrs. Blumpitty to keep the -present situation together. - -“And the other women?” said Mrs. Mar. - -“Well, Mrs. Tillinghast is the wife of the baker.” - -“What baker?” - -“The Company’s.” - -“Blumpitty & Co.’s?” - -“Yes, ma’am. Then there’s Miss Cremer. She’s a tailor—goes along to -keep us mended up till our clo’es get wore out. Then she’ll make us noo -things. Mrs. Blumpitty had to do it all last year. Pretty heavy fur a -little woman no bigger’n—” - -“The baker’s wife and the tailoress, that makes two besides Mrs. -Blumpitty.” - -“Yes, ma’am. An’ there’s Miss Estelle Maris. Very nice young lady. She -_says_ she can cook.” He sighed, and then recovered himself. “Even if she -can’t, Mrs. Blumpitty can. Yes”—he allowed a pale eye to wander toward -Miss Mar—“we got very nice ladies along, and I mean ’em all to have -claims.” - -Mrs. Mar glinted at him, as much as to say, “Oh, that’s the bait—poor -wretches!” - -“It’ll be very nice for them,” said Hildegarde a little hurriedly. - -“How do you expect them to get claims?” asked Mrs. Mar with severity. - -“The Company’s got some valyerble property up on Glaysher Crick.” - -“What company has?” - -“Blumpitty & Co.” - -“And are they giving claims away?” - -He looked at Mrs. Mar, quite unruffled by her tone. “The Company’s got -more’n it can work. And the Company knows where there’s good property -nobody’s taken up yet.” - -“Who’s in the Company?” - -“Me and Mrs. Blumpitty, and her folks, and my folks, and most of our -party.” - -“Oh, just a family affair,” said Mrs. Mar, with a slighting intonation. - -“Very few besides jest ourselves. We didn’t want a lot of outsiders.” - -From Harry’s covert smile you gathered this was a new view of the way to -float a mining company. “Why don’t you?” - -“We seen what happens too often,” said Blumpitty warily. - -“What does happen?” asked Mrs. Mar. - -“The people that’s the first to locate ain’t often the ones that gets the -benefit.” - -“Why don’t they?” - -“They get froze out. I mean to hold on to the bulk o’ the stock myself -jest as long’s ever I can. Keep things in my own hands.” He looked -anxious. - -“Not let other people take up the stock, you mean?” inquired Harry, -smiling openly now. - -“It’s the only way,” said Mr. Blumpitty, and then, as though to change -a dangerous topic, “We got a nice party.” He looked toward Hildegarde. -“Pretty near all the perfessions. We got a smart young lawyer and two -practical miners. We got a nengineer an’ a noospaper man. An’ we -got a nex-motor man—used to drive a ’Frisco street car, and a very -bright feller. Ya-as, we got a carpenter, too, an’ three doctors an’ a -boat-builder an’ a dentist. We got pretty near everything.” - -“How long were you up there before?” asked Mrs. Mar, still feeling her -way with this queer character, who, with his wife, might after all be -decent fellow-passengers for Hildegarde. - -“We was in two summers an’ one winter.” - -“Your wife, too?” - -“Oh, yes, she kep’ us alive. If y’ wus to see her y’ wouldn’t think she -looked like she—” - -The discreet Jap servant opened the door, and seemed to whisper, “Mis’ -Bumble Bee.” - -“Oh, how do you do?” Hildegarde went quickly forward and shook hands with -a tiny, weather-beaten woman. - -“I heard on the water front you wus askin’ for me,” said the new-comer, -looking very shy and embarrassed. - -“Oh!” Mrs. Mar was on her feet. “Is this Mrs. Blumpitty?” Before that -little person knew what had happened, she was on the other side of the -room, shrinking into the extreme corner of a big, red satin sofa—not -unlike some sort of insect hiding in the heart of a poppy. But it was -idle trying to escape from Mrs. Mar. She prodded her prisoner with -pointed questions, and there was no manner of doubt but “Mis’ Bumble -Bee” was intensely frightened. But she must have come out of the ordeal -uncommon well, for the catechist rose at the end of a quarter of an hour -(breaking in upon Harry’s glib exposition of the huge difficulty in these -days of floating a gold mining scheme). “Your wife and I have been -arranging things,” said Mrs. Mar, with a suddenness that made Blumpitty -blink. “My daughter must go on your ship.” - -“But, mama—” - -“Mrs. Blumpitty says she will look after you on board.” - -“Yes,” agreed the rusty wife, a little breathless. “And if she doesn’t -find her father just at first she can stay with us, can’t she?” - -Blumpitty, thus appealed to, said, “Ya-as,” so entirely without -enthusiasm, that his wife added, “He said to me after we’d talked with -your daughter, ‘It’s a pity she ain’t goin’ on the _Los Angeles_. We -could ’a’ helped her.’” - -“Well, she is going on the _Los Angeles_.” - -“No, mama, the _Congress_.” - -“Don’t be pig-headed, Hildegarde. Why should you insist on the _Congress_ -when here are Mr. and Mrs. Blumpitty ready to look after you on the _Los -Angeles_?” - -“I don’t exactly insist, but I’ve paid $125—” - -“You can change your ticket, if that’s all, can’t she?” Mrs. Blumpitty -appealed to the repository of wisdom on the edge of the chair. - -“Oh, ya-as,” said Mr. Blumpitty. - -“Why are you so sure?” said Hildegarde. “Is it because the _Congress_ is -so much the better boat, as your big, tall friend said?” - -“He ain’t right about that, though he’s a mighty smart feller. Been to -Harvard College,” he said, for Mrs. Mar’s benefit. Then, as one adducing -a destiny higher still, “The _Los Angeles_ has been a Manila transport.” - -“But why does everybody seem to want to go in the _Congress_?” - -“Sails four days earlier,” said Blumpitty unmoved. “But”—he glanced, -or no, Blumpitty never glanced; with apparent difficulty he rolled his -pale eye heavily over to Mrs. Mar—“settin’ out’s one thing, gettin’ in’s -another. ’Tain’t likely the _Congress_’ll see Nome ’fore we do.” - -“Anyhow, what are four days compared to—?” Mrs. Mar turned briskly upon -her daughter. “Mrs. Blumpitty is going to see that you have all the -necessary things, and if you’re sick she’s going to look after you.” - -As Mrs. Blumpitty did not instantly corroborate this result of the -fifteen minutes in the red satin corner, “You promised me that,” said -Mrs. Mar, with a suddenness that sounded less like maternal solicitude -than truculence, “and _I_ promised you shouldn’t be a loser by it.” - -“Yes—oh, yes, ma’am, I’ll do all I said.” Merely looking at Mrs. Mar -seemed to galvanize Mrs. Blumpitty into heroic mastery of her shyness. -She clasped her thin hands in their gray cotton gloves tightly together, -and felt herself called upon instantly to prove her present knowledge and -prospective usefulness. - -“H-have y’ got a boy’s rubber coat, comin’ to the knees?” she inquired of -the younger lady. - -“No,” said Hildegarde. “Ought I—?” - -“Yes, you must have that, mustn’t she?” - -“Ya-as.” - -“And waterproof boots?” - -“I’ve got them.” - -“With asbestos soles?” - -“Oh, I don’t know.” - -“They’re the best.” - -“Get them,” commanded Mrs. Mar. - -“And one thing you can’t do without is a blue denim prospecting dress.” - -“I think I have something that would do, though I don’t expect to go—” - -“Has your dress got knickerbockers and skirt to the knee?” She saw Miss -Mar and her mother exchange glances, but she felt instinctively the elder -lady would see the reasonableness of the provision. - -“No,” said the young lady, “my skirts are ankle-length.” - -“Oughtn’t to be a hairbreadth below the knee,” said Mrs. Blumpitty, with -more firmness than she had yet shown. - -“No skirt at all is best,” observed Mr. Blumpitty dryly. - -“What!” said Harry Mar, whom every one had forgotten. - -“Jest full knickerbockers,” said Blumpitty, without so much as looking at -the objector. - -“Oh, that won’t be necessary for me,” said Miss Mar. - -“’Twill, if you want to go prospectin’.” Valiantly Blumpitty supported -his wife’s view. “You can’t wear a skirt on the trail.” - -“I don’t think I shall go on the trail,” said the pusillanimous -Hildegarde, “unless my father—” - -“Better be ready,” said Blumpitty. - -“What else do you advise?” said Mrs. Mar, glancing at the clock. - -“She ought to have a sou’wester, don’t you think?” says Mrs. Blumpitty to -Mr. Blumpitty. - -“Ya—as, and a tarpaulin to lie on in the swamp.” - -“Well,” said Mrs. Mar, “nobody can accuse you two of over-coloring the -delights of life up there.” - -“It’s a splendid place, Alaska is, if you go with the right things,” said -Mrs. Blumpitty. - -“And if you come away with the right things,” supplemented Mrs. Mar. - -“Oh, she must bring back a claim, mustn’t she?” Mrs. Blumpitty appealed -to her husband. - -Harry and his mother exchanged looks. - -“Well, never mind about that,” said Mrs. Mar. “But if you see after my -daughter and do what you said, you won’t be losers by it.” - -“No, indeed,” said Harry, with emphasis. - -“Mrs. Blumpitty,” quoted Mrs. Mar, “Mrs. Blumpitty says she’ll see that -Hildegarde is properly cooked for up there, and she’ll even get her -washing done.” - -“Oh, yes, I can do that myself. I’m used to it.” - -“You don’t look very strong,” said Hildegarde. - -“I wasn’t before I went to Alaska,” she answered proudly. - -“Ya—as,” agreed her husband. “Always terrible sickly till she went up -there. Ruth’s jest the same.” - -“Who’s Ruth?” demanded Mrs. Mar. - -“That’s my niece,” said Mrs. Blumpitty. - -“You had her along last year?” - -“Yes, and she’s comin’ again. She wouldn’t miss comin’ fur anything. -Ruth’s twenty-five,” Mrs. Blumpitty explained to Miss Mar. “Reel nice -girl. Been a nurse. You’ll like Ruth.” - -It was as if the “reel nice” Ruth finally settled things. - -“Give Harry your _Congress_ ticket, Hildegarde, and he’ll see about -changing it. Even if he can’t, I’ve made up my mind you must go on Mrs. -Blumpitty’s ship. Don’t let the grass grow, Harry, we must catch the -night train home.” - -When Harry had ceased to cultivate grass in Jacob Dorn’s parlor, the -Blumpittys seemed to think their audience, too, was at an end. They stood -close together and muttered embarrassed leave-taking. - -“Wait till my son gets back,” interrupted Mrs. Mar. “He oughtn’t to be -more than twenty minutes. There are one or two things I’d like to know.” -The fact did not elude Mrs. Mar that when she had headed off their -escape, Mrs. Blumpitty had taken refuge in the chair nearest her husband, -and was edging it as close to him as she could conveniently get—for -protection, it would appear. And Blumpitty himself, as feebly he resumed -his perch, looked more than ever depressed and vague. Mrs. Mar needed no -reminder that few husbands and wives are as communicative together as -either may be apart. “Hildegarde,” she said, “take Mrs. Blumpitty up to -your room and see how much of your outfit’s right. Show her your list and -take notes of what she tells you.” - -Having cleared the deck, Mrs. Mar by a cross fire of questions drew forth -a story, no—queer fragments, rather, of the history of the Blumpittys’ -fight for existence during sixteen months spent in a tent upon the icy -tundra, with a few Esquimau neighbors and no white soul for many a mile. -Mrs. Mar forgot to look at the clock, even grew strangely friendly with -Blumpitty, in her absorption in so congenial an occupation as drawing -out and clarifying an inarticulate, rather muddled male. Finally, “The -papers,” quoted Mrs. Mar, “the papers say that all the claims are staked.” - -Without the smallest emphasis, “I know that ain’t so,” said the man dully. - -“How do you know?” - -“I been there.” Mrs. Mar digested this. “I know,” Blumpitty went on, “a -place where no white man but me and one other has set foot—rich in gold.” - -“Where’s that other man?” - -“Under the tundra ’long o’ the gold.” - -She tried not to betray her interest. She even succeeded. “And that’s the -place you’re going up now to work?” - -“No, ma’am, I ain’t talked to folks about _that_ place.” - -Mrs. Mar waited to hear why. - -But Blumpitty seemed to have no intention of enlightening her. “The -property we’re goin’ to work this summer is the nineteen claims belongin’ -to Blumpitty & Co., up on Glaysher Crick. They’re already located, an’ -recorded, an’ surveyed, an’ a year’s assessment work done.” - -“How much have people put into this company of yours?” - -“Right smart,” he said cryptically. “What with my folks and my wife’s -folks an’ our party—had to give _them_ a look in—only fair. But we’re -goin’ to keep it among ourselves ’s much as possible. They ain’t any of -us rich, not _now_, but”—he smiled a pale, pale smile all to himself, -that seemed to say the future was beyond peradventure golden. “We all -been workin’ people,” he said, grave again as ever. “But we’ve all saved -a little somethin’.” - -“And you’re putting your savings into this?” - -“Every cent. We know $250 put into Blumpitty & Co.’s this spring’ll be -a thousand ’fore long.” Instead of rejoicing, he sighed. “We’ve worked -mighty hard, but we got our chance now.” He rested on the thought a -moment. “They’s a fortune fur us up on Glaysher Crick—’nough fur us all.” -His pale eyes seemed inadvertently to take in Mrs. Mar. - -That lady presented her most baffling surface. Absolutely nothing you -could take hold of. Whether her aspect discouraged Mr. Blumpitty or not, -certainly he seemed to have no more conversation. - -Mrs. Mar was obliged herself to break the silence. “So _you’re_ pretty -well satisfied, anyhow.” - -“Ya-as,” he said, “if only I can keep out o’ the hands o’ the -fy-nance-eers.” - -“What’s to prevent you?” - -“Oh, I guess it’s all right”—but his look was dubious. “I got a good many -mouths to feed an’ a lot o’ developin’ to do.” - -“You mean you haven’t got enough capital.” She felt she had caught him. -She was both disappointed and rather relieved. - -“I got _some_ capital, like I told you. An’ I could get plenty more if -I wasn’t so afraid o’—” He paused, and seemed to envisage afresh some -subtle and merciless foe. Mrs. Mar’s sharp eyes pecked him all over. -If they had left a mark wherever they had been, Blumpitty would have -presented no surface the size of a cent that was not pitted as with -virulent smallpox. It might well have inspired confidence that he bore -up as well as he did. - -“What is it you’re ‘afraid’ of?” demanded Mrs. Mar. - -“Losin’ personal control. But I’m all right s’ long ’s I keep hold o’ -fifty-one per cent. o’ the stock.” - -“Why fifty-one per cent.?” She must understand this. - -“So’s to have the decidin’ vote. So’s I can do the directin’ myself. -Watch it”—his pale eyes brooded—“an’ manage it, an’ make a reel success -of it.” You got the impression that the scheme was bound up not only with -his fortune but with his pride. “If I’m at the head o’ the thing I can -see that the ’riginal investors don’t get froze out by the fy-nance-eers.” - -“Well, haven’t you kept fifty-one per cent. of the stock?” - -“Yes, I got more’n that _now_. Blumpitty & Co.’s only jest started.” - -Mrs. Mar had a moment’s thrill out of the sensation of being there -“at the start.” But she sternly repressed any glimmer of betrayal. “I -suppose,” she said, with an intention of irony, “that you’re ready to let -in a few more private subscribers?” - -“I’m in favor o’ lettin’ in one or two.” He fell into thought undisturbed -by Mrs. Mar’s silent pursuit, pecking here, pecking there. “I wus -thinkin’ I’d like your daughter to have somethin’.” - -“Oh, my daughter’s putting all she has into her trip.” - -But Mr. Blumpitty was doing some more thinking. Gravely he brought out -the result. “It ain’t many young ladies would want to take that journey -jest to nurse their fathers.” - -Mrs. Mar looked at him coldly. “She hasn’t got anything to invest in gold -mines.” And then she was sorry she had admitted this. If the man thought -of Miss Mar—or, say Mrs. Mar—as a probable investor, it might make a -difference. - -But apparently quite unchilled, Mr. Blumpitty was drawling, “Wa-al, if -she comes with us, I could very likely help her to locate a claim of her -own.” - -Even that handsome offer seemed not to “fetch” Mrs. Mar. - -And still he was not daunted. “I said to Mrs. Blumpitty, ‘That’s the kind -o’ young lady I’d like to help.’” - -No sort of direct acknowledgment out of the young lady’s mother. But -presently, “Just at this juncture I want to give my daughter all I can -spare, or I wouldn’t mind putting something into your company myself.” - -You might think he heard only the end of the sentence. “It’s a good -investment,” he said. - -“It’s quite possible that _later_—” Mrs. Mar threw in, feeling herself -very diplomatic. “Just at present the only funds I have in hand are what -my eldest son has sent to supplement his sister’s.” - -“Ya-as, I wus thinking,” said Blumpitty, as though in complete agreement, -“when she buys her stuff at Baumgarten’s she’d better get it through me, -and then she’ll pay only wholesale rates. That’ll be a savin’. I could -save her freight charges, too.” - -“Isn’t she getting wholesale rates anyhow?” - -“No. They won’t make no difference fur a little six weeks’ order for one -person. I’m gettin’ food and camp outfit fur twenty-eight people fur two -years. They make a reduction fur that.” - -It seemed reasonable; and really, these simple people were disposed to be -very serviceable. - -She thought of Trenn’s brotherly letter of good-by and his handsome -contribution of $300, reposing at that instant in the yellow bag that -hung at her belt. Well, suppose she used “the money for Hildegarde” in a -double sense. Suppose she got some stock in Hildegarde’s name. It was all -my eye about Blumpitty’s wanting to help “that kind of young lady” just -because she—fudge! Mrs. Mar was “from Missouri!” But it very probably -_would_ help the girl with her new friends that they should look upon -her as financially interested in their enterprise—should think of her -obliged and grateful family as a probable source of further revenue. Odd -if it were Mrs. Mar after all who should be the cause of the Mar family’s -profiting by the gold discovery at Nome. But she would do nothing upon -impulse. - -“I think I could send you two or three hundred before you sail,” she said. - -Mr. Blumpitty looked on the floor, and made no manner of response. - -“How would that do?” and she repeated the offer. - -“I can’t promise they’ll be any o’ the margin left by the time we sail.” - -“Why can’t you?” - -“Wa-al, I got to keep fifty-one per cent. fur myself.” - -She’d heard all that. “How much a share is your stock?” - -“It’s only $25 now. But I guess it won’t ever be as low again. This time -next year—” He felt for his watch. When he saw what time it was this -year, slowly he pulled his slack figure together and stood up. - -“You’re going to wait—” began Mrs. Mar. - -“I promised t’ meet a man about now.” - -“Somebody who wants to join your company?” said Mrs. Mar, with a pang. - -“I guess so.” - -“I _could_ take twelve shares to start with, only—” - -“I guess y’ better talk it over with y’ son.” Blumpitty had stooped and -was feeling under the chair for his hat. - -“It isn’t that,” said Mrs. Mar a little sharply, for the idea of taking -counsel with her son appealed to her much less now that Blumpitty -recommended it. “But I’m not sure I won’t have to buy a second ticket for -my daughter.” - -“No danger o’ that.” - -“And how do I know there’s a good berth left on your steamer?” - -“I got twenty-eight first-class accommodations. The young lady can have -the pick o’ them.” He seemed to be coming slowly toward Mrs. Mar with a -motion of offering his hand, whether to reassure her as to the solemnity -of his given word on the subject of the berth, or in mere good-by. - -She arrested him with her eye. “If I get my daughter these twelve -shares”—Mrs. Mar’s hand was on the yellow bag—“I do it on my own -responsibility. I shall not consult my sons.” - -“Wa-al, it’s a good chance,” he admitted, but in the tone of one not -disposed to deny that “all flesh is grass.” “I’d like your daughter to -have her share. They ain’t many young ladies would want to take that -journey jest to—” - -“You’d better make out a receipt for those twelve shares straight away, -before anybody comes in and interrupts.” Mrs. Mar opened the yellow bag. - -Blumpitty looked vaguely at the floor. “I don’t know as I got any blanks -along.” - -“Blanks! I don’t want any blanks.” - -“Certificate forms.” - -“Oh—well, look and see,” she said peremptorily, with her glance at the -clock. - -Out of his breast pocket Blumpitty slowly took some papers. “Only a dirty -one,” he said sadly. - -“Well, fill it out. There’s pen and ink on that table.” She was counting -bills on her lap. - -Blumpitty stood vaguely looking round in a lost sort of way, just as -though time weren’t priceless and Harry’s return at any moment likely to -complicate, if not checkmate, “the deal.” - -“Here.” Mrs. Mar jumped up and put a chair in front of the little -writing-table. Then smartly she tapped the silver-topped ink-bottle, as -though she doubted his having the sense to know what it was unless she -made some sort of demonstration in its neighborhood. She even illustrated -the fact that the lid lifted up. Slowly Blumpitty had come over to the -spindle-legged table, and now sat in a heap in front of it, looking -into the ink. Mrs. Mar whisked a pen out of the rack and pushed it into -Blumpitty’s slow fingers. “And here in this envelop is $300.” She took -it out and counted it over, under his dull eyes. “But I’ll keep it till -Harry comes back and says it’s all right about the ticket. We can just -exchange envelops without saying anything further. Understand?” She felt -a well-nigh irresistible impulse to shake Blumpitty, but instead of doing -that, there she was signing a paper, after taking care to read it twice, -in spite of the pressure of time. And now, although she still held both -this document and the three hundred dollars in her own hands, she was -conscious of qualms. - -[Illustration: Hildegarde’s mother and Mr. Blumpitty] - -“I suppose you’ll be sinking a deal of good hard money in that creek of -yours this summer, whether you get any out or not.” - -“They’s plenty of work there,” he said, foggier than ever, “but I got -more’n that to do this summer.” - -“What do you mean?” - -He looked at her with that curious sort of vagueness that gives one an -impression of hearing a man talk in his sleep. You feel it would be -unfair to hold him quite responsible. “When I’ve got the work started all -right on Glaysher, I got to take two or three people I c’n trust an’ go -up to a place northwest o’ Nome.” - -“What place?” - -“Polaris.” - -“What do you want to go there for, when you’ve got nineteen claims to -look after on Glacier—” - -“Them nineteen claims is valyerble property, and Blumpitty & Co.’s goin’ -to pay handsome dividends. This time next year—” - -“Well, what do you want more than that?” - -He paused, and then in that same somnambulist tone, “I wusn’t lookin’ fur -it,” he said, “I jest tumbled on it.” - -“What?” - -“A great big thing up by Polaris. Bigger’n anything Blumpitty & Co. have -got on Glaysher. Bigger’n anything any company’s got anywhere.” - -Impossible to think a man boastful or even over-sanguine, who spoke -so wearily, with yellow-gray face so unlit, with air and attitude so -joyless. “It’ll make millionaires of a good many people.” - -There was silence in Jacob Dorn’s parlor. Mrs. Mar had refused to credit -a story of this sort once before. Her unbelief had not only cost her a -great fortune; it had cost her happiness. She sat in silence, reflecting. -But she gave no sign. - -“People have got so’s they don’t take much stock in any feller’s talkin’ -’bout the Mother Lode. I don’t blame ’em myself.” - -“It turns out as stupid sometimes to be too skeptical as to be too -credulous,” quoth Mrs. Mar. - -Mr. Blumpitty did not applaud the sentiment. He looked sadly at the lady -and then, as though the effort to hold up his eyelids were too great, he -rested his heavy eyes on the silver rim of the ink-pot. “Everybody knows -they must _be_ a Mother Lode some’ers around up there.” - -“Why must there?” - -“Wa-al, _I_ don’t know,” said Blumpitty impartially. “P’raps the gold -come down from Heaven.” - -“Don’t talk nonsense.” - -“Well, if it don’t come from Heaven, the gold they’re findin’ at Nome -an’ in the Klondike, and the noo camps—all the loose placer gold o’ the -North,” he reflected, “if it ain’t come down from Heaven, it’s been -washed an’ weathered and glayshered out o’ some reef or range, or great -natchrul store-house.” - -“Yes. I’ve read about that.” - -He nodded faintly. “Ya-as, that’s what they all say. Every man _believes_ -in a Mother Lode. But what no man likes to believe is that another man’s -found her.” - -Again silence. - -Vivid description would have failed to picture for this particular -auditor what Blumpitty’s slow and clumsy words conveyed as though by -chance. So little did he play the game in the usual way that Mrs. Mar -felt the satisfaction of the discoverer in getting at the story through -barriers and in despite of veils. - -In the silence, up above—in Jacob Dorn’s sick chamber—some one was heard -opening the window. - -“And you think,” Mrs. Mar spoke very low, “you think you know where the -Mother Lode is?” - -“Pretty near every miner in the Northwest _thinks_ he knows.” - -“You mean you are sure?” - -“I’m forty-eight,” said Blumpitty mournfully. “It’s twenty years since I -liked sayin’ I was sure.” - -“But” (he was the sort of man that needed reassuring) “you’ve got good -ground for believing—” She waited. - -“Last fall”—he looked round the red satin room as though for possible -haunts of eavesdroppers, and then he further interrupted himself—“you -mustn’t think I found it myself,” he said modestly. “I got a tip—a -straight tip.” - -“From the man that’s dead.” - -“Ya-as. Leastways, they said he hadn’t more’n a few days to live. Ya-as, -dyin’ up there at Polaris! Everybody in the camp knoo he’d struck it -rich. Nobody could find out where.” - -“How did they know he’d struck—” - -“Becuz he wus so secret about everything. Where he’d come from. Where he -wus goin’ if he got well, and most of all”—Blumpitty looked round and -sunk his low voice—“where he got his nuggets and dust from.” - -“Oh, he _had_ nuggets—” - -“Yes, nuggets and dust, too. Good and plenty.” - -“He showed it to you?” - -“No. He wus terrible secret about it. Terrible afraid somebody’d rob him. -Kind o’ sick you know about it.” Slowly Blumpitty tapped his yellow-gray -forehead. “But he allowed he’d found something worth while an’ he never -let his bundle o’ dust out o’ sight. Day an’ night he kep’ it jest under -his hand. Everybody nosin’ around, tryin’ to be friends with him. One day -I wus passin’, an’ his dawg went fur me. I picked up a stone. ‘Don’t y’ -do it,’ he calls out o’ the sod cabin, where he wus layin’ with the door -open. ‘Don’t y’ do nothin’ to that dawg,’ he says. I explained the dawg -wus doin’ things to me. ‘Come in here,’ he said, ‘an’ she won’t touch -you.’ So I did, an’ we talked a while.” - -“Well?” - -“He asked me kind o’ sarcastic, was I ‘lookin’ fur the Mother Lode?’ I -said I guessed I wusn’t no different from other men, except that I wusn’t -hangin’ round a sick man fur to get his secrets out o’ him. ‘No,’ he -said, ‘I ain’t never seen you hangin’ round.’ An’ then he told me.” - -“What?” - -“I says, ‘I’m figurin’ on findin’ the Mother Lode up in them hills -yonder.’ ‘That’s right,’ he said, an’ his eyes wus kind o’ wild an’ -glassy. ‘Up over yonder?’ I said. ‘Yes,’ says he; ‘up North. That’s where -the Mother Lode is.’ An’ I think from what he said, he’d called his -discovery-claim ‘The Lode Star.’” - -“What made you think—” - -“Course he wus kind o’ queer—out of his head, y’ know, fur he called it -the ‘Mother Lode Star.’ An’ he wus terrible secret about it. All the time -gettin’ away from the subject and talkin’ about the dawg.” - -“Well—” - -“Wa-al, they wusn’t more’n half a dozen people at Polaris then, an’ -nobody’d found anything to make a boom out of. But they all hung on. And -they made presents to that feller, took him grub regillar. An’ other -folks kep’ comin’ jest becuz that man wus there. An’ they all knoo he’d -struck it rich. An’ they all knoo he wus dyin’. That was what they wus -waitin’ for. I didn’t wait, even them few days they said he had to live. -The snow wus beginning t’ fly an’ I had to go back to Glaysher and get -Mrs. Blumpitty an’ our party out before navigation closed. But I said -to myself, ‘I’ll risk it—fur the Mother Lode!’ An’ I did. Went up over -the hills to the north, in a bee line from that cabin o’ his till I come -ter—” Blumpitty’s voice dropped still lower and he hesitated, while, like -one who scarce dares move lest he break some spell, slowly he looked -round, and seemed to forget how to turn back. He remained so, sitting -awry, listening. - -“It’s only some one moving about in Mr. Dorn’s room overhead. You found -the Mother Lode?” - -He found he was able to twist himself back by dint of drawing out his -watch. “When I get t’ thinkin’ about it I clean forget the time.” He -stood up. “I guess I got t’ be goin’.” - -Footsteps and low subdued voices in the hall. Hildegarde had seen her -brother from an upper window, and had come down with Mrs. Blumpitty to -let Harry in. - -There would be no trouble in selling “Berth 21” for the third time. - -Mrs. Mar, about to hand an envelop to Mr. Blumpitty, wondered to herself, -“How much of a fool am I? Well, I haven’t done fool-things all along -the line, like most people. If I must commit foolishness before I die, -I’ll do it all in a lump and be done with it.” Whereupon she handed Mr. -Blumpitty the envelop. He seemed to be giving Harry his address. Mrs. -Blumpitty was making an appointment to meet Miss Mar “at ten o’clock -to-morrow, at Baumgarten’s.” - -For the third time Mrs. Mar was reading through a paper she held in her -hand. When she came to the ill-written signature, “How do you spell your -name?” she demanded of Mr. Blumpitty. - -“B-l-u-m-p-i-t-t-y,” said the gentleman mournfully. - -“Humph,” said Mrs. Mar, head on one side and eyes fixed so critically on -the name that Mrs. Blumpitty hastened to the defense. “It’s French,” says -she. - -“French!” echoes Mrs. Mar. “How do you make that out?” - -“Well, that’s what his grandmother always told him. She said it was -originally Blank Peed.” Wherewith, having vindicated the family, she -shook hands and led the way out. Harry was opening the outside door for -them. No one spoke above a whisper, on account of Mr. Dorn. - -“Good-by, Mr. Blumpitty.” - -“Good-by, ma’am.” - -“Look here”—Mrs. Mar detained him for a last aside—“you’ve got -twenty-eight people to see after, and a company to manage, and nineteen -claims to develop, why can’t you be content with that?” - -He looked at her. “Would you be?” he asked simply. - -Her face told tales. “You mean”—she hesitated—“if I’d got on the track of -the Mother Lode?” - -“Jest so,” said Blumpitty, and slowly he followed his wife out of the -Great Importer’s house. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - - -Hildegarde learned other things the next morning besides how to do your -marketing for two years in an hour. She brought away from Baumgarten’s -the renewed impression that Mrs. Blumpitty was a person of some practical -sense, and that Mr. Blumpitty, though he might be an authority upon -the Mother Lode and an estimable character to boot, did in reality -himself need a good deal of looking after. It is impossible to say just -how the “unlogical” feminine mind—in this case young and ignorant as -well—may arrive at so definite a conclusion out of a small assemblage -of apparently trifling data. For Hildegarde’s judgment was not founded -merely upon the outer man. Nor was it contributed to very largely by Mr. -Blumpitty’s indifference to small economies, as shown in his readiness -to order gallons of expensive “olive” when cotton-seed oil was as cheap -as wholesome to cook with, and Mr. Blumpitty convicted by his wife of -inability to detect any difference in taste. It was not merely that Mrs. -Blumpitty was the one to offer reasons why methylated spirit, though -cheap on the bill, was dearer in actual use than alcohol. It was not that -he had forgotten after sixteen months’ experience, “what a cravin’ you -get up there fur sweet and fur sour,” and what a failure the California -dried fruit had turned out the year before. _Had_ he complained he -couldn’t eat such insipid stuff till Mrs. Blumpitty had “livened” it with -a dash of vinegar as well as sugar and spice? Wa-al, p’raps he had! - -“You mustn’t give me dried apples from any place nearer here than -Michigan,” said Mrs. Blumpitty. - -The Baumgarten Brother had smiled a little, and said, “She knows.” - -The upshot of the morning was to give Hildegarde an inkling that the -chief use of Mr. Blumpitty, so far as she was concerned, might be that he -would keep her family soothed by the illusion that this respectable man, -pledged to her service, was “going to see that everything was all right.” -For the rest, should she not perhaps do well to imitate his spouse, and -not expect any one to be wide awake in her interest who was half asleep -before his own? Although he had said, “Ya-as, it’s all right about the -ticket,” Miss Mar interviewed the steamship people on her own behalf. -“Quite right!” they indorsed Mr. Blumpitty’s account of the matter. -And as to the berths, Mr. Blumpitty already had twenty-eight, and had -sent word he wanted a twenty-ninth, “a pertickler good one fur a lady.” -“Noospaper woman I presoom,” said the agent politely. It seemed to be -only the press that inspired such respect. She was more glad than ever of -the offer that had come that morning from Eddie Cox, editor, now, of the -“San Miguel Despatch.” “Yes,” she told the agent, “I am to be a Regular -Correspondent.” In all sorts of ways she saw her status incomparably -improved by falling in with Eddie Cox’s suggestion. It appeared to be -necessary to stand well with a “noospaper” woman. “What accommodation can -I have?” - -“Why, the best we got.” - -“Is there much choice?” - -“We put you down here, with Mr. Blumpitty’s party.” A number was -indicated. - -“I’d like to see the cabin.” - -“_See_ it?” - -“Yes, before I decide.” - -Impossible. If she didn’t take and pay for the berth now, in an hour -it would be in other hands. But seeing her quite unhustled by this -horrid alternative, the agent said he would make a great, an unheard-of -exception in her case, and promised to take her over the ship as soon as -the _Los Angeles_ came up from Tacoma, where she was being elaborately -refitted, “new paint, electric light, everything.” It would be a pity for -a “noospaper” woman to go in any meaner vessel. - -The crowds that composed the sailing list besieged the offices day by -day, wildly impatient at the date of departure being “a little postponed” -while the _Los Angeles_ was further embellished for their reception. -“Style’s all very well. But gettin’ there’s the thing.” - -And among them this girl, with only half her ticket paid for, coming in -twice a day to keep track of events. - -At last, after a night of riot, when the office was very nearly pulled -about the company’s ears, all Seattle knew that the much-heralded -steamer had been brought up from Tacoma and was at the Seattle wharf. -The crowds on the water front could see her, glaring and white and -respect-inspiring, but guarded like the gate of Paradise. - -“Let’s go and see our quarters,” Hildegarde suggested, meeting Mr. -Blumpitty in the street. - -“Wish we could,” said Blumpitty sadly. “No one allowed aboard till -sailin’ time, nine o’clock to-morrer.” - -Hildegarde spoke of the agent’s promise. - -“Promise! Oh, yes, promise anything.” And Blumpitty moved gloomily away -in the crowd. - -Hildegarde found the agent without loss of time. He was overwhelmed with -work. Didn’t she see! - -What she saw was a clay-faced individual, with a slight bulge in one -lean jaw where he stored his tobacco—red-eyed, unwashed, and obviously -irritated by her reappearance. His promise—quietly she insisted. The -anæmic visage twitched, and he attended to another customer. But she -stood waiting, and she looked as if she were prepared to camp there till -she’d had her way. Oh, these women! They wus always like that—fussin’ and -naggin’ and goin’ on! - -He attended to two other customers. _They_ didn’t expect such things -of him. But there she still stood with her eyes fixed upon the agent, -blockin’ up the way, waitin’, waitin’. “What’d I do if they all expected -me to go runnin’ round the wharves with ’em!” he demanded in an angry -undertone. - -“You promised,” she began, glancing at the fact that there were three -other clerks in the office. - -“Mr. Blumpitty’s satisfied!” he said severely, pointing out the -lamentable contrast. And he’d taken her for a lady. A lady would believe -a gentleman when he told her it was all right—and not worry him. But -though she must have seen plainly how she was still further lowering the -agent’s lofty ideal of how a lady should behave, there she stood looking -at him with a grave steadiness that held no hope of her yielding her -point. “Promise! promise!”—why, it was damned good-natured of him to -make a promise, but to expect him to— He bent toward her. “Look yere,” he -said in an angry whisper, “I ain’t got a special permit yet.” - -“I’ll wait till you get it.” - -“Can’t have it yere before three.” - -“Very well, I’ll come at three, but you must please not disappoint me -again, or else I—” He jerked away. As he saw her going out—Now what did -she mean?—“or else she—” You never know what pull these noospaper women -have got. - -He had forgotten all about her when— O Lor! There she was upon the -stroke, like fate. - -Well, well, did she promise not to tell none o’ the rest o’ the -passengers? All right, then. Come ahead. - -He led the way to the docks with every circumstance of secrecy; dodging -through back streets, lying to acquaintances as to where he was going, -and gradually growing cheerfuller, pausing to exchange humorous asides -with friends along the wharf. Hildegarde, waiting, silent, patient, -during these passages, was entirely aware of the curious looks bent -upon her, and saw that her expedition with this little rat of a man was -held by some to have a “larky” aspect (save the mark!). She saw it was -incredible to these people that the agent should take this trouble for -any other reason than that she was an attractive young woman who had -smiled upon this poor little drink-sodden creature, and was giving him -the rare sensation of being “a sad dog with the ladies.” Even playing at -the idea had quite transformed the agent. Poor little misery! She knew -instinctively she had nothing to fear from him, and even if he had been -a different type she had no doubt but what she would have known how to -keep him in his place when they were alone. But before these pals of his -the agent put on sly looks, carried himself rakishly, and tipped his -hat very far back on his head. Well, it was an odd world evidently, but -Hildegarde Mar had come out to see it. Now, after various formalities, -they were going on board. - -“See! paint’s wet yet. That’s why I didn’t want y’ to come. Spoil y’ -clo’es, sure ’s a gun.” Apparently to-morrow the paint would be dry as a -bone. Past the strangely few decent, though cramped, state-rooms of the -first saloon, each ticketed with the names of prospective occupants, down -into the dim region of the second saloon, down into the intermediate, -further down, clinging on to ladders, down, down, into the bowels of -the ship, Hildegarde and the ferret-faced agent went, looking for -Mr. Blumpitty’s quarters. And lo! though that gentleman had paid for -first-class accommodation—as the agent admitted—he’d been “glad to get -the only accommodation left,” and that was in the hold! The twenty-nine -berths were twenty-nine sections of deal shelves, ranged in tiers five -deep, and set so close one on top of the other you could not believe it -possible for a good-sized man to insert his body between the unsheeted -ticking of his chuck-mattress and the board above his head. Hildegarde -stood stooping in the awful hole and staring as one not crediting her -eyes. - -“It’ll look better,” says the agent, a little shamefaced, “when the beds -are made. The company supplies a piller each, and a pair o’ blankets.” - -No ventilation. No light of day. One electric burner to illumine the -horror of the gloom. - -“You don’t mean to say—” began Hildegarde, turning such a look upon the -agent that he said hurriedly: “No, no. This won’t do for a noos—fur a -lady.” And they climbed the ladders back to day. - -He found the lady up-stairs quarters on the saloon deck. - -“But there are only five berths here.” - -“Best cabin on the ship,” said he, spitting with decision through the -port. - -“But on this card on the door there are five names already.” - -“One’s comin’ out,” and he saw to that by the simple process of drawing -an indelible pencil across “Miss Tillie Jump,” and substituting “Miss H. -Mar.” - -Still the young lady studied the card. “Look at this.” - -He looked. - -“Here, at the very top.” - -“Don’t see nothin’.” - -“You don’t see _Mr._ and Mrs. David M. Jones.” - -“Oh, yes, I see them.” - -“Surely that’s a mistake.” - -“Mistake? No. I ’tended to them folks myself.” As the young lady stared -incredulous, he reassured her. “They’re comin’ all right. Tip-top folks. -He wus governor of—” - -“They’re not coming in here?” - -“Why not?” - -“_Mr._ Jones?” - -“Yes, David M. He wus governor of—” - -“In here, with all these—ladies!” - -“Well, one’s his wife. Don’t you be afraid. _He’s_ all right.” - -“He can’t possibly come in here.” - -“He’s got to. No other place. Him an’ his wife wus almost the first -passengers on the list.” - -“Well, give them a cabin to themselves.” - -“Oh, see here! There ain’t room fur no style like that on _this_ trip.” - -“Then put back Miss Jump and take out Mr. Jones.” - -She saw the agent blink at such cool juggling. “Mr. Jones must go in a -man’s cabin,” she explained. - -“Don’t you know they’re all full?” - -“He can’t come in here,” said the young lady inflexibly. - -“He’s got to, that’s all there is about it. I can’t go playin’ no monkey -tricks with David M. Jones.” - -“Then please find me some other place.” - -“Ain’t I already told you? They ain’t no—” - -“You mean you can’t, after all, accommodate me on this ship?” - -“Lord! Lord!” The agent seemed to pray for patience and for light. - -“You were prepared to make Miss Tillie Jump—” and in spite of herself, -gravity went by the board. But the agent’s smile was wan. - -“That was different,” he assured her. “Well, here goes!” With the air of -one who has cast the last shred of prudence to the winds, he wrote out -a new card from which you might gather that David M. Jones had not been -reëlected for this berth. And so, exit the former governor! - -“_Now_ you can’t say we ain’t done everything.” - -“Thank you,” said Hildegarde. “There’s only one thing more. I should like -to bring my steamer trunk in to-day and get settled.” - -The agent gaped, and then, with a gesture of comic feebleness before the -spectacle presented by this young lady, he sat down on the edge of the -berth labeled, “T. Jump,” and grinned. - -“The paint’s nearly dry up here,” urged Miss Mar, as one meeting the only -possible objection. - -It must be because she was on a “noospaper.” Nothing else could give a -woman a nerve like this. Well, it was positively refreshin’! Out of pure -gaiety of heart the agent added a little new tobacco to the store already -accumulated in his cheek. “’Tain’t a bad idear,” he said. “More’n you’d -like to try it on. But it wouldn’t hardly do.” - -“Why?” - -“Make a nawful rumpus.” As still she seemed not to understand the -enormity of her proposal. “’Twouldn’t be fair to let some and not let -others.” - -She could see that. “But why not let them all?” - -“Oh, haw! haw!” The thing was somehow deliciously comic. But a compromise -might be possible—“fur a noos—” Luckily the purser happened to be on -deck. Hildegarde, to her stark astonishment, heard the agent reply -confidentially to some question, “Well, y’ wouldn’t think so, but from -one or two things she let drop, I guess she’s one o’ ——’s hustlers, an’ -special correspondent fur the ‘New York Herald,’ I guess, an’ Gawd knows -what else.” She was forthwith presented to Mr. Brown, and it was arranged -that the “noospaper” woman should send her baggage down to the purser’s -care, and herself be allowed to come on board a couple of hours before -the mob—say at seven o’clock in the evening. - - * * * * * - -At a quarter before that hour the street near the wharf where the _Los -Angeles_ lay was dense with packed humanity. So much time and tact it -took to worm one’s way through the mass, that Madeleine, who had come -down to see her friend off, began to despair. Already she had been longer -away from her invalid than she had meant. Hildegarde urged her to turn -back now. Madeleine looked about with anxious eyes. “It’s worse even than -I imagined. It’s terrible to leave you here.” - -“It’s much more terrible for you to leave Mr. Dorn.” - -Madeleine didn’t deny that. - -“And if you come further there’s no telling _when_ you’ll get out. It -will be worse going back against the tide.” - -But Madeleine hesitated, with harassed face. - -“I’d much rather you went now,” Hildegarde urged, taking her suit-case -from her friend. “Good-by.” - -Madeleine clung to her with filling eyes. “I _hate_ leaving you.” - -Hildegarde kissed her. “Good-by, dear. And thank you a thousand times.” - -In the act of going, Madeleine whispered, “Oh, I _hope_ nothing will -happen to you. But I’m frightened to death. Good-by. Oh _dear_!” - -And that was the last of the old familiar life. - - * * * * * - -As slowly Hildegarde got herself and her suit-case through the crowd, -it was borne in upon her that perhaps she had been wrong to insist that -neither of her brothers should come and see her off, as each had nobly -suggested, in spite of their unwavering opposition to the enterprise. -She had made a point of their trusting her “to do it alone.” - -Besides, she wasn’t alone. In every letter she flourished the Blumpittys. -Where were those Blumpittys now? No sign of them since yesterday. -Anyhow, she had prevented the boys from coming. Her fear, not of course -formulated to them, had been that if they came, somehow, at the last -moment they would try to prevent her going. Well—she looked about—they -probably would. She pressed on, inwardly exulting, outwardly modest and -asking pardon. And all the time she kept a sharp lookout, as if, in spite -of everything, she was expecting some one. A Blumpitty? Not a bit of it. - - * * * * * - -“It’s no use,” said a red-faced man, with a wheezy voice, “not a _bit_ o’ -use yer tryin’ to get through yere.” - -“There would be,” said the young lady, “if you helped me a little.” - -That was different. But, “Ye’ll only get to stand a yard or two further -on till nine o’clock. They wouldn’t open them gates fur President -McKinley.” - -“I want to see if my baggage got here all right. I sent it hours and -hours ago.” - -“Same bright idear’s occurred to the rest of us,” said a sharp-faced -youth. But they let the young lady pass. And in the uncertain light they -looked after the tall, striking figure, dressed in close-fitting dark -green, wearing a perfectly plain green felt hat, which was somehow more -distinguishable and more distinguished set upon a head like that than if -it had been furbelowed after the fashion of the other feminine headgear -that flowered and feathered in the throng. Public opinion would have set -her down as “stuck up,” from the way she carried herself, had it not been -for something too gentle in the face to support that view. The delicately -molded chin, with the end softly turned up, gave an almost childish look -to the face, and the long-lashed eyes, at once eager and abstracted, why -were they always looking, looking? “Lost her party, I guess.” - -On she went, changing her suit-case from one tired hand to the other, -looking here, looking there, just as she had done in the Seattle streets. -She had gone about all these last days consciously braced for a final -encounter with Cheviot—a last attempt on his part to make her abandon the -undertaking. That, of course, was the reason he had not written, nor even -telegraphed, to say good-by. There was nothing surly, or even sullen, -about Cheviot. Though they had parted “like that,” he wouldn’t be willing -she should go without his making some sign. Not having done so could only -mean—Oh, she knew what it meant. - -She dramatized the coming scene—saw herself being “quite firm,” -defeating, utterly routing him. But in order to carry out the program she -mustn’t let him take her by surprise. And as now over this shoulder, now -over that, she scrutinized the faces in the crowd, she felt her heart -beat as she thought of the coming conflict. And the pink color rose in -her face. She had been afraid “the boys” might want to turn her back. In -her heart of hearts she was afraid that Louis, in some way not clearly -foreseen, would succeed. She went forward with the sense of one escaping -from a definite peril. At last, rather out of breath, she dropped her -suit-case before the door of the brightly lighted baggage-room. Just -inside was a man in his shirt-sleeves, and beyond him— - -“_There’s_ my trunk!” she cried out, with the cheerful air of one -descrying a valued friend. - -“Want it checked?” - -“Yes, please.” - -“Where’s it goin’?” - -“To Nome, of course,” answered Hildegarde, panting a little and -straightening her hat. “Nobody is going anywhere else, are they?” she -added, a little impatient at the man’s staring and delay. - -“N-no. I guess not. But—” He grinned good-humoredly. “I didn’t think you -looked like a Nomer.” - -Here was a blow at the very start. Hildegarde glanced down at her plain -clothes, and decided the man was mistaken. But he checked her trunk, her -provision-box, her bag, her deck-chair, and her roll of wraps, and she, -declining to give up the suit-case, turned about to make her way among -the people, massed thicker than ever in this direction. For over yonder, -hidden by the crowd, was the gate whose opening would give access to the -_Los Angeles_. Progress here more difficult than ever. - -Courage! Now if Louis were somewhere in the crush, if those critical -blue-gray eyes were on her, he would be wondering to see how well she -made her way, keeping her footing and her temper, gaining inch by inch -her goal. She went the more unflinching as under the gray-blue eye. -When it became obvious that this pink and white gentle-looking girl -was intent, if you please, on working her way to the barrier in front -of people who had been there an hour, she was treated to an experience -of unyielding backs, sharp elbows, and surly looks. Why shouldn’t she -wait her turn? Yes, Hildegarde reflected, it was natural they should -feel that, especially the women. Why, how many women there were! But no -Mrs. Blumpitty, and no— Hildegarde looked at her watch. How the time had -flown. It really was rather odd about Cheviot. He might, of course, come -still later, but suppose he didn’t. It was almost incredible, and yet— - -If he did come, he’d see, at all events, there were some quite -nice-seeming women here. But perhaps they weren’t going. This one, with -the white, white face under the orange hat—what little young voice -was that beside her? Why, the woman was holding a boy by the hand. He -reminded Hildegarde of Cheviot’s small nephew, Billy. She smiled down -into the solemn little face. “Are you seeing some one off?” - -“Nop!” said the Curlyhead sturdily. “Goin’ to Nome meself.” And the crowd -cheered. Either that demonstration frightened him, or he was tired and -indifferent to popular approval. He began to fret and then to whimper. -Was it his father who spoke so roughly and so thickly? Curlyhead’s -whimper blossomed into wailing. His father began to shake him. - -“Oh, wait a minute,” said the tall young lady, as if meaning only to -delay the operation for a second. She set down the suit-case on her own -toes, and out of a pocket in the close-fitting green jacket came a cake -of chocolate, all glorious in silver foil. Hildegarde held it before the -child’s distorted little face. The features righted themselves as by -magic. The youngest pioneer no longer took a gloomy view of his prospects. - -The father’s been drinking heavily, Hildegarde said to herself as she -went on. Poor wife. Poor little boy. She would know Curlyhead better on -the ship. - -How strange if Louis were to harbor such deep resentment as not to write -and not to appear. That _he_ should be the only one of her familiar -circle that had not to be dissuaded from coming to see her off! If -suddenly now in the crowd she should see him she would be almost glad. -After all, he couldn’t prevent her sailing. What was he thinking of to -let her go off like this, without—Had her mother been right? Just then a -woman, in a sealskin jacket and with diamonds twinkling in her ears, not -only refused flatly to let Hildegarde pass but angrily admonished the men -about her to stand firm. - -The tall young lady only changed her course a little, and made obliquely -for the barrier, but the encounter with that woman affected her more -unpleasantly than the elbowing and jostling of the others. She had a -distinct vision of Louis Cheviot’s face as he had said “the kind of woman -that goes to Nome.” It had been horrible to him that Hildegarde was not -daunted. For she hadn’t let him see that she was. And now that woman, -with the hard face and the diamond ear-rings!