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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Trail of '98, by Robert W. Service,
+Illustrated by Maynard Dixon
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Trail of '98
+       A Northland Romance
+
+
+Author: Robert W. Service
+
+
+
+Release Date: July 13, 2007  [eBook #22063]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRAIL OF '98***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 22063-h.htm or 22063-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/0/6/22063/22063-h/22063-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/0/6/22063/22063-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+THE TRAIL OF '98
+
+A Northland Romance
+
+by
+
+ROBERT W. SERVICE
+
+Author of
+"The Spell of the Yukon" and "Ballads of a Cheechako"
+
+With illustrations by Maynard Dixon
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: We were in a caldron of fire. The roar of doom was in our
+ears (page 143)]
+
+
+New York
+Dodd, Mead and Company
+1911
+
+Copyright, 1910, by
+Dodd, Mead and Company
+
+Entered at Stationers' Hall
+
+The Quinn & Boden Co. Press
+Rahway, N. J.
+
+
+
+
+PRELUDE
+
+The north wind is keening overhead. It minds me of the howl of a
+wolf-dog under the Arctic stars. Sitting alone by the glow of the
+great peat fire I can hear it high up in the braeside firs. It is
+the voice, inexorably scornful, of the Great White Land.
+
+Oh, I hate it, I hate it! Why cannot a man be allowed to forget? It is
+near ten years since I joined the Eager Army. I have travelled: I have
+been a pilgrim to the shrines of beauty; I have pursued the phantom of
+happiness even to the ends of the earth. Still it is always the same--I
+cannot forget.
+
+Why should a man be ever shadowed by the vampire wing of his past? Have
+I not a right to be happy? Money, estate, name, are mine, all that means
+an open sesame to the magic door. Others go in, but I beat against its
+flinty portals with hands that bleed. No! I have no right to be happy.
+The ways of the world are open; the banquet of life is spread; the
+wonder-workers plan their pageants of beauty and joy, and yet there is
+no praise in my heart. I have seen, I have tasted, I have tried. Ashes
+and dust and bitterness are all my gain. I will try no more. It is the
+shadow of the vampire wing.
+
+So I sit in the glow of the great peat fire, tired and sad beyond
+belief. Thank God! at least I am home. Everything is so little changed.
+The fire lights the oak-panelled hall; the crossed claymores gleam; the
+eyes in the mounted deer-heads shine glassily; rugs of fur cover the
+polished floor; all is comfort, home and the haunting atmosphere of my
+boyhood. Sometimes I fancy it has been a dream, the Great White Silence,
+the lure of the gold-spell, the delirium of the struggle; a dream, and I
+will awake to hear Garry calling me to shoot over the moor, to see dear
+little Mother with her meek, sensitive mouth, and her cheeks as
+delicately tinted as the leaves of a briar rose. But no! The hall is
+silent. Mother has gone to her long rest. Garry sleeps under the snow.
+Silence everywhere; I am alone, alone.
+
+So I sit in the big, oak-carved chair of my forefathers, before the
+great peat fire, a peak-faced drooping figure of a man with hair
+untimely grey. My crutch lies on the floor by my side. My old nurse
+comes up quietly to look at the fire. Her rosy, wrinkled face smiles
+cheerfully, but I can see the anxiety in her blue eyes. She is afraid
+for me. Maybe the doctor has told her--_something_.
+
+No doubt my days are numbered, so I am minded to tell of it all: of the
+Big Stampede, of the Treasure Trail, of the Gold-born City; of those who
+followed the gold-lure into the Great White Land, of the evil that
+befell them, of Garry and of Berna. Perhaps it will comfort me to tell
+of these things. To-morrow I will begin; to-night, leave me to my
+memories.
+
+Berna! I spoke of her last. She rises before me now with her spirit-pale
+face and her great troubleful grey eyes, a little tragic figure,
+ineffably pitiful. Where are you now, little one? I have searched the
+world for you. I have scanned a million faces. Day and night have I
+sought, always hoping, always baffled, for, God help me, dear, I love
+you. Among that mad, lusting horde you were so weak, so helpless, yet so
+hungry for love.
+
+With the aid of my crutch I unlatch one of the long windows, and step
+out onto the terrace. From the cavernous dark the snowflakes sting my
+face. Yet as I stand there, once more I have a sense of another land, of
+imperious vastitudes, of a silent empire, unfathomably lonely.
+
+Ghosts! They are all around me. The darkness teems with them, Garry, my
+brother, among them. Then they all fade and give way to one face....
+
+_Berna, I love you always. Out of the night I cry to you, Berna, the cry
+of a broken heart. Is it your little, pitiful ghost that comes down to
+me? Oh, I am waiting, waiting! Here will I wait, Berna, till we meet
+once more. For meet we will, beyond the mists, beyond the dreaming, at
+last, dear love, at last._
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+BOOK I
+The Road to Anywhere      1
+
+BOOK II
+The Trail                49
+
+BOOK III
+The Camp                169
+
+BOOK IV
+The Vortex              321
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+We were in a caldron of fire. The roar of doom was
+in our ears (p. 143)                                   Frontispiece
+
+                                                             FACING
+                                                               PAGE
+
+"No," she said firmly, "you can't see the girl"                 116
+
+Then, as I hung half in, half out of the window,
+he clutched me by the throat                                    316
+
+"Garry," I said, "this is--this is Berna"                       476
+
+
+
+This is the law of the Yukon, and ever she makes it plain:
+"Send not your foolish and feeble; send me your strong and your sane.
+Strong for the red rage of battle; sane, for I harry them sore;
+Send me men girt for the combat, men who are grit to the core;
+Swift as the panther in triumph, fierce as the bear in defeat,
+Sired of a bulldog parent, steeled in the furnace heat.
+Send me the best of your breeding, lend me your chosen ones;
+Them will I take to my bosom, them will I call my sons;
+Them will I gild with my treasure, them will I glut with my meat;
+But the others--the misfits, the failures--I trample under my feet."
+
+                                           --"Songs of a Sourdough."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+THE ROAD TO ANYWHERE
+
+
+Can you recall, dear comrade, when we tramped God's land together,
+    And we sang the old, old Earth-Song, for our youth was very sweet;
+When we drank and fought and lusted, as we mocked at tie and tether,
+    Along the road to Anywhere, the wide world at our feet.
+
+Along the road to Anywhere, when each day had its story;
+    When time was yet our vassal, and life's jest was still unstale;
+When peace unfathomed filled our hearts as, bathed in amber glory,
+    Along the road to Anywhere we watched the sunsets pale.
+
+Alas! the road to Anywhere is pitfalled with disaster;
+    There's hunger, want, and weariness, yet O we loved it so!
+As on we tramped exultantly, and no man was our master,
+    And no man guessed what dreams were ours, as swinging heel and toe,
+We tramped the road to Anywhere, the magic road to Anywhere,
+    The tragic road to Anywhere such dear, dim years ago.
+
+--"Songs of a Sourdough."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+As far back as I can remember I have faithfully followed the banner of
+Romance. It has given colour to my life, made me a dreamer of dreams, a
+player of parts. As a boy, roaming alone the wild heather hills, I have
+heard the glad shouts of the football players on the green, yet never
+ettled to join them. Mine was the richer, rarer joy. Still can I see
+myself in those days, a little shy-mannered lad in kilts, bareheaded to
+the hill breezes, with health-bright cheeks, and a soul happed up in
+dreams.
+
+And, indeed, I lived in an enchanted land, a land of griffins and
+kelpies, of princesses and gleaming knights. From each black tarn I
+looked to see a scaly reptile rise, from every fearsome cave a corby
+emerge. There were green spaces among the heather where the fairies
+danced, and every scaur and linn had its own familiar spirit. I peopled
+the good green wood with the wild creatures of my thought, nymph and
+faun, naiad and dryad, and would have been in nowise surprised to meet
+in the leafy coolness the great god Pan himself.
+
+It was at night, however, that my dreams were most compelling. I strove
+against the tyranny of sleep. Lying in my small bed, I revelled in
+delectable imaginings. Night after night I fought battles, devised
+pageants, partitioned empires. I gloried in details. My rugged
+war-lords were very real to me, and my adventures sounded many periods
+of history. I was a solitary caveman with an axe of stone; I was a Roman
+soldier of fortune; I was a Highland outlaw of the Rebellion. Always I
+fought for a lost cause, and always my sympathies were with the rebel. I
+feasted with Robin Hood on the King's venison; I fared forth with Dick
+Turpin on the gibbet-haunted heath; I followed Morgan, the Buccaneer,
+into strange and exotic lands of trial and treasure. It was a wonderful
+gift of visioning that was mine in those days. It was the bird-like
+flight of the pure child-mind to whom the unreal is yet the real.
+
+Then, suddenly, I arrived at a second phase of my mental growth in which
+fancy usurped the place of imagination. The modern equivalents of
+Romance attracted me, and, with my increasing grasp of reality, my gift
+of vision faded. As I had hitherto dreamed of knight-errants, of
+corsairs and of outlaws, I now dreamed of cowboys, of gold-seekers, of
+beach-combers. Fancy painted scenes in which I, too, should play a
+rousing part. I read avidly all I could find dealing with the Far West,
+and ever my wistful gaze roved over the grey sea. The spirit of Romance
+beaconed to me. I, too, would adventure in the stranger lands, and face
+their perils and brave their dangers. The joy of the thought exulted in
+my veins, and scarce could I bide the day when the roads of chance and
+change would be open to my feet.
+
+It is strange that in all these years I confided in no one. Garry, who
+was my brother and my dearest friend, would have laughed at me in that
+affectionate way of his. You would never have taken us for brothers. We
+were so different in temperament and appearance that we were almost the
+reverse of each other. He was the handsomest boy I have ever seen,
+frank, fair-skinned and winning, while I was dark, dour and none too
+well favoured. He was the best runner and swimmer in the parish, and the
+idol of the village lads. I cared nothing for games, and would be found
+somewhere among the heather hills, always by my lone self, and nearly
+always with a story book in my pocket. He was clever, practical and
+ambitious, excelling in all his studies; whereas, except in those which
+appealed to my imagination, I was a dullard and a dreamer.
+
+Yet we loved each others as few brothers do. Oh, how I admired him! He
+was my ideal, and too often the hero of my romances. Garry would have
+laughed at my hero-worship; he was so matter-of-fact, effective and
+practical. Yet he understood me, my Celtic ideality, and that shy
+reserve which is the armour of a sensitive soul. Garry in his fine
+clever way knew me and shielded me and cheered me. He was so buoyant and
+charming he heartened you like Spring sunshine, and braced you like a
+morning wind on the mountain top. Yes, not excepting Mother, Garry knew
+me better than any one has ever done, and I loved him for it. It seems
+overfond to say this, but he did not have a fault: tenderness, humour,
+enthusiasm, sympathy and the beauty of a young god--all that was
+manfully endearing was expressed in this brother of mine.
+
+So we grew to manhood there in that West Highland country, and surely
+our lives were pure and simple and sweet. I had never been further from
+home than the little market town where we sold our sheep. Mother managed
+the estate till Garry was old enough, when he took hold with a vigour
+and grasp that delighted every one. I think our little Mother stood
+rather in awe of my keen, capable, energetic brother. There was in her a
+certain dreamy, wistful idealism that made her beautiful in my eyes, and
+to look on she was as fair as any picture. Specially do I remember the
+delicate colouring of her face and her eyes, blue like deep
+corn-flowers. She was not overstrong, and took much comfort from
+religion. Her lips, which were fine and sensitive, had a particularly
+sweet expression, and I wish to record of her that never once did I see
+her cross, always sweet, gentle, smiling.
+
+Thus our home was an ideal one; Garry, tall, fair and winsome; myself,
+dark, dreamy, reticent; and between us, linking all three in a perfect
+bond of love and sympathy, our gentle, delicate Mother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+So in serenity and sunshine the days of my youth went past. I still
+maintained my character as a drone and a dreamer. I used my time
+tramping the moorland with a gun, whipping the foamy pools of the burn
+for trout, or reading voraciously in the library. Mostly I read books of
+travel, and especially did I relish the literature of Vagabondia. I had
+come under the spell of Stevenson. His name spelled Romance to me, and
+my fancy etched him in his lonely exile. Forthright I determined I too
+would seek these ultimate islands, and from that moment I was a changed
+being. I nursed the thought with joyous enthusiasm. I would be a
+frontiersman, a trail-breaker, a treasure-seeker. The virgin prairies
+called to me; the susurrus of the giant pines echoed in my heart; but
+most of all, I felt the spell of those gentle islands where care is a
+stranger, and all is sunshine, song and the glowing bloom of eternal
+summer.
+
+About this time Mother must have worried a good deal over my future.
+Garry was now the young Laird, and I was but an idler, a burden on the
+estate. At last I told her I wanted to go abroad, and then it seemed as
+if a great difficulty was solved. We remembered of a cousin who was
+sheep-ranching in the Saskatchewan valley and had done well. It was
+arranged that I should join him as a pupil, then, when I had learned
+enough, buy a place of my own. It may be imagined that while I
+apparently acquiesced in this arrangement, I had already determined that
+as soon as I reached the new land I would take my destiny into my own
+hands.
+
+I will never forget the damp journey to Glasgow and the misty landscape
+viewed through the streaming window pane of a railway carriage. I was in
+a wondrous state of elation. When we reached the great smoky city I was
+lost in amazement not unmixed with fear. Never had I imagined such
+crowds, such houses, such hurry. The three of us, Mother, Garry and I,
+wandered and wondered for three days. Folks gazed at us curiously,
+sometimes admiringly, for our cheeks were bright with Highland health,
+and our eyes candid as the June skies. Garry in particular, tall, fair
+and handsome, seemed to call forth glances of interest wherever he went.
+Then as the hour of my departure drew near a shadow fell on us.
+
+I will not dwell on our leave-taking. If I broke down in unmanly grief,
+it must be remembered I had never before been from home. I was but a
+lad, and these two were all in all to me. Mother gave up trying to be
+brave, and mingled her tears with mine. Garry alone contrived to make
+some show of cheerfulness. Alas! all my elation had gone. In its place
+was a sense of guilt, of desertion, of unconquerable gloom. I had an
+inkling then of the tragedy of motherhood, the tender love that would
+hold yet cannot, the world-call and the ruthless, estranging years, all
+the memories of clinging love given only to be taken away.
+
+"Don't cry, sweetheart Mother," I said; "I'll be back again in three
+years."
+
+"Mind you do, my boy, mind you do."
+
+She looked at me woefully sad, and I had a queer, heartrending prevision
+I would never see her more. Garry was supporting her, and she seemed to
+have suddenly grown very frail. He was pale and quiet, but I could see
+he was vastly moved.
+
+"Athol," said he, "if ever you need me just send for me. I'll come, no
+matter how long or how hard the way."
+
+I can see them to this day standing there in the drenching rain, Garry
+fine and manly, Mother small and drooping. I can see her with her
+delicate rose colour, her eyes like wood violets drowned in tears, her
+tender, sensitive lips quivering with emotion.
+
+"Good-bye, laddie, good-bye."
+
+I forced myself away, and stumbled on board. When I looked back again
+they were gone, but through the grey shadows there seemed to come back
+to me a cry of heartache and irremediable loss.
+
+"Good-bye, good-bye."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+It was on a day of early Autumn when I stood knee-deep in the heather of
+Glengyle, and looked wistfully over the grey sea. 'Twas but a month
+later when, homeless and friendless, I stood on the beach by the Cliff
+House of San Francisco, and gazed over the fretful waters of another
+ocean. Such is the romance of destiny.
+
+Consigned, so to speak, to my cousin the sheep-raiser of the
+Saskatchewan, I found myself setting foot on the strange land with but
+little heart for my new vocation. My mind, cramful of book notions,
+craved for the larger life. I was valiantly mad for adventure; to fare
+forth haphazardly; to come upon naked danger; to feel the bludgeonings
+of mischance; to tramp, to starve, to sleep under the stars. It was the
+callow boy-idea perpetuated in the man, and it was to lead me a sorry
+dance. But I could not overbear it. Strong in me was the spirit of the
+gypsy. The joy of youth and health was brawling in my veins. A few
+thistledown years, said I, would not matter. And there was Stevenson and
+his glamorous islands winning me on.
+
+So it came about I stood solitary on the beach by the seal rocks, with a
+thousand memories confusing in my head. There was the long train ride
+with its strange pictures: the crude farms, the glooming forests, the
+gleaming lakes that would drown my whole country, the aching plains,
+the mountains that rip-sawed the sky, the fear-made-eternal of the
+desert. Lastly, a sudden, sunlit paradise, California.
+
+I had lived through a week of wizardry such as I had never dreamed of,
+and here was I at the very throne of Western empire. And what a place it
+was, and what a people--with the imperious mood of the West softened by
+the spell of the Orient and mellowed by the glamour of Old Spain. San
+Francisco! A score of tongues clamoured in her streets and in her
+byways a score of races lurked austerely. She suckled at her breast the
+children of the old grey nations and gave them of her spirit, that swift
+purposeful spirit so proud of past achievement and so convinced of
+glorious destiny.
+
+I marvelled at the rush of affairs and the zest of amusement. Every one
+seemed to be making money easily and spending it eagerly. Every one was
+happy, sanguine, strenuous. At night Market Street was a dazzling alley
+of light, where stalwart men and handsome women jostled in and out of
+the glittering restaurants. Yet amid this eager, passionate life I felt
+a dreary sense of outsideness. At times my heart fairly ached with
+loneliness, and I wandered the pathways of the park, or sat forlornly in
+Portsmouth Square as remote from it all as a gazer on his mountain top
+beneath the stars.
+
+I became a dreamer of the water front, for the notion of the South Seas
+was ever in my head. I loafed in the sunshine, sitting on the pier-edge,
+with eyes fixed on the lazy shipping. These were care-free,
+irresponsible days, and not, I am now convinced, entirely misspent. I
+came to know the worthies of the wharfside, and plunged into an
+under-world of fascinating repellency. Crimpdom eyed and tempted me, but
+it was always with whales or seals, and never with pearls or copra. I
+rubbed shoulders with eager necessity, scrambled for free lunches in
+frowsy bar-rooms, and amid the scum and débris of the waterside found
+much food for sober thought. Yet at times I blamed myself for thus
+misusing my days, and memories of Glengyle and Mother and Garry loomed
+up with reproachful vividness.
+
+I was, too, a seeker of curious experience, and this was to prove my
+undoing. The night-side of the city was unveiled to me. With the
+assurance of innocence I wandered everywhere. I penetrated the warrens
+of underground Chinatown, wondering why white women lived there, and why
+they hid at sight of me. Alone I poked my way into the opium joints and
+the gambling dens. Vice, amazingly unabashed, flaunted itself in my
+face. I wondered what my grim, Covenanting ancestors would have made of
+it all. I never thought to have seen the like, and in my inexperience it
+was like a shock to me.
+
+My nocturnal explorations came to a sudden end. One foggy midnight,
+coming up Pacific Street with its glut of saloons, I was clouted
+shrewdly from behind and dropped most neatly in the gutter. When I came
+to, very sick and dizzy in a side alley, I found I had been robbed of my
+pocketbook with nearly all my money therein. Fortunately I had left my
+watch in the hotel safe, and by selling it was not entirely destitute;
+but the situation forced me from my citadel of pleasant dreams, and
+confronted me with the grimmer realities of life.
+
+I became a habitué of the ten-cent restaurant. I was amazed to find how
+excellent a meal I could have for ten cents. Oh for the uncaptious
+appetite of these haphazard days! With some thirty-odd dollars standing
+between me and starvation, it was obvious I must become a hewer of wood
+and a drawer of water, and to this end I haunted the employment offices.
+They were bare, sordid rooms, crowded by men who chewed, swapped
+stories, yawned and studied the blackboards where the day's wants were
+set forth. Only driven to labour by dire necessity, their lives, I
+found, held three phases--looking for work, working, spending the
+proceeds. They were the Great Unskilled, face to face with the necessary
+evil of toil.
+
+One morning, on seeking my favourite labour bureau, I found an unusual
+flutter among the bench-warmers. A big contractor wanted fifty men
+immediately. No experience was required, and the wages were to be two
+dollars a day. With a number of others I pressed forward, was
+interviewed and accepted. The same day we were marched in a body to the
+railway depot and herded into a fourth-class car.
+
+Where we were going I knew not; of what we were going to do I had no
+inkling. I only knew we were southbound, and at long last I might fairly
+consider myself to be the shuttlecock of fortune.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+I left San Francisco blanketed in grey fog and besomed by a roaring
+wind; when I opened my eyes I was in a land of spacious sky and broad,
+clean sunshine. Orange groves rushed to welcome us; orchards of almond
+and olive twinkled joyfully in the limpid air; tall, gaunt and ragged,
+the scaly eucalyptus fluttered at us a morning greeting, while snowy
+houses, wallowing in greenery, flashed a smile as we rumbled past. It
+seemed like a land of promise, of song and sunshine, and silent and
+apart I sat to admire and to enjoy.
+
+"Looks pretty swell, don't it?"
+
+I will call him the Prodigal. He was about my own age, thin, but
+sun-browned and healthy. His hair was darkly red and silky, his teeth
+white and even as young corn. His eyes twinkled with a humorsome light,
+but his face was shrewd, alert and aggressive.
+
+"Yes," I said soberly, for I have always been backward with strangers.
+
+"Pretty good line. The banana belt. Old Sol working overtime. Blossom
+and fruit cavorting on the same tree. Eternal summer. Land of the
+_mañana_, the festive frijole, the never-chilly chili. Ever been here
+before?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Neither have I. Glad I came, even if it's to do the horny-handed son
+of toil stunt. Got the makings?"
+
+"No, I'm sorry; I don't smoke."
+
+"All right, guess I got enough."
+
+He pulled forth a limp sack of powdery tobacco, and spilled some grains
+into a brown cigarette paper, twisting it deftly and bending over the
+ends. Then he smoked with such enjoyment that I envied him.
+
+"Where are we going, have you any idea?" I asked.
+
+"Search me," he said, inhaling deeply; "the guy in charge isn't exactly
+a free information bureau. When it comes to peddling the bull con he's
+there, but when you try to pry off a few slabs of cold hard fact it's
+his Sunday off."
+
+"But," I persisted, "have you no idea?"
+
+"Well, one thing you can bank on, they'll work the Judas out of us. The
+gentle grafter nestles in our midst. This here's a cinch game and we are
+the fall guys. The contractors are a bum outfit. They'll squeeze us at
+every turn. There was two plunks to the employment man; they got half.
+Twenty for railway fare; they come in on that. Stop at certain hotels: a
+rake-off there. Stage fare: more graft. Five dollars a week for board:
+costs them two-fifty, and they will be stomach robbers at that. Then
+they'll ring in twice as many men as they need, and lay us off half the
+time, so that we just about even up on our board bill. Oh, I'm onto
+their curves all right."
+
+"Then," I said, "if you know so much why did you come with us?"
+
+"Well, if I know so much you just bet I know some more. I'll go one
+better. You watch my smoke."
+
+He talked on with a wonderful vivid manner and an outpouring knowledge
+of life, so that I was hugely interested. Yet ever and anon an allusion
+of taste would betray him, and at no time did I fail to see that his
+roughness was only a veneer. As it turned out he was better educated by
+far than I, a Yale boy taking a post-graduate course in the University
+of Hard Luck.
+
+My reserve once thawed, I told him much of my simple life. He listened,
+intently sympathetic.
+
+"Say," said he earnestly when I had finished, "I'm rough-and-ready in my
+ways. Life to me's a game, sort of masquerade, and I'm the worst
+masquerader in the bunch. But I know how to handle myself, and I can
+jolly my way along pretty well. Now, you're green, if you'll excuse me
+saying it, and maybe I can help you some. Likewise you're the only one
+in all the gang of hoboes that's my kind. Come on, let's be partners."
+
+I felt greatly drawn to him and agreed gladly.
+
+"Now," said he, "I must go and jolly along the other boys. Aren't they a
+fierce bunch? Coloured gentlemen, Slavonians, Polaks, Dagoes,
+Swedes--well, I'll go prospecting, and see what I can strike."
+
+He went among them with a jabber of strange terms, a bright smile and
+ready banter, and I could see that he was to be a quick favourite. I
+envied him for his ease of manner, a thing I could never compass.
+Presently he returned to me.
+
+"Say, partner, got any money?"
+
+There was something frank and compelling in his manner, so that I
+produced the few dollars I had left, and spread them before him.
+
+"That's all my wealth," I said smilingly.
+
+He divided it into two equal portions and returned one to me. He took a
+note of the other, saying:
+
+"All right, I'll settle up with you later on."
+
+He went off with my money. He seemed to take it for granted I would not
+object, and on my part I cared little, being only too eager to show I
+trusted him. A few minutes later behold him seated at a card-table with
+three rough-necked, hard-bitten-looking men. They were playing poker,
+and, thinks I: "Here's good-bye to my money." It minded me of wolves and
+a lamb. I felt sorry for my new friend, and I was only glad he had so
+little to lose.
+
+We were drawing in to Los Angeles when he rejoined me. To my surprise he
+emptied his pockets of wrinkled notes and winking silver to the tune of
+twenty dollars, and dividing it equally, handed half to me.
+
+"Here," says he, "plant that in your dip."
+
+"No," I said, "just give me back what you borrowed; that's all I want."
+
+"Oh, forget it! You staked me, and it's well won. These guinneys took me
+for a jay. Thought I was easy, but I've forgotten more than they ever
+knew, and I haven't forgotten so much either."
+
+"No, you keep it, please. I don't want it."
+
+"Oh, come! put your Scotch scruples in your pocket. Take the money."
+
+"No," I said obstinately.
+
+"Look here, this partnership of ours is based on financial equality. If
+you don't like my gate, you don't need to swing on it."
+
+"All right," said I tartly, "I don't want to."
+
+Then I turned on my heel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+On either side of us were swift hills mottled with green and gold, ahead
+a curdle of snow-capped mountains, above a sky of robin's-egg blue. The
+morning was lyric and set our hearts piping as we climbed the canyon. We
+breathed deeply of the heady air, exclaimed at sight of a big bee ranch,
+shouted as a mule team with jingling bells came swinging down the trail.
+With cries of delight we forded the little crystal stream wherever the
+trail plunged knee-deep through it. Higher and higher we climbed, mile
+after mile, our packs on our shoulders, our hearts very merry. I was as
+happy as a holiday schoolboy, willing this should go on for ever,
+dreading to think of the grim-visaged toil that awaited us.
+
+About midday we reached the end. Gangs of men were everywhere, ripping
+and tearing at the mountain side. There was a roar of blasting, and
+rocks hurtled down on us. Bunkhouses of raw lumber sweated in the sun.
+Everywhere was the feverish activity of a construction camp.
+
+We were assigned to a particular bunkhouse, and there was a great rush
+for places. It was floorless, doorless and in part roofless. Above the
+medley of voices I heard that of the Prodigal:
+
+"Say, fellows, let's find the softest side of this board! Strikes me the
+Company's mighty considerate. All kinds of ventilation. Good chance to
+study astronomy. Wonder if I couldn't borrow a mattress somewhere? Ha!
+Good eye! Watch me, fellows!"
+
+We saw him make for a tent nearby where horses were stabled. He
+reconnoitred carefully, then darted inside to come out in a twinkling,
+staggering under a bale of hay.
+
+"How's that for rustling? I guess I'm slow--hey, what? Guess this is
+poor!"
+
+He was wadding his bunk with the hay, while the others looked on rather
+enviously. Then, as a bell rang, he left off.
+
+"Hash is ready, boys; last call to the dining-car. Come on and see the
+pigs get their heads in the trough."
+
+We hurried to the cookhouse, where a tin plate, a tin cup, a tin spoon
+and a cast-iron knife was laid for each of us at a table of unplaned
+boards. A great mess of hash was ready, and excepting myself every one
+ate voraciously. I found something more to my taste, a can of honey and
+some soda crackers, on which I supped gratefully.
+
+When I returned to the bunkhouse I found my bunk had been stuffed with
+nice soft hay, and my blankets spread on top. I looked over to the
+Prodigal. He was reading, a limp cigarette between his yellow-stained
+fingers. I went up to him.
+
+"It's very good of you to do this," I said.
+
+"Oh no! Not at all. Don't mention it," he answered with much
+politeness, never raising his eyes from the book.
+
+"Well," I said, "I've just got to thank you. And look here, let's make
+it up. Don't let the business of that wretched money come between us.
+Can't we be friends anyway?"
+
+He sprang up and gripped my hand.
+
+"Sure! nothing I want more. I'm sorry. Another time I'll make allowance
+for that shorter-catechism conscience of yours. Now let's go over to
+that big fire they've made and chew the rag."
+
+So we sat by the crackling blaze of mesquite, sagebrush and live-oak
+limbs, while over us twinkled the friendly stars, and he told me many a
+strange story of his roving life.
+
+"You know, the old man's all broke up at me playing the fool like this.
+He's got a glue factory back in Massachusetts. Guess he stacks up about
+a million or so. Wanted me to go into the glue factory, begin at the
+bottom, stay with it. 'Stick to glue, my boy,' he says; 'become the Glue
+King,' and so on. But not with little Willie. Life's too interesting a
+proposition to be turned down like that. I'm not repentant. I know the
+fatted calf's waiting for me, getting fatter every day. One of these
+days I'll go back and sample it."
+
+It was he I first heard talk of the Great White Land, and it stirred me
+strangely.
+
+"Every one's crazy about it. They're rushing now in thousands, to get
+there before the winter begins. Next spring there will be the biggest
+stampede the world has ever seen. Say, Scotty, I've the greatest notion
+to try it. Let's go, you and I. I had a partner once, who'd been up
+there. It's a big, dark, grim land, but there's the gold, shining,
+shining, and it's calling us to go. Somehow it haunts me, that soft,
+gleamy, virgin gold there in the solitary rivers with not a soul to pick
+it up. I don't care one rip for the value of it. I can make all I want
+out of glue. But the adventure, the excitement, it's that that makes me
+fit for the foolish house."
+
+He was silent a long time while my imagination conjured up terrible,
+fascinating pictures of the vast, unawakened land, and a longing came
+over me to dare its shadows.
+
+As we said good-night, his last words were:
+
+"Remember, Scotty, we're both going to join the Big Stampede, you and
+I."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+I slept but fitfully, for the night air was nipping, and the bunkhouse
+nigh as open as a cage. A bonny morning it was, and the sun warmed me
+nicely, so that over breakfast I was in a cheerful humour. Afterwards I
+watched the gang labouring, and showed such an injudicious interest that
+that afternoon I too was put to work.
+
+It was very simple. Running into the mountain there was a tunnel, which
+they were lining with concrete, and it was the task of I and another to
+push cars of the stuff from the outlet to the scene of operations. My
+partner was a Swede who had toiled from boyhood, while I had never done
+a day's work in my life. It was as much as I could do to lift the loaded
+boxes into the car. Then we left the sunshine behind us, and for a
+quarter of a mile of darkness we strained in an uphill effort.
+
+From the roof, which we stooped to avoid, sheets of water descended.
+Every now and then the heavy cars would run off the rails, which were of
+scantling, worn and frayed by friction. Then my Swede would storm in
+Berserker rage, and we would lift till the veins throbbed in my head.
+Never had time seemed so long. A convict working in the salt mines of
+Siberia did not revolt more against his task than I. The sweat blinded
+me; a bright steel pain throbbed in my head; my heart seemed to hammer.
+Never so thankful was I as when we had made our last trip, and sick and
+dizzy I put on my coat to go home.
+
+It was dark. There was a cable line running from the tunnel to the camp,
+and down this we shot in buckets two at a clip. The descent gave me a
+creepy sensation, but it saved a ten minutes' climb down the mountain
+side, and I was grateful.
+
+Tired, wet and dirty, how I envied the Prodigal lying warm and cosy on
+his fragrant hay. He was reading a novel. But the thought that I had
+earned a dollar comforted me. After supper he, with Ginger and Dutchy,
+played solo till near midnight, while I tossed on my bunk too weary and
+sore to sleep.
+
+Next day was a repetition of the first, only worse. I ached as if I had
+been beaten. Stiff and sore I dragged myself to the tunnel again. I
+lifted, strained, tugged and shoved with a set and tragic face. Five
+hours of hell passed. It was noon. I nursed my strength for the after
+effort. Angrily I talked to myself, and once more I pulled through.
+Weary and slimy with wet mud, I shot down the cable line. Snugly settled
+in his bunk, the Prodigal had read another two hundred pages of "Les
+Misérables." Yet--I reflected somewhat sadly--I had made two dollars.
+
+On the third day sheer obstinacy forced me to the tunnel. My
+self-respect goaded me on. I would not give in. I must hold this job
+down, I _must_, I MUST. Then at the noon hour I fainted.
+
+No one saw me, so I gritted my teeth and once more threw my weight
+against the cars. Once more night found me waiting to descend in the
+bucket. Then as I stood there was a crash and shouts from below. The
+cable had snapped. My Swede and another lay among the rocks with sorely
+broken bones. Poor beggars! how they must have suffered jolting down
+that boulder-strewn trail to the hospital.
+
+Somehow that destroyed my nerve. I blamed myself indeed. I flogged
+myself with reproaches, but it was of no avail. I would sooner beg my
+bread than face that tunnel once again. The world seemed to be divided
+into two parts, the rest of it and that tunnel. Thank God, I didn't
+_have_ to go into it again. I was exultantly happy that I didn't. The
+Prodigal had finished his book, and was starting another. That night he
+borrowed some of my money to play solo with.
+
+Next day I saw the foreman. I said:
+
+"I want to go. The work up there's too hard for me."
+
+He looked at me kindly.
+
+"All right, sonny," says he, "don't quit. I'll put you in the gravel
+pit."
+
+So next day I found a more congenial task. There were four of us. We
+threw the gravel against a screen where the finer stuff that sifted
+through was used in making concrete.
+
+The work was heart-breaking in its monotony. In the biting cold of the
+morning we made a start, long before the sun peeped above the wall of
+mountain.
+
+We watched it crawl, snail-like, over the virgin sky. We panted in its
+heat. We saw it drop again behind the mountain wall, leaving the sky
+gorgeously barred with colour from a tawny orange glow to an ice-pale
+green--a regular _pousse café_ of a sunset. Then when the cold and the
+dark surged back, by the light of the evening star we straightened our
+weary spines, and throwing aside pick and shovel hurried to supper.
+
+Heigh-ho! what a life it was. Resting, eating, sleeping; negative
+pleasures became positive ones. Life's great principle of compensation
+worked on our behalf, and to lie at ease, reading an old paper, seemed
+an exquisite enjoyment.
+
+I was much troubled about the Prodigal. He complained of muscular
+rheumatism, and except to crawl to meals was unable to leave his bunk.
+Every day came the foreman to inquire anxiously if he was fit to go to
+work, but steadily he grew worse. Yet he bore his suffering with great
+spirit, and, among that nondescript crew, he was a thing of joy and
+brightness, a link with that other world which was mine own. They
+nicknamed him "Happy," his cheerfulness was so invincible. He played
+cards on every chance, and he must have been unlucky, for he borrowed
+the last of my small hoard.
+
+One morning I woke about six, and found, pinned to my blanket, a note
+from my friend.
+
+     "Dear Scotty:
+
+     "I grieve to leave you thus, but the cruel foreman insists on me
+     working off my ten days' board. Racked with pain as I am, there
+     appears to be no alternative but flight. Accordingly I fade away
+     once more into the unknown. Will write you general delivery, Los
+     Angeles. Good luck and good-bye. Yours to a cinder,
+
+                                                             "Happy."
+
+There was a hue and cry after him, but he was gone, and a sudden disgust
+for the place came over me. For two more days I worked, crushed by a
+gloom that momently intensified. Clamant and imperative in me was the
+voice of change. I could not become toil-broken, so I saw the foreman.
+
+"Why do you want to go?" he asked reproachfully.
+
+"Well, sir, the work's too monotonous."
+
+"Monotonous! Well, that's the rummest reason I ever heard a man give for
+quitting. But every man knows his own business best. I'll give you a
+time-cheque."
+
+While he was making it out I wondered if, indeed, I did know my own
+business best; but if it had been the greatest folly in the world, I was
+bound to get out of that canyon.
+
+Treasuring the slip of paper representing my labour, I sought one of the
+bosses, a sour, stiff man of dyspeptic tendencies. With a smile of
+malicious sweetness he returned it to me.
+
+"All right, take it to our Oakland office, and you'll get the cash."
+
+Expectantly I had been standing there, thinking to receive my money, the
+first I had ever earned (and to me so distressfully earned, at that).
+Now I gazed at him very sick at heart: for was not Oakland several
+hundred miles away, and I was penniless.
+
+"Couldn't you cash it here?" I faltered at last.
+
+"No!" (very sourly).
+
+"Couldn't you discount it, then?"
+
+"No!" (still more tartly).
+
+I turned away, crestfallen and smarting. When I told the other boys they
+were indignant, and a good deal alarmed on their own account. I made my
+case against the Company as damning as I could, then, slinging my
+blankets on my back, set off once more down the canyon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+I was gaining in experience, and as I hurried down the canyon and the
+morning burgeoned like a rose, my spirits mounted invincibly. It was the
+joy of the open road and the care-free heart. Like some hideous
+nightmare was the memory of the tunnel and the gravel pit. The bright
+blood in me rejoiced; my muscles tensed with pride in their toughness; I
+gazed insolently at the world.
+
+So, as I made speed to get the sooner to the orange groves, I almost set
+heel on a large blue envelope which lay face up on the trail. I examined
+it and, finding it contained plans and specifications of the work we had
+been at, I put it in my pocket.
+
+Presently came a rider, who reined up by me.
+
+"Say, young man, you haven't seen a blue envelope, have you?"
+
+Something in the man's manner aroused in me instant resentment. I was
+the toiler in mud-stiffened overalls, he arrogant and supercilious in
+broadcloth and linen.
+
+"No," I said sourly, and, going on my way, heard him clattering up the
+canyon.
+
+It was about evening when I came onto a fine large plain. Behind me was
+the canyon, gloomy like the lair of some evil beast, while before me the
+sun was setting, and made the valley like a sea of golden glaze. I
+stood, knight-errant-wise, on the verge of one of those enchanted lands
+of precious memory, seeking the princess of my dreams; but all I saw was
+a man coming up the trail. He was reeling homeward, with under one arm a
+live turkey, and swinging from the other a demijohn of claret.
+
+He would have me drink. He represented the Christmas spirit, and his
+accent was Scotch, so I up-tilted his demijohn gladly enough. Then, for
+he was very merry, he would have it that we sing "Auld Lang Syne." So
+there, on the heath, in the golden dance of the light, we linked our
+hands and lifted our voices like two daft folk. Yet, for that it was
+Christmas Eve, it seemed not to be so mad after all.
+
+There was my first orange grove. I ran to it eagerly, and pulled four of
+the largest fruit I could see. They were green-like of rind and bitter
+sour, but I heeded not, eating the last before I was satisfied. Then I
+went on my way.
+
+As I entered the town my spirits fell. I remembered I was quite without
+money and had not yet learned to be gracefully penniless. However, I
+bethought me of the time-cheque, and entering a saloon asked the
+proprietor if he would cash it. He was a German of jovial face that
+seemed to say: "Welcome, my friend," and cold, beady eyes that queried:
+"How much can I get of your wad?" It was his eyes I noticed.
+
+"No, I don'd touch dot. I haf before been schvindled. Himmel, no! You
+take him avay."
+
+I sank into a chair. Catching a glimpse of my face in a bar mirror, I
+wondered if that hollow-cheeked, weary-looking lad was I. The place was
+crowded with revellers of the Christmastide, and geese were being diced
+for. There were three that pattered over the floor, while in the corner
+the stage-driver and a red-haired man were playing freeze-out for one of
+them.
+
+I drowsed quietly. Wafts of bar-front conversation came to me. "Envelope
+... lost plans ... great delay." Suddenly I sat up, remembering the
+package I had found.
+
+"Were you looking for some lost plans?" I asked.
+
+"Yes," said one man eagerly, "did you find them?"
+
+"I didn't say I did, but if I could get them for you, would you cash
+this time-cheque for me?"
+
+"Sure," he says, "one good turn deserves another. Deliver the goods and
+I'll cash your time-cheque."
+
+His face was frank and jovial. I drew out the envelope and handed it
+over. He hurriedly ran through the contents and saw that all were there.
+
+"Ha! That saves a trip to 'Frisco," he said, gay with relief.
+
+He turned to the bar and ordered a round of drinks. They all had a drink
+on him, while he seemed to forget about me. I waited a little, then
+pressed forward with my time-cheque.
+
+"Oh that," said he, "I won't cash that. I was only joshing."
+
+A feeling of bitter anger welled up within me. I trembled like a leaf.
+
+"You won't go back on your word?" I said.
+
+He became flustered.
+
+"Well, I can't do it anyway. I've got no loose cash."
+
+What I would have said or done I know not, for I was nigh desperate; but
+at this moment the stage-driver, flushed with his victory at freeze-out,
+snatched the paper from my hand.
+
+"Here, I'll discount that for you. I'll only give you five dollars for
+it, though."
+
+It called for fourteen, but by this time I was so discouraged I gladly
+accepted the five-dollar goldpiece he held out to tempt me.
+
+Thus were my fortunes restored. It was near midnight and I asked the
+German for a room. He replied that he was full up, but as I had my
+blankets there was a nice dry shed at the back. Alas! it was also used
+by his chickens. They roosted just over my head, and I lay on the filthy
+floor at the mercy of innumerable fleas. To complete my misery the green
+oranges I had eaten gave me agonizing cramps. Glad, indeed, was I when
+day dawned, and once more I got afoot, with my face turned towards Los
+Angeles.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Los Angeles will always be written in golden letters in the archives of
+my memory. Crawling, sore and sullen, from the clutch of toil, I
+revelled in a lotus life of ease and idleness. There was infinite
+sunshine, and the quiet of a public library through whose open windows
+came the fragrance of magnolias. Living was incredibly cheap. For
+seventy-five cents a week I had a little sunlit attic, and for ten cents
+I could dine abundantly. There was soup, fish, meat, vegetables, salad,
+pudding and a bottle of wine. So reading, dreaming and roaming the
+streets, I spent my days in a state of beatitude.
+
+But even five dollars will not last for ever, and the time came when
+once more the grim face of toil confronted me. I must own that I had now
+little stomach for hard labour, yet I made several efforts to obtain it.
+However, I had a bad manner, being both proud and shy, and one rebuff in
+a day always was enough. I lacked that self-confidence that readily
+finds employment, and again I found myself mixing with the spineless
+residuum of the employment bureau.
+
+At last the morning came when twenty-five cents was all that remained to
+me in the world. I had just been seeking a position as a dish-washer,
+and had been rather sourly rejected. Sitting solitary on the bench in
+that dreary place, I soliloquized:
+
+"And so it has come to this, that I, Athol Meldrum, of gentle birth and
+Highland breeding, must sue in vain to understudy a scullion in a
+third-rate hash joint. I am, indeed, fallen. What mad folly is this that
+sets me lower than a menial? Here I might be snug in the Northwest
+raising my own fat sheep. A letter home would bring me instant help. Yet
+what would it mean? To own defeat; to lose my self-esteem; to call
+myself a failure. No, I won't. Come what may, I will play the game."
+
+At that moment the clerk wrote:--
+
+                  "Man Wanted to Carry Banner."
+
+"How much do you want for that job?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, two bits will hold you," he said carelessly.
+
+"Any experience required?" I asked again.
+
+"No, I guess even you'll do for that," he answered cuttingly.
+
+So I parted with my last quarter and was sent to a Sheeny store in
+Broadway. Here I was given a vociferous banner announcing:
+
+"Great retiring sale," and so forth.
+
+With this hoisted I sallied forth, at first very conscious and not a
+little ashamed. Yet by and by this feeling wore off, and I wandered up
+and down with no sense of my employment, which, after all, was one
+adapted to philosophic thought. I might have gone through the day in
+this blissful coma of indifference had not a casual glance at my banner
+thrilled me with horror. There it was in hideous, naked letters of red:
+
+                         "Retireing Sale."
+
+I reeled under the shock. I did not mind packing a banner, but a
+misspelt one....
+
+I hurried back to the store, resolved to throw up my position. Luckily
+the day was well advanced, and as I had served my purpose I was given a
+silver dollar.
+
+On this dollar I lived for a month. Not every one has done that, yet it
+is easy to do. This is how I managed.
+
+In the first place I told the old lady who rented me my room that I
+could not pay her until I got work, and I gave her my blankets as
+security. There remained only the problem of food. This I solved by
+buying every day or so five cents' worth of stale bread, which I ate in
+my room, washing it down with pure spring water. A little imagination
+and lo! my bread was beef, my water wine. Thus breakfast and dinner. For
+supper there was the Pacific Gospel Hall, where we gathered nightly one
+hundred strong, bawled hymns, listened to sundry good people and
+presently were given mugs of coffee and chunks of bread. How good the
+fragrant coffee tasted and how sweet the fresh bread!
+
+At the end of the third week I got work as an orange-picker. It was a
+matter of swinging long ladders into fruit-flaunting trees, of sunshiny
+days and fluttering leaves, of golden branches plundered, and boxes
+filled from sagging sacks. There is no more ideal occupation. I revelled
+in it. The others were Mexicans; I was "El Gringo." But on an average I
+only made fifty cents a day. On one day, when the fruit was unusually
+large, I made seventy cents.
+
+Possibly I would have gone on, contentedly enough, perched on a ladder,
+high up in the sunlit sway of treetops, had not the work come to an end.
+I had been something of a financier on a picayune scale, and when I
+counted my savings and found that I had four hundred and ninety-five
+cents, such a feeling of affluence came over me that I resolved to
+gratify my taste for travel. Accordingly I purchased a ticket for San
+Diego, and once more found myself southward bound.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+A few days in San Diego reduced my small capital to the vanishing point,
+yet it was with a light heart I turned north again and took the All-Tie
+route for Los Angeles. If one of the alluring conditions of a walking
+tour is not to be overburdened with cash surely I fulfilled it, for I
+was absolutely penniless. The Lord looks after his children, said I, and
+when I became too inexorably hungry I asked for bread, emphasising my
+willingness to do a stunt on the woodpile. Perhaps it was because I was
+young and notably a novice in vagrancy, but people were very good to me.
+
+The railway track skirts the ocean side for many a sonorous league. The
+mile-long waves roll in majestically, as straight as if drawn with a
+ruler, and crash in thunder on the sandy beach. There were glorious
+sunsets and weird storms, with underhanded lightning stabs at the sky. I
+built little huts of discarded railway ties, and lit camp-fires, for I
+was fearful of the crawling things I saw by day. The coyote called from
+the hills. Uneasy rustlings came from the sagebrush. My teeth,
+a-chatter with cold, kept me awake, till I cinched a handkerchief around
+my chin. Yet, drenched with night-dews, half-starved and travel-worn, I
+seemed to grow every day stronger and more fit. Between bondage and
+vagabondage I did not hesitate to choose.
+
+Leaving the sea, I came to a country of grass and she-oaks very pretty
+to see, like an English park. I passed horrible tulé swamps, and reached
+a cattle land with corrals and solitary cowboys. There was a quaint old
+Spanish Mission that lingers in my memory, then once again I came into
+the land of the orange-groves and the irrigating ditch. Here I fell in
+with two of the hobo fraternity, and we walked many miles together. One
+night we slept in a refrigerator car, where I felt as if icicles were
+forming on my spine. But walking was not much in their line, so next
+morning they jumped a train and we separated. I was very thankful, as
+they did not look over-clean, and I had a wholesome horror of
+"seam-squirrels."
+
+On arriving in Los Angeles I went to the Post Office. There was a letter
+from the Prodigal dated New York, and inclosing fourteen dollars, the
+amount he owed me. He said:
+
+     "I returned to the paternal roof, weary of my rôle. The fatted calf
+     awaited me. Nevertheless, I am sick again for the unhallowed
+     swine-husks. Meet me in 'Frisco about the end of February, and I
+     will a glorious proposition unfold. Don't fail. I must have a
+     partner and I want you. Look for a letter in the General Delivery."
+
+There was no time to lose, as February was nearly over. I took a
+steerage passage to San Francisco, resolving that I would mend my
+fortunes. It is so easy to drift. I was already in the social slough, a
+hobo and an outcast. I saw that as long as I remained friendless and
+unknown nothing but degraded toil was open to me. Surely I could climb
+up, but was it worth while? A snug farm in the Northwest awaited me. I
+would work my way back there, and arrive decently clad. Then none would
+know of my humiliation. I had been wayward and foolish, but I had
+learned something.
+
+The men who toiled, endured and suffered were kind and helpful, their
+masters mean and rapacious. Everywhere was the same sordid grasping for
+the dollar. With my ideals and training nothing but discouragement and
+defeat would be my portion. Oh, it is so easy to drift!
+
+I was sick of the whole business.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+What with steamer fare and a few small debts to settle, I found when I
+landed in San Francisco that once more I was flatly broke. I was
+arrestively seedy, literally on my uppers, for owing to my long tramp my
+boots were barely holding together. There was no letter for me, and
+perhaps it was on account of my disappointment, perhaps on account of my
+extreme shabbiness, but I found I had quite lost heart. Looking as I
+did, I would not ask any one for work. So I tightened my belt and sat in
+Portsmouth Square, cursing myself for the many nickels I had squandered
+in riotous living.
+
+Two days later I was still drawing in my belt. All I had eaten was one
+meal, which I had earned by peeling half a sack of potatoes for a
+restaurant. I slept beneath the floor of an empty house out the Presidio
+way.
+
+On this day I was drowsing on my bench when some one addressed me.
+
+"Say, young fellow, you look pretty well used up."
+
+I saw an elderly, grey-haired man.
+
+"Oh no!" I said, "I'm not. That's just my acting. I'm a millionaire in
+disguise, studying sociology."
+
+He came and sat by me.
+
+"Come, buck up, kid, you're pretty near down and out. I've been
+studyin' you them two days."
+
+"Two days," I echoed drearily. "It seems like two years." Then, with
+sudden fierceness:
+
+"Sir, I am a stranger to you. Never in my life before have I tried to
+borrow money. It is asking a great deal of you to trust me, but it will
+be a most Christian act. I am starving. If you have ten cents that isn't
+working lend it to me for the love of God. I'll pay you back if it takes
+me ten years."
+
+"All right, son," he said cheerfully; "let's go and feed."
+
+He took me to a restaurant where he ordered a dinner that made my head
+swim. I felt near to fainting, but after I had had some brandy, I was
+able to go on with the business of eating. By the time I got to the
+coffee I was as much excited by the food as if I had been drinking wine.
+I now took an opportunity to regard my benefactor.
+
+He was rather under medium height, but so square and solid you felt he
+was a man to be reckoned with. His skin was as brown as an Indian's, his
+eyes light-blue and brightly cheerful, as from some inner light. His
+mouth was firm and his chin resolute. Altogether his face was a curious
+blend of benevolence and ruthless determination.
+
+Now he was regarding me in a manner entirely benevolent.
+
+"Feel better, son? Well, go ahead an' tell me as much of your story as
+you want to."
+
+I gave an account of all that had happened to me since I had set foot
+on the new land.
+
+"Huh!" he ejaculated when I had finished. "That's the worst of your
+old-country boys. You haven't got the get-up an' nerve to rustle a job.
+You go to a boss an' tell him: 'You've no experience, but you'll do your
+best.' An American boy says: 'I can do anything. Give me the job an'
+I'll just show you.' Who's goin' to be hired? Well, I think I can get
+you a job helpin' a gardener out Alameda way."
+
+I expressed my gratitude.
+
+"That's all right," he said; "I'm glad by the grace of God I've been the
+means of givin' you a hand-up. Better come to my room an' stop with me
+till somethin' turns up. I'm goin' North in three days."
+
+I asked if he was going to the Yukon.
+
+"Yes, I'm goin' to join this crazy rush to the Klondike. I've been
+minin' for twenty years, Arizona, Colorado, all over, an' now I am
+a-goin' to see if the North hasn't got a stake for me."
+
+Up in his room he told me of his life.
+
+"I'm saved by the grace of God, but I've been a Bad Man. I've been
+everything from a city marshal to boss gambler. I have gone heeled for
+two years, thinking to get my pass to Hell at any moment."
+
+"Ever killed any one?" I queried.
+
+He was beginning to pace up and down the room.
+
+"Glory to God, I haven't, but I've shot.... There was a time when I
+could draw a gun an' drive a nail in the wall. I was quick, but there
+was lots that could give me cards and spades. Quiet men, too, you would
+never think it of 'em. The quiet ones was the worst. Meek, friendly,
+decent men, to see them drinkin' at a bar, but they didn't know Fear,
+an' every one of 'em had a dozen notches on his gun. I know lots of
+them, chummed with them, an' princes they were, the finest in the land,
+would give the shirts off their backs for a friend. You'd like them--but
+Lord be praised, I'm a saved man."
+
+I was deeply interested.
+
+"I know I'm talking as I shouldn't. It's all over now, an' I've seen the
+evil of my ways, but I've got to talk once in a while. I'm Jim Hubbard,
+known as 'Salvation Jim,' an' I know minin' from Genesis to Revelation.
+Once I used to gamble an' drink the limit. One morning I got up from the
+card-table after sitting there thirty-six hours. I'd lost five thousand
+dollars. I knew they'd handed me out 'cold turkey,' but I took my
+medicine.
+
+"Right then I said I'd be a crook too. I learned to play with marked
+cards. I could tell every card in the deck. I ran a stud-poker game,
+with a Jap an' a Chinaman for partners. They were quicker than white
+men, an' less likely to lose their nerve. It was easy money, like taking
+candy from a kid. Often I would play on the square. No man can bluff
+strong without showing it. Maybe it's just a quiver of the eyelash,
+maybe a shuffle of the foot. I've studied a man for a month till I found
+the sign that gave him away. Then I've raised an' raised him till the
+sweat pricked through his brow. He was my meat. I went after the men
+that robbed me, an' I went one better. Here, shuffle this deck."
+
+He produced a pack of cards from a drawer.
+
+"I'll never go back to the old trade. I'm saved. I trust in God, but
+just for diversion I keep my hand in."
+
+Talking to me, he shuffled the pack a few times.
+
+"Here, I'm dealing; what do you want? Three kings?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+He dealt four hands. In mine there were three kings.
+
+Taking up another he showed me three aces.
+
+"I'm out of practice," he said apologetically. "My hands are calloused.
+I used to keep them as soft as velvet."
+
+He showed me some false shuffles, dealing from under the deck, and other
+tricks.
+
+"Yes, I got even with the ones that got my money. It was eat or be
+eaten. I went after the suckers. There was never a man did me dirt but I
+paid him with interest. Of course, it's different now. The Good Book
+says: 'Do good unto them that harm you.' I guess I would, but I wouldn't
+recommend no one to try and harm me. I might forget."
+
+The heavy, aggressive jaw shot forward; the eyes gleamed with a fearless
+ferocity, and for a moment the man took on an air that was almost
+tigerish. I could scarce believe my sight; yet the next instant it was
+the same cheerful, benevolent face, and I thought my eyes must have
+played me some trick.
+
+Perhaps it was that sedate Puritan strain in me that appealed to him,
+but we became great friends. We talked of many things, and most of all I
+loved to get him to tell of his early life. It was just like a story:
+thrown on the world while yet a child; a shoeblack in New York, fighting
+for his stand; a lumber-jack in the woods of Michigan; lastly a miner in
+Arizona. He told me of long months on the desert with only his pipe for
+company, talking to himself over the fire at night, and trying not to go
+crazy. He told me of the girl he married and worshipped, and of the man
+who broke up his home. Once more I saw that flitting tiger-look appear
+on his face and vanish immediately. He told me of his wild days.
+
+"I was always a fighter, an' I never knew what fear meant. I never saw
+the man that could beat me in a rough-an'-tumble scrap. I was uncommon
+husky an' as quick as a cat, but it was my fierceness that won out for
+me. Get a man down an' give him the leather. I've kicked a man's face to
+a jelly. It was kick, bite an' gouge in them days--anything went.
+
+"Yes, I never knew fear. I've gone up unarmed to a man I knew was heeled
+to shoot me on sight, an' I've dared him to do it. Just by the power of
+the eye I've made him take water. He thought I had a gun an' could draw
+quicker'n him. Then, as the drink got hold of me, I got worse and worse.
+Time was when I would have robbed a bank an' shot the man that tried to
+stop me. Glory to God! I've seen the evil of my ways."
+
+"Are you sure you'll never backslide?" I asked.
+
+"Never! I'm born again. I don't smoke, drink or gamble, an' I'm as happy
+as the day's long. There was the drink. I would go on the water-wagon
+for three months at a stretch, but day and night, wherever I went, the
+glass of whisky was there right between my eyes. Sooner or later it got
+the better of me. Then one night I went half-sober into a Gospel Hall.
+The glass was there, an' I was in agony tryin' to resist it. The speaker
+was callin' sinners to come forward. I thought I'd try the thing anyway,
+so I went to the penitents' bench. When I got up the glass was gone. Of
+course it came back, but I got rid of it again in the same way. Well, I
+had many a struggle an' many a defeat, but in the end I won. It's a
+divine miracle."
+
+I wish I could paint or act the man for you. Words cannot express his
+curious character. I came to have a great fondness for him, and
+certainly owed him a huge debt of gratitude.
+
+One day I was paying my usual visit to the Post Office, when some one
+gripped me by the arm.
+
+"Hullo, Scotty! By all that's wonderful. I was just going to mail you a
+letter."
+
+It was the Prodigal, very well dressed and spruce-looking.
+
+"Say, I'm so tickled I got you; we're going to start in two days."
+
+"Start! Where?" I asked.
+
+"Why, for the Golden North, for the land of the Midnight Sun, for the
+treasure-troves of the Klondike Valley."
+
+"You maybe," I said soberly; "but I can't."
+
+"Yes you can, and you are, old sport. I fixed all that. Come on, I want
+to talk to you. I went home and did the returned prodigal stunt. The old
+man was mighty decent when I told him it was no good, I couldn't go into
+the glue factory yet awhile. Told him I had the gold-bug awful bad and
+nothing but a trip up there would cure me. He was rather tickled with
+the idea. Staked me handsomely, and gave me a year to make good. So here
+I am, and you're in with me. I'm going to grubstake you. Mind, it's a
+business proposition. I've got to have some one, and when you make the
+big strike you've got to divvy up."
+
+I said something about having secured employment as an under-gardener.
+
+"Pshaw! you'll soon be digging gold-nuggets instead of potatoes. Why,
+man, it's the chance of a lifetime, and anybody else would jump at it.
+Of course, if you're afraid of the hardships and so on----"
+
+"No," I said quickly, "I'll go."
+
+"Ha!" he laughed, "you're too much of a coward to be afraid. Well, we're
+going to be blighted Argonauts, but we've got to get busy over our
+outfits. We haven't got any too much time."
+
+So we hustled around. It seemed as if half of San Francisco was
+Klondike-crazy. On every hand was there speculation and excitement. All
+the merchants had their outfitting departments, and wild and vague were
+their notions as to what was required. We did not do so badly, though
+like every one else we bought much that was worthless and foolish.
+Suddenly I bethought me of Salvation Jim, and I told the Prodigal of my
+new friend.
+
+"He's an awfully good sort," I said; "white all through; all kinds of
+experience, and he's going alone."
+
+"Why," said the Prodigal, "that's just the man we want. We'll ask him to
+join us."
+
+I brought the two together, and it was arranged. So it came about that
+we three left San Francisco on the fourth day of March to seek our
+fortunes in the Frozen North.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+THE TRAIL
+
+
+Gold! We leaped from our benches. Gold! We sprang from our stools.
+Gold! We wheeled in the furrow, fired with the faith of fools.
+Fearless, unfound, unfitted, far from the night and the cold,
+Heard we the clarion summons, followed the master-lure--Gold!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+"Say! you're looking mighty blue. Cheer up, darn you! What's the
+matter?" said the Prodigal affectionately.
+
+And indeed there was matter enough, for had I not just received letters
+from home, one from Garry and one from Mother? Garry's was gravely
+censorious, almost remonstrant. Mother, he said, was poorly, and greatly
+put out over my escapade. He pointed out that I was in a fair way of
+being a rolling stone, and hoped that I would at once give up my mad
+notion of the South Seas and soberly proceed to the Northwest.
+
+Mother's letter was reproachful, in parts almost distressful. She was
+failing, she said, and she begged me to be a good son, give up my
+wanderings and join my cousin at once. Also she enclosed post-office
+orders for forty pounds. Her letter, written in a fine faltering hand
+and so full of gentle affection, brought the tears to my eyes; so that
+it was very bleakly I leaned against the ship's rail and watched the
+bustle of departure. Poor Mother! Dear old Garry! With what tender
+longing I thought of those two in far-away Glengyle, the Scotch mist
+silvering the heather and the wind blowing caller from the sea. Oh, for
+the clean, keen breath of it! Yet alas, every day was the memory
+fading, and every day was I fitting more snugly into the new life.
+
+"I've just heard from the folks," I said, "and I feel like going back on
+you."
+
+"Oh, beat it," he cried; "you can't renig now. You've got to see the
+thing through. Mothers are all like that when you cut loose from their
+apron-strings. Ma's scared stiff about me, thinks the devil's got an
+option on my future sure. They get wised up pretty soon. What you want
+to do is to get busy and make yourself acquainted. Here I've been
+snooping round for the last two hours, and got a line on nearly every
+one on board. Say! Of all the locoed outfits this here aggregation has
+got everything else skinned to a hard-boiled finish. Most of them are
+indoor men, ink-slingers and calico snippers; haven't done a day's hard
+work in their lives, and don't know a pick from a mattock. They've got a
+notion they've just got to get up there and pick big nuggets out of the
+water like cherries out of a cocktail. It's the limit."
+
+"Tell me about them," I said.
+
+"Well, see that young fellow standing near us?"
+
+I looked. He was slim, with gentle, refined features and an unnaturally
+fresh complexion.
+
+"That fellow was a pen-pusher in a mazuma emporium--I mean a bank clerk.
+Pinklove's his name. He wanted to get hitched to some girl, but the
+directors wouldn't stand for it. Now he's chucked his job and staked his
+savings on this trip. There's his girl in the crowd."
+
+Bedded in that mosaic of human faces I saw one that was all sweetness,
+yet shamelessly tear-stained.
+
+"Lucky beggar," I said, "to have some one who cares so much about his
+going."
+
+"Unlucky, you mean, lad. You don't want to have any strings on you when
+you play this game."
+
+He pointed to a long-haired young man in a flowing-end tie.
+
+"See that pale-faced, artistic-looking guy alongside him. That's his
+partner. Ineffectual, moony sort of a mut. He's a wood-carver; they call
+him Globstock; told me his knowledge of wood-carving would come in handy
+when we came to make boats at Lake Bennett. Then there's a third. See
+that little fellow shooting off his face?"
+
+I saw a weazened, narrow-chested mannikin, with an aggressive certainty
+of feature.
+
+"He's a professor, plumb-full of book dope on the Yukon. He's Mister
+Wise Mike. He knows it all. Hear his monologue on 'How It Should Be
+Done.' He's going to live on deck to inure himself to the rigours of the
+Arctic climate. Works with a pair of spring dumb-bells to get up his
+muscle so's he can shovel out the nuggets."
+
+Our eyes roved round from group to group, picking out characteristic
+figures.
+
+"See that big bleached-blond Englishman? Came over with me on the
+Pullman from New York. 'Awfully bored, don't you know.' When we got to
+'Frisco, he says to me: 'Thank God, old chappie, the worst part of the
+journey's over.' Then there's Romulus and Remus, the twins, strapping
+young fellows. Only way I know them apart is one laces his boots tight,
+the other slack. They think the world of each other."
+
+He swung around to where Salvation Jim was talking to two men.
+
+"There's a pair of winners. I put my money on them. Nothing on earth can
+stop those fellows, native-born Americans, all grit and get-up. See that
+tall one smoking a cigar and looking at the women? He's an athlete.
+Name's Mervin; all whipcord and whalebone; springy as a bent bow. He's a
+type of the Swift. He's bound to get there. See the other. Hewson's his
+name; solid as a tower; muscled like a bear; built from the ground up.
+He represents the Strong. Look at the grim, determined face of him. You
+can't down a man like that."
+
+He indicated another group.
+
+"Now there's three birds of prey. Bullhammer, Marks and Mosher. The big,
+pig-eyed heavy-jowled one is Bullhammer. He's in the saloon business.
+The middle-sized one in the plug hat is Marks. See his oily, yellow face
+dotted with pimples. He's a phoney piece of work; calls himself a mining
+broker. The third's Jake Mosher. He's an out-and-out gambler, a
+sure-thing man, once was a parson."
+
+I looked again. Mosher had just taken off his hat. His high-domed head
+was of monumental baldness, his eyes close-set and crafty, his nose
+negligible. The rest of his face was mostly beard. It grew black as the
+Pit to near the bulge of his stomach, and seemed to have drained his
+scalp in its rank luxuriance. Across the deck came the rich, oily tones
+of his voice.
+
+"A bad-looking bunch," I said.
+
+"Yes, there's heaps like them on board. There's a crowd of dance-hall
+girls going up, and the usual following of parasites. Look at that
+Halfbreed. There's a man for the country now, part Scotch, part Indian;
+the quietest man on the boat; light, but tough as wire nails."
+
+I saw a lean, bright-eyed brown man with flat features, smoking a
+cigarette.
+
+"Say! Just get next to those two Jews, Mike and Rebecca Winklestein.
+They're going to open up a sporty restaurant."
+
+The man was a small bandy-legged creature, with eyes that squinted, a
+complexion like ham fat and waxed moustaches. But it was the woman who
+seized my attention. Never did I see such a strapping Amazon, six foot
+if an inch, and massive in proportion. She was handsome too, in a
+swarthy way, though near at hand her face was sensuous and bold. Yet she
+had a suave, flattering manner and a coarse wit that captured the crowd.
+Dangerous, unscrupulous and cruel, I thought; a man-woman, a shrew, a
+termagant!
+
+But I was growing weary of the crowd and longed to go below. I was no
+longer interested, yet the voice of the Prodigal droned in my ear.
+
+"There's an old man and his granddaughter, relatives of the
+Winklesteins, I believe. I think the old fellow's got a screw loose.
+Handsome old boy, though; looks like a Hebrew prophet out of a job.
+Comes from Poland. Speaks Yiddish or some such jargon; Only English he
+knows is 'Klondike, Klondike.' The girl looks heartbroken, poor little
+beggar."
+
+"Poor little beggar!" I heard the words indeed, but my mind was far
+away. To the devil with Polish Jews and their granddaughters. I wished
+the Prodigal would leave me to my own thoughts, thoughts of my Highland
+home and my dear ones. But no! he persisted:
+
+"You're not listening to what I'm saying. Look, why don't you!"
+
+So, to please him, I turned full round and looked. An old man,
+patriarchal in aspect, crouched on the deck. Erect by his side, with her
+hand on his shoulder, stood a slim figure in black, the figure of a
+girl. Indifferently my eyes travelled from her feet to her face. There
+they rested. I drew a deep breath. I forgot everything else. Then for
+the first time I saw--Berna.
+
+I will not try to depict the girl. Pen descriptions are so futile. I
+will only say that her face was very pale, and that she had large
+pathetic grey eyes. For the rest, her cheeks were woefully pinched and
+her lips drooped wistfully. 'Twas the face, I thought, of a virgin
+martyr with a fear-haunted look hard to forget. All this I saw, but most
+of all I saw those great, grey eyes gazing unseeingly over the crowd,
+ever so sadly fixed on that far-away East of her dreams and memories.
+
+"Poor little beggar!"
+
+Then I cursed myself for a sentimental impressionist and I went below.
+Stateroom forty-seven was mine. We three had been separated in the
+shuffle, and I knew not who was to be my room-mate. Feeling very
+downhearted, I stretched myself on the upper berth, and yielded to a
+mood of penitential sadness. I heard the last gang-plank thrown off, the
+great crowd cheer, the measured throb of the engines, yet still I
+sounded the depths of reverie. There was a bustle outside and growing
+darkness. Then, as I lay, there came voices to my door, guttural tones
+blended with liquid ones; lastly a timid knock. Quickly I answered it.
+
+"Is this room number forty-seven?" a soft voice asked.
+
+Even ere she spoke I divined it was the Jewish girl of the grey eyes,
+and now I saw her hair was like a fair cloud, and her face fragile as a
+flower.
+
+"Yes," I answered her.
+
+She led forward the old man.
+
+"This is my grandfather. The Steward told us this was his room."
+
+"Oh, all right; he'd better take the lower berth."
+
+"Thank you, indeed; he's an old man and not very strong."
+
+Her voice was clear and sweet, and there was an infinite tenderness in
+the tone.
+
+"You must come in," I said. "I'll leave you with him for a while so
+that you can make him comfortable."
+
+"Thank you again," she responded gratefully.
+
+So I withdrew, and when I returned she was gone; but the old man slept
+peacefully.
+
+It was late before I turned in. I went on deck for a time. We were
+cleaving through blue-black night, and on our right I could dimly
+discern the coast festooned by twinkling lights. Every one had gone
+below, I thought, and the loneliness pleased me. I was very quiet,
+thinking how good it all was, the balmy wind, the velvet vault of the
+night frescoed with wistful stars, the freedom-song of the sea; how
+restful, how sane, how loving!
+
+Suddenly I heard a sound of sobbing, the merciless sobbing of a woman's
+breast. Distinct above the hollow breathing of the sea it assailed me,
+poignant and insistent. Wonderingly I looked around. Then, in a shadow
+of the upper deck, I made out a slight girl-figure, crouching all alone.
+It was Grey Eyes, crying fit to break her heart.
+
+"Poor little beggar!" I muttered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+"Gr-r-r--you little brat! If you open your face to him I'll kill you,
+kill you, see!"
+
+The voice was Madam Winklestein's, and the words, hissed in a whisper of
+incredible malignity, arrested me as if I had been struck by a live
+wire. I listened. Behind the stateroom door there followed a silence,
+grimly intense; then a dull pounding; then the same savage undertone.
+
+"See here, Berna, we're next to you two--we're onto your curves. We know
+the old man's got the stuff in his gold-belt, two thousand in bills.
+Now, my dear, my sweet little angel what thinks she's too good to mix
+with the likes o' us, we need the mon, see!" (Knock, knock.) "And we're
+goin' to have it, see!" (Knock, knock.) "That's where you come in,
+honey, you're goin' to get it for us. Ain't you now, darlin'!" (Knock,
+knock, knock.)
+
+Faintly, very faintly, I heard a voice:
+
+"No."
+
+If it be possible to scream in a whisper, the woman did it.
+
+"You will! you will! Oh! oh! oh! There's the cursed mule spirit of your
+mother in you. She'd never tell us the name of the man that was the ruin
+of 'er, blast 'er."
+
+"Don't speak of my mother, you vile woman!"
+
+The voice of the virago contracted to an intensity of venom I have
+never heard the equal of.
+
+"Vile woman! Vile woman! You, you to call _me_ a vile woman, me that's
+been three times jined in holy wedlock.... Oh, you bastard brat! You
+whelp of sin! You misbegotten scum! Oh, I'll fix you for that, if I've
+got to swing for it."
+
+Her scalding words were capped with an oath too foul to repeat, and once
+more came the horrible pounding, like a head striking the woodwork.
+Unable to bear it any longer, I rapped sharply on the door.
+
+Silence, a long, panting silence; then the sound of a falling body; then
+the door opened a little and the twitching face of Madam appeared.
+
+"Is there somebody sick?" I asked. "I'm sorry to trouble you, but I was
+thinking I heard groans and--I might be able to do something."
+
+Piercingly she looked at me. Her eyes narrowed to slits and stabbed me
+with their spite. Her dark face grew turgid with impotent anger. As I
+stood there she was like to have killed me. Then like a flash her
+expression changed. With a dirty bejewelled hand she smoothed her
+tousled hair. Her coarse white teeth gleamed in a gold-capped smile.
+There was honey in her tone.
+
+"Why, no! my niece in here's got a toothache, but I guess we can fix it
+between us. We don't need no help, thanks, young feller."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," I said. "If you should, you know, I'll be
+nearby."
+
+Then I moved away, conscious that her eyes followed me malevolently.
+
+The business worried me sorely. The poor girl was being woefully abused,
+that was plain. I felt indignant, angry and, last of all, anxious.
+Mingled with my feelings was a sense of irritation that I should have
+been elected to overhear the affair. I had no desire just then to
+champion distressed damsels, least of all to get mixed up in the family
+brawls of unknown Jewesses. Confound her, anyway! I almost hated her.
+Yet I felt constrained to watch and wait, and even at the cost of my own
+ease and comfort to prevent further violence.
+
+For that matter there were all kinds of strange doings on board,
+drinking, gambling, nightly orgies and hourly brawls. It seemed as if we
+had shipped all the human dregs of the San Francisco deadline. Never, I
+believe, in those times when almost daily the Argonaut-laden boats were
+sailing for the Golden North, was there one in which the sporting
+element was so dominant. The social hall reeked with patchouli and stale
+whiskey. From the staterooms came shrill outbursts of popular melody,
+punctuated with the popping of champagne corks. Dance-hall girls,
+babbling incoherently, reeled in the passageways, danced on the cabin
+table, and were only held back from licentiousness by the restraint of
+their bullies. The day was one long round of revelry, and the night was
+pregnant with sinister sound.
+
+Already among the better element a moral secession was apparent.
+Convention they had left behind with their boiled shirts and their
+store clothes, and crazed with the idea of speedy fortune, they were
+even now straining at the leash of decency. It was a howling mob,
+elately riotous, and already infected by the virus of the goldophobia.
+
+Oh, it was good to get on deck of a night, away from this saturnalia, to
+watch the beacon stars strewn vastly in the skyey uplift, to listen to
+the ancient threnody of the outcast sea. Blue and silver the nights
+were, and crystal clear, with a keen wind that painted the cheek and
+kindled the eye. And as I sat in silent thought there came to me
+Salvation Jim. His face was grim, his eyes brooding. From the
+brilliantly lit social hall came a blare of music-hall melody.
+
+"I don't like the way of things a bit," he said; "I don't like it. Look
+here now, lad, I've lived round mining camps for twenty years, I've
+followed the roughest callings on earth, I've tramped the States all
+over, yet never have I seen the beat of this. Mind you, I ain't
+prejudiced, though I've seen the error of my ways, glory to God! I can
+make allowance once in a while for the boys gettin' on a jamboree, but
+by Christmas! Say! There's enough evil on this boat to stake a
+sub-section in Hell. There's men should be at home with their dinky
+little mothers an' their lovin' wives an' children, down there right now
+in that cabin buyin' wine for them painted Jezebels.
+
+"There's doctors an' lawyers an' deacons in the church back in old Ohio,
+that never made a bad break in their lives, an' now they're rowin' like
+barroom bullies for the kisses of a baggage. In the bay-window of their
+souls the devil lolls an' grins an' God is freezin' in the attic. You
+mark my words, boy; there's a curse on this northern gold. The Yukon's
+a-goin' to take its toll. You mark my words."
+
+"Oh, Jim," I said, "you're superstitious."
+
+"No, I ain't. I've just got a hunch. Here we are a bit of floatin'
+iniquity glidin' through the mystery of them strange seas, an' the very
+officers on dooty sashed to the neck an' reekin' from the arms of the
+scented hussies below. It'll be God's mercy if we don't crash on a rock,
+an' go down good an' all to the bitter bottom. But it don't matter.
+Sooner or later there's goin' to be a reckonin'. There's many a one
+shoutin' an' singin' to-night'll leave his bones to bleach up in that
+bleak wild land."
+
+"No, Jim," I protested, "they will be all right once they get ashore."
+
+"Right nothin'! They're a pack of fools. They think they've got a bulge
+on fortune. Hear them a-howlin' now. They're all millionaires in their
+minds. There's no doubt with them. It's a cinch. They're spendin' it
+right now. You mark my words, young feller, for I'll never live to see
+them fulfilled--there's ninety in a hundred of all them fellers that's
+goin' to this here Klondike will never make good, an' of the other ten,
+nine won't _do_ no good."
+
+"One per cent. that will keep their stakes--that's absurd, Jim."
+
+"Well, you'll see. An' as for me, I feel as sure as God's above us
+guidin' us through the mazes of the night, I'll never live to make the
+trip back. I've got a hunch. Old Jim's on his last stampede."
+
+He sighed, then said sharply:
+
+"Did you see that feller that passed us?"
+
+It was Mosher, the gambler and ex-preacher.
+
+"That man's a skunk, a renegade sky-pilot. I'm keepin' tabs on that man.
+Maybe him an' me's got a score to settle one of them days. Maybe."
+
+He went off abruptly, leaving me to ponder long over his gloomy words.
+
+We were now three days out. The weather was fine, and nearly every one
+was on deck in the sunshine. Even Bullhammer, Marks and Mosher had
+deserted the card-room for a time. The Bank clerk and the Wood-carver
+talked earnestly, planned and dreamed. The Professor was busy expounding
+a theory of the gold origin to a party of young men from Minnesota.
+Silent and watchful the athletic Mervin smoked his big cigar, while,
+patient and imperturbable, the iron Hewson chewed stolidly. The twins
+were playing checkers. The Winklesteins were making themselves solid
+with the music-hall clique. In and out among the different groups darted
+the Prodigal, as volatile as a society reporter at a church bazaar. And
+besides these, always alone, austerely aloof as if framed in a picture
+by themselves, a picture of dignity and sweetness, were the Jewish maid
+and her aged grandfather.
+
+Although he was my room-mate I had seen but little of him. He was abed
+before I retired and I was up and out ere he awoke. For the rest I
+avoided the two because of their obvious connection with the
+Winklesteins. Surely, thought I, she cannot be mixed up with those two
+and be everything that's all right. Yet there was something in the
+girl's clear eyes, and in the old man's fine face, that reproached me
+for my doubt.
+
+It was while I was thus debating, and covertly studying the pair, that
+something occurred.
+
+Bullhammer and Marks were standing by me, and across the deck came the
+acridly nasal tones of the dance-hall girls. I saw the libertine eyes of
+Bullhammer rove incontinently from one unlovely demirep to another, till
+at last they rested on the slender girl standing by the side of her
+white-haired grandfather. Appreciatively he licked his lips.
+
+"Say, Monkey, who's the kid with old Whiskers there?"
+
+"Search me, Pete," said Marks; "want a knockdown?"
+
+"Betcher! Seems kind-a standoffish, though, don't she?"
+
+"Standoffish be darned! Never yet saw the little bit of all right that
+could stand off Sam Marks. I'm a winner, I am, an' don' you forget it.
+Just watch my splash."
+
+I must say the man was expensively dressed in a flashy way. His oily,
+pimple-garnished face wreathed itself in a smirk of patronising
+familiarity, and with the bow of a dancing master he advanced. I saw her
+give a quick start, bite her lip and shrink back. "Good for you, little
+girl," I thought. But the man was in no way put out.
+
+"Say, Sis, it's all right. Just want to interdooce you to a gentleman
+fren' o' mine."
+
+The girl gazed at him, and her dilated eyes were eloquent of fear and
+distrust. It minded me of the panic of a fawn run down by the hunter, so
+that I found myself trembling in sympathy. A startled moment she gazed;
+then swiftly she turned her back.
+
+This was too much for Marks. He flushed angrily.
+
+"Say! what's the matter with you? Come off the perch there. Ain't we
+good enough to associate with you? Who the devil are you, anyhow?"
+
+His face was growing red and aggressive. He closed in on her. He laid a
+rough hand on her shoulder. Thinking the thing had gone far enough I
+stepped forward to interfere, when the unexpected happened.
+
+Suddenly the old man had risen to his feet, and it was a surprise to me
+how tall he was. Into his face there had come the ghost of ancient power
+and command. His eyes blazed with wrath, and his clenched fist was
+raised high in anathema. Then it came swiftly down on the head of Marks,
+crushing his stiff hat tightly over his eyes.
+
+The climax was ludicrous in a way. There was a roar of laughter, and
+hearing it Marks spluttered as he freed himself. With a curse of rage he
+would have rushed the old man, but a great hand seized him by the
+shoulder. It was the grim, taciturn Hewson, and judging by the way his
+captive squirmed, his grip must have been peculiarly vise-like. The old
+man was pale as death, the girl crying, the passengers crowding round.
+Every one was gabbling and curious, so feeling I could do no good, I
+went below.
+
+What was there about this slip of a girl that interested me so? Ever and
+anon I found myself thinking of her. Was it the conversation I had
+overheard? Was it the mystery that seemed to surround her? Was it the
+irrepressible instinct of my heart for the romance of life? With the old
+man, despite our stateroom propinquity, I had made no advances. With the
+girl I had passed no further words.
+
+But the Gods of destiny act in whimsical ways. Doubtless the voyage
+would have finished without the betterment of our acquaintance;
+doubtless our paths would have parted, nevermore to cross; doubtless our
+lives would have been lived out to their fulness and this story never
+have been told--had it not been for the luckless fatality of the Box of
+Grapes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Puget Sound was behind us and we had entered on that great sea that
+stretched northward to the Arctic barrens. Misty and wet was the wind,
+and cold with the kiss of many icebergs. Under a grey sky, glooming to
+purple, the gelid water writhed nakedly. Spectral islands elbowed each
+other, to peer at us as we flitted past. Still more wraithlike the
+mainland, fringed to the sea foam with saturnine pine, faded away into
+fastnesses of impregnable desolation. There was a sense of deathlike
+passivity in the land, of overwhelming vastitude, of unconquerable
+loneliness. It was as if I had felt for the first time the Spirit of the
+Wild; the Wild where God broods amid His silence; the Wild, His infinite
+solace and His sanctuary.
+
+As we forged through the vague sea lanes, we were like a glittering
+trinket on the bosom of the night. Our mad merriment scarce ever abated.
+We were a blare of revelry and a blaze of light. Excitement mounted to
+fever heat. In the midst of it the women with the enamelled cheeks
+reaped a bountiful harvest. I marvel now that, with all the besotted
+recklessness of those that were our pilots, we met with no serious
+mishap.
+
+"Don't mind you much of a Sunday-school picnic, does it?" commented the
+Prodigal. "It's fierce the way the girls are prying some of these crazy
+jays loose from their wads. They're all plumb batty. I'm tired trying to
+wise them up. 'Go and chase yourself,' they say; 'we're all right. Don't
+matter if we do loosen up a bit now, there's all kinds of easy money
+waiting for us up there.' Then they talk of what they're going to do
+when they've got the dough. One gazebo wants to buy a castle in the old
+country; another wants a racing stable; another a steam yacht. Oh,
+they're a hot bunch of sports. They're all planning to have a purple
+time in the sweet by-and-bye. I don't hear any of them speak of endowing
+a home for decrepit wash-ladies or pensioning off their aged
+grandmothers. They make me sick. There's a cold juicy awakening coming."
+
+He was right. In their visionary leaps to affluence they soared to giddy
+heights. They strutted and bragged as if the millions were already
+theirs. To hear them, you would think they had an exclusive option on
+the treasure-troves of the Klondike. Yet, before and behind us, were
+dozens of similar vessels, bearing just as eager a mob of
+fortune-hunters, all drawn irresistibly northward by the Golden Magnet.
+
+Nevertheless, it was hard not to be affected by the prevailing spirit of
+optimism. For myself the gold had but little attraction, but the
+adventure was very dear to my heart. Once more the clarion call of
+Romance rang in my ears, and I leapt to its summons. And indeed, I
+reflected, it was a wonderful kaleidoscope of a world, wherein I, but a
+half-year back cooling my heels in a highland burn, should be now part
+and parcel of this great Argonaut army. Already my native uncouthness
+was a thing of the past, and the quaint mannerisms of my Scots tongue
+were yielding to the racy slang of the frontier. More to the purpose,
+too, I was growing in strength and wiry endurance. As I looked around me
+I realised that there were many less fitted for the trail than I, and
+there was none with such a store of glowing health. You may picture me
+at this time, a tallish young man, with a fine colour in my cheeks,
+black hair that curled crisply, and dark eyes that were either alight
+with eagerness or agloom with dreams.
+
+I have said that we were all more or less in a ferment of excitement,
+but to this I must make a reservation. One there was who, amid all our
+unrest, remained cold, distant and alien--the Jewish girl, Berna. Even
+in the old man the gold fever betrayed itself in a visionary eye and a
+tremor of the lips; but the girl was a statue of patient resignation, a
+living reproof to our febrile and purblind imaginings.
+
+The more I studied her, the more out of place she seemed in my picture,
+and, almost unconsciously, I found myself weaving about her a fabric of
+romance. I endowed her with a mystery that piqued and fascinated me, yet
+without it I have no doubt I would have been attracted to her. I longed
+to know her uncommon well, to win her regard, to do something for her
+that should make her eyes rest very kindly on me. In short, as is the
+way of young men, I was beginning to grope blindly for that affection
+and sympathy which are the forerunners of passion and love.
+
+The land was wintry and the wind shrilled so that the attendant gulls
+flapped their wings hard in the face of it. The wolf-pack of the sea
+were snarling whitely as they ran. The decks were deserted, and so many
+of the brawlers were sick and lay like dead folk that it almost seemed
+as if a Sabbath quiet lay on the ship. That day I had missed the old
+man, and on going below, found him lying as one sore stricken. A
+withered hand lay on his brow, and from his lips, which were almost
+purple, thin moans issued.
+
+"Poor old beggar," I thought; "I wonder if I cannot do anything for
+him." And while I was thus debating, a timid knock came to the door. I
+opened it, and there was the girl, Berna.
+
+There was a nervous anxiety in her manner, and a mute interrogation in
+her grey eyes.
+
+"I'm afraid he's a little sick to-day," I said gently; "but come in,
+won't you, and see him?"
+
+"Thank you." Pity, tenderness and love seemed to struggle in her face as
+she softly brushed past me. With some words of endearment, she fell on
+her knees beside him, and her small white hand sought his thin gnarled
+one. As if galvanised into life, the old man turned gratefully to her.
+
+"Maybe he would care for some coffee," I said. "I think I could rustle
+him some."
+
+She gave me a queer, sad look of thanks.
+
+"If you could," she answered.
+
+When I returned she had the old man propped up with pillows. She took
+the coffee from me, and held the cup to his lips; but after a few sips
+he turned away wearily.
+
+"I'm afraid he doesn't care for that," I said.
+
+"No, I'm afraid he won't take it."
+
+She was like an anxious nurse hovering over a patient. She thought a
+while.
+
+"Oh, if I only had some fruit!"
+
+Then it was I bethought me of the box of grapes. I had bought them just
+before leaving, thinking they would be a grateful surprise to my
+companions. Obviously I had been inspired, and now I produced them in
+triumph, big, plump, glossy fellows, buried in the fragrant cedar dust.
+I shook clear a large bunch, and once more we tried the old man. It
+seemed as if we had hit on the one thing needful, for he ate eagerly.
+She watched him for a while with a growing sense of relief, and when he
+had finished and was resting quietly, she turned to me.
+
+"I don't know how I can thank you, sir, for your kindness."
+
+"Very easily," I said quickly; "if you will yourself accept some of the
+fruit, I shall be more than repaid."
+
+She gave me a dubious look; then such a bright, merry light flashed into
+her eyes that she was radiant in my sight. It was as if half a dozen
+years had fallen from her, revealing a heart capable of infinite joy and
+happiness.
+
+"If you will share them with me," she said simply.
+
+So, for the lack of chairs, we squatted on the narrow stateroom floor,
+under the old man's kindly eye. The fruit minded us of sunlit vines, and
+the careless rapture of the South. To me the situation was one of rare
+charm. She ate daintily, and as we talked, I studied her face as if I
+would etch it on my memory forever.
+
+In particular I noticed the wistful contour of her cheek, her sensitive
+mouth, and the fine modelling of her chin. She had clear, candid eyes
+and sweeping lashes, too. Her ears were shell-like, and her hair soft,
+wavy and warm. These things I marked minutely, thinking she was more
+than beautiful--she was even pretty. I was in a state of extraordinary
+elation, like a man that has found a jewel in the mire.
+
+It must be remembered, lest I appear to be taking a too eager interest
+in the girl, that up till now the world of woman had been _terra
+incognita_ to me; that I had lived a singularly cloistered life, and
+that first and last I was an idealist. This girl had distinction,
+mystery and charm, and it is not to be wondered at that I found a joy in
+her presence. I proved myself a perfect artesian well of conversation,
+talking freely of the ship, of our fellow-passengers and of the chances
+of the venture. I found her wonderfully quick in the uptake. Her mind
+seemed nimbly to outrun mine, and she divined my words ere I had them
+uttered. Yet she never spoke of herself, and when I left them together I
+was full of uneasy questioning.
+
+Next day the old man was still abed, and again the girl came to visit
+him. This time I noticed that much of her timid manner was gone, and in
+its stead was a shy friendliness. Once more the box of grapes proved a
+mediator between us, and once more I found in her a reticent but
+sympathetic audience--so much so that I was frank in telling her of
+myself, my home and my kinsfolk. I thought that maybe my talk would
+weary her, but she listened with a bright-eyed regard, nodding her head
+eagerly at times. Yet she spoke no word of her own affairs, so that when
+again I left them together I was as much in the dark as ever.
+
+It was on the third day I found the old man up and dressed, and Berna
+with him. She looked brighter and happier than I had yet seen her, and
+she greeted me with a smiling face. Then, after a little, she said:
+
+"My grandfather plays the violin. Would you mind if he played over some
+of our old-country songs? It would comfort him."
+
+"No, go ahead," I said; "I wish he would."
+
+So she got an ancient violin, and the old man cuddled it lovingly and
+played soft, weird melodies, songs of the Czech race, that made me think
+of Romance, of love and hate, and passion and despair. Piece after
+piece he played, as if pouring out the sadness and heart-hunger of a
+burdened people, until my own heart ached in sympathy.
+
+The wild music throbbed with passionate sweetness and despair.
+Unobserved, the pale twilight stole into the little cabin. The ruggedly
+fine face of the old man was like one inspired, and with clasped hands,
+the girl sat, very white-faced and motionless. Then I saw a gleam on her
+cheek, the soft falling of tears. Somehow, at that moment, I felt drawn
+very near to those two, the music, the tears, the fervent sadness of
+their faces. I felt as if I had been allowed to share with them a few
+moments consecrated to their sorrow, and that they knew I understood.
+
+That day as I was leaving, I said to her:
+
+"Berna, this is our last night on board."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"To-morrow our trails divide, maybe never again to cross. Will you come
+up on deck for a little while to-night? I want to talk to you."
+
+"Talk to me?"
+
+She looked startled, incredulous. She hesitated.
+
+"Please, Berna, it's the last time."
+
+"All right," she answered in a low tone.
+
+Then she looked at me curiously.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+She came to meet me, lily-white and sweet. She was but thinly wrapped,
+and shivered so that I put my coat around her. We ventured forward,
+climbing over a huge anchor to the very bow of the boat, and crouching
+down in its peak, were sheltered from the cold breeze.
+
+We were cutting through smooth water, and crowding in on us were haggard
+mountains, with now and then the greenish horror of a glacier. Overhead,
+in the desolate sky, the new moon nursed the old moon in her arms.
+
+"Berna!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You're not happy, Berna. You're in sore trouble, little girl. I don't
+know why you come up to this God-forsaken country or why you are with
+those people. I don't want to know; but if there's anything I can do for
+you, any way I can prove myself a true friend, tell me, won't you?"
+
+My voice betrayed emotion. I could feel her slim form, very close to me,
+all a-tremble. In the filtered silver of the crescent moon, I could see
+her face, wan and faintly sweet. Gently I prisoned one of her hands in
+mine.
+
+She did not speak at once. Indeed, she was quiet for a long time, so
+that it seemed as if she must be stricken dumb, or as if some feelings
+were conflicting within her. Then at last, very gently, very quietly,
+very sweetly, as if weighing her words, she spoke.
+
+"No, there's nothing you can do. You've been too kind all along. You're
+the only one on the boat that's been kind. Most of the others have
+looked at me--well, you know how men look at a poor, unprotected girl.
+But you, you're different; you're good, you're honourable, you're
+sincere. I could see it in your face, in your eyes. I knew I could trust
+you. You've been kindness itself to grandfather and I, and I never can
+thank you enough."
+
+"Nonsense! Don't talk of thanks, Berna. You don't know what a happiness
+it's been to help you. I'm sorry I've done so little. Oh, I'm going to
+be sincere and frank with you. The few hours I've had with you have made
+me long for others. I'm a lonely beggar. I never had a sister, never a
+girl friend. You're the first, and it's been like sudden sunshine to me.
+Now, can't I be really and truly your friend, Berna; your friend that
+would do much for you? Let me do something, anything, to show how
+earnestly I mean it?"
+
+"Yes, I know. Well, then, you are my dear, true friend--there, now."
+
+"Yes,--but, Berna! To-morrow you'll go and we'll likely never see each
+other again. What's the good of it all?"
+
+"Well, what do you want? We will both have a memory, a very sweet, nice
+memory, won't we? Believe me, it's better so. You don't want to have
+anything to do with a girl like me. You don't know anything about me,
+and you see the kind of people I'm going with. Perhaps I am just as bad
+as they."
+
+"Don't say that, Berna," I interposed sternly; "you're all that's good
+and pure and sweet."
+
+"No, I'm not, either. We're all of us pretty mixed. But I'm not so bad,
+and it's nice of you to think those things.... Oh! if I had never come
+on this terrible trip! I don't even know where we are going, and I'm
+afraid, afraid."
+
+"No, little girl."
+
+"Yes, I can't tell you how afraid I am. The country's so savage and
+lonely; the men are so like brute beasts; the women--well, they're
+worse. And here are we in the midst of it. I don't know what's going to
+become of us."
+
+"Well, Berna, if it's like that, why don't you and your grandfather turn
+back? Why go on?"
+
+"He will never turn back. He'll go on till he dies. He only knows one
+word of English and that's Klondike, Klondike. He mutters it a thousand
+times a day. He has visions of gold, glittering heaps of it, and he'll
+stagger and struggle on till he finds it."
+
+"But can't you reason with him?"
+
+"Oh, it's all no use. He's had a dream. He's like a man that's crazy. He
+thinks he has been chosen, and that to him will a great treasure be
+revealed. You might as well reason with a stone. All I can do is to
+follow him, is to take care of him."
+
+"What about the Winklesteins, Berna?"
+
+"Oh, they're at the bottom of it all. It is they who have inflamed his
+mind. He has a little money, the savings of a lifetime, about two
+thousand dollars; and ever since he came to this country, they've been
+trying to get it. They ran a little restaurant in New York. They tried
+to get him to put his little store in that. Now they are using the gold
+as a bait, and luring him up here. They'll rob and kill him in the end,
+and the cruel part is--he's not greedy, he doesn't want it for
+himself--but for me. That's what breaks my heart."
+
+"Surely you're mistaken, Berna; they can't be so bad as that."
+
+"Bad! I tell you they're _vile_. The man's a worm, and the woman, she's
+a devil incarnate. She's so strong and so violent in her tempers that
+when she gets drinking--well, it's just awful. I should know it, I lived
+with them for three years."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"In New York. I came from the old country to them. They worked me in the
+restaurant at first. Then, after a bit, I got employment in a
+shirt-waist factory. I was quick and handy, and I worked early and late.
+I attended a night school. I read till my eyes ached. They said I was
+clever. The teacher wanted me to train and be a teacher too. But what
+was the good of thinking of it? I had my living to get, so I stayed at
+the factory and worked and worked. Then when I had saved a few dollars,
+I sent for grandfather, and he came and we lived in the tenement and
+were very happy for a while. But the Winklesteins never gave us any
+peace. They knew he had a little money laid away, and they itched to get
+their hands on it. The man was always telling us of get-rich-quick
+schemes, and she threatened me in horrible ways. But I wasn't afraid in
+New York. Up here it's different. It's all so shadowy and sinister."
+
+I could feel her shudder.
+
+"Oh, Berna," I said, "can't I help you?"
+
+She shook her head sadly.
+
+"No, you can't; you have enough trouble of your own. Besides it doesn't
+matter about me. I didn't mean to tell you all this, but now, if you
+want to be a true friend, just go away and forget me. You don't want to
+have anything to do with me. Wait! I'll tell you something more. I'm
+called Berna Wilovich. That's my grandfather's name. My mother ran away
+from home. Two years later she came back--with me. Soon after she died
+of consumption. She would never tell my father's name, but said he was a
+Christian, and of good family. My grandfather tried to find out. He
+would have killed the man. So, you see, I am nameless, a child of shame
+and sorrow. And you are a gentleman, and proud of your family. Now, see
+the kind of friend you've made. You don't want to make friends with such
+as I."
+
+"I want to make friends with such as need my friendship. What is going
+to happen to you, Berna?"
+
+"Happen! God knows! It doesn't matter. Oh, I've always been in trouble.
+I'm used to it. I never had a really happy day in my life. I never
+expect to. I'll just go on to the end, enduring patiently, and getting
+what comfort I can out of things. It's what I was made for, I suppose."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders and shivered a little.
+
+"Let me go now, my friend. It's cold up here; I'm chilled. Don't look so
+terribly downcast. I expect I'll come out all right. Something may
+happen. Cheer up! Maybe you'll see me a Klondike queen yet."
+
+I could see that her sudden brightness but hid a black abyss of
+bitterness and apprehension. What she had told me had somehow stricken
+me dumb. There seemed a stark sordidness in the situation that repelled
+me. She had arisen and was about to step over the fluke of the great
+anchor, when I aroused myself.
+
+"Berna," I said, "what you have told me wrings my heart. I can't tell
+you how terribly sorry I feel. Is there nothing I can do for you,
+nothing to show I am not a mere friend of words and phrases? Oh, I hate
+to let you go like this."
+
+The moon had gone behind a cloud. We were in a great shadow. She halted,
+so that, as we stood, we were touching each other. Her voice was full of
+pathetic resignation.
+
+"What can you do? If we were going in together it might be different.
+When I met you at first I hoped, oh, I hoped--well, it doesn't matter
+what I hoped. But, believe me, I'll be all right. You won't forget me,
+will you?"
+
+"Forget you! No, Berna, I'll never forget you. It cuts me to the heart I
+can do nothing now, but we'll meet up there. We can't be divided for
+long. And you'll be all right, believe me too, little girl. Be good and
+sweet and true and every one will love and help you. Ah, you must go.
+Well, well--God bless you, Berna."
+
+"And I wish you happiness and success, dear friend of mine."
+
+Her voice trembled. Something seemed to choke her. She stood a moment as
+if reluctant to go.
+
+Suddenly a great impulse of tenderness and pity came over me, and before
+I knew it, my arms were around her. She struggled faintly, but her face
+was uplifted, her eyes starlike. Then, for a moment of bewildering
+ecstasy, her lips lay on mine, and I felt them faintly answer.
+
+Poor yielding lips! They were cold as ice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Never shall I forget the last I saw of her, a forlorn, pathetic figure
+in black, waving a farewell to me as I stood on the wharf. She wore, I
+remember, a low collar, and well do I mind the way it showed off the
+slim whiteness of her throat; well do I mind the high poise of her head,
+and the silken gloss of her hair. The grey eyes were clear and steady as
+she bade good-bye to me, and from where we stood apart, her face had all
+the pathetic sweetness of a Madonna.
+
+Well, she was going, and sad enough her going seemed to me. They were
+all for Dyea, and the grim old Chilcoot, with its blizzard-beaten
+steeps, while we had chosen the less precipitous, but more drawn-out,
+Skagway trail. Among them I saw the inseparable twins; the grim Hewson,
+the silent Mervin, each quiet and watchful, as if storing up power for a
+tremendous effort. There was the large unwholesomeness of Madam
+Winklestein, all jewellery, smiles and coarse badinage, and near her,
+her perfumed husband, squinting and smirking abominably. There was the
+old man, with his face of a Hebrew Seer, his visionary eye now aglow
+with fanatical enthusiasm, his lips ever muttering: "Klondike,
+Klondike"; and lastly, by his side, with a little wry smile on her lips,
+there was the white-faced girl.
+
+How my heart ached for her! But the time for sentiment was at an end.
+The clarion call to action rang out. Inflexibly the trail was mustering
+us. The hour was come for every one to give of the best that was in him,
+even as he had never given it before. The reign of peace was over; the
+fight was on.
+
+On all sides were indescribable bustle, confusion and excitement; men
+shouting, swearing, rushing hither, thither; wrangling, anxious-eyed and
+distracted over their outfits. A mood of unsparing energy dominated
+them. Their only thought was to get away on the gold-trail. A frantic
+eagerness impelled them; insistent, imperative; the trail called to
+them, and the light of the gold-lust smouldered and flamed in their
+uneasy eyes. Already the spirit of the gold-trail was awakening.
+
+Hundreds of scattered tents; a few frame buildings, mostly saloons,
+dance-halls and gambling joints; an eager, excited mob crowding on the
+loose sidewalks, floundering knee-deep in the mire of the streets,
+struggling and squabbling and cursing over their outfits--that is all I
+remember of Skagway. The mountains, stark and bare to the bluff, seemed
+to overwhelm the flimsy town, and between them, like a giant funnel, a
+great wind was roaring.
+
+Lawlessness was rampant, but it did not touch us. The thugs lay in wait
+for the men with pokes from the "inside." To the great Cheechako army,
+they gave little heed. They were captained by one Smith, known as
+"Soapy," whom I had the fortune to meet. He was a pleasant-appearing,
+sociable man, and no one would have taken him for a desperado, a killer
+of men.
+
+One picture of Skagway is still vivid in my memory. The scene is a
+saloon, and along with the Prodigal, I am having a glass of beer. In a
+corner sits a befuddled old man, half asleep. He is long and lank, with
+a leathery face and a rusty goatee beard--as ragged, disreputable an old
+sinner as ever bellied up to a bar. Suddenly there is a sound of
+shooting. We rush out and there are two toughs blazing away at each
+other from the sheltering corners of an opposite building.
+
+"Hey, Dad! There's some shootin' goin' on," says the barkeeper.
+
+The old man rouses and cocks up a bleary, benevolent eye.
+
+"Shooting', did ye say? Pshaw! Them fellers don't know how to shoot. Old
+Dad'll show 'em how to shoot."
+
+He comes to the door, and lugging out a big rusty revolver, blazes away
+at one of the combatants. The man, with a howl of surprise and pain,
+limps away. The old man turns to the other fellow. Bang! We see
+splinters fly, and a man running for dear life.
+
+"Told you I'd show 'em how to shoot," remarks old Dad to us. "Thanks,
+I'll have a gin-fizz for mine."
+
+The Prodigal developed a wonderful executive ability about this time; he
+was a marvel of activity, seemed to think of everything and to glory in
+his responsibility as a leader. Always cheerful, always thoughtful, he
+was the brains of our party. He never abated in his efforts a moment,
+and was an example and a stimulus to us all. I say "all," for we had
+added the "Jam-wagon"[A] to our number. It was the Prodigal who
+discovered him. He was a tall, dissolute Englishman, gaunt, ragged and
+verminous, but with the earmarks of a gentleman. He seemed indifferent
+to everything but whiskey and only anxious to hide himself from his
+friends. I discovered he had once been an officer in a Hussar regiment,
+but he was obviously reluctant to speak of his past. A lost soul in
+every sense of the word, the North was to him a refuge and an
+unrestricted stamping-ground. So, partly in pity, partly in hope of
+winning back his manhood, we allowed him to join the party.
+
+Pack animals were in vast demand, for it was considered a pound of grub
+was the equal of a pound of gold. Old horses, fit but for the knacker's
+yard, and burdened till they could barely stand, were being goaded
+forward through the mud. Any kind of a dog was a prize, quickly stolen
+if left unwatched. Sheep being taken in for the butcher were driven
+forward with packs on their backs. Even was there an effort to make pack
+animals out of pigs, but they grunted, squealed and rolled their
+precious burdens in the mire. What crazy excitement, what urging and
+shouting, what desperate device to make a start!
+
+We were lucky in buying a yoke of oxen from a packer for four hundred
+dollars. On the first day we hauled half of our outfit to Canyon City,
+and on the second we transferred the balance. This was our plan all
+through, though in bad places we had to make many relays. It was simple
+enough, yet, oh, the travail of it! Here is an extract from my diary of
+these days.
+
+     "Turn out at 4 A.M. Breakfasted on flapjacks and coffee. Find one
+     of our oxen dying. Dies at seven o'clock. Harness remaining ox and
+     start to remove goods up Canyon. Find trail in awful condition, yet
+     thousands are struggling to get through. Horses often fall in pools
+     of water ten to fifteen feet deep, trying to haul loads over the
+     boulders that render trail almost impassable. Drive with sleigh
+     over places that at other times one would be afraid to walk over
+     without any load. Two feet of snow fell during the night, but it is
+     now raining. Rains and snows alternately. At night bitterly cold.
+     Hauled five loads up Canyon to-day. Finished last trip near
+     midnight and turned in, cold, wet and played out."
+
+The above is a fairly representative day and of such days we were to
+have many ere we reached the water. Slowly, with infinite effort, with
+stress and strain to every step of the way, we moved our bulky outfit
+forward from camp to camp. All days were hard, all exasperating, all
+crammed with discomfort; yet, bit by bit, we forged ahead. The army
+before us and the army behind never faltered. Like a stream of black
+ants they were, between mountains that reared up swiftly to
+storm-smitten palisades of ice. In the darkness of night the army
+rested uneasily, yet at the first streak of dawn it was in motion. It
+was an endless procession, in which every man was for himself. I can see
+them now, bent under their burdens, straining at their hand-sleighs,
+flogging their horses and oxen, their faces crimped and puckered with
+fatigue, the air acrid with their curses and heavy with their moans. Now
+a horse stumbles and slips into one of the sump-holes by the trail side.
+No one can pass, the army is arrested. Frenzied fingers unhitch the poor
+frozen brute and drag it from the water. Men, frantic with rage, beat
+savagely at their beasts of burden to make up the precious time lost.
+There is no mercy, no humanity, no fellowship. All is blasphemy, fury
+and ruthless determination. It is the spirit of the gold-trail.
+
+At the canyon head was a large camp, and there, very much in evidence,
+the gambling fraternity. Dozens of them with their little green tables
+were doing a roaring business. On one side of the canyon they had
+established a camp. It was evening and we three, the Prodigal, Salvation
+Jim and myself, strolled over to where a three-shell man was holding
+forth.
+
+"Hullo!" says the Prodigal. "It's our old friend Jake. Jake skinned me
+out of a hundred on the boat. Wonder how he's making out?"
+
+It was Mosher, with his bald head, his crafty little eyes, his flat
+nose, his black beard. I saw Jim's face harden. He had always shown a
+bitter hatred of this man, and often I wondered why.
+
+We stood a little way off. The crowd thinned and filtered away until
+but one remained, one of the tall young men from Minnesota. We heard
+Mosher's rich voice.
+
+"Say, pard, bet ten dollars you can't place the bean. See! I put the
+little joker under here, right before your eyes. Now, where is it?"
+
+"Here," said the man, touching one of the shells.
+
+"Right you are, my hearty! Well, here's your ten."
+
+The man from Minnesota took the money and was going away.
+
+"Hold on," said Mosher; "how do I know you had the money to cover that
+bet?"
+
+The man laughed and took from his pocket a wad of bills an inch thick.
+
+"Guess that's enough, ain't it?"
+
+Quick as lightning Mosher had snatched the bills from him, and the man
+from Minnesota found himself gazing into the barrel of a six-shooter.
+
+"This here's my money," said Mosher; "now you _git_."
+
+A moment only--a shot rang out. I saw the gun fall from Mosher's hand,
+and the roll of bills drop to the ground. Quickly the man from Minnesota
+recovered them and rushed off to tell his party. Then the men from
+Minnesota got their Winchesters, and the shooting began.
+
+From their camp the gamblers took refuge behind the boulders that
+strewed the sides of the canyon, and blazed away at their opponents. A
+regular battle followed, which lasted till the fall of night. As far as
+I heard, only one casualty resulted. A Swede, about half a mile down the
+trail, received a spent bullet in the cheek. He complained to the Deputy
+Marshal. That worthy, sitting on his horse, looked at him a moment. Then
+he spat comprehensively.
+
+"Can't do anything, Ole. But I'll tell you what. Next time there's
+bullets flying round this section of the country, don't go sticking your
+darned whiskers in the way. See!"
+
+That night I said to Jim:
+
+"How did you do it?"
+
+He laughed and showed me a hole in his coat pocket which a bullet had
+burned.
+
+"You see, having been in the game myself, I knew what was comin' and
+acted accordin'."
+
+"Good job you didn't hit him worse."
+
+"Wait a while, sonny, wait a while. There's something mighty familiar
+about Jake Mosher. He's mighty like a certain Sam Mosely I'm interested
+in. I've just written a letter outside to see, an' if it's him--well,
+I'm saved; I'm a good Christian, but--God help him!"
+
+"And who was Sam Mosely, Jim?"
+
+"Sam Mosely? Sam Mosely was the skunk that busted up my home an' stole
+my wife, blast him!"
+
+[A: A Jam-wagon was the general name given to an Englishman on the
+trail.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Day after day, each man of us poured out on the trail the last heel-tap
+of his strength, and the coming of night found us utterly played out.
+Salvation Jim was full of device and resource, the Prodigal, a dynamo of
+eager energy; but it was the Jam-wagon who proved his mettle in a
+magnificent and relentless way. Whether it was from a sense of
+gratitude, or to offset the cravings that assailed him, I know not, but
+he crammed the days with merciless exertion.
+
+A curious man was the Jam-wagon, Brian Wanless his name, a world tramp,
+a derelict of the Seven Seas. His story, if ever written, would be a
+human document of moving and poignant interest. He must once have been a
+magnificent fellow, and even now, with strength and will-power impaired,
+he was a man among men, full of quick courage and of a haughty temper.
+It was ever a word and a blow with him, and a fight to the desperate
+finish. He was insular, imperious and aggressive, and he was always
+looking for trouble.
+
+Though taciturn and morose with men, the Jam-wagon showed a tireless
+affection for animals. From the first he took charge of our ox; but it
+was for horses his fondness was most expressed, so that on the trail,
+where there was so much cruelty, he was constantly on the verge of
+combat.
+
+"That's a great man," said the Prodigal to me, "a fighter from heel to
+head. There's one he can't fight, though, and that's old man Booze."
+
+But on the trail every man was a fighter. It was fight or fall, for the
+trail would brook no weaklings. Good or bad, a man must be a man in the
+primal sense, dominant, savage and enduring. The trail was implacable.
+From the start it cried for strong men; it weeded out its weaklings. I
+had seen these fellows on the ship feed their vanity with foolish
+fancies; kindled to ardours of hope, I had seen debauch regnant among
+them; now I was to see them crushed, cowed, overwhelmed, realising each,
+according to his kind, the menace and antagonism of the way. I was to
+see the weak falter and fall by the trail side; I was to see the
+fainthearted quail and turn back; but I was to see the strong, the
+brave, grow grim, grow elemental in their desperate strength, and
+tightening up their belts, go forward unflinchingly to the bitter end.
+Thus it was the trail chose her own. Thus it was, from passion, despair
+and defeat, the spirit of the trail was born.
+
+The spirit of the Gold Trail, how shall I describe it? It was based on
+that primal instinct of self-preservation that underlies our thin veneer
+of humanity. It was rebellion, anarchy; it was ruthless, aggressive,
+primitive; it was the man of the stone age in modern garb waging his
+fierce, incessant warfare with the forces of nature. Spurred on by the
+fever of the gold-lust, goaded by the fear of losing in the race;
+maddened by the difficulties and obstacles of the way, men became
+demons of cruelty and aggression, ruthlessly thrusting aside and
+trampling down the weaker ones who thwarted their progress. Of pity,
+humanity, love, there was none, only the gold-lust, triumphant and
+repellent. It was the survival of the fittest, the most tenacious, the
+most brutal. Yet there was something grandly terrible about it all. It
+was a barbaric invasion, an army, each man fighting for his own hand
+under the banner of gold. It was conquest. Every day, as I watched that
+human torrent, I realised how vast, how irresistible it was. It was
+Epic, it was Historical.
+
+Many pitiful things I saw--men with haggard, hopeless faces, throwing
+their outfits into the snow and turning back broken-hearted; men
+staggering blindly on, exhausted to despair, then dropping wearily by
+the trail side in the bitter cold and sinister gloom; weaklings, every
+one. Many terrible things I saw--men cursing each other, cursing the
+trail, cursing their God, and in the echo of their curses, grinding
+their teeth and stumbling on. Then they would vent their fury and spite
+on the poor dumb animals. Oh, what cruelty there was! The life of the
+brute was as nothing; it was the tribute of the trail; it was a
+sacrifice on the altar of human greed.
+
+Long before dawn the trail awakened and the air was full of breakfast
+smells, chiefly that of burnt porridge: for pots were seldom scraped,
+neither were dishes washed. Soon the long-drawn-out army was on the
+march, jaded animals straining at their loads, their drivers reviling
+and beating them. All the men were bearded, and many of them wore
+parkas. As many of the women had discarded petticoats, it was often
+difficult at a short distance to tell the sex of a person. There were
+tents built on sleighs, with faces of women and children peering out
+from behind. It was a wonderful procession, all classes, all
+nationalities, greybeards and striplings, parsons and prostitutes, rich
+and poor, filing past in their thousands, drawn desperately on by the
+golden magnet.
+
+One day we were making a trip with a load of our stuff when, just ahead,
+there was a check in the march, so I and the Jam-wagon went forward to
+investigate. It was our old friend Bullhammer in difficulties. He had
+rather a fine horse, and in passing a sump-hole, his sled had skidded
+and slipped downhill into the water. Now he was belabouring the animal
+unmercifully, acting like a crazy man, shouting in a frenzy of rage.
+
+The horse was making the most gallant efforts I ever saw, but, with
+every fresh attempt, its strength weakened. Time and again it came down
+on its knees, which were raw and bleeding. It was shining with sweat so
+that there was not a dry hair on its body, and if ever a dumb brute's
+eyes spoke of agony and fear, that horse's did. But Bullhammer grew
+every moment more infuriated, wrenching its mouth and beating it over
+the head with a club. It was a sickening sight and, used as I was to the
+inhumanity of the trail, I would have interfered had not the Jam-wagon
+jumped in. He was deadly pale and his eyes burned.
+
+"You infernal brute! If you strike that horse another blow, I'll break
+your club over your shoulders."
+
+Bullhammer turned on him. Surprise paralysed the man, rage choked him.
+They were both big husky fellows, and they drew up face to face. Then
+Bullhammer spoke.
+
+"Curse you, anyway. Don't interfere with me. I'll beat bloody hell out
+of the horse if I like, an' you won't say one word, see?"
+
+With that he struck the horse another vicious blow on the head. There
+was a quick scuffle. The club was wrenched from Bullhammer's hand. I saw
+it come down twice. The man sprawled on his back, while over him stood
+the Jam-wagon, looking very grim. The horse slipped quietly back into
+the water.
+
+"You ugly blackguard! I've a good mind to beat you within an ace of your
+life. But you're not worth it. Ah, you cur!"
+
+He gave Bullhammer a kick. The man got on his feet. He was a coward, but
+his pig eyes squinted in impotent rage. He looked at his horse lying
+shivering in the icy water.
+
+"Get the horse out yourself, then, curse you. Do what you please with
+him. But, mark you--I'll get even with you for this--I'll--get--even."
+
+He shook his fist and, with an ugly oath, went away. The block in the
+traffic was relieved. The trail was again in motion. When we got abreast
+of the submerged horse, we hitched on the ox and hastily pulled it out,
+and (the Jam-wagon proving to have no little veterinary skill) in a few
+days it was fit to work again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Another week had gone and we were still on the trail, between the head
+of the canyon and the summit of the Pass. Day after day was the same
+round of unflinching effort, under conditions that would daunt any but
+the stoutest hearts. The trail was in a terrible condition, sometimes
+well-nigh impassable, and many a time, but for the invincible spirit of
+the Prodigal, would I have turned back. He had a way of laughing at
+misfortune and heartening one when things seemed to have passed the
+limit of all endurance.
+
+Here is another day selected from my diary:
+
+     "Rose at 4:30 A.M. and started for summit with load. Trail all
+     filled in with snow, and had dreadful time shovelling it out. Load
+     upsets number of times. Got to summit at three o'clock. Ox almost
+     played out. Snowing and blowing fearfully on summit. Ox tired;
+     tries to lie down every few yards. Bitterly cold and have hard time
+     trying to keep hands and feet from freezing. Keep on going to make
+     Balsam City. Arrived there about ten o'clock at night. Clothing
+     frozen stiff. Snow from seven to one hundred feet deep. No wood
+     within a quarter mile and then only soft balsam. Had to go for
+     wood. Almost impossible to start fire. Was near midnight when I had
+     fire going well and supper cooked. Eighteen hours on the trail
+     without a square meal. The way of the Klondike is hard, hard."
+
+And yet I believe, compared with others, we were getting along finely.
+Every day, as the difficulties of the trail increased, I saw more and
+more instances of suffering and privation, and to many the name of the
+White Pass was the death-knell of hope. I could see their faces blanch
+as they gazed upward at that white immensity; I could see them tighten
+their pack-straps, clench their teeth and begin the ascent; could see
+them straining every muscle as they climbed, the grim lines harden round
+their mouths, their eyes full of hopeless misery and despair; I could
+see them panting at every step, ghastly with fatigue, lurching and
+stumbling on under their heavy packs. These were the weaker ones, who,
+sooner or later, gave up the struggle.
+
+Then there were the strong, ruthless ones, who had left humanity at
+home, who flogged their staggering skin-and-bone pack animals till they
+dropped, then, with a curse, left them to die.
+
+Far, far above us the monster mountains nuzzled among the clouds till
+cloud and mountain were hard to tell apart. These were giant heights
+heaved up to the stars, where blizzards were cradled and the storm-winds
+born, stupendous horrific familiars of the tempest and the thunder. I
+was conscious of their absolute sublimity. It was like height piled on
+height as one would pile up sacks of flour. As Jim remarked: "Say,
+wouldn't it give you crick in the neck just gazin' at them there
+mountains?"
+
+How ant-like seemed the black army crawling up the icy pass, clinging to
+its slippery face in the blinding buffet of snow and rain! Men dropped
+from its ranks uncared for and unpitied. Heedless of those that fell,
+the gap closed up, the march went on. The great army crawled up and over
+the summit. Far behind could we see them, hundreds, thousands, a
+countless host, all with "Klondike" on their lips and the lust of the
+gold-lure in their hearts. It was the Great Stampede.
+
+"Klondike or bust," was the slogan. It was ever on the lips of those
+bearded men. "Klondike or bust"--the strong man, with infinite patience,
+righted his overturned sleigh, and in the face of the blinding blizzard,
+pushed on through the clogging snow. "Klondike or bust"--the weary,
+trail-worn one raised himself from the hole where he had fallen, and
+stiff, cold, racked with pain, gritted his teeth doggedly and staggered
+on a few feet more. "Klondike or bust"--the fanatic of the trail, crazed
+with the gold-lust, performed mad feats of endurance, till nature
+rebelled, and raving and howling, he was carried away to die.
+
+"'Member Joe?" some one would say, as a pack-horse came down the trail
+with, strapped on it, a dead, rigid shape. "Joe used to be plumb-full of
+fun; always joshin' or takin' some guy off; well--that's Joe."
+
+Two weary, woe-begone men were pulling a hand-sleigh down from the
+summit. On it was lashed a man. He was in a high fever, raving,
+delirious. Half-crazed with suffering themselves, his partners plodded
+on unheedingly. I recognised in them the Bank clerk and the Professor,
+and I hailed them. From black hollows their eyes stared at me
+unrememberingly, and I saw how emaciated were their faces.
+
+"Spinal meningitis," they said laconically, and they were taking him
+down to the hospital. I took a look and saw in that mask of terror and
+agony the familiar face of the Wood-carver.
+
+He gazed at me eagerly, wildly: "I'm rich," he cried, "rich. I've found
+it--the gold--in millions, millions. Now I'm going outside to spend it.
+No more cold and suffering and poverty. I'm going down there to _live_,
+thank God, to live."
+
+Poor Globstock! He died down there. He was buried in a nameless grave.
+To this day I fancy his old mother waits for his return. He was her sole
+support, the one thing she lived for, a good, gentle son, a man of sweet
+simplicity and loving kindness. Yet he lies under the shadow of those
+hard-visaged mountains in a nameless grave.
+
+The trail must have its tribute.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+It was at Balsam City, and things were going badly. Marks and Bullhammer
+had formed a partnership with the Halfbreed, the Professor and the Bank
+clerk, and the arrangement was proving a regrettable one for the latter
+two. It was all due to Marks. At the best of times, he was a
+cross-grained, domineering bully, and on the trail, which would have
+worn to a wire edge the temper of an angel, his yellow streak became an
+eyesore. He developed a chronic grouch, and it was not long before he
+had the two weaker men toeing the mark. He had a way of speaking of
+those who had gone up against him in the past and were "running yet," of
+shooting scrapes and deadly knife-work in which he had displayed a
+spirit of cold-blooded ferocity. Both the Professor and the Bank clerk
+were men of peace and very impressionable. Consequently, they conceived
+for Marks a shuddering respect, not unmixed with fear, and were ready to
+stand on their heads at his bidding.
+
+On the Halfbreed, however, his intimidation did not work. While the
+other two trembled at his frown, and waited on him hand and foot, the
+man of Indian blood ignored him, and his face was expressionless.
+Whereby he incurred the intense dislike of Marks.
+
+Things were going from bad to worse. The man's aggressions were daily
+becoming more unbearable. He treated the others like Dagoes and on every
+occasion he tried to pick a quarrel with the Halfbreed, but the latter,
+entrenching himself behind his Indian phlegm, regarded him stolidly.
+Marks mistook this for cowardice and took to calling the Halfbreed nasty
+names, particularly reflecting on the good character of his mother.
+Still the Halfbreed took no notice, yet there was a contempt in his
+manner that stung more than words. This was the state of affairs when
+one evening the Prodigal and I paid them a visit.
+
+Marks had been drinking all day, and had made life a little hell for the
+others. When we arrived he was rotten-ripe for a quarrel. Then the
+Prodigal suggested a game of poker, so four of them, himself, Marks,
+Bullhammer and the Halfbreed, sat in.
+
+At first they made a ten-cent limit, which soon they raised to
+twenty-five; then, at last, there was no limit but the roof. A bottle
+passed from mouth to mouth and several big jack-pots were made.