—and Louis too disgusted to -want to come and see his old friend off, or even to send her a message of -good-by. - -She began to see how foolish it was to expect to see him here. He had -washed his hands of her. - -And still, in the back of her head, she thought he might come—even built -upon it. She looked back. No, he wasn’t in sight; but a tall, grizzled -man had given the youngest pioneer a seat on his shoulder. That was nice -of the grizzled man. - -But it was saddening to go on so great a journey without the good-will of -so close a friend as— - -There was something very hard about Louis. He could enjoy himself quite -comfortably, since he had washed his hands of her. Her mother—(why was -this man in front of her dressed in oilskins?) Yes—washed his hands of -her. Her mother had told her as much. Bella and Mrs. Wayne had come up -from the country to the Valdivia G. H. Charity Ball. They had stayed -at the great new hotel. Bella had worn pink at the ball, and danced -constantly with Louis Cheviot. She stayed on for several days, and they -drove together every evening. People had begun to talk. Well, it had -seemed very possible once. Why not? And here was Hildegarde actually -expecting he might have left Bella and come all that way from Valdivia -just to wish Hildegarde God-speed on a journey he had loathed the -very mention of. Idiocy. Of course he was out driving with Bella this -soft, beautiful evening. He would be thinking: “Bella could never do -anything so unfeminine as to go to a horrible place like Nome!” Bella -and Louis. Why did she, the girl struggling here in the crowd, feel this -half-incredulous aching at the thought? Bella and Louis. Natural enough. -Even inevitable. The reason that she, Hildegarde, felt like this was that -she wasn’t accustomed yet to being alone, and it was so hard to reach the -barrier yonder. Jack Galbraith. Would he, too, join them—the sensible -stay-at-home folk? Curiously, Jack was grown as dim as last year’s -dreams. For weeks she had felt him fading out of the old picture. And in -the new he had no place at all. Why was that? Perhaps he was dead. It -seemed hardly to matter. Should she ever get to the barrier? - -Oh, how they pushed and crowded upon her. It made her feel quite angry. -Not so much with these poor struggling people. But with Cheviot. If -he were here now, instead of driving about with Bella, if those broad -shoulders of his were between Hildegarde and— “Oh, please, please, you’re -crushing me.” - -“Then stand back,” said a man angrily. - -_And he wasn’t even drunk._ - -Over an hour it had taken her to penetrate from the outer fringes of the -crowd, by way of the baggage-room, to this gate in the barrier, chained -and barred. On the other side of it, an irate dragon on guard, ready to -breathe fire and brimstone at the mere notion of letting anybody by. -When Hildegarde signed to him, he only roared out over the heads of the -people, “Nine o’clock’s the time everybody was told to come on board. If -you don’t like waitin’ outside till the proper time you can go home.” -Hildegarde tried to convey across the barrier that she was acting under -instructions. “Keep back,” roared the dragon, quite as if he feared the -tall figure might contemplate vaulting over. - -“It is a special arrangement,” she said quite low, “made by the purser -himself.” - -“Yes, yes, very likely.” - -“I assure you the purser—” - -“God A’mighty, what purser?” - -Still Hildegarde spoke as confidentially as possible. “The purser of this -ship.” - -“What’s the name o’ the purser who could do a thing like that?” - -“Mr. Brown is his name.” - -“Brown ain’t the name o’ the purser o’ this ship. Guess again!” - -The crowd exulted. The dodge had failed. - -“Isn’t this the _Los Angeles_?” - -“Yes, by—!” A gush of oaths before which the girl gasped as if a bowl of -ice-cold water had been, dashed in her face. “Oh-h!—if Louis heard that! -Luckily he will never know. He’s out driving with Bella.” - -She took her courage in both hands. “I shall report you if you don’t let -me by. Your own agent introduced me to the _Los Angeles_ purser, and -called him Mr. Brown.” - -“Purser, purser”—more blasphemy—“I wouldn’t let the _owner_ of this ship -on board before nine o’clock.” - -“Mr. Brown said—” - -“Brown! Brown!” shouted the man, goaded to frenzy by this feminine -obstinacy. “Look yere, if he was Black and the devil himself I wouldn’t -let ye in after the orders I’ve had.” - -The crowd chuckled and swayed. - -The tall girl craned her neck over the barrier in the uncertain light. -She had caught sight of a lurking figure uncommonly like the fat -purser’s, seeming to seek shelter behind a bale of merchandise. “Why, -there he is now,” she said quite low. “Mr. Brown!” No answer, and the -figure vanished. “Mr. Brown!” she called, in a clear, penetrating voice. -“I’m here, as you told me to be. Mr. B—” - -Hurriedly the tun-bellied figure reappeared and whispered to the -dragon. A brief low-voiced altercation between the two men. Only one -word distinguishable to the girl on the other side of the barrier, -“noospaper.” A growling menace of “trouble sure” from the dragon, and -then the gate opened a cautious crack. The noospaper woman and her -suit-case were plucked from the murmuring crowd and set upon the ship. -She turned to thank her rescuer. For all his amplitude he had melted into -air. On the far side of the barrier, under the electric light, the crowd -murmured and swayed, coupling the name of Brown with opprobrium. - -The ship was badly lit and silent as the grave. Hildegarde felt her way -down into the saloon, where a single light was burning. She found her -cabin, and she put a jacket and a suit-case in her berth. On reflection, -to make it look the more occupied, she added a green felt hat with her -card stuck in the narrow band. Then out into the dim saloon. How strange -for her to be in this place. So strange, she had a fleeting notion she -would presently wake up and find herself in the little white room at -home. But no, for the purser, who appeared and disappeared like some -incorporeal essence, was standing at the door of the saloon with a pile -of letters and telegrams, and little packets, saying: “There’s flowers, -too, an’ a box o’ fruit an’ a basket. When the steward comes, I’ll send -them to your room.” - -Last letters from the few who had been allowed to know the name of her -ship, from her mother and the boys, from Bella, from Eddie Cox—no one had -forgotten her except— He might come yet. Even Bella’s mother had sent a -telegram, saying she hoped Hildegarde would find the traveling tea-basket -a slight solace. Bella sent fruit, and wrote: “Come back as much the same -Hildegarde as you can. You won’t be quite the same I know. No one is -after a great journey. Too much happens. No, I shan’t ever see you again, -dearest of all my friends, but let the Hildegarde that you bring home be -as much like the old Hildegarde as you can manage.” - -These letters, the last echo of the old voices. Why did she hear plainest -of all the one who was silent. - -What was this! Homesick already, and the anchor not yet weighed? - -She would go on deck. At the foot of the companionway she took heart of -grace, breathing in gratefully the whiff of fresh air that came down to -greet her. But half-way up she paused. What was that—that sound like the -deep groundswell of the sea? Why, that must be the crowd—those people on -the other side of the barrier and the ever-augmenting legions all along -the water front. It was the sharp-featured youth, with the shifty little -eyes, who had called her wish to check her baggage “a brilliant idear”; -it was the drunken man who had shaken his little tired child; the woman -with the white, white face; that other woman with the ear-rings, who -hated anybody who went in front of her—all the people who had jostled and -elbowed and tried to force her back. Soon they would be here, her daily -companions. No escape. They were to become as familiar as people she had -known all her life, as those home people who already seemed as far off as -the dead folk are. But the home people weren’t dead; they were driving -and dancing, and they had nothing more in common with Hildegarde Mar. She -was henceforth to be companioned by that hungry crowd out there, with -its vague murmuring, like the sea at Monterey. Dancing and merrymaking -fell back into that far-off world that she had left so long ago, before -she came all by herself to Seattle, all by herself was setting sail for -Nome. Even when she reached the top of the companionway the noises on -the wharf still sounded muffled for the most part and seemed to come -from afar. But every now and then a single anger-sharpened note—or a -cheer it might be—went up into the still air as startling as a rocket, -and like a rocket seemed to burst in that higher region and come falling -down to earth in a shower of sharp broken cries and strange, unnerving -noises. She remembered the man who had set the child on his shoulder, and -a woman with gray hair. She seemed to see them trampled under foot. The -woman in the sealskin jacket looked on. Something menacing even in the -muted cries, as though they presaged some mighty uprising of a trampled -people. Had there been sounds like these abroad in Paris streets in the -days of the Revolution? The solitary girl lent herself for a moment to -that terror of the mob which dimly feels that no physical danger on the -earth can match the peril you may stand in before the fury of the mass. -Any single creature, however angry or debased, is a human being. But the -mass!—the mass is a monster, and the monster was at the gate. - -Along the deserted deck she went, making hardly any noise, and listening -with tense nerves. - -How strange for her to be in this place alone. - -Oh, Louis! Louis! and suddenly she had stopped. She was leaning her head -against a stanchion, and the tears were running down her face. - -But very soon she was ashamed. - -Drying her eyes, she went aft on the upper deck. The air was soft and -wooing. All the harbor full of shipping; and lights—lights everywhere. -The arch of heaven was very wide and filled with an infinite dusk. It was -like some soothing and benignant presence. She faced about, still looking -up, and saw the keen little crescent of the young moon hanging aslant, -seeming to bend down over the _Los Angeles_. The sight of the little moon -comforted the girl curiously. It seemed to be shining so hopefully, so -gallantly, setting its tiny horns for a signal just over Hildegarde’s -ship. She turned a silver coin in her pocket while she wished, and in the -dusk she curtsied to her Moonship. Feeling a little less forlorn after -performance of these rites, she walked the silent deck with firmer step -and the hornèd moon for company, trying not to listen to those sounds -down there upon the wharf—trying to recapture her early zest in this -enterprise. Now there were dim figures moving about the shadowy deck, and -in the smoking-room a light was turned on. Through the window she could -see a group of four men. They stood before a big sheet of paper laid -upon the table, and they argued some point with anger. Why, one of the -men was the little agent! “I swear it’s all right”—he raised his voice -excitedly—“all quite regillar an’ legal.” - -A snigger near where the girl stood made her aware of the presence of two -men behind her there in the dusk, one indifferent, half turned away; the -other, through spectacles that caught the smoking-room light, looked in -over Hildegarde’s shoulder at the angry group. - -“What are they arguing so about?” asked the girl, a little anxiously. If -either of the men outside answered she didn’t hear, for the noise below -on the wharf had been growing louder. Surely there was a riot going on! -“Oh, what is it?” she asked. “What’s the matter down there?” - -“The matter is it’s close on ten o’clock,” said the man with the -spectacles. - -“But they promised to let the people in at nine!” - -“That’s the trouble.” - -“Why didn’t they?” - -“That’s why.” The spectacled face nodded toward the smoking-room window. -The voices in there were held down now, but three of the faces were -angrier than ever. The fourth was sullen and set. - -“Won’t you tell me what is happening?” - -“Only a little false swearing.” - -“What about?” - -“The size of the passenger list. The _Los Angeles_ is chartered to carry -three hundred. They’ve sold over five hundred first-class tickets.” - -“Is that the inspector in there?” - -The spectacles moved up and down, making “Yes” with flashes of light, and -the lowered voice said: “He’s refused to sign our clearance papers.” - -“Then we won’t get off?” - -“Oh, probably.” The reply rang so cynical, as the spectacled stranger -walked after his silent companion, that Hildegarde stared the more -earnestly through the window at the drama going on within. - -Did they “square” the inspector? She only knew the party broke up and -melted away, and a few minutes after, a change came over the crowd -below. A sudden animation that exploded in yells. Was it triumph? Or was -it rage? Or was it pain? Yes, surely some one was crying “Help,” and -a woman shrieked, and now a sound like a flood breaking all barriers -and deluging the world. The lights went up on a sudden all over the -ship, and down below the gates gave way. In an incredibly short time -the ship that had seemed so lonely—it was full. And the torrent of -humanity that swept in looked so wild-eyed and disheveled, angry, and -possessed by evil passion, that Hildegarde turned and fled down the -companionway, and hid herself in her cabin. Ah, yes, she wasn’t much -of a heroine. It had been the work of a few seconds to turn the dim -and silent ship into a howling, flaring pandemonium, hundreds of angry -voices clamoring, complaining, threatening, shouting questions, muttering -hoarse abuse. “The company”—everybody was blaming the company. Dozens -of people tried to force their way into the cabin for five, at the foot -of whose authorized list of occupants stood the name of “Miss H. Mar,” -and in one of whose berths that intrepid adventurer was sitting in the -midst of her possessions, cross-legged like a Turk, staring, listening, -wondering what was going to happen when Governor David M. Jones appeared. -Was this he? No, only a huge young woman, in a man’s hat and ulster, -who growled and muttered unintelligibly—a foreigner, who seemed to be -cursing in Dutch. But this other, breathing American fire and biblical -brimstone, this must be Mrs. Governor Jones, holding up her skirt, half -torn out of its gathers. Would she wreak vengeance for that as well as -for graver misfortunes on the Turk in the upper berth? As the night -wore on the people sorted themselves. Hildegarde came to distinguish -between the interlopers and the women who belonged in here; battered and -breathless and worn out, but held together by a common bond of fearsome -experience in getting on board, and agreed, besides, in regarding none -too benevolently the person who sat up there in the farther top berth, -staring with wide eyes at the stories of what the others had suffered, -and herself saying never a word, till some one came to the door to ask if -Miss Mar was “there all right.” “_I_ don’t know,” said the nearest woman -crossly. - -“Oh, yes, yes,” said the Turk, tumbling out of the top berth. “Is that -you, Louis?” Now she knew how sure she had been, and how hugely glad -of his coming. But there at the door only the fat purser, who seemed -to have gone mad. He stared vacantly at the young lady, pulled off his -cap, and polishing his shining crown with a large handkerchief, muttered -abstractedly: “Oh—a—_that’s_ all hunky-dory!” and hurried away. As soon -as she recovered her breath, Hildegarde caught up her hat and went after -him to explain and to inquire. - -But he was swallowed in the crowd. She made a tour of the deck. But no, -one couldn’t stay long, and anyhow Cheviot wasn’t there. Not even the -Blumpittys seemed to be there. Curlyhead was refusing to come and be put -to bed, refusing in terms incredibly sulphurous for one of such tender -years. It turned you sick to hear such language from baby lips. - -“Where you off to?” said one man to another just in front of Hildegarde. - -“Goin’ to report to the authorities.” - -“Report what?” - -“The rat hole they’re askin’ me to sleep in.” - -“Plenty o’ time. We ain’t goin’ to get off till to-morrer, anyway.” - -“_What!_ Why, we’re a week late a’ready.” - -“Some of us’ll be later’n that. The authorities are goin’ to hold back a -couple of hundred fur the next ship.” - -“Who says so? _I_ ain’t goin’ to wait.” - -“Well”—he lowered his voice—“there’s inconvenient questions about -over-crowdin’.” - -The raging malcontent of the moment before was straightway tamed. You saw -in his face that he would do his share in hushing up the conditions under -which he was to make the voyage. - -As Hildegarde sped along the last stretch of the deck before going -below, her astonished eyes fell upon the giant. Then he hadn’t got off -by the _Congress_! She was about to ask him if he’d seen the Blumpittys, -but some one else was surprised to find the giant on board the _Los -Angeles_—a puffing, excited individual, with a red beard, in the act of -pushing past, stopped, stared, and then clapped the giant on the back. -“Gawd A’mighty! Is that you!” - -“No,” says the giant calmly. “I’m Ford O’Gorman.” - -Again Hildegarde hurried down the companionway, and very much as an -agitated tabby seeks refuge in the attic, she clambered into the top -berth furthest from the door. - -And Cheviot had never come! - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - - -When she waked the next morning it was to a sensation of strange silence -and gentle motion. Why, they had got off, then, after all! - -She was on her way to Nome. - -She sat up and looked about at the wreck of wardrobe and the prostrate -bodies of women. One made a noise like a half-suppressed moan. After a -moment the owner of the little sound of misery got up and tried to put on -a pink flannel jacket. For some reason that simple operation appeared to -be painful. She was about to abandon it. Hildegarde, half-way down from -her berth, said, “I’ll help you.” But the other shrank away. “No, no.” -She leaned her forehead against the upper berth. - -“You aren’t sick already, are you?” - -“No, it’s only—they nearly broke my arm in the crush last night.” - -“Oh-h!” - -“I think it’s just strained, that’s all.” - -As she turned round to sit on the edge of her berth, there, hanging -outside the nightgown’s split sleeve, was the injured arm, bare to the -shoulder, swollen, discolored. - -“Oh! What have you been doing for it?” - -“I was thinking of going out to get some cold water.” - -“Is the water here hot?” Hildegarde asked, bewildered. - -The woman didn’t trouble to answer. - -Hildegarde was investigating. “Why, there’s no water at all!” - -“No.” - -After more looking about, “Have you discovered where the bell is?” - -The woman lifted sleepless eyes and gave her an odd look. “I don’t expect -bells on this ship.” - -“Oh, I didn’t know.” Hildegarde put on her dressing-gown, took the tin -ewer and sallied forth. After a variety of adventures she came back. The -woman lifted her face out of the pillow when she heard the sound of water -splashing into the tin basin. “Oh, they got it for _you_.” - -“No, I got it for myself. Come and hold your arm over, won’t you? I’ll -bathe it.” - -A little surprised—a little doubtful, the woman got up, saying, “Thank -you.” What a nice voice said it! But this fine-skinned, delicate-faced -traveler was disposed to be reserved. Hildegarde could feel that for some -reason she was suspicious of such ready friendliness. - -“It’s most dreadfully bruised. How did you do it?” - -“I didn’t do it.” - -“Who?” - -“Oh, a man.” - -“How in the world—?” - -“Against the barrier. He was trying to get in front of me. I told him he -was breaking my arm, but he—” She left the sentence unfinished. - -Hildegarde’s eyes followed the last trickle of cool water over the -vivid purple and yellow and green of the swollen bruise. No doubt the -hurt showed the ghastlier for the natural whiteness of the skin. “Well, -whoever did it would be sorry, I think, if he saw your arm this morning.” - -“Sorry?” She moistened the end of a towel and Hildegarde helped her to -arrange a loose compress. - -“Yes; sorry and ashamed.” - -“You don’t know them as I do.” - -“Know who?” - -“Men.” Then, as Hildegarde made no instant rejoinder, “_I_ was alone,” -the woman added, so pointedly that Hildegarde hastened to say, “I’m -alone, too.” - -But the other seemed not to believe this, or, at least, to take no -account of it. “Last night wasn’t my first battle,” she said; “I’ve been -in the wars all my life,” and with a weary superiority she went back to -her berth. - -Ah, she was one of those women with a standing grievance! Hildegarde felt -for her the cheerful forbearance of the person who unconsciously takes -his own immunity from rancor as a tribute to his nice disposition or his -balanced judgment. - -Up on deck a flood of sunshine, a dazzling sea, a green shore not yet -very far away, a distant background of snowcapped mountains. - -On board the _Los Angeles_ few people yet afoot. There was Curlyhead -dashing about, responding to Hildegarde’s good-morning with a cheerful -oath. She took hold of him. “Listen to me,” she said, “you are not to say -such horrible things.” - -“Shut up!” and more of the same sort. She dropped the child with -precipitation and walked to the ship’s side. Those two men just there -by the life-boat, had they heard the dreadful words? She was hot at the -thought. They seemed to be talking about the boy now, that spectacled -man and his friend. The friend must have a cold or something wrong with -him, for even on this glorious morning he kept his arctic cap pulled -down over his neck, and his overcoat “storm collar” turned up above his -ears. Instead of taking a constitutional before breakfast, there he -was lounging behind the life-boat. The spectacled man got tired of so -sluggish a companion. He left the muffled-up figure and began to tramp -about by himself. Hildegarde passed him with “good-morning.” There was -her steamer-chair in the corner. She ought to get it out and place it -before the deck overflowed. - -The spectacled man lent a hand. - -“Well, we did get off,” he said. - -“Yes. When was it?” - -“About half past four, they say.” - -“Then this is Puget Sound?” - -“Yes. Those are the Cascade Mountains on that side. The Olympics on the -other.” - -Just then the giant came swinging down the breezy deck. - -“Oh, do you know,” Hildegarde asked him, “if Mr. and Mrs. Blumpitty got -on board all right?” - -“Well,” said the smiling Hercules, “they got on board.” He waited a -moment. When the spectacled gentleman had taken himself off. “Got your -seat?” he asked. - -“Won’t this be a good place?” - -“I mean for meals.” - -“Must I see about that?” - -“If you don’t want to eat scraps at the second table or the third.” - -“My ticket is first-class.” - -“That’s got nothing to do with it. Shall I go and see they keep you a -place?” - -“Oh, will you?” - -When she went down to breakfast she was bidden to a vacant seat on the -giant’s left. The other belonged to one of the two ex-governors on board. -But this particular excellency was not up yet. Beyond the place reserved -was a lean lathe of a man, with a voracious appetite. Opposite, sat a -big, shy individual, to whom people spoke deferentially as “Senator -Cochrane.” Next him a slim, attractive-looking woman, with fair hair, too -young, you would have said, to be the mother of the girl beside her; but -this pretty little person in her teens was Mrs. L’Estrange’s daughter, -so said the giant. What on earth could be taking people like that? The -giant didn’t know. Neither did the person next him, a gentleman with -a white “goatee,” who told the company that, as for himself, though, -like everybody else, he expected to get a claim, he was taking sixty -dozen chickens to Nome, and was “dead sure to make a good thing of it.” -He longed to talk more about chickens, and was obviously disturbed by -his stout friend further down, who would keep shouting remarks to the -chicken-merchant about thirty-eight horses he had on board, and whose -conveyance to Nome was costing the fat gentleman $100 apiece; and he -didn’t grudge it. Indeed, the horses’ quarters were so superior to the -fat gentleman’s own, that he’d “been thinkin’.” There wus one o’ them -horses—a daisy lot they were—but there wus one of ’em he’d taken a -dislike to. Didn’t know why, quite groundless—but the fat man was like -that. His wife said he was notional. Perhaps she was right. He never -contradicted a lady. But, anyways, he was goin’ to give up his own -first-class accommodation. In future he would bunk with the horses. And -the one he had a “pick on,” the mare with one white stocking and a star -on her forehead, she should have berth 147. If you had a quite groundless -but deadly spite against any one, that was a sure way to fix her, just -put her in berth 147. “Anyways—ladies first,” he wound up, handing to the -pretty mother of the young girl a vast dish, in which slabs of fat bacon -floated in an inch of grease. - -Not only the horse-dealer and the giant were attentive to the supposed -wants of the three women who appeared at breakfast. Two of the -roughest-looking of the men had stood aside on Hildegarde’s entrance to -let her go first, and there were those who warmly recommended the cold -bully-beef, and yet others who urged upon her the excellence of the hot -buckwheats. Could these be the wild animals who had roared and ravened -outside the night before? - -At Hildegarde’s end of the table sat a group of three who seemed to have -interests in common. “Mining men,” the giant said. They talked of the -difficulty in getting all their machinery on board. They and the giant -had stayed up till the _Los Angeles_ left the port of Seattle, mounting -guard over their “stuff.” They aired their views about the ship. Plenty -of white paint on her (or had been before so much of it came off on the -passengers)—but the _Los Angeles_ was a whited sepulchre. - -“Hasn’t she just been an army transport?” ventured Hildegarde, with the -average American’s unquestioning respect for anything indorsed by the -Government. - -“Oh, yes, pressed into the service during the Spanish-American war. But -the _Los Angeles_ is nothing more nor less than an antiquated Cunarder -from ‘way back,’ known to our grandfathers in the sixties as the rolling -_Roumelia_. She got such a bad name even in those days of primitive ocean -travel, that she had to clear out of the Atlantic. They rechristened her, -brought her round the Horn and turned her on to the Japan trade. Except -for taking those Johnnies to Manila, she hadn’t carried passengers for -thirty years until this company got hold of her, crowded in ten berths -where there’d been two before, or none at all, and lied about the number -of people they’d sold tickets to.” - -In the act of shoveling in Boston beans with his knife, the lean -individual next Hildegarde paused to remark: “If a man had committed the -worst crime in the calendar, it’d be a brutal punishment to make him -sleep in the suffocatin’ black hole they’ve put me in.” - -“Exactly—” began one of the three financiers, assuming the lean one to be -agreeing with him. - -“But,” interrupted the bean-feaster, “when they says t’ me they wusn’t no -more room, I says, ‘Lookee here, it’s worth anywheres from fifty to sixty -thousand dollars to me to be among the first to git there. You can put me -in _any_wheres,’ I says. ‘Y’ can do anything in hell,’ I says, ‘except -leave me behind.’ An’ b’ gosh they done it.” He champed his beans with -a look that betokened renewed relish at having given the conversation -an unexpected turn. Accomplished as this person was, he, with a plate -full of Boston beans and a knife, could do nothing as original with his -food as the passenger on the other side of the table next to the pretty -girl. After one fascinated stare in his direction, Hildegarde felt it -wiser to look away. It was not, however, that moment’s astonishing -vision that prevented her from eating her own breakfast. The giant was -charitably concerned. Try this, and that. But Hildegarde disposed of a -little of the sticky gray porridge and condensed milk, a sip of the muddy -coffee, and then she played with the sour bread while she listened to the -conversation. Suddenly, whirling round her pivoted chair, she returned -with ardor to the sunshine-flooded upper regions. - -It looked as though every soul who wasn’t at the first breakfast must -be on deck. In this clear and searching light Miss Mar’s traveling -companions stood revealed—a strange, an unexampled crew. Scraps of -German, of Swedish, of French, and of tongues to which she had no key, -floated past her ear. In this new world of the _Los Angeles_, no color -line discoverable, no alien labor law in force. Her eye fell upon the -cryptic faces of the Japanese, and on familiar types of negro and -mulatto, cheek by jowl with lawyers, clergymen, and senators. There -were raw, red Irishmen, and overdone brown Hebrews. The captain went -by talking broad Scotch to the English doctor, and the pig-tailed crew -pulled at the cordage in unison to an uncouth Chinese chant. - -And never was such sunshine, never shores so green, never before mountain -ranges so ethereal, so softly touched with snow or wreathed in cloud. - -But the people—the people! - -The girl wandered about, all eyes, or sat in her long chair, for which -there was hardly room now on the swarming deck. She held in one hand a -little volume in which never a page was turned, for here, moving up and -down before her, was matter more wonderful than any history written in -any book. The thought she found coming up oftenest: What on earth takes -him—or her—to Nome? For Louis, it seems, was in one thing right. Here was -no Klondike company of sturdy pioneers, all men of brawn, or Amazonian -women. Some such were in the throng, but the majority, weedy clerks and -dyspeptic nondescripts. There went a man with only one arm to dig his -gold. Several smartly dressed ladies flashed by with an air of being -on their way to a garden party. Here was a hollow-chested youth with -a corpse-like face, crawling painfully about with the aid of a cane. -There were other children besides Curlyhead, and a number of quite old -men—one grizzled creature with both feet “club.” What are _they_ going -to do in such a place as Nome? Hildegarde seemed to be the only one to -wonder. Every face shining, every heart seemed lifted up. One and all -were well-assured they had only to see Nome to “obtain joy and gladness.” -“Nome is the place,” their faces said, “where sorrow and sighing shall -flee away.” - -Here were the Blumpittys, looking a good deal battered, but he, at least, -no gloomier than common, and she beaming like all the rest. Hildegarde -got up to greet them. “I looked for you at breakfast.” - -“We are having ours later,” quoth Mrs. Blumpitty, as one admitting habits -luxurious. But since the second table had been summoned some time before -it was patent that to be of the Blumpitty party meant you must eat at the -third. - -“Are you comfortable where you are?” inquired the rusty one solicitously. - -“Oh, yes, quite, thank you,” said Hildegarde, a little ashamed at being -so infinitely better off than poor Mrs. Blumpitty. But that lady, with an -air of subdued pride, was presenting, “One of our party, Dr. Daly,” an -important-looking man of thirty or so, with a highly impressive manner. -“Ruth, Ruth, please come here! My niece, Miss Sears.” “My niece” was -little and shy and brown. Hildegarde felt instantly that she was a nice -niece. “And this is Mr. Tobin. Dr. Merton”—about nineteen this last -gentleman, with the complexion of a lucky girl. “And Dr. Thomas.” Why, it -rained doctors! Which was the dentist? Hildegarde on reflection decided -they were all dentists. “Oh, and here comes Miss Leroy Schermerhorn!” -Mrs. Blumpitty spoke in the tone of a chamberlain announcing “Her Majesty -the Queen!” Through the crowd advanced the heralded “business woman to -Blumpitty & Co.,” a lady of twenty-eight or thirty, with a somewhat -defiant face under the shadow of a fuzzy black bang, and a ruthless eye. -When it had pierced Miss Mar in many a vital spot, it fell upon the only -deck-chair on the ship, with its “robe” and scarlet cushion. “Well, -you’re making yourself pretty comfortable,” said Miss Leroy Schermerhorn. -“Like your room?” - -Hildegarde was in no haste to reply. - -Mrs. Blumpitty bridged the chasm. “I was so glad when I heard you’d got a -berth up-stairs.” - -“I guess it cost you a lot,” said Miss Schermerhorn, with a snap of her -eyes. - -“No,” said Hildegarde. “It was a piece of luck.” - -“Well, I’m that glad and relieved,” said Mrs. Blumpitty, as the haughty -Schermerhorn retired a few paces to whisper conclusions in Dr. Thomas’ -ear, while surreptitiously both pursued their study of Miss Mar. But Mrs. -Blumpitty’s eye still angled among the sea creatures that swarmed upon -the waters of Puget Sound. With a little jerk of satisfaction she landed -yet another big fish. - -“Miss Estelle Maris.” - -Oh, yes, the lady with the languid air, the rakish hat and red velveteen -blouse; this was the one who “said” she could cook. - -“Any more of our party up yet?” Mrs. Blumpitty asked her. - -“Guess the rest’s asleep,” answered Miss Estelle Maris. - -“Guess so, too,” said Mr. Blumpitty, with benevolence. “We wus all pretty -tired.” And that was the sole reference to the battle of the night -before. Neither then nor later from any member of Blumpitty’s staunch -party a syllable of complaint at their quarters on the ship. - -Mr. Blumpitty himself, during these amenities and some further -conversation, had stood by the ship’s side, looking sadly toward -Vancouver Island. - -“There goes our breakfast horn,” said his wife at last, as one who offers -substantial cheer. - -The Blumpitty party melted away; only the leader remained. “Guess -everybody that ain’t on deck’s either eatin’ or asleep.” He offered it as -a general comment upon existence. - -“I suppose so,” said Miss Mar. - -“And the smokin’-room’ll be empty. Will you step in there a minute?” - -“Yes.” (What on earth—?) - -“Little matter o’ business,” he said, leading the way. - -Two men in one corner puffed bad cigars while they bent over a glazed -paper, whereon a certain property was outlined in red ink. No one else -there. Hildegarde and Mr. Blumpitty took the opposite corner. - -“I got t’ give y’ $25,” said Blumpitty, as one who has studied every -alternative. - -“What in the world for?” asked the young lady. - -“Bonus on the _Congress_ ticket.” He had pulled a roll of bills out of -his pocket, and the breeze in the transit from open porthole to open door -paused on its way to toy with greenbacks of a goodly denomination. - -“I didn’t know there was a bonus,” said Hildegarde. - -“Naw,” said Blumpitty vaguely, as he handed her the money. He got up -murmuring “breakfast.” But when he found himself on his feet he glanced -with slow caution at the absorbed faces opposite, still bent over the map -of a mining district, and lowering his voice, “Did Mrs. Mar say anything -to you touchin’ the Mother Lode?” - -“Yes.” - -“Well, don’t mention it, will yer?” - -As Hildegarde looked up to say, “Oh, no, indeed,” there was the -spectacled man’s friend at the porthole. At least it looked like his cap -and his high collar, for that was all of him that any one could see. Even -that much vanished the moment Hildegarde raised her eyes. When she and -Mr. Blumpitty reached the deck the arctic cap was nowhere to be seen. How -had he disappeared so quickly in such a crowd? - -Mr. Blumpitty paused a moment before going below, muttering to himself, -“I jest been talkin’ to a gentleman”—the yellow-gray eyes went over the -heads of the throng—“a gentleman that thinks _he_ knows where it is.” - -“The Mother Lode?” - -Blumpitty’s pale visage relaxed to something remotely like a smile as he -answered, “But he don’t.” - -“I suppose,” said Hildegarde, “all these people in one way or another -hope to find it—the Mother Lode, you know.” - -Blumpitty’s vague eyes came back from the snowcapped range of the -Cascades, and dwelt with a ruminant sympathy upon the passing faces. -“Ya-as, they think they’re headin’ straight fur it. But they ain’t.” - -“Nobody on all this ship, or on all the other ships is really heading -straight but you.” - -“Wa-al”—he seemed to wish to be strictly, punctiliously accurate—“I got -to go to Snow Gulch first.” - -“But after that?” - -“Ya-as. After that!” And Blumpitty went to the third breakfast-table on -his way to millionairedom and the Mother Lode. - -The girl lay back in her long chair and stared at the crowd, thinking how -strange it was that Hildegarde Mar should be among them, and even while -she wondered the sense of strangeness was wearing away. - -And these purblind, trustful creatures, filled with their pathetic hopes, -was it of them she had been afraid? She smiled at the absurdity. They -were rough and crude, but not in the least alarming—except at a distance. -She pondered this, catching glimpses of a truth of wider application. -When the motley throng had stood without the gate struggling and crying -to be allowed on board this enchanted ship, when Hildegarde had stood -apart from them, not enlightened by sharing in their lot, she had had her -moments of misgiving, or rather she had been seized by a quite childish -panic. - -And, after all, what harm can they do me? Poor little Curlyhead, they -might teach him a few more bad words (though even that was open to -doubt)—one or two ignorant girls in their teens, they might suffer. But -Hildegarde Mar—how could they hurt a person twenty-six years old, who is -among them for a few days out of a lifetime. What’s the good of me and my -better advantages if I can be injured by this sort of thing? - -It was something to get back her courage to be alone among these people. -Last night she had been under an illusion about them. Yes, she had had -some bad moments, but they had come chiefly because she had so set her -heart on seeing—yet no, let her be honest. Louis’s neglect had put her -out of tune, disheartened her quite unaccountably, but the worser moments -had come through positive fear. And the fear had come—oh, it was clear -now—it had come through having her mind filled with foreboding by the -people who cared most for her. There was always that potency in evil -prophecy—it went a long way toward bringing about its own fulfilment. If -good were foretold you were afraid to believe it. If evil you were afraid -not to believe. - -There was that much truth in the fabled power of the Evil Eye. Her -expedition had been so frowned on, eyed so askance; small wonder she had -failed to keep her courage quite untarnished. Well, she had found out one -thing on the threshold of the journey. It is the fear felt for us by the -men who love us that makes cowards of womankind; it is others’ shrinking -that goes far to make us quail. - -She took a sheet of folded note-paper out of her little Tennyson and her -pencil traced the words: “On board the _Los Angeles_, May 31, 1900. My -dear Louis—” Yes, she would write him a long, long letter, and tell him -how little ground there was for fear. But she would write very gently, -even humbly, and get him to understand and to forgive her. She would show -him how much better his fellow-men were than he had given out. - -She remembered with an instant’s loss of enthusiasm her room-mate’s -account of the matter. But she decided that lady was of a carping and a -gloomy nature—she looked on the dark side. Perhaps Hildegarde would feel -less cheerful herself if she’d had her arm nearly broken—but an accident -could happen anywhere. - -“And the stoop-shouldered man is the father.” It was Mrs. Locke, -Hildegarde’s room-mate, who said the words, her eyes on Curlyhead. That -person, in a towering rage, stood in a group of laughing men. They were -plaguing him just to hear him swear. Mrs. Locke was still very white, her -arm in a sling. But what a nice face she had! - -“_Do_ sit here,” Hildegarde urged, and finally prevailed. The new-comer -said very little. Others stopped in passing and talked to Hildegarde. -Mrs. Locke sat and looked at the sea. Before one o’clock a stiff breeze -sprang up. It cleared the deck as if the people had been so many -mosquitoes, for the _Los Angeles_ began to roll. “I am a fair sailor,” -said Mrs. Locke. “I shan’t mind.” - -“Oh, this is where you are!” some one was saying familiarly just -behind them, Hildegarde thought to Mrs. Locke. But on looking round -she met the purser’s fascinating smile. Mrs. Locke got up instantly, -murmuring something about feeling the need of a walk. The purser dropped -comfortably into the vacant chair. - -“Well, my dear, and how do you find yourself this morning?” As Miss Mar -did not instantly respond, “Goin’ to be a good sailor?” he said, with a -great display of teeth. - -Hildegarde looked at him and decided he was a little idiotic, but that -she must have dreamed the “dear.” She answered him upon that supposition. -Still he talked rather queerly, she thought, till the first horn sounded -for dinner. - -“I’ve got a place for you at my table,” he said, getting up. - -“Oh, thank you, but I have a seat already.” - -“That don’t matter, it won’t go beggin’. I’m lookin’ out for you all -right,” he assured her, as though he had heard himself accused of -neglect. “I was up till five this mornin’, so I slept late, or I’d been -around before.” - -“It is very good of you, but I’ve got quite a good place. I won’t change, -thank you.” - -“Oh, come now, don’t be huffy. How could I tell you’d be up at breakfast? -Come along, my dear.” - -Hildegarde stared at him, and then she said quite gently: “I’m not the -least huffy, but I’ll keep the seat I have, thank you.” - -“Oh, very well! _Very well!_” and he took himself off in a state that -might, perhaps, be described in his own words as “huffy”—oh, but very -huffy indeed. - -Before Vancouver’s Island faded out of sight everybody was greatly -intrigued to see the men of the British post there signaling the passing -ship. What were they doing that for? People ran about the decks asking -one another, “What’s happened?” It was an exciting moment, for this -communication, whatever it was, would be the last the _Los Angeles’_ -passengers would know for many a day of the great world’s happenings. A -boom of cannon came across the water. The news filtered down from the -bridge: “Lord Roberts has entered Pretoria!” - -“And that’s the last human sign,” said ex-Governor Reinhart, “till we -sight the ships at Nome.” - -“Or, better still,” amended one of the first table financiers, “the last -till we signal to the Nomites: The fleet’s behind! We’ve won the race. -’Rah! for the _Los Angeles_!” The betting had already begun. The run was -to be anything from a week to a month. - - * * * * * - -Losing sight of land meant losing sunshine and calm seas, almost, it -would appear, losing the vast majority of the passengers. - -The next few days saw a surprisingly deserted deck. The _Los Angeles_, -however antiquated, had lost none of her pristine capacity for rolling. -At least ninety per cent. of the people were laid low. Most of the -stewards (all green hands working their passage to Nome), instead of -ministering to others on the way, were making the voyage on their backs. - -Hildegarde, the only one of her cabin to leave it, dragged herself on -deck early every morning to find fortitude by dint of staying out in -the air. It was not solely the awful pitching of the ship, not even -the added discomfort of the dank, cold weather, that made up the sum -of her discomfort. The purser had got on her nerves. Still she didn’t -like snubbing him any more than was strictly necessary—not from fear of -reprisals (though, beyond a doubt, he was a power in this tiny kingdom), -but because it was hideous to her even to see any one’s self-respect -hurt, let alone be the one to deal the wound. Nor could she help -sympathizing with him. He must be under a ludicrous and rather pathetic -illusion about himself to “go on” like this. Whenever he could be spared -from his duties, there, wherever Miss Mar turned, was the fat purser, -practising his most killing smiles, and proffering aid and companionship. -In these gray and dripping days of nearly abandoned decks, her sole -refuge was in the society of the giant, who discoursed pleasantly of -sea-birds, and in any moment’s lifting of the fog pointed out more -whales. And he piloted Hildegarde’s see-sawing steps fore and aft till -she found her sea-legs. She was vaguely conscious that at a pinch she -might count on the spectacled man. - -Three days, now since she had had a sign from the Blumpittys or any of -their party except Dr. Daly. He had laughed and said: “They’re all very -busy. Guess they don’t want to be disturbed.” - -It was a relief when in the middle of a rainy afternoon Ruth Sears came -to the surface. She was very wan and looked pathetic, childish, and -attractive, too, in a skirt to her knees, stout boots and long gaiters. -And she had come to ask Miss Mar for a little meat extract for Mrs. -Blumpitty. - -Hildegarde had not waited for that moment to be glad she had disregarded -the warm recommendation not to bother with ship supplies of her own, but -to help herself out of the Blumpittys’ and pay at the end of the voyage. - -Ruth said sadly: “There’s been some mistake. Our grocery box can’t be -found.” Down the two girls and the giant went to the regions behind the -dining-saloon to open the provision-box whose contents had been Miss -Mar’s daily solace. There, in the swaying dingy murk, where the figures -of Chinamen flitted, they opened the padlocked box and drew forth jars of -Liebig, crackers, cheese, and silver packets of tea. - -“Oh, it _is_ kind of you!” Ruth’s gentle eyes were shining. “She hasn’t -had anything for forty-eight hours, but she’ll be able to eat _now_.” - -_Poor_ Mis’ Bumble Bee! - -“I’ll lend you my alcohol lamp,” said Hildegarde. “I make tea every -afternoon when it isn’t too rough. Won’t you come and have some?” - -The wan little niece going off with her hands full, paused an instant. -“If—if I’m able, thank you.” - -“You ought to be more on deck. Of course you’re ill if you stay down -there.” - -“I couldn’t take care of them if I didn’t,” and she was gone. - -The next day the fat purser was so all-pervading that Hildegarde felt -herself making up her mind that really something must be done. She had -scant patience with girls who complained at this order of infliction. Her -firm conviction, “It’s their own fault”; though just how the purser’s -foolishness was hers she could not determine. - -The afternoon was wild and rough, the smoking-room, packed and noisy. -The overflow of men, with a few very subdued-looking women, sat below in -the “Ladies’ Saloon”—a feebly-lit, ill-smelling little room, where an -aged upright piano kept company with a hurly-burly of freight and three -rickety chairs. Hildegarde’s fortitude threatened to give way after two -minutes of the foul, close air. But up on deck the purser! and not a -soul beside, except the bean-feaster, Mr. Isaiah Joslin, trudging up -and down in oilskins, and the arctic cap driven off the bridge by the -inclement weather. He sat in the most sheltered corner of the upper deck, -obviously asleep, with arms folded and head withdrawn into his collar. -The wind rose and the rain swept down upon the place where Hildegarde and -the giant (with intervals of purser) had spent the morning. Oh, where -was that giant now? She moved her chair to the better shelter near the -arctic cap. At least, the purser did it for her, and was altogether so -oppressive with his poor little gallantries and what the giant called -his “toothsome smile,” that Hildegarde felt, whatever the penalty of his -worst displeasure, in another moment she would be doing something more -drastic than throwing out broad hints which he either disregarded or -affected to consider humorous. She wished now that before moving she had -said something even he couldn’t misunderstand. With another man by it -would make the purser mad with fury. In any case, hardly fair to subject -him publicly to a snubbing as effectual as she saw was going to be -necessary. The arctic cap, for all the seeming blindness and deafness of -his hidden face, might be listening. So Miss Mar merely drew her tartan -plaid up about her shoulders and observed with some gravity that she -was going to sleep. The purser took up a romantic attitude at her feet, -saying, “Good-night.” Hildegarde jumped up. “I’ll go and see how Mrs. -Blumpitty is.” - -Getting rid of the purser lent a rapture even to going below. And as she -went she smiled, remembering how her mother was comforting herself with -the thought of the Blumpittys (“splendid sailors” both of them!) pledged -to watch over Miss Mar, and if she were laid low to bring her sustenance -on deck out of their private supplies. Four days and no glimpse of either -of her guardian angels till this moment, when, rolling through the second -saloon on her way to smooth Mrs. Blumpitty’s pillow, Hildegarde, pitching -from side to side, clutching at anything within reach to steady herself, -caught sight of her stand-by, her protector, the man who was going to -minister to her and “see her through,” Blumpitty, with ghastly visage, -clinging to the knob of a cabin door like a shipwrecked mariner to a -spar. In these days of seclusion poor Mr. Blumpitty had sadly altered, -wearing now a yellow-gray beard of some five days’ growth, bristling upon -a countenance pea-green and pitiful. - -“Oh, is that you?” says the young lady, holding on to the rough board -that covered with newspapers at meal time, did duty down here for a -dining-table. “How do you do?” - -“How—” Blumpitty stopped at that and devoted his entire attention to -keeping hold of the knob. - -Hildegarde didn’t quite like to go away and leave him to his fate, at a -moment so abject in the Blumpitty history, nor did she quite know how to -conduct a conversation under these conditions. She decided frankness was -best. So, as her friend still clutched and tried to steady himself, she -gave way a little to smiling. “I thought you were a seasoned old salt, -Mr. Blumpitty.” - -He only rolled his yellow eyes—but no, that statement is misleading, -for Blumpitty rolled his entire economy. Yet never a word rolled out. -Hildegarde, wishing to spare his feelings, added, as she turned to go, “A -great many people seem to have been bowled over by the pitching of _this_ -ship.” - -“No ship,” said Blumpitty in a sepulchral whisper, “no _ship_ could make -a man feel like this.” - -Hildegarde was alarmed. Was Mr. Blumpitty about to be snatched from them -by some fell disease? - -“Wh-what do you think it is?” she inquired, with another lurch, but much -sympathy. - -He clung now with both hands to his savior-knob, while the rolling -_Roumelia_ worked her own wild will upon Mr. Blumpitty’s contorted frame. -“It’s the cook,” he groaned. - -“The _cook_!” This was indeed terrible! His brain was giving way! - -“Yes,” he went on hoarsely in an interval of comparative steadiness, -“I know these fellows. If a sea-cook thinks he’s got too many people -to feed—he—oh, Gawd!—he puts stuff in the coffee, or soap in the -bread—and—people don’t want to eat any more.” - -_Roumelia_ resented this aspersion upon her son. She shot Mr. Blumpitty -forward with extreme violence, and he, entirely without volition, found -himself going on deck. But perhaps the same force that took him up -brought him down and put him to bed, for Hildegarde saw him no more. - -Over her further descent into that part of the ship she had been -intended to occupy, it is considerate to draw a veil. - -She reappeared like a mourner at a funeral, following at Ruth’s side in -the wake of a figure borne on a mattress between a steward and the giant. -The prostrate form of poor Mis’ Bumble Bee, speechless, blind, deaf, -was laid in the one sheltered corner of the deck. Ruth, very weak and -unsteady, went back to that fetid under-world that beggared description, -ministering to miserable men and women lying helpless on shelves, tier -above tier to the ceiling. Even to be down there for five minutes was a -thing to be remembered shuddering as long as one lived. - -After putting her cushion under Mrs. Blumpitty’s head, Hildegarde glanced -round. - -“Lookin’ fur the purser?” said Mr. Isaiah Joslin, grinning and holding on -to a stanchion. - -“No,” said Hildegarde, with some dignity. - -Mr. Joslin accepted a graver view of life’s possibilities. “That -feller’ll get a thrashin’ if he don’t look out.” - -“The purser?” - -“Yep.” - -“Why—who will—?” - -“That man up there’ll be attendin’ to it.” Mr. Joslin nodded toward the -bridge. The Arctic Cap was scanning the misty world through Captain -Gillies’ glass. - -“Why should he? Besides, I thought he was an invalid.” - -“Wa-al, maybe that’s it. P’raps he thinks it’d be good fur his health.” - -“What would?” - -“W’y wallopin’ the purser.” - -“What’s _he_ got against the purser?” - -“_Says_ he don’t like the color of his hair. But as the purser ain’t got -no hair, it’s my private opinion the gentleman up there don’t like his -fascinatin’ ways.” He looked significantly at the tall girl. Hildegarde -bent down to tuck the tartan round Mrs. Blumpitty. Now, why on earth -should the Arctic Cap care how the purser behaved to—other people? - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - - -When Mrs. Blumpitty found herself being taken below that first evening, -she revived sufficiently to protest, and so frustrated the giant’s -amiable design of carrying her off to bed. The invalid stayed on deck day -and night, and instead of dying as the captain and all the passengers -confidently expected, she got well and “lived happy ever after” on that -voyage upon Miss Mar’s supplies, sharing even the fresh eggs which the -giant, by some means, acquired daily from the Nome-bound hens. Hildegarde -was sorry she lacked courage to share Mrs. Blumpitty’s new quarters. -But the “queerness” of sleeping out of your bed—in the public eye, -too!—almost the immodesty of it (in the passenger mind), if unpalliated, -as in Mrs. Blumpitty’s case, by threatened dissolution—no, it was too -daunting. Since Mrs. Locke could “stand it” in the cabin, Hildegarde -must. Even Mrs. Locke’s seamanship had gone down before the _Roumelia’s_ -roll, but she was getting better. She made fitful appearances on deck. -But there was something odd about her. You never knew whether it was -sea-sickness or distrust of her kind that would carry her suddenly below -when a fellow-passenger stopped to speak to her. - -Fresh from a raid upon the provision-box, Hildegarde coming on deck one -evening, found Mrs. Locke in an hour of clearing weather between showers. -There was even a strip of ruddy sunset to gladden the voyager’s heart. - -Hildegarde looked round for her chair. - -“It rained two drops a little while ago,” observed Mrs. Locke, “and the -man you call the giant moved your things.” - -“Oh, did he?” Hildegarde stood at the ship’s side, looking at the fading -red. - -By and by, “Sit on half my stool,” suggested Mrs. Locke. - -“Thank you,” said Hildegarde, feeling that coming from such a source this -invitation was immensely cordial. “It’s very kind of you.” - -“No, that isn’t it.” - -“What do you mean?” - -“You’re the sort of person everybody wants to do things for.” She seemed -to point it out as a fault on Miss Mar’s part. - -Hildegarde looked at her curiously. “I should have thought _you_ were -more that kind of person, except for—” The cameo-like face must have been -beautiful before it grew so white and set. You felt that a touch of color -even now, a little happiness, would make it irresistible. - -“Except?” Mrs. Locke echoed. - -“Well, you know you _do_—Shall I say it?” - -“Yes.” - -“You do receive friendliness a good deal at the point of the sword.” - -“I’ve learnt my lesson.” As Hildegarde said nothing, “Wait till _you_ -are—” But any inclination to be more explicit vanished. - -Hildegarde thought she had intended to say, “Wait till you’re as old as -I.” “I have a feeling you know immensely more than I do,” said the girl, -“but I don’t believe you’re much older.” - -“I’m thirty-two.” - -“Well, I’m twenty-six.” - -“You don’t look that much.” - -“I suppose it’s having eyes so wide apart.” - -“No, I think it’s your childish chin and your air of believing -everything. But, anyhow, my thirty-two counts double.” Then, as if again -to turn the conversation away from herself, “You’re an infant, but rather -a wise infant, after all,” she added, relenting a little. “Only what -takes you to Nome?” - -Hildegarde told her. “And what are you going for?” - -“Money.” - -“Not beach gold,” said the girl smiling. - -“I’ve been sent for. I shall be bookkeeper to one of the large companies.” - -“Oh-h.” Hildegarde’s big eyes were so obviously uncongratulatory that -Mrs. Locke said firmly, “It’s work I’m used to.” - -“But—up there, won’t it be very rough and difficult for—for any one like -you—all alone?” - -“They pay three times what I’ve been getting. I’m very lucky to have the -offer, at least as I count luck now. I used to think—to have ambitions.” - -“I don’t wonder,” said Hildegarde, betraying a flattering confidence in -the other’s powers. - -“I know my measure now. I’m a failure.” And still there was no weakness, -no repining in her tone. Level and courageous, but without comfort, -wholly without anticipation. - -“What shall you do with the money you make?” - -“Buy freedom.” Was she thinking of divorce? Apparently not, for she went -on, “No woman’s free who hasn’t enough to live on without asking anybody -for it. So I’m going to Nome to avoid slavery.” - -“Your husband doesn’t mind?” - -“He’s dead.” No trace of emotion in the low voice. But yielding to the -invitation in the girl’s eyes, she told in brief outline of a hard life. -The last six years of it alone. “But as to that, I was alone before. Only -people didn’t know it, and so things were easier.” - -“How easier?” - -“There are always people to help the women who don’t need help”—and then -something of the disillusion that followed upon her husband’s death; of -difficult bread-winning; of inforced close relations with men through her -work, and what she thought of them. “Exceptions? Well, I suppose so. I’ve -once or twice thought the exception had come my way.” - -“And were you wrong—_always_ wrong?” - -“You see the kind of men a bookkeeper in a western town is thrown -with—oh, you have to walk very warily, to hold yourself down, to seem to -misunderstand—not to let your disgust cost you your bread and butter.” -Hildegarde looked at the pure outline of the profile again. It was all -very well to talk of having learnt lessons and of being over thirty, -thought the girl. Mrs. Locke’s troubles aren’t over yet. - -But perhaps she would find something better than money on this journey, -a real friend, or even—Several of the passengers were disposed to be -conspicuously civil. There was that lawyer with the clever face. He was -walking the deck now in the giant’s company, and every time he passed he -looked at Mrs. Locke. - -“I’m sure that man wants to come and talk to you,” said Hildegarde. - -“If you get up, I shall go below.” - -“Why don’t you like Mr. Meyer?” - -“Why should I like Mr. Meyer?” - -“Well, he likes you. Doesn’t that a little—just a little—No? Well, then, -there’s another reason. He told me he thought you were so plucky that you -ought to be helped.” As even this generous sentiment seemed not to melt -the lady, “You’d better be nice to him,” said Hildegarde lightly, smiling -in her effort to make her companion a little cheerfuller. “He told me he -could get you a Nome lot that you could sell by and by for $2000.” - -“Did he say what I was to pay for it?” - -“You don’t pay anything, that’s what’s so beautiful.” - -“Really! Why doesn’t he get it for himself?” - -“He’ll have one, too. Everybody will who knows—as he does—which are the -forfeited ones. The thing is, you must live on the lot. Then you acquire -squatter’s sovereignty, and you can sell it for $2000.” - -“I see; and how much am I to give Mr. Meyer?” - -“Oh, you _are_ suspicious! He takes a real interest. He wants to ‘put you -on to’ some unrecorded mining property he knows about.” - -“Yes.” - -“Has he told you?” - -“He didn’t tell me why a busy man like Meyer should stop to think of me.” - -“Do you think men never help women?” - -“Yes, when they see some advantage for themselves.” And then dark -histories. The general effect of her experience, the sum total of that -knowledge she had brought out of commerce with men, and which was -always ready to rise up and menace her—it seemed almost incredible to -the sheltered woman. But it was not all narrow, personal repining. Mrs. -Locke had theories. She had lived once in a state where women voted. She -told stories of going to the polls. In spite of the opposition of male -politicians she had once herself held office. - -“Well, how did you like being a notary public?” - -“I hated it, but it taught me things.” - -“Unless my life’s a failure,” she said, with an unconscious loftiness, “I -don’t expect to have time to bother about politics.” - -“You’d feel differently if you didn’t belong to the privileged class.” - -“Oh, but I don’t. I belong to quite plain people. And we’ve been very -poor.” - -“Have you ever worked for your living?” - -“No.” - -“Exactly. Intelligent and able-bodied, and yet you’ve—” - -“I’ve helped at home.” - -“You may have saved the wages of a housekeeper or a sewing woman, but -you’ve taken what was given you as a dole; and you haven’t a notion what -you’d do if the men of your family died or cast you off. Or—_have_ you?” - -“I never thought about it.” - -“That’s what I mean. You belong to what they call the privileged class. -The ‘privilege’ is to know as little of life as a pet canary.” - -Hildegarde only laughed. - -“Oh, yes, you sing very sweetly, and the song says you’ve got all the -rights you want. All it means is that through some man living or dead the -singer has what material comforts she needs. And the burden of the song -is, ‘Look how contented and feminine I am. _I’m_ all right. With the mass -of womankind it’s different, but I shan’t bother.’” - -“You think it’s different with the mass?” - -“You know it is. Never mind”—she made a little impatient move of the head -as though to free her brain from some thorny contact—“I’ve had my time of -trying to help the rest. From this on I have just one object. I’ve made -up my mind to put up with any and everything till I’ve bought my freedom. -That’s why I’m here.” - -“How long will it take you to buy freedom?” asked Hildegarde. - -Mrs. Locke clasped one hand over the other on the railing of the ship and -leaned her chin down on the whitened knuckles. She fixed her steady eyes -upon the wave-fretted, glaucous-looking waste, less like water than like -vast fields of molten lead, falling into furrows, forever shifting and -forever shaped anew. “I say to myself that if I slave and rough it for -five years more, I shall be able to buy a little home in the country and -know some peace before I die.” - -It seemed a gray existence, and Hildegarde, with the hopeful -self-sufficiency of happy youth, felt in her heart that the woman must -somehow be to blame. Men were not always or usually what Mrs. Locke -gave out. Even in the crush at the wharf, though the rougher people had -pushed and jostled and sworn, nobody had tried to break Hildegarde’s arm. -Mrs. Blumpitty had roughed it, but she didn’t complain of men, though -Blumpitty must be a trial. No, poor Mis’ Bumble Bee, on her pallet of -straw in the corner of the deck, was by the side of this other woman an -enviable object even in the worst weather, and the statement may stand -although it lack its true significance to that portion of mankind which -happened not to be in the North Pacific or the Bering Sea in the first -June of this century. Even when the weather was not doing anything -spectacular, the dank chill was of the sort that searched the marrow. -The fogs penetrated tweed and mackinaw and even leather, till people’s -apparel wilted, and conducing less to warmth than shivering, clung to -their figures as clammily as a half-dried bathing dress. The rugs and -“robes” and wraps weighed each a ton—the very bedclothes seemed never to -be dry. Day and night the fog-horn hooted, or, when the all-enveloping -grayness lifted for a little, it was only to loosen the great rains, as -if most mighty Jupiter Pluvius, thinking to use the ship for his tub, had -pulled the shower-bath string just above it, discharging a waterspout -over the _Los Angeles_. And after that, sleet, mist drizzle, and fog -again. - -Every man on board began to suffer visibly and audibly from the national -complaint. In vain they hawked and spat and trumpeted; the great American -Cold had them by the nose. All they could do in their misery was to -reduce companionway and deck to a condition best left undescribed. But -it was this more than any other thing that made the heart of the unhappy -Hildegarde to falter and grow faint. - -There were moments when, too chilled to sit still, worn out with tramping -up and down, wet, and yet more miserable by reason of certain sights and -sounds, she, nevertheless, rather than face the greater horror below, -would stay on deck all day, wondering a little sometimes that she could -suffer so much acute physical misery and yet not rue her coming. For even -now, the moment she envisaged a possible escape—a passing yacht that -should take her luxuriously home, or any pleasant miracle of rescue—she -discovered that come what would, she was not only bound to keep on, but -as determined to see it through as she had been that night of Louis’s -return, when, innocent of most that it implied, she had said she would go -and bring her father home. - -In the carrying out of her resolution there was nothing, as yet, to be -afraid of in the sense she vaguely had supposed her brothers and Louis -Cheviot to mean, but of sheer physical wretchedness and soul-sickness, -enough and to spare for the chastening of any spirit. - -There had been a good deal of heavy drinking in the last day or two. As -for Curlyhead’s father, he seemed never to be sober, and yet he had wits -enough left, as well as cash, to bear a hand in endless games of poker. -At first there had been little card-playing. But now, as people began -to grow used to the motion, they crawled out of their berths to look at -the world from the upper-deck, shiver and go below. Down there, what was -there to do but the one thing? If you played once, you played every day, -and all day, and more than half the night. People who couldn’t as yet -sit at the table to eat, sat there between meals breakfasting, dining, -supping off “chips” and bits of pasteboard—not missing fleshpots, since -always a jackpot graced the board. There were those who grudged the meal -hours. Glowering upon the people who used the tables for mere eating, -they stood about impatient till a place was cleared and the real business -of poker might begin. - -The same thing went on straight through the ship. According to the giant, -they were as hard at it in the second-class as they were in the first, -and on down as far as the horrible berths went, wherever men could get a -board or a barrel-head, there they were with cards in their hands. - -Not men only. And not only the woman with the sealskin jacket and the -diamond ear-rings (did she sleep as well as eat and play in these -adornments?); other women, too, sat at the absorbing game. - -“Are they really gambling?” Hildegarde had asked the giant, the first -time he found her in a group looking on. - -The giant had laughed and said, “Don’t they look it?” - -“No. They are so—so quiet.” - -“That’s when they’re plunging worst.” - -“You mean they’re making large sums of money here now, and take it like -that?” - -“Yes, and losing, too, and take it just the same. It’s only in books that -gamblers gurgle and gasp.” - -But even the cheerful giant had seemed to feel this was no place for Miss -Mar. “Aren’t you coming up-stairs?” As she still lingered fascinated, -“I’ve been getting some oranges for you.” - -“How?” - -“Out of a crate that’s bust.” - -“Your crate?” - -“Everybody’s crate.” - -Hildegarde laughed. He was so exactly like a great school-boy proposing a -raid on an orchard. “I’ve got oranges of my own,” she said. - -“Yes, but these are tangerines,” and he led the way. - -Very few people up there in comparison with the crowds in saloon and -smoking-room. Mrs. Blumpitty asleep under sodden blankets; a group of -men, tarpaulin over their knees, crouched in a sheltered corner smoking -pipes and talking plans; a furry apparition sitting near the edge of the -deck on a bollard—Ruth Sears in a long wolfskin coat, barely out of reach -of the rain, a very solitary little figure bent over a book. Hildegarde -went by unsteadily, and as the ship lurched Ford O’Gorman caught and -saved her from falling. He kept hold of her till he had anchored her -safely aft among the crates of fruit. - -“I’m very glad you didn’t, but how was it,” said Hildegarde, stripping -off the loose jacket of a purloined tangerine, “how was it you didn’t go -by the _Congress_, after all?” - -To her astonishment the red of the sunburnt cheek above her shoulder -deepened and spread all over O’Gorman’s face, but he spoke quite -naturally, and even offhand. “Oh, I was afraid I wasn’t going to get all -my freight on board the _Congress_.” - -But that sudden red in so stalwart a visage lit a danger signal. It was -ridiculous to suppose, and yet, was this going to be the trouble Louis -Cheviot had dreaded for her? She had up till then suffered no check in -the comfort of the giant’s cheerful companionship; but was she being too -much with him? She recalled Ruth Sears’ gentle but speculative eyes, -raised a moment from “The Little Minister,” to follow the pair as they -passed. - -“I’m going to talk with Mrs. Blumpitty’s niece awhile,” Miss Mar -announced suddenly. The giant stared. With a conscious effort and a -letting down of spirits, Hildegarde turned from him, encountering Mr. -Matt Gedge, the sharp-faced young man who had been in the crowd on the -Seattle wharf and had satirized her “bright idear” of looking after her -baggage. - -“Is O’Gorman,” he began, and then looking past her, “—_thought_ if the -lady was here you wouldn’t be far. Say!” he arrested Miss Mar. “Has he -told you there’s robbers aboard this ship?” - -“Robbers? No! What makes you think—” - -“There’s a woman down in the second saloon—all she’s got in the world’s -been swiped.” - -“But they’ve started a collection for her,” said O’Gorman. - -“Yep, we’ve fixed up the collection and we’ve fixed up a Vigilance -Committee. Come along, it was your idear, so let’s go and give her the -money.” - -“Oh, you can do that,” said O’Gorman. “But hold on a minute. Make it -sixty-six for luck.” He fished in his pocket. “I guess she’s spent more -than a dollar’s worth of worry.” - -Hildegarde stopped by the immobile figure still reading. “That’s a good -warm coat you’ve got,” she said. - -“Yes”—Ruth looked up with absent eyes—“but it’s too long.” - -“Is it! I should think it kept your ankles good and warm.” - -“Y-yes.” She looked at the unspeakably filthy deck, and tucked the skirts -of her coat tighter round her. - -“I see the good of a short skirt here,” Hildegarde’s eyes followed hers, -“and it looks very nice on you, too.” - -“I’m glad,” said the girl, “if you don’t think it’s too short.” Then she -told Hildegarde about her life up in Alaska, how she had traveled, and -cooked, and nursed, and hunted, and cured skins, and followed the trail; -and did each and everything the better for wearing a skirt to the knee. - -“But it’s hard after we’ve worked so, my aunt and me, to see men looking -at us in that way as if they thought we were—were, you know, the wrong -kind. Just because we try to adapt ourselves to the life.” - -“Some people might not understand; but surely these men—” - -With her head Ruth Sears made a little motion of negative. Slight as -it was, it admitted no supposition of there being any doubt about the -matter. “They’d rather we all wore trailing skirts and diamond ear-rings.” - -“It’s really rather nice of them, in a way,” said Miss Mar. - -But the one who had had the experience was less free to discover in the -charge a survival of the starved spirit of romance. “That Mr. Tod,” Ruth -went on, “he was up there last year. I’ve cooked him many a dinner. Only -yesterday I heard him agreeing with a lot of men that he wouldn’t like to -see _his_ daughter going about in such a short dress, and all the while -he was talking he was spitting on the deck.” - -More here for the eye that could see than a base-mannered churl -discussing feminine attire. He, in his way, was dealing with one of the -important questions of the age. Also he had on his side many a learned -and fastidious critic of society, for all that the great current of -the future was set the other way. Some inkling of this last reached -Hildegarde, and it reached her through a dawning sense of her own -unfitness. She would never be in the vanguard with skirts kilted high -for action. She was one of those who would cling to the outworn modes. -For all that, she would for the rest of her life understand some things -better because of these strange days in the microcosm of the ship. - -While the third dinner was being cleared away, Hildegarde looked into -the music-room. A dilapidated young woman, at the dilapidated piano, -singing a comic song, and the cross-eyed man accompanying on the flute. A -number of people sat about on the few rickety chairs and the many boxes -and bundles, listening in a kind of painful trance, or passing back and -forth over the wooden lattice of the raised flooring between which and -the boards below escaped bilge-water slopped about with the motion of the -ship and too frequently came to the surface. - -Mrs. Locke was not there at all events. As Hildegarde turned away from -the noisome-smelling place a well-dressed woman of about forty, who -had been leaning on the piano (undisturbed, apparently, by the highly -abnormal sounds it gave forth), followed Miss Mar to ask: “How is the -sick lady in your room?” Miss Mar knew her interlocutor to be Mrs. David -M. Jones, but they had not spoken before. - -“There are two still sick,” Hildegarde answered. - -“I mean the one they’re afraid’s got smallpox?” - -Miss Mar opened her wide eyes very wide indeed. Even Louis had never -thought of that chance. “I hadn’t heard about it,” she said. And -presently, “Do you know where Mrs. Locke is?” - -“I think she’s gone to get the doctor,” answered the ex-governor’s wife. -“I had meant to be in the room you and she are in. Pretty satisfied now -to be out of it.” With which she returned to the festive scene. - -Even Hildegarde, who was so little nervous, would ordinarily have found -her self-possession shaken by the news that she had been sleeping for -nearly a week within two feet of so contagious and foul a disease; -but she took the information more quietly than can well be credited -by any one who has never cut the ties that bind us to resourceful yet -care-filled civilized life. - -Those who have once severed the thousand threads find not only some -hardship and heartsoreness, but certain natures find, too, the larger -calm that only perfect acquiescence gives. It is not all loss to -be unable to run from danger. You gain a curious new sense of the -inevitableness that lies at the roots of life, a sense smothered in -the country and forgotten in the town. And this calm that walks the -perilous places of our earth with its front of untroubled dignity and its -steadfast eyes, this gain amongst many losses was not denied the girl -faring North for knowledge and for old devotion’s sake. - -“Yes,” the steward said, Mrs. Locke was in her cabin. As she went toward -it, Hildegarde wondered if it were written among the things to be that -she herself should die there, and would Louis be hearing one day how -they’d buried her in Bering Sea. She opened the door, and there was the -object of her quest looking on at a strange and sufficiently horrible -spectacle. Stretched full length upon the floor, in her nightgown, lay -the Dutch woman speechless, with a face swollen and scarlet. The ship’s -doctor, standing astride of her huge hulk, bent over and peering under -the heavy eyelid, which he had forced back with his thumb, looked into -the rolled-up eye. Hildegarde, with noiseless lips, made the question, -“Smallpox?” Mrs. Locke answered, in a low voice, “Smallpox! No. Lack of -self-control.” How this worked out Hildegarde did not wait to inquire. It -was too ugly to see that big woman lying there under such conditions, and -the place smelt of alcohol. - -But outside it was hardly better. The card players had gathered like -flies settling down upon the remains of a feast, and at the end of the -saloon three men were quarreling. Through an atmosphere thick, horrible, -rose the angry voices. Was there going to be a fight? One might face -death, even from smallpox, and yet not know quite how to accept life -among sights and sounds like these. - -“What’s the matter?” said Mrs. Locke, catching Hildegarde just outside -their door. “You’re not afraid! I tell you it isn’t smallpox.” - -“I know. That’s not it.” The girl leaned against the wall. Two of the -angry men had combined against the third. His chief means of defense -seemed to be blasphemy. They hurt the ears, those words. She felt an -inward twist of humiliation as she remembered that Louis had said rather -than see a sister of his go to Nome with the gold rush he’d see her— - -“Then what _is_ the matter?” asked the woman at her side, watching her -with an odd intentness. “I suppose this isn’t the first time you’ve heard -a man swear.” - -“The matter is—I feel as if what I’d seen and heard here would leave some -sort of lasting stain. As if I’d gone through filth and some of it would -stick to me for ever.” - -“No, you don’t. You’re only thinking of what some man might think.” -Hildegarde caught her breath with the surprise of guilty recognition, as -Mrs. Locke’s soft voice insisted: “Knowing doesn’t hurt a woman. Not the -right sort of woman. But it does change us. You’ll find life will always -look a little different to you after this.” - -Bella had said something like that! - -“It’s curious,” the woman went on, “how hard we struggle to live up to -men’s standard of our ignorance. After all, their instinct about it is -quite right.” - -“Instinct about what?” - -“That if we knew the truth, the truth would make us free.” - -“The truth might make frightened slaves of some of us.” - -“Only of the meanest.” - -“And you think men don’t want us free?” Hildegarde asked wearily. - -“A very few may. There are more of the other sort.” - -“Well, I know one man,” said the girl, cleansing consciousness with the -vision, “one man who is the kind you’d say was an exception. I’m sure his -not wanting me to come on this journey was just a natural shrinking from -seeing any girl face hardships.” - -Mrs. Locke set her fine little face like marble. “This entire ship might -have been full of girls facing hardships, and it wouldn’t have cost him a -pang. But I can well believe your coming did.” - -“Ah, you see, you don’t know him.” - -The other shook her head. “Even the best men haven’t got so far as to -want to respect _all_ women. Their good-will, their helpfulness, are kept -in watertight compartments, reserved for particular women. The rest may -go to the everlasting bonfire.” - -“No, no, no.” - -“Yes, it seems even to help them in being specially nice to some—” - -“What helps them?” - -“To have been brutes to others.” Mrs. Locke turned to go back into the -horrible little cabin. “The best fellow I ever met told me that no man -knew how to treat a woman who hadn’t stood over the grave of one he’d -loved.” - -“Well, I say again, you don’t know the sort of man I—Why, even that -dreadful Matt Gedge—even he goes and collects money for the poor woman in -the second class.” - -“I never said they wouldn’t show kindness when the notion took them. It’s -justice they don’t understand.” And with that she went back to the woman -who was having a fit on the floor. - -Up on deck Hildegarde found a gale blowing. Where was the giant? The -chicken-merchant, joining Miss Mar at the door, held on to his slouch hat -while he inquired significantly after the health of the purser. Miss Mar -had not heard he was indisposed? “Oh, yes, you ought to go and see him. -It’s nothin’ catchin’—calls it bronchitis. Reckon it’s heart trouble,” -and he cackled like the most elated of his hens. - -Again she came down-stairs, wandering aimlessly about, and then stopping -by a little knot of lookers-on at the eternal game. In that childish -mood, that may once in a while fall upon even a reasonable girl, she -thought vaguely that if she stood long enough before this spectacle held -to be unfit for feminine eyes, the giant would certainly come again and -take her away. But the giant did nothing of the kind, and presently she -forgot him. She usually forgot things when she watched this particular -group of players. She had been arrested just here, unbeknown to the -giant, a couple of nights before on her way to bed. In front of where -Hildegarde stood, Governor Reinhart was giving up his seat to an eagerly -waiting claimant. “They are beginning to play too high for me,” his -Excellency observed affably to Miss Mar. - -“Who is winning?” - -“That woman over there. She’s a holy terror.” - -“Not that one with the gentle face and the pointed chin?” - -“Yes. Very pleasant and soft-spoken, too. Wife of the man next—playing -with the professional gambler gang. They don’t tackle _her_. She’s a -corker with the cards!” - -It was incredible that he should be speaking of that singularly modest -and well-bred-looking woman, who followed the game with eyes that never -lifted but once all the while Hildegarde stood there. It was when the -last of her husband’s shrinking pile of chips was swept from him by the -man opposite, that the woman, playing her own stiff game, not looking -right nor left, must still have been acutely conscious of the full extent -of the disaster at her side. The loser’s only comment was “My deal!” as -he picked up the cards afresh. Then it was that she turned the white -wedge on her pointed face, laid a hand on the dealer’s arm, and quite -low, _“Don’t_ Jim!” she said, as though she hoped to influence him with -her own hand full of cards. Naturally, he paid no heed, and each in the -death-like silence, each went on with the game. There was something -almost unnerving to the onlooker in the strained quiet of the woman. -Was she winning or losing now? No hint of which in the pointed white -mask, while she sat a little droop-shouldered, her arms lying on the -table as if paralyzed, moving only her long supple fingers, gathering -in or throwing out—unless she dealt, and even then moving about a tenth -as much as any one else on either side up or down the long board. After -what Governor Reinhart had said, each night on her way to bed, Hildegarde -had paused a fascinated instant watching this woman; or by a group lower -down where Curlyhead’s father was, often with his little boy on his -knee. While the elders played, the five-year-old would sit quiet as a -mouse staring wisely at his father’s cards, seeing in them his first -picture-book, learning them for his earliest lesson. - -Hildegarde had watched it all before, but on this particular wet evening -the spectacle assailed an unpanoplied spirit. It was horrible. She would -never get the picture out of her head. Even when she should be at home -again, doing delightful things with dear and happy people, she would -remember this and the light would go out of the day. For it would be -going on still. Somewhere, there would be people like these wasting -and besmirching the flying, irrecoverable hours. Women, too, _women_! -Something choked in her throat. She felt that she must strike the table -and cry out: “Listen, listen! You haven’t ever heard. Life is beautiful -and good, and you’ve never known that—poor, poor people. But I have come -to tell you. Stop playing with those pieces of painted paper and listen -to my good news!” - -But of course they’d only think she was mad. Oh, why had she come! With a -tension as of tears, crowding, straining the muscles of her throat, she -turned away to face again the wind-driven sleet of the deck. She dragged -her steps to the dirty companionway. From the smoking-room above came the -giant’s great laugh, punctuating some one’s story, and what so melancholy -to certain moods as the sound of distant merriment! It becomes for us -the symbol of all that greater gladness out of our reach, attainable to -happier men. No light as yet, except in the saloon behind her. All the -rest of the ship shrouded in the early-gathering shadows of a stormy -evening. A passion of loneliness swept over her. As her foot touched the -first step, some one came close behind. - -“Is that you?” said a voice she did not recognize. A touch, a whisky -breath blowing foul in her face, and without lifting her eyes or even -uttering a sound she fled up the stair, meaning to make straight for Mrs. -Blumpitty’s rain-soaked pallet. Half-way up she saw in the gloom above -her the blaze of a match, and there was the Arctic Cap, his back turned -to her, holding up the lighted match to read the run on the notice board. -As Hildegarde’s eyes fell in that vivid instant on the square shoulders, -something in outline or attitude set her heart to beating so wildly, -that, still flying on, she stumbled. With a little cry she put out a hand -and felt herself steadied as the match fell to darkness. In a turmoil of -wonder and wild hope her cheek had brushed the coat sleeve one lightning -instant before she recovered firm footing and stood erect with apology on -her lips. - -The ship’s doctor and the purser came hurriedly out of the smoking-room. -But the Arctic Cap was turned away when the sudden light streamed out. -A banging door, hurrying steps, and Hildegarde was peering in the dark -after an indistinguishable face, hoping things she knew both impossible -and mad, only to find herself standing there alone, with thumping pulses. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - - -The Arctic Cap had vanished from the ship. Every one else able to be -afoot appeared on deck the next morning in the clear and strangely -milder weather. Even the purser was abroad, passing by with averted eye, -receiving haughtily the homage of the fair who hastened to inquire after -his health, thereby further emphasizing Miss Mar’s neglect. She sat -watchful but silent in the sunshine, drinking in the air that seemed to -bring a blessing with it from some golden land that yesterday had been -far off, and that to-day was very near. Mrs. Blumpitty had resumed the -perpendicular and her most cheerful air. All the Blumpitty “outfit” in -the best of spirits. The business woman to the company was exhibiting her -vaunted competency in “dealing with men” and “affairs” by industrious -prosecution of her flirtation with the oldest dentist. Shifting groups -of lawyers, “judges,” senators, were cheerfully objurgating the mining -laws. The lean bean-feaster, who between meals was for ever chewing gum, -paused in his nervous pacing of the deck, though not in his labor of -mastication, to assure ex-Governor Reinhart that he was “dead wrong.” -This seemed, on the face of it, improbable. But Reinhart condescended to -remind him, “Nome isn’t like any other camp. Wait till you see the state -of things _there_.” - -“Have.” - -“Been there?” - -The bean-feaster had an audience before you could wink, for he had -nodded, chewing harder than ever. Then a pause long enough for him to -say modestly, “I’m the man appointed by the Nome miners to go in the -commission to Washington and report.” - -“Why didn’t you go?” - -“Did. Coming back now.” With immense respect all within earshot listened -to the disquisition on Alaskan mining laws, and the bean-feaster’s modest -assurance that through his exertions they were being amended. - -Some one aft in the steerage was playing the fiddle, and a couple of -darkies were dancing. The older woman is Mrs. L’Estrange’s cook, and Mrs. -L’Estrange is the Southern lady of fallen fortunes who is going, with -a store of fine damask and all her family silver, to open a high-class -boarding-house at Nome! She had read of Mrs. Millicent Egerton Finney, -who, in the Klondike, by this means, had made a “pile.” - -Mrs. Locke’s admirer, Mr. Meyer, was displaying a small working model of -a superfine contrivance, only to discover that every man on the ship had -a superfine contrivance of his own which was the grandest thing on earth -in the way of gold-saving. Many of the people, as they moved from group -to group, greeted Mrs. Locke and Miss Mar; but to Hildegarde’s intent eye -all other faces were just merely not the one under the arctic cap. - -Her companion watched the whale birds that swarmed so low this morning -over the water. Every now and then a fountain spouted up into the -sunshine. - -But when Hildegarde, distracting herself an instant from her own watch, -said, “Do you suppose it’s true those birds feed off barnacles on the -whale’s back?”—Mrs. Locke’s little concern for what she stared at was -evident in her answering, “There’s one thing I don’t understand.” - -“What’s that?” - -“You don’t seem to have much to say to your friend, the purser.” - -“My friend?” - -“Yes.” - -“He isn’t my friend.” - -“Oh.” - -“What made you think—” - -“Merely that he seemed to be when you came on board.” - -“You mean because he let me get into my room before the crowd came?” - -“Well, that was real friendliness, but it wasn’t what I meant.” - -“What did you mean?” - -“Oh, I only thought, since you called him by his Christian name, he might -be a friend.” The tone conveyed the widest latitude—the most varied -experience of other women’s vagaries, or their weakness. - -“_I_ called him by his Christian name!” ejaculated Hildegarde. - -“Yes.” - -“When in the world?” - -“That very first night.” - -“You must be dreaming.” - -Mrs. Locke shook her head. “Of course it’s no crime. I didn’t mean that.” - -“Crime? No. It would have been lunacy. But I never did it.” - -Mrs. Locke opened a little book that lay in her lap. - -Hildegarde leaned forward. For the first moment since waking she forgot -the Arctic Cap. “Do help me to understand. What did I say?” - -Mrs. Locke’s clear brown eyes looked into the earnest face of the girl, -and then a little unwillingly, “It wasn’t in the least my business,” she -added. - -“What did you think you heard?” - -“Didn’t the purser come to the door asking if Miss Mar was ‘all right’? -And didn’t you call out, ‘Is that you, Louis?’ and didn’t you run after -him?” As Hildegarde’s perplexed face yielded to a gleam of horrified -enlightenment, “Of course it wasn’t any business of mine,” Mrs. Locke -repeated, and looked intently at the sea-birds flocking in a new place. - -“Do you—do you mean you think his name is—” - -“I don’t think. I know his name is Louis Napoleon Brown.” - -Hildegarde gasped out, “Then that was why!” - -“Why—” - -“Why he was so—surprising. _His_ name daring to be Louis! The _purser_! -Oh, dear. Oh, _dear_,” and the girl began suddenly to laugh, and grew -more and more convulsed the longer she thought about it, till she became -hysterical. Mrs. Locke looked gravely at her, even frowning slightly. - -“Oh, dear. Oh, dear. He thought I meant him. Oh! oh!” - -“You didn’t?” - -“And you think you know the world. You called me an infant.” - -“Well, I own I never could make it square with the rest of you.” - -“Oh, I must make you understand. You see I was expecting a great friend -of mine—an old friend of all our family was coming to see me off; at -least, I hoped he was. When I heard that somebody was asking for me, I -was sure it was—” Up and down the deck her eye went roving. She lowered -her voice—“a man called Louis Cheviot.” And she told Mrs. Locke what -he was like, this old friend. “You see the reason I jumped so quickly -to the conclusion he was asking for me, is that he never before failed -me. He’s been a quite uncommon sort of friend. He’s the man I’ve once -or twice mentioned.” (Mrs. Locke kept her lips from smiling, “once or -twice!”) “Though I never said what his name was. I told you about his -hunting up my father and staying with him all those months; about his -coming out with dogs over the ice, just to bring us word; and that kind -of thing. He’s a very particular friend of all of us. And then he’s the -most wonderful company. He makes you always see the fun of things. And -you—Yes, life is always more interesting, somehow, when he’s there. Did -you ever know anybody like that?” - -“He didn’t, after all, come to see you off. Yes, I’ve known some one like -that.” - -Hildegarde turned her head suddenly. Up the deck and down the deck the -wide eyes vainly traveled. How had it come that she had felt so sure? -What had she to go on? A likeness in the shoulder outline. Something -the same trick in the carriage of the head. A pang shot through her. -“Yes,” she said, as though agreeing that he had failed her, “I’ve often -said to myself, ‘To think of his never even saying good-by.’” (Yet she -had been imagining—A dullness fell upon her that was worse than acute -disappointment.) “He was angry,” she went on. “We had quarreled, because -I would go to Nome.” - -“He was right and you were wrong,” said Mrs. Locke. - -Hildegarde smiled. She rather liked this woman for veering round and -taking his part. “Well, all the same, I thought it wasn’t very nice of -him not to send me any sign of forgiveness at the last. And the odd thing -is” (her spirits revived a little in the act of talking about this old -friend) “it was so unlike Louis Cheviot. He can be rather severe, but he -never sulks. He’s the kind of person” (Hildegarde had no idea how often -she had said “he is the kind of person”), “the kind that always looks -after his friends. And no matter how badly they treat him he goes on -looking after them. He was like that even when he was little. His sister -once told me a thing about him that just shows you what kind of—He was -seven years old, Barbara said, and the most fiery little patriot you ever -heard of. And in other ways, yes, I’ve often thought there could never -have been a little boy so like the grown man as this child was like the -Louis Cheviot I know.” She said it with an air of one making an effective -point. - -“Is that so?” said Mrs. Locke, telling herself she hadn’t realized how -handsome the girl was until this morning. - -“Just to give you an idea. He had a perfect passion, his sister says, for -making a noise. Yes, but more than any boy she ever knew. You had only to -say fire-crackers to make Louis explode with enthusiasm. The only reason -he wanted to grow up was so that he could get a gun, and he’d rather let -off torpedoes than eat pie. No picnic or birthday or holiday of any sort -was the real thing unless he could make a fearful rumpus. And the day he -lived for the year round was the Fourth of July. Yes, yes, I know most -American boys are like that, only Louis was more so than any boy you ever -heard of. So his sister says. Well, I forgot to tell you when he was two -his father died awfully in debt. For years the Cheviots were so poor they -didn’t always have enough bread. So they were naturally pretty short of -fire-crackers. And for those early years poor little Louis had to get his -fun out of other boys’ noise.” - -“Ah, the thing is to make it yourself.” Mrs. Locke spoke with the accent -of one who makes the wider application. - -“Of course.” Hildegarde nipped the generalization in the bud. “Well, he -learned very early that if he was to have even a little Fourth of July -he had to save up for it. And he did. When he got a nickel or two he -wouldn’t waste it on candy, and he didn’t even buy chewing-gum. Just -saved up for July. The year he was seven his mother had to give up trying -to live in part of their nice big house. They moved into a very small -cottage on the other side of the garden. But Louis and his cousins, and -the rest of the little boys of the neighborhood, were going to have the -greatest and most glorious Fourth they’d any of them ever known. The -others had toy pistols and rockets and little cannon. Louis had saved up -and had got some fire-crackers and two little flags, and he was going -to make things hum. Well, there was a man who had just moved into the -Cheviots’ big house and nobody liked him, but I expect they wouldn’t -have liked anybody who lived in that house without being a Cheviot. And -he had a little boy about Louis’s age. And the little boy was very ill. -Scarlet fever. Well, on the evening of the third (you know they never can -wait till the Fourth), the boys all over town began to celebrate, but -they were going to celebrate most just in front of Louis’s house, for -that was where the great fight was to be—the battle, you know, where they -were going to beat the British all over again. It was always more fun, -and lots more noise and slaughter if Louis was one of the generals. So -they came trooping down the street after supper, letting off torpedoes -by the way. And when Louis heard them he tore out with his flags and his -crackers, wild with excitement. And he lined the boys up and told them -where the red-coats were in ambush behind the wood house. Louis had lit -some punk, and the new neighbor came rushing out just as a big cracker -went off with a bang. Barbara Cheviot was on her side of the laurel and -she saw the man throw up his hands as though he’d been shot, and then -make for Louis exactly as if he meant to strike him. Barbara was scared -for a moment. But by the time the new neighbor got to where the boys were -he was holding himself down pretty well. Barbara heard him speaking quite -kindly. What were they going to do, and that kind of thing. And when they -told him, Barbara says a sound like a little groan came out of his tight -lips, and he looked up at the window where the curtains were drawn. But -he asked the boys how many more crackers they had. And when he saw what a -lot there were, he only said that was fine to have so many. When he was -a little boy he had to share one pack with three brothers. And he said -he hoped they knew what the Fourth of July meant and why they had a right -to be proud and make a noise. Louis answered up and told him. The man -said ‘Good, good!’ He didn’t want to put a stop to the fun, he said. He -was only thinking about the little boy up in that room there, who wasn’t -having any Fourth of July at all this year. He was ill. So ill he might -never see another July. Yes, he was probably dying, and Barbara says, -he couldn’t go on for a minute. He had to wait. And all the little boys -looked down at the ground. ‘There’s just a chance, I think,’ the father -said, ‘if he sleeps to-night, just a little chance—if you boys would -celebrate on the other side of the town. And I’d be very much obliged to -you,’ he said. As he was going off he turned to Louis and asked him if -he’d tell all the boys he saw, and try to keep them from coming into this -street. Louis said, Yes, he would, and the man went back to his child. -But he didn’t go to bed—just sat in the sick-room and watched. The oddest -thing about that third of July was that Mrs. Cheviot and the girls slept -the whole night through. It was the only year of their lives _that_ ever -happened. There wasn’t a sound in their street. But the man in the big -house was too anxious and miserable about the sick child to notice or -remember anything outside that room where they were all watching. Just -before sunrise the crisis was passed, and the doctor, who’d been sent a -long way for, and had been watching, too, said the fever had gone down -and the boy was saved. The father came out for a breath of air. In the -grayness he saw something moving down by the fence. ‘Who’s that?’ he -called out, and when he got close up he saw a little figure patroling -the dim street. ‘Why, aren’t you the boy—’ he began to say. ‘Yes,’ Louis -told him, ‘I’m doin’ what I said.’ ‘What you said?’ The man didn’t -remember even then. ‘Yes,’ Louis said, ‘I’m bein’ a sort o’ watchman -to see the boys don’t make a noise just here.’ And he had a bunch of -fire-crackers in his hand and two little flags in his hat.” - -With suffused eyes the girl looked out across the shining water. The old -story had a new significance for her, if none at all for Mrs. Locke. - -“It was, as I began by saying, more exactly like the Louis Cheviot I know -than a whole book of biography might be. It’s because he’s precisely -like that to this day that I was so surprised when he let me go off -without a word, because, you see, he’d been ‘sort o’ watchman’ for us, -too. It’s easier to believe that nothing else will do for him but just -to see you through.” She turned her head, and her grasp on the railing -tightened—nothing else had done! For that figure outlined against the -sky—no use any longer that he turns his collar up above his ears, no -efficient mask any more the arctic cap. That was the “watchman” yonder on -the bridge, standing guard over the fortunes of Hildegarde Mar! - -“What’s the matter? What _is_ it?” asked Mrs. Locke. - -“Only—only that the most wonderful thing that ever happened is happening -right now.” - -“What’s happening?” - -“The man I’ve been telling you about—he’s there!” - -“Not that one on the bridge!” - -“Hush. ’Sh. Don’t stir. I must be very quiet.” - -“Because you aren’t sure?” - -“Because I am. Oh-h—” - -Mrs. Locke looked steadily into Hildegarde’s face for an instant, before -she turned away. - -The girl leaned forward. “No, no. It’s not _that_,” she said, and from -under the brim of her hat she sent another glance to the figure against -the sky. “He’s made a lot of money in the North—he has all kinds of -business interests up here.” - -“How long have you known he was on board?” - -“I almost think that in the back of my head I suspected before, but I -didn’t know till last night. And I wasn’t _sure_ till this minute,” she -added, with girl’s logic. - -“You haven’t spoken at all—you two?” - -Hildegarde shook her head. - -“Why do you think he wants to spy on you?” - -“Oh, Louis doesn’t want to _spy_.” Her tone convicted the suggestion of -rank absurdity. “I told you he’s been dreadfully angry. Too angry to -write. Perhaps too angry to speak.” Was that it? Again the upward glance. -“But”—she clutched at the inalienable comfort—“it’s Louis Cheviot.” - -“Well, don’t be too certain this time, that’s all.” - -Not be certain? But that was just what she must be. Another quick look, -and lo! the bridge was empty. “I’m quite, quite sure—but I—I’ll just go -and see.” - -He was standing near the door of the chart-room. As Hildegarde’s head -came up the figure vanished. When she reached the threshold there it -was, back turned to the door, cap bent over a map. Incredible to her -now that she hadn’t known him all along; but, nevertheless, she stood -wavering, seized by something else than mere excitement—a wholly -unexpected shyness. Was he indeed nursing that old anger against her? Was -it conceivable he wanted to avoid her the whole voyage? She half turned -back, telling herself that at all events something was the matter with -her tongue—it was a physical impossibility for her to speak. Then the -next thing was, she heard her own voice saying quite steadily, with even -a faint ring of defiance, “It’s no use! I’ve found you out!” - -The figure flashed about, and Hildegarde caught the shine in the -black-fringed eyes as he pulled off the cap, leaving his hair ruffled. -He held out his hand, laughing, but, as it would almost seem, a little -shamefaced. “Well, it took you long enough.” - -“No wonder!” She felt an imperative need to prevent her gladness from -appearing excessive. “You can’t ever say again there’s nothing of the -actor in you.” - -“Why can’t I?” - -“After masquerading all these days?” - -“I didn’t mean to masquerade.” - -“Why did you go about in that horrid cap then, and never speak to me, or—” - -“Oh, I never meant to stay incog. I was only waiting—” - -“What for?” - -“My opportunity; and it never came.” - -“What opportunity?” - -“Well”—he leaned against the lintel, and he was smiling in that old -whimsical way of his—“I suppose what I was waiting for was your getting -into some sort of scrape.” - -“You were hoping for that!” but while she denounced him, she, too, was -smiling. - -“Well, I had prophesied it. I suppose a prophet usually has a weakness -for seeing his wisdom verified.” - -She laughed out as light-heartedly as though the journey had been without -care or cloud. “And you didn’t like your prophecy not to come true. Poor -false prophet! No wonder you hid your face.” - -“Yes, as for pretending—no, it isn’t any earthly use. The truth is, I -expected that very first evening to step in at some psychological moment.” - -“Save-my-life sort of thing?” - -“Well, save you some anxiety or discomfort at the least. But you were the -one passenger on the ship who didn’t suffer the one or the other.” - -(Ah, he didn’t know! And she wasn’t going to tell him. Oh, dear, no!) - -“I go to see about your baggage. It’s checked, and on the ship. I curry -favor with the captain, so as to get you a seat at the first table. -You’ve got one for yourself.” - -“No. _I_ didn’t.” - -“Well, whoever got it, you sit in it. Same thing on deck. While I’m -looking for a sheltered place for your chair you are established. I bring -special provisions to keep you from starvation. You are somehow as well -supplied and with as exactly the right things as though you’d made the -trip twenty times.” - -“It was the Blumpittys,” Hildegarde began. - -“The whattatys? Never mind. Call it any name you like. _I_ couldn’t have -promised you new-laid eggs every morning for breakfast a thousand miles -from land. I could only hang about ready to save you from unpleasantness. -But, God bless me, unpleasantness never comes within a league of you.” - -“The purser,” Hildegarde prompted, with a gleam of eye. - -But he tossed the suggestion aside with, “A little over pleasantness that -you’re able to check for yourself.” - -“It’s plain I’m not the stuff romantic heroines are made of.” - -He didn’t contradict that. “You certainly haven’t given me much excuse -for coming along.” - -She was glad he wasn’t looking her way at that moment. It was like him to -declare his mission so simply, and yet he stood there in the sunshine, -smiling philosophically, as he turned down his collar, saying, “The -merest superfluity. That’s what I am. Except,” he added more seriously, -“that if I hadn’t come I should never have believed I was so little -needed. So it turns out that what I’ve come for is my own enlightenment.” - -“Not only your enlightenment,” and her eyes invited him to understanding -of a friend’s gratefulness to a friend. But he lifted his bare head to -the breeze that swept in with the sunshine at the open door, as though, -having delivered himself of his grievance, he could think of nothing -now but the comfort of being free of that all-enveloping cap. His eyes -seemed to shine only for joy in the sun, as he stood there ruffling still -more his short, wavy hair—the hair that did, as Bella said, “fit” him so -uncommonly well. And he certainly looked as little sentimental as some -sturdy mountain pine. - -“Some people,” Hildegarde remarked in a detached tone, “would think -it was a waste for two old friends—we might have had all these days -together.” - -“Yes. I give you my word I never meant—” He seemed to intend an apology -as though he assumed the deprivation to be chiefly, if not solely, hers. -“The very first time I passed you I thought, of course, you’d find me -out. Then, as you didn’t. I kept putting off—Morning, Captain.” - -“Morning!” - -“I should think you did keep putting off!” - -“I didn’t want you to”—he lowered his voice—“I didn’t want to take you by -surprise before people.” - -“You thought the joy might be too much for me?” she demanded. - -Cheviot looked at her with the swift speculation in his eye of the man -who is thinking: “Now, is she going to insist on quarreling with me?” -“This is the lady I was talking to you about, Captain. Pretty cool of me -having her up here without asking you! Miss Mar—Captain Gillies. Now, -the least I can do is to take her down,” and, in spite of the captain’s -gruff civility, that was what Cheviot proceeded to do. “Don Quixote’s -signaling. Let’s go and see what’s up.” - -Hildegarde had not perceived that the gaunt old person below was making -any unusual demonstration. He was always waving his arms and addressing -the multitude. “I’ve been rather afraid of that one,” she confided. - -“Afraid? Then it’s only because you don’t know him. He’s the most -interesting person on the ship.” - -“No, my Blumpitty’s the most interesting.” - -“Well, you show me your blumpitty and I’ll show you mine. Mine’s got an -invention for pumping water for the placers.” - -“Mine’s got something far more wonderful.” - -“Don’t believe you. Wait till you know about Don Quixote’s ‘systems -of windmills’; they’re the greatest ever. I don’t say his windmills -will work at the mines; but they’ve gone without a let-up, straight -through the North Pacific and the Bering Sea. Windmills all the morning. -Windmills every night. You must have heard as you passed him on the deck, -‘Windmills,’ ‘Windmills.’ No? Well, come along.” - -Rather nice to be “coming along” with Louis once more. It was going to -make a difference in this expedition. - -Hildegarde got a compliment to her seamanship out of the fantastic old -Alabaman. “I’ve watched this young lady,” he informed Cheviot. “She’s -as happy in a ‘norther’ as one o’ my windmills.” And he sent a rattling -laugh after them as they two went down the swinging deck. - -“How different everybody looks to-day—it’s the sunshine.” - -“Yes, I think they _do_ look different.” But he did not say it was the -sunshine. - -“I don’t see my Blumpitty, nor, what’s more important, Mrs. Locke.” - -“That’s the woman you’re so much with?” - -“Yes. It looks as if she’d gone below.” What did it matter? Nothing -mattered now. Miss Mar had a distinct sense of repressing a quite -foolish sense of radiant content, not to say elation. How this having a -friend along lit up the rude and sordid ship! Not the first time this -particular friend had wrought this particular miracle in her sight. The -fact that Louis’s eyes rested on things constrained them to reveal an -“interestingness” unsuspected before. - -“There are my three financiers,” she whispered. “They aren’t as splendid -as your Don Quixote, but they’re very nice to me at table.” - -“I’m relieved to hear you’ve found some one who contrives to be ‘nice’ -there. I’ve wondered how you were getting on,” he chuckled. - -The temptation to confess was strong upon her. But no. Even Louis would -be obliged to say, “I told you so.” - -“At first,” she said, with the detached air of the investigator, “I -watched my neighbors, because _everything_ they did was so surprising. -But by and by I got so I could see nice distinctions and fine shades. -Some of the roughest-looking haven’t by any means the roughest manners.” - -“Oh, you’ve discovered that, have you?” - -“Yes. This man here”—it was necessary to draw close and to whisper -again—“he’s Mr. Simeon Peters, from Idaho. He shouted across the table to -me at dinner yesterday to pass the butter. He was just plunging his own -knife into it as everybody at our table does.” - -“As everybody at every table does,” Cheviot corrected. - -“Well, but wait. You don’t know how elegant we are down at our end. Mr. -Sim Peters hesitated, and you could see a misgiving dawning behind his -spectacles. He drew back just before he reached the butter-dish, and -carefully and very thoroughly he licked his knife the whole length of -the blade. Yes! Then he felt quite happy about plunging it in the public -butter.” She was able to laugh now at what had driven her from the table -in that dark yesterday. Louis laughed, too; he even carried his genial -good-will the excessive length of joining in the conversation of those -same financiers. - -“Did you succeed in getting your plant on board?” he asked the nearest of -the trio. - -“Yes. But we had to pay another fellow to take off half his stuff to make -room for ours,” said financier number two. - -“What process have you got?” - -“Oh, the McKeown,” said number three. - -“And it’s the greatest ever?” - -“That’s right,” said all three together. - -But why, Hildegarde wondered, why did he talk to financiers, when he -might talk to her? - -“Them innercents think that about the McKeown,” said a grizzled man -across Cheviot’s shoulder, “only jest becuz they ain’t never seen the -Dingley workin’.” - -“You got the Dingley?” Cheviot asked; just as though it mattered. - -“No good goin’ to Nome ’nless y’ _have_ got the Dingley.” And while -Cheviot lingered to hear just why it was the Dingley could “lick -creation,” Hildegarde leaned against the stanchion, watching him with -that interest the better-born American woman commonly feels in seeing -something of what she has less opportunity for than any member of her -sex in Europe, viz., the way her men folk bear themselves with men. She -had the sense that again the American enjoys in its quiddity, of making -acquaintance with a new creature, while observing her old friend in this -new light. Cheviot was not only at his ease with these people, he put -them at ease with him. They were content to reveal themselves, even eager -before the task. Was it because he looked “a likely customer,” or did -men commonly turn to him? Now Mr. Isaiah Joslin and his sour-dough friend -were pushing in between Hildegarde and the group where Cheviot had been -buttonholed. Joslin was scoffing at the Dingley as well as the McKeown. -“Yes, _sir_!”—he demanded Cheviot’s attention by striking his fist in his -palm under that gentleman’s nose—“I’ll do more with a plain rocker that -any feller can make for himself out of a store box and three sticks, than -all these cheechalkers and their new-fangled machines.” - -“Maybe that’s so,” said a broad, squat Ohioan, the man Hildegarde had -noticed before, going about the ship with a tiny bottle, a little square -of sheet copper, and a deal of talk. “Maybe that’s right. But you old -sour-doughs lost a terrible lot o’ leaf and flour gold whenever you -didn’t use amalgam plates in your rockers.” - -“’Tain’t so easy gittin’ plates.” - -“’Tis now!” said the Ohioan, producing, as it were, automatically, his -little square of copper and his bottle of fluid. - -“Quicksilver, isn’t it?” Hildegarde came nearer Cheviot to ask. - -“Quacksilver, I guess,” but still he followed the discussion about the -McKeown “process” as though Hildegarde had been a hundred miles away. - -“Now, you just time me,” the Ohioan was challenging Cheviot. “I can -silver-plate this copper in twenty seconds by the watch.” And he did it. -The only person there who was not a witness to the triumph was the girl -whose clear eyes seemed to follow the process with a look of flattering -interest. Should she, after all, tell Louis, not how glad, but just -that she was glad of his coming? Hadn’t he earned that much? Not that he -seemed to care greatly about acknowledgments from her. He seemed to have -forgotten her existence already, and they hadn’t been together twenty -minutes. All the simpler, then! - -“I tell you what!”—the Ohioan had raised his voice and enlarged his -sphere of influence—“I tell you there’s a lot o’ poor prospectors would -have been rich men to-day if only I’d discovered sooner how to make -amalgam plates this easy and this cheap.” - -“Cheap, is it?” - -“Yes, a damned lot cheaper than losin’ half your gold. Cheaper than -linin’ your rockers—yes, and your sluices, too, with silver dollars as -some fellers did. Now, this little piece of copper”—he produced a new -bit—“a child can turn that into an amalgam plate by my process. Here, -let the lady show you.” Before Hildegarde knew what was happening, the -fragment of metal was in her hand and the owner had tipped the tiny -bottle till a drop of the liquid ran out on the copper. “Quick! Rub it -all over.” - -As she did so, she saw that Cheviot’s attention was now undividedly hers. -He did not look as if he altogether approved her acting as show woman. -But not to disappoint the inventor, Hildegarde rubbed the silvered tip -of her finger lightly and evenly over the copper. “Why, yes!” she cried -out. “Look!” And as she held up the miraculous result the Ohioan roared -with satisfaction, “Ain’t I been tellin’ you?” The copper was turned into -a sheet of silver. “Rub and rub as hard as you like now”—he passed the -object-lesson round—“you can no more budge a particle of that stuff than -you can rub off triple plate. And _that’s_ what you want to line your -rockers with!” - -“Looks like that silverin’ business might be worth somethin’.” - -“Worth a clean million,” says the Ohioan, as he pocketed his bottle of -miracle and walked jauntily away in the sunshine. - -Hildegarde and Cheviot, exchanging smiles, went on down the deck in -his wake. But suddenly the Ohioan stopped and wheeled about in the -direction of a voice that had just said: “No, siree, I ain’t worrittin’ -with no Dingley and no nothin’ I ain’t never tried.” The inventor of -amalgam-plated copper, as though he’d heard himself called by name, -retraced his steps with a precipitation that nearly capsized Miss Mar. -The gentleman who had just declined Dingley squared his shoulders and -announced to all and sundry: “No, siree! Y’ got to _show_ me. I’m from -Missoura.” Hildegarde caught at Cheviot’s arm. “They’ve got hold of our -saying!” - -“Oh, that’s everybody’s saying now,” he answered. “I’ve heard it twenty -times since I came on board.” She waited, incredulous, listening. “If I -got any minin’ to do,” the man from Missouri went on, “give _me_ Swain’s -Improved Amalgamator every time. D’ye know what they done to test Swain’s -Improved Amalgamator?” - -“Nop.” - -“Well, lemme tell yer. They took a gold dollar and they pulverized it.” - -“I’ve pulverized many a dollar in my day,” says a gloomy and familiar -voice. While the deck chuckled with sympathy. Hildegarde whispered, -“That’s my Blumpitty.” - -“Well, sir,” the other went on unmoved, “they passed that dollar in gold -dust that I’m tellin’ y’ ’bout, they passed it through a sixty-mesh -sieve, and they mixed it good and thorough with a ton—a ton, sir, -of gravel and sand. And they run that through Swain’s Improved Gold -Amalgamator, and what do you think they got?” - -“Guess,” says Mr. Blumpitty, “they got to know that any feller can -pulverize a dollar—” - -“Haw, haw.” - -“—but it’s the daisy that can pick one up.” - -“Well, sir, Swain’s Improved Amalgamator’s jest that kind of a daisy. It -picked up jest exactly ninety-eight cents out of that gold dollar.” And -every owner of a rival invention roared with derision. - -“Oh, Mr. Purser!” Louis Napoleon Brown was hailed with a suddenness that -arrested his steps, but did not deprive him of his haughty mien. “I find -I owe you an apology,” said Miss Mar. - -His sternness of visage relaxed slightly. “Well, you have treated me -mighty mean,” he admitted in a low voice. - -Cheviot was staring and making his way to the girl. - -“Yes,” she said, with a subdued air that might, to the purser, have -seemed to be penitential, but she spoke so that Cheviot could hear, “You -must have thought it very forward of me to call you ‘Louis,’ that first -evening. I meant this gentleman, who is an old friend of mine. I’ve only -just realized how mystified you must have been.” Wherewith she took -Cheviot’s arm, and away the two went, leaving the purser transfixed. - -Oh, the sun-warmed wind blowing in your face! Oh, this seeing the brave -world, with a friend at your side! - -“I don’t remember you at meals,” she said to him. - -“I never was at meals.” - -“Where did you eat?” - -“Up in the captain’s room.” - -“Well, you won’t any more, will you?” - -“I don’t know.” - -“You want us to eat apart!” - -“I don’t ‘want.’ But I can’t turn anybody out of his seat, and they’re -all taken.” - -Well, if he were content with this arrangement it hardly behooved her to -protest. “Come and be introduced to my Blumpitty. I can tell from the -look on his face exactly what he’s talking about.” - -“What?” - -“Come and listen.” - -“Ya-as,” Blumpitty was saying, ostensibly to Governor Reinhart, but -really to a distinguished and rapidly increasing circle, “Ya-as, queerest -feller ever I see.” - -“Who was?” - -“Why, the feller I found dyin’ on the coast up above Cape Polaris. The -man that gave me the tip. I can see that feller now. Couldn’t get his -face out o’ my head fur months. His eyes—used t’ see them eyes in my -sleep.” Blumpitty paused, and seemed to struggle feebly with an incubus. -“Never see such eyes in any man’s head ’fore nor since.” Again he paused -an instant to think out something. “Reckon it makes a man look like -that.” - -“What does?” demanded the Governor. - -“Knockin’ up agin the Mother Lode.” - -“Oh, the Mother Lode!” said Reinhart, slightingly. - -“Ya-as; those of us that’s practical miners”—his look weeded out the -Governor—“guess we all know that every bit o’ gold that’s found its way -to the creek bottoms and the coast, it’s all come from the Mother Lode, -off there in them low ground—down hills to the North.” - -The breathless respect with which this information was received by the -rest, was broken in upon by the Governor’s roaring a great infidel laugh. -“Why, Joslin, here, tells me the gold comes out o’ the sea!” - -“Maybe he believes it,” says Blumpitty, sympathetically. - -“Believe it!” bellowed Isaiah, sticking his head over Dr. Daly’s -shoulder. “So’ll you believe it when you get to Nome. The further out you -go at low tide the richer you’ll find it.” - -Blumpitty’s pale-eyed pity for his delusion seemed to get on Joslin’s -nerves. - -“Wasn’t I _there_ when Jake Hitz and Tough Nut went way out with a -wheelbarra’?” - -“Any man can go out with a wheelbarra’,” said Blumpitty. - -“Yes, but it ain’t every man can come back with pay dirt and rock out -what they did.” - -Blumpitty just smiled. - -“Twenty-two hundred dollars, sir!” - -“Guess you weren’t watchin’ which way they went for that dirt?” said one -of the capitalists. - -“That’s right!” laughed his partner. “Tough Nut must have got that -twenty-two hundred out of the tundra.” - -“Hope that isn’t where you fellows count on findin’ gold,” said Joslin, -sympathetically. - -“We just about are.” - -“Why, don’t you know the tundra’s froze the year round?” - -“That’s why we’re takin’ up thawin’ machines—$90,000 worth.” - -“Might as well take up ninety thousand pianners and play toons to the -tundra.” - -As though this idea had some special significance for him, a -poorly-dressed boy detached himself from the group with a cheerful -whistling of the eternal Boulanger march. - -“There’s a hell of a lot o’ machinery goin’; I ain’t sorry I’m takin’ in -chickens m’self,” observed Hildegarde’s table companion. - -Cheviot caught the eye of the whistling boy as he went by. “What are -_you_ taking in?” - -The boy held up a banjo. “This!” he laughed, and went briskly back to the -dancers in the steerage. - -Hildegarde smiled into Cheviot’s eyes. “Wasn’t that nice?” How easily -he made people say amusing, revealing things. “Do you notice how happy -everybody looks to-day?” - -“Yes,” he admitted. “The _Los Angeles_ is a pretty dismal place, but most -of these people have been happier on this horrible ship than they’ve been -for years. Happier, some of them, than they’ve ever been before.” - -She didn’t quite like him to speak so of the _Los Angeles_. Yesterday she -would have agreed. But to-day—“How do you know they’re happier here?” -(Shame on him if _he_ wasn’t. But it was just as well. Oh, much simpler!) - -“Talk to them and you’ll see. Everybody on the ship has had the worst -luck you ever heard of; and all through ‘circumstances over which’!” His -voice made a period, with that old trick of assuming a phrase complete, -when you could finish it for yourself. “Even those that look prosperous -like you and me, they’ve all failed at the main business of life.” - -So far as she was concerned in this review she felt only impatience at -his going back upon old loss and pain. What if you have been sorry and -sad. It wasn’t the part of a friend to remind you of it. But if Louis -must talk of failure here was a ship-load of it! She told herself this -thought was the hag that was riding her happiness down. She looked round -her. The world was a pretty terrible place, after all, “for the mass,” -that Mrs. Locke had taunted her with not caring about. The wind blew out -a wisp of straight, fair hair till it played like a golden flame above -the brim of her hat of Lincoln-green. - -“A whole ship-load of failure!” she said aloud. A sense of the grim -business life was for “the mass” pressed leaden, and the scarlet mouth -closed pitiful upon the words, “Poor, poor people!” But Cheviot, with -his eyes on that beguiling little flame of gold, was ready to reassure -her. It didn’t matter if every soul on board _had_ seen unmerciful -disaster follow fast and follow faster, up to the hour he set foot upon -the ship. Hildegarde needn’t waste her pity. Look at their faces, listen -to them making incantations with McKeown and Dingley. Anything would do -to work the spell. Why? Because the place they were bound for had the -immense advantage of being unknown. No one could say of any of these -contrivances, “It’s been tried.” “Not a soul on the ship but has his -thawing machine or his banjo, or—” - -“Or her black cook.” - -He nodded. How well they understood each other, “_Some_ talisman.” - -“What’s ours?” said the girl quickly. - -“Our what?” - -“Our talisman.” - -“Oh, I wasn’t thinking of us.” - -“Think now.” - -“I don’t know.” - -“Well, I know what mine is.” - -“You won’t tell me, I suppose.” - -“Why not?” She spoke lightly, even a little teasingly. “It’s a sort -of rough diamond, my talisman. Or”—her sunny look flashed in his -face—“perhaps it’s adamant. Which is the most unyielding?” Then, with -sudden gravity, “It’s a wonderful thing, the trust you make people feel. -Nothing can shake it.” - -“I thought we were talking about talismans.” - -“It makes every difficult thing seem easy. And it makes every dangerous -thing seem safe.” - -“Well, it’s the very last effect I intend to produce!” - -She swept his declaration aside. “Impossible to feel anything can go very -wrong now that you’re here.” - -His face was so unmoved by this handsome tribute that she found herself -venturing further. “I don’t know why I should pretend I don’t appreciate. -I’ve been so afraid these last days—” - -He caught at that. “Afraid, were you?” - -“Afraid that one of us two would die before I had a chance to tell you.” -Should she go on? She had meant to write—it was different saying it. - -“Tell me what?” - -“That I’ve got over minding your having opposed me so.” If she expected -any outburst of joy on his part she was denied the spectacle. “I’ve come -to understand such a lot of things on board this ship.” She waited an -instant, but he leaned over the railing quite silent, staring down into -the water. “Among other things,” she went on, “I see when I look back -that you’ve always been the one to bring me strength. A feeling that I’d -set my feet upon the rock—” - -“And it wasn’t rock, after all, what you set your feet on,” he said -quietly. - -She tightened her hands on the railing, and something like veiled warning -crept into the words: “You’ve made me feel _safer_, Louis, than any one -else in the world. I owe you a great deal for that.” - -“Oh, _owe_!” He turned away impatiently. - -Not the sea-birds sweeping so low over the water that their white feather -brooms raised a dust of silver in the sunlight; not the motley crew upon -the ship half as clear to the girl’s vision as that little figure with -the flags in his hat patroling a deserted street in the dawn. “One reason -people depend on you so is, I suppose, because they see as I do, it isn’t -only that you’re good to some particular one. You’d be good to anybody.” - -“Oh, would I!” - -“Just as you gave up your Fourth of July to be watchman for the -neighbor’s boy.” - -“How did you get hold of that yarn?” - -“Barbara—” - -“Well, look here”—he moved his square shoulders uneasily, like one in an -ill-fitting coat. “Look here, if you’re thinking of trying to make a hero -out of me—it isn’t any earthly—” - -“Hero? Nonsense. We were talking about talismans,” she said, with -recovered gaiety. “I haven’t brought along a machine of any sort, and I -haven’t got a black cook. Not even a banjo! But I’ve got a friend!” she -triumphed. “So I can’t be scared now any more than the rest of the wild -adventurers.” - -“Then you were scared?” - -“Oh, here she is! Mrs. Locke! This is ‘the sort o’ watchman’ I was -telling you about.” - -In the act of holding out her hand, the woman’s delicate face took on -that marble look that once or twice Hildegarde had seen there. And the -hand dropped before it reached Cheviot’s. - -Hildegarde looked from one to the other. “Why, what is it?” - -“We have met before,” said Mrs. Locke. - -“When was that?” - -“On the Seattle wharf.” - -“Oh, I didn’t remember.” - -“I do. You are the man who nearly broke my arm.” - - - - -CHAPTER XX - - -Mrs. Locke had gone below and left them staring at one another. - -“I haven’t the smallest recollection of the woman.” - -She clutched at hope. “You couldn’t have been the one.” - -“_She_ doesn’t seem to have much doubt about it.” - -“But you didn’t—I’m sure you didn’t.” - -“I certainly did push my way about in that crowd.” - -“So did everybody.” - -“I’m afraid it stands to reason a man does that kind of thing more -effectually than a woman. Your Mrs. What’s-her-name may be right.” - -“Oh, Louis!” - -“If she is, I’m sorry.” - -“You simply _couldn’t_ have—” - -“Well, I don’t know. I remember perfectly, I was frantic at not finding -you.” - -Ashamed of the warmth his words brought welling up about her heart—“And -you didn’t think much of the women you did find. Yes, I remember what you -said about the women who go on this sort of journey. But you’re wrong, -you see. I know them now.” - -He made no answer. Just stood there, hands in pockets, arctic cap -rolled back, so that it sat turban-like on the crown of his head; the -perplexity in the face giving way to a somewhat dogged good-temper that -declined to be ruffled by the incident. - -“Some of the women are just as—are more deserving of being treated well -than I am.” - -“Oh, I dare say some of them are all right.” He leaned against the -railing, his square chin lifted, and he studied the man in the -crow’s-nest—but he went on saying in that cool way, “I’m not denying that -I would have broken any number of bones rather than not get to you in -time to save you from coming to harm.” - -“Oh, _don’t_ say it! That’s exactly what Mrs. Locke thinks.” - -“Oh, Mrs. Locke!”—he moved his shoulders impatiently—“I’m sorry if she -got hurt. But in my opinion neither of you ought to have been there. -Don’t think my view about that is altered by your having come off scot -free so far. You see somebody did suffer.” - -“Mrs. Locke.” - -“It’s just a chance it wasn’t you.” - -“Don’t you see that it wouldn’t be a chance if men treated all women as -well as you’d have treated me?” - -“Men would have to feel about all women as I feel about you before that -could come about, and that wouldn’t even be desirable. It certainly isn’t -practical politics.” - -“Oh, I wish I were clever and could argue. I know there are things to say -only I don’t see how to put them.” - -“There’s this to say”—he stood up, a little impatiently—“I’ve never -posed as a passive individual. If I see things in my way I”—he made an -expressive little gesture—“I set them aside. If I hurt Mrs. Locke in -setting her aside, I’m sorry. But women have no business being in the way -at such times.” - -“I am glad to think you aren’t in your heart taking it as lightly as you -pretend.” - -But the incident rather spoilt things. Instead of being able to yield -unreservedly to the comfort, yes, the joy of his being there, a counter -influence was at work. A watchfulness, critical, even painful. Not so -much of Cheviot as of herself. _Was_ she the kind of girl Mrs. Locke had -meant?—the kind who said, “I’m all right. What does it matter about other -women.” Something in her soul revolted at the charge. In other moods she -was conscious only of a blind rebellion against this evil trick fate had -played her—perversely thrusting into the foreground a thing so little -representative of the man. Offering this, forsooth, as a symbol of all -that lay behind. A lying symbol. He wasn’t like that. _Was_ he? He had -been “frantic” about her. Ah, the subtle danger of that solace, feeding -self-love, divorcing her from her less fortunate sisters. - -Few people minded the lowering weather the next day, since it brought a -sight of land. Yet one had need to be at sea for a week and a half to -find comfort in this vision of a dim gray rock rising out of a gray sea -to starboard; or on the port side, a range of snow-flecked hills, with -clouds hanging low over the crater of an extinct volcano. How bleak the -world up here in the Aleutians! Then suddenly, for Hildegarde, the chill -vision warmed and glowed. “This is the kind of thing John Galbraith is -looking at on the other side of the globe!” - -To every one’s huge satisfaction the _Los Angeles_, skirting Ounalaska, -showed no sign of pausing. Instead of turning off toward Dutch Harbor -to learn if the ice had yielded up yonder and the way was clear, boldly -the ship took the short cut through Unimak Pass into the Bering Sea. -What splendid time they were making under the convoy of this best of all -captains! People went about boasting, “Nome by Sunday!” - -“We’ll make the record trip!” - -“—Make the big fortunes!” - -“We’ll beat creation!” - -“Splendid fellow, our captain!” - -Never such luck before in this bedeviled course. - -Toward three o’clock the next morning Hildegarde was waked by the noise -of hurrying feet above her head and a great hubbub in the saloon. - -“Mrs. Locke?” Her berth was empty. - -In the narrow cabin two half-dressed women were agitatedly hunting their -belongings, while the dressmaker, Miss Tillie Jump, screamed through the -door to know if there was any danger. - -“What’s happened?” asked Hildegarde, tumbling down out of her berth. - -“We are in the ice.” - -“Masses all round us high as the ship.” - -Certainly Mrs. Locke had vanished. “I’m very calm,” said Miss Mar to -herself, with a certain admiring surprise. And then her self-esteem fell -from her with the realization that in the back of her head she knew -there could not possibly be any immediate danger, or Cheviot would have -made some sign. All the same, her tranquillity did not prevent her from -picturing a shipwreck, in which the clearest impression was that of -Cheviot saving Mrs. Locke’s life at risk of his own. The lady’s heartfelt -acknowledgments and tableau. - -On deck, in the gray milky light, a different picture. No Cheviot and -no discernible danger. Plenty of broken, moving ice, but nothing like -the towering bergs of saloon rumor. Going forward at low pressure the -_Los Angeles_ was picking her way among the water-worn shapes that stood -dazzling white, each on a pale green base, submerged yet partly visible. -Strange sculpture of the sea, that, like a Rodin statue, gained meaning -as you gazed. This rough-hewn mass was a crouching polar bear; that a -saurian, antediluvian, vast. Some of the ice-cakes, flat, featureless, -were mere lonely white rafts drifting from nowhere, bound nowhere; others -manned by dwarf snowmen, misshapen, spectral. - -Though so unlike report, there was something here expected, hauntingly -familiar, like a single surviving impression out of a vanished life. From -a long, long distance O’Gorman’s voice recalled her as he came down the -deck with Mrs. Locke. “What do you think of this for a change?” - -Hildegarde was still looking round for Cheviot, as she answered, “It’s -all much flatter and less tremendous than I expected.” - -“Three fourths of the ice is under water. I’m afraid you’ll find it quite -tremendous enough.” - -Here at last was Louis! “What’s going to happen?” Hildegarde hailed him. - -He only pulled off his cap for her benefit. It was to O’Gorman he said, -half aside, “We’ll have to get out of this.” - -While the two men stood there looking gravely out, the ship put her nose -into the ice-pack, shivered, and drew back. - -“What’s happening?” - -“They’re reversing engines.” - -Hildegarde had put her question with a dawning sense of obscurer energies -here at work than she had apprehended, and with that the thought of -Galbraith took on a sudden something like its old ineluctable hold on her -imagination. These the forces that had fashioned life for him. Yes, and -for others, too. - -The whole of that raw morning she haunted the upper deck, for the most -part alone. If Mrs. Locke avoided her, it would seem that Cheviot was -inclined to do the same. He had struck up a friendship with O’Gorman. -They walked about or sat together in the smoking-room. The feeling of -tension that pervaded the _Los Angeles_ was manifest even in the Kangaroo -Court. No livelier precinct hitherto on the _Los Angeles_ than this -part of the fo’c’sle, where, from the eminence of the judge’s bench (a -great coil of rope), Mr. Gedge imposed upon his much-diverted public -a parody of those forms of legal procedure learned in his experience -as a shorthand reporter of “cases,” or, as he called himself, a court -stenographer. Gedge modeled his style upon those administrators -of justice who think because a man has disobeyed one law, his -fellow-creatures may with respect to him (or rather without “respect”) -break all rules governing human intercourse. With the aid of unlimited -audacity and a ready tongue, Mr. Matthew Gedge made things lively within -the precincts of the Kangaroo Court. And with impunity, for an unwritten -law ordains that no one, however great a personage, shall dare to defy -the authority of the mock court, or can safely set aside its judgments. -Woe betide any one who seriously persists in so unpopular a course. -Whatever the case being tried, no bystander, no unwary passer even, but -goes in peril of being summoned. If he know himself unable to beat Gedge -at the sharp word game, it behooves the witness to bear himself meekly. -If he thinks to flee, let him expect to hear Gedge roar with grim zest, -“Constable! Do your duty. Arrest that man!” and sometimes half way to -cover the offender is caught and haled back amid a general hilarity, to -find himself, however confused, speechless or unwilling, clapped into the -witness-box (a big iron boiler) and kept stewing there while he meets as -best he may a fire of merciless questions and the bubbling merriment of -the deck. - -But to-day the sittings of the Court were suspended. The loungers who -came to Gedge for diversion or enlightenment, got only a grumbled, “I -pass!” or “Guess we’re euchred!” And even such popularity as Gedge’s was -threatened with eclipse for putting into words the silent misgivings of -all men. The very sky looked evil. The ragged gray-brown clouds had been -racing across the heavens like tatterdemalions hearing of mischief afoot -and eager for a share. Now they were massed there in the southwest, a -dirty, featureless mob, in which the ineffectual units were lost and the -whole fused into a vast somber-hued menace. - -The faithful Blumpitty sought out Miss Mar. “No—o,” he drawled, rolling -his eye among the fantastic ice shapes. “No—o, it don’t look good to me, -this don’t.” But Blumpitty had news. “That feller who discovered—yes. -And wus dyin’ as hard as he could last fall. Well, he’s alive yet.” - -“How do you know?” - -“Joslin says so. He had a letter at Seattle from a man who’d come down to -Nome from Polaris over the ice at Christmas. Not that it matters much. -The sick feller don’t seem to have let on to them others. Anyways, they’s -good and plenty in the Mother Lode. What I don’t see is how he managed -it.” - -“Managed what?” - -“To hang on. If ever I see death in a man’s face! But I always said they -wusn’t like anything I ever seen before.” - -“What wasn’t?” - -“_Them eyes._” - -“Near Nome, is it—the place where he—” - -“Oh, no, a good ways north.” - -“Heavens, north even of Nome?” - -“Yes, it’s the farthest north camp they is. Think o’ him hangin’ on all -through the winter. In that place!” Blumpitty’s pale gaze sought vainly -for enlightenment among the moving ice masses. - -“People do get through in worse places than that,” said his companion. - -“They ain’t no worse places than Polaris.” - -“Yes, there’s Franz Josef Land.” - -“Never heard o’ that camp.” - -“I wish _I_ were going as far as Polaris.” - -“Why, come right along.” - -She laughed. “I only wish I could. I’d like to know a man who’d lived in -the farthest north camp of all—the farthest on our side. What’s that?” - -“Where?” - -“Out there.” She pointed to a ghostly something, faint as smoke against -the high light of the ice rim on the far horizon. - -Blumpitty stared. “Reckon it’s a cloud. They’s two more! And another. No, -by gum, it’s ships!” - -And ships they were, five of them, the first seen since leaving -Vancouver!