+Bullhammer and the Prodigal were about breaking even, Marks was losing
+heavily, while steadily the Halfbreed was adding to his pile of chips.
+
+Through one of those freaks of chance the two men seemed to buck one
+another continually. Time after time they would raise and raise each
+other, till at last Marks would call, and always his opponent had the
+cards. It was exasperating, maddening, especially as several times Marks
+himself was called on a bluff. The very fiend of ill-luck seemed to have
+gotten into him, and as the game proceeded, Marks grew more flushed and
+excited. He cursed audibly. He always had good cards, but always somehow
+the other just managed to beat him. He became explosively angry and
+abusive. The Halfbreed offered to retire from the game, but Marks would
+not hear of it.
+
+"Come on, you nigger!" he shouted. "Don't sneak away. Give me a chance
+to get my money back."
+
+So they sat down once more, and a hand was dealt. The Halfbreed called
+for cards, but Marks did not draw. Then the betting began. After the
+second round the others dropped out, and Marks and the Halfbreed were
+left. The Halfbreed was inimitably cool, his face was a perfect mask.
+Marks, too, had suddenly grown very calm. They started to boost each
+other.
+
+Both seemed to have plenty of money and at first they raised in tens and
+twenties, then at last fifty dollars at a clip. It was getting exciting.
+You could hear a pin drop. Bullhammer and the Prodigal watched very
+quietly. Sweat stood on Marks's forehead, though the Halfbreed was
+utterly calm. The jack-pot held about three hundred dollars. Then Marks
+could stand it no longer.
+
+"I'll bet a hundred," he cried, "and see you."
+
+He triumphantly threw down a straight.
+
+"There, now," he snarled, "beat that, you stinking Malamute."
+
+There was a perceptible pause. I felt sorry for the Halfbreed. He could
+not afford to lose all that money, but his face showed no shade of
+emotion. He threw down his cards and there arose from us all a roar of
+incredulous surprise.
+
+For the Halfbreed had thrown down a royal flush in diamonds. Marks rose.
+He was now livid with passion.
+
+"You cheating swine," he cried; "you crooked devil!"
+
+Quickly he struck the other on the face, a blow that drew blood. I
+thought for a moment the Halfbreed would return the blow. Into his eyes
+there came a look of cold and deadly fury. But, no! quickly bending
+down, he scooped up the money and left the tent.
+
+We stared at each other.
+
+"Marvellous luck!" said the Prodigal.
+
+"Marvellous hell!" shouted Marks. "Don't tell me it's luck. He's a
+sharper, a dirty thief. But I'll get even. He's got to fight now. He'll
+fight with guns and I'll kill the son of a dog."
+
+He was drinking from the bottle in big gulps, fanning himself into an
+ungovernable fury with fiery objurgations. At last he went out, and
+again swearing he would kill the Halfbreed, he made for another tent,
+from which a sound of revelry was coming.
+
+Vaguely fearing trouble, the Prodigal and I did not go to bed, but sat
+talking. Suddenly I saw him listen intently.
+
+"Hist! Did you hear that?"
+
+I seemed to hear a sound like the fierce yelling of a wild animal.
+
+We hurried out. It was Marks running towards us. He was crazy with
+liquor, and in one hand he flourished a gun. There was foam on his lips
+and he screamed as he ran. Then we saw him stop before the tent occupied
+by the Halfbreed, and throw open the flap.
+
+"Come out, you dirty tin-horn, you crook, you Indian bastard; come out
+and fight."
+
+He rushed in and came out again, dragging the Halfbreed at arm's length.
+They were tussling together, and we flung ourselves on them and
+separated them.
+
+I was holding Marks, when suddenly he hurled me off, and flourishing a
+revolver, fired one chamber, crying:
+
+"Stand back, all of you; stand back! Let me shoot at him. He's my meat."
+
+We stepped back pretty briskly, for Marks had cut loose. In fact, we
+ducked for shelter, all but the Halfbreed, who stood straight and still.
+
+Marks took aim at the man waiting there so coolly. He fired, and a tide
+of red stained the other man's shirt, near the shoulder. Then something
+happened. The Halfbreed's arm rose quickly. A six-shooter spat twice.
+
+He turned to us. "I didn't want to do it, boys, but you see he druv' me
+to it. I'm sorry. He druv' me to it."
+
+Marks lay in a huddled, quivering heap. He was shot through the heart
+and quite dead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+We were camping in Paradise Valley. Before us and behind us the great
+Cheechako army laboured along with infinite travail. We had suffered,
+but the trail of the land was near its end. And what an end! With every
+mile the misery and difficulty of the way seemed to increase. Then we
+came to the trail of Rotting Horses.
+
+Dead animals we had seen all along the trail in great numbers, but the
+sight as we came on this particular place beggared description. There
+were thousands of them. One night we dragged away six of them before we
+could find room to put up the tent. There they lay, sprawling horribly,
+their ribs protruding through their hides, their eyes putrid in the
+sunshine. It was like a battlefield, hauntingly hideous.
+
+And every day was adding to their numbers. The trail ran over great
+boulders covered with icy slush, through which the weary brutes sank to
+their bellies. Struggling desperately, down they would come between two
+boulders. Then their legs would snap like pipe-stems, and there usually
+they were left to die.
+
+One would see, jammed in the cleft of a rock, the stump of a hoof, or
+sticking up sharply, the jagged splinter of a leg; while far down the
+bluff lay the animal to which it belonged. One would see the poor dead
+brutes lying head and tail for an hundred yards at a stretch. One would
+see them deserted and desperate, wandering round foraging for food. They
+would come to the camp at night whinnying pitifully, and with a look of
+terrible entreaty on their starved faces. Then one would take pity on
+them--and shoot them.
+
+I remember stumbling across a big, heavy horse one night in the gloom.
+It was swaying from side to side, and as I drew near I saw its throat
+was hideously cut. It looked at me with such agony in its eyes that I
+put my handkerchief over its face, and, with the blow of an axe, ended
+its misery. The most spirited of the horses were the first to fall. They
+broke their hearts in gallant effort. Goaded to desperation, sometimes
+they would destroy themselves, throw themselves frantically over the
+bluff. Oh, it was horrible! horrible!
+
+Our own horse proved a ready victim. To tell the truth, no one but the
+Jam-wagon was particularly sorry. If there was a sump-hole in sight,
+that horse was sure to flounder into it. Sometimes twice in one day we
+had to unhitch the ox and pull him out. There was a place dug out of the
+snow alongside the trail, which was being used as a knacker's yard, and
+here we took him with a broken leg and put a bullet in his brain. While
+we waited there were six others brought in to be shot.
+
+It was a Sunday and we were in the tent, indescribably glad of a day's
+rest. The Jam-wagon was mending a bit of harness; the Prodigal was
+playing solitaire. Salvation Jim had just returned from a trip to
+Skagway, where he had hoped to find a letter from the outside regarding
+one Jake Mosher. His usually hale and kindly face was drawn and
+troubled. Wearily he removed his snow-sodden clothes.
+
+"I always did say there was God's curse on this Klondike gold," he said;
+"now I'm sure of it. There's a hoodoo on it. What it's a-goin' to cost,
+what hearts it's goin' to break, what homes it's goin' to wreck no
+man'll ever know. God only knows what it's cost already. But this last
+is the worst yet."
+
+"What's the matter, Jim?" I said; "what last?"
+
+"Why, haven't you heard? Well, there's just been a snow-slide on the
+Chilcoot an' several hundred people buried."
+
+I stared aghast. Living as we did in daily danger of snow-slides, this
+disaster struck us with terror.
+
+"You don't say!" said the Prodigal. "Where?"
+
+"Oh, somewhere's near Lindeman. Hundreds of poor sinners cut off without
+a chance to repent."
+
+He was going to improve on the occasion when the Prodigal cut in.
+
+"Poor devils! I guess we must know some of them too." He turned to me.
+"I wonder if your little Polak friend's all right?"
+
+Indeed my thoughts had just flown to Berna. Among the exigencies of the
+trail (when we had to fix our minds on the trouble of the moment and
+every moment had its trouble) there was little time for reflection.
+Nevertheless, I had found at all times visions of her flitting before
+me, thoughts of her coming to me when I least expected them. Pity,
+tenderness and a good deal of anxiety were in my mind. Often I wondered
+if ever I would see her again. A feeling of joy and a great longing
+would sweep over me in the hope. At these words then of the Prodigal, it
+seemed as if all my scattered sentiments crystallised into one, and a
+vast desire that was almost pain came over me. I suppose I was silent,
+grave, and it must have been some intuition of my thoughts that made the
+Prodigal say to me:
+
+"Say, old man, if you would like to take a run over the Dyea trail, I
+guess I can spare you for a day or so."
+
+"Yes, indeed, I'd like to see the trail."
+
+"Oh, yes, we've observed your enthusiastic interest in trails. Why don't
+you marry the girl? Well, cut along, old chap. Don't be gone too long."
+
+So next morning, travelling as lightly as possible, I started for
+Bennett. How good it seemed to get off unimpeded by an outfit, and I
+sped past the weary mob, struggling along on the last lap of their
+journey. I had been in some expectation of the trail bettering itself,
+but indeed it appeared at every step to grow more hopelessly terrible.
+It was knee-deep in snowy slush, and below that seemed to be literally
+paved with dead horses.
+
+I only waited long enough at Bennett to have breakfast. A pie nailed to
+a tent-pole indicated a restaurant, and there, for a dollar, I had a
+good meal of beans and bacon, coffee and flapjacks. It was yet early
+morning when I started for Linderman.
+
+The air was clear and cold, ideal mushing weather, and already parties
+were beginning to struggle into Bennett, looking very weary and jaded.
+On the trail a man did a day's work by nine in the morning, another by
+four in the afternoon, and a third by nightfall. You were lucky to get
+off at that.
+
+I was jogging along past the advance guard of the oncoming army, when
+who should I see but Mervin and Hewson. They looked thoroughly seasoned,
+and had made record time with a large outfit. In contrast to the worn,
+weary-eyed men with faces pinched and puckered, they looked insolently
+fit and full of fight. They had heard of the snow-slide but could give
+me no particulars. I inquired for Berna and the old man. They were
+somewhere behind, between Chilcoot and Lindeman. "Yes, they were
+probably buried under the slide. Good-bye."
+
+I hurried forward, full of apprehension. A black stream of Cheechakos
+were surging across Lindeman; then I realised the greatness of the other
+advancing army, and the vastness of the impulse that was urging these
+indomitable atoms to the North. It was blowing quite hard and many had
+put up sails on their sleds with good effect. I saw a Jew driving an ox,
+to which he had four small sleds harnessed. On each of these he had
+hoisted a small sail. Suddenly the ox looked round and saw the sails.
+Here was something that did not come within the scope of his
+experience. With a bellow of fear, he stampeded, pursued by a yelling
+Hebrew, while from the chain of sleds articles scattered in all
+directions. When last I saw them in the far distance, Jew and ox were
+still going.
+
+Why was I so anxious about Berna? I did not know, but with every mile my
+anxiety increased. A dim unreasoning fear possessed me. I imagined that
+if anything happened to her I would forever blame myself. I saw her
+lying white and cold as the snow itself, her face peaceful in death. Why
+had I not thought more of her? I had not appreciated her enough, her
+precious sweetness and her tenderness. If only she was spared, I would
+show her what a good friend I could be. I would protect her and be near
+her in case of need. But then how foolish to think anything could have
+happened to her. The chances were one in a hundred. Nevertheless, I
+hurried forward.
+
+I met the Twins. They had just escaped the slide, they told me, and had
+not yet recovered from the shock. A little way back on the trail it was.
+I would see men digging out the bodies. They had dug out seventeen that
+morning. Some were crushed as flat as pancakes.
+
+Again, with a pain at my heart, I asked after Berna and her grandfather.
+Twin number one said they were both buried under the slide. I gasped and
+was seized with sudden faintness. "No," said twin number two, "the old
+man is missing, but the girl has escaped and is nearly crazy with
+grief. Good-bye."
+
+Once more I hurried on. Gangs of men were shovelling for the dead. Every
+now and then a shovel would strike a hand or a skull. Then a shout would
+be raised and the poor misshapen body turned out.
+
+Again I put my inquiries. A busy digger paused in his work. He was a
+sottish-looking fellow, and there was something of the glare of a ghoul
+in his eyes.
+
+"Yes, that must have been the old guy with the whiskers they dug out
+early on from the lower end of the slide. Relative, name of Winklestein,
+took charge of him. Took him to the tent yonder. Won't let any one go
+near."
+
+He pointed to a tent on the hillside, and it was with a heavy heart I
+went forward. The poor old man, so gentle, so dignified, with his dream
+of a golden treasure that might bring happiness to others. It was cruel,
+cruel....
+
+"Say, what d'ye want here? Get to hell outa this."
+
+The words came with a snarl. I looked up in surprise.
+
+There at the door of the tent, all a-bristle like a gutter-bred cur, was
+Winklestein.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+I stared at the man a moment, for little had I expected so gracious a
+reception.
+
+"Mush on, there," he repeated truculently; "you're not wanted 'round
+here. Mush! Pretty darned smart."
+
+I felt myself grow suddenly, savagely angry. I measured the man for a
+moment and determined I could handle him.
+
+"I want," I said soberly, "to see the body of my old friend."
+
+"You do, do you? Well, you darned well won't. Besides, there ain't no
+body here."
+
+"You're a liar!" I observed. "But it's no use wasting words on you. I'm
+going on anyhow."
+
+With that I gripped him suddenly and threw him sideways with some force.
+One of the tent ropes took away his feet violently, and there on the
+snow he sprawled, glowering at me with evil eyes.
+
+"Now," said I, "I've got a gun, and if you try any monkey business, I'll
+fix you so quick you won't know what's happened."
+
+The bluff worked. He gathered himself up and followed me into the tent,
+looking the picture of malevolent impotence. On the ground lay a longish
+object covered with a blanket. With a strange feeling of reluctant
+horror I lifted the covering. Beneath it lay the body of the old man.
+
+He was lying on his back, and had not been squeezed out of all human
+semblance like so many of the others. Nevertheless, he was ghastly
+enough, with his bluish face and wide bulging eyes. What had worn his
+fingers to the bone so? He must have made a desperate struggle with his
+bare hands to dig himself out. I will never forget those torn, nailless
+fingers. I felt around his waist. Ha! the money belt was gone!
+
+"Winklestein," I said, turning suddenly on the little Jew, "this man had
+two thousand dollars on him. What have you done with it?"
+
+He started violently. A look of fear came into his eyes. It died away,
+and his face was convulsed with rage.
+
+"He did not," he screamed; "he didn't have a red cent. He's no more than
+an old pauper I was taking in to play the fiddle. He owes _me_, curse
+him! And who are you anyways, you blasted meddler, that accuses a decent
+man of being a body robber?"
+
+"I was this dead man's friend. I'm still his granddaughter's friend. I'm
+going to see justice done. This man had two thousand dollars in a gold
+belt round his waist. It belongs to the girl now. You've got to give it
+up, Winklestein, or by----"
+
+"Prove it, prove it!" he spluttered. "You're a liar; she's a liar;
+you're all a pack of liars, trying to blackmail a decent man. He had no
+money, I say! He had no money, and if ever he said so, he's a liar."
+
+"Oh, you vile wretch!" I cried. "It's you that's lying. I've a mind to
+choke your dirty throat. But I'll hound you till I make you cough up
+that money. Where's Berna?"
+
+Suddenly he had become quietly malicious.
+
+"Find her," he jibed; "find her for yourself. And take yourself out of
+my sight as quickly as you please."
+
+I saw he had me over a barrel, so, with a parting threat, I left him. A
+tent nearby was being run as a restaurant, and there I had a cup of
+coffee. Of the man who kept it, a fat, humorous cockney, I made
+enquiries regarding the girl. Yes, he knew her. She was living in yonder
+tent with Madam Winklestein.
+
+"They sy she's tykin' on horful baht th' old man, pore kid!"
+
+I thanked him, gulped down my coffee, and made for the tent. The flap
+was down, but I rapped on the canvas, and presently the dark face of
+Madam appeared. When she saw me, it grew darker.
+
+"What d'you want?" she demanded.
+
+"I want to see Berna," I said.
+
+"Then you can't. Can't you hear her? Isn't that enough?"
+
+Surely I could hear a very low, pitiful sound coming from the tent,
+something between a sob and a moan, like the wailing of an Indian woman
+over her dead, only infinitely subdued and anguished. I was shocked,
+awed, immeasurably grieved.
+
+"Thank you," I said; "I'm sorry. I don't want to intrude on her in her
+hour of affliction. I'll come again."
+
+"All right," she laughed tauntingly; "come again."
+
+I had failed. I thought of turning back, then I thought I might as well
+see what I could of the far-famed Chikoot, so once more I struck out.
+
+The faces of the hundreds I met were the same faces I had passed by the
+thousand, stamped with the seal of the trail, seamed with lines of
+suffering, wan with fatigue, blank with despair. There was the same
+desperate hurry, the same indifference to calamity, the same grim
+stoical endurance.
+
+A snowstorm was raging on the summit of the Chikoot and the snow was
+drifting, covering the thousands of caches to the depth of ten and
+fifteen feet. I stood on the summit of that nearly perpendicular ascent
+they call the "Scales." Steps had been cut in the icy steep, and up
+these men were straining, each with a huge pack on his back. They could
+only go in single file. It was the famous "Human Chain." At regular
+distances, platforms had been cut beside the trail, where the exhausted
+ones might leave the ranks and rest; but if a worn-out climber reeled
+and crawled into one of the shelters, quickly the line closed up and
+none gave him a glance.
+
+The men wore ice-creepers, so that their feet would clutch the slippery
+surface. Many of them had staffs, and all were bent nigh double under
+their burdens. They did not speak, their lips were grimly sealed, their
+eyes fixed and stern. They bowed their heads to thwart the buffetings of
+the storm-wind, but every way they turned it seemed to meet them. The
+snow lay thick on their shoulders and covered their breasts. On their
+beards the spiked icicles glistened. As they moved up step by step, it
+seemed as if their feet were made of lead, so heavily did they lift
+them. And the resting-places by the trail were never empty.
+
+You saw them in the canyon at the trail top, staggering in the wind that
+seemed to blow every way at once. You saw them blindly groping for the
+caches they had made but yesterday and now fathoms deep under the
+snowdrift. You saw them descending swiftly, dizzily, leaning back on
+their staffs, for the down trail was like a slide. In a moment they were
+lost to sight, but to-morrow they would come again, and to-morrow and
+to-morrow, the men of the Chilcoot.
+
+The Trail of Travail--surely it was all epitomised in the tribulations
+of that stark ascent. From my eyrie on its blizzard-beaten crest I could
+see the Human Chain drag upward link by link, and every link a man. And
+as he climbed that pitiless treadmill, on each man's face there could be
+deciphered the palimpsest of his soul.
+
+Oh, what a drama it was, and what a stage! The Trail of '98--high
+courage, frenzied fear, despotic greed, unflinching sacrifice. But over
+all--its hunger and its hope, its passion and its pain--triumphed the
+dauntless spirit of the Pathfinder--the mighty Pioneer.
+
+[Illustration: "No," she said firmly, "you can't see the girl"]
+
+Then I knew, I knew. These silent, patient, toiling ones were the
+Conquerors of the Great White Land; the Men of the High North, the
+Brotherhood of the Arctic Wild. No saga will ever glorify their deeds,
+no epic make them immortal. Their names will be written in the snows
+that melt and vanish at the smile of Spring; but in their works will
+they live, and their indomitable spirit will be as a beacon-light,
+shining down the dim corridors of Eternity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I slept at a bunkhouse that night, and next morning I again made a call
+at the tent within which lay Berna. Again Madam, in a gaudy wrapper,
+answered my call, but this time, to my surprise, she was quite pleasant.
+
+"No," she said firmly, "you can't see the girl. She's all prostrated.
+We've given her a sleeping powder and she's asleep now. But she's mighty
+sick. We've sent for a doctor."
+
+There was indeed nothing to be done. With a heavy heart I thanked her,
+expressed my regrets and went away. What had got into me, I wondered,
+that I was so distressed about the girl. I thought of her continually,
+with tenderness and longing. I had seen so little of her, yet that
+little had meant so much. I took a sad pleasure in recalling her to mind
+in varying aspects; always she appeared different to me somehow. I could
+get no definite idea of her; ever was there something baffling,
+mysterious, half revealed.
+
+To me there was in her, beauty, charm, every ideal quality. Yet must my
+eyes have been anointed, for others passed her by without a second
+glance. Oh, I was young and foolish, maybe; but I had never before known
+a girl that appealed to me, and it was very, very sweet.
+
+So I went back to the restaurant and gave the fat cockney a note which
+he promised to deliver into her own hands. I wrote:
+
+     "Dear Berna: I cannot tell you how deeply grieved I am over your
+     grandfather's death, and how I sympathise with you in your sorrow.
+     I came over from the other trail to see you, but you were too ill.
+     Now I must go back at once. If I could only have said a word to
+     comfort you! I feel terribly about it.
+
+     "Oh, Berna, dear, go back, go back. This is no country for you. If
+     I can help you, Berna, let me know. If you come on to Bennett, then
+     I will see you.
+
+     "Believe me again, dear, my heart aches for you.
+
+     "Be brave.
+
+                             "Always affectionately yours,
+
+                                                        "Athol Meldrum."
+
+Then once more I struck out for Bennett.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Our last load was safely landed in Bennett and the trail of the land was
+over. We had packed an outfit of four thousand pounds over a
+thirty-seven-mile trail and it had taken us nearly a month. For an
+average of fifteen hours a day we had worked for all that was in us;
+yet, looking back, it seems to have been more a matter of dogged
+persistence and patience than desperate endeavour and endurance.
+
+There is no doubt that to the great majority, the trail spelt privation,
+misery and suffering; but they were of the poor, deluded multitude that
+never should have left their ploughs, their desks and their benches.
+Then there were others like ourselves to whom it meant hardship, more or
+less extreme, but who managed to struggle along fairly well. Lastly,
+there was a minority to whom it was little more than discomfort. They
+were the seasoned veterans of the trail to whom its trials were all in
+the day's work. It was as if the Great White Land was putting us to the
+test, was weeding out the fit from the unfit, was proving itself a land
+of the Strong, a land for men.
+
+And indeed our party was well qualified to pass the test of the trail.
+The Prodigal was full of irrepressible enthusiasm, and always loaded to
+the muzzle with ideas. Salvation Jim was a mine of foresight and
+resource, while the Jam-wagon proved himself an insatiable glutton for
+work. Altogether we fared better than the average party.
+
+We were camped on the narrow neck of water between Lindeman and Bennett,
+and as hay was two hundred and fifty dollars a ton, the first thing we
+did was to butcher the ox. The next was to see about building a boat. We
+thought of whipsawing our own boards, but the timber near us was poor or
+thinned out, so that in the end we bought lumber, paying for it twenty
+cents a foot. We were all very unexpert carpenters; however, by watching
+others, we managed to make a decent-looking boat.
+
+These were the busy days. At Bennett the two great Cheechako armies
+converged, and there must have been thirty thousand people camped round
+the lake. The night was ablaze with countless camp-fires, the day a buzz
+of busy toil. Everywhere you heard the racket of hammer and saw, beheld
+men in feverish haste over their boat-building. There were many fine
+boats, but the crude makeshift effort of the amateur predominated. Some
+of them, indeed, had no more shape than a packing-case, and not a few
+resembled a coffin. Anything that would float and keep out the water was
+a "boat."
+
+Oh, it was good to think that from thenceforward, the swift, clear
+current would bear us to our goal. No more icy slush to the knee, no
+more putrid horse-flesh under foot, no more blinding blizzards and
+heart-breaking drift of snows. But the blue sky would canopy us, the
+gentle breezes fan us, the warm sun lock us in her arms. No more bitter
+freezings and sinister dawns and weary travail of mind and body. The
+hills would busk themselves in emerald green, the wild crocus come to
+gladden our eyes, the long nights glow with sunsets of theatric
+splendour. No wonder, in the glory of reaction, we exulted and laboured
+on our boat with brimming hearts. And always before us gleamed the
+Golden Magnet, making us chafe and rage against the stubborn ice that
+stayed our progress.
+
+The days were full of breezy sunshine and at all times the Eager Army
+watched the rotting ice with anxious eyes. In places it was fairly
+honeycombed now, in others corroded and splintered into silver spears.
+Here and there it heaved up and cracked across in gaping chasms; again
+it sagged down suddenly. There were sheets of surface water and
+stretches of greenish slush that froze faintly overnight. In large,
+flaming letters of red, the lake was dangerous, near to a break-up, a
+death trap; yet every day the reckless ones were going over it to be
+that much nearer the golden goal.
+
+In this game of taking desperate chances, many a wild player lost, many
+a foolhardy one never reached the shore. No one will ever know the
+number of victims claimed by these black unfathomable waters.
+
+It was the Professor who opened our eyes to the danger of crossing the
+lake. He and the Bank clerk quarrelled over the wisdom of delay. The
+Professor was positive it was quite safe. The ice was four feet thick.
+Go fast over the weak spots and you would be all right. He argued, fumed
+and ranted. They were losing precious time, time which might mean all
+the difference between failure and success. It was expedient to get
+ahead of the rabble. He, for one, was no craven; he had staked his all
+on this trip. He had studied the records of Arctic explorers. He thought
+he was no man's fool. If others were cowardly enough to hold back, he
+would go alone.
+
+The upshot of it was that one grey morning he took his share of the
+outfit and started off by himself.
+
+Said the Bank clerk, half crying:
+
+"Poor old Pondersby! In spite of the words we had, we parted the best of
+friends. We shook hands and I wished him all good-speed. I saw him
+twisting and wriggling among the patches of black and white ice. For a
+long time I watched him with a heavy heart. Yet he seemed to be getting
+along nicely, and I was beginning to think he was right and to call
+myself a fool. He was getting quite small in the distance, when suddenly
+he seemed to disappear. I got the glasses. There was a big hole in the
+ice, no sleigh, no Pondersby. Poor old fellow!"
+
+There were many such cases of separation on the shores of Lake Bennett.
+Parties who had started out on that trail as devoted chums, finished it
+as lifelong enemies. Tempers were ground to a razor-edge; words dropped
+crudely; anger flamed to meet anger. You could scarcely blame them. They
+did not realise that the trail demanded all that was in a man of
+gentleness, patience and forbearance. Poor human nature was strained and
+tested inexorably, and the most loving friends became the most deadly
+foes forevermore.
+
+One instance of this was the twins.
+
+"Say," said the Prodigal, "you ought to see Romulus and Remus. They're
+scrapping like cat and dog. Seems they've had a bunch of trouble right
+along the line--you know how the trail brings out the yellow streak in a
+man. Well, they're both fiery as Hades, so after a particularly warm
+evening they swore that as soon as they got to Bennett, they'd divvy up
+the stuff and each go off by his lonesome. Somehow, they patched it up
+when they reached here and got busy on their boat. Now it seems they've
+quarrelled worse than ever. Romulus is telling Remus his real name and
+_vice-versa_. They're raking up old grievances of their childhood days,
+and the end of it is they've once more decided to halve tip the outfit.
+They're mad enough to kill each other. They've even decided to cut their
+boat in two."
+
+It was truly so. We went and watched them. Each had a bitter
+determination on his face. They were sawing the boat through the middle.
+Afterwards, I believe, they patched up their ends and made a successful
+trip to Dawson.
+
+The ice was going fast. Strangers were still coming in over the trail
+with awful tales of its horrors. Bennett was all excitement and seething
+life. Thousands of ungainly boats, rafts and scows were waiting to be
+launched. Already craft were beginning to come through from Lindeman,
+rushing down the fierce torrent between the two lakes. From where we
+were camped we saw them pass. There were ugly rapids and a fang-like
+rock, against which many a luckless craft was piled up.
+
+It was the most fascinating thing in the world to watch these daring
+Argonauts rush the rapids, to speculate whether or not they would get
+through. The stroke of an oar, a few feet to right or left, meant
+unspeakable calamity. Poor souls! Their faces of utter despair as they
+landed dripping from the water and saw their precious goods disappearing
+in the angry foam would have moved a heart of stone. As one man said, in
+the bitterness of his heart:
+
+"Oh, boys, what a funny God we've got!"
+
+There was a man who came sailing through the passage with a fine boat
+and a rich outfit. He had lugged it over the trail at the cost of
+infinite toil and weariness. Now his heart was full of hope. Suddenly he
+was in the whirl of the current, then all at once loomed up the cruel
+rock. His face blanched with horror. Frantically he tried to avoid it.
+No use. Crash! and his frail boat splintered like matchwood.
+
+But this man was a fighter. He set his jaw. Once more he went back over
+that deadly trail. He bought, at great expense, a new outfit and had
+packers hustle it over the trail. He procured a new boat. Once more he
+sailed through the narrow canyon. His face was set and grim.
+
+Suddenly, like some iron Nemesis, once more loomed up the fatal rock. He
+struggled gallantly, but again the current seemed to grip him and throw
+him on that deadly fang. With another sickening crash he saw his goods
+sink in the seething waters.
+
+Did he give up? No! A third time he struggled, weary, heartbroken, over
+that trail. He had little left now, and with that little he bought his
+third outfit, a poor, pathetic shadow of the former ones, but enough for
+a desperate man.
+
+Once more he packed it over the trail, now a perfect Avernus of horror.
+He reached the river, and in a third poor little boat, again he sailed
+down the passage. There was the swift-leaping current, the ugly tusk of
+rock staked with wreckage. A moment, a few feet, a turn of the
+oar-blade, and he would have been past. But, no! The rock seemed to
+fascinate him as the eyes of a snake fascinate a bird. He stared at it
+fearfully, a look of terror and despair. Then for the third time, with a
+hideous crash, his frail boat was piled up in a pitiful ruin.
+
+He was beaten now.
+
+He climbed on the bank, and there, with a last look at the ugly snarl of
+waters, and the jagged up-thrust of that evil rock, he put a bullet
+smashing through his brain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The ice was loose and broken. We were all ready to start in a few days.
+The mighty camp was in a ferment of excitement. Every one seemed elated
+beyond words. On, once more, to Eldorado!
+
+It was near midnight, but the sky, where the sun had dipped below the
+mountain rim, was a sea of translucent green, weirdly and wildly
+harmonious with the desolation of the land. On the bleak lake one could
+hear the lap of waves, while the high, rocky shore to the left was a
+black wall of shadow. I stood by the beach near our boat, all alone in
+the wan light, and tried to think calmly of the strange things that had
+happened to me.
+
+Surely there was something of Romance left in this old world yet if one
+would only go to seek it. Here I was, sun-browned, strong, healthy,
+having come through many trials and still on the edge of adventure, when
+I might, but for my own headstrong perversity, have yet been vegetating
+on the hills of Glengyle. A great exultation welled up in me, the voice
+of youth and ambition, the lust to conquer. I would succeed, I would
+wrest from the vast, lonely, mysterious North some of its treasure. I
+would be a conqueror.
+
+Silent and abstracted, I looked into the brooding disk of sheeny sky, my
+eyes dream-troubled.
+
+Then I felt a ghostly hand touch my arm, and with a great start of
+surprise, I turned.
+
+"Berna!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+The girl was wearing a thin black shawl around her shoulders, but in the
+icy wind blowing from the lake, she trembled like a wand. Her face was
+pale, waxen, almost spiritual in its expression, and she looked at me
+with just the most pitiably sweet smile in the world.
+
+"I'm sorry I startled you; but I wanted to thank you for your letter and
+for your sympathy."
+
+It was the same clear voice, with the throb of tender feeling in it.
+
+"You see, I'm all alone now." The voice faltered, but went on bravely.
+"I've got no one that cares about me any more, and I've been sick, so
+sick I wonder I lived. I knew you'd forgotten me, and I don't blame you.
+But I've never forgotten you, and I wanted to see you just once more."
+
+She was speaking quite calmly and unemotionally.
+
+"Berna!" I cried; "don't say that. Your reproach hurts me so. Indeed I
+did try to find you, but it's such a vast camp. There are so many
+thousands of people here. Time and again I inquired, but no one seemed
+to know. Then I thought you must surely have gone back, and it's been
+such a busy time, building our boat and getting ready. No, Berna, I
+didn't forget. Many's and many's a night I've lain awake thinking of
+you, wondering, longing to see you again--but haven't you forgotten a
+little?"
+
+I saw the sensitive lips smile almost bitterly.
+
+"No! not even a little."
+
+"Oh! I'm sorry, Berna. I'm sorry I've looked after you so badly. I'll
+never forgive myself. You've been terribly sick, too. What a little
+white whisp you are! You look as if a breeze would blow you away. You
+shouldn't be out this night, girl. Put my coat around you, come now."
+
+I wrapped her in it and saw with gladness her shivering cease. As I
+buttoned it at her throat I marvelled at the thinness of her, and at the
+delicacy of her face. In the opal light of the luminous sky her great
+grey eyes were lustrous.
+
+"Berna," I said again, "why did you come in here, why? You should have
+gone back."
+
+"Gone back," she repeated; "indeed I would have, oh, so gladly. But you
+don't understand--they wouldn't let me. After they had got all his
+money--and they _did_ get it, though they swear he had nothing--they
+made me come on with them. They said I owed them for his burial, and for
+the care and attention they gave me when I was sick. They said I must
+come on with them and work for them. I protested, I struggled. But
+what's the use? I can't do anything against them any more. I'm weak, and
+I'm terribly afraid of her."
+
+She shuddered, then a look of fear came into her eyes. I put my hand on
+her arm and drew her close to me.
+
+"I just slipped away to-night. She thinks I'm asleep in the tent. She
+watches me like a cat, and will scarce let me speak to any one. She's so
+big and strong, and I'm so slight and weak. She would kill me in one of
+her rages. Then she tells every one I'm no good, an ingrate, everything
+that's bad. Once when I threatened to run away, she said she would
+accuse me of stealing and have me put in gaol. That's the kind of woman
+she is."
+
+"This is terrible, Berna. What have you been doing all the time?"
+
+"Oh, I've been working, working for them. They've been running a little
+restaurant and I've waited on table. I saw you several times, but you
+were always too busy or too far away in dreams to see me, and I couldn't
+get a chance to speak. But we're going down the lake to-morrow, so I
+thought I would just slip away and say good-bye."
+
+"Not good-bye," I faltered; "not good-bye."
+
+Her tone was measured, her eyes closed almost.
+
+"Yes, I'm afraid I must say it. When we get down there, it's good-bye,
+good-bye. The less you have to do with me, the better."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Well, I mean this. These people are not decent. They're vile. I must go
+with them; I cannot get away. Already, though I'm as pure as your sister
+would be, already my being with them has smirched me in everybody's
+eyes. I can see it by the way the men look at me. No, go your way and
+leave me to whatever fate is in store for me."
+
+"Never!" I said harshly. "What do you take me for, Berna?"
+
+"My friend ... you know, after his death, when I was so sick, I wanted
+to die. Then I got your letter, and I felt I must see you again for--I
+thought a lot of you. No man's ever been so kind to me as you have.
+They've all been--the other sort. I used to think of you a good deal,
+and I wanted to do some little thing to show you I was really grateful.
+On the boat I used to notice you because you were so quiet and
+abstracted. Then you were grandfather's room-mate and gentle and kind to
+him. You looked different from the others, too; your eyes were good----"
+
+"Oh, come, Berna, never mind that."
+
+"Yes, I mean it. I just wanted to tell you the things a poor girl
+thought of you. But now it's all nearly over. We've neither of us got to
+think of each other any more ... and I just wanted to give you this--to
+remind you sometimes of Berna."
+
+It was a poor little locket and it contained a lock of her silken hair.
+
+"It's worth nothing, I know, but just keep it for me."
+
+"Indeed I will, Berna, keep it always, and wear it for you. But I can't
+let you go like this. See here, girl, is there nothing I can do?
+Nothing? Surely there must be some way. Berna, Berna, look at me, listen
+to me! Is there? What can I do? Tell me, tell me, my girl."
+
+She seemed to sway to me gently. Indeed I did not intend it, but
+somehow she was in my arms. She felt so slight and frail a thing, I
+feared to hurt her.
+
+Then I felt her bosom heaving greatly, and I knew she was crying. For a
+little I let her cry, but presently I lifted up the white face that lay
+on my shoulder. It was wet with tears. Again and again I kissed her. She
+lay passively in my arms. Never did she try to escape nor hide her face,
+but seemed to give herself up to me. Her tears were salt upon my lips,
+yet her own lips were cold, and she did not answer to my kisses.
+
+At last she spoke. Her voice was like a little sigh.
+
+"Oh, if it could only be!"
+
+"What, Berna? Tell me what?"
+
+"If you could only take me away from them, protect me, care for me. Oh,
+if you could only _marry_ me, make me your wife. I would be the best
+wife in the world to you; I would work my fingers to the bone for you; I
+would starve and suffer for you, and walk the world barefoot for your
+sake. Oh, my dear, my dear, pity me!"
+
+It seemed as if a sudden light had flashed upon my brain, stunning me,
+bewildering me. I thought of the princess of my dreams. I thought of
+Garry and of Mother. Could I take her to them?
+
+"Berna," I said sternly, "look at me."
+
+She obeyed.
+
+"Berna, tell me, by all you regard as pure and holy, do you love me?"
+
+She was silent and averted her eyes.
+
+"No, Berna," I said, "you don't; you're afraid. It's not the sort of
+love you've dreamed of. It's not your ideal. It would be gratitude and
+affection, love of a kind, but never that great dazzling light, that
+passion that would raise to heaven or drag to hell."
+
+"How do I know? Perhaps that would come in time. I care a great deal for
+you. I think of you always. I would be a true, devoted wife----"
+
+"Yes, I know, Berna; but you don't love me, love me; see, dear. It's so
+different. You might care and care till doomsday, but it wouldn't be the
+other thing; it wouldn't be love as I have conceived of it, dreamed of
+it. Listen, Berna! Here's where our difference in race comes in. You
+would rush blindly into this. You would not consider, test and prove
+yourself. It's the most serious matter in life to me, something to be
+looked at from every side, to be weighed and balanced."
+
+As I said this, my conscience was whispering fiercely: "Oh, fool!
+Coward! Paltering, despicable coward! This girl throws herself on you,
+on your honour, chivalry, manhood, and you screen yourself behind a
+barrier of convention."
+
+However, I went on.
+
+"You might come to love me in time, but we must wait a while, little
+girl. Surely that is reasonable? I care for you a great, great deal, but
+I don't know if I love you in the great way people should love. Can't we
+wait a little, Berna? I'll look after you, dear; won't that do?"
+
+She disengaged herself from me, sighing woefully.
+
+"Yes, I suppose that'll do. Oh, I'll never forgive myself for saying
+that to you. I shouldn't, but I was so desperate. You don't know what it
+meant to me. Please forget it, won't you?"
+
+"No, Berna, I'll never forget it, and I'll always bless you for having
+said it. Believe me, dear, it will all come right. Things aren't so bad.
+You're just scared, little one. I'll watch no one harms you, and love
+will come to both of us in good time, that love that means life and
+death, hate and adoration, rapture and pain, the greatest thing in the
+world. Oh, my dear, my dear, trust me! We have known each other such a
+brief space. Let us wait a little longer, just a little longer."
+
+"Yes, that's right, a little longer."
+
+Her voice was faint and toneless. She disengaged herself.
+
+"Now, good-night; they may have missed me."
+
+Almost before I could realise it she had disappeared amid the tents,
+leaving me there in the gloom with my heart full of doubt, self-reproach
+and pain.
+
+Oh, despicable, paltering coward!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Spring in the Yukon! Majestic mountains crowned with immemorial snow!
+The mad midnight melodies of birds! From the kindly stars to the leaves
+of grass that glimmer in the wind, a world pregnant with joy, a land
+jewel-bright and virgin-sweet!
+
+After the obsession of the long, long night, Spring leaps into being
+with a sudden sun-thrilled joy, a radiant uplift. The shy emerald
+mantles the valleys and fledges the heights; the pussy-willows tremble
+by lake and stream; the wild crocus brims the hollows with a haze of
+violet; trailing his last ragged pennants of snow on the hills, winter
+makes his sullen retreat.
+
+Perhaps I am over-sensitive, but I have ecstasied moments when to me it
+seems the grass is greener, the sky bluer than they are to most; I
+surrender my heart to wonder and joy; I am in tune with the triumphant
+cadence of Things; I am an atom of praise; I live, therefore I exult.
+
+Only in hyperbole could I express that golden Spring, as we set sail on
+the sunlit waters of Lake Bennett. Never had I felt so glad. And indeed
+it was a vastly merry mob that sailed with us, straining their eyes once
+more to the Eldorado of their dreams. Bottled-up spirits effervesced
+wildly; hearts beat bravely; hopes were high. The bitter landtrail was
+forgotten. The clear, bright water leaped laughingly at the bow; the
+gallant breeze was blowing behind. The strong men bared their breasts
+and drank of it deeply.
+
+Yes, they were the strong, the fit, suffered by the North to survive,
+stiffened and braced and seasoned, the Chosen of the Test, the Proven of
+the Trail. Songs of jubilation rang in the night air; men, eager-eyed
+and watchful, roared snatches of melody as they toiled at sweep and oar;
+banjos, mandolins, fiddles, flutes, mingled in maddest confusion. Once
+more the great invading army of the Cheechakos moved forward
+tumultuously, but now with mirth and rejoicing.
+
+The great calm night was never dark, the great deep lakes infinitely
+serene, the great mountains majestically solemn. In the lighted sky the
+pale ghost-moon seemed ever apologising for itself. The world was a
+grand harmonious symphony that even the advancing tide of the Argonauts
+could not mar.
+
+Yet, under all the mirth and gaiety, you could feel, tense, ruthless and
+dominant, the spirit of the trail. In that invincible onrush of human
+effort, as the oars bent with their strokes of might, as the sail
+bellied before the breeze, as the eager wave leapt at the bow, you could
+feel the passion that quickened their hearts and steeled their arms.
+Klondike or bust! Once more the slogan rang on bearded lips; once more
+the gold-lust smouldered in their eyes. The old primal lust resurged: to
+win at any cost, to thrust down those in the way, to fight fiercely,
+brutally, even as wolf-dogs fight, this was the code, the terrible code
+of the Gold-trail. The basic passions up-leapt, envy and hate and fear
+triumphed, and with ever increasing excitement the great fleet of the
+gold-hunters strained onward to the valley of the treasure.
+
+Of all who had started out with us but a few had got this far. Of these
+Mervin and Hewson were far in front, victors of the trail, qualified to
+rank with the Men of the High North, the Sourdoughs of the Yukon Valley.
+Somewhere in the fleet were the Bank clerk, the Halfbreed and
+Bullhammer, while three days' start ahead were the Winklesteins.
+
+"These Jews have the only system," commented the Prodigal; "they ran the
+'Elight' Restaurant in Bennett and got action on their beans and flour
+and bacon. The Madam cooked, the old man did the chores and the girl
+waited on table. They've roped in a bunch of money, and now they've lit
+out for Dawson in a nice, tight little scow with their outfits turned
+into wads of the long green."
+
+I kept a keen lookout for them and every day I hoped we would overtake
+their scow, for constantly I thought of Berna. Her little face, so
+wistfully tender, haunted me, and over and over in my mind I kept
+recalling our last meeting.
+
+At times I blamed myself for letting her go so easily, and then again I
+was thankful that I had not allowed my heart to run away with my head.
+For I was beginning to wonder if I had not given her my heart, given it
+easily, willingly and without reserve. And in truth at the idea I felt
+a strange thrill of joy. The girl seemed to me all that was fair,
+lovable and sweet.
+
+We were now skimming over Tagish Lake. With grey head bared to the
+breeze and a hymn stave on his lips, Salvation Jim steered in the strong
+sunlight. His face was full of cheer, his eyes alight with kindly hope.
+Leaning over the side, the Prodigal was dragging a spoon-bait to catch
+the monster trout that lived in those depths. The Jam-wagon, as if
+disgusted at our enforced idleness, slumbered at the bow. As he slept I
+noticed his fine nostrils, his thin, bitter lips, his bare brawny arms,
+tattooed with strange devices. How clean he kept his teeth and nails!
+There was the stamp of the thoroughbred all over him. In what strange
+parts of the world had he run amuck? What fair, gracious women mourned
+for him in far-away England?
+
+Ah, those enchanted days, the sky spaces abrim with light, the
+gargantuan mountains, the eager army of adventurers, undismayed at the
+gloomy vastness!
+
+We came to Windy Arm, rugged, desolate and despairful. Down it, with
+menace and terror on its wings, rushes the furious wind, driving boats
+and scows crashing on an iron shore. In the night we heard shouts; we
+saw wreckage piled up on the beach, but we pulled away. For twelve weary
+hours we pulled at the oars, and in the end our danger was past.
+
+We came to Lake Tagish; a dead calm, a blazing sun, a seething mist of
+mosquitoes. We sweltered in the heat; we strained, with blistered
+hands, at the oars; we cursed and toiled like a thousand others of that
+grotesque fleet. There were boats of every shape, square, oblong,
+circular, three-cornered, flat, round--anything that would float. They
+were made mostly of boards, laboriously hand-sawn in the woods, and from
+a half-inch to four inches thick. Black pitch smeared the seams of the
+raw lumber. They travelled sideways as well as in any other fashion. And
+in such crazy craft were thousands of amateur boatmen, sailing serenely
+along, taking danger with sang-froid, and at night, over their
+camp-fires, hilariously telling of their hairbreadth escapes.
+
+We entered the Fifty-mile River; we were in a giant valley; tier after
+tier of benchland rose to sentinel mountains of austerest grandeur.
+There at the bottom the little river twisted like a silver wire, and
+down it rowed the eager army. They shattered the silence into wildest
+echo, they roused the bears out of their frozen sleep; the forest flamed
+from their careless fires.
+
+The river was our beast of burden now, a tireless, gentle beast.
+Serenely and smoothly it bore us onward, yet there was a note of menace
+in its song. They had told us of the canyon and of the rapids, and as we
+pulled at the oars and battled with the mosquitoes, we wondered when the
+danger was coming, how we would fare through it when it came.
+
+Then one evening as we were sweeping down the placid river, the current
+suddenly quickened. The banks were sliding past at a strange speed.
+Swiftly we whirled around a bend, and there we were right on top of the
+dreadful canyon. Straight ahead was what seemed to be a solid wall of
+rock. The river looked to have no outlet; but as we drew nearer we saw
+that there was a narrow chasm in the stony face, and at this the water
+was rearing and charging with an angry roar.
+
+The current was gripping us angrily now; there was no chance to draw
+back. At his post stood the Jam-wagon with the keen, alert look of the
+man who loves danger. A thrill of excitement ran through us all. With
+set faces we prepared for the fight.
+
+I was in the bow. All at once I saw directly in front a scow struggling
+to make the shore. In her there were three people, two women and a man.
+I saw the man jump out with a rope and try to snub the scow to a tree.
+Three times he failed, running along the bank and shouting frantically.
+I saw one of the women jump for the shore. Then at the same instant the
+rope parted, and the scow, with the remaining woman, went swirling on
+into the canyon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+All this I saw, and so fascinated was I that I forgot our own peril. I
+heard a shrill scream of fear; I saw the solitary woman crouch down in
+the bottom of the scow, burying her face in her hands; I saw the scow
+rise, hover, and then plunge downward into the angry maw of the canyon.
+
+The river hurried us on helplessly. We were in the canyon now. The air
+grew dark. On each side, so close it seemed we could almost touch them
+with our oars, were black, ancient walls, towering up dizzily. The river
+seemed to leap and buck, its middle arching four feet higher than its
+sides, a veritable hog-back of water. It bounded on in great billows,
+green, hillocky and terribly swift, like a liquid toboggan slide. We
+plunged forward, heaved aloft, and the black, moss-stained walls
+brindled past us.
+
+About midway in the canyon is a huge basin, like the old crater of a
+volcano, sloping upwards to the pine-fringed skyline. Here was a giant
+eddy, and here, circling round and round, was the runaway scow. The
+forsaken woman was still crouching on it. The light was quite wan, and
+we were half blinded by the flying spray, but I clung to my place at the
+bow and watched intently.
+
+"Keep clear of that scow," I heard some one shout. "Avoid the eddy."
+
+It was almost too late. The ill-fated scow spun round and swooped down
+on us. In a moment we would have been struck and overturned, but I saw
+Jim and the Jam-wagon give a desperate strain at the oars. I saw the
+scow swirling past, just two feet from us. I looked again--then with a
+wild panic of horror I saw that the crouching figure was that of Berna.
+
+I remember jumping--it must have been five feet--and I landed half in,
+half out of the water. I remember clinging a moment, then pulling myself
+aboard. I heard shouts from the others as the current swept them into
+the canyon. I remember looking round and cursing because both sweeps had
+been lost overboard, and lastly I remember bending over Berna and
+shouting in her ear:
+
+"All right, I'm with you!"
+
+If an angel had dropped from high heaven to her rescue I don't believe
+the girl could have been more impressed. For a moment she stared at me
+unbelievingly. I was kneeling by her and she put her hands on my
+shoulders as if to prove to herself that I was real. Then, with a
+half-sob, half-cry of joy, she clasped her arms tightly around me.
+Something in her look, something in the touch of her slender, clinging
+form made my heart exult. Once again I shouted in her ear.
+
+"It's all right, don't be frightened. We'll pull through, all right."
+
+Once more we had whirled off into the main current; once more we were in
+that roaring torrent, with its fearsome dips and rises, its columned
+walls corroded with age and filled with the gloom of eternal twilight.
+The water smashed and battered us, whirled us along relentlessly, lashed
+us in heavy sprays; yet with closed eyes and thudding hearts we waited.
+Then suddenly the light grew strong again. The primæval walls were gone.
+We were sweeping along smoothly, and on either side of us the valley
+sloped in green plateaus up to the smiling sky.
+
+I unlocked my arms and peered down to where her face lay half hidden on
+my breast.
+
+"Thank God, I was able to reach you!"
+
+"Yes, thank God!" she answered faintly. "Oh, I thought it was all over.
+I nearly died with fear. It was terrible. Thank God for you!"
+
+But she had scarce spoken when I realised, with a vast shock, that the
+danger was far from over. We were hurrying along helplessly in that
+fierce current, and already I heard the roar of the Squaw Rapids. Ahead,
+I could see them dancing, boiling, foaming, blood-red in the sunset
+glow.
+
+"Be brave, Berna," I had to shout again; "we'll be all right. Trust me,
+dear!"
+
+She, too, was staring ahead with dilated eyes of fear. Yet at my words
+she became wonderfully calm, and in her face there was a great, glad
+look that made my heart rejoice. She nestled to my side. Once more she
+waited.
+
+We took the rapids broadside on, but the scow was light and very strong.
+Like a cork in a mill-stream we tossed and spun around. The vicious,
+mauling wolf-pack of the river heaved us into the air, and worried us
+as we fell. Drenched, deafened, stunned with fierce, nerve-shattering
+blows, every moment we thought to go under. We were in a caldron of
+fire. The roar of doom was in our ears. Giant hands with claws of foam
+were clutching, buffeting us. Shrieks of fury assailed us, as demon
+tossed us to demon. Was there no end to it? Thud, crash, roar, sickening
+us to our hearts; lurching, leaping, beaten, battered ... then all at
+once came a calm; we must be past; we opened our eyes.
+
+We were again sweeping round a bend in the river in the shadow of a high
+bluff. If we could only make the bank--but, no! The current hurled us
+along once more. I saw it sweep under a rocky face of the hillside, and
+then I knew that the worst was coming. For there, about two hundred
+yards away, were the dreaded Whitehorse Rapids.
+
+"Close your eyes, Berna!" I cried. "Lie down on the bottom. Pray as you
+never prayed before."
+
+We were on them now. The rocky banks close in till they nearly meet.
+They form a narrow gateway of rock, and through those close-set jaws the
+raging river has to pass. Leaping, crashing over its boulder-strewn bed,
+gaining in terrible impetus at every leap, it gathers speed for its last
+desperate burst for freedom. Then with a great roar it charges the gap.
+
+But there, right in the way, is a giant boulder. Water meets rock in a
+crash of terrific onset. The river is beaten, broken, thrown back on
+itself, and with a baffled roar rises high in the air in a raging hell
+of spume and tempest. For a moment the chasm is a battleground of the
+elements, a fierce, titanic struggle. Then the river, wrenching free,
+falls into the basin below.
+
+"Lie down, Berna, and hold on to me!"
+
+We both dropped down in the bottom of the scow, and she clasped me so
+tightly I marvelled at the strength of her. I felt her wet cheek pressed
+to mine, her lips clinging to my lips.
+
+"Now, dear, just a moment and it will all be over."
+
+Once again the angry thunder of the waters. The scow took them nose on,
+riding gallantly. Again we were tossed like a feather in a whirlwind,
+pitchforked from wrath to wrath. Once more, swinging, swerving,
+straining, we pelted on. On pinnacles of terror our hearts poised
+nakedly. The waters danced a fiery saraband; each wave was a demon
+lashing at us as we passed; or again they were like fear-maddened horses
+with whipping manes of flame. We clutched each other convulsively. Would
+it never, never end ... then ... then ...
+
+It seemed the last had come. Up, up we went. We seemed to hover
+uncertainly, tilted, hair-poised over a yawning gulf. Were we going to
+upset? Mental agony screamed in me. But, no! We righted. Dizzily we
+dipped over; steeply we plunged down. Oh! it was terrible! We were in a
+hornets' nest of angry waters and they were stinging us to death; we
+were in a hollow cavern roofed over with slabs of seething foam; the
+fiery horses were trampling us under their myriad hoofs. I gave up all
+hope. I felt the girl faint in my arms. How long it seemed! I wished for
+the end. _The flying hammers of hell were pounding us, pounding us--Oh,
+God! Oh, God!..._
+
+Then, swamped from bow to stern, half turned over, wrecked and broken,
+we swept into the peaceful basin of the river below.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+On the flats around the Whitehorse Rapids was a great largess of wild
+flowers. The shooting stars gladdened the glade with gold; the bluebells
+brimmed the woodland hollow with amethyst; the fire-weed splashed the
+hills with the pink of coral. Daintily swinging, like clustered pearls,
+were the petals of the orchid. In glorious profusion were begonias,
+violets, and Iceland poppies, and all was in a setting of the keenest
+emerald. But over the others dominated the wild rose, dancing everywhere
+and flinging its perfume to the joyful breeze.
+
+Boats and scows were lined up for miles along the river shore. On the
+banks water-soaked outfits lay drying in the sun. We, too, had shipped
+much water in our passage, and a few days would be needed to dry out
+again. So it was that I found some hours of idleness and was able to see
+a good deal of Berna.
+
+Madam Winklestein I found surprisingly gracious. She smiled on me, and
+in her teeth, like white quartz, the creviced gold gleamed. She had a
+smooth, flattering way with her that disarmed enmity. Winklestein, too,
+had conveniently forgotten our last interview, and extended to me the
+paw of spurious friendship. I was free to see Berna as much as I chose.
+
+Thus it came about that we rambled among the woods and hills, picking
+wild flowers and glad almost with the joy of children. In these few days
+I noted a vast change in the girl. Her cheeks, pale as the petals of the
+wild orchid, seemed to steal the tints of the briar-rose, and her eyes
+beaconed with the radiance of sun-waked skies. It was as if in the poor
+child a long stifled capacity for joy was glowing into being.
+
+One golden day, with her cheeks softly flushed, her eyes shining, she
+turned to me.
+
+"Oh, I could be so happy if I only had a chance, if I only had the
+chance other girls have. It would take so little to make me the happiest
+girl in the world--just to have a home, a plain, simple home where all
+was sunshine and peace; just to have the commonest comforts, to be
+care-free, to love and be loved. That would be enough." She sighed and
+went on:
+
+"Then if I might have books, a little music, flowers--oh, it seems like
+a dream of heaven; as well might I sigh for a palace."
+
+"No palace could be too fair for you, Berna, no prince too noble. Some
+day, your prince will come, and you will give him that great love I told
+you of once."
+
+Swiftly a shadow came into the bright eyes, the sweet mouth curved
+pathetically.
+
+"Not even a beggar will seek me, a poor nameless girl travelling in the
+train of dishonour ... and again, I will never love."
+
+"Yes, you will indeed, girl--infinitely, supremely. I know you, Berna;
+you'll love as few women do. Your dearest will be all your world, his
+smile your heaven, his frown your death. Love was at the fashioning of
+you, dear, and kissed your lips and sent you forth, saying, 'There goeth
+my handmaiden.'"
+
+I thought for a while ere I went on.
+
+"You cared for your grandfather; you gave him your whole heart, a love
+full of self-sacrifice, of renunciation. Now he is gone, you will love
+again, but the next will be to the last as wine is to water. And the day
+will come when you will love grandly. Yours will be a great, consuming
+passion that knows no limit, no assuagement. It will be your glory and
+your shame. For him will your friends be foes, your light darkness. You
+will go through fire and water for your beloved's sake; your parched
+lips will call his name, your frail hands cling to him in the shadow of
+death. Oh, I know, I know. Love has set you apart. You will immolate
+yourself on his altars. You will dare, defy and die for him. I'm sorry
+for you, Berna."
+
+Her face hung down, her lips quivered. As for me, I was surprised at my
+words and scarce knew what I was saying.
+
+At last she spoke.
+
+"If ever I loved like that, the man I loved must be a king among men, a
+hero, almost a god."
+
+"Perhaps, Berna, perhaps; but not needfully. He may be a grim man with a
+face of power and passion, a virile, dominant brute, but--well, I think
+he will be more of a god. Let's change the subject."
+
+I found she had all the sad sophistication of the lowly-born, yet with
+it an invincible sense of purity, a delicate horror of the physical
+phases of love. She was a finely motived creature with impossible
+ideals, but out of her stark knowledge of life she was naïvely
+outspoken.
+
+Once I asked of her:
+
+"Berna, if you had to choose between death and dishonour, which would
+you prefer?"
+
+"Death, of course," she answered promptly.
+
+"Death's a pretty hard proposition," I commented.
+
+"No, it's easy; physical death, compared with the other, compared with
+moral death."
+
+She was very emphatic and angry with me for my hazarded demur. In an
+atmosphere of disillusionment and moral miasma she clung undauntedly to
+her ideals. Never was such a brave spirit, so determined in goodness, so
+upright in purity, and I blessed her for her unfaltering words. "May
+such sentiments as yours," I prayed, "be ever mine. In doubt, despair,
+defeat, oh Life, take not away from me my faith in the pure heart of
+woman!"
+
+Often I watched her thoughtfully, her slim, well-poised figure, her grey
+eyes that were fuller of soul than any eyes I have ever seen, her brown
+hair wherein the sunshine loved to pick out threads of gold, her
+delicate features with their fine patrician quality. We were dreamers
+twain, but while my outlook was gay with hope, hers was dark with
+despair. Since the episode of the scow I had never ventured to kiss her,
+but had treated her with a curious reserve, respect and courtesy.
+
+Indeed, I was diagnosing my case, wondering if I loved her, affirming,
+doubting on a very see-saw of indetermination. When with her I felt for
+her an intense fondness and at times an almost irresponsible tenderness.
+My eyes rested longingly on her, noting with tremulous joy the curves
+and shading of her face, and finding in its very defects, beauties.
+
+When I was away from her--oh, the easeless longing that was almost pain,
+the fanciful elaboration of our last talk, the hint of her graces in
+bird and flower and tree! I wanted her wildly, and the thought of a
+world empty of her was monstrous. I wondered how in the past we had both
+existed and how I had lived, carelessly, happy and serenely indifferent.
+I tried to think of a time when she should no longer have power to make
+my heart quicken with joy or contract with fear--and the thought of such
+a state was insufferable pain. Was I in love? Poor, fatuous fool! I
+wanted her more than everything else in all the world, yet I hesitated
+and asked myself the question.
+
+Hundreds of boats and scows were running the rapids, and we watched them
+with an untiring fascination. That was the most exciting spectacle in
+the whole world. The issue was life or death, ruin or salvation, and
+from dawn till dark, and with every few minutes of the day, was the
+breathless climax repeated. The faces of the actors were sick with
+dread and anxiety. It was curious to study the various expressions of
+the human countenance unmasked and confronted with gibbering fear. Yes,
+it was a vivid drama, a drama of cheers and tears, always thrilling and
+often tragic. Every day were bodies dragged ashore. The rapids demanded
+their tribute. The men of the trail must pay the toll. Sullen and
+bloated the river disgorged its prey, and the dead, without prayer or
+pause, were thrown into nameless graves.
+
+On our first day at the rapids we met the Halfbreed. He was on the point
+of starting downstream. Where was the Bank clerk? Oh, yes; they had
+upset coming through; when last he had seen little Pinklove he was
+struggling in the water. However, they expected to get the body every
+hour. He had paid two men to find and bury it. He had no time to wait.
+
+We did not blame him. In those wild days of headstrong hurry and
+gold-delirium human life meant little. "Another floater," one would say,
+and carelessly turn away. A callousness to death that was almost
+mediæval was in the air, and the friends of the dead hurried on, the
+richer by a partner's outfit. It was all new, strange, sinister to me,
+this unveiling of life's naked selfishness and lust.
+
+Next morning they found the body, a poor, shapeless, sodden thing with
+such a crumpled skull. My thoughts went back to the sweet-faced girl who
+had wept so bitterly at his going. Even then, maybe, she was thinking
+of him, fondly dreaming of his return, seeing the glow of triumph in his
+boyish eyes. She would wait and hope; then she would wait and despair;
+then there would be another white-faced woman saying, "He went to the
+Klondike, and never came back. We don't know what became of him."
+
+Verily, the way of the gold-trail was cruel.
+
+Berna was with me when they buried him.
+
+"Poor boy, poor boy!" she repeated.
+
+"Yes, poor little beggar! He was so quiet and gentle. He was no man for
+the trail. It's a funny world."
+
+The coffin was a box of unplaned boards loosely nailed together, and the
+men were for putting him into a grave on top of another coffin. I
+protested, so sullenly they proceeded to dig a new grave. Berna looked
+very unhappy, and when she saw that crude, shapeless pine coffin she
+broke down and cried bitterly.
+
+At last she dried her tears and with a happier look in her eyes bade me
+wait a little until she returned. Soon again she came back, carrying
+some folds of black sateen over her arm. As she ripped at this with a
+pair of scissors, I noticed there was a deep frilling to it. Also a
+bright blush came into her cheek at the curious glance I gave to the
+somewhat skimpy lines of her skirt. But the next instant she was busy
+stretching and tacking the black material over the coffin.
+
+The men had completed the new grave. It was only three feet deep, but
+the water coming in had prevented them from digging further. As we laid
+the coffin in the hole it looked quite decent now in its black covering.
+It floated on the water, but after some clods had been thrown down, it
+sank with many gurglings. It was as if the dead man protested against
+his bitter burial. We watched the grave-diggers throw a few more
+shovelsful of earth over the place, then go off whistling. Poor little
+Berna! she cried steadily. At last she said:
+
+"Let's get some flowers."
+
+So out of briar-roses she fashioned a cross and a wreath, and we laid
+them reverently on the muddy heap that marked the Bank clerk's grave.
+
+Oh, the pitiful mockery of it!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Soon I knew that Berna and I must part, and but two nights later it
+came. It was near midnight, yet in no ways dark, and everywhere the camp
+was astir. We were sitting by the river, I remember, a little way from
+the boats. Where the sun had set, the sky was a luminous veil of
+ravishing green, and in the elusive light her face seemed wanly sweet
+and dreamlike.
+
+A sad spirit rustled amid the shivering willows and a great sadness had
+come over the girl. All the happiness of the past few days seemed to
+have ebbed away from her and left her empty of hope. As she sat there,
+silent and with hands clasped, it was as if the shadows that for a
+little had lifted, now enshrouded her with a greater gloom.
+
+"Tell me your trouble, Berna."
+
+She shook her head, her eyes wide as if trying to read the future.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+Her voice was almost a whisper.
+
+"Yes, there is, I know. Tell me, won't you?"
+
+Again she shook her head.
+
+"What's the matter, little chum?"
+
+"It's nothing; it's only my foolishness. If I tell you, it wouldn't help
+me any. And then--it doesn't matter. You wouldn't care. Why should you
+care?"
+
+She turned away from me and seemed absorbed in bitter thought.
+
+"Care! why, yes, I would care; I do care. You know I would do anything
+in the world to help you. You know I would be unhappy if you were
+unhappy. You know----"
+
+"Then it would only worry you."
+
+She was regarding me anxiously.
+
+"Now you must tell me, Berna. It will worry me indeed if you don't."
+
+Once more she refused. I pleaded with her gently. I coaxed, I entreated.
+She was very reluctant, yet at last she yielded.
+
+"Well, if I must," she said; "but it's all so sordid, so mean, I hate
+myself; I despise myself that I should have to tell it."
+
+She kneaded a tiny handkerchief nervously in her fingers.
+
+"You know how nice Madam Winklestein's been to me lately--bought me new
+clothes, given me trinkets. Well, there's a reason--she's got her eye on
+a man for me."
+
+I gave an exclamation of surprise.
+
+"Yes; you know she's let us go together--it's all to draw him on. Oh,
+couldn't you see it? Didn't you suspect something? You don't know how
+bitterly they hate you."
+
+I bit my lip.
+
+"Who's the man?"
+
+"Jack Locasto."
+
+I started.
+
+"Have you heard of him?" she asked. "He's got a million-dollar claim on
+Bonanza."
+
+Had I heard of him! Who had not heard of Black Jack, his spectacular
+poker plays, his meteoric rise, his theatric display?
+
+"Of course he's married," she went on, "but that doesn't matter up here.
+There's such a thing as a Klondike marriage, and they say he behaves
+well to his discarded mis----"
+
+"Berna!" angry and aghast, I had stopped her. "Never let me hear you
+utter that word. Even to say it seems pollution."
+
+She laughed harshly, bitterly.
+
+"What's this whole life but pollution?... Well, anyway, he wants me."
+
+"But you wouldn't, surely you wouldn't?"
+
+She turned on me fiercely.
+
+"What do you take me for? Surely you know me better than that. Oh, you
+almost make me hate you."
+
+Suddenly she pressed the little handkerchief to her eyes. She fell to
+sobbing convulsively. Vainly I tried to soothe her, whispering:
+
+"Oh, my dear, tell me all about it. I'm sorry, girl, I'm sorry."
+
+She ceased crying. She went on in her fierce, excited way.
+
+"He came to the restaurant in Bennett. He used to watch me a lot. His
+eyes were always following me. I was afraid. I trembled when I served
+him. He liked to see me tremble, it gave him a feeling of power. Then he
+took to giving me presents, a diamond ring, a heart-shaped locket,
+costly gifts. I wanted to return them, but she wouldn't let me, took
+them from me, put them away. Then he and she had long talks. I know it
+was all about me. That was why I came to you that night and begged you
+to marry me--to save me from him. Now it's gone from bad to worse. The
+net's closing round me in spite of my flutterings."
+
+"But he can't get you against your will," I cried.
+
+"No! no! but he'll never give up. He'll try so long as I resist him. I'm
+nice to him just to humour him and gain time. I can't tell you how much
+I fear him. They say he always gets his way with women. He's masterly
+and relentless. There's a cold, sneering command in his smile. You hate
+him but you obey him."
+
+"He's an immoral monster, Berna. He spares neither time nor money to
+gratify his whims where a woman is concerned. And he has no pity."
+
+"I know, I know."
+
+"He's intensely masculine, handsome in a vivid, gipsy sort of way; big,
+strong and compelling, but a callous libertine."
+
+"Yes, he's all that. And can you wonder then my heart is full of fear,
+that I am distracted, that I asked you what I did? He is relentless and
+of all women he wants me. He would break me on the wheel of dishonour.
+Oh, God!"
+
+Her face grew almost tragic in its despair.
+
+"And everything's against me; they're all helping him. I haven't a
+single friend, not one to stand by me, to aid me. Once I thought of you,
+and you failed me. Can you wonder I'm nearly crazy with the terror of
+it? Can you wonder I was desperate enough to ask you to save me? I'm all
+alone, friendless, a poor, weak girl. No, I'm wrong. I've one
+friend--death; and I'll die, I'll die, I swear it, before I let him get
+me."
+
+Her words came forth in a torrent, half choked by sobs. It was hard to
+get her calmed. Never had I thought her capable of such force, such
+passion. I was terribly distressed and at a loss how to comfort her.
+
+"Hush, Berna," I pleaded, "please don't say such things. Remember you
+have a friend in me, one that would do anything in his power to help
+you."
+
+She looked at me a moment.
+
+"How can you help me?"
+
+I held both of her hands firmly, looking into her eyes.
+
+"By marrying you. Will you marry me, dear? Will you be my wife?"
+
+"No!"
+
+I started. "Berna!"
+
+"No! I wouldn't marry you if you were the last man left in the world,"
+she cried vehemently.
+
+"Why?" I tried to be calm.
+
+"Why! why, you don't love me; you don't care for me."
+
+"Yes, I do, Berna. I do indeed, girl. Care for you! Well, I care so much
+that--I beg you to marry me."
+
+"Yes, yes, but you don't love me right, not in your great, grand way.
+Not in the way you told me of. Oh, I know; it's part pity, part
+friendship. It would be different if I cared in the same way, if--if I
+didn't care so very much more."
+
+"You do, Berna; you love me like that?"
+
+"How do I know? How can I tell? How can any of us tell?"
+
+"No, dear," I said, "love has no limits, no bounds, it is always holding
+something in reserve. There are yet heights beyond the heights, that
+mock our climbing, never perfection; no great love but might have been
+eclipsed by a greater. There's a master key to every heart, and we poor
+fools delude ourselves with the idea we are opening all the doors. We
+are on sufferance, we are only understudies in the love drama, but
+fortunately the star seldom appears on the scene. However, this I
+know----"
+
+I rose to my feet.
+
+"Since the moment I set eyes on you, I loved you. Long before I ever met
+you, I loved you. I was just waiting for you, waiting. At first I could
+not understand, I did not know what it meant, but now I do, beyond the
+peradventure of a doubt; there never was any but you, never will be any
+but you. Since the beginning of time it was all planned that I should
+love you. And you, how do you care?"
+
+She stood up to hear my words. She would not let me touch her, but there
+was a great light in her eyes. Then she spoke and her voice was vibrant
+with passion, all indifference gone from it.
+
+"Oh, you blind! you coward! Couldn't you see? Couldn't you feel? That
+day on the scow it came to me--Love. It was such as I had never dreamed
+of, rapture, ecstasy, anguish. Do you know what I wished as we went
+through the rapids? I wished that it might be the end, that in such a
+supreme moment we might go down clinging together, and that in death I
+might hold you in my arms. Oh, if you'd only been like that afterwards,
+met love open-armed with love. But, no! you slipped back to friendship.
+I feel as if there were a barrier of ice between us now. I will try
+never to care for you any more. Now leave me, leave me, for I never want
+to see you again."
+
+"Yes, you will, you must, you must, Berna. I'd sell my immortal soul to
+win that love from you, my dearest, my dearest; I'd crawl around the
+world to kiss your shadow. If you called to me I would come from the
+ends of the earth, through storm and darkness, to your side. I love you
+so, I love you so."
+
+I crushed her to me, I kissed her madly, yet she was cold.
+
+"Have you nothing more to say than fine words?" she asked.
+
+"Marry me, marry me," I repeated.
+
+"Now?"
+
+Now! I hesitated again. The suddenness of it was like a cold douche. God
+knows, I burned for the girl, yet somehow convention clamped me.
+
+"Now if you wish," I faltered; "but better when we get to Dawson. Better
+when I've made good up there. Give me one year, Berna, one year and
+then----"
+
+"One year!"
+
+The sudden gleam of hope vanished from her eyes. For the third time I
+was failing her, yet my cursed prudence overrode me.
+
+"Oh, it will pass swiftly, dear. You will be quite safe. I will be near
+you and watch over you."
+
+I reassured her, anxiously explaining how much better it would be if we
+waited a little.
+
+"One year!" she repeated, and it seemed to me her voice was toneless.
+Then she turned to me in a sudden spate of passion, her face pleading,
+furrowed, wretchedly sad.
+
+"Oh, my dear, my dear, I love you better than the whole world, but I
+hoped you would care enough for me to marry me now. It would have been
+best, believe me. I thought you would rise to the occasion, but you've
+failed me. Well, be it so, we'll wait one year."
+
+"Yes, believe me, trust me, dear; it will be all right. I'll work for
+you, slave for you, think only of you, and in twelve short months--I'll
+give my whole life to make you happy."
+
+"Will you, dear? Well, it doesn't matter now.... I've loved you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All that night I wrestled with myself. I felt I ought to marry her at
+once to shield her from the dangers that encompassed her. She was like a
+lamb among a pack of wolves. I juggled with my conscience. I was young
+and marriage to me seemed such a terribly all-important step.
+
+Yet in the end my better nature triumphed, and ere the camp was astir I
+arose. I was going to marry Berna that day. A feeling of relief came
+over me. How had it ever seemed possible to delay? I was elated beyond
+measure.
+
+I hurried to tell her, I pictured her joy. I was almost breathless. Love
+words trembled on my tongue tip. It seemed to me I could not bear to
+wait a moment.
+
+Then as I reached the place where they had rested I gazed unbelievingly.
+A sickening sense of loss and failure crushed me.
+
+For the scow was gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+It was three days before we made a start again, and to me each day was
+like a year. I chafed bitterly at the delay. Would those sacks of flour
+never dry? Longingly I gazed down the big, blue Yukon and cursed the
+current that was every moment carrying her farther from me. Why her
+sudden departure? I had no doubt it was enforced. I dreaded danger. Then
+in a while I grew calmer. I was foolish to worry. She was safe enough.
+We would meet in Dawson.
+
+At last we were under way. Once more we sped down that devious river,
+now swirling under the shadow of a steep bank, now steering around a
+sandspit. The scenery was hideous to me, bluffs of clay with pines
+peeping over their rims, willow-fringed flats, swamps of niggerhead,
+ugly drab hills in endless monotony.
+
+How full of kinks and hooks was the river! How vicious with snags! How
+treacherous with eddies! It was beginning to bulk in my thoughts almost
+like an obsession. Then one day Lake Labarge burst on my delighted eyes.
+The trail was nearing its end.
+
+Once more with swelling sail we drove before the wind. Once more we were
+in a fleet of Argonaut boats, and now, with the goal in sight, each man
+redoubled his efforts. Perhaps the rich ground would all be gone ere we
+reached the valley. Maddening thought after what we had endured! We must
+get on.
+
+There was not a man in all that fleet but imagined that fortune awaited
+him with open arms. They talked exultantly. Their eyes shone with the
+gold-lust. They strained at sweep and oar. To be beaten at the last! Oh,
+it was inconceivable! A tigerish eagerness filled them; a panic of fear
+and cupidity spurred them on.
+
+Labarge was a dream lake, mirroring noble mountains in its depths (for
+soon after we made it, a dead calm fell). But we had no eyes for its
+beauty. The golden magnet was drawing us too strongly now. We cursed
+that exquisite serenity that made us sweat at the oars; we cursed the
+wind that never would arise; the currents that always were against us.
+In that breathless tranquillity myriads of mosquitoes assailed us,
+blinded us, covered our food as we ate, made our lives a perfect hell of
+misery. Yet the trail was nearing its finish.
+
+What a relief it was when a sudden storm came up! White-caps tossed
+around us, and the wind drove us on a precipitous shore, so that we
+nearly came to a sorry end. But it was over at last, and we swept on
+into the Thirty-mile River.
+
+A furious, hurling stream was this, that matched our mad, impatient
+mood; but it was staked with hidden dangers. We gripped our weary oars.
+Keenly alert we had to be, steering and watching for rocks that would
+have ripped us from bow to stern. There was a famously terrible one, on
+which scows smashed like egg-shells under a hammer, and we missed it by
+a bare hand's-breadth. I felt sick to think of our bitterness had we
+piled up on it. That was an evil, ugly river, full of capricious turns
+and eddies, and the bluffs were high and steep.
+
+Hootalinqua, Big Salmon, Little Salmon, these are names to me now. All I
+can remember is long days of toil at the oar, fighting the growing
+obsession of mosquitoes, ever pressing on to the golden valley. The
+ceaseless strain was beginning to tell on us. We suffered from
+rheumatism, we barked with cold. Oh, we were weary, weary, yet the trail
+was nearing its end.
+
+One sunlit Sabbath evening I remember well. We were drifting along and
+we came on a lovely glade where a creek joined the river. It was a
+green, velvety, sparkling place, and by the creek were two men
+whipsawing lumber. We hailed them jauntily and asked them if they had
+found prospects. Were they getting out lumber for sluice-boxes?
+
+One of the men came forward. He was very tired, very quiet, very solemn.
+"No," he said, "we are sawing out a coffin for our dead."
+
+Then we saw a limp shape in their boat and we hurried on, awed and
+abashed.
+
+The river was mud colour now, swirling in great eddies or convulsed from
+below with sudden upheavals. Drifting on that oily current one seemed to
+be quite motionless, and only the gliding banks assured us of progress.
+The country seemed terrible to me, sinister, guilty, God-forsaken. At
+the horizon, jagged mountains stabbed viciously at the sky.
+
+The river overwhelmed me. Sometimes it was a stream of blood, running
+into the eye of the setting sun, beautiful, yet weird and menacing. It
+broadened, deepened, and every day countless streams swelled its volume.
+Islands waded in it greenly. Always we heard it _singing_, a seething,
+hissing noise supposed to be the pebbles shuffling on the bottom.
+
+The days were insufferably hot and mosquito-curst; the nights chilly,
+damp and mosquito-haunted. I suffered agonies from neuralgia. Never
+mind, it would soon be over. We were on our last lap. The trail was near
+its end.
+
+Yes, it was indeed the homestretch. Suddenly sweeping round a bend we
+raised a shout of joy. There was that great livid scar on the mountain
+face--the "Slide," and clustered below it like shells on the seashore,
+an army of tents. It was the gold-born city.
+
+Trembling with eagerness we pulled ashore. Our troubles were over. At
+last we had gained our Eldorado, thank God, thank God!
+
+A number of loafers were coming to meet us. They were strangely calm.
+
+"How about the gold?" said the Prodigal; "lots of ground left to stake?"
+
+One of them looked at us contemptuously. He chewed a moment ere he
+spoke.
+
+"You Cheechakers better git right home. There ain't a foot of ground to
+stake. Everything in sight was staked last Fall. The rest is all mud.
+There's nothing doin' an' there's ten men for every job! The whole
+thing's a fake. You Cheechakers better git right home."
+
+Yes, after all our travail, all our torment, we had better go right
+home. Already many were preparing to do so. Yet what of that great
+oncoming horde of which we were but the vanguard? What of the eager
+army, the host of the Cheechakos? For hundreds of miles were lake and
+river white with their grotesque boats. Beyond them again were thousands
+and thousands of others struggling on through mosquito-curst morasses,
+bent under their inexorable burdens. Reckless, indomitable,
+hope-inspired, they climbed the passes and shot the rapids; they drowned
+in the rivers, they rotted in the swamps. Nothing could stay them. The
+golden magnet was drawing them on; the spell of the gold-lust was in
+their hearts.
+
+And this was the end. For this they had mortgaged homes and broken
+hearts. For this they had faced danger and borne suffering: to be told
+to return.
+
+The land was choosing its own. All along it had weeded out the
+weaklings. Now let the fainthearted go back. This land was only for the
+Strong.
+
+Yet it was sad, so much weariness, and at the end disenchantment and
+failure.
+
+Verily the ways of the gold-trail were cruel.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+THE CAMP
+
+
+For once you've panned the speckled sand and seen the bonny dust,
+  Its peerless brightness blinds you like a spell;
+It's little else you care about; you go because you must,
+  And you feel that you could follow it to hell.
+You'd follow it in hunger, and you'd follow it in cold;
+  You'd follow it in solitude and pain;
+And when you're stiff and battened down let some one whisper "Gold,"
+  You're lief to rise and follow it again.
+
+--"The Prospector."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+I will always remember my first day in the gold-camp. We were well in
+front of the Argonaut army, but already thousands were in advance of us.
+The flat at the mouth of Bonanza was a congestion of cabins; shacks and
+tents clustered the hillside, scattered on the heights and massed again
+on the slope sweeping down to the Klondike. An intense vitality charged
+the air. The camp was alive, ahum, vibrant with fierce, dynamic energy.
+
+In effect the town was but one street stretching alongside the water
+front. It was amazingly packed with men from side to side, from end to
+end. They lounged in the doorways of oddly assorted buildings, and
+jostled each other on the dislocated sidewalks. Stores of all kinds,
+saloons, gambling joints flourished without number, and in one block
+alone there were half a dozen dance-halls. Yet all seemed plethorically
+prosperous.
+
+Many of the business houses were installed in tents. That huge canvas
+erection was a mining exchange; that great log barn a dance-hall.
+Dwarfish log cabins impudently nestled up to pretentious three-story
+hotels. The effect was oddly staccato. All was grotesque, makeshift,
+haphazard. Back of the main street lay the red-light quarter, and behind
+it again a swamp of niggerheads, the breeding-place of fever and
+mosquito.
+
+The crowd that vitalised the street was strikingly cosmopolitan. Mostly
+big, bearded fellows they were, with here the full-blooded face of the
+saloon man, and there the quick, pallid mask of the gambler. Women too I
+saw in plenty, bold, free, predacious creatures, a rustle of silk and a
+reek of perfume. Till midnight I wandered up and down the long street;
+but there was no darkness, no lull in its clamorous life.
+
+I was looking for Berna. My heart hungered for her; my eyes ached for
+her; my mind was so full of her there seemed no room for another single
+thought. But it was like looking for a needle in a strawstack to find
+her in that seething multitude. I knew no one, and it seemed futile to
+inquire regarding her. These keen-eyed men with eager talk of claims and
+pay-dirt could not help me. There seemed to be nothing for it but to
+wait. So with spirits steadily sinking zerowards I waited.
+
+We found, indeed, that there was little ground left to stake. The mining
+laws were in some confusion, and were often changing. Several creeks
+were closed to location, but always new strikes were being made and
+stampedes started. So, after a session of debate, we decided to reserve
+our rights to stake till a good chance offered. It was a bitter
+awakening. Like all the rest we had expected to get ground that was gold
+from the grass-roots down. But there was work to be had, and we would
+not let ourselves be disheartened.
+
+The Jam-wagon had already deserted us. He was off up on Eldorado
+somewhere, shovelling dirt into a sluice-box for ten dollars a day. I
+made up my mind I would follow him. Jim also would get to work, while
+the Prodigal, we agreed, would look after all our interests, and stake
+or buy a good claim.
+
+Thus we planned, sitting in our little tent near the beach. We were in a
+congeries of tents. The beach was fast whitening with them. If one was
+in a hurry it was hard to avoid tripping over ropes and pegs. As each
+succeeding party arrived they had to go further afield to find
+camping-ground. And they were arriving in thousands daily. The shore for
+a mile was lined five deep with boats. Scows had been hauled high and
+dry on the gravel, and there the owners were living. A thousand stoves
+were eloquent of beans and bacon. I met a man taking home a prize, a
+porterhouse steak. He was carrying it over his arm like a towel, paper
+was so scarce. The camp was a hive of energy, a hum of occupation.
+
+But how many, after they had paraded that mile-long street with its mud,
+its seething foam of life, its blare of gramophones and its blaze of
+dance-halls, ached for their southland homes again! You could read the
+disappointment in their sun-tanned faces. Yet they were the eager
+navigators of the lakes, the reckless amateurs of the rivers. This was a
+something different from the trail. It was as if, after all their
+efforts, they had butted up against a stone wall. There was "nothing
+doing," no ground left, and only hard work, the hardest on earth.
+
+Moreover, the country was at the mercy of a gang of corrupt officials
+who were using the public offices for their own enrichment. Franchises
+were being given to the favourites of those in power, concessions sold,
+liquor permits granted, and abuses of every kind practised on the free
+miner. All was venality, injustice and exaction.
+
+"Go home," said the Man in the Street; "the mining laws are rotten. All
+kinds of ground is tied up. Even if you get hold of something good, them
+dam-robber government sharks will flim-flam you out of it. There's no
+square deal here. They tax you to mine; they tax you to cut a tree; they
+tax you to sell a fish; pretty soon they'll be taxing you to breathe. Go
+home!"
+
+And many went, many of the trail's most indomitable. They could face
+hardship and danger, the blizzards, the rapids, nature savage and
+ravening; but when it came to craft, graft and the duplicity of their
+fellow men they were discouraged, discomfited.
+
+"Say, boys, I guess I've done a slick piece of work," said the Prodigal
+with some satisfaction, as he entered the tent. "I've bought three whole
+outfits on the beach. Got them for twenty-five per cent. less than the
+cost price in Seattle. I'll pull out a hundred per cent. on the deal.
+Now's the time to get in and buy from the quitters. They so soured at
+the whole frame-up they're ready to pull their freights at any moment.
+All they want's to get away. They want to put a few thousand miles
+between them and this garbage dump of creation. They never want to hear
+the name of Yukon again except as a cuss-word. I'm going to keep on
+buying outfits. You boys see if I don't clean up a bunch of money."
+
+"It's too bad to take advantage of them," I suggested.
+
+"Too bad nothing! That's business; your necessity, my opportunity. Oh,
+you'd never make a money-getter, my boy, this side of the
+millennium--and you Scotch too."
+
+"That's nothing," said Jim; "wait till I tell you of the deal I made
+to-day. You recollect I packed a flat-iron among my stuff, an' you boys
+joshed me about it, said I was bughouse. But I figured out: there's
+camp-meetin's an' socials up there, an' a nice, dinky, white shirt once
+in a way goes pretty good. Anyway, thinks I, if there ain't no one else
+to dress for in that wilderness, I'll dress for the Almighty. So I
+sticks to my old flat-iron."
+
+He looked at us with a twinkle in his eye and then went on.
+
+"Well, it seems there's only three more flat-irons in camp, an' all the
+hot sports wantin' boiled shirts done up, an' all the painted Jezebels
+hollerin' to have their lingery fixed, an' the wash-ladies just goin'
+round crazy for flat-irons. Well, I didn't want to sell mine, but the
+old coloured lady that runs the Bong Tong Laundry (an' a sister in the
+Lord) came to me with tears in her eyes, an' at last I was prevailed on
+to separate from it."
+
+"How much, Jim?"
+
+"Well, I didn't want to be too hard on the old girl, so I let her down
+easy."
+
+"How much?"
+
+"Well, you see there's only three or four of them flat-irons in camp, so
+I asked a hundred an' fifty dollars, an' quick's a flash, she took me
+into a store an' paid me in gold-dust."
+
+He flourished a little poke of dust in our laughing faces.
+
+"That's pretty good," I said; "everything seems topsy-turvy up here.
+Why, to-day I saw a man come in with a box of apples which the crowd
+begged him to open. He was selling those apples at a dollar apiece, and
+the folks were just fighting to get them."
+
+It was so with everything. Extraordinary prices ruled. Eggs and candles
+had been sold for a dollar each, and potatoes for a dollar a pound;
+while on the trail in '97 horse-shoe nails were selling at _a dollar a
+nail_.
+
+Once more I roamed the long street with that awful restless agony in my
+heart. Where was she, my girl, so precious now it seemed I had lost her?
+Why does love mean so much to some, so little to others? Perhaps I am
+the victim of an intensity of temperament, but I craved for her; I
+visioned evils befalling her; I pierced my heart with dagger-thrusts of
+fear for her. Oh, if I only knew she was safe and well! Every slim woman
+I saw in the distance looked to be her, and made my heart leap with
+emotion. Yet always I chewed on the rind of disappointment. There was
+never a sign of Berna.
+
+In the agitation and unrest of my mind I climbed the hill that
+overshadows the gold-born city. The Dome they call it, and the face of
+it is vastly scarred, blanched as by a cosmic blow. There on its topmost
+height by a cairn of stone I stood at gaze, greatly awestruck.
+
+The view was a spacious one, and of an overwhelming grandeur. Below me
+lay the mighty Yukon, here like a silken ribbon, there broadening out to
+a pool of quicksilver. It seemed motionless, dead, like a piece of
+tinfoil lying on a sable shroud.
+
+The great valley was preternaturally still, and pall-like as if steeped
+in the colours of the long, long night. The land so vast, so silent, so
+lifeless, was round in its contours, full of fat creases and bold
+curves. The mountains were like sleeping giants; here was the swell of a
+woman's breast, there the sweep of a man's thigh. And beyond that huddle
+of sprawling Titans, far, far beyond, as if it were an enclosing
+stockade, was the jagged outline of the Rockies.
+
+Quite suddenly they seemed to stand up against the blazing sky,
+monstrous, horrific, smiting the senses like a blow. Their primordial
+faces were hacked and hewed fantastically, and there they posed in their
+immemorial isolation, virgin peaks, inviolate valleys, impregnably
+desolate and savagely sublime.
+
+And beyond their stormy crests, surely a world was consuming in the
+kilns of chaos. Was ever anything so insufferably bright as the
+incandescent glow that brimmed those jagged clefts? That fierce
+crimson, was it not the hue of a cooling crucible, that deep vermillion
+the rich glory of a rose's heart? Did not that tawny orange mind you of
+ripe wheat-fields and the exquisite intrusion of poppies? That pure,
+clear gold, was it not a bank of primroses new washed in April rain?
+What was that luminous opal but a lagoon, a pearly lagoon, with floating
+in it islands of amber, their beaches crisped with ruby foam? And, over
+all the riot of colour, that shimmering chrysoprase so tenderly
+luminous--might it not fitly veil the splendours of paradise?
+
+I looked to where gulped the mouth of Bonanza, cavernously wide and
+filled with the purple smoke of many fires. There was the golden valley,
+silent for centuries, now strident with human cries, vehement with human
+strife. There was the timbered basin of the Klondike bleakly rising to
+mountains eloquent of death. It was dominating, appalling, this vastness
+without end, this unappeasable loneliness. Glad was I to turn again to
+where, like white pebbles on a beach, gleamed the tents of the gold-born
+city.
+
+Somewhere amid that confusion of canvas, that muddle of cabins, was
+Berna, maybe lying in some wide-eyed vigil of fear, maybe staining with
+hopeless tears her restless pillow. Somewhere down there--Oh, I must
+find her!
+
+I returned to the town. I was tramping its long street once more, that
+street with its hundreds of canvas signs. It was a city of signs. Every
+place of business seemed to have its fluttering banner, and beneath
+these banners moved the ever restless throng. There were men from the
+mines in their flannel shirts and corduroys, their Stetsons and high
+boots. There were men from the trail in sweaters and mackinaws, German
+socks and caps with ear-flaps. But all were bronzed and bearded,
+fleshless and clean-limbed. I marvelled at the seriousness of their
+faces, till I remembered that here was no problem of a languorous
+sunland, but one of grim emergency. It was a man's game up here in the
+North, a man's game in a man's land, where the sunlight of the long,
+long day is ever haunted by the shadow of the long, long night.
+
+Oh, if I could only find her! The land was a great symphony; she the
+haunting theme of it.
+
+I bought a copy of the "Nugget" and went into the Sourdough Restaurant
+to read it. As I lingered there sipping my coffee and perusing the paper
+indifferently, a paragraph caught my eye and made my heart glow with
+sudden hope.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Here was the item:
+
+                       Jack Locasto loses $19,000.
+
+     "One of the largest gambling plays that ever occurred in Dawson
+     came off last night in the Malamute Saloon. Jack Locasto of
+     Eldorado, well known as one of the Klondike's wealthiest
+     claim-owners, Claude Terry and Charlie Haw were the chief actors in
+     the game, which cost the first-named the sum of $19,000.
+
+     "Locasto came to Dawson from his claim yesterday. It is said that
+     before leaving the Forks he lost a sum ranging in the neighbourhood
+     of $5,000. Last night he began playing in the Malamute with Haw and
+     Terry in an effort, it is supposed, to recoup his losses at the
+     Forks. The play continued nearly all night, and at the wind-up,
+     Locasto, as stated above, was loser to the amount of $19,000. This
+     is probably the largest individual loss ever sustained at one
+     sitting in the history of Klondike poker playing."
+
+Jack Locasto! Why had I not thought of him before? Surely if any one
+knew of the girl's whereabouts, it would be he. I determined I would ask
+him at once.
+
+So I hastily finished my coffee and inquired of the emasculated-looking
+waiter where I might find the Klondike King.
+
+"Oh, Black Jack," he said: "well, at the Green Bay Tree, or the Tivoli,
+or the Monte Carlo. But there's a big poker game on and he's liable to
+be in it."
+
+Once more I paraded the seething street. It was long after midnight, but
+the wondrous glow, still burning in the Northern sky, filled the land
+with strange enchantment. In spite of the hour the town seemed to be
+more alive than ever. Parties with pack-laden mules were starting off
+for the creeks, travelling at night to avoid the heat and mosquitoes.
+Men with lean brown faces trudged sturdily along carrying extraordinary
+loads on their stalwart shoulders. A stove, blankets, cooking utensils,
+axe and shovel usually formed but a part of their varied accoutrement.
+
+Constables of the Mounted Police were patrolling the streets. In the
+drab confusion their scarlet tunics were a piercing note of colour. They
+walked very stiffly, with grim mouths and eyes sternly vigilant under
+the brims of their Stetsons. Women were everywhere, smoking cigarettes,
+laughing, chaffing, strolling in and out of the wide-open saloons. Their
+cheeks were rouged, their eye-lashes painted, their eyes bright with
+wine. They gazed at the men like sleek animals, with looks that were
+wanton and alluring. A libertine spirit was in the air, a madcap
+freedom, an effluence of disdainful sin.
+
+I found myself by the stockade that surrounded the Police reservation.
+On every hand I saw traces of a recent overflow of the river that had
+transformed the street into a navigable canal. Now in places there were
+mudholes in which horses would flounder to their bellies. One of the
+Police constables, a tall, slim Englishman with a refined manner, proved
+to me a friend in need.
+
+"Yes," he said, in answer to my query, "I think I can find your man.
+He's downtown somewhere with some of the big sporting guns. Come on,
+we'll run him to earth."
+
+As we walked along we compared notes, and he talked of himself in a
+frank, friendly way.
+
+"You're not long out from the old country? Thought not. Left there
+myself about four years ago--I joined the Force in Regina. It's
+altogether different 'outside,' patrol work, a free life on the open
+prairie. Here they keep one choring round barracks most of the time.
+I've been for six months now on the town station. I'm not sorry, though.
+It's all devilish interesting. Wouldn't have missed it for a farm. When
+I write the people at home about it they think I'm yarning--stringing
+them, as they say here. The governor's a clergyman. Sent me to Harrow,
+and wanted to make a Bishop out of me. But I'm restless; never could
+study; don't seem to fit in, don't you know."
+
+I recognised his type, the clean, frank, breezy Englishman that has
+helped to make an Empire. He went on:
+
+"Yes, how the old dad would stare if I could only have him in Dawson for
+a day. He'd never be able to get things just in focus any more. He would
+be knocked clean off the pivot on which he's revolved these thirty
+years. Seems to me every one's travelling on a pivot in the old country.
+It's no use trying to hammer it into their heads there are more points
+of view than one. If you don't just see things as they see them, you're
+troubled with astigmatism. Come, let's go in here."
+
+He pushed his way through a crowded doorway and I followed. It was the
+ordinary type of combined saloon and gambling-joint. In one corner was a
+very ornate bar, and all around the capacious room were gambling devices
+of every kind. There were crap-tables, wheel of fortune, the Klondike
+game, Keno, stud poker, roulette and faro outfits. The place was
+chock-a-block with rough-looking men, either looking on or playing the
+games. The men who were running the tables wore shades of green over
+their eyes, and their strident cries of "Come on, boys," pierced the
+smoky air.
+
+In a corner, presiding over a stud-poker game, I was surprised to see
+our old friend Mosher. He was dealing with one hand, holding the pack
+delicately and sending the cards with a dexterous flip to each player.
+Miners were buying chips from a man at the bar, who with a pair of gold
+scales was weighing out dust in payment.
+
+My companion pointed to an inner room with a closed door.
+
+"The Klondike Kings are in there, hard at it. They've been playing now
+for twenty-four hours, and goodness knows when they'll let up."
+
+At that moment a peremptory bell rang from the room and a waiter
+hurried up.
+
+"There they are," said my friend, as the door opened. "There's Black
+Jack and Stillwater Willie and Claude Terry and Charlie Haw."
+
+Eagerly I looked in. The men were wearied, their faces haggard and
+ghastly pale. Quickly and coolly they fingered the cards, but in their
+hollow eyes burned the fever of the game, a game where golden eagles
+were the chips and thousand-dollar jack-pots were unremarkable. No doubt
+they had lost and won greatly, but they gave no sign. What did it
+matter? In the dumps waiting to be cleaned up were hundreds of thousands
+more; while in the ground were millions, millions.
+
+All but Locasto were medium-sized men. Stillwater Willie was in
+evening-dress. He wore a red tie in which glittered a huge diamond pin,
+and yellow tan boots covered with mud.
+
+"How did he get his name?" I asked.
+
+"Well, you see, they say he was the only one that funked the Whitehorse
+Rapids. He's a high flier, all right."
+
+The other two were less striking. Haw was a sandy-haired man with
+shifty, uneasy eyes; Terry of a bulldog type, stocky and powerful. But
+it was Locasto who gripped and riveted my attention.
+
+He was a massive man, heavy of limb and brutal in strength. There was a
+great spread to his shoulders and a conscious power in his every
+movement. He had a square, heavy chin, a grim, sneering mouth, a falcon
+nose, black eyes that were as cold as the water in a deserted shaft. His
+hair was raven dark, and his skin betrayed the Mexican strain in his
+blood. Above the others he towered, strikingly masterful, and I felt
+somehow the power that emanated from the man, the brute force, the
+remorseless purpose.
+
+Then the waiter returned with a tray of drinks and the door was closed.
+
+"Well, you've seen him now," said Chester of the Police. "Your only
+plan, if you want to speak to him, is to wait till the game breaks up.
+When poker interferes with your business, to the devil with your
+business. They won't be interrupted. Well, old man, if you can't be
+good, be careful; and if you want me any time, ring up the town station.
+Bye, bye."
+
+He sauntered off. For a time I strolled from game to game, watching the
+expressions on the faces of the players, and trying to take an interest
+in the play. Yet my mind was ever on the closed door and my ear strained
+to hear the click of chips. I heard the hoarse murmurs of their voices,
+an occasional oath or a yawn of fatigue. How I wished they would come
+out! Women went to the door, peered in cautiously, and beat a hasty
+retreat to the tune of reverberated curses. The big guns were busy; even
+the ladies must await their pleasure.
+
+Oh, the weariness of that waiting! In my longing for Berna I had worked
+myself up into a state that bordered on distraction. It seemed as if a
+cloud was in my brain, obsessing me at all times. I felt I must
+question this man, though it raised my gorge even to speak of her in his
+presence. In that atmosphere of corruption the thought of the girl was
+intolerably sweet, as of a ray of sunshine penetrating a noisome
+dungeon.
+
+It was in the young morn when the game broke up. The outside air was
+clear as washed gold; within it was foul and fetid as a drunkard's
+breath. Men with pinched and pallid faces came out and inhaled the
+breeze, which was buoyant as champagne. Beneath the perfect blue of the
+spring sky the river seemed a shimmer of violet, and the banks dipped
+down with the green of chrysoprase.
+
+Already a boy was sweeping up the dirty, nicotine-frescoed sawdust from
+the floor. (It was his perquisite, and from the gold he panned out he
+ultimately made enough to put him through college.) Then the inner door
+opened and Black Jack appeared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+He was wan and weary. Around his sombre eyes were chocolate-coloured
+hollows. His thick raven hair was disordered. He had lost heavily, and,
+bidding a curt good-bye to the others, he strode off. In a moment I had
+followed and overtaken him.
+
+"Mr. Locasto."
+
+He turned and gave me a stare from his brooding eyes. They were vacant
+as those of a dope-fiend, vacant with fatigue.
+
+"Jack Locasto's my name," he answered carelessly.
+
+I walked alongside him.
+
+"Well, sir," I said, "my name's Meldrum, Athol Meldrum."
+
+"Oh, I don't care what the devil your name is," he broke in petulantly.
+"Don't bother me just now. I'm tired."
+
+"So am I," I said, "infernally tired; but it won't hurt you to listen to
+my name."
+
+"Well, Mr. Athol Meldrum, good-day."
+
+His voice was cold, his manner galling in its indifference, and a sudden
+anger glowed in me.
+
+"Hold on," I said; "just a moment. You can very easily do me an immense
+favour. Listen to me."
+
+"Well, what do you want," he demanded roughly; "work?"
+
+"No," I said, "I just want a scrap of information. I came into the
+country with some Jews the name of Winklestein. I've lost track of them
+and I think you may be able to tell me where they are."
+
+He was all attention now. He turned half round and scrutinised me with
+deliberate intensity. Then, like a flash, his rough manner changed. He
+was the polished gentleman, the San Francisco club-lounger, the man of
+the world.
+
+He rasped the stubble on his chin; his eyes were bland, his voice smooth
+as cream.
+
+"Winklestein," he echoed reflectively, "Winklestein; seems to me I do
+remember the name, but for the life of me I can't recall where."
+
+He was watching me like a cat, and pretending to think hard.
+
+"Was there a girl with them?"
+
+"Yes," I said eagerly, "a young girl."
+
+"A young girl, ah!" He seemed to reflect hard again. "Well, my friend,
+I'm afraid I can't help you. I remember noticing the party on the way
+in, but what became of them I can't think. I don't usually bother about
+that kind of people. Well, good-night, or good-morning rather. This is
+my hotel."
+
+He had half entered when he paused and turned to me. His face was
+urbane, his voice suave to sweetness; but it seemed to me there was a
+subtle mockery in his tone.
+
+"I say, if I should hear anything of them, I'll let you know. Your
+name? Athol Meldrum--all right, I'll let you know. Good-bye."
+
+He was gone and I had failed. I cursed myself for a fool. The man had
+baffled me. Nay, even I had hurt myself by giving him an inkling of my
+search. Berna seemed further away from me than ever. Home I went,
+discouraged and despairful.
+
+Then I began to argue with myself. He must know where they were, and if
+he really had designs on the girl and was keeping her in hiding my
+interview with him would alarm him. He would take the first opportunity
+of warning the Winklesteins. When would he do it? That very night in all
+likelihood. So I reasoned; and I resolved to watch.
+
+I stationed myself in a saloon from where I could command a view of his
+hotel, and there I waited. I think I must have watched the place for
+three hours, but I know it was a weariful business, and I was heartsick
+of it. Doggedly I stuck to my post. I was beginning to think he must
+have evaded me, when suddenly coming forth alone from the hotel I saw my
+man.
+
+It was about midnight, neither light nor dark, but rather an absence of
+either quality, and the Northern sky was wan and ominous. In the crowded
+street I saw Locasto's hat overtopping all others, so that I had no
+difficulty in shadowing him. Once he stopped to speak to a woman, once
+to light a cigar; then he suddenly turned up a side street that ran
+through the red-light district.
+
+He was walking swiftly and he took a path that skirted the swamp behind
+the town. I had no doubt of his mission. My heart began to beat with
+excitement. The little path led up the hill, clothed with fresh foliage
+and dotted with cabins. Once I saw him pause and look round. I had
+barely time to dodge behind some bushes, and feared for a moment he had
+seen me. But no! on he went again faster than ever.
+
+I knew now I had divined his errand. He was at too great pains to cover
+his tracks. The trail had plunged among a maze of slender cotton-woods,
+and twisted so that I was sore troubled to keep him in view. Always he
+increased his gait and I followed breathlessly. There were few cabins
+hereabouts; it was a lonely place to be so near to town, very quiet and
+thickly screened from sight. Suddenly he seemed to disappear, and,
+fearing my pursuit was going to be futile, I rushed forward.
+
+I came to a dead stop. There was no one to be seen. He had vanished
+completely. The trail climbed steeply up, twisty as a corkscrew. These
+cursed poplars, how densely they grew! Blindly I blundered forward. Then
+I came to a place where the trail forked. Panting for breath I hesitated
+which way to take, and it was in that moment of hesitation that a heavy
+hand was laid on my shoulder.
+
+"Where away, my young friend?" It was Locasto. His face was
+Mephistophelian, his voice edged with irony. I was startled I admit, but
+I tried to put a good face on it.
+
+"Hello," I said; "I'm just taking a stroll."
+
+His black eyes pierced me, his black brows met savagely. The heavy jaw
+shot forward, and for a moment the man, menacing and terrible, seemed to
+tower above me.
+
+"You lie!" like explosive steam came the words, and wolf-like his lips
+parted, showing his powerful teeth. "You lie!" he reiterated. "You
+followed me. Didn't I see you from the hotel? Didn't I determine to
+decoy you away? Oh, you fool! you fool! who are you that would pit your
+weakness against my strength, your simplicity against my cunning? You
+would try to cross me, would you? You would champion damsels in
+distress? You pretty fool, you simpleton, you meddler----"
+
+Suddenly, without warning, he struck me square on the face, a blinding,
+staggering blow that brought me to my knees as falls a pole-axed steer.
+I was stunned, swaying weakly, trying vainly to get on my feet. I
+stretched out my clenched hands to him. Then he struck me again, a
+bitter, felling blow.
+
+I was completely at his mercy now and he showed me none. He was like a
+fiend. Rage seemed to rend him. Time and again he kicked me, brutally,
+relentlessly, on the ribs, on the chest, on the head. Was the man going
+to do me to death? I shielded my head. I moaned in agony. Would he never
+stop? Then I became unconscious, knowing that he was still kicking me,
+and wondering if I would ever open my eyes again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+"Long live the cold-feet tribe! Long live the soreheads!"
+
+It was the Prodigal who spoke. "This outfit buying's got gold-mining
+beaten to a standstill. Here I've been three weeks in the burg and got
+over ten thousand dollars' worth of grub cached away. Every pound of it
+will net me a hundred per cent. profit. I'm beginning to look on myself
+as a second John D. Rockefeller."
+
+"You're a confounded robber," I said. "You're working a cinch-game.
+What's your first name? Isaac?"
+
+He turned the bacon he was frying and smiled gayly.
+
+"Snort away all you like, old sport. So long as I get the mon you can
+call me any old name you please."
+
+He was very sprightly and elate, but I was in no sort of mood to share
+in his buoyancy. Physically I had fully recovered from my terrible
+manhandling, but in spirit I still writhed at the outrage of it. And the
+worst was I could do nothing. The law could not help me, for there were
+no witnesses to the assault. I could never cope with this man in bodily
+strength. Why was I not a stalwart? If I had been as tall and strong as
+Garry, for instance. True, I might shoot; but there the Police would
+take a hand in the game, and I would lose out badly. There seemed to be
+nothing for it but to wait and pray for some means of retaliation.
+
+Yet how bitterly I brooded over the business. At times there was even
+black murder in my heart. I planned schemes of revenge, grinding my
+teeth in impotent rage the while; and my feelings were complicated by
+that awful gnawing hunger for Berna that never left me. It was a perfect
+agony of heart, a panic-fear, a craving so intense that at times I felt
+I would go distracted with the pain of it.
+
+Perhaps I am a poor sort of being. I have often wondered. I either feel
+intensely, or I am quite indifferent. I am a prey to my emotions, a
+martyr to my moods. Apart from my great love for Berna it seemed to me
+as if nothing mattered. All through these stormy years it was like
+that--nothing else mattered. And now that I am nearing the end of my
+life I can see that nothing else has ever mattered. Everything that
+happened appealed to me in its relation to her. It seemed to me as if I
+saw all the world through the medium of my love for her, and that all
+beauty, all truth, all good was but a setting for this girl of mine.
+
+"Come on," said Jim; "let's go for a walk in the town."
+
+The "Modern Gomorrah" he called it, and he was never tired of
+expatiating on its iniquity.
+
+"See that man there?" he said, pointing to a grey-haired pedestrian, who
+was talking to an emphatic blonde. "That man's a lawyer. He's got a
+lovely home in Los Angeles, an' three of the sweetest girls you ever
+saw. A young fellow needed to have his credentials O. K.'d by the Purity
+Committee before he came butting round that man's home. Now he's off to
+buy wine for Daisy of the Deadline."
+
+The grey-haired man had turned into a saloon with his companion.
+
+"Yes, that's Dawson for you. We're so far from home. The good old
+moralities don't apply here. The hoary old Yukon won't tell on us. We've
+been a Sunday School Superintendent for ten years. For fifty more we've
+passed up the forbidden fruit. Every one else is helping themselves.
+Wonder what it tastes like? Wine is flowing like water. Money's the
+cheapest thing in sight. Cut loose, drink up. The orchestra's a-goin'.
+Get your partners for a nice juicy two-step. Come on, boys!"
+
+He was particularly bitter, and it really seemed in that general lesion
+of the moral fibre that civilisation was only a makeshift, a veneer of
+hypocrisy.
+
+"Why should we marvel," I said, "at man's brutality, when but an æon ago
+we all were apes?"
+
+Just then we met the Jam-wagon. He had mushed in from the creeks that
+very day. Physically he looked supreme. He was berry-brown, lean,
+muscular and as full of suppressed energy as an unsprung bear-trap.
+Financially he was well ballasted. Mentally and morally he was in the
+state of a volcano before an eruption.
+
+You could see in the quick breathing, in the restlessness of this man,
+a pent-up energy that clamoured to exhaust itself in violence and
+debauch. His fierce blue eyes were wild and roving, his lips twitched
+nervously. He was an atavism; of the race of those white-bodied,
+ferocious sea-kings that drank deep and died in the din of battle. He
+must live in the white light of excitement, or sink in the gloom of
+despair. I could see his fine nostrils quiver like those of a charger
+that scents the smoke of battle, and I realised that he should have been
+a soldier still, a leader of forlorn hopes, a partner of desperate
+hazards.
+
+As we walked along, Jim did most of the talking in his favourite
+morality vein. The Jam-wagon puffed silently at his briar pipe, while I,
+very listless and downhearted, thought largely of my own troubles. Then,
+in the middle of the block, where most of the music-halls were situated,
+suddenly we met Locasto.
+
+When I saw him my heart gave a painful leap, and I think my face must
+have gone as white as paper. I had thought much over this meeting, and
+had dreaded it. There are things which no man can overlook, and, if it
+meant death to me, I must again try conclusions with the brute.
+
+He was accompanied by a little bald-headed Jew named Spitzstein, and we
+were almost abreast of them when I stepped forward and arrested them. My
+teeth were clenched; I was all a-quiver with passion; my heart beat
+violently. For a moment I stood there, confronting him in speechless
+excitement.
+
+He was dressed in that miner's costume in which he always looked so
+striking. From his big Stetson to his high boots he was typically the
+big, strong man of Alaska, the Conqueror of the Wild. But his mouth was
+grim as granite, and his black eyes hard and repellent as those of a
+toad.
+
+"Oh, you coward!" I cried. "You vile, filthy coward!"
+
+He was looking down on me from his imperious height, very coolly, very
+cynically.
+
+"Who are you?" he drawled; "I don't know you."
+
+"Liar as well as coward," I panted. "Liar to your teeth. Brute, coward,
+liar----"
+
+"Here, get out of my way," he snarled; "I've got to teach you a lesson."
+
+Once more before I could guard he landed on me with that terrible
+right-arm swing, and down I went as if a sledgehammer had struck me.
+But instantly I was on my feet, a thing of blind passion, of desperate
+fight. I made one rush to throw myself on this human tower of brawn and
+muscle, when some one pinioned me from behind. It was Jim.
+
+"Easy, boy," he was saying; "you can't fight this big fellow."
+
+Spitzstein was looking on curiously. With wonderful quickness a crowd
+had collected, all avidly eager for a fight. Above them towered the
+fierce, domineering figure of Locasto. There was a breathless pause,
+then, at the psychological moment, the Jam-wagon intervened.
+
+The smouldering fire in his eye had brightened into a fierce joy; his
+twitching mouth was now grim and stern as a prison door. For days he had
+been fighting a dim intangible foe. Here at last was something human and
+definite. He advanced to Locasto.
+
+"Why don't you strike some one nearer your own size?" he demanded. His
+voice was tense, yet ever so quiet.
+
+Locasto flashed at him a look of surprise, measuring him from head to
+foot.
+
+"You're a brute," went on the Jam-wagon evenly; "a cowardly brute."
+
+Black Jack's face grew dark and terrible. His eyes glinted sparks of
+fire.
+
+"See here, Englishman," he said, "this isn't your scrap. What are you
+butting in about?"
+
+"It isn't," said the Jam-wagon, and I could see the flame of fight
+brighten joyously in him. "It isn't, but I'll soon make it mine. There!"
+
+Quick as a flash he dealt the other a blow on the cheek, an open-handed
+blow that stung like a whiplash.
+
+"Now, fight me, you coward."
+
+There and then Locasto seemed about to spring on his challenger. With
+hands clenched and teeth bared, he half bent as if for a charge. Then,
+suddenly, he straightened up.
+
+"All right," he said softly; "Spitzstein, can we have the Opera House?"
+
+"Yes, I guess so. We can clear away the benches."
+
+"Then tell the crowd to come along; we'll give them a free show."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I think there must have been five hundred men around that ring. A big
+Australian pugilist was umpire. Some one suggested gloves, but Locasto
+would not hear of it.
+
+"No," he said, "I want to mark the son of a dog so his mother will never
+know him again."
+
+He had become frankly brutal, and prepared for the fray exultantly. Both
+men fought in their underclothing.
+
+Stripped down, the Jam-wagon was seen to be much the smaller man, not
+only in height, but in breadth and weight. Yet he was a beautiful figure
+of a fighter, clean, well-poised, firm-limbed, with a body that seemed
+to taper from the shoulders down. His fair hair glistened; his eyes were
+wary and cool, his lips set tightly. In the person of this living
+adversary he was fighting an unseen one vastly more dread and terrific.
+
+Locasto looked almost too massive. His muscles bulged out. The veins in
+his forearms were cord-like. His great chest seemed as broad as a door.
+His legs were statuesque in their size and strength. In that camp of
+strong men probably he was the most powerful.
+
+And nowhere in the world could a fight have been awaited with greater
+zest. These men, miners, gamblers, adventurers of all kinds, pushed and
+struggled for a place. A great joy surged through them at the thought
+of the approaching combat. Keen-eyed, hard-breathing, a-thrill with
+expectation, the crowd packed closer and closer. Outside, people were
+clamouring for admission. They climbed on the stage, and into the boxes.
+They hung over the galleries. All told, there must have been a thousand
+of them.
+
+As the two men stood up it was like the lithe Greek athlete compared
+with the brawny Roman gladiator. "Three to one on Locasto," some one
+shouted. Then a great hush came over the house, so that it might have
+been empty and deserted. Time was called. The fight began.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+With one tiger-rush Locasto threw himself on his man. There was no
+preliminary fiddling here; they were out for blood, and the sooner they
+wallowed in it the better. Right and left he struck with mighty swings
+that would have felled an ox, but the Jam-wagon was too quick for him.
+Twice he ducked in time to avoid a furious blow, and, before Locasto
+could recover, he had hopped out of reach. The big man's fist swished
+through the empty air. He almost overbalanced with the force of his
+effort, but he swung round quickly, and there was the Jam-wagon, cool
+and watchful, awaiting his next attack.
+
+Locasto's face grew fiendish in its sinister wrath; he shot forth a foul
+imprecation, and once more he hurled himself resistlessly on his foe.
+This time I thought my champion must go down, but no! With a dexterity
+that seemed marvellous, he dodged, ducked and side-stepped; and once
+more Locasto's blows went wide and short. Jeers began to go up from the
+throng. "Even money on the little fellow," sang out a voice with the
+flat twang of a banjo.
+
+Locasto glared round on the crowd. He was accustomed to lord it over
+these men, and the jeers goaded him like banderilleros goad a bull.
+Again and again he repeated his tremendous rushes, only to find his
+powerful arms winnowing the empty air, only to see his agile antagonist
+smiling at him in mockery from the centre of the ring. Not one of his
+sledgehammer smashes reached their mark, and the round closed without a
+blow having landed.
+
+From the mob of onlookers a chorus of derisive cheers went up. The
+little man with the banjo voice was holding up a poke of dust. "Even
+money on the little one." A hum of eager conversation broke forth.
+
+I was at the ring-side. At the beginning I had been in an agony of fear
+for the Jam-wagon. Looking at the two men, it seemed as if he could
+hardly hope to escape terrible punishment at the hands of one so
+massively powerful, and every blow inflicted on him would have been like
+one inflicted on myself. But now I took heart and looked forward with
+less anxiety.
+
+Again time was called, and Locasto sprang up, seemingly quite refreshed
+by his rest. Once more he plunged after his man, but now I could see his
+rushes were more under control, his smashing blows better timed, his
+fierce jabs more shrewdly delivered. Again I began to quake for the
+Jam-wagon, but he showed a wonderful quickness in his footwork, darting
+in and out, his hands swinging at his sides, a smile of mockery on his
+lips. He was deft as a dancing-master; he twinkled like a gleam of
+light, and amid that savage thresh of blows he was as cool as if he were
+boxing in the school gymnasium.
+
+"Who is he?" those at the ring-side began to whisper. Time and again it
+seemed as if he were cornered, but in a marvellous way he wormed
+himself free. I held my breath as he evaded blow after blow, some of
+which seemed to miss him by a mere hair's breadth. He was taking
+chances, I thought, so narrowly did he permit the blows to miss him. I
+was all keyed up, on edge with excitement, eager for my man to strike,
+to show he was not a mere ring-tactician. But the Jam-wagon bided his
+time.
+
+And so the round ended, and it was evident that the crowd was of the
+same opinion as myself. "Why don't he mix up a little?" said one. "Give
+him time," said another. "He's all right: there's some class to that
+work."
+
+Locasto came up for the third round looking sobered, subdued, grimly
+determined. Evidently he had made up his mind to force his opponent out
+of his evasive tactics. He was wary as a cat. He went cautiously. Yet
+again he assumed the aggressive, gradually working the Jam-wagon into a
+corner. A collision was inevitable; there was no means of escape for my
+friend; that huge bulk, with its swinging, flail-like arms, menaced him
+hopelessly.
+
+Suddenly Locasto closed in. He swooped down on the Jam-wagon. He had
+him. He shortened his right arm for a jab like the crash of a
+pile-driver. The arm shot out, but once again the Jam-wagon was not
+there. He ducked quickly, and Locasto's great fist brushed his hair.
+
+Then, like lightning, the two came to a clinch. Now, thought I, it's all
+off with the Jam-wagon. I saw Locasto's eyes dilate with ferocious joy.
+He had the other in his giant arms; he could crush him in a mighty hug,
+the hug of a grizzly, crush him like an egg-shell. But, quick as the
+snap of a trap, the Jam-wagon had pinioned his arms at the elbow, so
+that he was helpless. For a moment he held him, then, suddenly releasing
+his arms, he caught him round the body, shook him with a mighty
+side-heave, gave him the cross-buttock, and, before he could strike a
+single blow, threw him in the air and dashed him to the ground.
+
+"Time!" called the umpire. It was all done so quickly it was hard for
+the eye to follow, but a mighty cheer went up from the house. "Two to
+one on the little fellow," called the banjo-voice. Suddenly Locasto rose
+to his feet. He was shamed, angered beyond all expression. Heaving and
+panting, he lurched to his corner, and in his eyes there was a look that
+boded ill for his adversary.
+
+Time again. With the lightness of a panther the Jam-wagon sprang into
+the centre of the ring. More than halfway he met Locasto, and now his
+intention seemed to be to draw his man on rather than to avoid him. I
+watched his every movement with a sense of thrilling fascination. He had
+resumed his serpentine movements, advancing and retreating with
+shadow-like quickness, feinting, side-stepping, pawing the air till he
+had his man baffled and bewildered. Yet he never struck a blow.
+
+All this seemed to be getting on Locasto's nerves. He was going steadily
+enough, trying by every means in his power to get the other man to "mix
+it up." He shouted the foulest abuse at him. "Stand up like a man, you
+son of a dog, and fight." The smile left the Jam-wagon's lips, and he
+settled down to business.
+
+I saw him edging up to Locasto. He feinted wildly, then, stepping in
+closely, he swung a right and left to Black Jack's face. A moment later
+he was six feet away, with a bitter smile on his lips.
+
+With a fierce bellow of rage Locasto, forgetting all his caution,
+charged him. He smashed his heavy right with all its might for the
+other's face, but, quick as the quiver of a bow-string, the Jam-wagon
+side-stepped and the blow missed. Then the Jam-wagon shifted and brought
+his left, full-weight, crash on Locasto's mouth.
+
+At that fierce triumphant blow there was the first dazzling blood-gleam,
+and the crowd screeched with excitement. In a wild whirlwind of fury
+Locasto hurled himself on the Jam-wagon, his arms going like windmills.
+Any one of these blows, delivered in a vital spot, would have meant
+death, but his opponent was equal to this blind assault. Dodging,
+ducking, side-stepping, blocking, he foiled the other at every turn,
+and, just before the round ended, drove his left into the pit of the big
+man's stomach, with a thwack that resounded throughout the building.
+
+Once more time was called. The Jam-wagon was bleeding about the
+knuckles. Several of Locasto's teeth had been loosened, and he spat
+blood frequently. Otherwise he looked as fit as ever. He pursued his
+man with savage determination, and seemed resolved to get in a deadly
+body-blow that would end the fight.
+
+It was pretty to see the Jam-wagon work. He was sprightly as a ballet
+dancer, as, weaving in and out, he dodged the other's blows. His arms
+swung at his sides, and he threw his head about in a manner insufferably
+mocking and tantalising. Then he took to landing light body-blows, that
+grew more frequent till he seemed to be beating a regular tattoo on
+Locasto's ribs. He was springy as a panther, elusive as an eel. As for
+Locasto, his face was sober now, strained, anxious, and he seemed to be
+waiting with menacing eyes to get in that vital smash that meant the
+end.
+
+The Jam-wagon began to put more force into his arms. He drove in a
+short-arm left to the stomach, then brought his right up to the other's
+chin. Locasto swung a deadly knock-out blow at the Jam-wagon, which just
+grazed his jaw, and the Jam-wagon retaliated with two lightning rights
+and a nervous left, all on the big man's face.