—spectacle to stir the chilled blood of watchers on the _Los -Angeles_. For these dreamlike apparitions were vessels such as theirs, -threatened like them with ice-pack and with storm. A detachment of the -Nome fleet! None came any nearer, except the _Ohio_ and the little -_Charles Nelson_. They spoke and passed, the Ohio speedily to vanish; -_Charles Nelson_ to tack about, hunting an outlet, and then, discouraged, -turn south as the bigger _Los Angeles_ pushed valiantly through the ice -to the North. “Turn back! No use!” _Charles Nelson_ warned, and then, -quicker than ever you saw in your life, the fog swooped down and wiped -everything off the ocean except the nearer ice. The _Los Angeles_ turned -and tacked about to the tune of the fog-horn, trying to find a way -through the heavier floe, only to be headed off by bigger masses looming -through the haze, majestic slow-sailing ice-ships, some like white -gondolas, some like sturdy, low-built castles set fantastically on a -field of fleece, for the exposed parts of the berg had rotted in the sun, -and in the wind been rippled, so that a nearer sight showed the surfaces -honeycombed, disintegrate. And again to Hildegarde Mar came that sense -of its all being familiar, as though she had been here before. So she -had, in spirit. With a thrilling sense of recognition she discovered the -original of more than one picture in that book of Galbraith’s that she -and Bella had pored over in their school-days. - -When, early in the afternoon, the fog lifted a little, a message came -from the captain inviting Miss Mar to the bridge that she might have a -better view. By the time she had obeyed the summons the wind had risen. -The captain was looking through his glass, and Mrs. Locke was at his -side. He left both visitors with harassed face and called down to Cheviot -walking below with O’Gorman. And now Louis stood beside the captain on -the bridge, looking to the northeast, and talking in an undertone. - -“What does he know,” said Mrs. Locke, referring to Cheviot for the first -time, “about navigation?” - -“Nothing, I should think,” said Hildegarde serenely, yet with that -stirring of pride that visits a woman when the man she is interested in -is called to counsel. “You see Louis has been up here before, and so few -people have.” - -“Oh!” Mrs. Locke turned indifferently away and looked out over the -white-patched water. The girl felt anew and keenly the embarrassment -that had come of the confrontation of these two. Impossible for her to -think it didn’t matter. No vulgarity of soul helped her to meet the -issue with, “Mrs. Locke’s ‘nobody,’—a little book-keeping woman we shall -never see again!” She could not even, as a feebler nature would, simply -ignore the incident of the day before, accepting for Louis Mrs. Locke’s -evil opinion, accepting for Mrs. Locke his professed regret but real -indifference, verging on dislike. - -“Of course,” Hildegarde drew closer, “I’ve thought a great deal about -what happened yesterday—I mean what happened on the wharf.” - -“Oh, put it out of your head.” - -“It’s hardly been out of my head a minute, except the two hours I slept -this morning.” - -“I ought to have held my tongue.” - -“I’m glad you didn’t. Because now I know something more than that he hurt -you.” - -“What do you know?” - -“How much he can hurt _me_,” was on her tongue, but the only answer she -made was, “I mustn’t let you think that I’m going to turn a cold shoulder -on my friend because—” - -“Oh, no.” It was said not scornfully—just accepting it. - -“I think a month ago I would either not have believed it or I would have -explained it all away to myself. I’d have said he didn’t know what he was -doing. He—he was—Oh, there are a dozen excuses I might have made for him.” - -“Yes, dozens.” - -“But now I don’t make one. I say, ‘Yes, he did it, and he doesn’t even -realize how terrible it was.’” - -Mrs. Locke glanced at her curiously. “It’s true a good deal has to happen -before men and women can treat each other fairly.” - -Hildegarde nodded. “I’m beginning to see that. Louis hasn’t begun—not -yet. But about other things he’s always been the one who’s helped and -taught me. Done it for lots of other people, too, of course,” she -hastened to add. “I’d never once thought of him as a person I could -help.” - -“And now—” - -“Now—” Her grave look went as far as that of the blind who seem to -descry Truth riding on the viewless air, or sitting on the round world’s -uttermost rim. Certainly Hildegarde had been given such extension of -vision in these hours that plainly enough she saw that it was not till -a cloud settled on Cheviot’s fame that she knew how much its fairness -meant to her. Acceptance of that had brought her acquainted with yet -another new aspect of experience. Here was a man that had everybody and -everything to recommend him—_up to yesterday_. Since yesterday she knew -not only that his nature and his outlook were on one side defective, she -had glimpses of a faith that, precisely because of this, he had a need -of her beyond the one he had been used to urge. A light shone in the -thought that there was something she could do for him that perhaps no -other creature could. A perception this of infinite significance to such -as Hildegarde Mar, belonging as she did to the bigger of the two camps -into which womankind are naturally divided. For, _pace_ the satirists, -those of her sex who make most stir in the world and cause most commotion -in the hearts of men—those daughters of the horse leech, whose unappeased -hunger cries ever “More, more! Give! and give again!” they are in the -minority. To the larger, if less striking army, those whose primal -passion is to give—of them was Hildegarde. - -“It looks as if—for all Louis is so wonderfully clear-headed and I’m -so—the other way, there are some things I can see plainer than he. But it -seems to me that’s only a reason for”—her voice dropped a little—“for—” - -“Yes,” said Mrs. Locke. - -Hildegarde flushed faintly. “For trying, I don’t mean by preaching, but -trying to help him to see—well, some of the things you’ve given me an -inkling of.” She laid her hand gently on the older woman’s. Mrs. Locke’s -fingers closed round the girl’s, but she said nothing. “So, though he -nearly broke your arm, you will have done him a service.” - -The white face smiled its enigmatic little smile. But presently, “I’m -glad I know you,” she said. - -“Are you? Then let’s be friends!” - -As though some tangible barrier had been beaten down they went nearer the -two men. The captain was ending, “—and if the ice closes in behind us -we’ll be trapped.” - -“Oh, is that all!” said Cheviot, glancing toward Hildegarde. - -“No, it isn’t all. We’d be carried wherever the floe goes—and that’s not -Nome.” Gillies lowered the glass, and his strained-looking eyes fell on -the two he had forgotten. “Sorry, ladies, you must go below.” - -Not only rather snubbed, but feeling now the gravity of affairs, -Hildegarde and her companion departed with some precipitation, while the -captain’s hoarse shout rang out in an indistinguishable order to some -invisible officer. - -A few minutes later, standing on bales of merchandise for’ard on the -upper deck, they watched the altering of the course and the race for -that single opening, narrow and ever narrower in the close-packed ice. -It was exciting enough, for they got out just in time. Thirty-four hours -afterward the _Los Angeles_ was still beating about on the edge of the -pack, looking for another break in the long white line. - -The spirits of the passengers steadily sank. To their jealous imagining -all those phantom ships, and the score unseen, were now forging ahead. -Only the _Los Angeles_ besieged the ice in vain. Men stood in knots -discussing the captain’s mistakes and airing their own knowledge. They -had expected this state of things if he persisted in keeping so far to -the east. Hour by hour Gillies’s credit fell. - -The only break in the dead monotony of the afternoon was suggested in the -general invitation to come for’ard and hear Gedge roast the captain. It -went ill that day with any witness in Gillies’s favor. - -In the middle of dinner people looked up from their plates and said: -“What’s that?” - -The bean-feaster was the first to find his tongue. “By ——,” he said, -“we’ve stopped!” The passengers dropped their knives and forks and rushed -on deck. The bean-feaster was right. In trying to get round the eastern -shoulder of the floe, the _Los Angeles_ had run aground in Norton Sound, -thirty miles from the mainland. The engines were reversed, and the -water round the propeller was set boiling. The ship never budged. The -deck resounded to the uproar of many tongues. To waste thirty-six hours -feeling her way round the floe was bad enough, but to be “hung up on a -sand-bar,” a hundred and fifty miles from Nome, with a wicked-looking -ice-pack bearing down on you from the west—! And here comes the _Charles -Nelson_ once more, very perky this time, profiting by the object lesson -and steering clear of the bar. The _Los Angeles_ humbled her pride -to ask for a line. “Can’t get near enough,” the word came back. “I’m -in three fathom now!” and away _Charles Nelson_ goes, leaving the big -steamer to her fate. - -“What’s that feller calls himself a captain, what’s he goin’ to _do_?” -demanded Mr. Gedge of his satellites. “‘Wait for the tide!’ Yah! He’s got -the most high-spirited idears of any man I ever—‘Wait!’ After wastin’ two -days and nights a’ready! ‘Wait!’ While the other fellers are knockin’ the -bottom out o’ Nome!” - -This was a harassing thought, but the captain still had his apologists, -even in the Kangaroo Court. It was O’Gorman’s friend with the fiery -beard who dared to point out, “Mr. Gedge told us on Friday and Saturday -the captain was ‘incompetent and foolhardy.’ On Sunday and Monday he’s -‘over-cautious and damnably slow.’ To-night Mr. Gedge tells us—” - -“To-night,” that gentleman shouted, “I’m tellin’ you still more about -this —— captain. Did they or did they not say to us in Seattle that -Gillies was a first-rate seaman?” - -“Yes, and so he is!” - -“Did they or did they not tell us he knew his job?” - -“Right! Knows this ship as you know the way to your mouth.” - -“Yah! Knows what she can do on the Japan route. But this, gentlemen -and ladies, ain’t the road to Manila. And do you know what? This here -is Captain Gillies’s first trip to Alaska!” Gedge brought it out with -a sledge-hammer effect. The audience felt they were expected to be -dumfounded. They complied. - -But a voice was heard: “It’s most people’s first trip to Alaska.” - -“I tell you,” said Gedge, judicially, “he knows as little about these -northern seas as that boy there with the banjer.” - -“This self-appointed judge,” Cheviot’s voice rose steadily above the -growing murmur, “hasn’t heard apparently that _nobody_ knows these -waters.” - -“Would you mind repeatin’ that, sir?” - -“Not at all. In the first place, the Bering is a practically uncharted -sea. That may be a disgrace to our Coast Survey, but it’s hardly the -captain’s fault.” - -Gedge looked stumped for a moment. If this were true it wouldn’t do for -him not to know it. - -Cheviot was making good the diversion in the captain’s favor, when Gedge -interrupted: “Does the captain’s friend pretend to say that the whalers -and sealers and fellers who’ve been up here before gold was thought -of—that none o’ _them_ don’t know enough to keep off a damned sand-bank?” -Looking his wiliest: “Now, if we had one o’ them sort here—” Then, with a -highly effective coup: “Ladies and gentlemen, we got him!” - -“Here on this ship?” - -“Right here on board the _Los Angeles_!” - -“Where? Who, who? Name?” Everybody but Cheviot and a few women were -shouting themselves hoarse. - -“What y’ got to say to that, Mr.— You, there, with the arctic cap and the -tender heart fur captains?” - -“I’ve got this to say. That even the men who sailed along here last -fall, don’t know Norton Sound this summer.” - -“_Wot?_” - -“Can’t know it.” - -“And why not?” - -“For the good reason that new sand-bars are formed up here every spring. -Not a ship that sails for any port on the northwest coast but goes on -what’s practically an exploring expedition. That’s our true danger. The -captain’s no less than ours.” - -“Oh, yes, we all know you’re in with his nibs, but what my friends don’t -know is that Billings & Co. sent a pilot aboard this ship.” - -“Why, then,” roared half-a-dozen voices, “why ain’t he pilotin’!” - -“Why?” Mr. Gedge shouted above the din. “_I_ can tell—” His sentence was -jerked to an abrupt close. “What in hell’s up?” - -Two or three women had uttered little shrieks, and, “What was that?” -people asked one another. Men turned and looked in each other’s faces. -“What _was_ it?” - -The sudden jar and vibration of the ship lent added force to Mr. Gedge’s -charge. “The reason the pilot ain’t pilotin’ is because the captain -ordered him off the bridge the second day out.” - -“Now I know what it means when the papers say, ‘Sensation in the court’!” -a little Canadian hospital nurse whispered to Mrs. Locke. But in another -second she was clinging to that lady and her eyes were scared and wide; -for, as if under the assault of a battering-ram, the _Los Angeles_ was -shaking from stem to stern. - -Hildegarde felt a warm hand laid on her two, tight-clasped and cold. -Cheviot had put an arm through the outer fringe of the group where she -and Mrs. Locke were standing. “Come for’ard,” he said. - -“Was that the ice?” Mrs. Locke whispered, allowing herself to be drawn -along. - -All the rest of the people stood hushed for a moment as if stunned by the -concussion. The three who alone in those first instants seemed to retain -power of movement quietly made their way out of the throng, while every -ear was filled with the horrible secondary sounds of that mighty impact—a -slow grinding, a horrible gritting, as of granite jaws reducing the bones -of prey to powder. - -“I want you to stay here till I come back.” Cheviot left the two women -under the bridge. As Hildegarde listened with beating heart to the sound -of the ice against the ship, she said to herself: “These are moments Jack -Galbraith has known. After to-night I shall understand better. I shall -be closer to a part of his life than Bella ever will.” Every sense was -set to note the change that in the last few minutes had come over the -spirit of the ship. No wild commotion, a hush rather. But a thing of -eery significance. No more shrill harangues in the Kangaroo Court. No -dancing on the upper deck. No _tink-a-tink_ of banjo in the steerage. Men -gathering in groups, talking for the most part quite quietly, but agreed -that “the old sea tramp” wouldn’t stand much of this kind of thing. With -a single mind the women, as soon as they had pulled themselves together, -hastened down below. - -“I think I’ll go down, too, and see—” Hildegarde began. “I won’t be two -minutes.” - -“Where are you going?” - -“To the cabin. Do you want anything brought up?” - -“No.” - -The girl was longer than two minutes, but she was no less surprised when, -upon her reappearance with a small hand-bag, she found Cheviot talking to -Mrs. Locke. “The current is carrying the ice out all right. Probably the -only danger is the passengers making fools of themselves. But if they’ll -only go quietly to bed—” - -“They won’t,” said Mrs. Locke. The two discussed this quite in the tone -of being allies. “Nobody will go to bed to-night,” she assured him. - -“What do they want to do?” he demanded. - -“Sit up till one in the morning,” Mrs. Locke answered, “and see the tide -float us off the bar.” - -“Well, the women at all events”—Cheviot looked about with an air of -relief—“the women have gone to bed already.” - -“No, indeed,” said Hildegarde. “They’re tumbling over one another down in -the saloon, in and out of the state-rooms collecting their things. Some -are saying their prayers, and some—” - -“Do you sing?” Cheviot demanded. - -“I?” Mrs. Locke stared. “No.” - -“Who does?” he appealed to Hildegarde. - -“I don’t know.” - -“Yes, I heard a woman yesterday—” - -“Oh, that awful Miss Pinckney, you know, with the draggled feathers!” - -“Well, go and find her and get her to sing now.” - -“_Sing?_” - -“Yes, sing. It may make just all the difference.” Cheviot was in the act -of bolting back to the captain. - -“She can’t sing.” Hildegarde followed him a step. - -He misunderstood it for an untimely musical criticism. “Then let her make -a noise of some sort.” - -“Oh, she’s doing that—screaming with hysterics down in the saloon.” -Cheviot flashed back to say confidentially, not to Hildegarde, but to -Mrs. Locke: “Go and see if you can’t get up a concert.” With which cool -and apparently crazy suggestion he vanished. - -Twenty minutes later a woman, wearing diamond ear-rings and a sealskin -jacket, paused in her flight up the companionway and leaned an instant, -panting, against the music-room door. Now she was lifting her head with -a slow incredulity, as an unsteady voice near by began to quaver out a -rag-time ballad, highly offensive to sensitive ears, but a tune familiar -and to many on the ship most dear. The woman peered round the half-open -door, staring from one to the other of those callous creatures within, -making merry on the brink of destruction—Miss Mar at the piano, and at -her side the draggled Miss Pinckney. Ah, no, that red-eyed woman wasn’t -callous. She sang the inane words with lips that trembled. Now she was -breaking down. - -“No, no. Go on,” Miss Mar insisted. “Think of the others.” - -“They’ll never listen. Everybody’s too—too—” - -“Well, let’s see. Now!” and very ineffectually Hildegarde took up the -second verse. Miss Pinckney plucked the strain away as two men looked in. -There was nothing especial to take them up or down. They stood near the -woman with the diamond ear-rings, hardly knowing that they listened. -In that first twenty minutes, every time the ice struck the ship, Miss -Pinckney would hesitate and her voice would fly off the scale in a faint -scream. - -“Oh, _please_! That’s enough to scare anybody!” and Hildegarde played -doggedly on. “Now, let’s try again!” It was, however, as if not Miss -Mar’s admonishing, but the rude insistence of the tune dragged Miss -Pinckney along, pulling her out of the pit of her fears and landing her -“Down along the Bowery,” or “In Gay Paree,” or some place equally remote -from the sand-bar in the Bering Sea. - -Mrs. Locke, with the Blumpittys and a brace of doctors in tow, appeared -in the act of descending for a muster of “the company.” Cheviot came -flying down behind them, two steps at a time. He was about to turn in at -the music-room, when a woman pushed past him, showing a panic-stricken -face above the sleeping child that she carried clutched tight against her -breast. A sudden jar made the sleeper lift a cropped head and look about -with wide eyes. - -“Hello!” said Cheviot reassuringly, in a cheerful and commonplace voice. -“This is a passenger I haven’t seen before. Aren’t you rather too big, -sir, to be carried?” - -—“hasn’t been well!” muttered the woman, taking breath to recommence the -ascent. - -“Look here, where are you going?” And without waiting to know, “Some of -us can carry—” He was taking the burden out of the thin arms. - -“No,” remonstrated the woman, as Cheviot turned in at the music-room, “we -must go up to father.” - -“I’ll send him down to you.” - -“No, no. We’ve got to go up and—be ready.” - -“Ready for what?” He fixed upon the woman a pair of faith-inspiring eyes -so unclouded that she stared. - -“Don’t you want to listen to the singing?” Cheviot bent smiling to the -little person who lay quite content in his arms, studying the man’s face -with the solemn absorption of childhood. - -Not many there besides him, but because Cheviot had come in the concert -had begun. Others besides Hildegarde felt this quickening of life in any -room he entered. Miss Pinckney remembered she had the music of a “reel -pretty song” out of the “Belle of New York.” She’d go and get it. - -“Do you hear that?” Cheviot said, depositing the child on one of the -rickety chairs. “You’ve just come in time,” and he stood a moment talking -to the mother. The child sat askew, with its father’s great waterproof -cape hitched up on one side and trailing on the other. When the little -figure made the slightest movement the lop-sided chair wobbled and -threatened collapse. Instantly the child desisted and became nervously -engrossed in the problem of a nice equilibrium. The little face took on a -look of tense uneasiness. It was plain that courage was lacking so much -as to pull a good deep breath lest it draw ruin down. Cheviot, still -talking with the mother, turned to take in his the small child hand that -clutched the chair. Was it the look of heavy responsibility in the small -face, or was it another onslaught of ice against the ship that made him -say, “Music’s soon going to begin, little—what’s your name?” - -The child opened thin lips and emitted a careful sound. - -“Joseph? Well, I hope you’ll like the concert, Joseph.” That was too much -for the occupant of the _siege perilous_. There was a howl above the -mother’s reproachful correction. “Her name’s Josephine,”—a general giving -way to overstrain, and chair and child were in ruins on the floor. - -Miss Mar, glancing over her shoulder, shaking with hysterical laughter, -saw that Louis, gathering up the sobbing Josephine, bit his lip as though -in mere dismay, forbearing to wound the luckless one by laughing at her -discomfiture. - -“Yes, that’s like him, too,” Hildegarde said to herself, as one welcoming -one more of a cloud of witnesses. She fell upon the piano with redoubled -vigor. Loud and fast she hammered out the wildest jig she could remember. -Miss Pinckney coming back, music in hand, stopped with a scream. Bang! -Bang! Grit! Grind! went the ice. Josephine shrieked without intermission -till Cheviot, having found a chair with more than three legs, anchored -her securely in that haven. With the first words of Miss Pinckney’s song, -Cheviot was flying back to the deck. - -Bang! Grit! Grind! Was she awake, Hildegarde asked herself, or was this -fetid room and were these harsh, assailing sounds a form of nightmare? -Steadily she played on. Cheviot looked in again, but it was to Mrs. -Locke he whispered: “We must break up the Kangaroo Court. Musical talent -going to waste there.” She followed him out. In passing Hildegarde -he had bent his head. “Keep it up,” he said. “Whatever you do, don’t -stop.” She reflected a little enviously that she could be quite as -happy running about the deck with Louis as pinned to the moth-eaten -music-stool, grinding out cheap airs. Then she found herself smiling. -Not the least strange part of this strange evening that Louis should be -sending Mrs. Locke on errands, and that Mrs. Locke should be going. The -room was filling. Upon the lady’s reappearance with the banjo boy and -the cross-eyed flute-player, the concert was in full swing. Now Mrs. -Locke was telling Hildegarde to play the “Battle Hymn,” and presently -several of the men were helping Miss Pinckney to send John Brown’s soul -marching on. Oh, for a little air! Surely there wasn’t room for any more -people in this overcrowded space. But still they came. It was curious to -watch the new faces at the door peering over the shoulders of those who -stood about the piano. Little by little you could see the strain going -out of the tense features. Not that their anxieties vanished, but they -were softened, humanized through the humble agency of a ramshackle piano -and an untrained voice in a song. Even the steps, from the very top to -the bottom of the companionway, were crowded now. That fact of itself -made for quiescence on the decks. People could no longer run freely up -or down. While they paused and wormed their way, they were laid hold of -by their ears. The little room was packed to suffocation. Deserted by -his audience, even Gedge came down to see what was up. Thicker and more -stifling grew the air. In a pause between songs a scrap of conversation -floated over Hildegarde’s shoulder, “Lucky there’s no wind.” - -“God, yes! If there was wind—” - -“Shut up!” - -“What then, if there was wind—?” a third insisted, barely audible. - -“Oh, _then_, we’d get off the bar.” Clear enough to one of those for -whose weaker sake the truth was veiled—clear enough what the ironic -comfort meant. If behind the ice were wind as well as current, the ship -wouldn’t live an hour. Steadily the girl played on. Wasn’t the onslaught -of the ice heavier that last time? Was the wind rising then? Yes, surely, -surely, the wind had risen. Well, one must play the louder. But her -tranced eyes turned now right, now left. Some faces clearer than others -in the haze. Gedge, with his pasty visage bleached to chalk, and of his -cheap but heady eloquence never a word. Others here that Hildegarde had -seen night after night, gambling, drinking, quarreling—and now ...! - -These rude fellow-creatures, little admirable as they might show -themselves in happier hours, wore something very like dignity to-night. -How still they were! It did not escape Hildegarde that all these many -pairs of eyes were either lowered or fixed on space, as if each one -forebore to read in his fellow’s face confirmation of his own grim -knowledge. Each avoiding the other’s eyes, they stood there listening to -those sounds the puny piano was ineffectual to drown—the crash of impact -and the yet more horrible crunching, vicious and prolonged, as though -man’s arch-enemy of the deep, after battering vainly for admission, would -gnaw his admission to this strange concert on the ice-beleaguered bar. -While the nerves of the people still vibrated under the bombardment, some -one started “Nearer, my God, to Thee.” Strangest of all on that strange -evening was the revelation that in this particular company hardly one -but seemed to know the hymn, and few that were not singing it with -abandon to the thunderous bass of the ice. Whatever your own thoughts -might be, you read in more than one of these faces that of a certainty -God was “nearer” this night than He had often been before. At the -beginning of the last verse, the loudest crash of all, as if a hundred -tons of iron had been hurled at the _Los Angeles_. The people, led by -one unfaltering voice, kept on singing. Only Hildegarde’s flying fingers -stumbled as the ship shrank and cowered under the blow. Had it ended like -this for Galbraith, too? Would he and she meet down there in the kind sea -caves? - -Cheviot’s face looked in through the haze. Of course she had known he -would come for her at the last. When those firm lips opened she would -hear him saying: “Stop your playing. We’ve done what we could—you down -here, I on deck. Let us go now and meet the end.” Oh, it was well that he -was here! Through the haze his face swam nearer, and what he was really -saying was: “Good girl! If only you can keep it up a little longer!” And -with that the face grew dim. - -“A little longer!” Faintness, like sleep, stole over the good girl. As a -peculiar throbbing went through the ship, Hildegarde felt the hulk of the -_Los Angeles_ open, and knew vaguely that she was falling. - -[Illustration: “Nearer, my God, to Thee”] - -When she opened her eyes Louis was lifting her up. She was not clinging -to a berg, nor even sitting on a cake of ice. Still in the noisome little -room, and still that throbbing was shaking the ship. The people who had -been so quiet were pushing, jostling, shouting, frantic to get— Where? To -the boats, of course! All except Louis and Mrs. Locke. Noble souls, they -were ready to stay and die with Hildegarde Mar! She must exert herself. - -“Now I can go.” - -“There’s no hurry,” says Cheviot. - -“Oh, yes, come. We must try—we, too.” - -“Try what?” - -“Why, to—to save ourselves.” - -He laughed. “Poor girl, do you feel dreadfully shipwrecked?” - -“What, then, are they all running for?” She looked round bewildered. - -“The engines have started. Tide’s nearly flood. Can you walk? That’s -right.” They helped her to the deck. Long after midnight—and the world so -bright! Oh, the blessing of the pure, cold air! While she breathed it in, -O’Gorman stopped to whisper in Cheviot’s ear: “By George, you’ve saved a -panic!” - -“No,” says Cheviot, “it wasn’t my concert.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXI - - -In those last hours the great body of the floe had swung away to -westward. It was the very rear-guard of the outgoing ice that had -assisted at the concert. By this unfailing daylight you could see, an -hour after midnight, the shining stretch of smooth water that lay between -the _Los Angeles_ and the invisible mainland. People hung over the ship’s -side to watch the flood-tide swirl and churn under the propeller, while -the “old sea tramp,” mustering every pound of energy, struggled to get -free. Yes, it was exciting enough, but to the tall girl bending her -hatless head over the railing at Cheviot’s side, not half as exciting as -certain discoveries she was making without the aid of steam. Not alone -in Norton Sound was the tide at flood. She drew closer to her companion -with a mingled joy and shyness. Just that little nearer drawing, how -strange that it should be the stuff of which so great happiness is made! -Was he feeling it, too? Was he realizing? Or was all his soul down there -in the turgid water foaming under the propeller’s beat. She remembered -enviously how Louis’s little nephew would pat you on the arm if you grew -abstracted, and remind you: “I’m here.” She longed to do the same. She -even did it in a less direct fashion with the words: “I should think, by -the feel of the air, there must be more icebergs on their way down.” - -“Hard work,” he said, all his sympathies with the propeller. - -“Brrr!” remarked Hildegarde. - -“Nearly as much mud as water,” he went on, with equal irrelevance. - -“It certainly _is_ a great deal colder,” she persisted, as though he had -denied that fact. - -“Less than two fathoms at low tide—” - -“Brrr! Brrr!” - -Ah, that had brought him back. From the overcoat he was wearing he -hurriedly unbuttoned the tweed cape, and when he got it off put it round -Hildegarde’s shoulders. - -“Are you sure you won’t miss it?” she asked. - -“It won’t keep you warm if it isn’t buttoned.” With a droll preoccupied -air and a pursed lip, less like a lover paying graceful attentions to his -lady than like a clumsy nurse with a small child to look after, Cheviot -laboriously buttoned up the cape. Only, a nurse, however little skilled, -would not have begun at the bottom, nor, having at last buttoned her -way to the top, would she have so nearly buttoned in her charge’s chin. -Hildegarde laughed, and considering she’d been so short a time in the -cape, grew miraculously warm. To avoid looking at Cheviot she looked down -to see how the propeller might be getting on. - -“You must be still just half a minute, you know,” he admonished her, and -they found themselves laughing into each other’s eyes. - -“I ought to go and get my own things,” she said. “Brrr!” - -He took off his arctic cap and dropped it on the blonde head. “_Now_ will -you be good!” he said. - -They seemed to be the only people on the _Los Angeles_ to know a moment’s -intermission in the stark suspense of hanging over the ship’s side -waiting for the blessed moment that should see them, by aid of flood and -steam, floated off the bar. - -At last! the throbbing modified by a new motion. Slowly the ship swayed -fore and aft with a faint see-sawing effect. A great cheer, “She’s off!” -was cut short by the excitement of watching how the boast was being made -good. Ten seconds’ breathless waiting for that final pull out of the -mud-trap, while idle muscles grew taut as though to help the ship in her -labor, and then slowly, unwillingly, relaxed. Despair fell upon the crowd -as the _Los Angeles_ grounded again more firmly than before. In vain her -engines pulled and throbbed, breathing into the delicate dawn-flushed air -inky bursts of smoke. - -Some one called out, “She’s canted to starboard,” and another described -the dilemma as “a righteous judgment for the overloading.” - -“If we’re stuck here because there’s so many of us aboard, we can get -off for the same reason.” Gedge’s “brilliant idear” was that the people -should be massed for’ard, and then, upon a signal, should tear as hard as -legs could carry them to the other end of the ship. The sudden shifting -of “ballast” would work the keel free. The game was entered into with -immense spirit. Any one who, from a balloon, could have looked down on -the scampering horde would have taken the scene for one of frenetic -lunacy. Whether by such an effect as Gedge anticipated, or by some other -agency, just once the tall mast swayed like some strong-rooted pine in a -passing breeze. The people shrieked with triumph, and tore madly back -again from stem to stern. But they and the engines and the foaming water -might rage as they would. “The keel’s grown fast to the bottom of the -ocean,” Hildegarde whispered. - -Louis turned and looked into the face that was so close to his own. -“Never mind—” he began. - -“I am never-minding.” She smiled back into his grave eyes. - -But he seemed to feel that, nevertheless, she must need reassuring. -“We’ll get off all right _somehow_.” - -“To-morrow?” she asked, quite without eagerness. - -“I don’t know about to-morrow.” He looked past his companion at harassed, -disappointed faces. “It’s a plain case for a little patience.” - -“Do I strike you as impatient?” - -“You strike me as—” He seemed to pull himself up, and yet he allowed -himself to say it slowly: “You were splendid to-night.” - -She glowed inwardly. “Louis!” - -“Yes.” They were leaning far over the railing again, shoulder to shoulder. - -“Louis.” - -“Well. You got that far before. What comes next?” - -“I let you say all that about my not needing you. But if you knew how -I’ve been blessing you for—for your forbearance with my stubbornness -about coming—for your forgiveness—” - -“Don’t talk nonsense.” - -“You are far too good—to _me_.” - -He seemed not to feel the prick of any point in her emphasis. “I can’t -have you talking of goodness as between you and me—it’s foolishness,” he -said lightly. Then as she opened her lips, “I forbid you even to think of -it.” - -“I think of nothing else,” she answered gently. - -Instead of giving her proper credit for that, Louis sent a wandering eye -over his shoulder. Actually, he was making an excuse of listening to that -blatant Gedge bellowing about the “damnable delay.” - -She looked at Cheviot with a frank perplexity that before she knew it -had gone over into longing. Is he going to decline to make the least -little bit of love to me because I’m away from home? Is that the “sort o’ -watchman” he’s going to be? Oh, _dear_! - -“Do you know what time it is?” The watchman pulled out his watch. - -“I don’t care the very least in the world what time it is.” - -“That’s just what always happens when the sun shines all night. It’s very -demoralizing.” - -Demoralizing! That after all those hours of strain in the foul atmosphere -below, that she should be willing to stand here awhile in the crisp and -radiant morning talking to him; talking more gratefully than ever she had -done in her life—“demoralizing!” He wasn’t even now attending to her. -“Why do you allow Gedge to bother you so? It isn’t like you,” she said. -Still he wore that tantalizing air of listening to the orator on the rope -coil. “What difference can it make to you anything a man like that may -say?” - -“It might make a difference to more than me—if he wasn’t looked after. I -believe I’ll go and do it. Good-night, Good Girl!” - -The couple of hours of chill sunshine after breakfast showed a waveless -sea. Far off against the eastern horizon were single icebergs, that -looked like the white tents pitched on the glassy surface of the sound. - -To the passengers on the grounded ship the calm weather was only a goad -to rage. The rest of the Nome fleet—_they_ were profiting by open water -and absence of head winds! But as for us of the _Los Angeles_, we’ve -left our families, sold our farms, risked all we have on earth for the -pleasure of sitting on a sand-bank a hundred and fifty miles from the -gold-fields! - -From hour to hour the disaffection spread. Every one on board had -a remedy for the disaster. Where it had been thought were miners, -attorneys, doctors, politicians, it turned out they were navigators to a -man. - -No glimpse of Cheviot till an hour after breakfast. Even then only a nod -and “Good-morning,” as he went by deep in talk with the chief engineer. -Toward ten o’clock a little wind sprang out of the northeast and brought -down a thin veil of fog. The air took on a keener edge, yet no one left -the deck or even seemed to feel the cold, for a rumor had run about the -ship like fire over dry stubble: “The captain says we’ll never get off -this —— bar till we unload.” - -“Unload! Unload what?” - -Pat the answer: “First, the coal.” - -“Throw away _coal_!” - -Such a counsel of despair struck grave enough on the ears of men who -knew the fabulous sums paid in Nome for fuel. But not the coal, it was -the little word “first” that presented the keenest barb to each man’s -consciousness. Just as though the immense sacrifice of the coal were not -fit and sufficient climax to the misadventure! “First!” What possible -second? Why, after the coal, overboard with McKeown and Dingley and the -rest of the heavy stuff! - -“Just let the Cap’n lay a finger on my Dingley,” warned a bystander, -black as thunder. - -“That’s what he’s figurin’ on,” Gedge assured the irate one. “And after -the machinery”—people crowded aghast to hear—“if we ain’t light enough by -then, why, overboard with every darn thing we got!” - -“If he tries throwin’ out our stuff he’ll have a riot on his hands—that’s -all!” - -Things began to look black for the captain. - -But if he were aware of the fact, it had no effect on his policy. Hardly -ten minutes later Gedge was obliged to interrupt the indignation meeting -by calling out to a couple of blue China boys, struggling to get some of -the lighter baggage out of the hold: “Hi, you! Stop that, you pig-tailed -heathen. That’s mine. Drop it, I say, or I’ll knock the stuffin’ out o’ -you!” - -The agitated Celestials would have abandoned their task, but for -O’Gorman’s: “Say! They’re only getting your stuff up into a safe place so -they can reach the coal-bunkers. Here, put the gentleman’s box over by -mine.” - -In a couple of hours the deck was piled high with miscellaneous baggage, -and a derrick, hurriedly rigged, was hauling up the heavier things out of -the bowels of the ship. As they came swinging out of the darkness into -the chill gray light, people recognized their belongings with an anxiety -hardly allayed by the temporary stowage of their all upon the deck—too -palpably a possible half-way station to the bottom of the sea. - -Gedge’s following was now so great as to be unwieldy. They blocked the -narrow gangway, they settled like flies on the freight. He drew off a -chosen few, and retired out of the bitter wind to the shelter of the -smoke-stack to hold a private session. - -“If that fellow had some education,” said Governor Reinhart, “he’d be -helping to guide the ship of state at Washington.” - -“He seems likely to guide this ship into trouble enough,” Cheviot -answered crisply. - -“What is he doing now?” Hildegarde asked. - -“He’s—” Reinhart began and hesitated. - -Under his breath O’Gorman finished the sentence. “Trying to incite a lot -of fools to mutiny.” - -“What does he want them to do?” - -“Put the captain in irons.” - -“What!” - -“And turn the ship over to the pilot and first officer—that fellow coming -off the bridge now.” - -Hildegarde followed Louis’s eyes and saw they were fixed not on the -dapper officer descending, but were on the square figure of the captain -standing motionless on the bridge, looking down at the coolies busy as -ants about the hold. But he looked, not as if he saw them. The hard face -was red and angry. Hildegarde, with her genius for sympathy, divined -something in it infinitely miserable, too. “How lonely the man looks,” -she said aside to Cheviot. - -“You can’t be at the head of things and not be lonely.” - -The words deepened her sense of commiseration. “You don’t think he knows -about Gedge’s wild talk?” - -“Oh, probably.” - -“I wish he could be reminded he has friends among us as well as enemies.” - -“I was just going up,” Louis said. - -“Do you think I might come? Just for a moment?” - -“Well, if he fires you out you aren’t to complain.” - -“Complain? No. But I shall still believe it’s a pity that men think -whoever is to know the truth about a danger or a difficulty, it mustn’t -be a woman. Don’t you see it would be a gain to both sides that we should -know?” - -“Nonsense. It would scare most women and bore the rest. Besides, they’d -be in the way.” - -“If that’s so it’s only because they’ve been kept so ignorant. Louis”—the -voice dropped softly—“do you know what I’ve been thinking about often and -often?” - -He waited a moment before he said: “Since we got into the ice?” - -“Yes.” - -“I suppose I do.” But he said it so stonily she stopped half-way up the -companionway and looked back at him. “I’ve been thinking I should never -have known you if I hadn’t come on this journey.” - -“Oh, found me out, have you?” - -Hearing Cheviot’s short laugh, Gillies jerked his head angrily over his -shoulder. Hildegarde hesitated at the top of the companionway. “It looks -like a dreadful breach of discipline,” she said, “but it isn’t. You told -me I might come again.” - -“In here, then,” said Gillies gruffly, and took them to his room. He was -shaking like one in an ague, but he seemed not so ill pleased to see some -one from the world below. He gave the girl a chair. “It’s all right,” -he said. “Only it’s no good for others to see you up here.” He fell into -the remaining seat with a heavy thud, and his bullet head hung forward. -“Well?” he demanded, with a forced laugh, turning bloodshot eyes on -Cheviot. Hildegarde saw plainer now what an unnatural color Gillies was. -Did the shivering and the purple and scarlet stains mean a sickening for -fever, or only a horrible anxiety and an all-night watch in the cold? - -“I’m afraid you didn’t get much sleep,” she began. - -“Not for two nights now,” he said, and then looking at Cheviot: “This’ll -be all over the coast, from Nome to ’Frisco.” As he spoke the hard face -twitched. - -“What will?” Cheviot answered. “That the floods have made a new bar in -Norton Sound this spring?” - -The captain uttered an inarticulate sound, something between a grunt and -a groan. “First trip, too! Ship full of damned newspaper people. Land -rats, starving for a story.” He choked, and stood up stamping his cold -feet, and while he did so, through the port he forced the sleep-defrauded -eyes to reconnoiter the sharp, white outline of the distant icebergs. - -“There are people on board who’ll get the story right,” said Hildegarde. - -“Oh, I don’t care! Let ’em say what they like—if only the wind doesn’t -bring the floe down on us again.” Cheviot made a move as if to go. “The -trouble is,” said Gillies, “I’m short of hands. However hard they keep -at it those China boys can’t shift five hundred tons of coal before the -tide’s flood.” - -“Well, you’ve got a lot of white men on board—” - -“Yes,” growled the captain, “and a lot of help I’ll get out of them.” - -“What I came up for”—Cheviot drew nearer—“was really to tell you there -are men on board this ship who propose to stand by you.” - -Gillies, leaning against the locker, neither said nor looked a syllable -of thanks. Never even took his bloodshot eyes off the ice line. But -the hard face twitched again. A sense of the devouring anxiety he was -obviously laboring under made the girl quick to relieve him of any added -strain or restraint that he might feel in an unfamiliar presence at such -a crisis. Even Louis might be thinking “a woman was in the way.” She -stood up, murmuring an excuse for going. - -The captain, unheeding, went on in that hoarse, muffled voice: “I’ve just -sent an officer below to see if I can get some volunteers.” - -“What officer?” said Cheviot. “Not the first?” - -“Why not? Yes, the first.” And there was a silence so significant that -Hildegarde was glad she had not waited for that to tell her she should -leave the men to themselves. But at the threshold she had to stand back -an instant to let the cabin-boy pass. As he was in the act of darting in -with some food, the wind whisked a paper napkin off the tray. He stooped -in the doorway, clutched after the elusive object with skinny, yellow -fingers, and as he did so the soup slid off the tray and cascaded over -the threshold. - -The captain swore, and the China boy gabbled as he mopped wildly with the -ineffectual paper napkin. “God forgive me if ever I go to sea again with -a lot of damned Chinamen. I’d have tried kedging before this, if I had a -crew that could understand anything but routine orders. As it is I’ll be -lucky if I get the coal out in time.” - -“I can’t promise you sailors, but say the word, and I’ll get you some -sort of volunteers. How many?” - -“Well, just to get the coal overboard we’ll need two or three shifts. And -if I have to kedge, after all—it’s no fun!—but with eight _good men_ I -could do it.” - -“I’ll undertake to get you the best twenty on the ship, and you can hold -a dozen in reserve.” - -As the girl, at last able to get out dryshod, was going down the -companionway, a bird’s-eye view of the upper deck gave fresh meaning to -the scrap of conversation she had just heard. Out of the black square -of the hold the blue-cotton coolies crawled up the ladder with vast -burdens to add to the chaos of trunks, crates, and machinery, piled -already so perilously high about the deck, and leaving so narrow a -gangway for people to crowd through that the able-bodied swarmed over the -obstructions. - -There was Mrs. Locke reading in a sheltered nook, walled in by towering -crates, and just the other side, to leeward of the smoke-stack, Gedge, in -close conclave with his body-guard. - -When Hildegarde, with some difficulty, reached Mrs. Locke, that lady held -up her hand for silence, but, behold, she wasn’t reading at all. As the -girl sank quietly down, Gedge’s voice reached her clear, although it was -lifted with more than common caution. For ten, fifteen, twenty minutes -he must have gone on airing his seditious notions; when Mrs. Locke, half -rising, whispered, “If there’s nobody else I think I must go round and -talk to those men myself.” - -Just then a sound of some one flying over the crates on the wings of -haste, and Cheviot’s voice: “Gedge, are you there?” - -“You bet I’m here,” was the surly answer. “And not likely to get away in -a hurry, so far’s I see.” - -“Well, that’s in our own hands.” - -“Just what I’ve been tellin’ the boys.” But there was a challenge in the -voice. - -“Your head’s level,” said Cheviot. - -“Oh, you’re gettin’ tired, too! Comin’ round, are you?” - -“I’ve had about enough of this sitting on the bar, if that’s what you -mean.” - -“Then why don’t we _do_ something?” - -“Just what I was going to propose,” said Cheviot briskly. “Trouble is -there aren’t enough hands to get the coal out before—” - -“Oh, yes, we know that’s his excuse.” - -“His? It’s yours and mine. And a pretty lame excuse, too.” - -“Was it you,” demanded Gedge truculently, “that put it into his empty -cocoanut to ask us to lend a hand at pitchin’ our own stuff overboard?” - -“At present it’s a question of pitching out other fellows’ coal.” Then -lower: “See here, Gedge, I want two words with you.” - -“No you don’t. None of us didn’t come up here for ‘words.’ No, nor to -try and patch up the captain’s mistakes by turnin’ ourselves into beasts -o’ burden.” Cheviot lowered his voice and argued a moment or two, Gedge -bursting in with remarks intended to assure his satellites that he wasn’t -being “got at.” But Cheviot pressed him hard. - -[Illustration: “Coolies crawled up the ladder with vast burdens”] - -“Well, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. If we ain’t goin’ to get out of this -fix without we turn to and help that fool captain—tell you what we’ll -do, boys. If we got to work, we’ll work for Nome wages. Hey, boys? Ten -dollars an hour.” - -“Oh, see here!” said Cheviot, “the captain can’t play up to that lead.” - -“Any feller,” shouted Gedge, “that works for a penny less’n ten dollars -an hour is lowerin’ the market. He’s an enemy to society. He’s a—” - -“He’s simply a fellow with a notion he’d like to get to Nome. I thought -you were a pretty sharp customer, Gedge, but you’re just an every-day -sort of ass after all.” With which Cheviot climbed back over the crates -whistling, as though his momentary concern were at an end. - -“Hello!” O’Gorman called out. Cheviot turned aside, when he caught sight -of the giant towering over the nook where the two women sat out of the -wind. - -“What luck?” said O’Gorman, under his breath. - -“Four. And you?” - -“Only two.” O’Gorman motioned with his head toward the smoke-stack, and -lowered his voice to a whisper: “He’s got hold of an awful lot of the -men.” - -Cheviot nodded. “Yes. We’re up against that fellow everywhere we turn.” - -“Always two leaders in every crowd,” O’Gorman said. “One to lead up, -t’other to lead down. I’m ready to bet on you!” - -They talked in undertones. Only Gedge could be heard distinctly. He was -growing hoarse. His increasing audience was taking on the proportions of -a mass meeting. But the voice of the popular leader was showing wear. He -ended his oration with some abruptness. “Come along, Joslin. Let’s go and -licker up.” - -“Now! Nail him now!” whispered Cheviot, and vaulting over a prodigious -pile of machinery he disappeared with Blumpitty and several others into -the hold, while O’Gorman darted out in the opposite direction just in -time to intercept Gedge and Joslin. - -“There’s got to be two shifts. You fellows comin’ to help?” - -“Help!” Gedge rolled out a brace of handsome oaths. “_Help!