+
+Then he sprang back, for he was excited now. In and out he wove. Once
+more he landed a hard left on Locasto's heaving stomach, and then,
+rushing in, he rained blow after blow on his antagonist. It was a
+furious mix-up, a whirling storm of blows, brutal, savage and murderous.
+No two men could keep up such a gait. They came into a clinch, but this
+time the Jam-wagon broke away, giving the deadly kidney blow as they
+parted. When time was called both men were panting hard, bruised and
+covered with blood.
+
+How the house howled with delight! All the primordial brute in these men
+was glowing in their hearts. Nothing but blood could appease it. Their
+throats were parched, their eyes wild.
+
+Round six. Locasto sprang into the centre of the ring. His face was
+hideously disfigured. Only in that battered, blood-stained mask could I
+recognise the black eyes gleaming deadly hatred. Rushing for the
+Jam-wagon, he hurled him across the ring. Again charging, he overbore
+him to the floor, but failed to hold him.
+
+Then in the Jam-wagon there awoke the ancient spirit of the Berserker.
+He cared no more for punishment. He was insensible to pain. He was the
+sea-pirate again, mad with the lust of battle. Like a fiend he tore
+himself loose, and went after his man, rushing him with a swift,
+battering hail of blows around the ring. Like a tiger he was, and the
+violent lunges of Locasto only infuriated him the more.
+
+Now they were in a furious mix-up, and suddenly Locasto, seizing him
+savagely, tried to whip him smashing to the floor. Then the wonderful
+agility of the Englishman was displayed. In a distance of less than a
+two-foot drop he turned completely like a cat. Leaping up, he was free,
+and, getting a waist-hold with a Cornish heave, he bore Locasto to the
+floor. Quickly he changed to a crotch-lock, and, lastly, holding
+Locasto's legs, he brought him to a bridge and worked his weight up on
+his body.
+
+Black Jack, with a mighty heave, broke away and again regained his
+feet. This seemed to enrage the Jam-wagon the more, for he tore after
+his man like a maddened bull. Getting a hold with incredible strength,
+he lifted him straight up in the air and hurled him to the ground with
+sickening force.
+
+Locasto lay there. His eyes were closed. He did not move. Several men
+rushed forward. "He's all right," said a medical-looking individual;
+"just stunned. I guess you can call the fight over."
+
+The Jam-wagon slowly put on his clothes. Once more, in the person of
+Locasto, he had successfully grappled with "Old Man Booze." He was badly
+bruised about the body, but not seriously hurt in any way. Shudderingly
+I looked down at Locasto's face, beaten to a pulp, his body livid from
+head to foot. And then, as they bore him off to the hospital, I realised
+I was revenged.
+
+"Did you know that man Spitzstein was charging a dollar for admission?"
+queried the Prodigal.
+
+"No!"
+
+"That's right. That darned little Jew netted nearly a thousand dollars."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+"Let me introduce you," said the Prodigal, "to my friend the 'Pote.'"
+
+"Glad to meet you," said the Pote cheerfully, extending a damp hand.
+"Just been having a dishwashing bee. Excuse my dishybeel."
+
+He wore a pale-blue undershirt, white flannel trousers girt round the
+waist with a red silk handkerchief, very gaudy moccasins, and a rakish
+Panama hat with a band of chocolate and gold.
+
+"Take a seat, won't you?" Through his gold-rimmed spectacles his eyes
+shone benevolently as he indicated an easy-looking chair. I took it. It
+promptly collapsed under me.
+
+"Ah, excuse me," he said; "you're not onto the combination of that
+chair. I'll fix it."
+
+He performed some operation on it which made it less unstable, and I sat
+down gingerly.
+
+I was in a little log-cabin on the hill overlooking the town. Through
+the bottle window the light came dimly. The walls showed the bark of
+logs and tufts of intersecting moss. In the corner was a bunk over which
+lay a bearskin robe, and on the little oblong stove a pot of beans was
+simmering.
+
+The Pote finished his dishwashing and joined us, pulling on an old
+Tuxedo jacket.
+
+"Whew! Glad that job's over. You know, I guess I'm fastidious, but I
+can't bear to use a plate for more than three meals without passing a
+wet rag over it. That's the worst of having refined ideas, they make
+life so complex. However, I mustn't complain. There's a monastic
+simplicity about this joint that endears it to me. And now, having
+immolated myself on the altar of cleanliness, I will solace my soul with
+a little music."
+
+He took down a banjo from the wall and, striking a few chords, began to
+sing. His songs seemed to be original, even improvisations, and he sang
+them with a certain quaintness and point that made them very piquant. I
+remember one of the choruses. It went like this:
+
+    "In the land of pale blue snow
+    Where it's ninety-nine below,
+    And the polar bears are dancing on the plain,
+    In the shadow of the pole,
+    Oh, my Heart, my Life, my Soul,
+    I will meet thee when the ice-worms nest again."
+
+Every now and then he would pause to make some lively comment.
+
+"You've never heard of the blue snow, Cheechako? The rabbits have blue
+fur, and the ptarmigans' feathers are a bright azure. You've never had
+an ice-worm cocktail? We must remedy that. Great dope. Nothing like
+ice-worm oil for salads. Oh, I forgot, didn't give you my card."
+
+I took it. It was engraved thus:
+
+                        OLLIE GABOODLER.
+
+                         Poetic Expert.
+
+Turning it over, I read:
+
+             Graduate of the University of Hard Knocks.
+        All kinds of verse made to order with efficiency and
+                            dispatch.
+               Satisfaction guaranteed or money returned.
+                        A trial solicited.
+                  In Memoriam Odes a specialty.
+           Ballads, Rondeaux and Sonnets at modest prices.
+                    Try our lines of Love Lyrics.
+                  Leave orders at the Comet Saloon.
+
+
+I stared at him curiously. He was smoking a cigarette and watching me
+with shrewd, observant eyes. He was a blond, blue-eyed, cherubic youth,
+with a whimsical mouth that seemed to alternate between seriousness and
+fun.
+
+He laughed merrily at my look of dismay.
+
+"Oh, you think it's a josh, but it's not. I've been a 'ghost' ever since
+I could push a pen. You know Will Wilderbush, the famous novelist? Well,
+Bill died six years ago from over-assiduous cultivation of John
+Barleycorn, and they hushed it up. But every year there's a new novel
+comes from his pen. It's 'ghosts.' I was Bill number three. Isn't it
+rummy?"
+
+I expressed my surprise.
+
+"Yes, it's a great joke this book-faking. Wouldn't Thackeray have
+lambasted the best sellers? A fancy picture of a girl on the cover,
+something doing all the time, and a happy ending--that's the recipe. Or
+else be as voluptuous as velvet. Wait till my novel, 'Three Minutes,'
+comes out. Order in advance."
+
+"Indeed I will," I said.
+
+He suddenly became grave.
+
+"If I only could take the literary game seriously I might make good. But
+I'm too much of a 'farceur.' Well, one day we'll see. Maybe the North
+will inspire me. Maybe I'll yet become the Spokesman of the Frozen
+Silence, the Avatar of the Great White Land."
+
+He strutted up and down, inflating his chest.
+
+"Have you framed up any dope lately?" asked the Prodigal.
+
+"Why, yes; only this morning, while I was eating my beans and bacon, I
+dashed off a few lines. I always write best when I'm eating. Want to
+hear them?"
+
+He drew from his pocket an old envelope.
+
+"They were written to the order of Stillwater Willie. He wants to
+present them to one of the Labelle Sisters. You know--that fat lymphatic
+blonde, Birdie Labelle. It is short and sweet. He wants to have it
+engraved on a gold-backed hand-mirror he's giving her.
+
+    "I see within my true love's eyes
+    The wide blue spaces of the skies;
+    I see within my true love's face
+    The rose and lily vie in grace;
+    I hear within my true love's voice
+    The songsters of the Spring rejoice.
+    Oh, why need I seek Nature's charms--
+    I hold my true love in my arms.
+
+"How'll that hit her? There's such a lot of natural beauty about
+Birdie."
+
+"Do you get much work?" I asked.
+
+"No, it's dull. Poetry's rather a drug on the market up here. It's just
+a side-line. For a living I clean shoes at the 'Elight' Barbershop--I,
+who have lingered on the sunny slopes of Parnassus, and quenched my
+soul-thirst at the Heliconian spring--gents' tans a specialty."
+
+"Did you ever publish a book?" I asked.
+
+"Sure! Did you never read my 'Rhymes of a Rustler'? One reviewer would
+say I was the clear dope, the genuine eighteen-carat, jewelled-movement
+article; the next would aver I was the rankest dub that ever came down
+the pike. They said I'd imitated people, people I'd never read, people
+I'd never heard of, people I never dreamt existed. I was accused of
+imitating over twenty different writers. Then the pedants got after me,
+said I didn't conform to academic formulas, advised me to steep myself
+in tradition. They talked about form, about classic style and so on. As
+if it matters so long as you get down the thing itself so that folks can
+see it, and feel it go right home to their hearts. I can write in all
+the artificial verse forms, but they're mouldy with age, back numbers.
+Forget them. Quit studying that old Greek dope: study life, modern life,
+palpitating with colour, crying for expression. Life! Life! The sunshine
+of it was in my heart, and I just naturally tried to be its singer."
+
+"I say," said the Prodigal from the bunk where he was lounging, in a
+haze of cigarette smoke, "read us that thing you did the other day, 'The
+Last Supper.'"
+
+The Pote's eyes twinkled with pleasure.
+
+"All right," he said. Then, in a clear voice, he repeated the following
+lines:
+
+           "THE LAST SUPPER.
+
+    Marie Vaux of the Painted Lips,
+    And the mouth so mocking gay;
+    A wanton you to the finger tips,
+    That break men's hearts in play;
+    A thing of dust I have striven for,
+    Honour and Manhood given for,
+    Headlong for ruin driven for--
+    And this is the last, you say:
+
+      Drinking your wine with dainty sips,
+      Marie Vaux of the Painted Lips.
+
+    Marie Vaux of the Painted Lips,
+    Long have you held your sway;
+    I have laughed at your merry quips,
+    Now is my time to pay.
+    What we sow we must reap again;
+    When we laugh we must weep again;
+    So to-night we will sleep again,
+    Nor wake till the Judgment Day.
+
+      'Tis a prison wine that your palate sips,
+      Marie Vaux of the Painted Lips.
+
+    Marie Vaux of the Painted Lips,
+    Down on your knees and pray;
+    Pray your last ere the moment slips,
+    Pray ere the dark and the terror grips,
+    And the bright world fades away:
+    Pray for the good unguessed of us,
+    Pray for the peace and rest of us.
+    Here comes the Shape in quest of us,
+    Now must we go away--
+
+      You and I in the grave's eclipse,
+      Marie Vaux of the Painted Lips."
+
+Just as he finished there came a knock at the door, and a young man
+entered. He had the broad smiling face of a comedian, and the bulgy
+forehead of a Baptist Missionary. The Pote introduced him to me.
+
+"The Yukon Yorick."
+
+"Hello," chuckled the newcomer, "how's the bunch? Don't let me stampede
+you. How d'ye do, Horace! Glad to meet you." (He called everybody
+Horace.) "Just come away from a meeting of my creditors. What's that?
+Have a slab of booze? Hardly that, old fellow, hardly that. Don't tempt
+me, Horace, don't tempt me. Remember I'm only a poor working-girl."
+
+He seemed brimming over with jovial acceptance of life in all its
+phases. He lit a cigar.
+
+"Say, boys, you know old Dingbats the lawyer. Ha, yes. Well, met him on
+Front Street just now. Says I: 'Horace, that was a pretty nifty spiel
+you gave us last night at the Zero Club.' He looked at me all tickled up
+the spine. Ha, yes. He was pleased as Punch. 'Say, Horace,' I says, 'I'm
+on, but I won't give you away. I've got a book in my room with every
+word of that speech in it.' He looked flabbergasted. So I have--ha, yes,
+the dictionary."
+
+He rolled his cigar unctuously in his mouth, with many chuckles and a
+histrionic eye.
+
+"No, don't tempt me, Horace. Remember, I'm only a poor working-girl.
+Thanks, I'll just sit down on this soap-box. Knew a man once, Jobcroft
+was his name, Charles Alfred Jobcroft, sat down on a custard pie at a
+pink tea; was so embarrassed he wouldn't get up. Just sat on till every
+one else was gone. Every one was wondering why he wouldn't budge: just
+sat tight."
+
+"I guess he _cussed hard_," ventured the Prodigal.
+
+"Oh, Horace, spare me that! Remember I'm only a poor working-girl.
+Hardly that, old fellow. Say, hit me with a slab of booze quick. Make
+things sparkle, boys, make things sparkle."
+
+He drank urbanely of the diluted alcohol that passed for whisky.
+
+"Hit me easy, boys, hit me easy," he said, as they refilled his glass.
+"I can't hold my hootch so well as I could a few summers ago--and many
+hard Falls. Talking about holding your 'hooch,' the best I ever saw was
+a man called Podstreak, Arthur Frederick Podstreak. You couldn't get
+that man going. The way he could lap up the booze was a caution. He
+would drink one bunch of boys under the table, then leave them and go on
+to another. He would start in early in the morning and keep on going
+till the last thing at night. And he never got hilarious even; it didn't
+seem to phase him; he was as sober after the twentieth drink as when he
+started. Gee! but he was a wonder."
+
+The others nodded their heads appreciatively.
+
+"He was a fine, healthy-looking chap, too; the booze didn't seem to hurt
+him. Never saw such a constitution. I often watched him, for I suspected
+him of 'sluffing,' but no! He always had a bigger drink than every one
+else, always drank whisky, always drank it neat, and always had a chaser
+of water after. I said to myself: 'What's your system?' and I got to
+studying him hard. Then, one day, I found him out."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"Well, one day I noticed something. I noticed he always held his glass
+in a particular way when he drank, and at the same time he pressed his
+stomach in the region of the 'solar plexus.' So that night I took him
+aside.
+
+"'Look here, Podstreak,' I said, 'I'm next to you.' I really wasn't, but
+the bluff worked. He grew white.
+
+"'For Heaven's sake, don't give me away,' he cried; 'the boys'll lynch
+me.'
+
+"'All right,' I said; 'if you'll promise to quit.'
+
+"Then he made a full confession, and showed me how he did it. He had an
+elastic rubber bag under his shirt, and a tube going up his arm and down
+his sleeve, ending in a white nozzle inside his cuff. When he went to
+empty his glass of whisky he simply pressed some air out of the rubber
+bag, put the nozzle in the glass, and let it suck up all the whisky. At
+night he used to empty all the liquor out of the bag and sell it to a
+saloon-keeper. Oh, he was a phoney piece of work.
+
+"'I've been a total abstainer (in private) for seven years,' he told me.
+'Yes,' I said, 'and you'll become one in public for another seven.' And
+he did."
+
+Several men had dropped in to swell this Bohemian circle. Some had
+brought bottles. There was a painter who had been "hung," a Mus Bac., an
+ex-champion amateur pugilist, a silver-tongued orator, a man who had
+"suped" for Mansfield, and half a dozen others. The little cabin was
+crowded, the air hazy with smoke, the conversation animated. But mostly
+it was a monologue by the inimitable Yorick.
+
+Suddenly the conversation turned to the immorality of the town.
+
+"Now, I have a theory," said the Pote, "that the regeneration of Dawson
+is at hand. You know Good is the daughter of Evil, Virtue the offspring
+of Vice. You know how virtuous a man feels after a jag. You've got to
+sin to feel really good. Consequently, Sin must be good to be the means
+of good, to be the raw material of good, to be virtue in the making,
+mustn't it? The dance-halls are a good foil to the gospel-halls. If we
+were all virtuous, there would be no virtue in virtue, and if we were
+all bad no one would be bad. And because there's so much bad in this old
+burg of ours, it makes the good seem unnaturally good."
+
+The Pote had the floor.
+
+"A friend of mine had a beautiful pond of water-lilies. They painted the
+water exultantly and were a triumphant challenge to the soul. Folks came
+from far and near to see them. Then, one winter, my friend thought he
+would clean out his pond, so he had all the nasty, slimy mud scraped
+away till you could see the silver gravel glimmering on the bottom. But
+the lilies, with all their haunting loveliness, never came back."
+
+"Well, what are you driving at, you old dreamer?"
+
+"Oh, just this: in the nasty mud and slime of Dawson I saw a lily-girl.
+She lives in a cabin by the Slide along with a Jewish couple. I only
+caught a glimpse of her twice. They are unspeakable, but she is fair
+and sweet and pure. I would stake my life on her goodness. She looks
+like a young Madonna----"
+
+He was interrupted by a shout of cynical laughter.
+
+"Oh, get off your foot! A Madonna in Dawson--Ra! Ra!"
+
+He shut up abashed, but I had my clue. I waited until the last noisy
+roisterer had gone.
+
+"In the cabin by the Slide?" I asked.
+
+He started, looked at me searchingly: "You know her?"
+
+"She means a good deal to me."
+
+"Oh, I understand. Yes, that long, queer cabin highest up the hill."
+
+"Thanks, old chap."
+
+"All right, good luck." He accompanied me to the door, staring at the
+marvel of the glamorous Northern midnight.
+
+"Oh, for a medium to express it all! Your pedantic poetry isn't big
+enough; prose isn't big enough. What we want is something between the
+two, something that will interpret life, and stir the great heart of the
+people. Good-night."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Very softly I approached the cabin, for a fear of encountering her
+guardians was in my heart. It was in rather a lonely place, perched at
+the base of that vast mountain abrasion they call the Slide, a long, low
+cabin, quiet and dark, and surrounded by rugged boulders. Carefully I
+reconnoitered, and soon, to my infinite joy, I saw the Jewish couple
+come forth and make their way townward. The girl was alone.
+
+How madly beat my heart! It was a glooming kind of a night, and the
+cabin looked woefully bleak and solitary. No light came through the
+windows, no sound through the moss-chinked walls. I drew near.
+
+Why this wild commotion of my being? What was it? Anxiety, joy, dread? I
+was poised on the pinnacle of hope that overhangs the abyss of despair.
+Fearfully I paused. I was racked with suspense, conscious of a longing
+so poignant that the thought of disappointment became insufferable pain.
+So violent was my emotion that a feeling almost of nausea overcame me.
+
+I knew now that I cared for this girl more than I had ever thought to
+care for woman. I knew that she was dearer to me than all the world
+else; I knew that my love for her would live as long as life is long.
+
+I knocked at the door. No answer.
+
+"Berna," I cried in a faltering whisper.
+
+Came the reply: "Who is there?"
+
+"Love, love, dear; love is waiting."
+
+Then, at my words, the door was opened, and the girl was before me. I
+think she had been lying down, for her soft hair was a little ruffled,
+but her eyes were far too bright for sleep. She stood gazing at me, and
+a little fluttering hand went up to her heart as if to still its
+beating.
+
+"Oh, my dear, I knew you were coming."
+
+A great radiance of joy seemed to descend on her.
+
+"You knew?"
+
+"I knew, yes, I knew. Something told me you were come at last. And I've
+waited--how I've waited! I've dreamed, but it's not a dream now, is it,
+dear; it's you?"
+
+"Yes, it's me. I've tried so hard to find you. Oh, my dear, my dear!"
+
+I seized the sweet, soft hand and covered it with kisses. At that moment
+I could have kissed the shadow of that little hand; I could have fallen
+before her in speechless adoration; I could have made my heart a
+footstool for her feet; I could have given her, O, so gladly, my paltry
+life to save her from a moment's sorrow--I loved her so, I loved her so!
+
+"High and low I've sought you, beloved. Morning, noon and night you've
+been in my brain, my heart, my soul. I've loved you every moment of my
+life. It's been desire feeding despair, and, O, the agony of it! Thank
+God, I've found you, dear! thank God! thank God!"
+
+O Love, look down on us and choir your harmonies! Transported was I,
+speaking with whirling words of sweetest madness, tremulous, uplifted
+with rapture, scarce conscious of my wild, impassioned metaphors. It was
+she, most precious of all creation; she, my beloved. And there, in the
+doorway, she poised, white as a lily, lustrous-eyed, and with hair soft
+as sunlit foam. O Divinity of Love, look down on us thy children; fold
+us in thy dove-soft wings; illumine us in thy white radiance; touch us
+with thy celestial hands. Bless us, Love!
+
+How vastly alight were the grey eyes! How ineffably tender the sweet
+lips! A faint glow had come into her cheeks.
+
+"O, it's you, really, really you at last," she cried again, and there
+was a tremor, the surface ripple of a sob in that clear voice. She
+fetched a deep sigh: "And I thought I'd lost you forever. Wait a moment.
+I'll come out."
+
+Endlessly long the moment seemed, yet wondrously irradiate. The shadow
+had lifted from the world; the skies were alight with gladness; my heart
+was heaven-aspiring in its ecstasy. Then, at last, she came.
+
+She had thrown a shawl around her shoulders, and coaxed her hair into
+charming waves and ripples.
+
+"Come, let us go up the trail a little distance. They won't be back for
+nearly an hour."
+
+She led the way along that narrow path, looking over her shoulder with a
+glorious smile, sometimes extending her hand back to me as one would
+with a child.
+
+Along the brow of the bluff the way wound dizzily, while far below the
+river swept in a giant eddy. For a long time we spoke no word. 'Twas as
+if our hearts were too full for utterance, our happiness too vast for
+expression. Yet, O, the sweetness of that silence! The darkling gloom
+had silvered into lustrous light, the birds were beginning again their
+mad midnight melodies. Then, suddenly turning a bend in the narrow
+trail, a blaze of glory leapt upon our sight.
+
+"Look, Berna," I cried.
+
+The swelling river was a lake of saffron fire; the hills a throne of
+rosy garnet; the sky a dazzling panoply of rubies, girdled with flames
+of gold. We almost cringed, so gorgeous was its glow, so fierce its
+splendour.
+
+Then, when we had seated ourselves on the hillside, facing the
+conflagration, she turned to me.
+
+"And so you found me, dear. I knew you would, somehow. In my heart I
+knew you would not fail me. So I waited and waited. The time seemed
+pitilessly long. I only thought of you once, and that was always. It was
+cruel we left so suddenly, not even time to say good-bye. I can't tell
+you how bad I felt about it, but I could not help myself. They dragged
+me away. They began to be afraid of you, and he bade them leave at once.
+So in the early morning we started."
+
+"I see, I see." I looked into the pools of her eyes; I sheathed her
+white hands in my brown ones, thrilling greatly at the contact of them.
+
+"Tell me about it, child. Has he bothered you?"
+
+"Oh, not so much. He thinks he has me safe enough, trapped, awaiting his
+pleasure. But he's taken up with some woman of the town just now.
+By-and-bye he'll turn his attention to me."
+
+"Terrible! Terrible! Berna, you wring my heart. How can you talk of such
+things in that matter-of-fact way--it maddens me."
+
+An odd, hard look ridged the corners of her mouth.
+
+"I don't know. Sometimes I'm surprised at myself how philosophical I'm
+getting."
+
+"But, Berna, surely nothing in this world would ever make you yield? O,
+it's horrible! horrible!"
+
+She leaned to me tenderly. She put my arms around her neck; she looked
+at me till I saw my face mirrored in her eyes.
+
+"Nothing in the world, dear, so long as I have you to love me and help
+me. If ever you fail me, well, then it wouldn't matter much what became
+of me."
+
+"Even then," I said, "it would be too awful for words. I would rather
+drag your body from that river than see you yield to him. He's a
+monster. His very touch is profanation. He could not look on a woman
+without cynical lust in his heart."
+
+"I know, my boy, I know. Believe me and trust me. I would rather throw
+myself from the bluff here than let him put a hand on me. And so long as
+I have your love, dear, I'm safe enough. Don't fear. O, it's been
+terrible not seeing you! I've craved for you ceaselessly. I've never
+been out since we came here. They wouldn't let me. They kept in
+themselves. He bade them. He has them both under his thumb. But now, for
+some reason, he has relaxed. They're going to open a restaurant
+downtown, and I'm to wait on table."
+
+"No, you're not!" I cried, "not if I have anything to say in the matter.
+Berna, I can't bear to think of you in that garbage-heap of corruption
+down there. You must marry me--now."
+
+"Now," she echoed, her eyes wide with surprise.
+
+"Yes, right away, dear. There's nothing to prevent us. Berna, I love
+you, I want you, I need you. I'm just distracted, dear. I never know a
+moment's peace. I cannot take an interest in anything. When I speak to
+others I'm thinking of you, you all the time. O, I can't bear it,
+dearest; have pity on me: marry me now."
+
+In an agony of suspense I waited for her answer. For a long time she sat
+there, thoughtful and quiet, her eyes cast down. At last she raised them
+to me.
+
+"You said one year."
+
+"Yes, but I was sorry afterwards. I want you now. I can't wait."
+
+She looked at me gravely. Her voice was very soft, very tender.
+
+"I think it better we should wait, dear. This is a blind, sudden desire
+on your part. I mustn't take advantage of it. You pity me, fear for me,
+and you have known so few other girls. It's generosity, chivalry, not
+love for poor little me. O, we mustn't, we mustn't. And then--you might
+change."
+
+"Change! I'll never, never change," I pleaded. "I'll always be yours,
+absolutely, wholly yours, little girl; body and soul, to make or to mar,
+for ever and ever and ever."
+
+"Well, it seems so sudden, so burning, so intense, your love, dear. I'm
+afraid, I'm afraid. Maybe it's not the kind that lasts. Maybe you'll
+tire. I'm not worth it, indeed I'm not. I'm only a poor ignorant girl.
+If there were others near, you would never think of me."
+
+"Berna," I said, "if you were among a thousand, and they were the most
+adorable in all the world, I would pass over them all and turn with joy
+and gratitude to you. Then, if I were an Emperor on a throne, and you
+the humblest in all that throng, I would raise you up beside me and call
+you 'Queen.'"
+
+"Ah, no," she said sadly, "you were wise once. I saw it afterwards.
+Better wait one year."
+
+"Oh, my dearest," I reproached her, "once you offered yourself to me
+under any conditions. Why have you changed?"
+
+"I don't know. I'm bitterly ashamed of that. Never speak of it again."
+
+She went on very quietly, full of gentle patience.
+
+"You know, I've been thinking a great deal since then. In the long, long
+days and longer nights, when I waited here in misery, hoping always you
+would come to me, I had time to reflect, to weight your words. I
+remember them all: 'love that means life and death, that great dazzling
+light, that passion that would raise to heaven or drag to hell.' You
+have awakened the woman in me; I must have a love like that."
+
+"You have, my precious; you have, indeed."
+
+"Well, then, let me have time to test it. This is June. Next June, if
+you have not made up your mind you were foolish, blind, hasty, I will
+give myself to you with all the love in the world."
+
+"Perhaps _you_ will change."
+
+She smiled a peculiar little smile.
+
+"Never, never fear that. I will be waiting for you, longing for you,
+loving you more and more every day."
+
+I was bitterly cast down, crestfallen, numbed with the blow of her
+refusal.
+
+"Just now," she said, "I would only be a drag on you. I believe in you.
+I have faith in you. I want to see you go out and mix in the battle of
+life. I know you will win. For my sake, dear, win. I would handicap you
+just now. There are all kinds of chances. Let us wait, boy, just a
+year."
+
+I saw the pathetic wisdom of her words.
+
+"I know you fear something will happen to me. No! I think I will be
+quite safe. I can withstand him. After a while he will leave me alone.
+And if it should come to the worst I can call on you. You mustn't go too
+far away. I will die rather than let him lay a hand on me. Till next
+June, dear, not a day longer. We will both be the better for the wait."
+
+I bowed my head. "Very well," I said huskily; "and what will I do in the
+meantime?"
+
+"Do! Do what you would have done otherwise. Do not let a woman divert
+the current of your life; let her swim with it. Go out on the creeks!
+Work! It will be better for you to go away. It will make it easier for
+me. Here we will both torture each other. I, too, will work and live
+quietly, and long for you. The time will pass quickly. You will come and
+see me sometimes?"
+
+"Yes," I answered. My voice choked with emotion.
+
+"Now we must go home," she said; "I'm afraid they will be back."
+
+She rose, and I followed her down the narrow trail. Once or twice she
+turned and gave me a bright, tender look. I worshipped her more than
+ever. Was there ever maid more sweet, more gentle, more quick with
+anxious love? "Bless her, O bless her," I sighed. "Whatever comes, may
+she be happy." I adored her, but a great sadness filled my heart, and
+never a word I spoke.
+
+We reached the cabin, and on the threshold she paused. The others had
+not yet returned. She held out both hands to me, and her eyes were
+glittering with tears.
+
+"Be brave, my dearest; it's all for my sake--if you love me."
+
+"I love you, my darling; anything for your sake. I'll go to-morrow."
+
+"We're betrothed now, aren't we, dearest?"
+
+"We're betrothed, my love."
+
+She swayed to me and seemed to fit into my arms as a sword fits into its
+sheath. My lips lay on hers, and I kissed her with a passionate joy. She
+took my face between her hands and gazed at me long and earnestly.
+
+"I love you, I love you," she murmured; "next June, my darling, next
+June."
+
+Then she gently slipped away from me, and I was gazing blankly at the
+closed door.
+
+"Next June," I heard a voice echo; and there, looking at me with a
+smile, was Locasto.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+It comes like a violent jar to be awakened so rudely from a trance of
+love, to turn suddenly from the one you care for most in all the world,
+and behold the one you have best reason to hate. Nevertheless, it is not
+in human nature to descend rocket-wise from the ethereal heights of
+love. I was still in an exalted state of mind when I turned and
+confronted Locasto. Hate was far from my heart, and when I saw the man
+himself was regarding me with no particular unfriendliness, I was
+disposed to put aside for the moment all feelings of enmity. The
+generosity of the victor glowed within me.
+
+As he advanced to me his manner was almost urbane in its geniality.
+
+"You must forgive me," he said, not without dignity, "for overhearing
+you; but by chance I was passing and dropped upon you before I realised
+it."
+
+He extended his hand frankly.
+
+"I trust my congratulations on your good luck will not be entirely
+obnoxious. I know that my conduct in this affair cannot have impressed
+you in a very favourable light; but I am a badly beaten man. Can't you
+be generous and let by-gones be by-gones? Won't you?"
+
+I had not yet come down to earth. I was still soaring in the rarefied
+heights of love, and inclined to a general amnesty towards my enemies.
+
+As he stood there, quiet and compelling, there was an assumption of
+frankness and honesty about this man that it was hard to withstand. For
+the nonce I was persuaded of his sincerity, and weakly I surrendered my
+hand. His grip made me wince.
+
+"Yes, again I congratulate you. I know and admire her. They don't make
+them any better. She's pure gold. She's a little queen, and the man she
+cares for ought to be proud and happy. Now, I'm a man of the world, I'm
+cynical about woman as a rule. I respect my mother and my
+sisters--beyond that----" He shrugged his shoulders expressively.
+
+"But this girl's different. I always felt in her presence as I used to
+feel twenty-five years ago when I was a youth, with all my ideals
+untarnished, my heart pure, and woman holy in my sight."
+
+He sighed.
+
+"You know, young man, I've never told it to a soul before, but I'd give
+all I'm worth--a clear million--to have those days back. I've never been
+happy since."
+
+He drew away quickly from the verge of sentiment.
+
+"Well, you mustn't mind me taking an interest in your sweetheart. I'm
+old enough to be her father, you know, and she touches me strangely.
+Now, don't distrust me. I want to be a friend to you both. I want to
+help you to be happy. Jack Locasto's not such a bad lot, as you'll find
+when you know him. Is there anything I can do for you? What are you
+going to do in this country?"
+
+"I don't quite know yet," I said. "I hope to stake a good claim when the
+chance comes. Meantime I'm going to get work on the creeks."
+
+"You are?" he said thoughtfully; "do you know any one?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you what: I've got laymen working on my Eldorado claim;
+I'll give you a note to them if you like."
+
+I thanked him.
+
+"Oh, that's all right," he said. "I'm sorry I played such a mean part in
+the past, and I'll do anything in my power to straighten things out.
+Believe me, I mean it. Your English friend gave me the worst drubbing of
+my life, but three days after I went round and shook hands with him.
+Fine fellow that. We opened a case of wine to celebrate the victory. Oh,
+we're good friends now. I always own up when I'm beaten, and I never
+bear ill-will. If I can help you in any way, and hasten your marriage to
+that little girl there, well, you can just bank on Jack Locasto: that's
+all."
+
+I must say the man could be most conciliating when he chose. There was a
+gravity in his manner, a suave courtesy in his tone, the heritage of his
+Spanish forefathers, that convinced me almost in spite of my better
+judgment. No doubt he was magnetic, dominating, a master of men. I
+thought: there are two Locastos, the primordial one, the Indian, who had
+assaulted me; and the dignified genial one, the Spaniard, who was
+willing to own defeat and make amends. Why should I not take him as I
+found him?
+
+So, as he talked entertainingly to me, my fears were dissipated, my
+suspicions lulled. And when we parted we shook hands cordially.
+
+"Don't forget," he said; "if you want help bank on me. I mean it now, I
+mean it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+'Twas early in the bright and cool of the morning when we started for
+Eldorado, Jim and I. I had a letter from Locasto to Ribwood and Hoofman,
+the laymen, and I showed it to Jim. He frowned.
+
+"You don't mean to say you've palled up with that devil," he said.
+
+"Oh, he's not so bad," I expostulated. "He came to me like a man and
+offered me his hand in friendship. Said he was ashamed of himself. What
+could I do? I've no reason to doubt his sincerity."
+
+"Sincerity be danged. He's about as sincere as a tame rattlesnake. Put
+his letter in the creek."
+
+But no! I refused to listen to the old man.
+
+"Well, go your own gait," he said; "but don't say that I didn't warn
+you."
+
+We had crossed over the Klondike to its left limit, and were on a
+hillside trail beaten down by the feet of miners and packers. Cabins
+clustered on the flat, and from them plumes of violet smoke mounted into
+the golden air. Already the camp was astir. Men were chopping their
+wood, carrying their water. The long, long day was beginning.
+
+Following the trail, we struck up Bonanza, a small muddy stream in a
+narrow valley. Down in the creek-bed we could see ever-increasing signs
+of an intense mining activity. On every claim were dozens of cabins, and
+many high cones of greyish muck. We saw men standing on raised platforms
+turning windlasses. We saw buckets come up filled with the same dark
+grey dirt, to be dumped over the edge of the platform. Sometimes, where
+the dump had gradually arisen around man and windlass, the platform in
+the centre of that dark-greyish cone was twenty feet high.
+
+Every mile the dumps grew more numerous, till some claims seemed covered
+with them. Looking down from the trail, they were like innumerable
+anthills blocking up the narrow channel, and around them swarmed the
+little ant-men in never-resting activity. The golden valley opened out
+to us in a vista of green curves, and the cleft of it was packed with
+tents, cabins, dumps and tailing piles, all bedded in a blue haze of
+wood fires.
+
+"Look at that great centipede striding across the valley," I said.
+
+"Yes," said Jim, "it's a long line of sluice-boxes. See the water
+a-shinin' in the sun. Looks like some big golden-backed caterpillar."
+
+The little ants were shovelling into it from one of their heaps, and
+from that point it swirled on into the stream, a current of mud and
+stone.
+
+"Seems to me that stream would wash away all the gold," I said. "I know
+it's all caught in the riffles, but I think if that dump was mine I
+would want sluice-boxes a mile long and about sixteen hundred riffles.
+But I guess they know what they are doing."
+
+About noon we descended into the creek-bed and came to the Forks. It was
+a little town, a Dawson in miniature, with all its sordid aspects
+infinitely accentuated. It had dance-halls, gambling dens and many
+saloons: every convenience to ease the miner of the plethoric poke.
+There in the din and daze and dirt we tarried awhile; then, after eating
+heartily, we struck up Eldorado.
+
+Here was the same feverish activity of gold-getting. Every claim was
+valued at millions, and men who had rarely owned enough to buy a decent
+coat were crying in the saloons because life was not long enough to
+allow them to spend their sudden wealth. Nevertheless, they were making
+a good stab at it. At the Forks I enquired regarding Ribwood and
+Hoofman: "Goin' to work for them, are you? Well, they've got a blamed
+hard name. If you get a job elsewhere, don't turn it down."
+
+Jim left me; he would work on no claim of Locasto's, he said. He had a
+friend, a layman, who was a good man, belonged to the Army. He would try
+him. So we parted.
+
+Ribwood was a tall, gaunt Cornishman, with a narrow, jutting face and a
+gloomy air; Hoofman, a burly, beet-coloured Australian with a bulging
+stomach.
+
+"Yes, we'll put you to work," said Hoofman, reading the letter. "Get
+your coat off and shovel in."
+
+So, right away, I found myself in the dump-pile, jamming a shovel into
+the pay-dirt and swinging it into a sluice-box five feet higher than my
+head. Keeping at this hour after hour was no fun, and if ever a man
+desisted for a moment the hard eyes of Hoofman were upon him, and the
+gloomy Ribwood had snatched up a shovel and was throwing in the muck
+furiously.
+
+"Come on, boys," he would shout; "make the dirt fly. 'Taint every part
+of the world you fellers can make your ten bucks a day."
+
+And it can be said that never labourer proved himself more worthy of his
+hire than the pick-and-shovel man of those early days. Few could stand
+it long without resting. They were lean as wolves those men of the dump
+and drift, and their faces were gouged and grooved with relentless toil.
+
+Well, for three days I made the dirt fly; but towards quitting time, I
+must say, its flight was a very uncertain one. Again I suffered all the
+tortures of becoming toil-broken, the old aches and pains of the tunnel
+and the gravel-pit. Towards evening every shovelful of dirt seemed to
+weigh as much as if it was solid gold; indeed, the stuff seemed to get
+richer and richer as the day advanced, and during the last half-hour I
+judged it must be nearly all nuggets. The constant hoisting into the
+overhead sluice-box somehow worked muscles that had never gone into
+action before, and I ached elaborately.
+
+In the morning the pains were fiercest. How I groaned until the muscles
+became limber. I found myself using very rough language, groaning,
+gritting my teeth viciously. But I stayed with the work and held up my
+end, while the laymen watched us sedulously, and seemed to grudge us
+even a moment to wipe the sweat out of our blinded eyes.
+
+I was glad, indeed, when, on the evening of the third day, Ribwood came
+to me and said:
+
+"I guess you'd better work up at the shaft to-morrow. We want a man to
+wheel muck."
+
+They had a shaft sunk on the hillside. They were down some forty feet
+and were drifting in, wheeling the pay-dirt down a series of planks
+placed on trestles to the dump. I gripped the handles of a wheelbarrow
+loaded to overspilling, and steered it down that long, unsteady gangway
+full of uneven joins and sudden angles. Time and again I ran off the
+track, but after the first day I became quite an expert at the business.
+My spirits rose. I was on the way of becoming a miner.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Turning the windlass over the shaft was a little, tough mud-rat, who
+excited in me the liveliest sense of aversion. Pat Doogan was his name,
+but I will call him the "Worm."
+
+The Worm was the foulest-mouthed specimen I have yet met. He had the
+lowest forehead I have ever seen in a white man, and such a sharp,
+ferrety little face. His reddish hair had the prison clip, and his
+little reddish eyes were alive with craft and cruelty. I noticed he
+always regarded me with a peculiarly evil grin, that wrinkled up his
+cheeks and revealed his hideously blackened teeth. From the first he
+gave me a creepy feeling, a disgust as if I were near some slimy
+reptile.
+
+Yet the Worm tried to make up to me. He would tell me stories blended of
+the horrible and the grotesque. One in particular I remember.
+
+"Youse wanta know how I lost me last job. I'll tell youse. You see, it
+was like dis. Dere was two Blackmoor guys dat got into de country dis
+Spring; came by St. Michaels; Hindoos dey was. One of dem 'Sicks' (an'
+dey looked sick, dey was so loose an' weary in der style) got a job from
+old man Gustafson down de shaft muckin' up and fillin' de buckets.
+
+"Well, dere was dat Blackmoor down in de deep hole one day when I comes
+along, an' strikes old Gus for a job. So, seein' as de man on de
+windlass wanted to quit, he passed it up to me, an' I took right hold
+an' started in.
+
+"Say, I was feelin' powerful mean. I'd just finished up a two weeks'
+drunk, an' you tink de booze wasn't workin' in me some. I was seein' all
+kinds of funny t'ings. Why, as I was a-turnin' away at dat ol' windlass
+dere was red spiders crawlin' up me legs. But I was wise. I wouldn't
+look at dem, give dem de go-by. Den a yeller rat got gay wid me an' did
+some stunts on me windlass. But still I wouldn't let on. Den dere was
+some green snakes dat wriggled over de platform like shiny streaks on de
+water. Sure, I didn't like dat one bit, but I says, 'Dere ain't no
+snakes in de darned country, Pat, and you knows it. It's just a touch of
+de horrors, dat's all. Just pass 'em up, boy; don't take no notice of
+dem.'
+
+"Well, dis went on till I begins to get all shaky an' jumpy, an' I was
+mighty glad when de time came to quit, an' de boys down below gives me
+de holler to pull dem up.
+
+"So I started hoistin' wid dose snakes an' spiders an' rats jus'
+cavortin' round me like mad, when all to once who should I hoist outa de
+bowels of de earth but de very devil himself.
+
+"His face was black. I could see de whites of his eyes, an' he had a big
+dirty towel tied round his head. Well, say, it was de limit. At de sight
+of dat ferocious monster comin' after old Pat I gives one yell, drops
+de crank-handle of de windlass, an' makes a flyin' leap down de dump. I
+hears an awful shriek, an' de bucket an' de devil goes down smash to de
+bottom of de shaft, t'irty-five feet. But I kep' on runnin'. I was so
+scared.
+
+"Well, how was I to know dey had a Blackmoor down dere? He was a stiff
+when dey got him up, but how was I to know? So I lost me job."
+
+On another occasion he told me:
+
+"Say, kid, youse didn't know as I was liable to fits, did youse? Dat's
+so; eppylepsy de doctor tells me. Dat's what I am scared of. You see,
+it's like dis: if one of dem fits should hit me when I'm hoistin' de
+boys outer de shaft, den it would be a pity. I would sure lose me job
+like de oder time."
+
+He was the most degraded type of man I had yet met on my travels, a
+typical degenerate, dirty, drunken, diseased. He had three suits of
+underclothing, which he never washed. He would wear through all three in
+succession, and when the last got too dirty for words he would throw it
+under his trunk and sorrowfully go back to the first, keeping up this
+rotation, till all were worn out.
+
+One day Hoofman told me he wanted me to go down the shaft and work in
+the drift. Accordingly, next morning I and a huge Slav, by name Dooley
+Rileyvich, were lowered down into the darkness.
+
+The Slav initiated me. Every foot of dirt had to be thawed out by means
+of wood fires. We built a fire at the far end of the drift every night,
+covering the face we were working. First we would lay kindling, then
+dry spruce lying lengthways, then a bank of green wood standing on end
+to keep in the heat and shed the dirt that sloughed down from the roof.
+In the morning our fire would be burned out, and enough pay-dirt thawed
+to keep us picking all day.
+
+Down there I found it the hardest work of all. We had to be careful that
+the smoke had cleared from the drift before we ventured in, for
+frequently miners were asphyxiated. Indeed, the bad air never went
+entirely away. It made my eyes sore, my head ache. Yet, curiously
+enough, so long as you were below it did not affect you so much. It was
+when you stepped out of the bucket and struck the pure outer air that
+you reeled and became dizzy. It was blinding, too. Often at supper have
+my eyes been so blurred and sore I had to grope around uncertainly for
+the sugar bowl and the tin of cream.
+
+In the drift it was always cool. The dirt kept sloughing down on us, and
+we had really gone in too far for our own safety, but the laymen cared
+little for that. At the end of the drift the roof was so low we were
+bent almost double, picking at the face in all kinds of cramped
+positions, and dragging after us the heavy bucket. To the big Slav it
+was all in the day's work, but to me it was hard, hard.
+
+The shaft was almost forty feet deep. For the first ten feet a ladder
+ran down it, then stopped suddenly as if the excavators had decided to
+abandon it. I often looked at this useless bit of ladder and wondered
+why it had been left unfinished.
+
+Every morning the Worm hoisted us down into the darkness, and at night
+drew us up. Once he said to me:
+
+"Say, wouldn't it be de tough luck if I was to take a fit when I was
+hoistin' youse up? Such a nice bit of a boy, too, an' I guess I'd lose
+my job over de head of it."
+
+I said: "Cut that out, or you'll have me so scared I won't go down."
+
+He grinned unpleasantly and said nothing more. Yet somehow he was
+getting on my nerves terribly.
+
+It was one evening we had banked our fires and were ready to be hoisted
+up. Dooley Rileyvich went first, and I watched him blot out the bit of
+blue for a while. Then, slowly, down came the bucket for me.
+
+I got in. I was feeling uneasy all of a sudden, and devoutly wished I
+were anywhere else but in that hideous hole. I felt myself leave the
+ground and rise steadily. The walls of the shaft glided past me. Up, up
+I went. The bit of blue sky grew bigger, bigger. There was a star
+shining there. I watched it. I heard the creak, creak of the windlass
+crank. Somehow it seemed to have a sinister sound. It seemed to say:
+"Have a care, have a care, have a care." I was now ten feet from the
+top. The bucket was rocking a little, so I put out my hand and grasped
+the lowest rung of the ladder to steady myself.
+
+Then, at that instant, it seemed the weight of the bucket pressing up
+against my feet was suddenly removed, and my arm was nigh jerked out of
+its socket. There I was hanging desperately on the lowest rung of the
+ladder, while, with a crash that made my heart sick, the bucket dashed
+to the bottom. At last, I realised, the Worm had had his fit.
+
+Quickly I gripped with both hands. With a great effort I raised myself
+rung by rung on the ladder. I was panic-stricken, faint with fear; but
+some instinct had made me hold on desperately. Dizzily I hung all
+a-shudder, half-sobbing. A minute seemed like a year.
+
+Ah! there was the face of Dooley looking down on me. He saw me clinging
+there. He was anxiously shouting to me to come up. Mastering an
+overpowering nausea I raised myself. At last I felt his strong arm
+around me, and here I swear it on a stack of Bibles that brutish Slav
+seemed to me like one of God's own angels.
+
+I was on firm ground once more. The Worm was lying stiff and rigid.
+Without a word the stalwart Slav took him on his brawny shoulder. The
+creek was downhill but fifty yards. Ere we reached it the Worm had
+begun to show signs of reviving consciousness. When we got to the edge
+of the icy water he was beginning to groan and open his eyes in a dazed
+way.
+
+"Leave me alone," he says to Rileyvich; "you Slavonian swine, lemme go."
+
+Not so the Slav. Holding the wriggling, writhing little man in his
+powerful arms he plunged him heels over head in the muddy current of the
+creek.
+
+"I guess I cure dose fits anyway," he said grimly.
+
+Struggling, spluttering, blaspheming, the little man freed himself at
+last and staggered ashore. He cursed Rileyvich most comprehensively. He
+had not yet seen me, and I heard him wailing:
+
+"Sure de boy's a stiff. Just me luck; I've lost me job."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+"You'd better quit," said the Prodigal.
+
+It was the evening of my mishap, and he had arrived unexpectedly from
+town.
+
+"Yes, I mean to," I answered. "I wouldn't go down there again for a
+farm. I feel as weak as a sick baby. I couldn't stay another day."
+
+"Well, that goes," said he. "It just fits in with my plans. I'm getting
+Jim to come in, too. I've realised on that stuff I bought, made over
+three thousand clear profit, and with it I've made a dicker for a
+property on the bench above Bonanza, Gold Hill they call it. I've a
+notion it's all right. Anyway, we'll tunnel in and see. You and Jim will
+have a quarter share each for your work, while I'll have an extra
+quarter for the capital I've put in. Is it a go?"
+
+I said it was.
+
+"Thought it would be. I've had the papers made out; you can sign right
+now."
+
+So I signed, and next day found us all three surveying our claim. We put
+up a tent, but the first thing to do was to build a cabin. Right away we
+began to level off the ground. The work was pleasant, and conducted in
+such friendship that the time passed most happily. Indeed, my only worry
+was about Berna. She had never ceased to be at the forefront of my mind.
+I schooled myself into the belief that she was all right, but, thank
+God, every moment was bringing her nearer to me.
+
+One morning, when we were out in the woods cutting timber for the cabin,
+I said to Jim:
+
+"Did you ever hear anything more about that man Mosely?"
+
+He stopped chopping, and lowered the axe he had poised aloft.
+
+"No, boy; I've had no mail at all. Wait awhile."
+
+He swung his axe with viciously forceful strokes. His cheery face had
+become so downcast that I bitterly blamed myself for my want of tact.
+However, the cloud soon passed.
+
+About two days after that the Prodigal said to me:
+
+"I saw your little guttersnipe friend to-day."
+
+"Indeed, where?" I asked; for I had often thought of the Worm, thought
+of him with fear and loathing.
+
+"Well, sir, he was just getting the grandest dressing-down I ever saw a
+man get. And do you know who was handing it to him--Locasto, no less."
+
+He lit a cigarette and inhaled the smoke.
+
+"I was just coming along the trail from the Forks when I suddenly heard
+voices in the bush. The big man was saying:
+
+"'Lookee here, Pat, you know if I just liked to say half a dozen words I
+could land you in the penitentiary for the rest of your days.'
+
+"Then the little man's wheedling voice:
+
+"'Well, I did me best, Jack. I know I bungled the job, but youse don't
+want to cast dem t'ings up to me. Dere's more dan me orter be in de
+pen. Dere's no good in de pot callin' de kettle black, is dere?'
+
+"Then Black Jack flew off the handle. You know he's got a system of
+manhandling that's near the record in these parts. Well, he just landed
+on the little man. He got him down and started to lambast the Judas out
+of him. He gave him the 'leather,' and then some. I guess he'd have done
+him to a finish hadn't I been Johnnie on the spot. At sight of me he
+gives a curse, jumps on his horse and goes off at a canter. Well, I
+propped the little man against a tree, and then some fellows came along,
+and we got him some brandy. But he was badly done up. He kept saying:
+'Oh, de devil, de big devil, sure I'll give him his before I get
+t'rough.' Funny, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes, it's strange;" and for some time I pondered over the remarkable
+strangeness of it.
+
+"That reminds me," said Jim; "has any one seen the Jam-wagon?"
+
+"Oh yes," answered the Prodigal; "poor beggar! he's down and out. After
+the fight he went to pieces, every one treating him, and so on. You
+remember Bullhammer?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, the last I saw of the Jam-wagon--he was cleaning cuspidors in
+Bullhammer's saloon."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We had hauled the logs for the cabin, and the foundation was laid. Now
+we were building up the walls, placing between every log a thick
+wadding of moss. Every day saw our future home nearer completion.
+
+One evening I spied the saturnine Ribwood climbing the hill to our tent.
+He hailed me:
+
+"Say, you're just the man I want."
+
+"What for?" I asked; "not to go down that shaft again?"
+
+"No. Say! we want a night watchman up at the claim to go on four hours a
+night at a dollar an hour. You see, there's been a lot of sluice-box
+robberies lately, and we're scared for our clean-up. We're running two
+ten-hour shifts now and cleaning up every three days; but there's four
+hours every night the place is deserted, and Hoofman proposed we should
+get you to keep watch."
+
+"Yes," I said; "I'll run up every evening if the others don't object."
+
+They did not; so the next night, and for about a dozen after that, I
+spent the darkest hours watching on the claim where previously I had
+worked.
+
+There was never any real darkness down there in that narrow valley, but
+there was dusk of a kind that made everything grey and uncertain. It was
+a vague, nebulous atmosphere in which objects merged into each other
+confusedly. Bushes came down to within a few feet of where we were
+working, dense-growing alder and birch that would have concealed a whole
+regiment of sluice-robbers.
+
+It was the dimmest and most uncertain hour of the four, and I was
+sitting at my post of guard. As the night was chilly I had brought
+along an old grey blanket, similar in colour to the mound of the
+pay-dirt. There had been quite a cavity dug in the dump during the day,
+and into this I crawled and wrapped myself in my blanket. From my
+position I could see the string of boxes containing the riffles. Over me
+brooded the vast silence of the night. By my side lay a loaded shot-gun.
+
+"If the swine comes," said Ribwood, "let him have a clean-up of lead
+instead of gold."
+
+Lying there, I got to thinking of the robberies. They were remarkable.
+All had been done by an expert. In some cases the riffles had been
+extracted and the gold scooped out; in others a quantity of mercury had
+been poured in at the upper end of the boxes, and, as it passed down,
+the "quick" had gathered up the dust. Each time the robbers had cleaned
+up from two to three thousand dollars, and all within the past month.
+There was some mysterious master-crook in our midst, one who operated
+swiftly and surely, and left absolutely no clue of his identity.
+
+It was strange, I thought. What nerve, what cunning, what skill must
+this midnight thief be possessed of! What desperate chances was he
+taking! For, in the miners' eyes, cache-stealing and sluice-box robbing
+were in the same category, and the punishment was--well, a rope and the
+nearest tree of size. Among those strong, grim men justice would be
+stern and swift.
+
+I was very quiet for a while, watching dreamily the dark shadows of the
+dusk.
+
+Hist! What was that? Surely the bushes were moving over there by the
+hillside. I strained my eyes. I was right: they were.
+
+I was all nerves and excitement now, my heart beating wildly, my eyes
+boring through the gloom. Very softly I put out my hand and grasped the
+shot-gun.
+
+I watched and waited. A man was parting the bushes. Stealthily, very
+stealthily, he peered around. He hesitated, paused, peered again,
+crouched on all-fours, crept forward a little. Everything was quiet as a
+grave. Down in the cabins the tired men slept peacefully; stillness and
+solitude.
+
+Cautiously the man, crawling like a snake, worked his way to the
+sluice-boxes. None but a keen watcher could have seen him. Again and
+again he paused, peered around, listened intently. Very carefully, with
+my eyes fixed on him, I lifted the gun.
+
+Now he had gained the shadow of the nearest sluice-box. He clung to the
+trestle-work, clung so closely you could scarce tell him apart from it.
+He was like a rat, dark, furtive, sinister. Slowly I lifted the gun to
+my shoulder. I had him covered.
+
+I waited. Somehow I was loath to shoot. My nerves were a-quiver. Proof,
+more proof, I said. I saw him working busily, lying flat alongside the
+boxes. How crafty, how skilful he was! He was disconnecting the boxes.
+He would let the water run to the ground; then, there in the exposed
+riffles, would be his harvest. Would I shoot ... now ... now....
+
+Then, in the midnight hush, my gun blazed forth. With one scream the man
+tumbled down, carrying along with him the disconnected box. The water
+rushed over the ground in a deluge. I must capture him. There he lay in
+that pouring stream.... Now I had him.
+
+In that torrent of icy water I grappled with my man. Over and over we
+rolled. He tried to gouge me. He was small, but oh, how strong! He held
+down his face. Fiercely I wrenched it up to the light. Heavens! it was
+the Worm.
+
+I gave a cry of surprise, and my clutch on him must have weakened, for
+at that moment he gave a violent wrench, a cat-like twist, and tore
+himself free. Men were coming, were shouting, were running in from all
+directions.
+
+"Catch him!" I cried. "Yonder he goes."
+
+But the little man was shooting forward like a deer. He was in the
+bushes now, bursting through everything, dodging and twisting up the
+hill. Right and left ran his pursuers, mistaking each other for the
+robber in the semi-gloom, yelling frantically, mad with the excitement
+of a man-hunt. And in the midst of it all I lay in a pool of mud and
+water, with a sprained wrist and a bite on my leg.
+
+"Why didn't you hold him?" shouted Ribwood.
+
+"I couldn't," I answered. "I saved your clean-up, and he got some of the
+lead. Besides, I know who he is."
+
+"You don't! Who is he?"
+
+"Pat Doogan."
+
+"You don't say. Well, I'm darned. You're sure?"
+
+"Dead sure."
+
+"Swear it in Court?"
+
+"I will."
+
+"Well, that's all right. We'll get him. I'll go into town first thing in
+the morning and get out a warrant for him."
+
+He went, but the next evening back he returned, looking very surly and
+disgruntled.
+
+"Well, what about the warrant?" said Hoofman.
+
+"Didn't get it."
+
+"Didn't get----"
+
+"No, didn't get it," snapped Ribwood. "Look here, Hoofman, I met
+Locasto. Black Jack says Pat was cached away, dead to all the world, in
+the backroom of the Omega Saloon all night. There's two loafers and the
+barkeeper to back him up. What can we do in the face of that? Say, young
+feller, I guess you mistook your man."
+
+"I guess I did not," I protested stoutly.
+
+They both looked at me for a moment and shrugged their shoulders.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Time went on and the cabin was quietly nearing completion. The roof of
+poles was in place. It only remained to cover it with moss and
+thawed-out earth to make it our future home. I think these were the
+happiest days I spent in the North. We were such a united trio. Each was
+eager to do more than the other, and we vied in little acts of mutual
+consideration.
+
+Once again I congratulated myself on my partners. Jim, though sometimes
+bellicosely evangelical, was the soul of kindly goodness, cheerfulness
+and patience. It was refreshing to know among so many sin-calloused men
+one who always rang true, true as the gold in the pan. As for the
+Prodigal, he was a Prince. I often thought that God at the birth of him
+must have reached out to the sunshine and crammed a mighty handful of it
+into the boy. Surely it is better than all the riches in the world to
+have a temperament of eternal cheer.
+
+As for me, I have ever been at the mercy of my moods, easily elated,
+quickly cast down. I have always been abnormally sensitive, affected by
+sunshine and by shadows, vacillating, intense in my feelings. I was
+truly happy in those days, finding time in the long evenings to think of
+the scenes of stress and sorrow I had witnessed, reconstructing the
+past, and having importune me again and again the many characters in my
+life drama.
+
+Always and always I saw the Girl, elusively sweet, almost unreal, a
+thing to enshrine in that ideal alcove of our hearts we keep for our
+saints. (And God help us always to keep shining there a great light.)
+
+Many others importuned me: Pinklove, Globstock, Pondersby, Marks, old
+Wilovich, all dead; Bullhammer, the Jam-wagon, Mosher, the Winklesteins,
+plunged in the vortex of the gold-born city; and lastly, looming over
+all, dark and ominous, the handsome, bold, sinister face of Locasto.
+Well, maybe I would never see any of them again.
+
+Yet more and more my dream hours were jealously consecrated to Berna.
+How ineffably sweet were they! How full of delicious imaginings! How
+pregnant of high hope! O, I was born to love, I think, and I never loved
+but one. This story of my life is the story of Berna. It is a thing of
+words and words and words, yet every word is Berna, Berna. Feel the
+heartache behind it all. Read between the lines, Berna, Berna.
+
+Often in the evenings we went to the Forks, which was a lively place
+indeed. Here was all the recklessness and revel of Dawson on a smaller
+scale, and infinitely more gross. Here were the dance-hall girls, not
+the dazzling creatures in diamonds and Paris gowns, the belles of the
+Monte Carlo and the Tivoli, but drabs self-convicted by their coarse,
+puffy faces. Here the men, fresh from their day's work, the mud of the
+claim hardly dry on their boot-tops, were buying wine with nuggets they
+had filched from sluice-box, dump and drift.
+
+There was wholesale robbery going on in the gold-camp. On many claims
+where the owners were known to be unsuspicious, men would work for small
+wages because of the gold they were able to filch. On the other hand,
+many of the operators were paying their men in trade-dust valued at
+sixteen dollars an ounce, yet so adulterated with black sand as to be
+really worth about fourteen. All these things contributed to the low
+morale of the camp. Easy come, easy go with money, a wild intoxication
+of success in the air; gold gouged in glittering heaps from the ground
+during the day, and at night squandered in a carnival of lust and sin.
+
+The Prodigal was always "snooping" around and gleaning information from
+most mysterious sources. One evening he came to us.
+
+"Boys, get ready, quick. There's a rumour of a stampede for a new creek,
+Ophir Creek they call it, away on the other side of the divide
+somewhere. A prospector went down ten feet and got fifty-cent dirt.
+We've got to get in on this. There's a mob coming from Dawson, but we'll
+get there before the rush."
+
+Quickly we got together blankets and a little grub, and, keeping out of
+sight, we crawled up the hill under cover of the brush. Soon we came to
+a place from which we could command a full view of the valley. Here we
+lay down, awaiting developments.
+
+It was at the hour of dusk. Scarfs of smoke wavered over the cabins down
+in the valley. On the far slope of Eldorado I saw a hawk soar upwards.
+Surely a man was moving amid the brush, two men, a dozen men, moving in
+single file very stealthily. I pointed them out.
+
+"It's the stampede," whispered Jim. "We've got to get on to the trail of
+that crowd. Travel like blazes. We can cut them off at the head of the
+valley."
+
+So we struck into the stampede gait, a wild, jolting, desperate pace,
+that made the wind pant in our lungs like bellows, and jarred our bones
+in their sockets. Through brush and scrub timber we burst. Thorny vines
+tore at us detainingly, swampy niggerheads impeded us; but the
+excitement of the stampede was in our blood, and we plunged down
+gulches, floundered over marshes, climbed steep ridges and crashed
+through dense masses of underwood.
+
+"Throw away your blankets, boys," said the Prodigal. "Just keep a little
+grub. Eldorado was staked on a stampede. Maybe we're in on another
+Eldorado. We must connect with that bunch if we break our necks."
+
+It was hours after when we overtook them, about a dozen men, all in the
+maddest hurry, and casting behind them glances of furtive apprehension.
+When they saw us they were hugely surprised. Ribwood was one of the
+party.
+
+"Hello," he says roughly; "any more coming after you boys?"
+
+"Don't see them," said the Prodigal breathlessly. "We spied you and
+cottoned on to what was up, so we made a fierce hike to get in on it.
+Gee, I'm all tuckered out."
+
+"All right, get in line. I guess there's lots for us all. You're in on a
+good thing, all right. Come along."
+
+So off we started again. The leader was going like one possessed. We
+blundered on behind. We were on the other side of the divide looking
+into another vast valley. What a magnificent country it was! What a
+great manoeuvring-ground it would make for an army! What splendid
+open spaces, and round smooth hills, and dimly blue valleys, and silvery
+winding creeks! It was veritably a park of the Gods, and enclosing it
+was the monstrous, corrugated palisade of the Rockies.
+
+But there was small time to look around. On we went in the same mad,
+heart-breaking hurry, mile after mile, hour after hour.
+
+"This is going to be a banner creek, boys," the whisper ran down the
+line. "We're in luck. We'll all be Klondike Kings yet."
+
+Cheering, wasn't it? So on we went, hotter than ever, content to follow
+the man of iron who was guiding us to the virgin treasure.
+
+We had been pounding along all night, up hill and down dale. The sun
+rose, the dawn blossomed, the dew dried on the blueberry; it was
+morning. Still we kept up our fierce gait. Would our leader never come
+to his destination? By what roundabout route was he guiding us? The sun
+climbed up in the blue sky, the heat quivered; it was noon. We panted as
+we pelted on, parched and weary, faint and footsore. The excitement of
+the stampede had sustained us, and we scarcely had noted the flight of
+time. We had been walking for fourteen hours, yet not a man faltered. I
+was ready to drop with fatigue; my feet were a mass of blisters, and
+every step was intolerable pain to me. But still our leader kept on.
+
+"I guess we'll fool those trying to follow us," snapped Ribwood grimly.
+
+Suddenly the Prodigal said to me: "Say, you boys will have to go on
+without me. I'm all in. Go ahead, I'll follow after I'm rested up."
+
+He dropped in a limp heap on the ground and instantly fell asleep.
+Several of the others had dropped out too. They fell asleep where they
+gave up, utterly exhausted. We had now been going sixteen hours, and
+still our leader kept on.
+
+"You're pretty tough for a youngster," growled one of them to me. "Keep
+it up, we're almost there."
+
+So I hobbled along painfully, though the desire to throw myself down was
+becoming imperative. Just ahead was Jim, sturdily holding his own. The
+others were reduced to a bare half-dozen.
+
+It was about four in the afternoon when we reached the creek. Up it our
+leader plunged, till he came to a place where a rude shaft had been dug.
+We gathered around him. He was a typical prospector, a child of hope,
+lean, swarthy, clear-eyed.
+
+"Here it is, boys," he said. "Here's my discovery stake. Now you fellows
+go up or down, anywhere you've a notion to, and put in your stakes. You
+all know what a lottery it is. Maybe you'll stake a million-dollar
+claim, maybe a blank. Mining's all a gamble. But go ahead, boys. I wish
+you luck."
+
+So we strung out, and, coming in rotation, Jim and I staked seven and
+eight below discovery.
+
+"Seven's a lucky number for me," said Jim; "I've a notion this claim's a
+good one."
+
+"I don't care," I said, "for all the gold in the world. What I want is
+sleep, sleep, rest and sleep."
+
+So I threw myself down on a bit of moss, and, covering my head with my
+coat to ward off the mosquitoes, in a few minutes I was dead to the
+world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+I was awakened by the Prodigal.
+
+"Rouse up," he was saying; "you've slept right round the clock. We've
+got to get back to town and record those claims. Jim's gone three hours
+ago."
+
+It was five o'clock of a crystal Yukon morning, with the world clear-cut
+and fresh as at the dawn of Things. I was sleep-stupid, sore, stiff in
+every joint. Racking pains made me groan at every movement, and the
+chill night air had brought on twinges of rheumatism. I looked at my
+location stake, beside which I had fallen.
+
+"I can't do it," I said; "my feet are out of business."
+
+"You must," he insisted. "Come, buck up, old man. Bathe your feet in the
+creek, and then you'll feel as fit as a fighting-cock. We've got to get
+into town hot-foot. They've got a bunch of crooks at the gold office,
+and we're liable to lose our claims if we are late."
+
+"Have you staked, too?"
+
+"You bet. I've got thirteen below. Hurry up. There's a wild bunch coming
+from town."
+
+I groaned grievously, yet felt mighty refreshed by a dip in the creek.
+Then we started off once more. Every few moments we would meet parties
+coming post-haste from town. They looked worn and jaded, but spread
+eagerly up and down. There must have been several hundred of them, all
+sustained by the mad excitement of the stampede.
+
+We did not take the circuitous route of the day before, but one that
+shortened the distance by some ten miles. We travelled a wild country,
+crossing unknown creeks that have since proved gold-bearing, and
+climbing again the high ridge of the divide. Then once more we dropped
+down into the Bonanza basin, and by nightfall we had reached our own
+cabin.
+
+We lay down for a few hours. It seemed my weary head had just touched
+the pillow when once more the inexorable Prodigal awakened me.
+
+"Come on, kid, we've got to get to Dawson when the recording office
+opens." So once more we pelted down Bonanza. Fast as we had come, we
+found many of those who had followed us were ahead. The North is the
+land of the musher. In that pure, buoyant air a man can walk away from
+himself. Any one of us thought nothing of a fifty-mile tramp, and one of
+eighty was scarcely considered notable.
+
+It was about nine in the morning when we got to the gold office. Already
+a crowd of stampeders were waiting. Foremost in the crowd I saw Jim. The
+Prodigal looked thoughtful.
+
+"Look here," he said, "I guess it's all right to push in with that
+bunch, but there's a slicker way of doing it for those that are 'next.'
+Of course, it's not according to Hoyle. There's a little side-door where
+you can get in ahead of the gang. See that fellow, Ten-Dollar Jim they
+call him; well, they say he can work the oracle for us."
+
+"No," I said, "you can pay him ten dollars if you like. I'll take my
+chance in the regulation way."
+
+So the Prodigal slipped away from me, and presently I saw him admitted
+at the side entrance. Surely, thought I, there must be some mistake. The
+public would not "stand for" such things.
+
+There was quite a number ahead of me, and I knew I was in for a long
+wait. I will never forget it. For three days, with the exception of two
+brief sleep-spells, I had been in a fierce helter-skelter of excitement,
+and I had eaten no very satisfying food. As I stood in that sullen crowd
+I swayed with weariness, and my legs were doubling under me. Invisible
+hands were dragging me down, throwing dust in my eyes, hypnotising me
+with soporific gestures. I staggered forward and straightened up
+suddenly. On the outskirts of the crowd I saw the Prodigal trying to
+locate me. When he saw me he waved a paper.
+
+"Come on, you goat," he shouted; "have a little sense. I'm all fixed
+up."
+
+I shook my head. An odd sense of fair play in me made me want to win the
+game squarely. I would wait my turn. Noon came. I saw Jim coming out,
+tired but triumphant.
+
+"All right," he megaphoned to me; "I'm through. Now I'll go and sleep my
+head off."
+
+How I envied him. I felt I, too, had a "big bunch" of sleep coming to
+me. I was moving forward slowly. Bit by bit I was wedging nearer the
+door. I watched man after man push past the coveted threshold. They
+were all miners, brawny, stubble-chinned fellows with grim, determined
+faces. I was certainly the youngest there.
+
+"What have you got?" asked a thick-set man on my right.
+
+"Eight below," I answered.
+
+"Gee! you're lucky."
+
+"What'll you take for it?" asked a tall, keen-looking fellow on my left.
+
+"Five thousand."
+
+"Give you two."
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, come round and see me to-morrow at the Dominion, and we'll talk
+it over. My name's Gunson. Bring your papers."
+
+"All right."
+
+Something like dizziness seized me. Five thousand! The crowd seemed to
+be composed of angels and the sunshine to have a new and brilliant
+quality of light and warmth. Five thousand! Would I take it? If the
+claim was worth a cent it ought to be worth fifty thousand. I soared on
+rosy wings of optimism. I revelled in dreams. My claim! Mine! Eight
+below! Other men had bounded into affluence. Why not I?
+
+No longer did I notice the flight of time. I was ready to wait till
+doomsday. A new lease of strength came to me. I was near the wicket now.
+Only two were ahead of me. A clerk was recording their claims. One had
+thirty-four above, the other fifty-two below. The clerk looked
+flustered, fatigued. His dull eyes were pursy with midnight debauches;
+his flesh sagged. In contrast with the clean, hard, hawk-eyed miners, he
+looked blotched and unwholesome.
+
+Crossly he snatched from the other two their miner's certificates, made
+the entries in his book, and gave them their receipts. It was my turn
+now. I dashed forward eagerly. Then I stopped, for the man with the
+bleary eyes had shut the wicket in my face.
+
+"Three o'clock," he snapped.
+
+"Couldn't you take mine?" I faltered; "I've been waiting now these
+seven hours."
+
+"Closing time," he ripped out still more tartly; "come again to-morrow."
+
+There was a growling thunder from the crowd behind, and the weary,
+disappointed stampeders slouched away.
+
+Body and soul of me craved for sleep. Beyond an overwhelming desire for
+rest, I was conscious of nothing else. My eyelids were weighted with
+lead. I lagged along dejectedly. At the hotel I saw the Prodigal.
+
+"Get fixed up?"
+
+"No, too late."
+
+"You'd better take advantage of the general corruption and the services
+of Ten-Dollar Jim."
+
+I was disheartened, disgusted, desperate.
+
+"I will," I said. Then, throwing myself on the bed, I launched on a
+dreamless sea of sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Next morning bright and early found me at the side-door, and the tall man
+admitted me. I slipped a ten-dollar gold piece into his palm, and
+presently found myself waiting at the yet unopened wicket. Outside I
+could see the big crowd gathering for their weary wait. I felt a
+sneaking sense of meanness, but I did not have long to enjoy my
+despicable sensations.
+
+The recording clerk came to the wicket. He was very red-faced and
+watery-eyed. Involuntarily I turned my head away at the reek of his
+breath.
+
+"I want to record eight below on Ophir," I said.
+
+He looked at me curiously. He hesitated.
+
+"What name?" he asked.
+
+I gave it. He turned up his book.
+
+"Eight below, you say. Why, that's already recorded."
+
+"Can't be," I retorted. "I just got down from there yesterday after
+planting my stakes."
+
+"Can't help it. It's recorded by some one else, recorded early
+yesterday."
+
+"Look here," I exclaimed; "what kind of a game are you putting up on me?
+I tell you I was the first on the ground. I alone staked the claim."
+
+"That's strange," he said. "There must be some mistake. Anyway, you'll
+have to move on and let the others get up to the wicket. You're
+blocking the way. All I can do is to look into the matter for you, and
+I've got no time now. Come back to-morrow. Next, please."
+
+The next man pushed me aside, and there I stood, gaping and gasping. A
+man in the waiting line looked at me pityingly.
+
+"It's no use, young fellow; you'd better make up your mind to lose that
+claim. They'll flim-flam you out of it somehow. They've sent some one
+out now to stake over you. If you kick, they'll say you didn't stake
+proper."
+
+"But I have witnesses."
+
+"It don't matter if you call the Angel Gabriel to witness, they're going
+to grab your claim. Them government officials is the crookedest bunch
+that ever made fuel for hell-fire. You won't get a square deal; they're
+going to get the fat anyhow. They've got the best claims spotted, an'
+men posted to jump them at the first chance. Oh, they're feathering
+their nests all right. They're like a lot of greedy pike just waiting to
+gobble down all they can. A man can't buy wine at twenty dollars per,
+and make dance-hall Flossies presents of diamond tararas on a government
+salary. That's what a lot of them are doing. Wine and women, and their
+wives an' daughters outside thinkin' they're little tin gods. Somehow
+they've got to foot the bill. Oh, it's a great country."
+
+I was stunned with disappointment.
+
+"What you want," he continued, "is to get a pull with some of the
+officials. Why, there's friends of mine don't need to go out of town to
+stake a claim. Only the other day a certain party known to me, went
+to--well, I mustn't mention names, anyway, he's high up in the
+government, and a friend of Quebec Suzanne's,--and says to him,'I want
+you to get number so and so on Hunker recorded for me. Of course I
+haven't been able to get out there, but--'
+
+"The government bug puts his hands to his ears. 'Don't give me any
+unnecessary information,' he says; 'you want so and so recorded, Sam.
+Well, that's all right. I'll fix it.'
+
+"That was all there was to it, and when next day a man comes in
+post-haste claiming to have staked it, it was there recorded in Sam's
+name. Get a stand-in, young fellow."
+
+"But surely," I said, "somehow, somewhere there must be justice. Surely
+if these facts were represented at Ottawa and proof forthcoming----"
+
+"Ottawa!" He gave a sniffing laugh. "Ottawa! Why, it's some of the big
+guns at Ottawa that's gettin' the cream of it all. The little fellows
+are just lapping up the drips. Look at them big concessions they're
+selling for a song, good placer ground that would mean pie to the poor
+miner, closed tight and everlastingly tied up. How is it done? Why,
+there's some politician at the bottom of the whole business. Look at the
+liquor permits--crude alcohol sent into the country by the thousand
+gallons, diluted to six times its bulk, and sold to the poor prospector
+for whisky at a dollar a drink. An' you can't pour your own drinks at
+that."
+
+"Well," I said, "I'm not going to be cheated out of my claim. If I've
+got to move Heaven and earth----"
+
+"You'll do nothing of the kind. If you get sassy there's the police to
+put the lid on you. You can talk till you're purple round the gills. It
+won't cut no figure. They've got us all cinched. We've just got to take
+our medicine. It's no use goin' round bellyaching. You'd better go away
+and sit down."
+
+And I did.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+I had to see Berna at once. Already I had paid a visit to the Paragon
+Restaurant, that new and glittering place of resort run by the
+Winklesteins, but she was not on duty. I saw Madam, resplendent in her
+false jewellery, with her beetle-black hair elaborately coiffured, and
+her large, bold face handsomely enamelled. She looked the picture of
+fleshy prosperity, a big handsome Jewess, hawk-eyed and rapacious. In
+the background hovered Winklestein, his little, squeezed-up, tallowy
+face beaded with perspiration. But he was dressed quite superbly, and
+his moustache was more wondrously waxed than ever.
+
+I mingled with the crowd of miners, and in my rough garb, swarthy and
+bearded as I was, the Jewish couple did not know me. As I paid her,
+Madam gave me a sharp glance. But there was no recognisant gleam in her
+eyes.
+
+In the evening I returned. I took a seat in one of the curtained boxes.
+At the long lunch-counter rough-necked fellows perched on tripod stools
+were guzzling food. The place was brilliantly lit up, many-mirrored and
+flashily ornate in gilt and white. The bill of fare was elaborate, the
+prices exalted. In the box before me a white-haired lawyer was
+entertaining a lady of easy virtue; in the box behind, a larrikin
+quartette from the Pavilion Theatre were holding high revelry. There
+was no mistaking the character of the place. In the heart of the city's
+tenderloin it was a haunt of human riff-raff, a palace of gilt and
+guilt, a first scene in the nightly comedy of "The Lobster."
+
+I was feeling profoundly depressed, miserable, disgusted with
+everything. For the first time I began to regret ever leaving home. Out
+on the creeks I was happy. Here in the town the glaring corruption of
+things jarred on my nerves.
+
+And it was in this place Berna worked. She waited on these wantons; she
+served those swine. She heard their loose talk, their careless oaths.
+She saw them foully drunk, staggering off to their shameful
+assignations. She knew everything. O, it was pitiful; it sickened me to
+the soul. I sat down and buried my face in my hands.
+
+"Order, please."
+
+I knew that sweet voice. It thrilled me, and I looked up suddenly. There
+was Berna standing before me.
+
+She gave a quick start, then recovered herself. A look of delight came
+into her eyes, eager, vivid delight.
+
+"My, how you frightened me, I wasn't expecting you. Oh, I am so glad to
+see you again."
+
+I looked at her. I was conscious of a change in her, and the
+consciousness came with a sense of shearing pain.
+
+"Berna," I said, "what are you doing with that paint on your face?"
+
+"Oh, I'm sorry." She was rubbing distressfully at a dab of rouge on her
+cheek. "I knew you would be cross, but I had to; they made me. They said
+I looked like a spectre at the feast with my chalk face; I frightened
+away the customers. It's just a little pink,--all the women do it. It
+makes me look happier, and it doesn't hurt me any."
+
+"What I want is to see in your cheeks, dear, the glow of health, not the
+flush of a cosmetic. However, never mind. How are you?"
+
+"Pretty well----" hesitatingly.
+
+"Berna," boomed the rough, contumacious voice of Madam, "attend to the
+customers."
+
+"All right," I said; "get me anything. I just wanted to see you."
+
+She hurried away. I saw her go behind the curtains of one of the closed
+boxes carrying a tray of dishes. I heard coarse voices chaffing her. I
+saw her come out, her cheeks flushed, yet not with rouge. A miner had
+tried to detain her. Somehow it all made me writhe, agitated me so that
+I could hardly keep my seat.
+
+Presently she came hurrying round, bringing me some food.
+
+"When can I see you, girl?" I asked.
+
+"To-night. See me home. I'm off at midnight."
+
+"All right. I'll be waiting."
+
+She was kept very busy, and, though once or twice a tipsy roysterer
+ventured on some rough pleasantry, I noticed with returning satisfaction
+that most of the big, bearded miners treated her with chivalrous
+respect. She was quite friendly with them. They called her by name, and
+seemed to have a genuine affection for her. There was a protective
+manliness in the manner of these men that reassured me. So I swallowed
+my meal and left the place.
+
+"That's a good little girl," said a grizzled old fellow to me, as he
+stood picking his teeth energetically outside the restaurant. "Straight
+as a string, and there ain't many up here you can say that of. If any
+one was to try any monkey business with that little girl, sir, there's a
+dozen of the boys would make him a first-rate case for the hospital
+ward. Yes, siree, that's a jim-dandy little girl. I just wish she was my
+darter."
+
+In my heart I blessed him for his words, and pressed on him a fifty-cent
+cigar.
+
+Again I wandered up and down the now familiar street, but the keen edge
+of my impression had been blunted. I no longer took the same interest in
+its sights. More populous it was, noisier, livelier than ever. In the
+gambling-annex of the Paystreak Saloon was Mr. Mosher shuffling and
+dealing methodically. Everywhere I saw flushed and excited miners, each
+with his substantial poke of dust. It was usually as big as a
+pork-sausage, yet it was only his spending-poke. Safely in the bank he
+had cached half a dozen of them ten times as big.
+
+These were the halcyon days. Success was in the air. Men were drunk with
+it; carried off their feet, delirious. Money! It had lost its value.
+Every one you met was "lousy" with it; threw it away with both hands,
+and fast as they emptied one pocket it filled up the others. Little
+wonder a mad elation, a semi-frenzy of prodigality prevailed, for every
+day the golden valley was pouring into the city a seemingly exhaustless
+stream of treasure.
+
+I saw big Alec, one of the leading operators, coming down the street
+with his men. He carried a Winchester, and he had a pack-train of
+burros, each laden down with gold. At the bank flushed and eager mobs
+were clamouring to have their pokes weighed. In buckets, coal-oil cans,
+every kind of receptacle, lay the precious dust. Sweating clerks were
+handling it as carelessly as a grocer handles sugar. Goldsmiths were
+making it into wonders of barbaric jewellery. There seemed no limit to
+the camp's wealth. Every one was mad, and the demi-mondaine was queen of
+all.
+
+I saw Hewson and Mervin. They had struck it rich on a property they had
+bought on Hunker. Fortune was theirs.
+
+"Come and have a drink," said Hewson. Already he had had many. His face
+was relaxed, flushed, already showing signs of a flabby degeneration. In
+this man of iron sudden success was insidiously at work, enervating his
+powers.
+
+Mervin, too. I caught a glimpse of him, in the doorway of the Green Bay
+Tree. The Maccaroni Kid had him in tow, and he was buying wine.
+
+I looked in vain for Locasto. He was on a big debauch, they told me.
+Viola Lennoir had "got him going."
+
+At midnight, at the door of the Paragon, I was waiting in a fever of
+impatience when Berna came out.
+
+"I'm living up at the cabin," she said; "you can walk with me as far as
+that. That is, if you want to," she added coquettishly.
+
+She was very bright and did most of the talking. She showed a vast joy
+at seeing me.
+
+"Tell me what you've been doing, dear--everything. Have you made a
+stake? So many have. I have prayed you would, too. Then we'll go away
+somewhere and forget all this. We'll go to Italy, where it's always
+beautiful. We'll just live for each other. Won't we, honey?"
+
+She nestled up to me. She seemed to have lost much of her shyness. I
+don't know why, but I preferred my timid, shrinking Berna.
+
+"It will take a whole lot to make me forget this," I said grimly.
+
+"Yes, I know. Isn't it frightful? Somehow I don't seem to mind so much
+now. I'm getting used to it, I suppose. But at first--O, it was
+terrible! I thought I never could stand it. It's wonderful how we get
+accustomed to things, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes," I answered bitterly.
+
+"You know, those rough miners are good to me. I'm a queen among them,
+because they know I'm--all right. I've had several offers of marriage,
+too, really, really good ones from wealthy claim-owners."
+
+"Yes," still more bitterly.
+
+"Yes, young man; so you want to make a strike and take me away to
+Italy. Oh, how I plan and plan for us two. I don't care, my dearest, if
+you haven't got a cent in the world, I'm yours, always yours."
+
+"That's all right, Berna," I said. "I'm going to make good. I've just
+lost a fifty-thousand dollar claim, but there's more coming up. By the
+first of June next I'll come to you with a bank account of six figures.
+You'll see, my little girl. I'm going to make this thing stick."
+
+"You foolish boy," she said; "it doesn't matter if you come to me a
+beggar in rags. Come to me anyway. Come, and do not fail."
+
+"What about Locasto?" I asked.
+
+"I've scarcely seen anything of him. He leaves me alone. I think he's
+interested elsewhere."
+
+"And are you sure you're all right, dear, down there?"
+
+"Quite sure. These men would risk their lives for me. The other kind
+know enough to leave me alone. Besides, I know better now how to take
+care of myself. You remember the frightened cry-baby I used to be--well,
+I've learned to hold my own."
+
+She was extraordinarily affectionate, full of unexpected little ways of
+endearment, and clung to me when we parted, making me promise to return
+very soon. Yes, she was my girl, devoted to me, attached to me by every
+tendril of her being. Every look, every word, every act of her expressed
+a bright, fine, radiant love. I was satisfied, yet unsatisfied, and once
+again I entreated her.
+
+"Berna, are you sure, quite sure, you're all right in that place among
+all that folly and drunkenness and vice? Let me take you away, dear."
+
+"Oh, no," she said very tenderly; "I'm all right. I would tell you at
+once, my boy, if I had any fear. That's just what a poor girl has to put
+up with all the time; that's what I've had to put up with all my life.
+Believe me, boy, I'm wonderfully blind and deaf at times. I don't think
+I'm very bad, am I?"
+
+"You're as good as gold."
+
+"For your sake I'll always try to be," she answered.
+
+As we were kissing good-bye she asked timidly:
+
+"What about the rouge, dear? Shall I cease to use it?"
+
+"Poor little girl! Oh no, I don't suppose it matters. I've got very
+old-fashioned ideas. Good-bye, darling."
+
+"Good-bye, beloved."
+
+I went away treading on sunshine, trembling with joy, thrilled with love
+for her, blessing her anew.
+
+Yet still the rouge stuck in my crop as if it were the symbol of some
+insidious decadence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+It was about two months later when I returned from a flying visit to
+Dawson.
+
+"Lots of mail for you two," I cried, exultantly bursting into the cabin.
+
+"Mail? Hooray!"
+
+Jim and the Prodigal, who were lying on their bunks, leapt up eagerly.
+No one longs for his letters like your Northern exile, and for two whole
+months we had not heard from the outside.
+
+"Yes, I got over fifty letters between us three. Drew about a dozen
+myself, there's half a dozen for you, Jim, and the balance for you, old
+sport."
+
+I handed the Prodigal about two dozen letters.
+
+"Ha! now we'll have the whole evening just to browse on them. My, what a
+stack! How was it you had a time getting them?"
+
+"Well, you see, when I got into town the mail had just been sorted, and
+there was a string of over three hundred men waiting at the general
+delivery wicket. I took my place at the tail-end of the line, and every
+newcomer fell in behind me. My! but it was such weary waiting, moving up
+step by step; but I'd just about got there when closing-time came. They
+wouldn't give out any more mail--after my three hours' wait, too."
+
+"What did you do?"
+
+"Well, it seems every one gives way to the womenfolk. So I happened to
+see a girl friend of mine, and she said she would go round first thing
+in the morning and enquire if there were any letters for us. She brought
+me this bunch."
+
+I indicated the pile of letters.
+
+"I'm told lots of women in town make a business of getting letters for
+men, and charge a dollar a letter. It's awful how hard it is to get
+mail. Half of the clerks seem scarcely able to read the addresses on the
+envelopes. It's positively sad to watch the faces of the poor wretches
+who get nothing, knowing, too, that the chances are there is really
+something for them sorted away in a wrong box."
+
+"That's pretty tough."
+
+"Yes, you should have seen them; men just ravenous to hear from their
+families; a clerk carelessly shuffling through a pile of letters.
+'Beachwood, did you say? Nope, nothing for you.' 'Hold on there! what's
+that in your hand? Surely I know my wife's writing.' 'Beachwood--yep,
+that's right. Looked like Peachwood to me. All right. Next there.' Then
+the man would go off with his letter, looking half-wrathful,
+half-radiant. Well, I enjoyed my trip, but I'm glad I'm home."
+
+I threw myself on my bunk voluptuously, and began re-reading my letters.
+There were some from Garry and some from Mother. While still
+unreconciled to the life I was leading, they were greatly interested in
+my wildly cheerful accounts of the country. They were disposed to be
+less censorious, and I for my part was only too glad Mother was well
+enough to write, even if she did scold me sometimes. So I was able to
+open my mail without misgivings.
+
+But I was still aglow with memories of the last few hours. Once more I
+had seen Berna, spent moments with her of perfect bliss, left her with
+my mind full of exaltation and bewildered gratitude. She was the perfect
+answer to my heart's call, a mirror that seemed to flash back the
+challenge of my joy. I saw the love mists gather in her eyes, I felt her
+sweet lips mould themselves to mine, I thrilled with the sheathing
+ardour of her arms. Never in my fondest imaginings had I conceived that
+such a wealth of affection would ever be for me. Buoyant she was, brave,
+inspiring, and always with her buoyancy so wondrous tender I felt that
+willingly would I die for her.
+
+Once again I told her of my fear, my anxiety for her safety among those
+rough men in that cesspool of iniquity. Very earnestly she strove to
+reassure me.
+
+"Oh, my dear, it is in those rough men, the uncouth, big-hearted miners,
+that I place my trust. They know I'm a good girl. They wouldn't say a
+coarse thing before me for the world. You've no idea the chivalrous
+respect they show for me, and the rougher they are the finer their
+instincts seem to be. It's the others, the so-called gentlemen, who
+would like to take advantage of me if they could."
+
+She looked at me with bright, clear eyes, fearless in their scorn of
+sham and pretence.
+
+"Then there are the women. It's strange, but no matter how degraded
+they are they try to shield and protect me. Only last week Kimona Kate
+made a fearful scene with her escort because he said something bad
+before me. I'm getting tolerant. Oh, you've no idea until you know them
+what good qualities some of these women have. Often their hearts are as
+big as all outdoors; they would nurse you devotedly if you were sick;
+they would give you their last dollar if you were in want. Many of them
+have old mothers and little children they're supporting outside, and
+they would rather die than that their dear ones should know the life
+they are living. It's the men, the men that are to blame."
+
+I shook my head sadly.
+
+"I don't like it, Berna, I don't like it at all. I hate you to know the
+like of such people, such things. I just want you to be again the dear,
+sweet little girl I first knew, all maidenly modesty and shuddering
+aversion of evil."
+
+"I'm afraid, dear, I shall never be that again," she said sorrowfully;
+"but am I any the worse for knowing? Why should you men want to keep all
+such knowledge to yourselves? Is our innocence simply to be another name
+for ignorance?"
+
+She put her arms round my neck and kissed me fervently.
+
+"Oh, no, my dear, my dear. I have seen the vileness of things, and it
+only makes me more in love with love and beauty. We'll go, you and I, to
+Italy very soon, and forget, forget. Even if we have to toil like
+peasants in the vineyards we'll go, far, far away."
+
+So I felt strengthened, stimulated, gladdened, and, as I lay on my bunk
+listening to the merry crackle of the wood fire, I was in a purring
+lethargy of content. Then I remembered something.
+
+"Oh, say, boys, I forgot to tell you. I met McCrimmon down the creek.
+You remember him on the trail, the Halfbreed. He was asking after you
+both; then all at once he said he wanted to see us on important
+business. He has a proposal to make, he says, that would be greatly to
+our advantage. He's coming along this evening.--What's the matter, Jim?"
+
+Jim was staring blankly at one of the letters he had received. His face
+was a picture of distress, misery, despair. Without replying, he went
+and knelt down by his bed. He sighed deeply. Slowly his face grew calm
+again; then I saw that he was praying. We were silent in respectful
+sympathy, but when, in a little, he got up and went out, I followed him.
+
+"Had bad news, old man?"
+
+"I've had a letter that's upset me. I'm in a terrible position. If ever
+I wanted strength and guidance, I want it now."
+
+"Heard about that man?"
+
+"Yes, it's him, all right; it's Mosher. I suspicioned it all along.
+Here's a letter from my brother. He says there's no doubt that Mosher is
+Moseley."
+
+His eyes were stormy, his face tragic in its bitterness.
+
+"Oh, you don't know how I worshipped that woman, trusted her, would have
+banked my life on her; and when I was away making money for her she ups
+and goes away with that slimy reptile. In the old days I would have torn
+him to pieces, but now----"
+
+He sighed distractedly.
+
+"What am I to do? What am I to do? The Good Book says forgive your
+enemies, but how can I forgive a wrong like that? And my poor girl--he
+deserted her, drove her to the streets. Ugh! if I could kill him by slow
+torture, gloat over his agony--but I can't, can I?"
+
+"No, Jim, you can't do anything. Vengeance is the Lord's."
+
+"Yes, I know, I know. But it's hard, it's hard. O my girl, my girl!"
+
+Tears overran his cheeks. He sat down on a log, burying his face in his
+hands.
+
+"O God, help and sustain me in this my hour of need."
+
+I was at a loss how to comfort him, and it was while I was waiting there
+that suddenly we saw the Halfbreed coming up the trail.
+
+"Better come in, Jim," I said, "and hear what he's got to say."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+We made McCrimmon comfortable. We kept no whisky in the cabin, but we
+gave him some hot coffee, which he drank with great satisfaction. Then
+he twisted a cigarette, lit it, and looked at us keenly. On his brown,
+flattish face were remarkable the impassivity of the Indian and the
+astuteness of the Scot. We were regarding him curiously. Jim had
+regained his calm, and was quietly watchful. The Prodigal seemed to have
+his ears cocked to listen. There was a feeling amongst us as if we had
+reached a crisis in our fortunes.
+
+The Halfbreed lost no time in coming to the point.
+
+"I like you boys. You're square and above-board. You're workers, and you
+don't drink--that's the main thing.
+
+"Well, to get right down to cases. I'm a bit of a mining man. I've mined
+at Cassiar and Caribou, and I know something of the business. Now I've
+got next to a good thing.--I don't know how good yet, but I'll swear to
+you it's a tidy bit. There may be only ten thousand in it, and there may
+be one hundred and ten. It's a gambling proposition, and I want
+pardners, pardners that'll work like blazes and keep their faces shut.
+Are you on?"
+
+"That's got us kodaked," said the Prodigal. "We're that sort, and if the
+proposition looks good to us we're with you. Anyway, we're clams at
+keeping our food-traps tight."
+
+"All right; listen. You know the Arctic Transportation Co. have claims
+on upper Bonanza--well, a month back I was working for them. We were
+down about twenty feet and were drifting in. They set me to work in the
+drift. The roof kept sloughing in on me, and it was mighty dangerous. So
+far we hadn't got pay-dirt, but their mining manager wanted us to drift
+in a little further. If we didn't strike good pay in a few more feet we
+were to quit.
+
+"Well, one morning I went down and cleaned away the ash of my fire. The
+first stroke of my pick on the thawed face made me jump, stare, stand
+stock-still, thinking hard. For there, right in the hole I had made, was
+the richest pocket I ever seen."
+
+"You don't say! Are you sure?"
+
+"Why, boys, as I'm alive there was nuggets in it as thick as raisins in
+a Christmas plum-duff. I could see the yellow gleam where the pick had
+grazed them, and the longer I looked the more could I see."
+
+"Good Lord! What did you do?"
+
+"What did I do! I just stepped back and picked at the roof for all I was
+worth. A big bunch of muck came down, covering up the face. Then, like a
+crazy man, I picked wherever the dirt seemed loose all the way down the
+drift. Great heaps of dirt caved in on me. I was stunned, nearly buried,
+but I did the trick. There were tons of dirt between me and my find."
+
+We gasped with amazement.
+
+"The rest was easy. I went up the shaft groaning and cursing. I
+pretended to faint. I told them the roof of the drift had fallen in on
+me. It was rotten stuff, anyway, and they knew it. They didn't mind me
+risking my life. I cursed them, said I would sue the Company, and went
+off looking too sore for words. The Manager was disgusted, he went down
+and took a look at things; declared he would throw up the work at that
+place; the ground was no good. He made that report to the Company."
+
+The Halfbreed looked round triumphantly.
+
+"Now, here's the point. We can get a lay on that ground. One of you boys
+must apply for it. They mustn't know I'm in with you, or they would
+suspect right away. They're none too scrupulous themselves in their
+dealings."
+
+He paused impressively.
+
+"You cinch that lay agreement. Get it signed right away. We'll go in and
+work like Old Nick. We'll make a big clean-up by Spring. I'll take you
+right to the gold. There's thousands and thousands lying snug in the
+ground just waiting for us. It's right in our mit. Oh, it's a cinch, a
+cinch!"
+
+The Halfbreed almost grew excited. Bending forward, he eyed us keenly.
+In a breathless silence we stared at each other.
+
+"Well," I objected, "seems to be putting up rather a job on the
+Company."
+
+Jim was silent, but the Prodigal cut in sharply:
+
+"Job nothing--it's a square proposition. We don't know for certain that
+gold's there. Maybe it's only a piffling pocket, and we'll get souped
+for our pains. No, it seems to me it's a fair gambling proposition.
+We're taking all kinds of chances. It means awful hard work; it means
+privation and, maybe, bitter disappointment. It's a gamble, I tell you,
+and are we going to be such poor sports as turn it down? I for one am
+strongly in favour of it. What do you say? A big sporting chance--are
+you there, boys, are you there?"
+
+He almost shouted in his excitement.
+
+"Hush! Some one might hear you," warned the Halfbreed.
+
+"Yes, that's right. Well, it looks mighty good to me, and if you boys
+are willing we'll just draw up papers and sign an agreement right away.
+Is it a go?"
+
+We nodded, so he got ink and paper and drew up a form of partnership.
+
+"Now," said he, his eyes dancing, "now, to secure that lay before any
+one else cuts in on us. Gee! but it's getting dark and cold outdoors
+these days. Snow falling; well, I must mush to Dawson to-night."
+
+He hurried on some warm, yet light, clothing, all the time talking
+excitedly of the chance that fortune had thrown in our way, and gleeful
+as a schoolboy.
+
+"Now, boys," he says, "hope I'll have good luck. Jim, put in a prayer
+for me. Well, see you all to-morrow. Good-bye."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was late next night when he returned. We were sitting in the cabin,
+anxious and expectant, when he threw open the door. He was tired, wet,
+dirty, but irrepressibly jubilant.
+
+"Hurrah, boys!" he cried. "I've cinched it. I saw Mister Manager of the
+big Company. He was very busy, very important, very patronising. I was
+the poor miner seeking a lay. I played the part well. He began by
+telling me he didn't want to give any lays at present; just wanted to
+stand me off, you know; make me more keen. I spoke about some of their
+ground on Hunker. He didn't seem enthusiastic. Then, at last, as if in
+despair, I mentioned this bit on Bonanza. I could see he was itching to
+let me have it, but he was too foxy to show it. He actually told me it
+was an extra rich piece of ground, when all the time he knew his own
+mining engineer had condemned it."
+
+The Prodigal's eyes danced delightedly.
+
+"Well, we sparred round a bit like two fake fighters. My! but he was
+wily, that old Jew. Finally he agreed to let me have it on a
+fifty-per-cent. basis. Don't faint, boys. Fifty per cent., I said. I'm
+sorry. It was the best I could do, and you know I'm not slow. That means
+they get half of all we take out. Oh, the old shark! the robber! I tried
+to beat him down, but he stood pat; wouldn't budge. So I gave in, and we
+signed the lay agreement, and now everything's in shape. Gee whiz!
+didn't I give a sigh of relief when I got outside! He thinks I'm the
+fall guy, and went off chuckling."
+
+He raised his voice triumphantly.
+
+"And now, boys, we've got the ground cinched, so get action on
+yourselves. Here's where we make our first real stab at fortune. Here's
+where we even up on the hard jabs she's handed us in the past; here's
+where we score a bull's-eye, or I miss my guess. The gold's there, boys,
+you can bank on that; and the harder we work the more we're going to get
+of it. Now, we're going to work hard. We're going to make ordinary hard
+work look like a Summer vacation. We're going to work for all we're
+worth--and then some. Are you there, boys, are you there?"
+
+"We are," we shouted with one accord.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+There was no time to lose. Every hour for us meant so much more of that
+precious pay-dirt that lay under the frozen surface. The Winter leapt on
+us with a swoop, a harsh, unconciliating Winter, that made out-door work
+an unmitigated hardship. But there was the hope of fortune nerving and
+bracing us, till we lost in it all thought of self. Nothing short of
+desperate sickness, death even, would drive us from our posts. It was
+with this dauntless spirit we entered on the task before us.
+
+And, indeed, it was one that called for all in a man of energy and
+self-sacrifice. There was wood to get for the thawing of the ground;
+there was a cabin to be built on the claim; and, lastly, there was a
+vast dump to be taken out of the ground for the spring sluicing. We
+planned things so that no man would be idle for a moment, and so that
+every ounce of strength expended would show its result.
+
+The Halfbreed took charge, and we, recognising it as his show, obeyed
+him implicitly. He decided to put down two holes to bed-rock, and, after
+much deliberation, selected the places. This was a matter for the
+greatest judgment and experience, and we were satisfied that he had
+both.
+
+We ran up a little cabin and banked it nearly to the low eaves with
+snow. By-and-bye more fell on the roof to the depth of three feet, so
+that the place seemed like a huge white hummock. Only in front could you
+recognise it as a cabin by the low doorway, where we had always to stoop
+on entering. Within were our bunks, a tiny stove, a few boxes to sit on,
+a few dishes, our grub; that was all. Often we regretted our big cabin
+on the hill, with its calico-lined "den" and its separate kitchen. But
+in this little box of a home we were to put in many weary months.
+
+Not that the time seemed long to us; we were too busy for that. Indeed,
+often we wished it were twice as long. Snow had fallen in September, and
+by December we were in an Arctic world of uncompromising harshness. Day
+after day the glass stood between forty and fifty below zero. It was
+hatefully, dangerously cold. It seemed as if the frost-fiend had a cruel
+grudge against us. It made us grim--and careful. We didn't talk much in
+those days. We just worked, worked, worked, and when we did talk it was
+of our work, our ceaseless work.
+
+Would we strike it rich? It was all a gamble, the most exciting gamble
+in the world. It thrilled our day hours with excitement; it haunted our
+sleep; it lent strength to the pick-stroke and vigour to the
+windlass-crank. It made us forget the bitter cold, till some one would
+exclaim, and gently knead the fresh snow on our faces. The cold burned
+our cheeks a fierce brick-red, and a frostbite showed on them like a
+patch of white putty. The old scars, never healing, were like blotches
+of lamp-black.
+
+But neither cold nor fatigue could keep us away from the shaft and the
+drift. We had gone down to bed-rock, and were tunnelling in to meet the
+hole the Halfbreed had covered up. So far we had found nothing. Every
+day we panned samples of the dirt, always getting colours, sometimes a
+fifty-cent pan, but never what we dreamed of, hoped for.
+
+"Wait, boys, till we get a two-hundred-dollar pan, then we'll begin to
+whoop it up some."
+
+Once the Company Manager came down on a dog-team. He looked over our
+shaft. He wore a coon coat, with a cap of beaver, and huge fur mits hung
+by a cord around his neck. He was massive and impassive. Spiky icicles
+bristled around his mouth.
+
+"What luck, boys?" His breath came like steam.
+
+"None, so far," we told him, wearily, and off he went into the frozen
+gloom, saying he hoped we would strike it before long.
+
+"Wait a while."
+
+We were working two men to a shaft, burning our ground over night. The
+Prodigal and I manned the windlasses, while the old miners went down the
+drifts. It was a cold, cold job standing there on that rugged platform
+turning the windlass-crank. Long before it was fairly light we got to
+our posts, and lowered our men into the hole. The air was warmer down
+there; but the work was harder, more difficult, more dangerous.
+
+At noon there was no sunshine, only a wan, ashen light that suffused the
+sky. A deathlike stillness lay on the valley, not a quiver or movement
+in leaf or blade. The snow was a shroud, smooth save where the funereal
+pines pricked through. In that intensity of cold, that shivering agony
+of desolation, it seemed as if nature was laughing at us--the Cosmic
+Laugh.
+
+Our meals were hurriedly cooked and bolted. We grudged every moment of
+our respite from toil. At night we often were far too weary to undress.
+We lost our regard for cleanliness; we neglected ourselves. Always we
+talked of the result of the day's panning and the chances of to-morrow.
+Surely we would strike it soon.
+
+"Wait awhile."
+
+Colder it grew and colder. Our kerosene flowed like mush. The water
+froze solid in our kettle. Our bread was full of icy particles.
+Everything had to be thawed out continually. It was tiresome,
+exasperating, when we were in such a devil of a hurry. It kept us back;
+it angered us, this pest of a cold. Our tempers began to suffer. We were
+short, taciturn. The strain was beginning to tell on us.
+
+"Wait awhile."
+
+Then, one afternoon, the Something happened. It was Jim who was the
+chosen one. About three o'clock he signalled to be hoisted up, and when
+he appeared he was carrying a pan of dirt. "Call the others," he said.
+
+All together in the little cabin we stood round, while Jim washed out
+the pan in snow-water melt over our stove. I will never forget how
+eagerly we watched the gravel, and the whirling, dexterous movements of
+the old man. We could see gleams of yellow in the muddy water. Thrills
+of joy and hope went through us. We had got the thing, the big thing, at
+last.
+
+"Hurry, Jim," I said, "or I'll die of suspense."
+
+Patiently he went on. There it was at last in the bottom of the
+pan--sweeter to our eyes than to a woman the sight of her first-born.
+There it lay, glittering, gleaming gold, fine gold, coarse gold, nuggety
+gold.
+
+"Now, boys, you can whoop it up," said Jim quietly; "for there's many
+and many a pan like it down there in the drift."
+
+But never a whoop. What was the matter with us? When the fortune we had
+longed for so eagerly came at last, we did not greet it even with a
+cheer. Oh, we were painfully silent.
+
+Solemnly we shook hands all round.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+"Now to weigh it," said the Prodigal.
+
+On the tiny pair of scales we turned it out--ninety-five dollars' worth.
+
+Well, it was a good start, and we were all possessed with a frantic
+eagerness to go down in the drift. I crawled along the tunnel. There, in
+the face of it, I could see the gold shining, and the longer I looked
+the more I seemed to see. It was rich, rich. I picked out and burnished
+a nugget as large as a filbert. There were lots of others like it. It
+was a strike. The question was: how much was there of it? The Halfbreed
+soon settled our doubts on that score.
+
+"It stands to reason the pay runs between where I first found it and
+where we've struck it now. That alone means a tidy stake for each of us.
+Say, boys, if you were to cover all that distance with twenty-dollar
+gold pieces six feet wide, and packed edge to edge, I wouldn't take them
+for our interest in that bit of ground. I see a fine big ranch in
+Manitoba for my share; ay, and hired help to run it. The only thing that
+sticks in my gullet is that fifty per cent. to the Company."
+
+"Well, we can't kick," I said; "we'd never have got the lay if they'd
+had a hunch. My! won't they be sore?"
+
+Sure enough, in a few days the news leaked out, and the Manager came
+post-haste.
+
+"Hear you've struck it rich, boys."
+
+"So rich that I guess we'll have to pack down gravel from the benches to
+mix in before we can sluice it," said the Prodigal.
+
+"You don't say. Well, I'll have to have a man on the ground to look
+after our interests."
+
+"All right. It means a good thing for you."
+
+"Yes, but it would have meant a better if we had worked it ourselves.
+However, you boys deserve your luck. Hello, the devil----"
+
+He turned round and saw the Halfbreed. He gave a long whistle and went
+away, looking pensive.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was the night of the discovery when the Prodigal made us an address.
+
+"Look here, boys; do you know what this means? It means victory; it
+means freedom, happiness, the things we want, the life we love. To me it
+means travel, New York, Paris, evening dress, the opera. To McCrimmon
+here it means his farm. To each according to his notion, it means the
+'Things That Matter.'
+
+"Now, we've just begun. The hardest part is to come, is to get out the
+fortune that's right under our feet. We're going to get every cent of
+it, boys. There's a little over three months to do it in, leaving about
+a month to make sluice-boxes and clean up the dirt. We've got to work
+like men at a burning barn. We've worked hard, but we've got to go some
+yet. For my part, I'm willing to do stunts that will make my previous
+record look like a plugged dime. I guess you boys all feel the same
+way."
+
+"You bet we do."
+
+"Well, nuf sed; let's get busy."
+
+So, once more, with redoubled energy, we resumed our tense, unremitting
+round of toil. Now, however, it was vastly different. Every bucket of
+dirt meant money in our pockets, every stroke of the pick a dollar. Not
+that it was all like the first rich pocket we had struck. It proved a
+most erratic and puzzling paystreak--one day rich beyond our dreams,
+another too poor to pay for the panning. We swung on a pendulum of hope
+and despair. Perhaps this made it all the more exciting, and stimulated
+us unnaturally, and always we cursed that primitive method of mining
+that made every bucket of dirt the net result of infinite labor.
+
+Every day our two dumps increased in size (for we had struck pay on the
+other shaft), and every day our assurance and elation increased
+correspondingly. It was bruited around that we had one of the richest
+bits of ground in the country, and many came to gaze at us. It used to
+lighten my labours at the windlass to see their looks of envy and to
+hear their awe-stricken remarks.
+
+"That's one of them," they would say; "one of the lucky four, the lucky
+laymen."
+
+So, as the facts, grossly exaggerated, got noised abroad, they came to
+call us the "Lucky Laymen."
+
+Looking back, there will always seem to me something weird and
+incomprehensible in those twilight days, an unreality, a vagueness like
+some dreary, feverish dream. For three months I did not see my face in a
+mirror. Not that I wanted to, but I mention this just to show how little
+we thought of ourselves.
+
+In like manner, never did I have a moment's time to regard my inner self
+in the mirror of consciousness. No mental analysis now; no long hours of
+retrospection, no tête-à-tête interviews with my soul. At times I felt
+as if I had lost my identity. I was a slave of the genie Gold, releasing
+it from its prison in the frozen bowels of the earth. I was an automaton
+turning a crank in the frozen stillness of the long, long night.
+
+It was a life despotically objective, and now, as I look back, it seems
+as if I had never lived it at all. I seem to look down a long, dark
+funnel and see a little machine-man bearing my semblance, patiently,
+steadily, wearily turning the handle of a windlass in the clear,
+lancinating cold of those sombre, silent days.
+
+I say "bearing my outward semblance," and yet I sometimes wonder if that
+rough-bearded figure in heavy woollen clothes looked the least like me.
+I wore heavy sweaters, mackinaw trousers, thick German socks and
+moccasins. From frequent freezing my cheeks were corroded. I was
+miserably thin, and my eyes had a wild, staring expression through the
+pupils dilating in the long darkness. Yes, mentally and physically I was
+no more like myself than a convict enduring out his life in the soulless
+routine of a prison.
+
+The days were lengthening marvellously. We noted the fact with dull
+joy. It meant more light, more time, more dirt in the dump. So it came
+about that, from ten hours of toil, we went to twelve, to fourteen;
+then, latterly, to sixteen, and the tension of it was wearing us down to
+skin and bone.
+
+We were all feeling wretched, overstrained, ill-nourished, and it was
+only voicing the general sentiment when, one day, the Prodigal remarked:
+
+"I guess I'll have to let up for a couple of days. My teeth are all on
+the bum. I'm going to town to see a dentist."
+
+"Let me look at them," said the Halfbreed.
+
+He looked. The gums were sullen, unwholesome-looking.
+
+"Why, it's a touch of scurvy, lad; a little while, and you'd be spitting
+out your teeth like orange pips; your legs would turn black, and when
+you squeezed your fingers into the flesh the hole would stay. You'd get
+rotten, then you'd mortify and die. But it's the easiest thing in the
+world to cure. Nothing responds to treatment so readily."
+
+He made a huge brew of green-spruce tea, of which we all partook, and in
+a few days the Prodigal was fit again.
+
+It was mid-March when we finished working out our ground. We had done
+well, not so well, perhaps, as we had hoped for, but still magnificently
+well. Never had men worked harder, never fought more desperately for
+success. There were our two dumps, pyramids of gold-permeated dirt at
+whose value we could only guess. We had wrested our treasure from the
+icy grip of the eternal frost. Now it remained--and O, the sweetness of
+it--to glean the harvest of our toil.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+"The water's beginning to run, boys," said the Halfbreed. "A few more
+days and we'll be able to start sluicing."
+
+The news was like a flood of sunshine to us. For days we had been fixing
+up the boxes and getting everything in readiness. The sun beat strongly
+on the snow, which almost visibly seemed to retreat before it. The
+dazzlingly white surface was crisp and flaky, and around the tree boles
+curving hollows had formed. Here and there brown earth peered nakedly
+through. Every day the hillside runnels grew in strength.
+
+We were working at the mouth of a creek down which ran a copious little
+stream all through the Springtime. We tapped it some distance above us,
+and ran part of it along our line of sluice-boxes. These boxes went
+between our two dumps, so that it was easy to shovel in from both sides.
+Nothing could have been more convenient.
+
+At last, after a day of hot sunshine, we found quite a freshet of water
+coming down the boxes, leaping and dancing in the morning light. I
+remember how I threw in the first shovelful of dirt, and how good it was
+to see the bright stream discolour as our friend the water began his
+magic work. For three days we shovelled in, and on the fourth we made a
+clean-up.
+
+"I guess it's time," said Jim, "or those riffles will be gettin' choked
+up."
+
+And, sure enough, when we ran off the water there were some of them
+almost full of the yellow metal, wet and shiny, gloriously agleam in the
+morning light.
+
+"There's ten thousand dollars if there's an ounce," said the Company's
+man, and the weigh-up proved he was right. So the gold was packed in two
+long buckskin pokes and sent into town to be deposited in the bank.
+
+Day after day we went on shovelling in, and about twice a week we made a
+clean-up. The month of May was half over when we had only a third of our
+dirt run through the boxes. We were terribly afraid of the water failing
+us, and worked harder than ever. Indeed, it was difficult to tell when
+to leave off. The nights were never dark now; the daylight was over
+twenty hours in duration. The sun described an ellipse, rising a little
+east of north and setting a little west of north. We shovelled in till
+we were too exhausted to lift another ounce. Then we lay down in our
+clothes and slept as soon as we touched the pillow.
+
+"There's eighty thousand to our credit in the bank, and only a third of
+our dump's gone. Hooray, boys!" said the Prodigal.
+
+About one o'clock in the morning the birds began to sing, and the sunset
+glow had not faded from the sky ere the sunrise quickened it with life
+once more. Who that has lived in the North will ever forget the charm,
+the witchery of those midnight skies, where the fires of the sun are
+banked and never cold? Surely, long after all else is forgotten, will
+linger the memory of those mystic nights with all their haunting spell
+of weird, disconsolate solitude.
+
+One afternoon I was working on the dump, intent on shovelling in as much
+dirt as possible before supper, when, on looking up, who should greet me
+but Locasto. Since our last interview in town I had not seen him, and,
+somehow, this sudden sight of him came as a kind of a shock. Yet the
+manner of the man as he approached me was hearty in the extreme. He held
+out his great hand to me, and, as I had no desire to antagonise him, I
+gave him my own.
+
+He was riding. His big, handsome face was bronzed, his black eyes clear
+and sparkling, his white teeth gleamed like mammoth ivory. He certainly
+was a dashing, dominant figure of a man, and, in spite of myself, I
+admired him.
+
+His manner in his salutation was cordial, even winning.
+
+"I've just been visiting some of my creek properties," he said. "I heard
+you fellows had made a good strike, and I thought I'd come down and
+congratulate you. It is pretty good, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes," I said; "not quite so good as we expected, but we'll all have a
+tidy sum."
+
+"I'm glad. Well, I suppose you'll go outside this Fall."
+
+"No, I think I'll stay in. You see, we've the Gold Hill property, which
+looks promising; and then we have two claims on Ophir."
+
+"Oh, Ophir! I don't think you'll ever take a fortune out of Ophir. I
+bought a claim there the other day. The man pestered me, so I gave him
+five thousand for it, just to get rid of him. It's eight below."
+
+"Why," I said, "that's the claim I staked and got beaten out of."
+
+"You don't say so. Well, now, that's too bad. I bought it from a man
+named Spankiller; his brother's a clerk in the gold office. Tell you
+what I'll do. I'll let you have it for the five thousand I gave for it."
+
+"No," I answered, "I don't think I want it now."
+
+"All right; think it over, anyway. If you should change your mind, let
+me know. Well, I must go. I've got to get into town to-night. That's my
+mule-train back there on the trail. I've got pretty nearly ten thousand
+ounces over there."
+
+I looked and saw the mules with the gold-packs slung over their backs.
+There were four men to guard them, and it seemed to me that in one of
+these men I recognised the little wizened figure of the Worm.
+
+I shivered.
+
+"Yes, I've done pretty well," he continued; "but it don't make any
+difference. I spend it as fast as I get it. A month ago I didn't have
+enough ready cash to pay my cigar bill, yet I could have gone to the
+bank and borrowed a hundred thousand. It was there in the dump. Oh, it's
+a rum business this mining. Well, good-bye."
+
+He was turning to go when, suddenly, he stopped.
+
+"Oh, by the way, I saw a friend of yours before I left. No need to
+mention names, you lucky dog. When's the big thing coming off? Well, I
+must congratulate you again. She looks sweeter than ever. Bye-bye."
+
+He was off, leaving a very sinister impression on my mind. In his
+parting smile there was a trace of mockery that gravely disquieted me. I
+had thought much of Berna during the past few months, but as the gold
+fever took hold of me I put her more and more from my mind. I told
+myself that all this struggle was for her. In the thought that she was
+safe I calmed all anxious fear. Sometimes by not thinking so much of
+dear ones, one can be more thoughtful of them. So it was with me. I knew
+that all my concentration of effort was for her sake, and would bring
+her nearer to me. Yet at Locasto's words all my old longing and
+heartache vehemently resurged.
+
+In spite of myself, I was the prey of a growing uneasiness. Things
+seemed vastly different, now success had come to me. I could not bear to
+think of her working in that ambiguous restaurant, rubbing shoulders
+with its unspeakable habitués. I wondered how I had ever deceived myself
+into thinking it was all right. I began to worry, so that I knew only a
+trip into Dawson would satisfy me. Accordingly, I hired a big Swede to
+take my place at the shovel, and set out once more on the hillside trail
+for town.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+I found the town more animated than ever, the streets more populous, the
+gaiety more unrestrained. Everywhere were flaunting signs of a plethoric
+wealth. The anxious Cheechako had vanished from the scene, and the
+victorious miner masqueraded in his place. He swaggered along in the
+glow of the Spring sunshine, a picture of perfect manhood, bronzed and
+lean and muscular. He was brimming over with the exuberance of health.
+He had come into town to "live" things, to transmute this yellow dust
+into happiness, to taste the wine of life, to know the lips of flame.
+
+It was the day of the Man with the Poke. He was King. The sheer
+animalism of him overflowed in midnight roysterings, in bacchanalian
+revels, in debauches among the human débris of the tenderloin.
+
+Every one was waiting for him, to fleece him, rob him, strip him. It was
+also the day of the man behind the bar, of the gambler, of the harpy.
+
+My strange, formless fears for Berna were soon set at rest. She was
+awaiting me. She looked better than I had ever seen her, and she
+welcomed me with an eager delight that kindled me to rapture.
+
+"Just think of it," she said, "only two weeks, and we'll be together for
+always. It seems too good to be true. Oh, my dear, how can I ever love
+you enough? How happy we are going to be, aren't we?"
+
+"We're going to be happier than any two people ever were before," I
+assured her.
+
+We crossed the Yukon to the green glades of North Dawson, and there, on
+a little rise, we sat down, side by side. How I wish I could put into
+words the joy that filled my heart! Never was lad so happy as I. I spoke
+but little, for love's silences are sweeter than all words. Well, well I
+mind me how she looked: just like a picture, her hands clasped on her
+lap, her eyes star-bright, angel-sweet, mother-tender. From time to time
+she would give me a glance so full of trust and love that my heart would
+leap to her, and wave on wave of passionate tenderness come sweeping
+over me.
+
+It may be there was something humble in my stintless adoration; it may
+be I was like a child for the pleasure of her nearness; it may be my
+eyes told all too well of the fire that burned within me, but O, the
+girl was kind, gentler than forgiveness, sweeter than all heaven.
+Caressingly she touched my hair. I kissed her fingers, kissed them again
+and again; and then she lifted my hand to her lips, and I felt her kiss
+fall upon it. How wondrously I tingled at the touch. My hand seemed mine
+no longer--a consecrated thing. Proud, happy me!
+
+"Yes," she went on, "doesn't it seem as if we were dreaming? You know, I
+always thought it was a dream, and now it's coming true. You'll take me
+away from this place, won't you, boy?--far, far away. I'll tell you
+now, dear, I've borne it all for your sake, but I don't think I could
+bear it any longer. I would rather die than sink in the mire, and yet
+you can't imagine how this life affects one. It's sad, sad, but I don't
+get shocked at things in the way I used to. You know, I sometimes think
+a girl, no matter how good, sweet, modest to begin with, placed in such
+surroundings could fall gradually."
+
+I agreed with her. Too well I knew I was becoming calloused to the evils
+around me. Such was the insidious corruption of the gold-camp, I now
+regarded with indifference things that a year ago I would have shrunk
+from with disgust.
+
+"Well, it will be all over very soon, won't it, dear? I don't know what
+I'd have done if it hadn't been for the rough miners. They've been so
+kind to me. When they saw I was straight and honest they couldn't be
+good enough. They shielded me in every way, and kept back the other kind
+of men. Even the women have been my friends and helped me."
+
+She looked at me archly.
+
+"And, you know, I've had ever so many offers of marriage, too, from
+honest, rough, kindly men--and I've refused them ever so gracefully."
+
+"Has Locasto ever made any more overtures?"
+
+Her face grew grave.
+
+"Yes, about a month ago he besieged me, gave me no rest, made all kinds
+of proposals and promises. He wanted to divorce his 'outside' wife and
+marry me. He wanted to settle a hundred thousand dollars on me. He tried
+everything in his power to force me to his will. Then, when he saw it
+was no use, he turned round and begged me to let him be my friend. He
+spoke so nicely of you. He said he would help us in any way he could.
+He's everything that's kind to me now. He can't do enough for me. Yet,
+somehow, I don't trust him."
+
+"Well, my precious," I assured her, "all danger, doubt, despair, will
+soon be over. Locasto and the rest of them will be as shadows, never to
+haunt my little girl again. The Great, Black North will fade away, will
+dissolve into the land of sunshine and flowers and song. You will forget
+it."
+
+"The Great Black North.--I will never forget it, and I will always bless
+it. It has given me my love, the best love in all the world."
+
+"O my darling, my Life, I'll take you away from it all soon, soon. We'll
+go to my home, to Garry, to Mother. They will love you as I love you."
+
+"I'm sure I will love them. What you have told me of them makes them
+seem very real to me. Will you not be ashamed of me?"
+
+"I will be proud, proud of you, my girl."
+
+Ah, would I not! I looked at that flower-like face the sunshine
+glorified so, the pretty, bright hair falling away from her low brow in
+little waves, the lily throat, the delicately patrician features, the
+proud poise of her head. Who would not have been proud of her? She awoke
+all that was divine in me. I looked as one might look on a vision,
+scarce able to believe it real.
+
+Suddenly she pointed excitedly.
+
+"Look, dear, look at the rainbow. Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it
+beautiful?"