_ -that—captain?” - -“No, help us, help yourselves out of this fix.” Then, before Gedge could -get a word of disclaimer over his lips: “I hear you are worrying about -wages. But this isn’t a question of money. Lives are at stake. See that -ice over yonder? And look here, I’ve got more on board this ship than -any other one man. Fifteen thousand dollars is what the freight alone -has cost me. But to save your life”—he took hold of Gedge’s arm—“to save -_your_ life, every ounce of mine may go overboard, and I’ll help shift it -at nothing an hour.” - -Gedge looked round rather sheepishly, as if he didn’t know the answer to -this. But suddenly one occurred to him. “I’m from Missoura,” he said. -“You got to show me. That other feller, too, the one that was givin’ me -such a lot of hot air little while ago, why ain’t you an’ him—” - -“You come along with me. I’ll ‘show’ you.” O’Gorman carried the -ringleader and Joslin down into the hold. Two hours later Hildegarde, -peering over the edge of the square pit, saw among the group engaged -in shoveling coal, Gedge, with the face of a blackamoor and the sweat -pouring down. His surplus energy was at last being utilized. - -Three hundred and fifty tons were flung overboard before the tide was -flood; and again at midnight the muddy water was set boiling, and the -big yellow stack belched out clouds of smoke. The stranded ship moved -a little, heavily, grudgingly, like a monster half awakened, and then -settled down to finish a second night on the bar. - -The captain was not the only man who didn’t sleep. More than one “sort -o’ watchman” showed signs of strain the next morning. For the fog was -thicker than the day before, the wind veering and no assurance how far -away the ice. It was partly the fever of anxiety that found vent in -sneers, hardly to be called covert, when it was known the captain meant -to take steps to free the ship that afternoon. - -“That glass-eyed idiot don’t even yet know there ain’t but one tide in -this part of the world, and that one’s near midnight!” was the discarded -pilot’s contribution. That Gillies was prepared for the eccentricities of -northern tides was credited by few. - -Open jeers followed his putting off in a small boat, with the second -officer, to sound for deep water. “What’s the good of deeper water a -hundred yards from the ship?” - -The possible good appeared upon the captain’s return. The anchor that -the small boat was to carry back (with buoys to mark the place selected) -looked big enough to landsmen’s eyes, till they saw the lowering of the -one to be lashed underneath the long boat. This mighty two-and-a-half-ton -iron-grappler, so the rumor ran, was to be used to “kedge” the steamer -off the bar. - -But where were the sailors coming from to man a boat of this size, let -alone to carry out successfully so ticklish an affair? - -“It’s all right,” Cheviot had said. - -Just how it had been made “right” didn’t appear. There was no oratory, -no public appeal. But three times as many as the captain wanted were -offering to go out in the fog and plant the great anchor in the choppy -sea. - -“I—_me_. You haf bromise I shall go! Not?” A great muscular German was -squeezing his way to Cheviot’s side. - -“All right. No hurry. They’ll be a while yet, getting those buoys right.” - -The general attention was riveted to the second boat hanging high over -the monster anchor that was destined to be bound lengthwise along the -keel. How was any craft to make her way mounted in so strange a fashion? -How could anybody hope it wouldn’t sink? - -“No, the weight will be too well distributed,” Cheviot had said. - -“Yes, till you start layin’ the anchor out yonder,” the pilot commented -darkly. - -Hildegarde made a sign to Cheviot. He came to her across the chain -barrier, newly established to keep back the crowd. - -Before the girl could speak, “Those heavy ropes,” said Mrs. Locke, “that -are to lash the big anchor along the bottom of the boat, how will you -ever get them undone out there in the choppy water?” - -“Cut them,” answered Cheviot shortly. “What did you want, Hildegarde?” - -She looked at him appealingly, and then, as though abandoning some quite -different point, “My Blumpitty is very sore that you are taking the big -German instead of him.” - -“Can’t help that.” - -“Why didn’t you want Blumpitty?” - -“Too old.” - -“Why, he’s only forty something.” - -“We’ve got to have young men for this job.” - -“Then you think it’s very—” - -“No.” Cheviot cut her short. “Not if the right men are doing it—a mere -matter of precision,” and he was going back. - -But Mrs. Locke kept him yet a moment. “I’ve just heard if one of those -ropes is cut the fraction of a second before the others the boat’ll be -dragged under?” - -“It’s got to be done simultaneously, of course, on a signal,” he answered -quietly. “I’ve just been explaining to Hildegarde it isn’t a job for -bunglers.” - -“They say it oughtn’t to be attempted unless by a disciplined crew.” - -“But there isn’t any disciplined crew,”—he was in the act of stepping -across the chain—“and there isn’t any other way of getting off the bar.” - -“There are _other men_,” said Mrs. Locke, quite low. - -“Oh, plenty,” and he was on the other side. But so was Hildegarde. - -“You aren’t allowed over here,” Cheviot said. She was looking up at the -captain and making him a little signal for permission. He nodded, and -without a word to Cheviot she went up to Gillies on the bridge. In a few -minutes she came down again, but instead of joining the passengers on the -other side of the chain, she made her way to where, a little apart from -the group of volunteers, Cheviot stood watching the small boat which, -manned by the first officer, O’Gorman, and two others, was bobbing about -dimly on the roughened water. - -Just as Louis caught sight of her one of the volunteers stepped between -them. “What makes those fellows so devilish slow?” - -“Doing the best they can,” said Cheviot, with an air of not meaning to -notice the girl. - -“No, they aren’t doing the best they can. They aren’t even getting our -boat lowered.” - -“They’ve had to knock off work a minute. The wind’s playing the mischief -with the head-sails.” - -“Yes, and if we don’t look sharp the wind’ll play the mischief with more -than the head-sails.” - -The volunteer looked across Cheviot’s shoulder an instant into the -thicker fog. Through that veil no man might yet discover if the ice were -being driven back against the bar, but all could feel that the need for -quick action might be greater than the fog would let them see. - -The instant the volunteer went back to the waiting group, Hildegarde drew -close to the solitary figure at the railing. “Louis!” - -Whether at something new in the girl’s low voice, or at a simultaneous -shrill dissonance in the thick, chill air, Cheviot started and looked -round. “Oh, it’s those Chinamen!” he said, his eyes on the blue-cotton -crew hauling at a rope with a kind of wicked hilarity as they sang their -barbaric, disquieting chant. - -But it was a new experience to find that anything could get on Louis’s -nerves! - -“Is it true you’ve been up all night?” Hildegarde said hurriedly, -scanning his face. He nodded, and turned seaward again to watch the -little boat planting out bright-colored buoys in the mist. - -“Louis, the captain says I may speak to you. Only five minutes, so we -mustn’t waste time pretending. It’s dangerous what you mean to do. Oh, -don’t be afraid! I’m not going to try to prevent your going. Only, if -you don’t come back, Louis”—her voice fell—“I shan’t know how to go on -living.” - -For a moment he made no answer, and then, with his eyes still on the dim -boat dancing in the mist: “You’re only rather frightened,” he said. “Wait -till all this has gone by.” - -“Ah, can’t you see? Why is it so hard for you to believe?” - -“Because,” he said very low, “I know if I did, it would be the signal for -the old barrier to rise up again.” - -“What barrier? You aren’t thinking—” - -“I’m thinking this isn’t the place for you to—” He checked himself. - -“For me to do what?” - -“To get rid of your old—” Again he stopped, and then, with an effect of -rather bitter patience, “Of course for you he’s the dominating thought up -here among the ice.” - -“No!” - -“Do you mean to say he hasn’t been in your mind a hundred times? -Continually?” - -“Not continually, because—” - -“Well, a hundred remembrances would satisfy most men,” he said. - -“Would it satisfy you, Louis?” - -“No, I should want all, and I know there’s no chance of getting all here.” - -“I suppose this isn’t the time for me to tell you—” - -He turned on her almost roughly. “You can’t suppose I need to be told -what was in your mind when we got caught in the ice? And when that first -ship showed on the horizon—” He stopped again, and turned away as one who -has said all. - -“You”—the mere suggestion took away her breath—“you didn’t think it might -be—” - -“_You_ did.” - -“No, no. I knew, dead or alive, he was on the other side of the world. -Or, at nearest, in California.” - -“I don’t tempt him by being sure.” The rigid line of his lips looked -less like firmness than an effort at control. “If I were to be sure -again, especially here, the fog there would open and a ship come sailing -through. And it would be his ship. And in a moment your ship, too.” - -“Don’t you know for him to be up here is physically impossible, even if -he’s alive?” - -Cheviot shook his head. “There are some men—even their ghosts can fight -their battles. _His_ did, once before.” - -“I could never have believed you were superstitious.” - -“Mayn’t I have even that much imagination?” - -“You’ve forgotten it was all just a dream of mine. Why”—she couldn’t help -giving out a little miserable laugh—“you’ve forgotten, just as I used to, -that I’ve never seen him?” - -“I remember I used to wish you had.” - -“Well, there’s one thing you can’t remember, because you never knew it. -And that is that I had never seen _you_ in the Valdivia days. It was -partly my fault, but not altogether. Men’s lives are so hidden from -girls. How is it possible for us to know them? We never see them doing -things that are worth while. We haven’t a notion what they’re like when -they’re at work. Only, about _one_ man’s work I used to think I knew. Of -course I didn’t, but just to imagine it was something. I was the kind -of girl who isn’t ambitious for herself. But for the man she—The reason -that old ‘obsession,’ as you called it, took such hold of me, was that -_there_ was a man who was ‘doing things’! I’d heard all my life about the -things he’d done and the things he meant to do. They seemed already made -immortal in a book. But now I’ve seen it isn’t only he—” - -The contrast in achievement cut too cruelly. Cheviot struck the damp -railing with his open palm, and laughed out loud. - -Though his action dashed her into trembling she drew closer, she pressed -against his arm. “Besides, I’ve come at last to care for some one in the -only true way—quite apart from anything he may do. I—I love you, Louis.” - -The look he turned upon her was very beautiful to the girl. As his hand -moved toward her along the railing, under cover of the cape, her own -slipped into it. - -The wild chant of the Chinamen abruptly ended, and now that nearer, more -intelligible sound, the creaking of the falls as the long boat sank from -the davits to the sea. - -Cheviot, with an effort, turned his eyes away from the girl’s face. -Together they watched the boat floated over the great anchor that was -suspended lengthwise a little under the surface of the water; together -saw the binding fast of the anchor to the boat. And now the two made one -were ready. Cheviot took off his overcoat and flung it over the railing. -“Will you have an eye to that?” - -Her heart was beating painfully. “Do you think I’ll have an eye to spare?” - -“Well, keep this in your pocket then.” He took off his watch. “And here’s -this.” He put a little leather case in her hand, smiling and saying -hurriedly, under his breath: “With all my worldly goods I thee endow.” -Then facing about he signaled to his volunteers. - -In the undisciplined fashion of her sex, Hildegarde, forgetting to go -back behind the barrier, stood at gaze. Cheviot, carrying with him -something quick and quivering out of the heart of the girl (something -that kept her linked to him not by eye and mind alone, but as by a bond -that established oneness of the very flesh, faithfully reporting effort -and transmitting feeling), he disappeared over the ship’s side after -the officer, followed by the six volunteers. With steady eyes the girl -watched the buffeting of the heavy-weighted boat, and watched the fog -blur it till it looked like something seen in a dream. Cheviot at the -bow, by the uniformed figure, less distinct both of them than the big -German with his black-and-yellow cap at the stern. - -Now the “kedgers” were passing the small boat, and now they had gained -the buoys. Hildegarde saw the officer turn, and knew he was giving some -direction. Now they were trying to steady the pitching boat directly over -the selected site, shown by a buoy faintly vermilion, bobbing to right -and to left. - -No easy affair to keep the boat there long enough to plant the great -anchor. The officer stood up, and in a sudden lurch all but capsized, -steadied himself and seemed to wait. There was a shipping of oars; the -picture danced and then dissolved. - -No, no, there it was! But what had happened, why did it look so strange? -The men! there wasn’t one in the boat. And so many dim buoys—no, _heads_! -Lord, Lord, have mercy! The boat was turned completely over and drowning -men were clinging to the keel. Were they all there! Which was Louis? One -couldn’t even count, for the waves would wash over a man and wipe him -out. A moment, and there he was again! That, _that_ was Louis! Could he -keep hold on the plunging keel? (Lord God, be kind!) But he seemed not -to have been washed away. He was swimming to the place where a man had -been and was no more. Now Louis had hold of him. And there was the other -boat—the little one, as though she’d dropped from the skies, or risen -from the bed of the ocean; and she was taking a man on board! Not Louis, -but the one who had once gone down—the huge German. Two men! Three were -hauled in. Not one of them Louis! He kept a hand on the gunwale of the -overcrowded little boat, and swam with it toward the buoys. Why was he -and those others still struggling in the water, what were they trying to -do? To right the long boat? Oh, let it alone and come back! - -After endless moments, Louis and the rest, with the help of the men in -the small boat, had got the other right side up again. Now both crews -were coming back. - -When at last in a shower of cheers, Cheviot, the last of the volunteers, -climbed the swinging ladder and smiled up at the face bending over—not -till then did it seem to Hildegarde that the something he had taken away -was restored to her, and her body and her soul made whole again. - -The people broke through the barrier and pressed round the dripping -figures, hurrahing too loud at first to hear how everything was “all -right now.” They’d got the anchor where they wanted it, and they hadn’t -lost an inch of cable, and had got a ducking only because a few strands -of the confounded rope hung up the falling anchor a fraction of a second -longer on one side than on the other. - -Very quickly Cheviot seemed to have enough of public enthusiasm. “You -might just let us by, so we can get into dry things.” But the horde -pressed closer. How was this, and how was that? And how the onlookers -felt in that awful moment when the boat capsized. In vain Cheviot assured -them, “Nobody’s a penny the worse, and the kedging can begin as soon -as the tide comes in.” Nobody the worse? Yes, one man was. Since he -couldn’t get away, Cheviot created a diversion by laughing at the wet and -angry German, who stood outside the press, oblivious of other people’s -excitement, his own face working with emotion, stretching out his arms -and apostrophizing his black-and-yellow cap that floated like some gay -sea-bird on the troubled waters. He appealed to the officer to let him go -back in the small boat and rescue the precious object. - -“You’d better go and get dry, Guggenheim, for the sake of your family,” -Cheviot called out, and then to those nearest, “You talk about grit. I -tell you we had _one_ hero in our crew and one fool, and both together -made one large-sized Dutchman.” - -“Guggenheim?” - -“Guggenheim. What do you think? That fellow volunteered without being -able to swim!” - -There was a roar of laughing amazement. - -“Yes, and when we were out there, and the waves were playing battledore -with our boat, the fellow says, quite calmly, ‘Ob ve go opsot you fellows -yoost most safe me.’ ‘Save yourself?’ says the officer. ‘I not can svim,’ -says the volunteer, and then he told us quite firmly, ‘You shall safe me -for dat I haf a vife and four childs wid a baby. You vill know me,’ he -says, ‘from my cap.’” - -As Cheviot at last pushed his way out of the crush, Hildegarde, close -in his wake, still carrying the overcoat, followed him down the -companionway. Near the deserted music-room door she slipped her hand in -his. - -“I’m too wet for you to come near.” But his eyes said nothing of the -sort, and dripping as he was, he had her in his arms. - - - - -CHAPTER XXII - - -Late the next evening, standing with Louis and Captain Gillies on the -bridge, Hildegarde saw ships on the western horizon. The fleet at last! -anchored two miles off from Nome. It was bedtime, but quite impossible -to sleep, though there would be no landing till next day. They said -“Good-night” to the captain, and found their way to a corner of the deck, -where alone together they might see the belated sun setting, and watch -a pale-gold moon of enormous size riding portentously the clear-colored -sky, too bright for stars. Hand in hand, hidden among the freight, they -talked of the future, arranging it in the high fashion of the young, as -though they two had been gods seated on Olympus. And as they talked the -faint flush over yonder turned the purest rose, then deepened as each -beautiful moment sped, till the sun, gone but now, hastened back like one -who abandons a projected journey, and on the heels of his good-by comes -shamefaced home. What would it be like, this day that he was bringing? -What was waiting over yonder in that mysterious land, still in shadow, -that skirts the hills of Nome? Just a little longer the weary passengers -hung about the decks, while the blood-red sun peered at them over a -violet sea, ready, when the shadow-curtain lifted, to clothe the naked -truth of Nome with a final splendor. Whatever might come after, in this -first actual vision of the place people had fared so far to find, it was -to wear the hues of heaven. For the “boat-load of failure,” the dream -they had called “Nome” was to die in a glory of gold and fire. - -The decks that had swarmed with excited people were falling silent. Men -and women, whose whole lives hung upon what they should find waiting -for them yonder, must be in bed betimes, that they might be ready to go -ashore in the first boat. Soon only Hildegarde and Cheviot remained. But -they were silent, watching all those white sails turn pink against the -purple distance—sea and sky alike dyed deep, and still the honey-colored -moon hanging there, immense, unreal. Whichever way they looked, this -northern world was like something seen in a dream, spectral, uncanny, -fitly ushered in by the sunrise in the night. - -To Hildegarde, as though given in that hour some gift of prophecy, -it seemed that after all her journeying the land she looked on was -still beyond the reach of sober day, fated to be for ever outside the -experience of waking hours. - -Yet this incredible country for two years had been her father’s home! - -Louis would go ashore in the first boat and prepare Nathaniel Mar for his -daughter’s coming. - -“If I were alone I should be imagining he might be dead.” Even as she -said “if,” an inward dread clutched at her. - -“If you were alone I should be imagining things worse than death.” They -drew together. As he held her, looking down into her eyes, a new gravity -came into his own. “Are you sure _at last_?” he said. - -“You know I am. But I don’t scold you for asking. It’s the more beautiful -of you to have quite realized and yet—yet not despise me for all that -romantic feeling about some one I’ve never seen.” - -“Your mother once helped me there.” - -“My mother! What does she know about—” - -“More than you might think. When I’d lost patience one day, she told -me the only difference between you and other girls was that you were -honester and stubborner than most.” - -“I can hear her saying ‘stubborner.’” - -“Yes, but it was curious to hear her saying few women, if they remember -their youth, can truthfully say it went by without some such—well—she -called it names—” - -“I know one of them. Some such silly ‘infatuation.’” Hildegarde smiled, -but not he. “I wonder if my mother ever—Oh, it’s a wild idea!” - -“I don’t know. She said it was usually either a great soldier or a -clergyman, often an actor, sometimes a poet, or ‘even a bachelor -statesman.’ And she said that last with such an edge in her voice I -wondered at the time what American statesman was still unmarried when -Mrs. Mar was in her ’teens.” And their own cloud was dispersed in smiling -at another’s. - -Hildegarde, coming on deck at six o’clock, found sunshine whitening all -the thousand tents of Nome. Frame dwellings, too, the eye found out—one -standing boldly forth with flag flying. That, Blumpitty said, was the -hospital. Was her father there? Courage! Louis was at her side, with -confident looks and shining eyes that saw no shadow save the purple -splotch in the sea to the left—“Sledge Island.” Had she noticed the -snow-seamed hills? She must take his glass and look at that higher lift -in the low, undulant line; could she see a queer knob? “_Anvil Rock!_” -But the main impression up the beach, and down the beach, and away over -the tundra, was tents, tents. And between the _Los Angeles_ and the -surf-whitened shore, sails, sails! Ships of every size and kind. Big -steamers from Seattle, from San Francisco, Portland, and Vancouver, smart -sailing vessels, lumbering freight boats, whalers, and among them—darting -back and forth like a flock of brown sparrows under the gleaming wings -of seagulls—were myriads of little skiffs, dories, lighters, canoes, and -here and there a steam launch, bobbing, swarming, surrounding “the last -boat in,” and ready to take all and sundry to Nome for dazzling sums. - -While the more enterprising of the _Los Angeles’_ contingent (swallowing -their resentment at the captain’s failure to set them instantly ashore) -bargained with the owners of the small craft, a rumor ran about the ship -that not even a millionaire might leave till certain formalities had been -complied with. But Cheviot had in some way got a special permit to go -ashore with one of the officers. - -While Hildegarde waited after breakfast for his return, she tried to -deaden fear of the news he might bring back, listening to the scraps of -talk between the touting boatmen and the passengers longingly suspended -over the _Los Angeles’_ side. - -Some old acquaintance called out “Howdy” to the bean-feaster, and after -hearing what the Commission had settled in far away Washington, screamed -back Nome news in return. They were “havin’ a red hot roarin’ boom,” -and Jolly Haley had made a million. One of the great steamers was spoken -as she moved majestically by. Others, besides the _Los Angeles_, were -overdue, the captain of the _Akron_ said. Those haggard wrecks down there -toward Cape Nome—they were only two, but the Bering Sea was full of -ships disabled or gone down in these last days. Gillies asked for news -of friends and rivals. The _Congress_ had put into Dutch Harbor “for -repairs,” he was told, and the men exchanged grim smiles. The _Santa -Ana_ was burned to within two feet of the water. The passengers on the -_Chiquita_ had been all but starved to death, and the _St. John_ had made -escape from the ice-pack only to go to pieces on the rocks. Then, like -some sentient thing exulting in her enviable fate, the _Akron_ steamed -away in the sunshine. - -Popular interest shifted to starboard when the whaler _Beluga_ drew -’longside. Her captain, a hard-looking customer, came on board the _Los -Angeles_ to talk to Gillies. O’Gorman discovered a man he knew on board -the whaler. “Going to Nome?” he asked him. “No, better than that. Gettin’ -out.” Where was the ex-Nomite off to? “Up the coast.” The _Beluga_ was -to meet some south-bound whalers up in Grantley Harbor in a day or -two—might come south herself afterward, or might go still farther north -to Kotzebue. O’Gorman’s friend didn’t care where, just so it wasn’t Nome. -The people of the _Los Angeles_ only laughed. Clear that fellow was a -hoodoo. The more luck in Nome, since he was leaving it! - -“He might be able to give you news about your father,” O’Gorman said -aside to Miss Mar. But before she answered he saw, from the sudden fear -in the girl’s face, that she couldn’t risk having bawled at her in public -tidings that more and more she dreaded. - -“He—Mr. Cheviot will soon be back,” she said. - -“Has he been in Nome all winter?—your _Beluga_ friend?” Mrs. Locke asked -O’Gorman. - -“Yes, I guess so.” - -“I’d like to inquire about my firm, Dixon and Blumenstein.” O’Gorman -called out the question for her. - -“Lots o’ folks inquirin’ ’bout Dixon and Blumenstein,” the man on the -whaler roared back. - -“How so?” - -“Lit out.” - -“Gone away?” - -“You bet.” - -“What for?” - -“Busted.” - -“Oh, Mrs. Locke, what shall you do?” While Hildegarde, vaguely aware of -the unusual sound of a dog howling distractedly, stood beside the woman -who in those seconds had seen her hoped-for home, her very bread swept -from her, Louis’s voice was audible over the girl’s shoulder. Hildegarde -turned to find herself in her father’s arms. She did not notice how wet -he was with sea-water. “Oh, you are ill!” she faltered. - -“My child! My child!” he kept repeating, and then: “What a journey!” - -“But you see I’ve got to Nome all right.” - -“To Nome! God forbid!” - -“But God hasn’t forbidden,” said the girl, swallowing the sob that sight -of the haggard face had brought into her throat. She was conscious, too, -that her fellow-travelers were eagerly listening to the colloquy. - -“I’ve been telling Cheviot I can’t think how he could allow you—” Mr. Mar -caught himself up and laid his hand affectionately on the young man’s -shoulder. “Of course Louis didn’t really know. The Nome he left was bad -enough, but that Nome has passed away. To-day it isn’t a place for a girl -to stay in an hour.” - -“’Sh! father! You’ll scare my friends. This is Mrs. Blumpitty. She thinks -very highly of Nome. And this is Mr. Blumpitty. Mother put me under their -care, and they’ve been _so_ kind. They’ve brought a big party up again -this year. We’ve all come believing great things of the new camp.” - -The moment the handshaking was over, “This way,” Cheviot said, and while -the talk buzzed, and the dog somewhere down yonder among the swarming -rowboats howled dismally, and questions showered on the man from Nome, -Louis was leading Mr. Mar toward the companionway. - -“Oh, yes,” said Hildegarde, “my suit-case and things. But father needn’t -trouble to come below. I’ve had everything packed and ready _for hours_!” -She smiled at Cheviot across the halting figure. “What kept you so, -Louis? Couldn’t you find him?” - -“You can’t get along very fast over there,” Cheviot answered. - -“_You_ couldn’t?” - -“Nobody can. There’s a wall of stuff piled higgledy-piggledy for a mile -along the shore.” - -“Dingleys and McKeowns, and—” - -“Yes, and grub. Tons of it. Hundreds of barrels of whisky. Thousands of -bags of flour and beans piled higher than my head. Lumber—acres of it. -Furniture and bedding, engines and boilers, mixed up with sides of bacon -and blankets, and a sprinkling of centrifugal pumps and Klondike thawers. -How they’ll ever sort that chaos—” - -“The next high tide will save them the trouble,” said Nathaniel Mar. - -“Well, it’s a queer sight. Hundreds and hundreds of people, Hildegarde, -sitting on top of their worldly goods, looking as if they’d never stir -again. Like so many Robinson Crusoes, each one on his own desert island, -among the wreck of his possessions.” Hildegarde smiled. Louis was only -pointing out that Nome justified his prophecy. A form of “I told you so.” -But he was speaking to her father. “And the faces! You’re used to them, -but I—” He caught Hildegarde’s significant little smile and deliberately -changed the tune. “Of course there’s a lot of hustling, too,” he ended, -stopping by the smoking-room door. - -“Yes, the old story,” said Hildegarde’s father, wearily. “All land there -free and equal from the common life of the ships. Twenty minutes, and -some are masters and others are slaves.” - -“I thought there’d be no one here!” Cheviot said with satisfaction, as he -held open the door. - -“Isn’t the boat ready to take us back?” Hildegarde asked. - -“I suppose,” said her father, leaning heavily on his stick and looking -at her from under his bushy eyebrows, “you think we’ve got hotels over -yonder.” - -“Oh, no.” - -“There isn’t even a boarding-house—” - -“Mrs. L’Estrange _will_ be glad! She’s going to set up the very thing, -and make her everlasting fortune.” - -“Well, _I’m_ glad”—Mar dropped into the nearest seat—“very glad you’re a -sensible girl and take it like that.” - -Imagine his thinking she’d come expecting a hotel and all the comforts -of home! That was why he seemed so harassed. “Poor father!” She put -an arm about his crooked shoulders. It had been hard for him to make -his way over the chaos of the beach, and he had got so wet coming out. -How thoughtful of that dear Louis to bring him in here to rest before -undertaking the return trip. - -The old man crossed his wrinkled hands on the knob of his heavy stick and -slowly shook his head. “No, Nome wasn’t Paradise before, but since the -invasion it’s a hell upon earth.” - -“Oh, father!” - -“Well, think of it! Something like forty thousand homeless people -stranded over yonder on the beach.” - -“I’m glad _you_ haven’t been one of the homeless ones,” she said gently. - -“I don’t know how glad you’d be if you saw my one-roomed tent on the -boggy tundra.” - -“Dearest.” She took off his big soft hat that impeached his dignity with -an absurd operatic air, and she stroked the whitened hair. “It’s well -I”—she looked across at her lover—“_we’ve_ come to look after you.” - -“Oh, I’m one of the fortunate Nomites! I tell you a man with _any_ sort -of shelter over his head is in luck. Hundreds are sleeping on the beach -in the cold and rain.” - -“Silly people not to buy a tent.” - -“Most of them did, and can’t get it landed or can’t find it in the -hurly-burly.” - -“Oh, I hope mine won’t get lost!” - -“_Yours!_” - -“Yes, father, I’ve got a tent and two pairs of Hudson Bay blankets, -waterproof boots, stout netting—for the mosquitoes, you know. Oh, I have -heard all about those mosquitoes! I’ve got a canvas knapsack and an -oil-stove, and oceans of oil, and a pistol and plenty of chocolates and -six weeks’ provisions.” With a little encouragement she would have told -him every item in that six weeks’ provision. She was distinctly proud of -her list. Many people on the _Los Angeles_ had complimented her upon its -judicious selection. - -But Nathaniel Mar’s face showed no pride—showed something even like -horror. “I can’t think what you were about, Cheviot,” he said almost -sharply. - -Hildegarde was still incredulous that Louis had been able to resist -the natural temptation of “telling on her,” and saving his own credit. -“Doesn’t father know—anything?” - -“Oh, yes, I told him—about us.” - -“It’s the one redeeming feature in the present situation,” said Mr. Mar. - -“Father!” She was really wounded by that. - -“But as I’ve told you already”—he turned his melancholy eyes on the young -man—“I’d take more comfort in the intelligence if you hadn’t brought her -up here!” - -“Does he say he brought me?” - -“He can’t say he prevented you.” - -“I _would_ come. I was afraid we’d never get you back.” She was on the -verge of tears. - -“Well, well,” said Cheviot briskly, “it’s no use spilling milk.” - -“No,” agreed the old man. “It might be worse. After all, the ship is -going back in a week and I’ll make arrangements for you to live on board -till then.” - -Hildegarde withdrew her arm. She came and stood in front of the bowed old -man. “You can’t mean that while I _am_ here, I’m not to stay with you—or -in my own tent near—” - -“Your tent!” Mr. Mar lifted one hand, calling heaven to witness his -offspring’s folly. “As to ‘near’ _me_, I’m sleeping in a ghastly -lodging-house myself at the moment. We pay ten dollars a night for floor -space. Spread a blanket on filthy boards, and try to get some rest in -spite of drunken rows and vermin.” - -“I should think even a tent in the bog was better than that.” - -“Much. I’ve lent mine for a few nights to a miserable woman and her -daughter, who’d slept a week on the beach. Like Hildegarde here, they -‘bought a tent!’ It’s on that steamer we passed. There are half a dozen -ships that can’t get unloaded.” - -“I don’t know that I like those other women living in your tent,” said -Hildegarde, with frank envy. - -“Some of us are arranging to get the daughter home.” - -“Not the mother?” - -“No.” - -“She’s going to stay?” - -“She’s got consumption.” - -“Oh!” - -“They came in the steerage. No, the mother won’t go home, and won’t need -my tent long, I think.” - -Hildegarde stroked his hand. “It was like you, father, to give them -shelter.” - -“It’s been pretty much as you saw it this morning”—Mar turned to -Louis—“for two weeks now. People are paralyzed. The fall from the height -of their anticipations has stunned them. The women sit and wait. For -what, they don’t know. The men drink and play high, and when they’re -cleaned out and can’t think of anything else to do, they shoot. There -were two men killed last night in a fight over a lot. In the last week -there have been six suicides. Nobody minds. What’s the spilling of a -little blood? A thing far more important is the scarcity of water. You -buy it by the small bucketful and carry it home yourself. If you don’t -boil it, you get typhoid. The mayor told somebody that, after all, we -lacked only two things here—water and good society. The stranger said: -‘It’s all the damned lack.’” It was as striking to ears that heard the -retort then for the first time as though the saying had not grown hoary. -“You’ll see,” Mar said, as though Cheviot had denied such a possibility, -“it’ll be worse here than ever Dawson was in the toughest times. We -haven’t got any such body of men to keep the peace as the mounted police.” - -“And to think it’s all your fault, father.” - -Mar stared at her. - -“Two years ago and nobody cared a pin to go to Nome. You couldn’t induce -the boys to come. You had to bribe even Louis. Now forty thousand -people, and all that tangle on the beach.” Her eyes were eager. “Nome, -at this minute, must be the most wonderful sight in the world.” - -“It’s the dump-heap of the nations! I’ll tell you what happened a week -ago.” Mr. Mar was almost voluble in his anxiety to convince his daughter -of the unfitness of Nome as a subject of feminine curiosity. “I’d been -to the A.C. store and got a small draft cashed. Then I went up to Penny -River and was gone all day. As I came back, behind the big Music Hall -tent, I was held up. Two men turned out my pockets and made off with my -thirty dollars. It was no use reporting the robbery. I was very tired, -and I went to bed. I was waked up by some one rummaging about. But before -I realized what was happening inside, I saw there were holes cut in the -off wall of my tent, and two pairs of eyes were watching me. A little -lower down the bores of a couple of pistols were sticking through. I lay -perfectly still, and presently the man inside, who’d been going through -my grip-sack, threw it down. ‘Where do you keep your stuff, anyhow?’ he -said, and then I recognized him. ‘You’re not in luck. You’ve got hold of -the same person twice,’ I said. ‘Think we didn’t know that?’ he said. ‘We -made such a devilish poor haul we thought we’d give you another chance. -Come along,’ he said, ‘where do you keep the rest?’ And when he found -there wasn’t anything in the tent but a match and a pistol—well, he was -good enough to tell me his opinion of me.” - -“I don’t understand—isn’t it daylight all night?” - -“Yes, but some of the honest people try to sleep, and then the crooks -take over the town. The place is full of the professional criminal -class. And if it weren’t, Nome, as it is to-day, would breed them. My -next-door neighbor says if he owned all the Nome district and owned hell, -he’d sell Nome and live in hell.” - -“But the thing that brought everybody here—the gold!” - -“The sour-doughs are getting some out of the creeks. But there aren’t any -more windfalls for late comers, since the beach was worked out.” - -“I did see one or two cheechalkers rocking in a hole here and there,” -said Cheviot. - -“Go back to-morrow; you won’t see the same faces. ‘Poor man’s -country!’—where bread costs more than luxuries anywhere else on earth! -Any business that’s done in Nome to-day is buying and selling and -brokerage precisely as it is in Wall Street. For the moneyless mass there -isn’t only disappointment, there isn’t only hardship; there’s acute -suffering down on the beach. I don’t know, for my part, where it’s going -to end.” - -“I don’t mind not staying _long_,” said Miss Mar obligingly, “in a place -where you wake up to find pistols and eyes peering in at you; but I -wouldn’t, _for all the world_, I wouldn’t miss just seeing it.” - -Mr. Mar moved his stick impatiently. - -“_I’d_ be willing enough to miss seeing it,” said Cheviot, “and I’m not -squeamish either. But, Lord! some of those faces!” - -The old man nodded. “I keep away from the water front as much as I can. -Can’t stand it. I’ve never seen such despair in human eyes. If there are -lost souls on the earth, I’ve seen them on the beach at Nome.” - -“Well, I dare say a little of it will go a long way with me, too.” - -“Hildegarde, you’re growing very like your mother.” - -“Thank you, father,” said the girl, imperturbably. - -“The trouble is if you insisted on having ‘a little’ of Nome, you might -have to take a great deal,” Cheviot said. - -“Why might I?” - -He exchanged a look with Mr. Mar. “Come out here, Hildegarde, and I’ll -show you.” - -As she followed to the ship’s side, “What makes the dog howl so?” she -asked. “Look! he’ll be out of that little boat in a minute—he’ll be -drowned.” - -Cheviot leaned over. “Shut up!” he called down. “Say, _Red_! D’you hear? -Shut up, I tell you!” - -The dog looked critically at Cheviot, ears cocked, nose pointed, forefeet -on the gunwale of the lighter, which was bobbing about at the foot of the -_Los Angeles’_ ladder. - -“Louis, is that father’s Reddy? Oh, I do so want to make friends with -him! Red! Red! how d’you do? Be a good dog, we’re coming down in a -minute.” - -“I’ll get one of the sailors to bring him up. Here”—Cheviot adjusted his -glass for her—“now look off there to the right—farther, beyond the wreck -of the _Pioneer_. Do you see that big tent with the flag?” - -“Yes.” - -“Can you see what flag it is?” - -“It isn’t Stars and Stripes. It looks all yellow.” - -“Yes.” - -“Who are the people who have a yellow flag?” - -“The people who have smallpox. That’s the pest-house.” - -On their way back they met Blumpitty asking, sadder than ever, if anybody -knew how soon quarantine was going to be declared. “Pretty rough on the -people who get shut out,” murmured Blumpitty. - -“Rougher on those who get shut in,” said Cheviot. - -Joslin was furious at either prospect. “Damned nonsense,” he said, -“spoilin’ the finest boom since ’49, all on account of a little smallpox.” - -They found Mr. Mar in the smoking-room, in the same weary attitude, head -hung over his wide breast, hat hung on the sound knee, wooden leg stiffly -slanting, eyes among the cigar ashes on the floor. - -“Whatever else I do, father, I can’t go home without _you_.” - -“Oh, I’ll take you home, my dear,” said Mar, with alacrity. “I’ve nothing -to keep me here now, except my claims at Polaris.” - -“Oh,” said the girl, losing some of her gloom, “have you got a share in -the Mother Lode?” - -He smiled faintly at miners’ superstition on his daughter’s lips. “I’ve -got something worth looking after,” he said, “though, as I told Louis, I -wish my good luck wasn’t always so inaccessible. Only two boats touched -Polaris last year. I don’t know how it will be this summer. I wasn’t able -to go in either of those that have set off so far. But I sent up a man to -do the assessment work.” - -“I’ll find a way of seeing what he’s made of his job.” Cheviot seemed to -ratify some arrangement. Then turning to Hildegarde: “And I’ll follow you -in the first ship.” - -“Follow? Can’t you go and get back in a week?” - -“I might, if there should happen to be a boat.” He was touchingly pleased -at Hildegarde’s unwillingness to go home without him. - -Quite suddenly she remembered O’Gorman’s loud-voiced friend of the -whaler. “I’ve got an inspiration,” she said gaily. “Why shouldn’t we -all three go up to Polaris in the bark _Beluga_? Yes, yes, that whaler -alongside is going north in a day or two. Now, don’t say it’s impossible -till you see.” Quickly she outlined a delightful plan. They could all -come back in one of the boats waiting about in Grantley Harbor. Or why -shouldn’t they (after they’d attended to the Mother Lode), why shouldn’t -they go in the _Beluga_ as far as Kotzebue? Nobody realized in the very -least, she said, her immense interest in all this queer northern world. -And after what she’d gone through to get here, they wanted to forbid her -Nome! Adroitly she spoke, as though their success were still a matter of -doubt. _If_ she didn’t see Nome, oh, how she’d be laughed at in Valdivia! -But _if_ she didn’t, why shouldn’t she be a little compensated for so -huge a disappointment? But that wasn’t the main consideration. How could -anybody expect her to go away in this very same horrible boat that had -brought her, and go _without_ Louis? Was her father grown so hard-hearted -up here as to expect to part them when they’d only just found each other? -Half-smiling, but serious enough in reality, as Mar could see, she -pleaded for her plan. Louis was plainly a convert, though he did say in -a feeble and highly unconvinced fashion, that if he hadn’t used up all -his credit with her on the subject of travel, he’d point out that the -accommodation on board these coasting vessels— - -“Oh, _don’t_ be so careful of me—you two!” she wailed. “The reasons why -I mustn’t see Nome surely don’t apply to Polaris. Why mayn’t I have a -look at that miraculous Mother Lode? Besides, Polaris! why, that’s where -Blumpitty’s hermit lives! Dearest father, I’ve been dying to see the -hermit. Was it he who told you, too, where to get claims?” - -“Certainly not. I wouldn’t go near the imposter! Living on people’s -greedy hopes. That’ll come to an end, too, some fine day!” - -“Well, if it hasn’t come to an end yet, you won’t mind my seeing him, -will you, dearest? It isn’t just idle curiosity. You really ought to -sympathize a little. I must have got it from you—all this interest in -the North, that we used to think was left out of the rest of the family. -Don’t you remember, I never wondered at the hold it had on you? Even when -I was quite little—” She pulled herself up suddenly, with an anxious -glance at Cheviot’s averted face. But he turned briskly at that first -pause and said: “I’ll leave you to butter the parsnips, Hildegarde, while -I tackle the captain.” - -When Cheviot had gone, “What’s the news?” said Mar. - -“Oh, they’re all well, and the boys are getting on splendidly. Mother -sends you—” - -“Nothing yet from Jack Galbraith?” - -“Nothing, up to the day I left. Father, it bores Louis dreadfully, -hearing about—arctic exploration. We won’t talk about Jack Galbraith -before Louis. But I’ve often thought, while I’m crawling up this side of -the round world, Jack is probably sliding down the other.” - -“It’s one of the reasons for going home,” said the old man, thinking -aloud. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII - - -It was after some delay through fogs that, on a clear July morning -to Hildegarde for ever memorable, the small whaling vessel _Beluga_ -anchored below the cape called Prince of Wales, that looks across the -narrow Strait of Bering to the Siberian shore. The girl, with her new -friend Reddy at her side, overheard with inattentive ear her father’s -final instructions. Mar, whose difficulty in getting about was obviously -increased in these months of absence, had agreed to remain on board. -Cheviot’s the task of making the most of the brief span granted by the -surly captain for inquiry into the condition of the gold camp two miles -across the surf, and two more inland up Polaris Creek. - -But if the talk between the men about possible claim-jumpers, treatment -of “tailings,” increase of water-power, double shifts, and clean-ups—if -such matters held but a modified interest for the girl on this golden -morning, not so the scene itself. Even in the gray light of yesterday, -when, toward bedtime, the thicker fog-veils lifted enough to show how far -the _Beluga_ had gone out of her course, the girl had thrilled at the -misty vision of the Diomede Islands. For one of these showed the fringe -of Asia. Hildegarde had reached that place in her journeying where the -East was become the West, and where to find the farthest limit of the -immemorial Orient you must needs look toward the setting sun. - -To-day, coming on deck before she broke her fast, something in the girl -had cried out greeting at her first glimpse of the coast-line bluffs of -extreme northwestern Alaska, drawn in purple against a radiant east, to -the south receding a little from the shore and fainting into the blue of -snow-flecked hills having a strip of tundra at their feet. - -There, upon that narrow coastwise margin, directly in front of what from -the deck of the _Beluga_ seemed the highest point in the background, the -sunshine picked out boldly the intense white of the handful of tents -that stood for the settlement of Polaris and the port for the Polaris -mining-camp. - -Hildegarde had won her father’s consent, reluctant though it was, that -she should go ashore with Cheviot. Gaily she assured him it was little -compensation enough to a girl who had foregone the fearful joys of Nome. -The visit of inspection to the Polaris claims would not take long. As the -old man looked at his “two children,” with the sunshine on their faces, -he wondered who would have the heart to steal from them a single one of -those early hours of enchantment. - -Not Nathaniel Mar. - -But neither he nor they had bargained for Reddy’s bearing them company. -He announced his intention unmistakably, when Cheviot went over the -ship’s side into the small boat that was to take him and Hildegarde -through the surf. Mar tried in vain to quiet the beast. So unnerving were -Mr. Reddy’s demonstrations, when he saw Hildegarde preparing to follow -Cheviot, that Mar called out, Hildegarde must wait till the dog could be -shut up; the sailors could hardly hold him. But the men below, bobbing -about on the rough water, were with difficulty preventing the boat from -being battered against the ship’s side, and Cheviot was shouting, “No -time to worry with the dog!” - -At the same moment, Hildegarde, hanging suspended between her two -counselors on the swinging ladder, saw a big wave sweeping askew the boat -beneath her. From above her father, and Cheviot from below, called out -“Hold tight,” while Louis supplemented the vain efforts of the two other -men, unable by themselves to steady the clumsy craft in such a sea. But -Hildegarde, with a conviction that Reddy, escaping out of a sailor’s -arms, was in the act of coming down on her head, jumped from the ladder -and landed in the boat with the dog and a twisted ankle. Instantly she -called up to her horrified father, “I’m all right, and so is Reddy.” -Whereupon the boat was swung out into open water. They had gone half a -mile before Cheviot discovered something was amiss. “Nothing the least -serious,” she said, though it would be serious enough for her if she were -cheated of the two or three hours’ wandering at Louis’s side on this -heaven-sent morning through the wild, sunshiny land across the surf. -Cheviot was for turning round at once and taking her back to the steamer, -but that would be to prolong by a mile a sufficiently difficult transit. -He would send her back after the boat had landed him. - -“No, no,” she pleaded. “If I can’t walk, I’ll wait for you on shore.” - -But Cheviot was giving the sailors directions about getting her safely -back to the _Beluga_. - -Then, for the first time, the girl spoke of the stark discomfort that -reigned aboard the whaler, how she longed for a little respite, and how -she longed—But the landward-looking eyes could not, down here in the deep -sea furrows, pick out the far-shining tents toward which the lighter was -plunging, down the watery dales and up on foamy hills, and down again to -shining green deeps that shut out ship and shore—holding the small boat -hugged an uneasy instant in the rocking lap of the sea. Yet the girl -clung to the memory of that early morning vision from the deck, of violet -headlands and snow-filled hollows, and as the boat rode high again on the -top of the next big breaker, she drew in rapturous breath, saying softly -of the land beckoning her across the furious surf, “The ‘farthest North’ -that I shall know!” But in the end she owed it to Reddy’s companionship -that Cheviot let her have her way. - -“Oh, what an old-fashioned _Turk_ of a man I shall have to spend my life -with!” But she laughed for joy at the prospect. - -As Cheviot, sharply scrutinizing the harborless shore, directed the boat -above the settlement: “Some better landing-place round the point?” she -asked. - -“I don’t expect a landing-place on this coast, but I don’t see even the -tumble-down sod hut your father talked about.” - -The boat shot up out of a boiling hollow, and as it climbed the slippery -back of a great wave, Hildegarde called out, “I see it!” - -“The hut? Where?” - -“All alone, over yonder. Just beyond those rocks. That’s where you and -I will sit and wait, won’t we, Red? Those rocks are farther north than -where the tents are shining—‘farther north,’ do you hear, Mr. Red?” - -Beyond the chaos of boulders, in a cloud of spray, the boat was not so -much beached as daringly run in and her passengers ejected, all in that -breathless instant before the turbulent water withdrew, carrying out the -clumsy craft as lightly as it would a cork. And now already the toiling -sailors were some yards on their way back, disappearing round the point. -Hildegarde was safe on a temporary perch, and Reddy much occupied in -howling defiance at each thunderous onslaught of the surf. Cheviot, -thinking to combine the girl’s appeal for “a good observatory” with his -own notion of an easy niche safe beyond the tide’s reach, went to spy out -the land over there where some mighty storm had piled the rocks. At sight -of a man skulking among the boulders, Cheviot called out, “Hello!” - -With a certain reluctance the bearded figure shuffled into fuller view. -“Hello!” he said, without enthusiasm. - -“Do you belong here?” he was asked. - -“Sort o’.” - -“Oh—a—anything doing?” - -“Where?” - -“Why, here.” - -“_Here?