+
+I gazed in rapt admiration. Across the river a shower had fallen, and
+the clouds, clearing away abruptly, had left there a twin rainbow of
+matchless perfection. Its double arch was poised as accurately over the
+town as if it had been painted there. Each hoop was flawless in form,
+lovely in hue, tenderly luminous, exquisite in purity. Never had I seen
+the double iris so immaculate in colouring, and, with its bases resting
+on the river, it curved over the gold-born city like a frame of ethereal
+beauty.
+
+"Does it not seem, dear, like an answer to our prayer, an omen of good
+hope, a promise for the future?"
+
+"Yes, beloved, our future, yours and mine. The clouds are rolling away.
+All is bright with sunshine once again, and God sends His rainbow to
+cheer and comfort us. It will not be long now. On the first day of June,
+beloved, I will come to you, and we will be made man and wife. You will
+be waiting for me, will you not?"
+
+"Yes, yes, waiting ever so eagerly, my lover, counting every hour, every
+minute."
+
+I kissed her passionately, and we held each other tightly for a moment.
+I saw come into her eyes that look which comes but once into the eyes of
+a maid, that look of ineffable self-surrender, of passionate
+abandonment. Life is niggard of such moments, yet can our lives be
+summed up in them.
+
+She rested her head on my shoulder; her lips lay on mine, and they
+moved faintly.
+
+"Yes, lover, yes, the first of June. Don't fail me, honey, don't fail
+me."
+
+We parted, buoyant with hope, in an ecstasy of joy. She was for me, this
+beautiful, tender girl, for me. And the time was nigh when she should be
+mine, mine to adore until the end. Always would she be by my side; daily
+could I plot and plan to give her pleasure; every hour by word and look
+and act could I lavish on her the exhaustless measure of my love. Ah!
+life would be too short for me. Could aught in this petty purblind
+existence of ours redeem it and exalt it so: her love, this pure sweet
+girl's, and mine. Let nations grapple, let Mammon triumph, let
+pestilence o'erwhelm; what matter, we love, we love. O proud, happy me!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I got back to the claim. Everything was going merrily, but I felt little
+desire to resume my toil. I was strangely wearied, worn out somehow. Yet
+I took up my shovel again with a body that rebelled in every tissue.
+Never had I felt like this before. Something was wrong with me. I was
+weak. At night I sweated greatly. I cared not to eat.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well," said the Prodigal, "it's all over but the shouting. From my
+calculations we've cleaned up two hundred and six thousand dollars.
+That's a hundred and three between us four. It's cost us about three to
+get out the stuff; so there will be, roughly speaking, about
+twenty-five thousand for each of us."
+
+How jubilant every one was looking--every one but me. Somehow I felt as
+if money didn't matter just then, for I was sick, sick.
+
+"Why, what's the matter?" said the Prodigal, staring at me curiously.
+"You look like a ghost."
+
+"I feel like one, too," I answered. "I'm afraid I'm in for a bad spell.
+I want to lie down awhile, boys ... I'm tired.... The first of June,
+I've got a date on the first of June. I must keep it, I must.... Don't
+let me sleep too long, boys. I mustn't fail. It's a matter of life and
+death. The first of June...."
+
+Alas, on the first of June I lay in the hospital, raving and tossing in
+the clutches of typhoid fever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+I was lying in bed, and a heavy weight was pressing on me, so that, in
+spite of my struggles, I could not move. I was hot, insufferably hot.
+The blood ran boiling through my veins. My flesh was burning up. My
+brain would not work. It was all cobwebs, murky and stale as a
+charnel-house. Yet at times were strange illuminations, full of terror
+and despair. Blood-red lights and purple shadows alternated in my
+vision. Then came the dreams.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was always Berna. Through a mass of grimacing, greed-contorted
+faces gradually there formed and lingered her sweet and pensive one. We
+were in a strange costume, she and I. It seemed like that of the early
+Georges. We were running away, fleeing from some one. For her sake a
+great fear and anxiety possessed me. We were eloping, I fancied.
+
+There was a marsh to cross, a hideous quagmire, and our pursuers were
+close. We started over the quaking ground, then, suddenly, I saw her
+sink. I rushed to aid her, and I, too, sank. We were to our necks in the
+soft ooze, and there on the bank, watching us, was the foremost of our
+hunters. He laughed at our struggles; he mocked us; he rejoiced to see
+us drown. And in my dream the face of the man seemed strangely like
+Locasto.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We were in a bower of roses, she and I. It was still further back in
+history. We seemed to be in the garden of a palace. I was in doublet and
+hose, and she wore a long, flowing kirtle. The air was full of fragrance
+and sunshine. Birds were singing. A fountain scattered a shower of
+glittering diamonds on the breeze. She was sitting on the grass, while I
+reclined by her side, my head lying on her lap. Above me I could see her
+face like a lily bending over me. With dainty fingers she crumpled a
+rose and let the petals snow down on me.
+
+Then, suddenly, I was seized, torn away from her by men in black, who
+roughly choked her screams. I was dragged off, thrown into a foul cell,
+left many days. Then, one night, I was dragged forth and brought before
+a grim tribunal in a hall of gloom and horror. They pronounced my
+doom--Death. The chief Inquisitor raised his mask, and in those gloating
+features I recognised--Locasto.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Again it seemed as if I were still further back in history, in some city
+under the Roman rule. I was returning from the Temple with my bride. How
+fair and fresh and beautiful she was, garlanded with flowers and
+radiantly happy. Again it was Berna.
+
+Suddenly there are shouts, the beating of drums, the clash of cymbals.
+The great Governor of the Province is coming. He passes with his
+retinue. Suddenly he catches sight of her whom I have but newly wed. He
+stops. He asks who is the maid. They tell him. He looks at me with
+haughty contempt. He gives a sign. His servants seize her and drag her
+screaming away. I try to follow, to kill him. I, too, am seized,
+overpowered. They bind me, put out my eyes. The Roman sees them do it.
+He laughs as the red-hot iron kisses my eye-balls. He mocks me, telling
+me what a dainty feast awaits him in my bride. Again I see Locasto.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then came another phase of my delirium, in which I struggled to get to
+her. She was waiting for me, wanting me, breaking her heart at my delay.
+O, Berna, my soul, my life, since the beginning of things we were fated.
+'Tis no flesh love, but something deeper, something that has its source
+at the very core of being. It is not for your sweet face, your gentle
+spirit, my own, that you are dearer to me than all else: it is
+because--you are you. If all the world were to turn against you, flout
+you, stone you, then would I rush to your side, shield you, die with
+you. If you were attainted with leprosy, I would enter the lazar-house
+for your sake.
+
+"O Berna, I must see you, I must, I must. Let me go to her ... now ...
+dear! She's calling me. She's in trouble. Oh, for the love of God, let
+me go ... let me go, I say.... Curse you, I will. She's in trouble. You
+can't hold me. I'm stronger than you all when she calls.... Let me ...
+let me.... Oh, oh, oh ... you're hurting me so. I'm weak, yes, weak as
+a baby.... Berna, my child, my poor little girl, I can do nothing.
+There's a mountain weighing me down. There's a slab of gold on my chest.
+They're burning me up. My veins are on fire. I can't come.... I can't,
+dear.... I'm tired...."
+
+Then the fever, the ravings, the wild threshing of my pillow, all passed
+away, and I was left limp, weak, helpless, resigned to my fate.
+
+I was on the sunny slope of convalescence. The Prodigal had remained
+with me as long as I was in danger, but now that I had turned the
+corner, he had gone back to the creeks, so that I was left with only my
+thoughts for company. As I turned and twisted on my narrow cot it seemed
+as if the time would never pass. All I wanted was to get better fast,
+and to get out again. Then, I thought, I would marry Berna and go
+"outside." I was sick of the country, of everything.
+
+I was lying thinking over these things, when I became aware that the man
+in the cot to the right was trying to attract my attention. He had been
+brought in that very morning, said to have been kicked by a horse. One
+of his ribs was broken, and his face badly smashed. He was in great
+pain, but quite conscious, and he was making stealthy motions to me.
+
+"Say, mate," he said, "I piped you off soon's I set me lamps on you.
+Don't youse know me?"
+
+I looked at the bandaged face wonderingly.
+
+"Don't you spot de man dat near let youse down de shaft?"
+
+Then, with a great start, I saw it was the Worm.
+
+"'Taint no horse done me up," he said in a hoarse whisper; "'twas a man.
+You know de man, de worst devil in all Alaska, Black Jack. Bad luck to
+him! He knocked me down and give me de leather. But I'm goin' to get
+even some day. I'm just laying for him. I wouldn't be in his shoes for
+de richest claim in de Klondike."
+
+The man's eyes glittered vengefully between the white bandages.
+
+"'Twas all on account of de little girl he done it. You know de girl I
+mean. Black Jack's dead stuck on her, an' de furder she stands him off
+de more set he is to get her. Youse don't know dat man. He's never had
+de cold mit yet."
+
+"Tell me what's the matter, for Heaven's sake."
+
+"Well, when youse didn't come, de little girl she got worried. I used to
+be doin' chores round de restaurant, an' she asks me to take a note up
+to you. So I said I would. But I got on a drunk dat day, an' for a week
+after I didn't draw a sober breath. When I gets around again I told her
+I'd seen you an' given you de note an' you was comin' in right away."
+
+"Heaven forgive you for that."
+
+[Illustration: Then, as I hung half in, half out of the window, he
+clutched me by the throat]
+
+"Yep, dat's what I say now. But it's all too late. Well, a week went on
+an' you never showed up, an' meantime Locasto was pesterin' her cruel.
+She got mighty peaked like, pale as a ghost, an' I could see she cried
+most all her nights. Den she gives me anudder note. She gives me a
+hundred dollars to take dat note to you. I said she could lay on me dis
+time. I was de hurry-up kid, an' I starts off. But Black Jack must have
+cottoned on, for he meets me back of de town an' taxes me wid takin' a
+message. Den he sets on me like a wild beast an' does me up good and
+proper. But I'll fix him yet."
+
+"Where are the notes?" I cried.
+
+"In de pocket of me coat. Tell de nurse to fetch in me clothes, an' I'll
+give dem to youse."
+
+The nurse brought the clothes, but the little man was too sore to move.
+
+"Feel in de inside pocket."
+
+There were the notes, folded very small, and written in pencil. There
+was a strange faintness at my heart, and my fingers trembled as I opened
+them. Fear, fear was clutching me, compressing me in an agonising grip.
+
+Here was the first.
+
+     "My Darling Boy: Why didn't you come? I was all ready for you. O,
+     it was such a terrible disappointment. I've cried myself to sleep
+     every night since. Has anything happened to you, dear? For Heaven's
+     sake write or send a message. I can't bear the suspense.
+
+                                        "Your loving
+
+                                                        "Berna."
+
+Blankly, dully, almost mechanically, I read the second.
+
+     "O, come, my dear, at once. I'm in serious danger. He's grown
+     desperate. Swears if he can't get me by fair means he'll have me by
+     foul. I'm terribly afraid. Why ar'n't you here to protect me? Why
+     have you failed me? O, my darling, have pity on your poor little
+     girl. Come quickly before it is too late."
+
+It was unsigned.
+
+Heavens! I must go to her at once. I was well enough. I was all right
+again. Why would they not let me go to her? I would crawl on my hands
+and knees if need be. I was strong, so strong now.
+
+Ha! there were the Worm's clothes. It was after midnight. The nurse had
+just finished her rounds. All was quiet in the ward.
+
+Dizzily I rose and slipped into the frayed and greasy garments. There
+were the hospital slippers. I must wear them. Never mind a hat.
+
+I was out in the street. I shuffled along, and people stared at me, but
+no one delayed me. I was at the restaurant now. She wasn't there. Ah!
+the cabin on the hill.
+
+I was weaker than I had thought. Once or twice in a half-fainting
+condition I stopped and steadied myself by holding a sapling tree. Then
+the awful intuition of her danger possessed me, and gave me fresh
+strength. Many times I stumbled, cutting myself on the sharp boulders.
+Once I lay for a long time, half-unconscious, wondering if I would ever
+be able to rise. I reeled like a drunken man. The way seemed endless,
+yet stumbling, staggering on, there was the cabin at last.
+
+A light was burning in the front room. Some one was at home at all
+events. Only a few steps more, yet once again I fell. I remember
+striking my face against a sharp rock. Then, on my hands and knees, I
+crawled to the door.
+
+I raised myself and hammered with clenched fists. There was silence
+within, then an agitated movement. I knocked again. Was the door ever
+going to be opened? At last it swung inward, with a suddenness that
+precipitated me inside the room.
+
+The Madam was standing over me where I had fallen. At sight of me she
+screamed. Surprise, fear, rage, struggled for mastery on her face. "It's
+him," she cried, "_him_." Peering over her shoulder, with ashy,
+horrified face, I saw her trembling husband.
+
+"Berna," I gasped hoarsely. "Where is she? I want Berna. What are you
+doing to her, you devils? Give her to me. She's mine, my promised bride.
+Let me go to her, I say."
+
+The woman barred the way.
+
+All at once I realised that the air was heavy with a strange odour, the
+odour of _chloroform_. Frenzied with fear, I rushed forward.
+
+Then the Amazon roused herself. With a cry of rage she struck me.
+Savagely both of them came for me. I struggled, I fought; but, weak as I
+was, they carried me before them and threw me from the door. I heard the
+lock shoot; I was outside; I was impotent. Yet behind those log
+walls.... Oh, it was horrible! horrible! Could such things be in God's
+world? And I could do nothing.
+
+I was strong once more. I ran round to the back of the cabin. She was in
+there, I knew. I rushed at the window and threw myself against it. The
+storm frame had not been taken off. Crash! I burst through both sheets
+of glass. I was cruelly cut, bleeding in a dozen places, yet I was half
+into the room. There, in the dirty, drab light, I saw a face, the
+fiendish, rage-distorted face of my dream. It was Locasto.
+
+He turned at the crash. With a curse he came at me. Then, as I hung half
+in, half out of the window, he clutched me by the throat. Using all his
+strength, he raised me further into the room, then he hurled me
+ruthlessly out onto the rocks outside.
+
+I rose, reeling, covered with blood, blind, sick, speechless. Weakly I
+staggered to the window. My strength was leaving me. "O God, sustain me!
+Help me to save her."
+
+Then I felt the world go blank. I swayed; I clutched at the walls; I
+fell.
+
+There I lay in a ghastly, unconscious heap.
+
+I had lost!
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV
+
+THE VORTEX
+
+
+He burned a hole in the frozen muck;
+He scratched the icy mould;
+And there in six-foot dirt he struck
+A sack or so of gold.
+
+  He burned a hole in the Decalogue,
+  And then it came about--
+  For Fortune's only a lousy rogue--
+  His "pocket" petered out.
+
+And lo! it was but a year all told,
+When there in the shadow grim,
+But six feet deep in the icy mould,
+They burned a hole for him.
+
+--"The Yukoner."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+"No, no, I'm all right. Really I am. Please leave me alone. You want me
+to laugh? Ha! Ha! There! Is that all right now?"
+
+"No, it isn't all right. It's very far from all right, my boy; and this
+is where you and your little uncle here are going to have a real heart
+to heart talk."
+
+It was in the big cabin on Gold Hill, and the Prodigal was addressing
+me. He went on:
+
+"Now, look here, kid, when it comes to expressing my feelings I'm in the
+kindergarten class; when it comes to handing out the high-toned dope I
+drop my cue every time; but when I'm needed to do the solid pardner
+stunt then you don't need to holler for me--I'm there. Well, I'm giving
+you a straight line of talk. Ever since the start I've taken a strong
+notion to you. You've always been ace-high with me, and there never will
+come the day when you can't eat on my meal-ticket. We tackled the Trail
+of Trouble together. You were always wanting to lift the heavy end of
+the log, and when the God of Cussedness was doing his best to rasp a man
+down to his yellow streak, you showed up white all through. Say, kid,
+we've been in tight places together; we've been stacked up against hard
+times together: and now I'll be gol-darned if I'm going to stand by and
+see you go downhill, while the devil oils the bearings."
+
+"Oh, I'm all right," I protested.
+
+"Yes, you're all right," he echoed grimly. "In an impersonation of an
+'all-right' man it's the hook for yours. I've seen 'all-right' men like
+you hitting the hurry trail for the boneyard before now. You're 'all
+right'! Why, for the last two hours you've been sitting with that
+'just-break-the-news-to mother' expression of yours, and paying no more
+heed to my cheerful brand of conversation than if I had been a measly
+four-flusher. You don't eat more than a sick sparrow, and often you
+don't bat an eye all night. You're looking worse than the devil in a
+gale of wind. You've lost your grip, my boy. You don't care whether
+school keeps or not. In fact, if it wasn't for your folks, you'd as lief
+take a short cut across the Great Divide."
+
+"You're going it a little strong, old man."
+
+"Oh no, I'm not. You know you're sick of everything. Feel as if life's a
+sort of penitentiary, and you've just got to do time. You don't expect
+to get any more fun out of it. Look at me. Every day's my sunshine day.
+If the sky's blue I like it; if it's grey I like it just as well. I
+never worry. What's the use? Yesterday's a dead one; to-morrow's always
+to-morrow. All we've got's the 'now,' and it's up to us to live it for
+all we're worth. You can use up more human steam to the square inch in
+worrying than you can to the square yard in hard work. Eliminate worry
+and you've got the only system."
+
+"It's all very well for you to preach," I said, "you forget I've been a
+pretty sick man."
+
+"That's no nursemaid's dream. You almost cashed in. Typhoid's a serious
+proposition at the best; but when you take a crazy streak on top of it,
+make a midnight getaway from the sick-ward and land up on the Slide
+looking as if you'd been run through a threshing machine, well, you're
+sure letting death get a short option on you. And you gave up. You
+didn't want to fight. You shirked, but your youth and constitution
+fought for you. They healed your wounds, they soothed your ravings, they
+cooled your fever. They were a great team, and they pulled you through.
+Seems as if they'd pulled you through a knot-hole, but they were on to
+their job. And you weren't one bit grateful--seemed to think they had no
+business to butt in."
+
+"My hurts are more than physical."
+
+"Yes, I know; there was that girl. You seemed to have a notion that that
+was the only girl on God's green brush-pile. As I camped there by your
+bedside listening to your ravings, and getting a strangle-hold on you
+when you took it into your head to get funny, you blabbed out the whole
+yarn. Oh, sonny, why didn't you tell your uncle? Why didn't you put me
+wise? I could have given you the right steer. Have you ever known me
+handle a job I couldn't make good at? I'm a whole matrimonial bureau
+rolled into one. I'd have had you prancing to the tune of the wedding
+march before now. But you kept mum as a mummy. Wouldn't even tell your
+old pard. Now you've lost her."
+
+"Yes, I've lost her."
+
+"Did you ever see her after you came out of the hospital?"
+
+"Once, once only. It was the first day. I was as thin as a rail, as
+white as the pillow from which I had just raised my head. Death's
+reprieve was written all over me. I dragged along wearily, leaning on a
+stick. I was thinking of her, thinking, thinking always. As I scanned
+the faces of the crowds that thronged the streets, I thought only of her
+face. Then suddenly she was before me. She looked like a ghost, poor
+little thing; and for a fluttering moment we stared at each other, she
+and I, two wan, weariful ghosts."
+
+"Yes, what did she say?"
+
+"Say! she said nothing. She just looked at me. Her face was cold as ice.
+She looked at me as if she wanted to _pity_ me. Then into her eyes there
+came a shadow of bitterness, of bitterness and despair such as might
+gloom the eyes of a lost soul. It unnerved me. It seemed as if she was
+regarding me almost with horror, as if I were a sort of a leper. As I
+stood there, I thought she was going to faint. She seemed to sway a
+moment. Then she drew a great, gasping breath, and turning on her heel
+she was gone."
+
+"She cut you?"
+
+"Yes, cut me dead, old fellow. And my only thought was of love for her,
+eternal love. But I'll never forget the look on her face as she turned
+away. It was as if I had lashed her with a whip. My God!"
+
+"And you've never seen her since?"
+
+"No, never. That was enough, wasn't it? She didn't want to speak to me
+any more, never wanted to set eyes on me any more. I went back to the
+ward; then, in a little, I came on here. My body was living, but my
+heart was dead. It will never live again."
+
+"Oh, rot! You mustn't let the thing down you like that. It's going to
+kill you in the end. Buck up! Be a man! If you don't care to live for
+yourself, live for others. Anyway, it's likely all for the best. Maybe
+love had you locoed. Maybe she wasn't really good. See now how she lives
+openly with Locasto. They call her the Madonna; they say she looks more
+like a virgin-martyr than the mistress of a dissolute man."
+
+I rose and looked at him, conscious that my face was all twisted with
+the pain of the thought.
+
+"Look here," I said, "never did God put the breath of life into a better
+girl. There's been foul play. I know that girl better than any one in
+the world, and if every living being were to tell me she wasn't good I
+would tell them they lied, they lied. I would burn at the stake
+upholding that girl."
+
+"Then why did she turn you down so cruelly?"
+
+"I don't know; I can't understand it. I know so little about women. I
+have not wavered a moment. To-day in my loneliness and heartbreak I
+care and hunger for her more than ever. She's always here, right here in
+my head, and no power can drive her out. Let them say of her what they
+will, I would marry her to-morrow. It's killing me. I've aged ten years
+in the last few months. Oh, if I only could forget."
+
+He looked at me thoughtfully.
+
+"I say, old man, do you ever hear from your old lady?"
+
+"Every mail."
+
+"You've often told me of your home. Say! just give us a mental frame-up
+of it."
+
+"Glengyle? Yes. I can see the old place now, as plainly as a picture:
+the green, dimpling hills all speckled with sheep; the grey house
+nestling snugly in a grove of birch; the wild water of the burn leaping
+from black pool to pool, just mad with the joy of life; the midges
+dancing over the water in the still sunshine, and the trout jumping for
+them--oh, it's the bonny, bonny place. You would think so too. You would
+like it, tramping knee-deep in the heather, to see the moorcock rise
+whirring at your feet; you would like to set sail with the fisher folk
+after the silver herring. It would make you feel good to see the calm
+faces of the shepherds, the peace in the eyes of the women. Ay, that was
+the best of it all, the Rest of it, the calm of it. I was pretty happy
+in those days."
+
+"You were happy--then why not go back? That's your proper play; go back
+to your Mother. She wants you. You're pretty well heeled now. A little
+money goes a long way over there. You can count on thirty thousand.
+You'll be comfortable; you'll devote yourself to the old lady; you'll be
+happy again. Time's a regular steam-roller when it comes to smoothing
+out the rough spots in the past. You'll forget it all, this place, this
+girl. It'll all seem like the after effects of a midnight Welsh rabbit.
+You've got mental indigestion. I hate to see you go. I'm really sorry to
+lose you; but it's your only salvation, so go, go!"
+
+Never had I thought of it before. Home! how sweet the word seemed.
+Mother! yes, Mother would comfort me as no one else could. She would
+understand. Mother and Garry! A sudden craving came over me to see them
+again. Maybe with them I could find relief from this awful agony of
+heart, this thing that I could scarce bear to think of, yet never ceased
+to think of. Home! that was the solution of it all. Ah me! I would go
+home.
+
+"Yes," I said, "I can't go too soon; I'll start to-morrow."
+
+So I rose and proceeded to gather together my few belongings. In the
+early morning I would start out. No use prolonging the business of my
+going. I would say good-bye to those two partners of mine, with a grip
+of the hand, a tear in the eye, a husky: "Take care of yourself." That
+would be all. Likely I would never see them again.
+
+Jim came in and sat down quietly. The old man had been very silent of
+late. Putting on his spectacles, he took out his well-worn Bible and
+opened it. Back in Dawson there was a man whom he hated with the hate
+that only death can end, but for the peace of his soul he strove to
+conquer it. The hate slumbered, yet at times it stirred, and into the
+old man's eyes there came the tiger-look that had once made him a force
+and a fear. Woe betide his enemy if that tiger ever woke.
+
+"I've been a-thinkin' out a scheme," said Jim suddenly, "an' I'm a-goin'
+to put all of that twenty-five thousand of mine back into the ground.
+You know us old miners are gamblers to the end. It's not the gold, but
+the gettin' of it. It's the excitement, the hope, the anticipation of
+one's luck that counts. We're fighters, an' we've just got to keep on
+fightin'. We can't quit. There's the ground, and there's the precious
+metals it's a-tryin' to hold back on us. It's up to us to get them out.
+It's for the good of humanity. The miner an' the farmer rob no one. They
+just get down to that old ground an' coax it an' beat it an' bully it
+till it gives up. They're working for the good of humanity--the farmer
+an' the miner." The old man paused sententiously.
+
+"Well, I can't quit this minin' business. I've just got to go on so
+long's I've got health an' strength; an' I'm a-goin' to shove all I've
+got once more into the muck. I stand to make a big pile, or lose my
+wad."
+
+"What's your scheme, Jim?"
+
+"It's just this: I'm goin' to install a hydraulic plant on my Ophir
+Creek claim, I've got a great notion of that claim. It's an
+out-of-sight proposition for workin' with water. There's a little stream
+runs down the hill, an' the hill's steep right there. There's one
+hundred feet of fall, an' in Spring a mighty powerful bunch of water
+comes a-tumblin' down. Well, I'm goin' to dam it up above, bring it down
+a flume, hitch on a little giant, an' turn it loose to rip an' tear at
+that there ground. I'm goin' to begin a new era in Klondike minin'."
+
+"Bully for you, Jim."
+
+"The values are there in the ground, an' I'm sick of the old slow way of
+gettin' them out. This looks mighty good to me. Anyway, I'm a-goin' to
+give it a trial. It's just the start of things; you'll see others will
+follow suit. The individual miner's got to go; it's only a matter of
+time. Some day you'll see this whole country worked over by them big
+power dredges they've got down in Californy. You mark my words, boys;
+the old-fashioned miner's got to go."
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+"Well, I've written out for piping an' a monitor, an' next Spring I hope
+I'll have the plant in workin' order. The stuff's on the way now. Hullo!
+Come in!"
+
+The visitors were Mervin and Hewson on their way to Dawson. These two
+men had been successful beyond their dreams. It was just like finding
+money the way fortune had pushed it in front of their noses. They were
+offensively prosperous; they reeked of success.
+
+In both of them a great change had taken place, a change only too
+typical of the gold-camp. They seemed to have thawed out; they were
+irrepressibly genial; yet instead of that restraint that had formerly
+distinguished them, there was a grafted quality of weakness, of
+flaccidity, of surrender to the enervating vices of the town.
+
+Mervin was remarkably thin. Dark hollows circled his eyes, and a curious
+nervousness twisted his mouth. He was "a terror for the women," they
+said. He lavished his money on them faster than he made it. He was
+vastly more companionable than formerly, but somehow you felt his
+virility, his fighting force had gone.
+
+In Hewson the change was even more marked. Those iron muscles had
+couched themselves in easy flesh; his cheeks sagged; his eyes were
+bloodshot and untidy. Nevertheless he was more of a good fellow, talked
+rather vauntingly of his wealth, and affected a patronising manner. He
+was worth probably two hundred thousand, and he drank a bottle of brandy
+a day.
+
+In the case of these two men, as in the case of a thousand others in the
+gold-camp, it seemed as if easy, unhoped-for affluence was to prove
+their undoing. On the trail they had been supreme; in fen or forest, on
+peak or plain, they were men among men, fighting with nature savagely,
+exultantly. But when the fight was over their arms rested, their muscles
+relaxed, they yielded to sensuous pleasures. It seemed as if to them
+victory really meant defeat.
+
+As I went on with my packing I paid but little heed to their talk. What
+mattered it to me now, this babble of dumps and dust, of claims and
+clean-ups? I was going to thrust it all behind me, blot it clean out of
+my memory, begin my life anew. It would be a larger, more luminous life.
+I would live for others. Home! Mother! again how exquisitely my heart
+glowed at the thought of them.
+
+Then all at once I pricked up my ears. They were talking of the town, of
+the men and women who were making it famous (or rather infamous), when
+suddenly they spoke the name of Locasto.
+
+"He's gone off," Mervin was saying; "gone off on a big stampede. He got
+pretty thick with some of the Peel River Indians, and found they knew of
+a ledge of high-grade, free-milling quartz somewhere out there in the
+Land Back of Beyond. He had a sample of it, and you could just see the
+gold shining all through it. It was great stuff. Jack Locasto's the last
+man to turn down a chance like that. He's the worst gambler in the
+Northland, and no amount of wealth will ever satisfy him. So he's off
+with an Indian and one companion, that little Irish satellite of his,
+Pat Doogan. They have six months' grub. They'll be away all winter."
+
+"What's become of that girl of his?" asked Hewson, "the last one he's
+been living with? You remember she came in on the boat with us. Poor
+little kid! Blast that man anyway. He's not content with women of his
+own kind, he's got to get his clutches on the best of them. That was a
+good little girl before he got after her. If she was a friend of mine
+I'd put a bullet in his ugly heart."
+
+Hewson growled like a wrathful bear, but Mervin smiled his cynical
+smile.
+
+"Oh, you mean the Madonna," he said; "why, she's gone on the
+dance-halls."
+
+They continued to talk of other things, but I did not hear them any
+more. I was in a trance, and I only aroused when they rose to go.
+
+"Better say good-bye to the kid here," said the Prodigal; "he's going to
+the old country to-morrow."
+
+"No, I'm not," I answered sullenly; "I'm just going as far as Dawson."
+
+He stared and expostulated, but my mind was made up. I would fight,
+fight to the last.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Berna on the dance-halls--words cannot convey all that this simple
+phrase meant to me. For two months I had been living in a dull apathy of
+pain, but this news galvanised me into immediate action.
+
+For although there were many degrees of dance-hall depravity, at the
+best it meant a brand of ineffaceable shame. She had lived with Locasto,
+had been recognised as his mistress--that was bad enough; but the
+other--to be at the mercy of all, to be classed with the harpies that
+preyed on the Man with the Poke, the vampires of the gold-camp.
+Berna-- Oh, it was unspeakable! The thought maddened me. The
+needle-point of suffering that for weeks had been boring into my brain
+seemed to have pierced its core at last.
+
+When the Prodigal expostulated with me I laughed--a bitter, mirthless
+laugh.
+
+"I'm going to Dawson," I said, "and if it was hell itself, I'd go there
+for that girl. I don't care what any one thinks. Home, society, honour
+itself, let them all go; they don't matter now. I was a fool to think I
+could ever give her up, a fool. Now I know that as long as there's life
+and strength in my body, I'll fight for her. Oh, I'm not the
+sentimentalist I was six months ago. I've lived since then. I can hold
+my own now. I can meet men on their own level. I can fight, I can win.
+I don't care any more, after what I've gone through. I don't set any
+particular value on my life. I'll throw it away as recklessly as the
+best of them. I'm going to have a fierce fight for that girl, and if I
+lose there'll be no more 'me' left to fight. Don't try to reason with
+me. Reason be damned! I'm going to Dawson, and a hundred men couldn't
+hold me."
+
+"You seem to have some new stunts in your repertoire," he said, looking
+at me curiously; "you've got me guessing. Sometimes I think you're a
+candidate for the dippy-house, then again I think you're on to yourself.
+There's a grim set to your mouth and a hard look in your eyes that I
+didn't use to see. Maybe you can hold up your end. Well, anyway, if you
+will go I wish you good luck."
+
+So, bidding good-bye to the big cabin, with my two partners looking
+ruefully after me, I struck off down Bonanza. It was mid-October. A
+bitter wind chilled me to the marrow. Once more the land lay stark
+beneath its coverlet of snow, and the sky was wan and ominous. I
+travelled fast, for a painful anxiety gripped me, so that I scarce took
+notice of the improved trail, of the increased activity, of the heaps of
+tailings built up with brush till they looked like walls of a
+fortification. All I thought of was Dawson and Berna.
+
+How curious it was, this strange new strength, this indifference to
+self, to physical suffering, to danger, to public opinion! I thought
+only of the girl. I would make her marry me. I cared nothing for what
+had happened to her. I might be a pariah, an outcast for the rest of my
+days; at least I would save her, shield her, cherish her. The thought
+uplifted me, exalted me. I had suffered beyond expression. I had
+rearranged my set of ideas; my concept of life, of human nature, had
+broadened and deepened. What did it matter if physically they had
+wronged her? Was not the pure, virgin soul of her beyond their reach?
+
+I was just in time to see the last boat go out. Already the river was
+"throwing ice," and every day the jagged edges of it crept further
+towards midstream. An immense and melancholy mob stood on the wharf as
+the little steamer backed off into the channel. There were uproarious
+souls on board, and many women of the town screaming farewells to their
+friends. On the boat all was excited, extravagant joy; on the wharf, a
+sorry attempt at resignation.
+
+The last boat! they watched her as her stern paddle churned the freezing
+water; they watched her forge her slow way through the ever-thickening
+ice-flakes; they watched her in the far distance battling with the
+Klondike current; then, sad and despondent, they turned away to their
+lonely cabins. Never had their exile seemed so bitter. A few more days
+and the river would close tight as a drum. The long, long night would
+fall on them, and for nigh on eight weary months they would be cut off
+from the outside world.
+
+Yet soon, very soon, a mood of reconciliation would set in. They would
+begin to make the best of things. To feed that great Octopus, the town,
+the miners would flock in from the creeks with treasure hoarded up in
+baking-powder tins; the dance-halls and gambling-places would absorb
+them; the gaiety would go on full swing, and there would seem but little
+change in the glittering abandon of the gold-camp. As I paced its
+sidewalks once more I marvelled at its growth. New streets had been
+made; the stores boasted expensive fittings and gloried in costly goods;
+in the bar-rooms were splendid mirrors and ornate woodwork; the
+restaurants offered European delicacies; all was on a new scale of
+extravagance, of garish display, of insolent wealth.
+
+Everywhere the man with the fat "poke" was in evidence. He came into
+town unshorn, wild-looking, often raggedly clad, yet always with the
+same wistful hunger in his eyes. You saw that look, and it took you back
+to the dark and dirt and drudgery of the claim, the mirthless months of
+toil, the crude cabin with its sugar barrel of ice behind the door, its
+grease light dimly burning, its rancid smell of stale food. You saw him
+lying smoking his strong pipe, looking at that can of nuggets on the
+rough shelf, and dreaming of what it would mean to him--out there where
+the lights glittered and the gramophones blared. Surely, if patience,
+endurance, if grim, unswerving purpose, if sullen, desperate toil
+deserved a reward, this man had a peckful of pleasure for his due.
+
+And always that hungry, wistful look. The women with the painted cheeks
+knew that look; the black-jack boosters knew it; the barkeeper with his
+knock-out drops knew it. They waited for him; he was their "meat."
+
+Yet in a few days your wild and woolly man is transformed, and no longer
+does your sympathy go out towards him. Shaven and shorn, clad in silken
+underwear, with patent leather shoes, and a suit in New York style, you
+absolutely fail to recognise him as your friend of the moccasins and
+mackinaw coat. He is smoking a dollar Laranago, he has half a dozen
+whiskies "under his belt," and later on he has a "date" with a lady
+singer of the Pavilion Theatre. He is having a "whale" of a good time,
+he tells you; you wonder how long he will last.
+
+Not for long. Sharp and short and sweet it is. He is brought up with a
+jerk, and the Dago Queen, for whom he has bought so much wine at twenty
+dollars a bottle, has no recognition for him in her flashing eyes. He
+has been "taken down the line," "trimmed to a finish" by an artist in
+the business. Ruefully he turns his poke inside out--not a "colour." He
+cannot even command the price of a penitential three-fingers of rye.
+Such is one of the commonest phases of life in the gold-camp.
+
+As I strolled the streets I saw many a familiar face. Mosher I saw. He
+had grown very fat, and was talking to a diminutive woman with heavy
+blond hair (she must have weighed about ninety-five pounds, I think).
+They went off together.
+
+A knife-edged wind was sweeping down from the north, and men in bulging
+coonskin coats filled up the sidewalks. At the Aurora corner I came
+across the Jam-wagon. He was wearing a jacket of summer flannels, and,
+as if to suggest extra warmth, he had turned up its narrow collar. In
+his trembling fingers he held an emaciated cigarette, which he inhaled
+avidly. He looked wretched, pinched with hunger, peaked with cold, but
+he straightened up when he saw me into a semblance of well-being. Then,
+in a little, he sagged forward, and his eyes went dull and abject. It
+was a business of the utmost delicacy to induce him to accept a small
+loan. I knew it would only plunge him more deeply into the mire; but I
+could not bear to see him suffer.
+
+I went into the Parisian Restaurant. It was more glittering, more
+raffish, more clamant of the tenderloin than ever. There were men
+waiters in the conventional garb of waiterdom, and there was Madam,
+harder looking and more vulturish. You wondered if such a woman could
+have a soul, and what was the end and aim of her being. There she sat, a
+creature of rapacity and sordid lust. I marched up to her and asked
+abruptly:
+
+"Where's Berna?"
+
+She gave a violent start. There was a quality of fear in her bold eyes.
+Then she laughed, a hard, jarring laugh.
+
+"In the Tivoli," she said.
+
+Strange again! Now that the worst had come to pass, and I had suffered
+all that it was in my power to suffer, this new sense of strength and
+mastery had come to me. It seemed as if some of the iron spirit of the
+land had gotten into my blood, a grim, insolent spirit that made me
+fearless; at times a cold cynical spirit, a spirit of rebellion, of
+anarchy, of aggression. The greatest evil had befallen me. Life could do
+no more to harm me. I had everything to gain and nothing to lose. I
+cared for no man. I despised them, and, to back me in my bitterness, I
+had twenty-five thousand dollars in the bank.
+
+I was still weak from my illness and my long mush had wearied me, so I
+went into a saloon and called for drinks. I felt the raw whisky burn my
+throat. I tingled from head to foot with a strange, pleasing warmth.
+Suddenly the bar, with its protecting rod of brass, seemed to me a very
+desirable place, bright, warm, suggestive of comfort and
+good-fellowship. How agreeably every one was smiling! Indeed, some were
+laughing for sheer joy. A big, merry-hearted miner called for another
+round, and I joined in.
+
+Where was that bitter feeling now? Where that morbid pain at my heart?
+As I drank it all seemed to pass away. Magical change! What a fool I
+was! What was there to make such a fuss about? Take life easy. Laugh
+alike at the good and bad of it. It was all a farce anyway. What would
+it matter a hundred years from now? Why were we put into this world to
+be tortured? I, for one, would protest. I would writhe no more in the
+strait-jacket of existence. Here was escape, heartsease, happiness--here
+in this bottled impishness. Again I drank.
+
+What a rotten world it all was! But I had no hand in the making of it,
+and it wasn't my task to improve it. I was going to get the best I could
+out of it. Eat, drink and be merry, that was the last word of
+philosophy. Others seemed to be able to extract all kinds of happiness
+from things as they are, so why not I? In any case, here was the
+solution of my troubles. Better to die happily drunk than miserably
+sober. I was not drinking from weakness. Oh no! I was drinking with
+deliberate intent to kill pain.
+
+How wonderfully strong I felt! I smashed my clenched fist against the
+bar. My knuckles were bruised and bleeding, but I felt no pain. I was so
+light of foot, I imagined I could jump over the counter. I ached to
+fight some one. Then all at once came the thought of Berna. It came with
+tragical suddenness, with poignant force. Intensely it smote me as never
+before. I could have burst into maudlin tears.
+
+"What's the matter, Slim?" asked a mouldy mannikin, affectionately
+hanging on to my arm.
+
+Disgustedly I looked at him.
+
+"Take your filthy paws off me," I said.
+
+His jaw dropped and he stared at me. Then, before he could draw on his
+fund of profanity, I burst through the throng and made for the door.
+
+I was drunk, deplorably drunk, and I was bound for the Tivoli.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+I wish it to be understood that I make no excuses for myself at this
+particular stage of my chronicle. I am only conscious of a desire to
+tell the truth. Many of the stronger-minded will no doubt condemn me;
+many of those inclined to a rigid system of morality will be disgusted
+with me; but, however it may be, I will write plainly and without
+reserve.
+
+When I reeled out of the Grubstake Saloon I was in a peculiar state of
+exaltation. No longer was I conscious of the rasping cold, and it seemed
+to me I could have couched me in the deep snow as cosily as in a bed of
+down. Surpassingly brilliant were the lights. They seemed to convey to
+me a portentous wink. They twinkled with jovial cheer. What a desirable
+place the world was, after all!
+
+With an ebullient sense of eloquence, of extravagant oratory, I longed
+for a sympathetic ear. An altruistic emotion pervaded me. Who would
+suspect, thought I, as I walked a little too circumspectly amid the
+throng, that my heart was aglow, that I was tensing my muscles in the
+pride of their fitness, that my brain was a bewildering kaleidoscope of
+thoughts and images?
+
+Gramophones were braying in every conceivable key. Brazen women were
+leering at me. Potbellied men regarded me furtively. Alluringly the
+gambling-dens and dancing-dives invited me. The town was a giant spider
+drawing in its prey, and I was the prey, it seemed. Others there were in
+plenty, men with the eager, wistful eyes; but who was there so eager and
+wistful as I? And I didn't care any more. Strike up the music! On with
+the dance! Only one life have we to live. Ah! there was the Tivoli.
+
+To the right as I entered was a palatial bar set off with burnished
+brass, bevelled mirrors and glittering, vari-coloured pyramids of costly
+liqueurs. Up to the bar men were bellying, and the bartenders in white
+jackets were mixing drinks with masterly dexterity. It was a motley
+crowd. There were men in broadcloth and fine linen, men in blue shirts
+and mud-stiffened overalls, grey-bearded elders and beardless boys. It
+was a noisy crowd, laughing, brawling, shouting, singing. Here was the
+foam of life, with never a hint of the muddy sediment underneath.
+
+To the left I had a view of the gambling-room, a glimpse of green
+tables, of spinning balls, of cool men, with shades over their eyes,
+impassively dealing. There were huge wheels of fortune, keno tables,
+crap outfits, faro layouts, and, above all, the dainty, fascinating
+roulette. Everything was in full swing. Miners with flushed faces and a
+wild excitement in their eyes were plunging recklessly; others, calm,
+alert, anxious, were playing cautiously. Here and there were the fevered
+faces of women. Gold coin was stacked on the tables, while a man with a
+pair of scales was weighing dust from the tendered pokes.
+
+In front of me was a double swing-door painted in white and gold, and,
+pushing through this, for the first time I found myself in a Dawson
+dance-hall.
+
+I remember being struck by the gorgeousness of it, its glitter and its
+glow. Who would have expected, up in this bleak-visaged North, to find
+such a fairyland of a place? It was painted in white and gold, and set
+off by clusters of bunched lights. There was much elaborate scroll-work
+and ornate decoration. Down each side, raised about ten feet from the
+floor, and supported on gilt pillars, were little private boxes hung
+with curtains of heliotrope silk. At the further end of the hall was a
+stage, and here a vaudeville performance was going on.
+
+I sat down on a seat at the very back of the audience. Before me were
+row after row of heads, mostly rough, rugged and unwashed. Their faces
+were eager, rapt as those of children. They were enjoying, with the deep
+satisfaction of men who for many a weary month had been breathing the
+free, unbranded air of the Wild. The sensuous odour of patchouli was
+strangely pleasant to them; the sight of a woman was thrillingly sweet;
+the sound of a song was ravishing. Looking at many of those toil-grooved
+faces one could see that there was no harm in their hearts. They were
+honest, uncouth, simple; they were just like children, the children of
+the Wild.
+
+A woman of generous physique was singing in a shrill, nasal voice a
+pathetic ballad. She sang without expression, bringing her hands with
+monotonous gestures alternately to her breast. Her squat, matronly
+figure, beef from the heels up, looked singularly absurd in her short
+skirt. Her face was excessively over-painted, her mouth good-naturedly
+large, and her eyes out of their slit-like lids leered at the audience.
+
+"Ain't she great?" said a tall bean-pole of a man on my right, as she
+finished off with a round of applause. "There's some class to her work."
+
+He looked at me in a confidential way, and his pale-blue eyes were full
+of rapturous appreciation. Then he did something that surprised me. He
+tugged open his poke and, dipping into it, he produced a big nugget.
+Twisting this in a scrap of paper, he rose up, long, lean and awkward,
+and with careful aim he threw it on the stage.
+
+"Here ye are, Lulu," he piped in his shrill voice. The woman, turning in
+her exit, picked up the offering, gave her admirer a wide, gold-toothed
+smile, and threw him an emphatic kiss. As the man sat down I could see
+his mouth twisting with excitement, and his watery blue eyes snapped
+with pleasure.
+
+"By heck," he said, "she's great, ain't she? Many's the bottle of wine
+I've opened for that there girl. Guess she'll be glad when she hears old
+Henry's in town again. Henry's my name, Hard-pan Henry they call me, an'
+I've got a claim on Hunker. Many's the wallopin' poke have I toted into
+town an' blowed in on that there girl. An' I just guess this one'll go
+the same gait. Well, says I, what's the odds? I'm havin' a good time
+for my money. When it's gone there's lots more in the ground. It ain't
+got no legs. It can't run away."
+
+He chuckled and hefted his poke in a horny hand. There was a flutter of
+the heliotrope curtains, and the face of Lulu, peeping over the plush
+edge of a box, smiled bewitchingly upon him. With another delighted
+chuckle the old man went to join her.
+
+"Darned old fool," said a young man on my left. He looked as if his
+veins were chuckful of health; his skin was as clear as a girl's, his
+eye honest and fearless. He was dressed in mackinaw, and wore a fur cap
+with drooping ear-flaps.
+
+"He's the greatest mark in the country," the Youth went on. "He's got no
+more brains than God gave geese. All the girls are on to him. Before he
+can turn round that old bat up there will have him trimmed to a finish.
+He'll be doing flip-flaps, and singing ''Way Down on the Suwanee River'
+standing on his head. Then the girl will pry him loose from his poke,
+and to-morrow he'll start off up the creek, teetering and swearing he's
+had a dooce of a good time. He's the easiest thing on earth."
+
+The Youth paused to look on a new singer. She was a soubrette, trim,
+dainty and confident. She wore a blond wig, and her eyes in their pits
+of black were alluringly bright. Paint was lavished on her face in
+violent dabs of rose and white, and the inevitable gold teeth gleamed in
+her smile. She wore a black dress trimmed with sequins, stockings of
+black, a black velvet band around her slim neck. She was greeted with
+much applause, and she began to sing in a fairly sweet voice.
+
+"That's Nellie Lestrange," said the Youth. "She's a great
+rustler--Touch-the-button-Nell, they call her. They say that when she
+gets a jay into a box it's all day with him. She's such a nifty
+wine-winner the end of her thumb's calloused pressing the button for
+fresh bottles."
+
+Touch-the-button-Nell was singing a comic ditty of a convivial order.
+She put into it much vivacity, appealing to the audience to join in the
+chorus with a pleading, "Now all together, boys." She had tripping steps
+and dainty kicks that went well with the melody. When she went off half
+a dozen men rose in their places, and aimed nuggets at her. She captured
+them, then, with a final saucy flounce of her skirt, made her smiling
+exit.
+
+"By Gosh!" said the Youth, "I wonder these fellows haven't got more
+savvy. You wouldn't catch _me_ chucking away an ounce on one of those
+fairies. No, sir! Nothing doing! I've got a five-thousand-dollar poke in
+the bank, and to-morrow I'll be on my way outside with a draft for every
+cent of it. A certain little farm 'way back in Vermont looks pretty good
+to me, and a little girl that don't know the use of face powder, bless
+her. She's waiting for me."
+
+The excitement of the liquor had died away in me, and what with the heat
+and smoke of the place, I was becoming very drowsy. I was almost dozing
+off to sleep when some one touched me on the arm. It was a negro waiter
+I had seen dodging in and out of the boxes, and known as the Black
+Prince.
+
+"Dey's a lady up'n de box wants to speak with yuh, sah," he said
+politely.
+
+"Who is it?" I asked in surprise.
+
+"Miss Labelle, sah, Miss Birdie Labelle."
+
+I started. Who in the Klondike had not heard of Birdie Labelle, the
+eldest of the three sisters, who married Stillwater Willie? A thought
+flashed through me that she could tell me something of Berna.
+
+"All right," I said; "I'll come."
+
+I followed him upstairs, and in a moment I was ushered into the presence
+of the famous soubrette.
+
+"Hullo, kid!" she exclaimed, "sit down. I saw you in the audience and
+kind-a took a notion to your face. How d'ye do?"
+
+She extended a heavily bejewelled hand. She was plump, pleasant-looking,
+with a piquant smile and flaxen hair. I ordered the waiter to bring her
+a bottle of wine.
+
+"I've heard a lot about you," I said tentatively.
+
+"Yes, I guess so," she answered. "Most folks have up here. It's a sort
+of reflected glory. I guess if it hadn't been for Bill I'd never have
+got into the limelight at all."
+
+She sipped her champagne thoughtfully.
+
+"I came in here in '97, and it was then I met Bill. He was there with
+the coin all right. We got hitched up pretty quick, but he was such a
+mut I soon got sick of him. Then I got skating round with another guy.
+Well, an egg famine came along. There was only nine hundred samples of
+hen fruit in town, and one store had a corner on them. I went down to
+buy some. Lord! how I wanted them eggs. I kept thinking how I'd have
+them done, shipwrecked, two on a raft or sunny side up, when who should
+come along but Bill. He sees what I want, and quick as a flash what does
+he do but buy up the whole bunch at a dollar apiece! 'Now,' says he to
+me, 'if you want eggs for breakfast just come home where you belong.'
+
+"Well, say, I was just dying for them eggs, so I comes to my milk like a
+lady. I goes home with Bill."
+
+She shook her head sadly, and once more I filled up her glass.
+
+She prattled on with many a gracious smile, and I ordered another bottle
+of wine. In the next box I could hear the squeaky laugh of Hard-pan
+Henry and the teasing tones of his inamorata. The visits of the Black
+Prince to this box with fresh bottles had been fast and furious, and at
+last I heard the woman cry in a querulous voice: "Say, that black man
+coming in so often gives me a pain. Why don't you order a case?"
+
+Then the man broke in with his senile laugh:
+
+"All right, Lulu, whatever you say goes. Say, Prince, tote along a case,
+will you?"
+
+Surely, thought I, there's no fool like an old fool.
+
+A little girl was singing, a little, winsome girl with a sweet childish
+voice and an innocent face. How terribly out of place she looked in that
+palace of sin. She sang a simple, old-world song full of homely pathos
+and gentle feeling. As she sang she looked down on those furrowed faces,
+and I saw that many eyes were dimmed with tears. The rough men listened
+in rapt silence as the childish treble rang out:
+
+    "Darling, I am growing old;
+    Silver threads among the gold
+    Shine upon my brow to-day;
+    Life is fading fast away."
+
+Then from behind the scenes a pure alto joined in and the two voices,
+blending in exquisite harmony, went on:
+
+    "But, my darling, you will be, will be,
+    Always young and fair to me.
+    Yes, my darling, you will be
+    Always young and fair to me."
+
+As the last echo died away the audience rose as one man, and a shower of
+nuggets pelted on the stage. Here was something that touched their
+hearts, stirred in them strange memories of tenderness, brought before
+them half-forgotten scenes of fireside happiness.
+
+"It's a shame to let that kid work in the halls," said Miss Labelle.
+There were tears in her eyes, too, and she hurriedly blinked them away.
+
+Then the curtain fell. Men were clearing the floor for the dance, so,
+bidding the lady adieu, I went downstairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+I found the Youth awaiting me.
+
+"Say, pardner," said he, "I was just getting a bit anxious about you. I
+thought sure that fairy had you in tow for a sucker. I'm going to stay
+right with you, and you're not going to shake me. See!"
+
+"All right," I said; "come on and we'll watch the dance."
+
+So we got in the front row of spectators, while behind us the crowd
+packed as closely as matches in a box. The champagne I had taken had
+again aroused in me that vivid sense of joy and strength and colour.
+Again the lights were effulgent, the music witching, the women divine.
+As I swayed a little I clutched unsteadily at the Youth. He looked at me
+curiously.
+
+"Brace up, old man," he said. "Guess you're not often in town. You're
+not much used to the dance-hall racket."
+
+"No," I assured him.
+
+"Well," he continued, "it's the rottenest game ever. I've seen more poor
+beggars put plumb out of business by the dance-halls than by all the
+saloons and gambling-joints put together. It's the game of catching the
+sucker brought to the point of perfection, and there's very few cases
+where it fails."
+
+He perceived I was listening earnestly, and he warmed up to his
+subject.
+
+"You see, the boys get in after they've been out on the claim for six
+months at a stretch, and town looks mighty good to them. The music
+sounds awful nice, and the women, well, they look just like angels. The
+boys are all right, but they've got that mad craving for the sight of a
+woman a man gets after he's been off out in the Wild, and these women
+have got the captivation of men down to a fine art. Once one of them
+gets to looking at you with eyes that eat right into you, and soft white
+hands, and pretty coaxing ways, well, it's mighty hard to hold back. A
+man's a fool to come near these places if he's got a poke--'cept, like
+me, he knows the ropes and he's right onto himself."
+
+The Youth said this with quite a complacent air. He went on:
+
+"These girls work on a percentage basis. You'll notice every time you
+buy them a drink the waiter gives them a check. That means that when the
+night's over they cash in and get twenty-five per cent, of the money
+you've spent on them. That's how they're so keen on ordering fresh
+bottles. Sometimes they'll say a bottle's gone flat before it's empty,
+and have you order another. Or else they'll pour half of it into the
+cuspidor when you're not looking. Then, when you get too full to notice
+the difference, they'll run in ginger ale on you. Or else they'll get
+you ordering by the case, and have half a dozen dummy bottles in it. Oh,
+there's all kinds of schemes these box rustlers are on to. When you pay
+for a drink you toss over your poke, and they take the price out. Do you
+think they're particular to a quarter ounce or so? No, sir! and you
+always get the short end of it. It's a bad game to go up against."
+
+The Youth looked at me as though proud of his superior sophistication.
+
+The floor was cleared. Girls were now coming from behind the stage,
+preening themselves and chaffing with the crowd. The orchestra struck up
+some jubilant ragtime that set the heart dancing and the heels tapping
+in tune. Brighter than ever seemed the lights; more dazzling the white
+and gilt of the walls. Some of the girls were balancing lightly to a
+waltz rhythm. There was a witching grace in their movements, and the
+Youth watched them intently. He looked down at his feet clad in old
+moccasins.
+
+"Gee, I'd like just to have one spin," he said; "just one before I leave
+the darned old country for good. I was always crazy about dancing. I'd
+ride thirty miles to attend a dance back home."
+
+His eyes grew very wistful. Suddenly the music stopped and the
+floor-master came forward. He was a tall, dark man with a rich and
+vibrant baritone voice.
+
+"That's the best spieler in the Yukon," said the Youth.
+
+"Come on, boys," boomed the spieler. "Look alive there. Don't keep the
+ladies waiting. Take your hands out of your pockets and get in the game.
+Just going to begin, a dreamy waltz or a nice juicy two-step, whichever
+you prefer. Hey, professor, strike up that waltz!"
+
+Once more the music swelled out.
+
+"How's that, boys? Doesn't that make your feet like feathers? Come on,
+boys! Here you are for the nice, glossy floor and the nice, flossy
+girls. Here you are! Here you are! That's right, select your partners!
+Swing your honeys! Hurry up there! Just a-goin' to begin. What's the
+matter with you fellows? Wake up! a dance won't break you. Come on!
+don't be a cheap skate. The girls are fine, fit and fairy-like, the
+music's swell and the floor's elegant. Come on, boys!"
+
+There was a compelling power in his voice, and already a number of
+couples were waltzing round. The women were exquisite in their grace and
+springy lightness. They talked as they danced, gazing with languishing
+eyes and siren smiles at the man of the moment.
+
+Some of them, who had not got partners, were picking out individuals
+from the crowd and coaxing them to come forward. A drunken fellow
+staggered onto the floor and grabbed a girl. She was young, dainty and
+pretty, but she showed no repugnance for him. Round and round he
+cavorted, singing and whooping, a wild, weird object; when, suddenly, he
+tripped and fell, bringing her down with him. The crowd roared; but the
+girl good-naturedly picked him up, and led him off to the bar.
+
+A man in a greasy canvas suit with mucklucks on his feet had gone onto
+the floor. His hair was long and matted, his beard wild and rank. He
+was dancing vehemently, and there was the glitter of wild excitement in
+his eyes. He looked as if he had not bathed for years, but again I could
+see no repulsion in the face of the handsome brunette with whom he was
+waltzing. Dance after dance they had together, locked in each other's
+arms.
+
+"That's a 'live one,'" said the Youth. "He's just come in from Dominion
+with a hundred ounces, and it won't last him over the night. Amber,
+there, will get it all. She won't let the other girls go near. He's her
+game."
+
+Between dances the men promenaded to the bar and treated their
+companions to a drink. In the same free, trusting way they threw over
+their pokes to the bartender and had the price weighed out. The dances
+were very short, and the drinks very frequent.
+
+Madder and madder grew the merriment. The air was hot; the odour of
+patchouli mingled with the stench of stale garments and the reek of
+alcohol. Men dripping with sweat whirled round in wild gyrations. Some
+of them danced beautifully; some merely shuffled over the floor. It did
+not make any difference to the girls. They were superbly muscular and
+used to the dragging efforts of novices. After a visit to the bar back
+they came once more, licking their lips, and fell to with fresh energy.
+
+There was no need to beg the crowd now. A wave of excitement seemed to
+have swept over them. They clamoured to get a dance. The "live one"
+whooped and pranced on his wild career, while Amber steered him calmly
+through the mazes of the waltz. Touch-the-button-Nell was talking to a
+tall fair-moustached man whom I recognised as a black-jack booster.
+Suddenly she left him and came over to us. She went up to the Youth.
+
+She had discarded her blond wig, and her pretty brown hair parted in the
+middle and rippled behind her ears. Her large violet-blue eyes had a
+devouring look that would stir the pulse of a saint. She accosted the
+Youth with a smile of particular witchery.
+
+"Say, kid, won't you come and have a two-step with me? I've been looking
+at you for the last half-hour and wishing you'd ask me."
+
+The Youth had advised me: "If any of them asks you, tell them to go to
+the devil;" but now he looked at her and his boyish face flushed.
+
+"Nothing doing," he said stoutly.
+
+"Oh, come now," she pleaded; "honest to goodness, kid, I've turned down
+the other fellow for you. You won't refuse me, will you? Come on; just
+one, sweetheart."
+
+She was holding the lapels of his coat and dragging him gently forward.
+I could see him biting his lip in embarrassment.
+
+"No, thanks, I'm sorry," he stammered. "I don't know how to dance.
+Besides, I've got no money."
+
+She grew more coaxing.
+
+"Never mind about the coin, honey. Come on, have one on me. Don't turn
+me down, I've taken such a notion to you. Come on now; just one turn."
+
+I watched his face. His eyes clouded with emotion, and I knew the
+psychology of it. He was thinking:
+
+"Just one--surely it wouldn't hurt. Surely I'm man enough to trust
+myself, to know when to quit. Oh, lordy, wouldn't it be sweet just to
+get my arm round a woman's waist once more! The sight of them's honey to
+me; surely it wouldn't matter. One round and I'll shake her and go
+home."
+
+The hesitation was fatal. By an irresistible magnetism the Youth was
+drawn to this woman whose business it ever was to lure and beguile. By
+her siren strength she conquered him as she had conquered many another,
+and as she led him off there was a look of triumph on her face. Poor
+Youth! At the end of the dance he did not go home, nor did he "shake"
+her. He had another and another and another. The excitement began to
+paint his cheeks, the drink to stoke wild fires in his eyes. As I stood
+deserted I tried to attract him, to get him back; but he no longer
+heeded me.
+
+"I don't see the Madonna to-night," said a little, dark individual in
+spectacles. Somehow he looked to me like a newspaper man "chasing" copy.
+
+"No," said one of the girls; "she ain't workin'. She's sick; she don't
+take very kindly to the business, somehow. Don't seem to get broke in
+easy. She's funny, poor kid."
+
+Carelessly they went on to talk of other things, while I stood there
+gasping, staring, sick at heart. All my vinous joy was gone, leaving me
+a haggard, weary wretch of a man, disenchanted and miserable to the
+verge of--what? I shuddered. The lights seemed to have gone blurred and
+dim. The hall was tawdry, cheap and vulgar. The women, who but a moment
+before had seemed creatures of grace and charm, were now nothing more
+than painted, posturing harridans, their seductive smiles the leers of
+shameless sin.
+
+And this was a Dawson dance-hall, the trump card in the nightly game of
+despoliation. Dance-halls, saloons, gambling-dens, brothels, the heart
+of the town was a cancer, a hive of iniquity. Here had flocked the most
+rapacious of gamblers, the most beautiful and unscrupulous women on the
+Pacific slope. Here in the gold-born city they waited for their prey,
+the Man with the Poke. Back there in the silent Wild, with pain and
+bloody sweat, he toiled for them. Sooner or later must he come within
+reach of their talons to be fleeced, flouted and despoiled. It was an
+organised system of sharpers, thugs, harpies, and birds of prey of every
+kind. It was a blot on the map. It was a great whirlpool, and the eddy
+of it encircled the furthest outpost of the golden valley. It was a
+vortex of destruction, of ruin and shame. And here was I, hovering on
+its brink, likely to be soon sucked down into its depths.