_ What d’ y’ expect anybody to do _here_?” - -“Isn’t there a camp just over yonder?” - -“Up in the hills. Yep, there’s a camp there all right.” - -“Nothing in it, though?” - -“Plenty. Things are boomin’ out there. Thought you meant _here_.” And he -looked past the new arrivals in an unpleasant, shifty fashion. - -They exchanged glances. Hildegarde was so sure Louis wouldn’t go away -and leave such an individual hanging about that she felt no surprise at -hearing him offered money “to come along and show the way.” - -When the two had agreed on the price of this service, Cheviot said: “I’ll -be ready in a minute. I want to find a more comfortable seat for this -lady,” and off he bolted toward the rocks. - -The man eyed Hildegarde askance, and made some observation. - -“I can’t hear you,” she called, above the noise of the surf. - -He shuffled nearer. “Ain’t you goin’, too?” - -“Out to the mines? No.” - -“What y’ goin’ t’ do?” he asked. - -The girl laughed. “Oh, just stay here and look at things.” - -“What things?” The uneasy eye shot out a sudden alert beam. - -She only smiled, as her own glance wandered to the wider vision. - -“I got some ‘things’ to see after m’self,” he said in a surly tone. -“Guess I ain’t got time to go to no gulch to-day.” - -The girl fell a prey to misgiving lest this incident should end in -dissuading Louis from leaving her at all. Was her insistence upon coming -to result in defeat of the expedition? - -The shifty man had drawn a trifle nearer still and lowered his voice. -“What made yer land here?” - -“It didn’t seem to matter where we landed. There’s no harbor.” - -“But here yer so—” It occurred to Hildegarde, for some inexplicable -reason, he was going to add, “so near that hut,” instead of what he did -say, “so fur from town.” - -At the obvious suspicion on the man’s face, Hildegarde smiled to herself. -If this uncouth apparition had inspired distrust in the new arrivals, -their appearance had precisely the same effect on him. - -“Y’ might ’a’ come and gone before anybuddy in the town knowed we’d had -visitors,” he said, with an air indescribably sly. - -“Well, you see, our business isn’t in the town. We’re nearer the diggings -here, aren’t we?” - -“Guess yer been here afore.” - -“No, neither of us.” - -“Then yer better come along with me and him, an’ have a look at the -gulch.” - -So he didn’t, after all, want to remain behind and murder her for her -watch! - -“No, I shall stay here, and while you and my friend are gone, I’ll -practise shooting at a mark.” As she drew her little revolver out of -her pocket, and the silver mounting caught the sunlight, she recognized -herself for a very astute person. Louis, if no one else, might quite well -need reminding that she was armed. - -“Y’ won’t go?” the man persisted. “Well, I guess I ain’t got time fur it -neither. I ought to see a man up at the store.” - -In the act of going forward to meet Cheviot with this information, the -unaccountable creature paused to say over his shoulder: “Yer sure to git -a nugget if yer go to the gulch.” - -“I’d go quick enough if I could walk.” - -He faced about. “Y’ can’t _walk_!” It seemed somehow to make a -difference, but he narrowed his little eyes. - -“Why can’t yer?” - -“I’ve sprained my ankle.” - -“Oh! Bad?” - -“I’m afraid so. I’ve been told not to put my foot to the ground—or else -I’d hobble to the town and hunt up a man I’ve heard lives hereabouts.” -Ah, _that_ interested the disreputable one quite as much, apparently, as -it did Miss Mar. “I wonder if _you_ know him! A queer, hermit sort of -person who discovered the—What’s the matter?” - -“I knowed all along what ye’d come fur.” - -“Oh, we didn’t _come_ for that—it was only my idea—but it’s not much good -now I’m crippled.” - -“What did yer want to see him fur?” - -“Oh, just to hear him talk.” - -“Ye-es. I been told they’s a lot would ’a’ liked to hear him talk, -only it’s no go. And people gits tired o’ feedin’ a feller with such a -parshallity fur keepin’ his mouth shut.” - -Cheviot had come back with, “Put that away!” as he caught sight of -the revolver. “I’ve made a kind of chair for you, and lined it with -overcoat.” He half carried her over to the rocks, while she clung to him, -sparing the hurt foot. The man with the long, lank chin-beard, like the -last nine inches of a cow’s tail, watched proceedings with a critical -eye. - -“There now!” Louis had established her to his satisfaction. “And Red’ll -take care of you since he’s grown such a gentleman. You hear, Red?” he -admonished the cock-eared dog. - -“Reddy hears, and Reddy’ll do it, but if I weren’t so hopelessly happy -I’d be rather miserable at finding myself a prisoner. _This_ day of all -days in the year!” And, in spite of Cheviot’s assurance that he wasn’t -going to be long, she looked a little wistfully after her lover. - -“It’s all right,” his queer guide hung back a moment to assure her. “It -don’t reely matter as much as you think.” - -“Oh, it _doesn’t_!” - -“No, fur he ain’t here.” - -“Who? The—” - -“Yep—feller y’ come to see.” - -She humored him. “You mean the—” - -“Yep.” - -“Come along, Father Christmas,” shouted Cheviot, taking the tundra on a -run. - -“Father Christmas! D’ ye hear wot he’s callin’ me?” - -“Where is he, then?” Hildegarde persisted. - -“Dead.” - -“Oh, I’m disappointed to hear that. You _are_ too young for Father -Christmas, but I was beginning to hope you might be the hermit.” - -She took her disappointment so light-heartedly that the odd creature -grinned. - -“Golly, don’t I wish I _wus_ ‘the hermit,’” he muttered, as he scrambled -up the tundra after Cheviot. - - * * * * * - -What nonsense to talk of being a prisoner! Her eyes were free to roam, -and her heart was light as a bird’s homing across the shining world -toward the shining future. She must remember always in the happiness that -was coming, how she first had seen it at its vividest from a throne of -rocks, sitting between the tundra and the sea. Oh, but she was glad she -had come! If it was Cheviot’s mission to see how work went on at the gold -camp, hers no less to see with her own eyes—to get by heart and keep for -ever—the aspect of the world up here where you touch the skirts of the -uttermost North. Happy, happy chance that vouchsafed the vision on one of -those unmatched days of the short arctic summer that she’d heard about so -long ago—a day that made you feel never before have you seen the sunshine -showering such a glory on the world, never known such color on the sea, -never felt the sweet wind bringing influence so magical. You unfurl the -banner of your spirit, and you carry the splendid hour like a flag, -looking abroad and saying: “This is what it is, then, to be alive. And -I—I am still among the living!” - -In that same hour, a few yards from where Hildegarde sat waiting, a man -was saying farewell to sun and sea and all the shining ways of all the -world; and this man, dying in the peat hut at the tundra’s edge, was that -one of all who heap up riches having most to leave behind. - -There was nothing about the solitary hovel that specially arrested the -girl’s attention. She had seen several such on the way, during the delay -at Grantley Harbor—rude makeshift shelters, deserted in favor of the -booming camp at Nome. But Reddy found the sod hut somehow interesting, -even suspicious. He had gone away to snuff at the threshold. He tore -back to Hildegarde to report, then off again. Now he had set his sharp -nose against the door, and now he howled softly. In the momentary lull -of surf drawn seaward, to Hildegarde’s surprise, a responsive whine came -weakly forth from the hut. Whereat Red’s excitement was so great that the -girl forgot her ankle and stood up to quiet him. Why, the ankle hardly -hurt at all! She might have gone—could she, even now, catch up with -Louis? She picked her way across the rocks with scarce a twinge of pain, -and she climbed upon the thick moss carpet of the tundra. Of course she -could have gone! But Louis was out of sight. To say sooth, she was in a -mood too happy to be cast down. For, as she had just been feeling, it was -one of those hours when all life seems to be waiting for one to come and -claim it, when a girl feels she has just this little time for pausing at -the gate, to give the glad eyes full possession before she enters in. She -takes the sunshine on her face, and all her being melts to gold, and has -its little share in making the wide earth shine. Even her secret dreams -are dissolved in the universal sea. Instead of hoping, fearing, her -heart floats like an idle boat in that shifting iridescence. In the air, -instead of trumpet-call and battle-cry only a long, low singing on the -beach. No; one thing beside—a faint whining from within a deserted hovel. -Again, from without, the beast before the desolate threshold woke the -hill-born echoes with his howling. Surely a stray dog had got in there -and been unable to get out. She would open the door barely wide enough -to throw him some of the pilot bread she’d brought in her pocket for -luncheon. She lifted a hand to the rude latch, but, instead of opening -the door outright, sheer habit, with nothing in it of reflection, made -her first of all knock. “Come in,” said a voice. She started back, and -held her breath. Again that low: “Come in.” - -It seemed to her that she must run, and at the same time even more that -she must obey the voice. Oh, why had she come? Taking uncertain hold of -her courage she pushed the door ajar. Red flung it wide by bounding in -before her. She had time only to see that a man, half-sitting up on a -camp bed, with a gray army blanket over his knees, was whittling away -at a long, narrow bit of flat wood. She hardly noticed at the moment, -though she remembered later, that when he saw a stranger at his door, he -dropped his knife and made an automatic action to lay protecting hands on -a dingy bundle, half out, half under the low bed. Hildegarde’s attention -was of necessity centered in the dogs; his, shaky and half-blind, -conducting defense from the foot of the bed. The girl laid hold on Red’s -collar and dragged him back, although it was plain now she had done so, -that he considered the decrepit animal, half-muffled in the blanket, as -vanquished already and quite unworthy of more consideration than could be -conveyed in a final volley of scornful howls. After which relief to his -feelings, Hildegarde’s fellow-intruder pointedly turned his back and went -sniffing about the forlorn little room. - -“I am sorry we disturbed you,” the girl said to the hollow-eyed, unkempt -being on the bed. There were curious scars on the wasted face set in -its frame of wild, tawny hair and wilder, tawnier beard. No scattering -of silver here and there, but just at the temples the hair was white -as wool. As she saw plainer now, being used to the dimness, the face, -striking as it was, impressed her chiefly through that quality of special -ghastliness produced by a pallor that shows clay-like under tan. “I -thought,” she said, winding up her apology—“I thought the dog was shut up -here alone—forgotten.” - -“It might come to be like that,” he said, and paused an instant, as if -for breath. When he spoke again it was less to his visitor than as if to -soothe the ruffled feelings of the miserable beast at his feet. “It won’t -be my fault, though,” he said. “I’ll forget most things before I forget -you, shan’t I, Ky?” - -“That is how his master feels about this dog, too, though _he’s_ nothing -but a mongrel,” Hildegarde said. She was thinking, “The man is very ill.” - -“His master—some one prospecting hereabouts?” - -Briefly Hildegarde explained. As she moved toward the door, she caught -an expression on the sunken face so arresting that straightway she said -to herself: “What is a starving dog more than a dying man, that I should -come to help the one and flee the other?” - -“I am afraid you are very ill.” - -“Yes,” he answered quietly. - -“There’s someone at the settlement who looks after you?” - -He smiled faintly. “They’ve given me up as a bad investment.” - -“Oh!” broke from the girl’s lips, as she leaned forward and then caught -herself up. Was the hermit not dead after all! Was she face to face at -last with the discoverer of the Mother Lode? If so, she mustn’t seem to -know. “Isn’t there any doctor here?” she added hurriedly. - -“There’s a fellow they _call_ ‘doctor.’” - -“Then let me go for him.” - -“He’s off prospecting.” - -“When will he be back?” - -“After I’m gone, I guess.” - -“Oh, you are leaving here?” and the moment she said it she felt the -cruelty of the question. - -But he only answered “Yes,” and left her to miss or to divine his -meaning. Looking in his face she forgot his character of hermit, and -fell to wondering whom he had in the world to care about his leaving it. -Instinctively she knew that a man with such a spirit looking out of eyes -like those—for a man like this to die, meant to some one far away the -worst that could befall. And suddenly she felt that she was enviable, -being there, if in some way she could help him. What was there she might -do? - -He glanced at the foot of the bed, where the old dog lay at his feet. -“When did you say you were going back to your ship?” - -“Not for an hour or so,” she said. “More than long enough for me to—when -did you eat last?” - -“If you’d give me a little water,” he spoke huskily. - -She went to a zinc bucket that stood in the corner. “I’m afraid this -isn’t fresh,” she said. - -“Yes. An old fellow brought it only an hour ago. There’s the cup.” - -She followed his eyes to a rusty condensed-milk can, which she filled and -rinsed, saying cheerfully: “Then some one _does_ look after you?” - -“No, it isn’t after me the old scoundrel looks.” With great eyes -darkening, he lowered his voice: “Is he hanging about still? A sort of -tramp with—” - -“No, the man I think you mean has gone out to the gulch.” - -“H’m! Tired of waiting! We saw that in his face when he brought in the -water, didn’t we, Ky?” The dog raised her head. “Yes, he wasn’t anything -like as afraid of you, Ky, as he used to be. Time’s short.” He pulled -himself up and fell to work with a knife upon the piece of wood that lay -on the gray blanket. - -Suspiciousness has made him brain-sick, thought the girl. She dried the -dripping can on her handkerchief as she looked over at the dog. “Poor Ky. -What happened to her eye?” - -“Left it up yonder.” He glanced through the open door to the white surf -curling up above the tundra, and with his wild head he made a little -motion to the north. But not even long enough to drink did he stop his -feverish whittling. As she put the cup on a tin cracker-box, set within -his reach, she saw there was a little heap of shavings and splinters in -the hollow of the blanket between the man’s gaunt knees, and she noticed -that he held his knife with grotesque awkwardness. Then, with an inward -shrinking, saw that to every finger but two, the final joint or more was -lacking. “How dreadfully you’ve been hurt.” - -He looked up and then followed the direction of her glance. “Yes, I got a -good deal mauled”—only half-articulate the iterated burden—“up yonder.” - -His voice made her heart ache for pity of such utter weakness. The task -he had set himself looked as painful as impossible. Yet remembering the -solace whittling seems to be to certain backwoodsmen: “Do you do that for -amusement?” she asked diffidently. - -“If that’s what it is, I shan’t lack entertainment.” - -She looked wonderingly in his face. - -“I was weeks before cutting up a little wood. But somebody stole it. -Scarcer than gold up here.” - -Oh, yes, the discoverer of the Mother Lode had stores of the precious -metal hidden away somewhere. The skulker among the rocks—_he_ knew! - -“Let me help.” She went closer with outstretched hand. But he started -and dropped the clumsily held wood. It all happened in an instant. -Hildegarde, following the look on the wild face he was bending down, saw -that his concern was not for the precious and sole piece of timber in -the hut, but for the oilskin bundle under the bed, which her dog was in -the act of investigating. The half-blind beast on the blanket saw, too. -She made one bound and fell upon Hildegarde’s companion with a fury that -filled the narrow space with noise of battle. The sick man called off his -dog, while Hildegarde reviled hers and tugged at his collar. - -When peace was again restored, “I must take him away,” said his mistress. -“He’s behaving very badly.” - -“No, it will be all right if I—” The sick man leaned still further over -the side of the narrow bed, and fastened the hand Hildegarde couldn’t -bear to look at under the knotted oilskin. - -As she saw him feebly straining to lift it: “Oh, let me,” she said, and -bent to help him. - -Again his dog flew to the rescue, while the man himself, with a desperate -final effort, almost snatched the bundle from under her fingers. “I—I beg -your pardon,” he said panting, and again he made his dog lie down. - -But Hildegarde’s feelings were a little hurt. The normal miner, she had -always understood, showed people his gold—even trusted them to handle it. - -“Poor old Ky,” the sick man went on apologetically; “she has got so -used to guarding this”—he was himself positively hugging the unsavory -bundle—“she can’t see any other creature come near it without—” - -“You’re quite as bad,” Hildegarde said to herself, but a glance at -the face, with the look of doom in the eyes, made her set down his -excitement, and the failure in fairly judging her, to the darkening of -all things in the gathering shadow. - -“I suppose you think I have something very valuable here?” he said, -suspiciously. - -“It wouldn’t be the first time in Alaska that something valuable has been -wrapped in rags and left lying in a corner.” - -“Something like what I’ve got here?” he asked, as he took tighter hold on -the oilskin. - -He should not think she was curious about his gold dust and his nuggets. -She looked at Ky climbing with difficulty back to her place at the foot -of the bed, and pointedly changed the subject. “Your dog is very lame.” - -He nodded. “Got one of her paws crushed.” - -To distract him from his brain-sick anxiety about the bundle, “How was -that?” Hildegarde asked. No answer this time, only that same northward -motion. “She must be very old,” Hildegarde pursued. - -“No.” - -“Your dog, I mean. Surely she is old.” - -“No. She got like that—up—” - -[Illustration: “‘I suppose you think I have something very valuable -here?’”] - -He still clutched the oilskin with such anxious hands that Hildegarde -felt it mere humanity to win him to forget his fears. So she looked away -from the gaunt figure, over the threshold and over the surf to where the -white sails of the _Beluga_ shone. - -“I’ve been ‘up yonder,’ too,” she said. - -“_What!_” - -“Yes, I’ve seen the North Siberian shore quite plain. I’ve been as far as -the Bering Straits.” - -“Oh, the Bering Straits!” he echoed, as one inwardly amused at a traveler -who should boast of getting as far as the adjoining county. - -“Yes, and—and I’d like to go further still.” - -“Better not—better not.” - -“But, of course, I would!” She put her hand in the pocket of her long -cloak and drew out the “latest map” of extreme northwestern Alaska. “I’m -like the rest. The more I see up here, the more I want to see.” She sat -down on the earthen floor just inside the threshold, and spread out the -yard square tinted paper. As she bent over it, “What part of the map -lures you most?” she asked, wandering if she would hear where was the -home of this curious being dying up here alone. - -As he did not answer at once, she looked up, laying her hand on the paper -and saying, “This for me.” - -She saw him take surer hold on the packet he was guarding, and he leaned -across it to see precisely what portion of the earth’s surface her hand -was covering. - -“You want to know the name of the most interesting country in the world?” -she asked smiling. - -“Well, what do you say?” He seemed to humor her. - -“The name of the most interesting country on the face of the globe is -under my hand.” She lifted it. He peered down. She pushed the rustling -paper across the uneven floor, till leaning over he could read, in big -black letters, the word “UNEXPLORED.” - -“Ah!” he said softly, with as great a light in his face as if those -letters had indeed spelled home. “_You_ feel that? I didn’t know that -women—” He broke off, and absently took a fresh hold on the bundle, as -though anticipating some adroit attempt upon his treasure. - -His foolishness about that packet had got upon Hildegarde’s nerves. -“People who don’t know them think Chinamen are all alike. Men who know -little of women think the same of us.” - -He smiled. “Do you mean you realize how precious those blank spaces are?” -Again he craned weakly over the bundle and stared down at the map. The -thought again occurred to her that his look was like the look a wanderer -turns home. Wondering about him she hardly listened to the words he was -saying, how the kingdom of the unknown shrinks and shrinks and soon shall -vanish from the maps—worse still, own no dominion any more over the minds -of men. - -Whether he was indulging some fantasy of fever she could not tell, but -the scarred face wore a look so high and sorrowful that she found herself -saying, “Surely the only value of the empty space is that some man may -one day set a name there.” - -He threw her a pitying look. And he stroked the oilskin as a child might -caress a kitten. - -“I see,” she said, trying in self-defense to be a little superior, “_you_ -don’t, after all, sympathize with the explorer spirit.” - -At which the strange eyes rewarded her with sudden smiling. “If you mean -you do,” he said, “think for a moment what a power the unknown has been -in history. Think what it’s done for people—a mere empty space upon the -map—” - -“Yes,” she threw in, “it has made heroes.” - -“It has made men.” But for all the restrained quietness of tone his look -evoked a glorious company. - -“Yes,” she agreed. “It made Columbus, and it made Cortez. It made -Magellan, Drake, and Cook, Livingstone and—” - -“And all the millions more,” he interrupted, still on that quiet note, -“who only planned or dreamed.” But while he spoke his maimed fingers -wandered over the oilskin—a brain-sick miser guarding his gold. And -though she listened to what he said, her eyes, against her will, kept -surreptitiously revisiting the uncouth bundle he was fondling with -abhorrent hands. - -“I feel like a son of that land”—one hand left the bundle an instant and -pointed down at the map—“_The Unexplored_. Like a man who sees his mother -country filched from him bit by bit, parceled out and brought under -subjection. Yes”—he raised his voice suddenly to such a note as set the -girl’s nerves unaccountably to thrilling—“yes, I resent the partition -of that empire. It is the oldest on the earth. I am glad I shall not -see its passing.” He leaned back, and a grayness gathered on his face -as he ended: “Many a man will be without a country, many a soul will be -homeless when the last province of that kingdom yields.” - -She only nodded, but he suddenly began afresh, as though she had -contributed something convincing. “I have never talked of these things -to a woman, but since you seem to feel the significance of—” He broke -off, and then slowly, “It might be you could help me,” he said. - -“How could I—” - -Still clinging feverishly to the knotted oilskin, he dragged himself with -difficulty to an upright posture and craned forward to stare through the -open door. Not this time northward solely, but down the beach as well as -up. - -“What are you looking for?” asked the girl. - -As he sat there huddled, silent, she became conscious that he was -listening—listening with that sort of strained intentness that almost -creates sound, does create it to the sense accessible to hypnotic -influence. - -“Who is that outside?” he said very low. - -“No one,” she answered, though it seemed to her, too, there must be some -one there. - -“Look out and see.” - -As she got up to obey him, “But you won’t go away,” he said suddenly. - -“No, only as far as—” - -“Don’t go out of sight!” There was an excitement in his voice that gave -her a moment’s fear of him. Out of the dank little hut his voice followed -her into the sunshine: “Is he there again?” - -“No one,” she answered, “no one at all! Except—” - -To the south, on the edge of the tiny settlement, a group of Esquimaux. -It must have been their voices his quick ear had caught now and then -above the surf. - -Northward, up the curving beach, two men calking a boat. But though they -stood out vivid in that wonderful light, Hildegarde knew they must be -half a mile away; and so she told him. - -“Is that all?” - -Nothing more. Not a creature on the treeless hill rising behind the -hovel. In front of where the girl stood no soul nearer than where the -bark _Beluga_ set her transfigured sails against the western limit of -the world. Between her and that sole link with her own life, only the -long barrier of the battling surf. From within, the feeble voice saying -indistinguishable words that yet conveyed some feverish purpose. A sudden -temptation seized the girl to call her dog and run. - -“You are sure”—the weak voice came to meet her as she turned back—“sure -there isn’t an old man about—fellow with a hungry face and a long, lank -beard?” - -“And an hour-glass and a scythe,” she filled out the picture to herself. -Yes. One like that is lurking here at the door, and no man can bar him -out and none refuse to follow at his call. But aloud, “No one,” she said. - -“Then come in and shut the door.” And again she thought of flight, and -again put the impulse by. But she said if the door were shut she must go, -and made her excuse the need to keep an eye out for her friend. Then she -sat down as before, where she could command the beach. - -The sick man was obviously ill-pleased and not a little scornful. “You -will understand why I don’t want to be overheard when I tell you—” Again -he sent the searching glance into that square of the world the driftwood -lintel framed, and his voice was half a whisper. “You’ll understand when -I tell you I have a legacy to leave.” He waited. - -“Yes,” said Hildegarde. - -“How did you know!” he demanded, and the eyes were less friendly. - -“Oh, I didn’t _know_.” - -“You suspected—” - -“Well, most people, however poor, have something to leave, however -little.” - -He lifted his hand to silence the platitude, and his whisper reached her -clear and sharp: “I am leaving more than ever a man left before.” - -It was true then about the Mother Lode. She waited, hardly breathing. He -had said she could help him. He wanted a letter written or witness to -a will, but he had fallen back upon that strained listening. “You have -children?” Hildegarde asked. - -He made a barely perceptible motion, no. - -“Brothers and sisters?” She tried to help his memory. - -“No.” - -“Who, then?” - -“My legacy’s too great to leave to any individual.” Hildegarde’s eyes -kindled with excitement. All the talk about Nome had given her a sense -of living in an atmosphere of mighty enterprise, of giant losses, and of -fabulous gain. She was primed to hear of lucky millions stumbled on by -chance. - -“You want to make a bequest to the nation?” Why was he hesitating, she -wondered impatiently, as he flung again that same intent look out of -doors? She knew he could see nothing but the wild, white horses climbing -the rocky shore to look across the tundra. She knew he could hear -nothing but the thunder of their hoof-beats on the beach. - -At last he spoke. “They said my trouble was ambition.” And still his ears -waited for some sound beyond Hildegarde’s hearing, and still his eyes saw -more than hers. - -He was silent so long she adventured in the dark, “Did you leave ambition -‘up yonder,’ too?” - -“Yes, up yonder!” But he brought out the words triumphantly, and he -paused upon a broken breath still listening. “Ky,” he whispered, “the -lady likes exploring, but she’s afraid to shut the door. Go out, Ky, and -see if that old villain’s hanging about. _Ky!_” - -The beast took her nose out of the blanket, and seemed to implore him to -reconsider his command. - -“Go out and explore! Go—_once more_!” There was a curious gentle note in -the weak voice. - -“Don’t send her out,” Hildegarde pleaded. “My dog’s out there now. Poor -Ky.” She was conscious that her kindness for the maimed beast pleased the -owner. - -“Have you ever cared about a dog?” he said. - -“Well, if I haven’t, I know some one who has, and that’s Red’s master. -Why do you ask me?” - -“Because I find myself with all my wealth wanting two things at the last.” - -“What things?” - -“A little fire that I haven’t strength to make, and a friend for Ky.” - -“I’ll help you about the fire.” She reached out and picked up the fallen -pieces of wood. - -While she was opening her knife, “I believe,” he said, “yes, I believe -you would help me about Ky—if you knew.” - -“Help you, how?” - -He fastened his eyes on the girl’s face. “Ky is one of us,” he said very -low. - -“What do you mean?” - -“Only she is better at the game.” - -Hildegarde leaned nearer to catch the husky words. “No one who ever -braved the North, no one who ever grappled with the ice, not one of -them all has done it more courageously than Ky.” The shadow-ringed eyes -sought the girl’s again. “Nobody could be quite indifferent to Ky who -cared about—who—” He broke off, exhausted by his fruitless effort to sit -upright. He dropped forward on his elbows and rested his bearded chin in -his hands. The tawny tide poured in streams through his fingers, and hid -the horror of them. “To-morrow,” he said, with his eyes on Hildegarde, -“to-morrow Ky will be the sole survivor of the only expedition that ever -reached the Pole.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV - - -Silent the girl sat there. But senses less alert than the hermit’s would -have felt the passion of wonder that held her motionless. For all the -world of difference between these two, the same light was shining in each -face. - -“How does the time go?” He made a movement toward his pocket, and then -dropped his hand. “Curious how I still forget—I left it—” Again the -motion. “Will you put your watch where I can see it?” - -“Oh, go on; go on!” she urged. “My companion won’t go back without me.” - -“Yes, you have plenty of time. But for me there’ll be barely enough,” and -the face that he turned an instant toward the ship— Oh, beyond doubting, -his time was short! - -Out of her cow-boy hat she drew a long pin, and going to the foot of the -bed she thrust the hatpin several inches into the peat wall above where -the dog lay. But her near presence was so resented by the great explorer, -Ky, that before the watch could be hung upon the pin, Hildegarde must -needs retreat. She remembered the luncheon in her pocket, and offered Ky -a share. No; Ky wanted nothing of a stranger. - -“Throw it down by the door,” said her master, and it was done. When -Hildegarde had retired, the dog came down, and when he turned his blind -eye about again, lo, a shining thing upon the wall. - -“So!” the sick man sank back satisfied. “Now to get you to help me about -Ky, I must put twenty years into an hour. More than twenty, for I can’t -remember when I began to think about finding the Pole. I played at it all -my boyhood. I’ve worked at it ever since.” An instant Hildegarde dropped -her shrinking eyes. For he was putting out that maimed hand for the cup. -She heard the grate of rusty tin on the cracker-box, as his cleared voice -went on, “I began by going in a revenue cutter to Port Barrow; and I had -been in two arctic expeditions before the one I’m telling you about. But -on both of those others I was the one man who wasn’t going for the Pole. -I was going for experience. I never believed my chiefs would get there, -but I always believed I would—later. I had theories.” - -“Oh, I wish you had known a friend of ours—” - -“I had a friend of my own. The year after I got back from the second -voyage, I met one night, at a club in New York, a young Russian-American -who was nearly as keen about polar problems as I was. We talked arctic -exploration all that winter of ’95 and ’96. We both believed tremendously -in Nansen.” - -“So did he—_our_ friend.” - -“We agreed we’d have given ten years of life to have had the honor of -going along with the Norwegian. But he had been away now nearly three -years. How far had he got? What had happened? Even experts began to say: -‘Another expedition crushed in the arctic ice.’ But neither my Russian -nor I believed that Nansen was dead, and we began privately to discuss -a rescue-party. We agreed that if we carried out our idea, and if we -found Nansen unsuccessful, we’d offer him our ship to come home in and -_we_—we’d push straight on. Ours shouldn’t be any trumpeted ‘dash for -the Pole’—how we loathed the cheap gallantry of the phrase!” The voice -that had flared up an instant fell again as he said: “We knew something, -even then, of the snail’s pace of that laboring on; that doing battle for -every yard; that nightmare of crawling forward inch by inch—only so, we -knew, might a man make his ‘dash for the Pole.’ But the plan of setting -off without saying to any one what it was we were hoping to do supplied -my Russian and me with our first condition for making the attempt.” - -Was it indeed only water in the cup, that after another draught of it -he should seem to throw off weakness as you might a burdensome cloak? -“My friend had money, so had I. No need of a public appeal. No need to -beat the big drum and talk tall. Both of us had felt the irony of each -explorer’s coming back to assure the world that he had never meant to -find the Pole. What he had gone for was exploration of the ice-fields -this side. Ha! Ha!” It was strange that such a feeble little laugh could -give out such a world of irony. “Or else, what he’d gone for was to -ascertain the salinity of the polar seas, or to determine the trend of -arctic currents. Or to explain”—again that hardly audible laughter—“how -the _Jeanette’s_ oilskin breeches got to the Greenland coast; anything -under heaven, except reaching the paltry Pole. So as we knew we were made -of no better stuff, if as good, as our predecessors, we said that we, -too, if we came back with only some deep sea dredgings, a few photographs -of ice-pressure effects—sketches of Aurora Borealis, and a store of -polar bearskins and walrus tusks, we, too, would find ourselves pointing -to these as the treasures we’d staked life and reputation for. So hard it -is to suffer the extremity and still have to say ‘I failed’!” - -He lay silent so long that Hildegarde quoted Cheviot. “They say it’s -harder for an American.” - -“What is?” - -“To accept defeat. Harder for us than for the others.” - -“Why do they say that?” - -“I’ve heard it’s because we make such a fetish of success.” Still he lay -there silent. It was as if the oil in the lamp had failed. “Yes, yours -was a good plan,” she said. “Even those others, the Old-World people, -that they say are soberer than we—” She saw that he turned his hollow -eyes toward her, listening. “If even they made excuses, and shirked -saying they’d failed—yours was the best— Oh, it was a splendid plan!” - -“Are you saying we’re a nation of boasters?” - -Good! that had roused him. “Do you say we are not?” - -“We are everything under the sun: most vain and braggart; most discreet -and self-effacing; most childish and obvious; most subtle and complex. -The extreme of anything, good or evil, that’s the American.” His eyes -found out the tiny watch face on the peat wall. Ah, that was the tonic -that was acting like a cordial mixed with magic. Right or wrong, he was -under the dominion of a terror that this last flickering up of energy -would fail before he had turned it to account. Even to remember that -small shining disk seemed to nerve him anew. Each look a lash. It whipped -him on. - -“As I’ve said, my Tatar and I laid our heads together and agreed. ‘For -fear we fall into the old snare, we won’t say we’re going at all,’ not -even to find Nansen, for fear we should promise too much. We would make -the great attempt under the guise of a whaling expedition. My Russian had -already sent out two, and had once gone along with one of them. I had -spent a winter with the Samoyedes.” - -“What! _You_ did that?” His eyes, though not his mind, took in the girl’s -breathless agitation. He paused, but his thoughts were too far away. “I -thought only one man had ever—” began the girl trembling, and then: “Go -on; go on!” - -“We were both still young. Yes, six years ago I was young; and hard as a -husky. But not so hard as a man need be who goes exploring in the mild -climate of the drawing-room.” - -Hildegarde bent toward him, with wildly beating heart. - -“We were just on the point of chartering our ship, when one evening—” He -looked through the peat wall a thousand leagues. - -“One evening—what?” - -“I saw a face. A girl’s soft face, but it cut the cables of my ship and -set her afloat—drifting, derelict, for all I cared. A little doll’s face. -But it shut out everything else under the skies!” - -Oh, Bella, Bella, was it yours—that face? “Go on,” breathed the girl at -the door. - -“When her people said she should never marry a man who might any day go -off on one of these protracted voyages, I looked at the face, and I said -I would never explore again.” The glazed eyes turned to Hildegarde, but -it was the old bright vision they saw, not this newer, softer presence, -with wet cheeks, by the door. - -“I told my Russian to draw on me for half the funds, and to find another -fellow-traveler. But she was too young to marry, they said. We must -wait a year. I said I would wait. When the year was half gone, I was in -London—because the face was there.” Still looking through the wall he -groped for the cup. Hildegarde rose, and put it in his hands. Oh poor, -poor hands! No need to turn shuddering away. They were softly wrapped -from her sight in a mist of pitiful tears. - -He gave her back the cup. “We had been to a skating party,” he said. -Something grotesque conjured by the contrast of that light phrase wafted -out of a butterfly world to fall in such a place at such an hour made for -the unreality, not of far-off London, nor of parties where pretty ladies -play at being in a world of ice—the conjuration merely lifted the dim hut -and its wild occupant into the realm of the phantasmagoric. The girl saw -all in a wavering dimness, shot dazzlingly with splinters of sunshine. -But the man went on in that level tone: “I remember her saying it was the -first party given in London on artificial ice—an absurd affair. But she -said: ‘Wasn’t it nice of me to get you an invitation, too? It will seem -quite like going to your horrid North Pole.’” - -How plain Bella’s voice sounded in the room. That was why he was smiling. -Bella could always bring that look into the eyes of men. - -“I said, ‘quite like the North Pole.’ And I went and skated with her. -Afterward, at the door, I had just seen her and her mother into the -carriage, when my eye fell on the orange-colored bill of the ‘Pall Mall -Gazette.’ And three words printed there blared out like trumpets. - - ‘NEWS FROM NANSEN.’ - -‘He’s found it!’ I said to myself—‘Nansen’s found the Pole!’ and I could -have flung up my hat and cried hurrah in the sober street. As I called to -the newsboy I was ashamed of my voice. I thought people would notice how -it shook. When I pulled my hand out of my pocket it trembled so I dropped -the coin and it rolled away into the street. The boy ran after it, and I -damned him for his pains. ‘Never mind! Give me a paper!’ I called out. -But the boy ran on. As I stood there waiting for him to disentangle -himself from the traffic and come back, I seemed to live a lifetime. How -had he done it, that splendid fellow, Nansen? What had it been like? -Well, soon I should know. The knowledge that had cost so much, soon I -should have it in my hand—for a penny! The awful majesty of the upper -regions fell away.” - -With a growing excitement painfully the sick man lifted himself up. “It -was then,” he said, “then—a queer thing happened.” He seemed to wait for -something. Turning to the girl, “You see, this was the moment I’d been -living for in a way.” - -“Of course; of course.” - -“And yet, now that it had come, my spirit had gone down like the -sounding lead on a deep-sea bottom. I stood there in the street with a -sense of unmitigable loss. Something so sudden and acute that I didn’t -myself understand at first what was going on in me. For it was something -quite apart from any feeling that I’d like to have been the one to do -the thing. There had been for months no question of that. No. It was -just a poignant realization that almost the last of the jealous old -world’s secrets had been forced out of her keeping. This thing that men -had dreamed about before ever they’d girdled the globe—it was no more -the stuff of dreams. The thought of Captain Cook and Franklin flashed -across my mind, and I remembered the men of the _Jeanette_. But it wasn’t -till I remembered the men unborn that I measured the full extent of the -disaster. The generations to come would never know what it had stood -for—this goal the Norwegian had won. They wouldn’t have to spend even a -penny to hear all about it. It would be thrust at them, this shining and -terrible thing men had died to gain—one leaden fact the more, conned in -a heavy book, stripped to the lean dimensions of a date! Discovery of -America, discovery of the Pole—who thrills over these things when they -are done? And now the newsboy was coming slowly back, rubbing the mud -off my half-crown. In a second I should be reading how the last great -stronghold of wonder was destroyed. ‘Well, the world’s grown poorer!’ -I said to myself, and I counted my change, thinking less of Nansen’s -news than of those men of the future. He had taken from them the finest -playground ever found for the imagination—the last great field for grim -adventuring. - -“I opened the paper and read that Nansen had turned back before reaching -the eighty-seventh parallel. - -“The Pole was still to be found.” - - * * * * * - -Ah, Bella, when you saw that look go traveling so far, so far, you must -have known that he would follow. Poor little Bella! - -Under those vision-filled eyes, the crippled dog, still sleeping, made a -muffled sound. “Ky is dreaming,” said the sick man, absently, “that she -hears a seal crying ‘Ho-o-o,’ with his nose above the ice. Or she thinks -she hears the ‘Kah! kah! sah! sah!’ of the auks. So do I, sometimes.” - -“But you promised ‘the face’ you wouldn’t think of the arctic any more.” - -“Yes,” and weakness of the flesh or weight of memory held him a moment -silent. “She always said that if the Norwegian had been successful she -and I would never have quarreled. She wrote that in every letter after -I left her. I don’t know. She was very young. She never understood”—he -glanced at Hildegarde—“never understood what was the most interesting -place on the map. She thought it was Paris.” He smiled. “Maybe she was -right. I don’t know. All I do know is”—and a subtle animation invaded -voice and air—“a few weeks after I read Nansen’s news in the London -street, Borisoff came across from Christiana to talk things over. All -this time that I had been looking at the face he had been building a ship -as good, he said, as the _Fram_. No man would dare say more. He had made -agreements with a crew and company of picked men, some of them his old -whaling people. He had news that the Finlander we’d sent the year before -to Siberia, after Olenek dogs, would be waiting with the pack up there on -that bleak shore, between Chelyuskin and the Kara Sea—‘waiting for you -and me,’ said Borisoff.” The sick man’s eyes were shining. “Borisoff was -a tremendous fellow! I never knew but one person who didn’t believe in -Borisoff. You couldn’t expect a girl—” he broke off. “But the great bond -between him and me was that we both had that passion for the North, that -is like nothing else on earth in the way of land love. Talk of the South! -A man loves the South as he loves a soft bed and the warm corner by the -fire. But he loves the North as he loves his prey.” He brought one hand -away from his beard and he fastened it afresh in the knotted oilskin at -his side, with an air of one about to rise up and continue his journey. -“Well, one day I said to Borisoff, ‘Of course _we_ can’t do the damned -thing if Nansen couldn’t—so come along, and let’s try!’ - -“We sailed from Tromsö that July. - -“But we didn’t call ourselves arctic explorers, and we never once said -Pole—not even after we reached the edge of the ice-pack, north of -Sannikof Island. It wasn’t till we got into north latitude 78° that we -called a council of war. By that time we knew our men and they knew us. -We were sure of six, but we put it to the other four as well. We engaged -to extricate the ship from the floe and send her home, if any man of -them wanted to turn back. What were Borisoff and I going to do? one of -the doubtful four asked. Well, we had our famous steel launch, and we -had sledges, dogs, kyacks, provisions, and—we had—an idea we’d like to -see what it was like—_farther on_. I’ve always believed our not saying -anything about ‘a dash,’ or so much as naming the great goal, gave -Borisoff’s words their most compelling eloquence. If we’d said then that -we wanted to try for the Pole, some one would have felt himself obliged -to object and talk prudence. As it was, we twelve sat there as one man in -the little saloon of the _Narwhal_, with the loose ice grinding against -the ship’s sides. And no one said, but every one was thinking, ‘We’ll -find the Pole.’ Borisoff was a born leader. Not a soul on the ship but -believed Borisoff would do anything he set out to do. They all knew by -now how extraordinarily well equipped we were. Borisoff showed again and -again how we should profit by the failure of our forerunners. Well, that -was in September. We were frozen in, and we drifted with the ice all that -winter and following summer—drifted in the dark, with bears prowling -round the ice-shrouded ship—drifted in the midnight sun with guillemots -and fulmars circling about our rigging.” - -He sat there some seconds staring through the peat wall, never seeing the -open watch, forgetting the irrevocable hour. As though she, too, shared -in some chill vision, the dog shivered. - -To bring the master back, “Ky is cold,” said Hildegarde, and would have -thrown over her a trailing end of blanket. - -“No, no, she’s not cold _here_,” the sick man answered, but in a voice so -faint and far Hildegarde wondered if he would ever speak again. - -To mask her creeping fear and bridge the silence, “Why does she shiver, -if she’s not cold?” - -His absent eyes came slowly back to where the dog was uneasily dozing. -“Thinks we’re crossing the ice-moraines, thinks she can’t go on, then -remembers the whip. The whip that flies out when you least expect it, -eh, Ky?—and bites the hair off clean.” He bent forward, and gently laid -his distorted hands on the scarred and trembling hide. The dog was quiet -again. - -“That first winter,” he went on, “one of our men was killed by a bear, -and one died from a natural cause. He would have died at home. Early in -the summer came the day when the ice gripped us. Our tough ship might -have been an egg-shell. But we were ready.” - -“You had to abandon her?” - -He gave a short nod. “Sledges out on the ice away from the pressure area, -packed, and kyack-loaded. We had kept the dogs in condition by short -journeys, and we knew they were as splendid animals for work as they were -terrible for fighting. We couldn’t prevent them from tearing each other -to pieces, but between whiles they carried us on. Eh, Ky? You carried us -on, for you carried our means of life. Or maybe we carried you, with our -whips and clubs and curses. It’s horrible to look back, that’s why I do -it, to save Ky any more—” His eyes implored the dumb creature’s pardon. -“Those days and months of forcing the dwindled pack over the pressure -ridges!—and when the patient beasts stopped from sheer exhaustion, -shouting at them till our own voices tore our nerves and burst our very -ear-drums, hardening our hearts, beating the splendid animals, till they -lay down one by one on those desolate ice-plains and died. Well, well, -well,”—he made sure of the bundle again,—“the dogs had the best of it. -_We_ blood-marked many a mile of the polar ice, we stumbled from floe to -floe, we stormed the pressure ridges, and when the teams had dwindled -and the ice opened in long reaches, we took the remaining dogs into our -canvas boats and along the water lanes we sailed and sailed.” - -“To the Pole? You _did_ find the—” - -“Lord!” he interrupted, “finding the Pole isn’t a patch on hunting for -it! That’s what the men of the future will never know. You can read the -kind of thing we went through in any arctic book. You can read it all, -and then know nothing about it. We did impossible things—things any man -will say he can’t do. And then he does them because he must, and because -human endurance is the one miracle left in the world.” - -An instant he stopped for breath. “Good men, all our fellows. But their -bones are up yonder. Good dogs, too. Ky’s the one that’s left.” - -There was a long silence in the dim little room. - -“But you reached the Pole, Borisoff and you!” - -Slowly he shook his wild head. “Not Borisoff.” There was silence for a -while. - -“It must have been very horrible for you when he—” - -“Yes,” said the sick man, and Hildegarde saw the mouth set harder yet -under the tawny cloud. “The day he died we came upon a great piece of -timber frozen aslant in the ice. Borisoff had been queer, wandering all -those last days. But that great shaft that had come from some land where -the trees grow glorious and tall, the sight of it excited him so that -it cleared his head. He said it was Siberian spruce, and had come from -his own forests of the Yenisei. And he talked about the currents that -had carried it so far—talked rationally. We found initials carved on one -end: ‘F. N.—H.’ If ever there had been more the record was frayed out of -existence by the timber catapulting against the ice. ‘I’ll rest here,’ -Borisoff had said, and”—a long time seemed to go by—“I’ve no doubt he -rests well. Splendid fellow, Borisoff. - -“The next day I cut his name on the great log, and I went on alone.” - -“You and Ky!” - -He nodded. “Ky and the dogs that were left, fighting our way over the -ice-moraines in a hard, fierce light, that seemed to come from every -point of the compass at once. I remember a curious optical delusion -overtook me. I lost all faculty of seeing the snow-covered ice I walked -on. I could feel it, of course, at every step. I could see my snow-shoes -sharp as if they’d been silhouettes poised in air. But the terrible white -light that bathed the universe seemed to be flooding up from under my -feet as well as beating on my head. Round that white bossed shield of the -frozen sea the sun moved in his shrunken circle, with no uprising and no -setting, abhorring shadow. Like that, day and night, night and day.” - -“For how long?” - -“For a thousand years. A dog killed to feed the rest, and still on, ‘for -miles on miles on miles of desolation—leagues on leagues on leagues, -without a change.’ In a world as dead and white as leprosy.” He closed -his eyes, as if the midnight glare still dazzled him. - -In her sleep again the dog had been moving and moaning. - -“Ky is in pain,” said the girl, very softly, hardly daring to whisper. - -The sick man opened his eyes and faintly shook his head. “Only dreaming. -I do the same myself. Wake in the dark, and think the pressure has sent -the ice towering above us. And while we try to get across the broken -blocks, suddenly they begin to grind and growl and to writhe and thunder, -as if moved to hatred of us. Ky lost a yoke-fellow in such a place, -crushed between the shrieking boulders. Quiet, Ky! The exploring’s all -done. At least”—he looked up—“I’d like to think—” - -“You may.” - -“Thank you,” said the sick man. - -“Yes, Ky,” Hildegarde spoke with a little break in her voice. “The -exploring’s all done.” As if the dog had heard and comprehended, and so -been delivered from evil dreams, she got up, came shakily down from the -bed, and stood for a moment at the door, looking out. - -“What’s ahead of us, Ky?” he asked, dreamily. “An ice sky or a water sky?” - -“How was it you could tell?” - -“Oh, you learn. The field-ice reflection is the brightest, a little -yellow; drift ice, purer white; new ice, gray. And where there’s open -water the ‘blink’ is slatey, isn’t it, Ky? Or blue, like the skies of -California.” - -“But the Pole?” The word brought a startled look into his face, and his -eyes guarded the threshold so fiercely she sunk her voice to meet his -humor. “What was it like?” she whispered. - -“Ky knows,” he answered, warily. “Ky got there.” - -With a supreme humility, or was it a high indifference on her part, the -great explorer crossed the threshold and sat outside in the sun. - -“I’ve wondered about it a good deal, as I’ve lain here,” said the sick -man. “It almost seems as if nothing in the world-scheme were so precious -as suffering. Men feel that when they recall their early hardships. Dimly -they see that nothing they’ve found later was of such value to them. Yes, -yes, beside, the days of the struggle the days of the harvest are dull. -And it’s this”—he crouched over the oilskin, and dropped his voice—“this -incentive to the greatest struggle that men can embark upon—this is the -Great Legacy I shall leave behind!” - -“But what,” she pointed to the thing he was hugging between gaunt arms, -“what is in that?” - -“_The proofs_,” he whispered, and started when the word was out. It -seemed to Hildegarde that he held the weather-beaten bundle tighter -still, and still he put off telling what she wanted most to know. As if -he couldn’t bring himself, after all, to yield the secret up. “Think,” he -whispered. “We could set the world ringing with it, Ky. Only we mustn’t.” - -“Yes, yes, but you must!” Hildegarde half started to her feet. - -“No. Not after—I swore an oath, you see.” - -“To—” - -That motion of the wild head: “The One up yonder.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXV - - -“What One up yonder?” Hildegarde’s voice was as hushed as his own. - -“Kyome.” - -“Who is that?” - -“The god of the unknown North. Hadn’t you heard that in all the old -lands, from Greece to Mexico, there was always an altar to the unknown -god?” - -She nodded. - -“When men in their foolishness threw down those temples, the old gods -fled to the farther countries. Last of all to the world’s waste places.” -He held up one horrible hand, and made a grotesque motion of “Come -nearer.” - -She obeyed. - -“The greatest of these gods of the unknown—he sat on a throne of ice -at the top of the world. The others—they had found no rest from the -men of the West. Behind the Great Wall of China we hunted them out. We -forced our way to them through Japan ports. We let the garish day into -the dim temples of Korea, and the gold terraces of holy Lhasa are trod -by alien feet. But the uttermost North was all inviolate till I came. -I made the kingdom mine. But now”—he lifted the maimed right hand like -one taking oath—“now I abdicate. I will destroy my title-deeds. Fire! a -little fire!” His hands fumbled among the shavings in the blanket, and -feverishly he caught up the knife. - -“No, no. Let me,” she said. “I’ll do it for you. See, I can split the -kindling straight down.” She strained to make good the boast. “Just a -moment! Oh, but this kind of wood is tough! What is it? Not a piece of -drift—so flat and smooth?” - -“Piece of a broken skee—my snow-shoe.” While she forced the sharp blade -down, he was calling out, “Ky! D’you hear that fellow laughing at us?” - -The dog turned obedient, and both her pointed ears seemed to be pricking -at the silence. - -“Whenever I begin to hope, I hear that walrus guffaw.” Ky’s master was -listening with all his shrinking soul, and his eyes looked straight -through the wall, but he spoke as quietly as before. Hildegarde shivered -a little. Death itself could hardly remove him further than he had -wandered in those few seconds. “Oh, come back!” she said in her heart, -and then aloud, “Tell me, please tell me, how I shall manage about Ky?” - -“Ky?” His eyelids fluttered as he obeyed the call. - -“Yes, how am I to make her follow me?” - -“Give her more of your pilot bread.” - -“Will she leave you at the last for that?” - -“She won’t know it’s the last, and she is hungry. Aren’t you, Ky?” - -Hildegarde laid down the knife an instant, took a fragment from her -pocket and held it out to the dog. - -Very doubtfully Ky came nearer. But still she couldn’t make up her mind -to trust the new friend’s hand. So Hildegarde laid the coveted morsel -down. - -When Ky had cautiously snapped it up, she hobbled to the bedside and -turned her dim eyes to the old familiar bundle. - -“Yes, I’ve got it safe.” He circled it with an arm, still looking down at -the dog. - -Would he ever let it go of his own free will? What vain notion was this -of a fire! - -Now he was muttering absently, as he smoothed the oilskin: “Our harvest, -yours and mine. Whatever we went through in the sowing, it was all -nothing, wasn’t it, Ky?—just nothing to bringing the harvest home.” - -“It wasn’t possible for coming to be worse than going!” - -“Borisoff would have said no. But Borisoff only tried one way. _We_ -know—Ky and I.” In the pause the eyelids closed over lusterless eyes. -It was only while he spoke of the journey that he seemed alive. As she -looked again at the face, as blank and cold as a grate without a fire, -horror fell upon her lest he should die before Cheviot came back. - -Hildegarde’s little store of splinters and shavings had grown into a -heap. “If I make kindling for the fire, I deserve to be told—things—don’t -I? Besides, then I can tell her—the face.” - -“How could you do that?” - -She must break it gradually. “Wouldn’t it be possible for me to find her -out and tell her?” - -He looked at Hildegarde dreamily an instant. “I wonder,” he said. - -“I’ll do it, if only you’ll go on—go on.” - -He made a faint “no,” with the wild head, smiling dimly. “Any one may -have a nightmare. No one has ever told a nightmare, so it didn’t sound -absurd. It’s a thing you can’t pass on, fortunately. You can’t recover -it even for yourself. Of all those last weeks, only three things stand -out clear: one was the day I saw the first fox track in the snow.” - -“You were glad of that?” - -“Glad of the first sign of life?” - -“And the second thing?” - -“The day when I looked south and saw the sky was yellow.” - -“What did that mean?” - -“Land. All the rest’s a blur. And in the blur two shadows—Ky and I, on -the homeward journey—the journey that I knew even then wouldn’t end -at home. Ky and I. All our companions dead. The last dog, even our -infinitesimal rations of pemmican, gone. Everything gone, but Ky and my -title-deeds.” - -“I don’t see how you bore it—how you kept alive.” - -“_I_ don’t know. Later we fed on the small crustaceans in the -ice-channels, then the narwhal. But in the strain I think my wits went. -Mercifully I can’t recover much in that blur of agony till the moment -that stands out clear as conflagration in the dark—that moment when I set -our course by the shadow my staff cast, and saw—” He dropped his hollow -jaw, staring at some horror unspeakable. - -“What was it you—” - -“I saw that while we were stumbling blindly toward the blessed -South—faster still the ice that we were on was drifting north.” - -“Carrying you back to—” - -“_Back to the Pole._” - -Her fingers lost their hold upon the knife. - -He didn’t even notice that she was no longer keeping her part of the -compact. “Talk of Sisyphus! Talk of torture! Ky and I, like half-frozen -flies crawling over the roof of the world, while the greater forces -carried us calmly back to the North! It remains burnt into my memory as -the final type of hopeless human striving. Each day I would read the -message of the shadow on the ice, till I began to say to myself: the -penalty for having reached the Pole is that you must stay there. No use -to struggle. You are surrounded, captured, brought back. The spirit of -the violated place won’t allow a man to carry his victory home. It was -then I understood.” Palm across palm he laid his fumbling hands, but his -faint-moving lips brought no sound forth. - -“You prayed?” - -“Prayed? Something of the sort. I made a vow. By the unknown god I swore -if I were allowed to get back alive no soul should ever know—except just -one among all the living. Strange it should be you!” - -“Of course you were thinking of little—of—” - -“Yes. I’d tell nobody, I swore, but a girl. I meant a girl with a little -doll face—a girl who wouldn’t understand. Our national phrase for any -sort of success kept running in my head. I still felt I’d like her to -know I hadn’t failed ‘to get there.’ Foolishness, of course. What I -really wanted was that she should have a share in that vision no man’s -eyes but mine had seen. I meant to show her these.” - -It was terrible to see his hands trying to undo the treasure. But while -again she hacked at the unyielding wood, Hildegarde followed fascinated -each grotesque move the sick man made. At last the tight-drawn knots had -yielded. Between the four corners of the ancient oilskin, creased and -twisted and stained, the harvest of John Galbraith’s life lay open in -the hollow between his knees. Hildegarde stood up with knife caught in a -cleft of the skee, staring. He turned over the little hoard of discolored -papers that lay on a flat chart-box, a theodolite, a pocket sextant, and -a record cylinder. - -“Notes, sketches, tables of temperature and magnetic variation, casual -phenomena. Oh, I found out strange secrets! The whole story’s here. I’d -sooner have left my bones up yonder than not bring her back the proofs.” -He opened out the chart and hung over the grimy, tattered sheet as though -it were some work of art triumphant—a perfection of beauty unimagined in -the world before. As he sat there hugging the shabby heap between his -knees, you would have thought that stained and sea-soaked store must be -splendid with color, or resonant with the organ music of the deep and of -great winds harping in the waste—fit record of a pilgrimage no soul had -made before. - -“In my heart,” he said, “I hoped, when I took her these, she might, at -last, realize—” - -A torn and dirty book, with corners worn round and curling, and a look -about its tough, discolored pages as though it had come down a thousand -years. “My diary.” He turned a page. “She couldn’t have read it, wouldn’t -want so much as to touch it. Still, it was for her that even at the last -I carried it rather than food.” - -Opening the other side of the shallow chart-box that was fitted with -grooves in which sheets of stout drawing-paper were slipped and firmly -held in place, he drew what that first glance seemed to reveal as a -meaningless smudge of violent color. “_There it is!_” and no sooner had -he said the words, than nervously he was sheltering the thing behind one -knee. “You are sure that old fellow isn’t hanging about?” - -She glanced out. “Quite sure.” - -Cautiously he brought the paper up from its moment’s hiding, but his low -voice dropped to a deeper register, “_That’s what it’s like!_” - -From the hoarse triumph in the tone she knew that however clear before -his actual eyes had been once this picture in his hand, they saw it now -no more. - -“That’s what Borisoff and the rest died to have a glimpse of. This -is what I found, instead of the palæocrystic sea. Here is where the -ice-hills rise. There’d been a storm. The low cloud-masses—they were -incredible! Like that! And the zenith clear, except for the banners of -light.” - -Plain he had no guess that the colored crayon was both marred and -bettered; that the picture he had set down, with some fair skill, had -been less moving, less poetic, even less true than this, that chance had -wrought with a blind but faithful artistry. For as Hildegarde stared at -the prismatic haze, a kind of wild meaning dawned there upon the paper. -Yes, surely, chance had craftier hands than any but the greatest among -the sons of men. For the picture brought that almost religious conviction -of the truth that great art gives. Just so, and no otherwise, must this -thing have been. The dome of the sky up yonder was an inverted bowl of -brass. And in the heavenward hollow of it a giant brood of serpents -flamed and writhed above a wild white waste, warmed here with violet, -cooled there with silver and pearl. - -“And that,” she said, only to have assurance of his voice again, “that’s -what the world is like up there?” - -“Do you think men go so far, and walk through hell, to bring home a lie?” - -Looking no longer at the orgy of color on the paper, but at the -reflection of the actual scene in the dying face, “It was like the Day of -Judgment,” said the girl. - -“You can see that!” The craftsman’s pleasure in his handiwork brought out -a gleam, and then, with a sudden passion, he tore the paper across and -across, while Hildegarde cried out: - -“Ah, don’t! Let me take it to—her!” - -“Take it to the fire!—and leave the great legacy unencumbered. Fire, -fire!” He was gathering up the splinters and shavings that he had -whittled from the skee in the hours before Hildegarde’s coming. “Here! -Here!” - -A sense of impotency shackled her spirit as well as lamed her tongue. -Blindly she took the fragments over to the embrasure of some blackened -stones, just inside and to windward of the threshold. - -“No one is about?” - -“No one.” - -“This is to start it, then.” He held out something. “This will catch -easiest.” - -“I have some thin paper here.” She twisted a wisp of her own map of the -North, with a vague instinct of putting off an evil hour. - -But the sick man followed with eager eyes the laying of every crosswise -stick, his gaunt frame huddled over his treasure while he watched the -making of the sacrificial fire that should devour it. If his eyes left -Hildegarde’s hands a moment, it was only that they might guard the door -against surprise. - -Once again, “Look out,” he said, “and see—” - -“There’s no one. But wouldn’t you _like_ somebody to come in? Some face -out of the past—” - -“To come _now_!” - -“Some one who could bring you news of—that girl you—” - -“Remember wood’s worth more than gold up here! Keep a little back.” - -“Keep some back?” - -“Paper like this burns slow. As you say some one might interrupt—” No -hospitality in the look he sent to the door. “Before you light it, have -everything over there, ready to feed the fire.” His thin arms gathered -up the store. Ky growled uneasily as Hildegarde drew near, the girl -wondering what was best for Galbraith’s peace, what was of any avail. - -He made a motion to give her all he held, but what he actually handed -over was the torn crayon, and even in the act of giving up that he set -one fragment against another, looking his last. - -“Oh, keep it—let me keep it—for her. Could you bear to hear—” - -But that mysterious arctic current, about which the greatest geographers -are not agreed, it had carried him back again to the Pole! With vacant -eyes on the colored paper, “We left him a feather for his ice-cap, didn’t -we, Ky?” - -“A feather.” - -“Or a ribbon. Didn’t you see?” - -“See—?” - -“This. You didn’t notice we planted the stars and stripes there?” - -“Oh-h. You see I thought you said no one was ever to know—” - -“—and I carved a B. on the flagstaff. It was Borisoff’s snow-shoe staff. -But the B.—it didn’t stand for Borisoff.” - -“No?” - -“No. The bamboo stood up there so light and slender—” Again the look that -only one remembrance could bring into his eyes. - -“It must have seemed like Bella upholding our country’s flag.” - -His whole face warmed into smiling. The death shadows fled for that -moment of his saying, “Had I told you her name? Yes, I brought the record -cylinder away, and left there only something that would perish.” - -“You make a fetish of that oath you swore!” - -“It isn’t because of the oath. Why should I take an empty fame out of the -world with me? Should I rest the better?” - -“You think only of yourself. But there’s the gain to science. What right -have you to deprive the world of that?” - -He smiled. “You speak like a green girl, or like a newspaper. Forgive me! -But you don’t realize. The gain to science is the by-product. The true -gain is to the human soul. You don’t believe me? Read the most inspiring -books ever written about the arctic.” - -“Perhaps I have. Who wrote them?” - -“Franklin, Greely, and De Long—the three who failed. Here’s to them!” He -lifted up the cup, emptied it, and dropped it with a ringing of rusty -tin, an eye cleared and preternaturally bright. “In the past it was all -different, you know. Enough and to spare in the physical world to be -conquered. But the things to be conquered in the future, do you know what -they are?” - -Voiceless she shook her head. - -“Moral weakness and physical self-indulgence. In America we are all so -comfortable we are all like to be damned!” - -She could have wept aloud to hear the half-whimsical, half-delirious tone -of the wreck upon the camp-bed deprecating comfort. - -“If Borisoff had lived—I don’t know. But Borisoff is sleeping in the lee -of that great shaft of Siberian pine, and I—if I know anything in the -hereafter, I shall be glad that I left the hope behind me for other men.” - -“Left it for some new Norse Viking maybe, or some sea-faring Briton. And -America will never know—” - -“’Sh. I’m not sure whether I’m more sorry that America shouldn’t know she -was first at the goal, or whether I’m not more proud that it should be -an American who wins the race and refrains from making the world resound -with it. That it should be an American, after all, to do just that. One, -too,”—he smiled with a curious sweetness,—“one as guilty of boasting -as his brothers are. So you see I keep some spark of vanity to light -me—out. Here!” He gathered the hoard in his arms an instant, and held it -half-hidden under his beard. - -But it seemed as hard for him to loose his arms from about his treasure -as for a mother to part from her child. - -Hildegarde made a tender, half-unconscious motion of protecting both -the broken man and the toys his dying hands still clung to. But he, not -comprehending, said faintly: “I’ve carried this little bundle of papers -across the crown of the world to—to give it to a strange woman at last!” - -“No, no.” She fell on her knees by the bed. “I am not strange! I am -Hildegarde.” - -His blazing eyes looked over her bowed head at the little heap among the -blackened stones. “Here!” he whispered. - -“What’s this?” - -“A wind-match. Careful! there’s only one more.” - -She rose unsteadily, with a sense of the utter uselessness of any help -now for this man who had been Jack Galbraith. But as she struck the -match, and the fire caught among the sticks, once more the life leaped up -in the man. He sat erect, exultant, horrible to look upon, tearing the -leaves of a book, holding them up in sheaves, and crying out: “Here, take -the rest! I keep my word. I give the Kingdom back to the oldest of the -gods!” And with that he fell together and lay with eyes hidden, breathing -hoarsely. - -When she saw that the last pages, not even smoldering any more, lay -charred among the stones, she turned again to the bedside. Was he dead? -A long time she stood there. What sound was that above the surf? Again -the long shrilling note. She went to the door. Again! Of course; the -steam whistle of the _Beluga_, calling the travelers back. And this other -traveler, had he heard a call? Was he, too, gone home? With trembling -knees she made her way back to the low bed. Again the strident sound. It -set the nerves a-shake. Painfully the gaunt figure moved. It lifted up -its face. It sent little-seeing eyes to the stony altar. They seemed to -search among the ashes. - -Again the wind bore over the water that harsh summons to be gone. -“Everything is burned,” said the girl, and with a little strangled cry of -“Bella! Bella!” Hildegarde buried her face in her hands, sobbing: “Oh, I -think I was mad to help you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” - -“I’m glad.” - -She dropped her hands. - -“Glad ... haven’t spoiled ... finest game in the world ... the men who -come after. Don’t know—what they’ll do—when they’ve found it—but—hunting -the Pole—will last them ... good while yet. Ky—won’t tell!” - -Again the _Beluga’s_ piercing call. - -It carried Hildegarde to the door. Where was any counsel? Where was -Cheviot? Ah, yes! From the heights behind the hut, he must have made the -signal agreed on before leaving the _Beluga_. Hildegarde could see the -small boat putting off now from the whaler. What was she to do? If, after -Cheviot’s promise, there were delay, who could doubt the choleric captain -would not scruple to leave his undesired passengers behind. Or if there -were only threat of that—her father’s bewilderment and misery. What to -do! As she turned her eyes away from the shining world without the door, -her dazzled vision found only shadows in the hut. She had dreamed it -all! No; that voice again: “—Still heels four degrees to starboard! One -point? No; only a motion of the floe in azimuth. I tell you we’re locked -fast.” - -“Please listen. I’m Bella’s friend. I—oh, come back a moment.” - -“Tell Borisoff—can’t hear with this infernal shrieking of the boulders. -By the Lord!”—he raised himself on an elbow—“ten yards of this living, -moving ice would hold Goliath back. And it’s sixty miles to the sea!” - -She turned her wet face to the door again. The tossing boat out yonder -seemed to go down before her eyes. - -“Don’t let any one in!” - -“No, no.” There it was again, like a toy boat dancing wildly before -destruction. - -“What I mind most,” the faint voice whispered, “is not holding out till—I -got across to Alaska. All those months—all that sacrifice—all that -suffering—and fail in such a little thing!” - -“Why,” interrupted the girl, “why did you want to get to Alaska?” - -“Why? I—I don’t seem to remember. There was a reason. But it’s too far.” - -“You don’t mean—” - -“I shall never get there now. Do you hear the music, Ky?” - -“The music?” - -“Screaming of the ptarmigan. Music to us, wasn’t it?” In a changed voice, -rational, but weak: “I can’t see you, Ky.” - -“She’s here, with me, at the door.” - -“Then she’s dim as she used to be when she plodded on in front, wrapped -in her cloud of frost-smoke.” - -“Please try to listen. I—see the sailors bringing the little boat through -the surf.” - -“That’s easy. Let ’em try the ice!” - -“They’re coming for me.” - -“You—you?” - -“You don’t remember.” - -“Yes, I do.” - -“I am—” - -“Ky’s friend. Thank you.” Feebly he put out his hand. But he would have -drawn it back, if hers had not closed trembling over it. - -“Oh, Jack! Jack!” she cried to herself, conscious of an anguished impulse -to hide the marred hands in her breast to see if pity might not heal them! - -“I think whatever comes of it,” she said brokenly, “I mustn’t go.” - -The glazed eyes looked at her in faint wonder. - -“Because I am Hildegarde.” - -“That wasn’t her name.” - -“No, no. I am _Hildegarde Mar_.” - -“A nice name.” - -“But you’ve heard it before.” - -“Hildegarde—?” The faintest motion of the wild head making “No.” - -“Yes, yes.” She was on her knees by the bed. “My father was your friend. -My father is Nathaniel Mar.” - -He said nothing for a moment. She thought he was trying to coördinate the -memories her words recalled. But when he spoke it was to say, “No one -must know but Bella—only Bella in all the world.” - -“Only Bella,” said the girl, and rose upright. But through her tears she -saw that his lips still moved. - -“Will you—” he whispered. She bent down again to catch the words. “Will -you stand at the door—till the boat is beached?” - -Hoping, with a catch at the heart, that old association dimly stirred by -the name Mar had brought him some warmth of her presence in this chill -hour, she tried to find a voice to ask why he wanted her to wait those -few poor minutes at the door. But she had no need to put the question. -His eyes made answer, trying to follow Ky, as the dog left the threshold -and went with her slow, halting gait, aimless, half across the little -strip of tundra to the sea. - -“Don’t say—anything to me. And don’t”—the wild face twitched with -pain—“_don’t look at me_. Just—stand there, with Ky—till the boat’s -ready. And when you go—don’t speak.” Again the dimming eyes sought on the -tundra for that vague shadow that was his fellow-explorer and his friend. -“I shall watch you, Ky—till the whaler—takes you—South.” - -As Hildegarde, bending lower, tried to form speech with her quivering -lips, “No,” he whispered. “You’ve done—all—you—can. All, but this -last thing. I’d like—to see her as long as ever—But don’t speak, -and—_don’t—look—back_.” - -His eyes went past the girl, went straining after the dog, as though -Ky were in truth as dim to-day as on that gray morning when he saw her -first, standing in front of the pack, wrapped in mist, nose to the north, -waiting for him “up yonder” by the Kara shore. - -Out there, on the tundra edge again, the great explorer, Ky, stood like -some old coastguard reading the signs of the sea. - -Behind, at the door of the hut, Hildegarde Mar. But though the girl, -too, looked straight across the surf, toward the islands named for those -in the Adriatic after the Argive king, what she saw was not the nearer -Diomede and not the little boat fighting its way through the surf; not -even her lover running along the shore and looking among the high-piled -rocks; not John Galbraith, dying behind her there in the shadow. Clearer -than if she’d held it in her hand, she saw the colored crayon sketch that -lay charred among the ashes. So it was like that!—the terrible, beautiful -place that would still go luring men with its lying legend on all the -maps, crying out in every tongue in Europe— - - _UNEXPLORED REGION!_ - - COME AND FIND ME! - - - - -CHAPTER XXVI - - -At last! After fruitless, heart-sickening search among the boulders, -Cheviot had caught sight of Hildegarde breasting easily the risen wind, -stepping lightly and without the least inconvenience down from the tundra -to the beach. Over the rocks he came running, making signals for haste. -Red, too, a long way behind, went racing along the shore, back and forth, -barely out of the spray; running seaward when the breakers retreated, -fleeing from them on their return, howling at the sailors as they bent -over their oars, hardly fifty yards from the foam-line. - -Hildegarde made her way blindly, stumbling among stones, scattering bits -of pilot bread in her wake, and casting backward looks. - -“Hurry! Hurry!” Cheviot was shouting. - -“She’s so lame!” Hildegarde couldn’t hear his next words, but she caught -the quick gesture of one who reproachfully reminds himself. And he was -flying forward to her aid. - -“I’m all right—but the dog—” - -Without slackening pace, a hand at either side of his mouth, he called: -“They can’t hold the boat in that surf.” - -“Ky—the dog—” - -“Red’s all right. He’s there.” Louis was near enough now for her to see -the heat of the race in his face as he called out: “The captain will be -furious—” The rest was caught away by the wind, till quite near: “I’ll -pull you along. Here, catch hold of my hand.” - -“Oh, Louis, I’ve got something to tell—” - -“—ankle giving out again?” - -“No, not that.” - -He turned sharply to signal the sailors that the lady would be there in -time. - -“Louis!” - -“Don’t waste breath! Come on!” - -“Something’s happened. It’s about Jack Galbraith.” - -Had he heard? What was he going to do? It hadn’t occurred to her so much -as to wonder before. Did he think there was no hurry about this news she -had picked up concerning the long-lost traveler, or had the wind carried -the name away? Or— - -“I must tell you about it, Louis. Wait a moment!” - -“You’re asking the tide to wait!” And far from gently his own momentum -was carrying her on. Was there then one service he would refuse her? I -Well—well—she steeled herself. He couldn’t refuse to take the dog in any -case. - -“We—we can’t go so fast.” - -“Yes, we can. We’ve got to.” - -“No. I must wait for—the dog.” - -A flying look of astonishment sent over shoulder shot from her to Ky. -“_That_ dog?” But impatience drove even wonderment out. “Can’t you see -how close—” He flung an arm toward the laboring boat, as with hot face -turned seaward to the wind he hurried on. - -“If the dog goes back he’ll think I failed him—” The wind and the surf -took the rest. In the turmoil of her mind the first thing needful to -assure seemed to be Ky’s safe conveyance to the ship. While Louis, -without slackening speed, snatched her arm through his, compelling her -to keep his pace, still the girl looked back as she held behind her the -last of the lure. Ky was making her way better than her new friend, for -Hildegarde’s weakened ankle turned more than once, and now she was almost -down. Cheviot had swung back and had her on her feet again. - -“Louis—” But the pain had turned her faint. - -“It’s horrible to hurt you, but there mayn’t be another boat this year,” -he jerked out, starting on again. - -Hildegarde had no real fear of their being left. Wasn’t “the watchman” -with her? But Ky! The sailors might refuse to wait for a dog. - -“Here!” He shook off her slack hand and grasped her by the arm. “I must -help you more.” - -“Yes, yes. Help me to get her down there in time.” - -“All right!” But he was shouting the reassuring words across the surf. -“Come on!” he encouraged the sailors. “Coming on” was easier said than -done. An instant the boat had fallen back. - -“We’ll be there as soon as you!” Cheviot’s shout dropped hoarsely: “We -won’t if you can’t do better than this.” - -“You’ll have to tell father—” - -“If you stop to talk we’ll simply be left behind.” - -[Illustration: “Hildegarde’s ankle turned more than once, and now she was -almost down”] - -Ah, well, if he took it like that, why should she go any further with -him? “You’d better hurry on with the dog,” she said. “Tell father he -must manage somehow to come.” - -“Are you out of your head!” He seemed to be carrying her forward without -volition of hers. She offered no physical resistance but, “I’m not coming -with you to the ship,” she said. “I’ve got to go back.” - -“Go where, for God’s sake?” - -“Back to the hut.” - -“Go—what for?” - -“Because Jack Galbraith is there.” For just an instant his fingers -slackened hold. The shadow of a fear she had never seen in those clear -eyes darkened the fine candor of his face, and then, with firmer grasp, -he was once more hurrying her on. - -“I’m not going crazy. It’s sober truth. Louis, Louis, what are we to do?” - -“Prevent that boat from leaving us behind.” - -“Ah, you don’t care! It’s nothing to you!” - -The hand on her arm tightened in such a grip she could hardly keep from -crying out with the pain of it, but faster than ever the two were flying -along the stony beach. - -“Oh Louis, help me!” she said passionately, and holding back by main -force she brought down the pace. “You wouldn’t want me to—oh, tell me -what’s to be done!” - -“I don’t know.” Suddenly all that energy of his seemed spent. “Perhaps -nothing can be done.” - -She had never before seen hopelessness in his face. It pierced through -all her preoccupation and excitement. “Yes, yes, something can be done. -You needn’t take it as you’re doing. Oh, Louis, don’t you see, _you_ -might go back.” - -“_I?_” He looked at her with eyes that made her draw a breath of pain. -“It is true,” he said; “I might go back.” - -“Will you?” she faltered. - -“To Galbraith, you say! You _want_ me to go back?” - -“Do you ‘want’ to leave him here friendless, sick. Oh, it was well I -came! I must have had an inkling; yes, yes, a presentiment.” - -“_That’s_ why you came! Why you waited here!” - -The sailors might abandon their dangerous task and leave those two there -on the beach, for all it seemed to matter to Louis Cheviot, since he had -halted on the words: “Galbraith behind these days, too!” - -The shouting of the sailors made him turn his eyes. The boat out there, -baffled again, was driven back in a third effort to make the final run. -Cheviot with his free hand shaped a trumpet, and through it shouted -across the surf, “Try up here!” - -The men in the boat called out something that was drowned in the clamor -of the waves, and Cheviot was running Hildegarde faster than ever down -that last stretch of the stony beach. Would he never stop and let her get -back her voice? Oh, this carrying a hot ball of lead in your breast, and -having to lift it every time you strained for breath. - -“Louis, wait! Ky, Ky, come on!” Why was he hurrying her more than ever? -Did he imagine— Her power to think seemed to be leaving her. A wavering -vision off there in the sunshine of Louis’s late guide hurrying down from -the settlement with several other men, two were natives. And the boat, -where was the boat? Beaten back again, and that time all but swamped. -Yes, now it was gone—down behind the white breakers, or further down -among the rocks? The look on Louis’s face—it gave her a new measure of -loneliness. It was like the door of one’s own home locked and barred -against one. But she couldn’t see well, for the loosened hair, blown into -her eyes, was blinding her. Tears, too. On and on over the water-worn -stones with that harsh hand grasping her. If her feet slipped they were -not suffered to falter, if they stumbled they were harshly steadied. On -and on with this constriction at the breast, and at her side this face -of granite. A moment’s memory of the arctic current, and the picture -that had stood to Galbraith for the type of helpless human striving. -Something of the same sense of futility visited her as her feet followed -the stronger will. Did nothing matter then, except this on and on? Death -up yonder on the tundra. Death down there in the surf. Pain wherever -there was life. Pain only to draw the breath. She got hers in great, -clutching gasps that stabbed her. Now they were down near the foam-line. -They were running in the wet sand. The rage of the surf in her ears, the -taste of the brine on her lips. John Galbraith found, and John Galbraith -dying. Everything changing, Louis most of all. The fabric of her world -dissolving before her dazed eyes to the sound of sea-born thunder. - -“You’ve got to make a rush—and not mind a ducking!” It was one of the -sailors shouting. The big fellow in the hip-boots had leaped out of the -plunging boat into the surf. He was hurled headlong, recovered footing, -and, streaming with sea water, buffeted his way out of the foam, while -he roared angrily, “Come on, if yer comin’. Cap’n’s orders, bring ye or -leave ye.” - -“The dog first,” Hildegarde cried out. “No, the lame one.” - -The sailor hesitated, swore, and then, on Cheviot’s word, obeyed. His -late guide panting, breathless, appeared with the other men at his heels, -all but the Esquimaux with letters to send out. Cheviot thrust them in -his pocket. - -“Now, Hildegarde.” - -“Not both of us,” she said, meeting his eye. “Which?” Each looked deep in -that swift instant, neither flinching. - -“If you aren’t coming of your own accord—” he said. - -“What then?” - -He made a sign to the blaspheming sailor. The two lifted her in their -arms and carried her through the surf, just as hours before they had -carried her out. - -“Now, sir,” said the sailor, “in with you.” Cheviot stood with the foam -swirling above his long boot tops. “You want me to stay behind?” he -called. - -“If I could do it myself,” Hildegarde began. - -Without a word he turned his back on her, strode out of the water and up -the stony beach. - - * * * * * - -If, upon his return home, Mr. Mar was surprised at the warmth of his -reception, he was yet more perplexed to find himself never once called -upon to state the value of his Polaris mining interests. - -When he sufficiently recovered from his astonishment at this oversight -on Mrs. Mar’s part, he tried once or twice to introduce the subject -of his claims into the family circle. But his wife firmly changed the -conversation, as one who insists that painful bygones shall be bygones -forever. Mar smiled inwardly, for Cheviot’s report had been glowing, -and for Cheviot to write like that—well, it was, as the sage said, -significant of much. But Cheviot was still “in Alaska, looking after -things,” and Mar kept his own counsel. - -It was plain that these last years had left their mark upon his wife. -He laid the change at first to the disintegrating action of time -upon even that hard, bright surface. He never knew the secret rage -he caused by attributing to the weakness of age what was due to a -hard-won self-mastery, a realized and ripened affection. Only little -by little did he become aware that the alteration, so far from being a -sign of letting-go, was evidence of a fresh taking-hold; a courageous -determination not to shrink from making unpleasant discoveries about -herself merely because she was of an age when most people cease to make -discoveries of any sort. - -Whatever pains her late-won knowledge cost Mrs. Mar, her family, and -especially her old and broken husband, reaped some benefit of that lady’s -ability to go on learning at a time of life when the majority think it -rather noble if they make so much as an effort to teach. - -It is probable that, failing Hildegarde, Mar might never have grasped the -full meaning of the enlightenment that had come to his life’s partner -during these three years of his absence. Upon that first glimpse of him, -as he came limping in at the door, his wife had looked at him with a face -no one who saw could forget. “It’s been hard for you, too,” she said. - -“For me, too?” he echoed, wondering. - -But she had no other word, either then or after—no gift of tender -apology, nor even of explanation. Her task, as she conceived it, was -not to talk about a long past that was irrevocable, but to “show” the -possibility of a brief future that she felt to be still within their -reach. - -For Hildegarde all life had come to a standstill. - -Weeks must go by before Bella, at her old friend’s urgent summons, could -get back from abroad. - -Hildegarde’s soreness of heart, her hopelessness of the greater -gladness for herself, left her the freer to think of it as only half an -achievement—this bringing her father back in the flesh. She must see -his spirit “at home” before her task was ended. No discreet opportunity -was lost to set her mother in an explanatory light. When the neighbors -chorused admiration of the girl’s pluck and resourcefulness on the great -journey, oh-ing and ah-ing, and “How on earth did you manage?”—“It was -never the least difficult,” Hildegarde would interrupt. “When I was at a -loss I always thought how my mother would take hold of the matter, and -when I had imagined her into my perplexity it wasn’t a perplexity any -longer. I saw just what she would do, and I saw it was just right.” - -Only once, with her father alone, did she venture openly to suggest a -corrected judgment of the past. - -They had been talking of Mrs. Locke. Mar, who had failed so signally -in getting a post for himself, had succeeded in getting one for his -daughter’s friend. - -“You _have_ been good about it!” Hildegarde said. “I’m so grateful. So is -she.” - -“So is the firm. She’s a success.” - -“It just shows!” - -“Shows what?” - -“That the reason women aren’t more use in the world is because they don’t -have a chance.” - -“H’m!” said Mr. Mar. - -“No. Not a real chance, father.” - -“Good heaven! They have everything.” - -“No. They don’t have education. I don’t mean out of books. It’s just as -Mrs. Locke says. They stand as little chance of knowing about life as -kings and queens do. They are still a class apart.” - -“Oh, she talks like that—your Mrs. Locke?” said Mar, with an obvious -uneasiness. - -“Not of herself. Of the rest of us—unless”—she smiled—“unless we’ve been -to Nome; or, like mother, to Mecca.” - -“To Mecca?” - -With a face more serious the girl went on: “I’ve only just begun to -notice who among the women I know are the most successful and the most -sensible. They’re the ones that have had the most experience, gone about -most, or”—her voice sunk—“had some great trouble, _known_ about life -somehow by knocking up against it. It looks as if the only way to get -judgment is by having to judge. Men, of course—you’re always practising. -You’re _in_ things. You aren’t an outsider.” - -“Who is an outsider?” - -“Every woman, when she comes out of her own front door. Now”—before he -could answer she hurried on—“now, there’s mother” (she spoke as if she -had only just remembered her). “A clever person like mother—why, if she’d -had ten times as much to do, she’d have done it ten times better. And she -wouldn’t have had time to think about—a—the cracks in the china. Yes, -father, you may depend upon it, it’s the women that haven’t got much in -them that fit best into the small places. Mother’s always been crowded.” - -When Bella came back from England that September, Mar and his daughter -had been already six weeks at home. Although given full credit for having -so happily reconstituted the domestic circle, for Hildegarde herself the -devouring loneliness that had invaded existence showed its first sign of -yielding when Bella’s childish face appeared at the door. None the less -for Bella’s friend a shrinking of the heart as she held close the slight -figure in its smart French gown. What a butterfly to be broken on the -wheel of life! - -“But Louis!” Twenty minutes after her arrival, Bella, as she followed -Hildegarde up-stairs, put the question for the second time. Why had he -stayed behind? - -Hildegarde’s only answer was to hold open the door of her room and, when -the new-comer had passed through, to shut it softly behind them both. -Still in silence she laid down Bella’s hat and gloves, and then came and -stood beside her friend, who sat watching her from the old nook of the -cushioned window-seat. - -“You might have told me something, even in a cable. What happened up -there?” Bella said softly. - -“What happened?” - -“Yes. About Louis.” - -“I came to realize him. There’s nothing like that wonderful north light -for making you see truly.” - -“Well, what did you find he was like when you saw him—like that, in a -north light?” - -“I found that he was—the man I wanted to go through life with.” - -“I’ve been hoping for that,” said Bella quietly. - -“Ah, but I didn’t only find him up there. I lost him, too.” - -Bella leaned forward and took Hildegarde’s hand. Very gently she drew her -down on the cushioned seat. - -Hildegarde had turned her filling eyes away, but she faced her friend for -the moments of that low crying, “Oh, Bella, Bella, when you think what a -miracle it is to find the right one in the maze, how is it that we ever -let the right one go?” - -Bella released the hand she had taken and turned her head, looking out of -the window. - -But Hildegarde’s thrilling voice went on: “I wonder we don’t watch at the -gate of the Beloved from dawn till night, waiting till he comes. I wonder -he doesn’t lie all night at her door, for fear in a dream she may steal -away.” - -“And yet,” said the other, “in broad daylight each lets the other go.” - -“Yes, and with an air of being willing. Of being able to bear their -going. And we can’t bear it!” Her dimmed eyes fell on Bella’s beautiful -face. “At least, I can’t bear it—or—if I do, it will be because you help -me, Butterfly Bella. For you’ve learned how.” - -“Yes, I’ve learned how.” - -Strange, wonderful little Bella. Hildegarde stared at the slight -creature, half-stoic and half-sprite. - -“How was it? Why couldn’t Louis see?” - -“I tried his patience again and again.” - -“You didn’t wait till you got him in a north light for that.” - -“—and he was strong and kind and immovable in his goodness, no matter -what I did or said. And his faithfulness to my father—there aren’t any -words for that. But you remember—Bella, sit close—mother told you about -the hermit.” - -“The hermit?” - -“The strange man they all thought had found the Mother Lode.” - -Step by step, moment by moment, she went through those hours at Polaris, -though there was little need to take Bella farther than the threshold of -the hut. - -She held up two shaking hands, and, “I know! I know!” she whispered. -“Before you open the door, before you knock—I know.” - -“How do you know?” - -“Go on,” said Bella, with an intensity of quietness. And like that to the -end—looking more than ever a spirit, and like a spirit seeming to have no -human heart for breaking, Bella listened with wide, far-looking eyes that -half the time were tearless. - -It was Hildegarde who broke down when she told how at the last, Ky and -she had left him. When her choked voice failed: “Of course, I know the -end,” said Bella, and they held each other fast, sitting there a long -time with no word spoken. - -At last Hildegarde felt the small hands loose their hold. Bella stood up. -And now she was walking up and down the room. At last, as by a chance, -her eyes found Hildegarde, and a great gentleness came into the little -face. She came back to the window and stood close against her friend. - -Hildegarde lifted her head. “You say you know the end, but you don’t -quite. Louis came calling me to hurry,” and she told of those few -minutes on the beach. “I didn’t realize I was ruining my life. I went -on insisting. Yes, Jack Galbraith didn’t die deserted, for I sent him -in his last hour my best chance of happiness. I clung to the side of -the boat and watched Louis cross the beach with Reddy at his heels. Ky -was crouching at the stern with her black muzzle turned to the shore, -howling, howling. The men were angry, the dog was in their way. “She -is hungry,” I said. She had begun to gnaw the glove I had dropped in -the bottom of the boat. Then it suddenly flashed over me! If there was -nothing in the hut to feed a hungry dog, neither was there any food for a -man.” - -Bella hid her face. - -With fresh tears Hildegarde went on, “And Louis wouldn’t know. It hadn’t -occurred to me at all while I was there. I found myself sobbing, and -saying half out loud, ‘Oh, God, oh, God, is _that_ why Jack is dying?’ -The sailors were staring. I leaned over and said to the big Dane, ‘Do -you want to make some money, you and these others? I’ll pay you, pay -you well, if you’ll give me just five minutes more on shore.’ No, no. -They were all of one mind. ‘I’ll pay you ten dollars a minute,’ I said, -and I’d have gone on offering more if they hadn’t turned back for that. -It’s risking life, they said, and they told me how the captain—But they -thought I was distracted at leaving Louis, and that all I wanted was -to get him. They liked Louis. They turned back. Just then the whistle -screamed out from the _Beluga_ very angrily. But they ran the boat in on -a great wave, and I flung out through the surf and ran up on the tundra -calling Louis. He was standing at the door of the hut with the man who’d -shown him the way to the mines. Louis turned round when he heard my -voice, and oh, Bella, the look on his face! ‘So you couldn’t leave it to -me _even to bury him_,’ he said.” She hid her eyes in Bella’s lap. “And -that was the end.” - -There was a long, long silence. At last a hand on Hildegarde’s hair, and -Bella’s voice saying: “For _you_ it wasn’t the end.” - -The other lifted her face. “Yes, for me, too. ‘There’s nothing to be -done,’ Louis repeated that. I was to go back, he said, for my father’s -sake. And I did. I was quite dazed. But for me, too, it was the end.” - -“Where is Louis now?” - -“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since.” - -“Nor heard?” - -“I got a letter to him, but—” - -“Wasn’t there time for an answer?” - -“I got an answer. But there was nothing in the letter.” - -“Nothing?” - -“Nothing, but how they’d buried John Galbraith. Oh, _Bella_!” -Hildegarde’s horror-struck eyes besought forgiveness. - -But Bella spoke with a strange steadiness. “Louis didn’t say any of the -things you wanted him to say?” - -Hildegarde shook her head. “We waited, father and I. We lived on board -first one and then another steamer. And two ships went away without us. -Father was so good, so good. He moved heaven and earth to get another -message to Polaris to say that we were waiting. And Louis never came. -I have hurt him so much he can’t bear even to see me.” They sat in the -silence, crying. - -“Bella.” - -“Yes.” - -“You and I will never let each other go.” - -“No,” said Bella. - -“You and I alone together till the end.” - -“And Ky.” - -“Ky, of course,” Hildegarde amended. “Where is she now?” - -“Down there, in the shade of the redwood. There, don’t you see?” - -Hildegarde shook her head. “Not very well.” She wiped away her tears. -“But that’s how I kept seeing life all the way home. You and the great -discoverer and I.” - -Bella had stood up. “You’re as blind as Ky!” - -“Why do you say that?” Hildegarde asked miserably, with a sudden sense of -desertion. “What do _you_ see, then?” - -“Louis Cheviot coming across the lawn.” - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Come and Find Me, by Elizabeth Robins - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COME AND FIND ME *** - -***** This file should be named 61932-0.txt or 61932-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/1/9/3/61932/ - -Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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