+
+I pressed my way to the door, and stood there staring and swaying, but
+whether with wine or weakness I knew not. In the vociferous and
+flamboyant street I could hear the raucous voices of the spielers, the
+jigging tunes of the orchestras, the click of ivory balls, the popping
+of corks, the hoarse, animal laughter of men, the shrill, inane giggles
+of women. Day and night the game went on without abatement, the game of
+despoliation.
+
+And I was on the verge of the vortex. Memories of Glengyle, the laughing
+of the silver-scaled sea, the tawny fisher-lads with their honest eyes,
+the herring glittering like jewels in the brown nets, the women with
+their round health-hued cheeks and motherly eyes. Oh, Home, with your
+peace and rest and content, can you not save me from this?
+
+And as I stood there wretchedly a timid little hand touched my arm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+It is odd how people who have been parted a weary while, yet who have
+thought of each other constantly, will often meet with as little show of
+feeling as if they had but yesterday bid good-bye. I looked at her and
+she at me, and I don't think either of us betrayed any emotion. Yet must
+we both have been infinitely moved.
+
+She was changed, desperately, pitifully changed. All the old sweetness
+was there, that pathetic sweetness which had made the miners call her
+the Madonna; but alas, forever gone from her was the fragrant flower of
+girlhood. Her pallor was excessive, and the softness had vanished out of
+her face, leaving there only lines of suffering. Sorrow had kindled in
+her grey eyes a spiritual lustre, a shining, tearless brightness. Ah me,
+sad, sad, indeed, was the change in her!
+
+So she looked at me, a long and level look in which I could see neither
+love nor hate. The bright, grey eyes were clear and steady, and the
+pinched and pitiful lips did not quiver. And as I gazed on her I felt
+that nothing ever would be the same again. Love could no more be the
+radiant spirit of old, the prompter of impassioned words, the painter of
+bewitching scenes. Never again could we feel the world recede from us as
+we poised on bright wings of fancy; never again compare our joy with
+that of the heaven-born; never again welcome that pure ideal that comes
+to youth alone, and that pitifully dies in the disenchantment of graver
+days. We could sacrifice all things for each other; joy and grieve for
+each other; live and die for each other,--but the Hope, the Dream, the
+exaltation of love's dawn, the peerless white glory of it--had gone from
+us forever and forever.
+
+Her lips moved:
+
+"How you have changed!"
+
+"Yes, Berna, I have been ill. But you, you too have changed."
+
+"Yes," she said very slowly. "I have been--dead."
+
+There was no faltering in her voice, never a throb of pathos. It was
+like the voice of one who has given up all hope, the voice of one who
+has arisen from the grave. In that cold mask of a face I could see no
+glimmer of the old-time joy, the joy of the season when wild roses were
+aglow. We both were silent, two pitifully cold beings, while about us
+the howling bedlam of pleasure-plotters surged and seethed.
+
+"Come upstairs where we can talk," said she. So we sat down in one of
+the boxes, while a great freezing shadow seemed to fall and wrap us
+around. It was so strange, this silence between us. We were like two
+pale ghosts meeting in the misty gulfs beyond the grave.
+
+"And why did you not come?" she asked.
+
+"Come--I tried to come."
+
+"But you did not." Her tone was measured, her face averted.
+
+"I would have sold my soul to come. I was ill, desperately ill, nigh to
+death. I was in the hospital. For two weeks I was delirious, raving of
+you, trying to get to you, making myself a hundred times worse because
+of you. But what could I do? No man could have been more helpless. I was
+out of my mind, weak as a child, fighting for my life. That was why I
+did not come."
+
+When I began to speak she started. As I went on she drew a quick,
+choking breath. Then she listened ever so intently, and when I had
+finished a great change came over her. Her eyes stared glassily, her
+head dropped, her hands clutched at the chair, she seemed nigh to
+fainting. When she spoke her voice was like a whisper.
+
+"And they lied to me. They told me you were too eager gold-getting to
+think of me; that you were in love with some other woman out there; that
+you cared no more for me. They lied to me. Well, it's too late now."
+
+She laughed, and the once tuneful voice was harsh and grating. Still
+were her eyes blank with misery. Again and again she murmured: "Too
+late, too late."
+
+Quietly I sat and watched her, yet in my heart was a vast storm of
+agony. I longed to comfort her, to kiss that face so white and worn and
+weariful, to bring tears to those hopeless eyes. There seemed to grow
+in me a greater hunger for the girl than ever before, a longing to bring
+joy to her again, to make her forget. What did it all matter? She was
+still my love. I yearned for her. We both had suffered, both been
+through the furnace. Surely from it would come the love that passeth
+understanding. We would rear no lily walls, but out of our pain would we
+build an abiding place that would outlast the tomb.
+
+"Berna," I said, "it is not too late."
+
+There was a desperate bitterness in her face. "Yes, yes, it is. You do
+not understand. You--it's all right for you, you are blameless; but
+I----"
+
+"You too are blameless, dear. We have both been miserably duped. Never
+mind, Berna, we will forget all. I love you, Oh how much I never can
+tell you, girl! Come, let us forget and go away and be happy."
+
+It seemed as if my every word was like a stab to her. The sweet face was
+tragically wretched.
+
+"Oh no," she answered, "it can never be. You think it can, but it can't.
+You could not forget. I could not forget. We would both be thinking;
+always, always torturing each other. To you the thought would be like a
+knife thrust, and the more you loved me the deeper would pierce its
+blade. And I, too, can you not realise how fearfully I would look at
+you, always knowing you were thinking of THAT, and what an agony it
+would be to me to watch your agony? Our home would be a haunted one, a
+place of ghosts. Never again can there be joy between you and me. It's
+too late, too late!"
+
+She was choking back the sobs now, but still the tears did not come.
+
+"Berna," I said gently, "I think I could forget. Please give me a chance
+to prove it. Other men have forgotten. I know it was not your fault. I
+know that spiritually you are the same pure girl you were before. You
+are an angel, dear; my angel."
+
+"No, I was not to blame. When you failed to come I grew desperate. When
+I wrote you and still you failed to come I was almost distracted. Night
+and day he was persecuting me. The others gave me no peace. If ever a
+poor girl was hounded to dishonour I was. Yet I had made up my mind to
+die rather than yield. Oh, it's too horrible."
+
+She shuddered.
+
+"Never mind, dear, don't tell me about it."
+
+"When I awoke to life sick, sick for many days, I wanted to die, but I
+could not. There seemed to be nothing for it but to stay on there. I was
+so weak, so ill, so indifferent to everything that it did not seem to
+matter. That was where I made my mistake. I should have killed myself.
+Oh, there's something in us all that makes us cling to life in spite of
+shame! But I would never let him come near me again. You believe me,
+don't you?"
+
+"I believe you."
+
+"And though, when he went away, I've gone into this life, there's never
+been any one else. I've danced with them, laughed with them, but that's
+all. You believe me?"
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"Thank God for that! And now we must say good-bye."
+
+"_Good-bye?_"
+
+"I said--good-bye. I would not spoil your life. You know how proud I am,
+how sensitive. I would not give you such as I. Once I would have given
+myself to you gladly, but now--please go away."
+
+"Impossible."
+
+"No, the other is impossible. You don't know what these things mean to a
+woman. Leave me, please."
+
+"Leave you--to what?"
+
+"To death, ruin--I don't know what. If I'm strong enough I will die. If
+I am weak I will sink in the mire. Oh, and I am only a girl too, a young
+girl!"
+
+"Berna, will you marry me?"
+
+"No! No! No!"
+
+"Berna, I will never leave you. Here I tell you frankly, plainly, I
+don't know whether or not you still love me--you haven't said a word to
+show it--but I know I love you, and I will love you as long as life
+lasts. I will never leave you. Listen to me, dear: let us go away, far,
+far away. You will forget, I will forget. It will never be the same, but
+perhaps it will be better, greater than before. Come with me, O my love!
+Have pity on me, Berna, have pity. Marry me. Be my wife."
+
+She merely shook her head, sitting there cold as a stone.
+
+"Then," I said, "if you call yourself dishonoured, I too will become
+dishonoured. If you choose to sink in the mire, I too will sink. We will
+go down together, you and I. Oh, I would rather sink with you, dear,
+than rise with the angels. You have chosen--well, I too have chosen. We
+stand on the edge of the vortex, now will we plunge down. You will see
+me steep myself in shame, then when I am a hundred shades blacker than
+you can ever hope to be, my angel, you will stoop and pity me. Oh, I
+don't care any more. I've played the fool too long; now I'll play the
+devil, and you'll stand by and watch me. Sometimes it's nice to make
+those we love suffer, isn't it? I would break my arm to make you feel
+sorry for me. But now you'll see me in the vortex. We'll go down
+together, dear. Hand in hand hell-ward we'll go down, we'll go down."
+
+She was looking at me in a frightened way. A madness seemed to have
+gotten into me.
+
+"Berna, you're on the dance-halls. You're at the mercy of the vilest
+wretch that's got an ounce of gold in his filthy poke. They can buy you
+as they buy white flesh everywhere on earth. You must dance with them,
+drink with them, go away with them. Berna, I can buy you. Come, dance
+with me, drink with me. We'll live, live. We'll eat, drink and be merry.
+On with the dance! Oh, for the joy of life! Since you'll not be my love
+you'll be my light-of-love. Come, Berna, come!"
+
+I paused. With her head lying on the cushioned edge of the box she was
+crying. The plush was streaky with her tears.
+
+"Will you come?" I asked again.
+
+She did not move.
+
+"Then," said I, "there are others, and I have money, lots of it. I can
+buy them. I am going down into the vortex. Look on and watch me."
+
+I left her crying.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+It is with shame I write the following pages. Would I could blot them
+out of my life. To this day there must be many who remember my meteoric
+career in the firmament of fast life. It did not last long, but in less
+than a week I managed to squander a small fortune.
+
+Those were the days when Dawson might fitly have been called the
+dissolute. It was the régime of the dance-hall girl, and the taint of
+the tenderloin was over the town. So far there were few decent women to
+be seen on the streets. Respectable homes were being established, but
+even there social evils were discussed with an astonishing frankness and
+indifference. In the best society men were welcomed who were known to be
+living in open infamy. A general callousness to social corruption
+prevailed.
+
+For Dawson was at this time the Mecca of the gambler and the courtesan.
+Of its population probably two-thirds began their day when most people
+finished it. It was only towards nightfall that the town completely
+roused up, that the fever of pleasure providing began. Nearly every one
+seemed to be affected by the spirit of degeneracy. On the faces of many
+of the business men could be seen the stamp of the pace they were going.
+Cases in Court had to be adjourned because of the debauches of lawyers.
+Bank tellers stepped into their cages sleepless from all-night orgies.
+Government officials lived openly with wanton women. High and low were
+attainted by the corruption. In those days of headstrong excitement, of
+sudden fortune, of money to be had almost for the picking up, when the
+gold-camp was a reservoir into which poured by a thousand channels the
+treasure of the valley, few were those among the men who kept a steady
+head, whose private records were pure and blameless.
+
+No town of its size has ever broken up more homes. Men in the
+intoxication of fast-won wealth in that far-away land gave way to
+excesses of every kind. Fathers of families paraded the streets arm in
+arm with demi-mondaines. To be seen talking to a loose woman was
+unworthy of comment, not to have a mistress was not to be in the swim.
+Words cannot express the infinite and general degradation. It is
+scarcely possible to exaggerate it. That teeming town at the mouth of
+the Klondike set a pace in libertinism that has never been equalled.
+
+I would divide its population into three classes: the sporting
+fraternity, whose business it was to despoil and betray; the business
+men, drawn more or less into the vortex of dissipation; the miners from
+the creeks, the Man with the Poke, here to-day, gone, to-morrow, and of
+them all the most worthy of respect. He was the prop and mainstay of the
+town. It was like a vast trap set to catch him. He would "blow in"
+brimming with health and high spirits; for a time he would "get into the
+game;" sooner or later he would cut loose and "hit the high places";
+then, at last, beggared and broken, he would crawl back in shame and
+sorrow to the claim. O, that grey city! could it ever tell its woes and
+sorrows the great, white stars above would melt into compassionate
+tears.
+
+Ah well, to the devil with all moralising! A short life and a merry one.
+Switch on the lights! Ring up the curtain! On with the play!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the casino a crowd is gathering round the roulette wheel. Three-deep
+they stand. A woman rushes out from the dance-hall and pushes her way
+through the throng. She is very young, very fair and redundant of life.
+A man jostles her. From frank blue eyes she flashes a look at him, and
+from lips sweet as those of a child there comes the remonstrance: "Curse
+you; take care."
+
+The men make way for her, and she throws a poke of dust on the red. "A
+hundred dollars out of that," she says. The coupier nods; the wheel
+spins round; she loses.
+
+"Give me another two hundred in chips," she cries eagerly. The dealer
+hands them to her, and puts her poke in a drawer. Again and again she
+plays, placing chips here and there round the table. Sometimes she wins,
+sometimes she loses. At last she has quite a pile of chips before her.
+She laughs gleefully. "I guess I'll cash in now," she says. "That's good
+enough for to-night."
+
+The man hands her back her poke, writes out a cheque for her winnings,
+and off she goes like a happy child.
+
+"Who's that?" I ask.
+
+"That? that's Blossom. She's a 'bute,' she is. Want a knockdown? Come on
+round to the dance-hall."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Once more I see the Youth. He is nearing the end of his tether. He
+borrows a few hundred dollars from me. "One more night," he says with a
+bitter grin, "and the hog goes back to wallow in the mire. They've got
+you going too-- Oh, Lord, it's a great game! Ha! ha!"
+
+He goes off unsteadily; then from out of the luminous mists there
+appears the Jam-wagon. In a pained way he looks at me. "Here, chuck it,
+old man," he says; "come home to my cabin and straighten up."
+
+"All right," I answer; "just one drink more."
+
+One more means still one more. Poor old Jam-wagon! It's the blind
+leading the blind.
+
+Mosher haunts me with his gleaming bald head and his rat-like eyes. He
+is living with the little ninety-five-pound woman, the one with the mop
+of hair.
+
+Oh, it is a hades of a life I am steeped in! I drink and I drink. It
+seems to me I am always drinking. Rarely do I eat. I am one of half a
+dozen spectacular "live ones." All the camp is talking of us, but it
+seems to me I lead the bunch in the race to ruin. I wonder what Berna
+thinks of it all. Was there ever such a sensitive creature? Where did
+she get that obstinate pride? Child of misfortune! She minded me of a
+delicate china cup that gets mixed in with the coarse crockery of a hash
+joint.
+
+Remonstrantly the Prodigal speeds to town.
+
+"Are you crazy?" he cries. "I don't mind you making an ass of yourself,
+but lushing around all that coin the way you're doing--it's wicked; it
+makes me sick. Come home at once."
+
+"I won't," I say. "What if I am crazy? Isn't it my money? I've never
+sown my wild oats yet. I'm trying to catch up, that's all. When the
+money's done I'll quit. I'm having the time of my life. Don't come
+spoiling it with your precepts. What a lot of fun I've missed by being
+good. Come along; 'listen to the last word of human philosophy--have a
+drink.'"
+
+He goes away shaking his head. There's no fear of him ever breaking
+loose. He, with his smile of sunshine, would make misfortune pay. He is
+a rolling stone that gathers no moss, but manages to glue itself to
+greenbacks at every turn.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I am in a box at the Palace Grand. The place is packed with rowdy men
+and ribald women. I am at the zenith of my shame. Right and left I am
+buying wine. Like vultures at a feast they bunch into the box. Like
+carrion flies they buzz around me. That is what I feel myself to
+be--carrion.
+
+How I loathe myself! but I think of Berna, and the thought goads me to
+fresh excesses. I will go on till flesh and blood can stand it no
+longer, till I drop in my tracks. I realise that somehow I must make
+her pity me, must awake in her that guardian angel which exists in every
+woman. Only in that way can I break down the barrier of her pride and
+arouse the love latent in her heart.
+
+There are half a dozen girls in the box, a bevy of beauties, and I buy a
+case of wine for each, over a thousand dollars' worth. Screaming with
+laughter they toss it in bottles down to their friends in the audience.
+It is a scene of riotous excitement. The audience roars, the girls
+shriek, the orchestra tries to make itself heard. Madder and madder
+grows the merriment. The fierce fever of it scorches in my veins. I am
+mad to spend, to throw away money, to outdo all others in bitter,
+reckless prodigality. I fling twenty-dollar gold pieces to the singers.
+I open bottle after bottle of wine. The girls are spraying the crowd
+with it, the floor of the box swims with it. I drop my pencil signing a
+tab, and when I look down it is floating in a pool of champagne.
+
+Then comes the last. The dance has begun. Men in fur caps, mackinaw
+coats and mucklucks are waltzing with women clad in Paris gowns and
+sparkling with jewels. The floor is thronged. I have a large,
+hundred-ounce poke of dust, and I unloose the thong. Suddenly with a mad
+shout I scatter its contents round the hall. Like a shower of golden
+rain it falls on men and women alike. See how they grovel for it, the
+brutes, the vampires! How they fight and grab and sprawl over it! How
+they shriek and howl and curse! It is like an arena of wild beasts; it
+is pandemonium. Oh, how I despise them! My gorge rises, but--to the end,
+to the end. I must play my part.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Always amid that lurid carnival of sin floats the figure of Blossom,
+Blossom with her child-face of dazzling fairness, her china-blue eyes,
+her round, smooth cheeks. How different from the pinched pallid face of
+Berna! Poor, poor Berna! I never see her, but amid all the saturnalia
+she haunts me. The thought of her is agony, agony. I cannot bear to
+think of her. I know she watches me. If she would only stoop and save me
+now! Or have I not fallen low enough? What a faith I have in that deep
+mother-love of hers that will redeem me in the end. I must go deeper
+yet. Faster and faster must I swirl into the vortex.
+
+Oh, these women, how in my heart I loathe them! I laugh with them, I
+quaff with them, I let them rob me; but that's all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In all that fierce madness of debauch, thank God, I retained my honour.
+They beguiled me, they tried to lure me into their rooms; but at the
+moment I went to enter I recoiled. It was as if an invisible arm
+stretched across the doorway and barred me out.
+
+And Blossom, she, too, tried so hard to lure me, and because I resisted
+it inflamed her. Half angel, half devil was Blossom, a girl in years,
+but woefully wise, a soft siren when pleased, a she-devil when roused.
+She made me her special quarry. She fought for me. She drove off all
+the other girls. We talked together, we drank together, we "played the
+tables" together, but nothing more. She would coax me with the
+prettiest gestures, and cajole me with the sweetest endearments; then,
+when I steadfastly resisted her, she would fly into a fury and flout me
+with the foulness of the stews. She was beautiful, but born to be bad.
+No power on heaven or earth could have saved her. Yet in her badness she
+was frank, natural and untroubled as a child.
+
+It was in one of the corridors of the dance-hall in the early hours of
+the morning. The place was deserted, strewed with débris of the night's
+debauch. The air was fetid, and from the gambling-hall down below arose
+the shouts of the players. We were up there, Blossom and I. I was in a
+strange state of mind, a state bordering on frenzy. Not much longer, I
+felt, could I keep up this pace. Something had to happen, and that soon.
+
+She put her arms around me. I could feel her cheek pressed to mine. I
+could see her bosom rise and fall.
+
+"Come," she said.
+
+She led me towards her room. No longer was I able to resist. My foot was
+on the threshold and I was almost over when----
+
+"Telegram, sir."
+
+It was a messenger. Confusedly I took the flimsy envelope and tore it
+open. Blankly I stared at the line of type. I stared like a man in a
+dream. I was sober enough now.
+
+"Ain't you coming?" said Blossom, putting her arms round me.
+
+"No," I said hoarsely, "leave me, please leave me. Oh, my God!"
+
+Her face changed, became vindictive, the face of a fury.
+
+"Curse you!" she hissed, gnashing her teeth. "Oh, I knew. It's that
+other, that white-faced doll you care for. Look at me! Am I not better
+than her? And you scorn me. Oh, I hate you. I'll get even with you and
+her. Curse you, curse you----"
+
+She snatched up an empty wine bottle. Swinging it by the neck she struck
+me square on the forehead. I felt a stunning blow, a warm rush of blood.
+Then I fell limply forward, and all the lights seemed to go out.
+
+There I lay in a heap, and the blood spurting from my wound soaked the
+little piece of paper. On it was written:
+
+                  "Mother died this morning. Garry."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+"Where am I?"
+
+"Here, with me."
+
+Low and sweet and tender was the voice. I was in bed and my head was
+heavily bandaged, so that the cloths weighed upon my eyelids. It was
+difficult to see, and I was too weak to raise myself, but I seemed to be
+in semi-darkness. A lamp burning on a small table nearby was turned low.
+By my bedside some one was sitting, and a soft, gentle hand was holding
+mine.
+
+"Where is _here_?" I asked faintly.
+
+"Here--my cabin. Rest, dear."
+
+"Is that you, Berna?"
+
+"Yes, please don't talk."
+
+I thrilled with a sudden sweetness of joy. A flood of sunshine bathed
+me. It was all over, then, the turmoil, the storm, the shipwreck. I was
+drifting on a tranquil ocean of content. Blissfully I closed my eyes.
+Oh, I was happy, happy!
+
+In her cabin, with her, and she was nursing me--what had happened? What
+new turn of events had brought about this wonderful thing? As I lay
+there in the quiet, trying to recall the something that went before, my
+poor sick brain groped but feebly amid a murk of sinister shadows.
+
+"Berna," I said, "I've had a bad dream."
+
+"Yes, dear, you've been sick, very sick. You've had an attack of fever,
+brain fever. But don't try to think, just rest quietly."
+
+So for a while longer I lay there, thrilled with a strange new joy,
+steeped in the ineffable comfort of her presence, and growing better,
+stronger with every breath. Memories came thronging back, memories that
+made me cringe and wince, and shudder with the shame of them. Yet ever
+the thought that she was with me was like a holy blessing. Surely it was
+all good since it had ended in this.
+
+Yet there was something else, some memory darker than the others, some
+shadow of shadows that baffled me. Then as I battled with a growing
+terror and suspense, it all came back to me, the telegram, the news, my
+collapse. A great grief welled up in me, and in my agony I spoke to the
+girl.
+
+"Berna, tell me, is it true? Is my Mother dead?"
+
+"Yes, it's true, dear. You must try to bear it bravely."
+
+I could feel her bending over me, could feel her hand holding mine,
+could feel her hair brush my cheek, yet I forgot even her just then. I
+thought only of Mother, of her devotion and of how little I had done to
+deserve it. So this was the end: a narrow grave, a rending grief and the
+haunting spectre of reproach.
+
+I saw my Mother sitting at that window that faced the west, her hands
+meekly folded on her lap, her eyes wistfully gazing over the grey sea. I
+knew there was never a day of her life when she did not sit thus and
+think of me. I could guess at the heartache that gentle face would not
+betray, the longing those tender lips would not speak, the grief those
+sweet eyes studied to conceal. As, sitting there in the strange clouded
+sunset of my native land, she let her knitting drop on her lap, I knew
+she prayed for me. Oh, Mother! Mother!
+
+My sobs were choking me, and Berna was holding my hand very tightly. Yet
+in a little I grew calmer.
+
+"Berna," I said, "I've only got you now, only you, little girl. So you
+must love me, you mustn't leave me."
+
+"I'll never leave you--if you want me to stay."
+
+"God bless you, dear. I can't tell you the comfort you are to me. I'll
+try to be quiet now."
+
+I will always remember those days as I grew slowly well again. The cot
+in which I lay stood in the sitting-room of the cabin, and from the
+window I could overlook the city. Snow had fallen, the days were diamond
+bright, and the smoke ascended sharply in the glittering air. The little
+room was papered with a design of wild roses that minded me of the
+Whitehorse Rapids. On the walls were some little framed pictures; the
+floor was carpeted in dull brown, and a little heater gave out a
+pleasant warmth. Through a doorway draped with a curtain I could see her
+busy in her little kitchen.
+
+She left me much alone, alone with my thoughts. Often when all was quiet
+I knew she was sitting there beyond the curtain, sitting thinking, just
+as I was thinking. Quiet was the keynote of our life, quiet and
+sunshine. That little cabin might have been a hundred miles from the
+gold-born city, it was so quiet. Here drifted no echo of its abandoned
+gaiety, its glory of demoralisation. How sweet she looked in her
+spotless home attire, her neat waist, her white apron with bib and
+sleeves, her general air of a little housewife. And never was there so
+devoted a nurse.
+
+Sometimes she would read to me from one of the few books I had taken
+everywhere on my travels, a page or two from my beloved Stevenson, a
+poem from my great-hearted Henley, a luminous passage from my Thoreau.
+How those readings brought back the time when, tired of flicking the
+tawny pools, I would sit on the edge of the boisterous little burn and
+read till the grey shadows sifted down! I was so happy then, and I did
+not know it. Now everything seemed changed. Life had lost its zest. Its
+savour was no longer sweet. Its very success was more bitter than
+failure. Would I ever get back that old-time rapture, that youthful joy,
+that satisfaction with all the world?
+
+It was sweet prolonging my convalescence, yet the time came when I could
+no longer let her wait upon me. What was going to happen to us? I
+thought of that at all times, and she knew I thought of it. Sometimes I
+could see a vivid colour in her cheeks, an eager brightness in her eye.
+Was ever a stranger situation? She slept in the little kitchen, and
+between us there was but that curtain. The faintest draught stirred it.
+There I lay through the long, long night in that quiet cabin. I heard
+her breathing. Sometimes even I heard her murmur in her sleep. I knew
+she was there, within a few yards of me. I thought of her always. I
+loved her beyond all else on earth. I was gaining daily in health and
+strength, yet not for the wealth of the world would I have passed that
+little curtain. She was as safe there as if she were guarded with
+swords. And she knew it.
+
+Once when I was in agony I called to her in the night, and she came to
+me. She came with a mother's tenderness, with exquisite endearments,
+with the great love shining in her eyes. She leaned over me, she kissed
+me. As she bent over my bed I put my arm round her. There in the
+darkness were we, she and I, her kisses warm upon my lips, her hair
+brushing my brow, and a great love devouring us. Oh, it was hard, but I
+released her, put her from me, told her to go away.
+
+"I'll play the game fair," I said to myself. I must be very, very
+careful. Our position was full of danger. So I forced myself to be cold
+to her, and she looked both surprised and pained at the change in me.
+Then she seemed to put forth special efforts to please me. She changed
+the fashion of her hair, she wore pretty bows of ribbon. She talked
+brightly and lightly in a febrile way. She showed little coquettish
+tricks of manner that were charming to my mind. Ever she looked at me
+with wistful concern. Her heart was innocent, and she could not
+understand my sudden coldness. Yet that night had given me a lightning
+glimpse of my nature that frightened me. The girl was winsome beyond
+words, and I knew I had but to say it and she would come to me. Yet I
+checked myself. I retreated behind a barrier of reserve. "Play the
+game," I said; "play the game."
+
+So as I grew better and stronger she seemed to lose her cheerfulness.
+Always she had that anxious, wistful look. Once came a sound from the
+kitchen like stifled sobbing, and again in the night I heard her cry.
+Then the time came when I was well enough to get up, to go away.
+
+I dressed, looking like the cadaverous ghost I felt myself to be. She
+was there in the kitchen, sitting quietly, waiting.
+
+"Berna," I called.
+
+She came, with a smile lighting up her face.
+
+"I'm going."
+
+The smile vanished, and left her with that high proud look, yet behind
+it was a lurking fear.
+
+"You're going?" she faltered.
+
+"Yes," I said roughly, "I'm going."
+
+She did not speak.
+
+"Are you ready?" I went on.
+
+"Ready?"
+
+"Yes, you're going, too."
+
+"Where?"
+
+I took her suddenly in my arms.
+
+"Why, you dear little angel, to get married, of course. Come on, Berna,
+we'll find the nearest parson. We won't lose any more precious time."
+
+Then a great rush of tears came into her eyes. But still she hung back.
+She shook her head.
+
+"Why, Berna, what's the matter? Won't you come?"
+
+"I think not."
+
+"In Heaven's name, what is wrong, dear? Don't you love me?"
+
+"Yes, I love you. It's because I love you I won't come."
+
+"Won't you marry me?"
+
+"No, no, I can't. You know what I said before. I haven't changed any.
+I'm still the same--dishonoured girl. You could never give me your
+name."
+
+"You're as pure as the driven snow, little one."
+
+"No one thinks so but you, and it's that that makes all the difference.
+Everybody knows. No, I could never marry you, never take your name,
+never bind you to me."
+
+"Well, what's to be done?"
+
+"You must go away, or--stay."
+
+"Stay?"
+
+"Yes. You've been living alone with me for a month. I picked you up that
+night in the dance-hall. I had you brought here. I nursed you. Do you
+think people don't give us credit for the worst? We are as innocent as
+children, yet do you think I have a shred of reputation left? Already I
+am supposed to be your mistress. Everybody knows; nobody cares. There
+are so many living that way here. If you told them we were innocent they
+would scoff at us. If you go they will say you have discarded me."
+
+"What shall I do?"
+
+"Just stay. Oh, why can't we go on as we've been doing? It's been so
+like home. Don't leave me, dear. I don't want to bind you. I just want
+to be of some use to you, to help you, to be with you always. Love me
+for a little, anyway. Then when you're tired of me you can go, but don't
+go now."
+
+I was dazed, but she went on.
+
+"What does the ceremony matter? We love each other. Isn't that the real
+marriage? It's more; it's an ideal. We'll both be free to go if we wish.
+There will be no bonds but those of love. Is not that beautiful, two
+people cleaving together for love's sake, living for each other,
+sacrificing for each other, yet with no man-made law to tell them: 'This
+must ye do'? Oh, stay, stay!"
+
+Her arms were round my neck. The grey eyes were full of pleading. The
+sweet lips had the old, pathetic droop. I yielded to the empery of love.
+
+"Well," I said, "we will go on awhile, on one condition--that by-and-bye
+you marry me."
+
+"Yes, I will, I will; I promise. If you don't tire of me; if you are
+sure beyond all doubt you will never regret it, then I will marry you
+with the greatest joy in the world."
+
+So it came about that I stayed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+In this infernal irony of an existence why do the good things of life
+always come when we no longer have the same appetite to enjoy them? The
+year following, in which Berna and I kept house, was not altogether a
+happy one. Somehow we had both just missed something. We had suffered
+too much to recover our poise very easily. We were sick, not in body,
+but in mind. The thought of her terrible experience haunted her. She was
+as sensitive as the petal of a delicate flower, and often would I see
+her lips quiver and a look of pain come into her eyes. Then I knew of
+what she was thinking. I knew, and I, too, suffered.
+
+I tried to make her forget, yet I could not succeed; and even in my most
+happy moments there was always a shadow, the shadow of Locasto; there
+was always a fear, the fear of his return. Yes, it seemed at times as if
+we were two unfortunates, as if our happiness had come too late, as if
+our lives were irretrievably shipwrecked.
+
+Locasto! where was he? For near a year had he been gone, somewhere in
+that wild country at the Back of Beyond. Somewhere amid the wilder peaks
+and valleys of the Rockies he fought his desperate battle with the Wild.
+There had been sinister rumours of two lone prospectors who had perished
+up in that savage country, of two bodies that lay rotting and half
+buried by a landslide. I had a sudden, wild hope that one of them might
+be my enemy; for I hated him and I would have joyed at his death. When I
+loved Berna most exquisitely, when I gazed with tender joy upon her
+sweetness, when, with glad, thankful eyes, I blessed her for the
+sympathy and sunshine of her presence, then between us would come a
+shadow, dark, menacing and mordant. So the joy-light would vanish from
+my eyes and a great sadness fall upon me.
+
+What would I do if he returned? I wondered. Perhaps if he left us alone
+I might let by-gones be by-gones; but if he ever came near her
+again--well, I oiled the chambers of my Colt and heard its joyous click
+as it revolved. "That's for him," I said, "that's for him, if by look,
+by word, or by act he ever molests her again." And I meant it, too.
+Suffering had hardened me, made me dangerous. I would have killed him.
+
+Then, as the months went past and the suspicion of his fate deepened
+almost to a certainty, I began to breathe more freely. I noticed, too, a
+world of difference in Berna. She grew light-hearted. She sang and
+laughed a good deal. The sunshine came back to her eyes, and the shadow
+seldom lingered there. Sometimes the thought that we were not legally
+married troubled me, but on all sides were men living with their
+Klondike wives, either openly or secretly, and where this domestic
+ménage was conducted in quietness there was little comment on it. We
+lived to ourselves, and for ourselves. We left our neighbours alone. We
+made few friends, and in the ferment of social life we were almost
+unnoticed.
+
+Of course, the Prodigal expostulated with me in severe terms. I did not
+attempt to argue with him. He would not have understood my point of
+view. There are heights and depths in life to which he with his
+practical mind could never attain. Yet he became very fond of Berna, and
+often visited us.
+
+"Why don't you go and get churched decently, if you love her?" he
+demanded.
+
+"So I will," I answered calmly; "give me a little time. Wait till we get
+more settled."
+
+And, indeed, we were up to our necks in business these days. Our Gold
+Hill property had turned out well. We had a gang of men employed there,
+and I made frequent trips out to Bonanza. We had given the Halfbreed a
+small interest, and installed him as manager. The Jam-wagon, too, we had
+employed as a sort of assistant foreman. Jim was busy installing his
+hydraulic plant on Ophir Creek, and altogether we had enough to think
+about. I had set my heart on making a hundred thousand dollars, and as
+things were looking it seemed as if two more years would bring me to
+that mark.
+
+"Then," said I to Berna, "we'll go and travel all over the world, and do
+it in style."
+
+"Will we, dear?" she answered tenderly. "But I don't want money much
+now, and I don't know that I care so much about travel either. What I
+would like would be to go to your home, and settle down and live
+quietly. What I want is a nice flower garden, and a pony to drive into
+town, and a home to fuss about. I would embroider, and read, and play a
+little, and cook things, and--just be with you."
+
+She was greatly interested in my description of Glengyle. She never
+tired of questioning me about it. Particularly was she interested in my
+accounts of Garry, and rather scoffed at my enthusiastic description of
+him.
+
+"Oh, that wonderful brother of yours! One would think he was a small
+god, to hear you talk. I declare I'm half afraid of him. Do you think he
+would like me?"
+
+"He would love you, little girl; any one would."
+
+"Don't be foolish," she chided me. And then she drew my head down and
+kissed me.
+
+I think we had the prettiest little cabin in all Dawson. The big logs
+were peeled smooth, and the ends squarely cut. The chinks were filled in
+with mortar. The whole was painted a deep rich crimson. The roof was
+covered with sheet-iron, and it, too, was painted crimson. There was a
+deep porch to it. It was the snuggest, neatest little home in the world.
+
+Windows hung with dainty lace curtains peeped through its clustering
+greenery of vines, but the glory of it all was the flower garden. There
+was a bewildering variety of flowers, but mostly I remember stocks and
+pinks, Iceland poppies, marguerites, asters, marigolds, verbenas,
+hollyhocks, pansies and petunias, growing in glorious profusion. Even
+the roughest miner would stand and stare at them as he tramped past on
+the board sidewalk.
+
+They were a mosaic of glowing colour, yet the crowning triumph was the
+poppies and sweet peas. Set in the centre of the lawn was a circle that
+was a leaping glow of poppies. Of every shade were they, from starry
+pink to luminous gold, from snowy white to passionate crimson. Like
+vari-coloured lamps they swung, and wakened you to wonder and joy with
+the exultant challenge of their beauty. And the sweet peas! All up the
+south side of the cabin they grew, overtopping the eaves in their
+riotous perfection. They rivalled the poppies in the radiant confusion
+of their colour, and they were so lavish of blossom we could not pick
+them fast enough. I think ours was the pioneer garden of the gold-born
+city, and awakened many to the growth-giving magic of the long, long
+day.
+
+And it was the joy and pride of Berna's heart. I would sit on the porch
+of a summer's evening when down the mighty Yukon a sunset of vast and
+violent beauty flamed and languished, and I would watch her as she
+worked among her flowers. I can see her flitting figure in a dress of
+dainty white as she hovered over a beautiful blossom. I can hear her
+calling me, her voice like the music of a flute, calling me to come and
+see some triumph of her skill. I have a picture of her coming towards me
+with her arms full of flowers, burying her face lovingly among the
+velvet petals, and raising it again, the sweetest flower of all. How
+radiantly outshone her eyes, and her face, delicate as a cameo, seemed
+to have stolen the fairest tints of the lily and the rose.
+
+Starry vines screened the porch, and everywhere were swinging baskets of
+silver birch, brimming over with the delicate green of smilax or clouded
+in an amethystine mist of lobelias. I can still see the little
+sitting-room with its piano, its plenitude of cushions, its book-rack,
+its Indian corner, its tasteful paper, its pictures, and always and
+everywhere flowers, flowers. The air was heavy with the fragrance of
+them. They glorified the crudest corner, and made our home like a nook
+in fairyland.
+
+I remember one night as I sat reading she came to me. Never did I see
+her look so happy. She was almost childlike in her joy. She sat down by
+my chair and looked up at me. Then she put her arms around me.
+
+"Oh, I'm so happy," she said with a sigh.
+
+"Are you, dearest?" I caressed the soft floss of her hair.
+
+"Yes, I just wish we could live like this forever;" and she nestled up
+to me ever so fondly.
+
+Aye, she was happy, and I will always bless the memory of those days,
+and thank God I was the means of bringing a little gladness into her
+marred life. She was happy, and yet we were living in what society would
+call sin. Conventionally we were not man and wife, yet never were man
+and wife more devoted, more self-respecting. Never were man and wife
+endowed with purer ideals, with a more exalted conception of the
+sanctity of love. Yet there were many in the town not half so delicate,
+so refined, so spiritual, who would have passed my little lady like a
+pariah. But what cared we?
+
+And perhaps it was the very greatness of my love for her that sometimes
+made me fear; so that often in the ecstasy of a moment I would catch my
+breath and wonder if it all could last. And when the poplars turned to
+gold, and up the valley stole a shuddering breath of desolation, my fear
+grew apace. The sky was all resplendent with the winter stars, and keen
+and hard their facets sparkled. And I knew that somewhere underneath
+those stars there slept Locasto. But was it the sleep of the living or
+of the dead? Would he return?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Two men were crawling over the winter-locked plain. In the aching circle
+of its immensity they were like little black ants. One, the leader, was
+of great bulk and of a vast strength; while the other was small and
+wiry, of the breed that clings like a louse to life while better men
+perish.
+
+On all sides of the frozen lake over which they were travelling were
+hills covered with harsh pine, that pricked funereally up to the
+boulder-broken snows. Above that was a stormy and fantastic sea of
+mountains baring many a fierce peak-fang to the hollow heavens. The sky
+was a waxen grey, cold as a corpse-light. The snow was an immaculate
+shroud, unmarked by track of bird or beast. Death-sealed the land lay in
+its silent vastitude, in its despairful desolation.
+
+The small man was breaking trail. Down almost to his knees in the soft
+snow, he sank at every step; yet ever he dragged a foot painfully
+upward, and made another forward plunge. The snowshoe thong, jagged with
+ice, chafed him cruelly. The muscles of his legs ached as insistently as
+if clamped in a vice. He lurched forward with fatigue, so that he seemed
+to be ever stumbling, yet recovering himself.
+
+"Come on there, you darned little shrimp; get a move on you," growled
+the big man from within the frost-fringed hood of his parka.
+
+The little man started as if galvanised into sudden life. His breath
+steamed and almost hissed as it struck the icy air. At each raw intake
+of it his chest heaved. He beat his mittened hands on his breast to keep
+them from freezing. Under the hood of his parka great icicles had
+formed, hanging to the hairs of his beard, walrus-like, and his eyes,
+thickly wadded with frost, glared out with the furtive fear of a hunted
+beast.
+
+"Curse him, curse him," he whimpered; but once more he lifted those
+leaden snowshoes and staggered on.
+
+The big man lashed fiercely at the dogs, and as they screamed at his
+blows he laughed cruelly. They were straining forward in the harness,
+their bellies almost level with the ground, their muscles standing out
+like whalebone. Great, gaunt brutes they were, with ribs like
+barrel-staves, and hip-bones sharp as stakes. Their woolly coats were
+white with frost, their sly, slit-eyed faces ice-sheathed, their feet
+torn so that they left a bloody track on the snow at every step.
+
+"Mush on there, you curs, or I'll cut you in two," stormed the big man,
+and once again the heavy whip fell on the yelling pack. They were
+pulling for all they were worth, their heads down, their shoulders
+squared. Their breath came pantingly, their tongues gleamed redly, their
+white teeth shone. They were fighting, fighting for life, fighting to
+placate a cruel master in a world where all was cruelty and oppression.
+
+For there in the Winter Wild pity was not even a name. It was the
+struggle for life, desperate and never-ending. The Wild abhorred life,
+abhorred most of all these atoms of heat and hurry in the midst of her
+triumphant stillness. The Wild would crush those defiant pigmies that
+disputed the majesty of her invincible calm.
+
+A dog was hanging back in the harness. It whined; then as the husky
+following snapped at it savagely, it gave a lurch and fell. The big man
+shot forward with a sudden fury in his eyes. Swinging the heavy-thonged
+whip, again and again he brought it down on the writhing brute. Then he
+twisted the thong around his hand and belaboured its hollow ribs with
+the butt. It screamed for a while, but soon it ceased to scream; it only
+moaned a little. With glistening fangs and ears up-pricked the other
+dogs looked at their fallen comrade. They longed to leap on it, to rend
+its gaunt limbs apart, to tear its quivering flesh; but there was the
+big man with his murderous whip, and they cowered before him.
+
+The big man kicked the fallen dog repeatedly. The little man paused in
+his painful progress to look on apathetically.
+
+"You'll stave in its ribs," he remarked presently; "and then we'll never
+make timber by nightfall."
+
+The big man had failed in his efforts to rouse the dog. There in that
+lancinating cold, in an ecstasy of rage, despairfully he poised over it.
+
+"Who told you to put in your lip?" he snarled. "Who's running this
+show, you or I? I'll stave in its ribs if I choose, and I'll hitch you
+to the sled and make you pull your guts out, too."
+
+The little man said no more. Then, the dog still refusing to rise, the
+big man leapt over the harness and came down on the animal with both
+feet. There was a scream of pitiful agony, and the snap of breaking
+bones. But the big man slipped and fell. Down he came, and like a flash
+the whole pack piled onto him.
+
+For a moment there was a confused muddle of dogs and master. This was
+the time for which they had waited, these savage semi-wolves. This man
+had beaten them, had starved them, had been a devil to them, and now he
+was down and at their mercy. Ferociously they sprang on him, and their
+white fangs snapped like traps in his face. They fought to get at his
+throat. They tore at his parka. Oh, if they could only make their teeth
+meet in his warm flesh! But no; they were all tangled up in the harness,
+and the man was fighting like a giant. He had the leader by the throat
+and was using her as a shield against the others. His right hand swung
+the whip with flail-like blows. Foiled and confused the dogs fell to
+fighting among themselves, and triumphantly the man leapt to his feet.
+
+He was like a fiend now. Fiercely he raged among the snarling pack,
+kicking, clubbing, cursing, till one and all he had them beaten into
+cowering subjection.
+
+He was still panting from his struggle. His face was deathly pale, and
+his eyes were glittering. He strode up to the little man, who had
+watched the performance stolidly.
+
+"Why didn't you help me, you dirty little whelp?" he hissed. "You wanted
+to see them chew me up; you know you did. You'd like to have them rip me
+to ribbons. You wouldn't move a finger to save me. Oh, I know, I know.
+I've had enough of you this trip to last me a lifetime. You've bucked me
+right along. Now, blast your dirty little soul, I hate you, and for the
+rest of the way I'm going to make your life hell. See! Now I'll begin."
+
+The little man was afraid. He seemed to grow smaller, while over him
+towered the other, dark, fierce and malignant. The little man was
+desperate. Defensively he crouched, yet the next instant he was
+overthrown. Then, as he lay sprawling in the snow, the big man fell to
+lashing him with the whip. Time after time he struck, till the screams
+of his victim became one long, drawn-out wail of agony. Then he
+desisted. Jerking the other on his feet once more, he bade him go on
+breaking trail.
+
+Again they struggled on. The light was beginning to fail, and there was
+no thought in their minds but to reach that dark belt of timber before
+darkness came. There was no sound but the crunch of their snowshoes, the
+panting of the dogs, the rasping of the sleigh. When they paused the
+silence seemed to fall on them like a blanket. There was something awful
+in the quality of this deathly silence. It was as if something material,
+something tangible, hovered over them, closed in on them, choked them,
+throttled them. It was almost like a Presence.
+
+Weary and worn were men and dogs as they struggled onwards in the
+growing gloom, but because of the feeling in his heart the little man no
+longer was conscious of bodily pain. It was black murder that raged
+there.
+
+With straining sinews and bones that cracked, the dogs bent to a heavy
+pull, while at the least sign of shirking down swished the relentless
+whip. And the big man, as if proud of his strength, gazed insolently
+round on the Wild. He was at home in this land, this stark wolf-land, so
+callous, so cruel. Was he not cruel, too? Surely this land cowered
+before him. Its hardships could not daunt him, nor its terrors dismay.
+As he urged on his bloody-footed dogs, he exulted greatly. Of all Men of
+the High North was he not king?
+
+At last they reached the forest fringe, and after a few harsh directions
+he had the little man making camp. The little man worked with a strange
+willingness. All his taciturnity had gone. As he gathered the firewood
+and filled the Yukon stove, he hummed a merry air. He had the water
+boiling and soon there was the fragrance of tea in the little tent. He
+produced sourdough bread (which he fried in bacon fat), and some dried
+moose-meat.
+
+To men of the trail this was a treat. They ate ravenously, but they did
+not speak. Yet the little man was oddly cheerful. Time and again the big
+man looked at him suspiciously. Outside it was a steely night, with an
+icicle of a moon. The cold leapt on one savagely. To step from the tent
+was like plunging into icy water, yet within those canvas walls the men
+were warm and snug. The stove crackled its cheer. A grease-light
+sputtered, and by its rays the little man was mending his ice-stiffened
+moccasins. He hummed an Irish air, and he seemed to be tickled with some
+thought he had.
+
+"Stop that tune," growled the other. "If you don't know anything else,
+cut it out. I'm sick of it."
+
+The little man shut up meekly. Again there was silence, broken by a
+whining and a scratching outside. It was the five dogs crying for their
+supper, crying for the frozen fish they had earned so well. They
+wondered why it was not forthcoming. When they received it they would
+lie on it, to warm it with the heat of their bodies, and then gnaw off
+the thawed portions. They were very wise, these dogs. But to-night there
+was no fish, and they whined for it.
+
+"Dog feed all gone?"
+
+"Yep," said the small man.
+
+"Hell! I'll silence these brutes anyway."
+
+He went to the door and laid onto them so that they slunk away into the
+shadows. But they did not bury themselves in the snow and sleep. They
+continued to prowl round the tent, hunger-mad and desperate.
+
+"We've only got enough grub left for ourselves now," said the big man;
+"and none too much at that. I guess I'll put you on half-rations."
+
+He laughed as if it was the hugest joke. Then rolling himself in a
+robe, he lay down and slept.
+
+The little man did not sleep. He was still turning over the thought that
+had come to him. Outside in the atrocious cold the whining malamutes
+crept nearer and nearer. Savage were they, Indian raised and sired by a
+wolf. And now, in the agonies of hunger, they cried for fish, and there
+was none for them, only kicks and curses. Oh, it was a world of ghastly
+cruelty! They howled their woes to the weary moon.
+
+"Short rations, indeed," mumbled the little man. He crawled into his
+sleeping bag, but he did not close his eyes. He was watching.
+
+About dawn he rose. An evil dawn it was, sallow, sinister and askew.
+
+The little man selected the heavy-handled whip for the job. Carefully he
+felt its butt, then he struck. It was a shrewd blow and a neatly
+delivered, for the little man had been in the business before. It fell
+on the big man's head, and he crumpled up. Then the little man took some
+rawhide thongs and trussed up his victim. There lay the big man, bound
+and helpless, with a clotted blood-hole in his black hair.
+
+Then the little man gathered up the rest of the provisions. He looked
+around carefully, as if fearful of leaving anything behind. He made a
+pack of the food and lashed it on his back. Now he was ready to start.
+He knew that within fifty miles, travelling to the south, he would
+strike a settlement. He was safe.
+
+He turned to where lay the unconscious body of his partner. Again and
+again he kicked it; he cursed it; he spat on it. Then, after a final
+look of gloating hate, he went off and left the big man to his fate.
+
+At last, at long last, the Worm had turned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+The dogs! The dogs were closing in. Nearer and nearer they drew, headed
+by a fierce Mackenzie River bitch. They wondered why their master did
+not wake; they wondered why the little tent was so still; why no plume
+of smoke rose from the slim stovepipe. All was oddly quiet and lifeless.
+No curses greeted them; no whiplash cut into them; no strong arm jerked
+them over the harness. Perhaps it was a primordial instinct that drew
+them on, that made them strangely bold. Perhaps it was only the despair
+of their hunger, the ache of empty bellies. Closer and closer they crept
+to the silent tent.
+
+Locasto opened his eyes. Within a foot of his face were the fangs of a
+malamute. At his slight movement it drew back with a snarl, and
+retreated to the door. Locasto could see the other dogs crouching and
+eyeing him fixedly. What could be the matter? What had gotten into the
+brutes? Where was the Worm? Where were the provisions? Why was the tent
+flap open and the stove stone-cold? Then with a dawning comprehension
+that he had been deserted, Locasto uttered a curse and tried to rise.
+
+At first he thought he was stiff with cold, but a downward glance showed
+him his condition. He was helpless. He grew sick at the pit of his
+stomach, and glared at the dogs. They were drawing in on him. They
+seemed to bulk suddenly, to grow huge and menacing. Their gleaming teeth
+snapped in his face. He could fancy these teeth stripping the flesh from
+his body, gnawing at his bones with drooling jaws. Violently he
+shuddered. He must try to free himself, so that at least he could fight.
+
+Grimly the Worm had done his work, but he had hardly reckoned on the
+strength of this man. With a vast throe of fear Locasto tried to free
+himself. Tenser, tenser grew the thongs; they strained, they bit into
+his flesh, but they would not break. Yet as he relaxed it seemed to him
+they were less tight. Then he rested for another effort.
+
+Once again the gaunt, grey bitch was crawling up. He remembered how
+often he had starved it, clubbed it until it could barely stand. Now it
+was going to get even. It would snap at his throat, rip out his
+windpipe, bury its fangs in his bleeding flesh. He cursed it in the old
+way. With a spring it backed out again and stood with the others. He
+made another giant effort. Once again he felt the thongs strain and
+strain; then, when he ceased, he imagined they were still looser.
+
+The dogs seemed to have lost all fear. They stood in a circle within a
+few feet of him, regarding him intently. They smelled the blood on his
+head, and a slaver ran from their jaws. Again he cursed them, but this
+time they did not move. They seemed to realise he could not harm them.
+With their evilly-slanted eyes they watched his struggles. Strange,
+wise, uncanny brutes, they were biding their time, waiting to rush in on
+him, to rend him.
+
+Again he tried to get free. Now he fancied he could move his arm a
+little. He must hurry, for every instant the malamutes were growing
+bolder. Another strain and a wrench. Ha! he was able to squeeze his
+right arm from under the rawhide.
+
+He felt the foul breath of the dogs on his face, and quickly he struck
+at them. They jumped back, then, as if at a signal, they sprang in
+again. There was no time to lose. They were attacking him in earnest.
+Quickly he wrenched out his other arm. He was just in time, for the dogs
+were upon him.
+
+He struggled to his knees and shielded his head with his arms. Wildly he
+swung at the nearest dog. Full on the face he struck it, and it shot
+back as if hit by a bullet. But the others were on him. They had him
+down, snarling and ripping, a mad ferment of fury. Two of them were
+making for his face. As he lay on his back he gripped each by the
+throat. His hands were torn and bleeding, but he had them fast. In his
+grip of steel they struggled to free themselves in vain. They backed,
+they writhed, they twisted in a bow. With his huge hands he was choking
+them, choking them to death, using them as a shield against the other
+three. Then slowly he worked himself into a sitting position. He hurled
+one of the dogs to the tent door. He swung bludgeon blows at the others.
+They fled yelping and howling. He still held the Mackenzie River bitch.
+Getting his knee on her body, he bent her almost into a circle, bent
+her till her back broke with a snap.
+
+Then he rose and freed himself from the remaining thongs. He was torn
+and cut and bleeding, but he had triumphed.
+
+"Oh, the devil!" he growled, grinding his teeth. "He would have me
+chewed to rags by malamutes."
+
+He stared around.
+
+"He's taken everything, the scum! left me to starve. Ha! one thing he's
+forgotten--the matches. At least I can keep warm."
+
+He picked up the canister of matches and relit the stove.
+
+"I'll kill him for this," he muttered. "Night and day I'll follow him.
+I'll camp on his trail till I find him. Then--I'll torture him; I'll
+strip him and leave him naked in the snow."
+
+He slipped into his snowshoes, gave a last look around to see that no
+food had been left, and with a final growl of fury he started in
+pursuit.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ahead of him, ploughing their way through the virgin snow, he could see
+the dragging track of the long snowshoes. He examined it, and noted that
+it was sharp and crisp at the edges.
+
+"He's got a good five hours' start of me! Travelling fast, too, by the
+length of the track."
+
+He had a thought of capturing the dogs and hitching them up; but,
+thoroughly terrified, they had retreated into the woods. To overtake
+this man, to glut his lust for revenge, he must depend on his own
+strength and endurance.
+
+"Now, Jack Locasto," he told himself grimly, "you've got a fight on your
+hands, such a fight as you never had before. Get right down to it."
+
+So, with head bowed and shoulders sloping forward, he darted on the
+track of the Worm.
+
+"He's got to break trail, the viper! and that's where I score. I can
+make twice the time. Oh, just wait, you little devil! just wait!"
+
+He ground his teeth vindictively, and put an inch more onto his stride.
+He was descending a long, open valley that seemed from its trackless
+snows to have been immemorially life-shunned and accursed. Black,
+witch-like pines sentinelled its flanks, and accentuated its desolation.
+And over all there was the silence of the Wild, that double-strong
+solution of silence from which all other silences are distilled, and
+spread out. Yet, as he gazed around him in this everlasting solitude,
+there was no fear in his heart.
+
+"I can fight this accursed land and beat it out every time," he exulted.
+"It can't get any the better of me."
+
+It was cold, so cold that it was difficult to imagine it could ever be
+warm again. To expose flesh was to feel instantly the sharp sting that
+heralds frostbite. As he ran, the sharp intake of icy air made his lungs
+seem to contract. His eyes smarted and tingled. The lashes froze
+closely. Ice formed in his nostrils and his nose began to bleed. He
+pulled up a moment.
+
+"Curse this infernal country!"
+
+He had not eaten and the icy air begot a ravenous hunger. He dreamed of
+food, but chiefly of bacon, fat, greasy bacon. How glorious it would be
+just to eat of it, raw, tallow bacon! He had nothing to eat. He would
+have nothing till he had overtaken the Worm. On! On!
+
+He came to where the Worm had made a camp. There were the ashes of a
+fire.
+
+"Curse him; he's got some matches after all," he said with bitter
+chagrin. Eagerly he searched all around in the snow to see if he could
+not find even a crumb of food. There was nothing. He pushed on. Night
+fell and he was forced to make camp.
+
+Oh, he was hungry! The night was vastly resplendent, a spendthrift night
+scattering everywhere its largess of stars. The cold had a crystalline
+quality and the trees detonated strangely in the silence. He built a
+huge fire: that at least he could have, and through eighteen hours of
+darkness he crouched by it, afraid to sleep for fear of freezing.
+
+"If I only had a tin to boil water in," he muttered; "there's lots of
+reindeer moss, and I could stew some of my mucklucks. Ah! I'll try and
+roast a bit of them."
+
+He cut a strip from the Indian boots he was wearing, and held it over
+the fire. The hair singed away and the corners crisped and charred. He
+put it in his mouth. It was pleasantly warm, but even his strong teeth
+refused to meet in it. However, he tore it into smaller pieces, and
+bolted them.
+
+At last the dawn came, that evil, sneaking, corpse-like dawn, and
+Locasto flung himself once more on the trail. He was not feeling so fit
+now. Hunger and loss of blood had weakened him so that his stride
+insensibly shortened, and his step had lost its spring. However, he
+plodded on doggedly, an incarnation of vengeance and hate. Again he
+examined the snowshoe trail ever stretching in front, and noticed how
+crisped and hard was its edge. He was not making the time he had
+reckoned on. The Worm must be a long way ahead.
+
+Still he did not despair. The little man might rest a day, or oversleep,
+or strain a sinew, then-- Locasto pictured with gloating joy the
+terror of the Worm as he awoke to find himself overtaken. Oh, the snake!
+the vermin! On! On!
+
+Beyond a doubt he was growing weaker. Once or twice he stumbled, and the
+last time he lay a few moments before rising. He wanted to rest badly.
+The cold was keener than ever; it was merciless; it was excruciating. He
+no longer had the vitality to withstand it. It stabbed and stung him
+whenever he exposed bare flesh. He pulled the parka hood very close, so
+that only his eyes peered out. So he moved through the desolation of the
+Arctic Wild, a dark, muffled figure, a demon of vengeance, fierce and
+menacing.
+
+He stood on a vast, still plateau. The sky was like a great grotto of
+ice. The land lay in a wan apathy of suffering, dumb, hopeless, drear.
+Icy land and icy sky met in a trap, a trap that held him fast; and over
+all, vast, titanic, terrible, the Spirit of the Wild seemed to brood. It
+laughed at him, a laugh of derision, of mockery, of callous gloating
+triumph. Locasto shuddered. Then night came and he built another giant
+fire.
+
+Again he bolted down some roasted muckluck. Overhead the stars glittered
+vindictively. They were green and blue and red, and they had spiny rays
+like starfish on which they danced. This night he had to make tremendous
+efforts to keep from sleeping. Several times he drowsed forward, and
+almost fell into the fire. As he crouched there his beard was singeing
+and his face scorched, but his back seemed as if it was cased in ice.
+Often he would turn and warm it at the fire, but not for long. He hated
+to face the terror of the silence and the dark, the shadow where waited
+Death. Better the crackling cheer of the spruce flame.
+
+At dawn the sky was leaden and the cold less despotic. Stretching
+interminably ahead was that lonely snowshoe trail. Locasto was puzzled.
+
+"Where in creation is the little devil going to, anyway?" he said,
+knitting his brows. "I figured he'd make direct for Dawson, but he's
+either changed his mind or got a wrong steer. By Heavens, that's it--the
+little varmint's lost his way."
+
+Locasto had an Indian's unerring sense of location.
+
+"I guess I can't afford to follow him any more," he reflected. "I've
+gone too far already. I'm all petered out. I'll have to let him go in
+the meantime. It's save yourself, Jack Locasto, while there's yet time.
+Me for Dawson."
+
+He struck off almost at right angles to the trail he had been following,
+over a low range of hills. It was evil going, and as he broke through
+the snow-crust mile after wearing mile, he felt himself grow weaker and
+weaker. "Buck up, old man," he adjured himself fiercely. "You've got to
+fight, fight."
+
+There was a strange stillness in the air, not the natural stillness of
+the Wild, but an unhealthy one, as of a suspension of something, of a
+vacuum, of bated breath. It was curiously full of terror. More and more
+he felt like a trapped animal, caught in a vast cage. The sky to the
+north was glooming ominously. Every second the horizon grew blacker,
+more bodeful, and Locasto stared at it, with a sudden quake at his
+heart.
+
+"Blizzard, by thunder!" he gasped.
+
+Was that a breath of wind that stung his cheek? Was it a snowflake that
+drifted along with it? Denser and denser grew the gloom, and now there
+was a roaring as of a great wind. King Blizzard was come.
+
+"I guess I'm done for," he hissed through clenched teeth. "But I'll
+fight to the finish. I'll die game."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+It was on him now with a swoop and a roar. He was in the thick of a
+mud-grey darkness, a bitter, blank darkness full of whirling wind-eddies
+and vast flurries of snow. He could not see more than a few feet before
+him. The stinging flakes blinded him; the coal-black night engulfed him.
+In that seething turmoil of the elements he was as helpless as a child.
+
+"I guess you're on your last trail, Jack Locasto," he muttered grimly.
+
+Nevertheless he lowered his head and butted desperately into the heart
+of the storm. He was very faint from lack of food, but despair had given
+him a new strength, and he plunged through drift and flurry with the
+fury of a goaded bull.
+
+The night had fallen black as the pit. He was in an immensity of
+darkness, a darkness that packed close up to him, and hugged him, and
+enfolded him like a blanket. And in the black void winds were raging
+with an insane fury, whirling aloft mountains of snow and hurling them
+along plain and valley. The forests shrieked in fear; the creatures of
+the Wild cowered in their lairs, but the solitary man stumbled on and
+on. As if by magic barriers of snow piled up before him, and almost to
+his shoulders he floundered through them. The wind had a hatchet edge
+that pierced his clothes and hacked him viciously. He knew his only
+plan was to keep moving, to stumble, stagger on. It was a fight for
+life.
+
+He had forgotten his hunger. Those wild visions of gluttony had gone
+from him. He had forgotten his thirst for revenge, forgotten everything
+but his own dire peril.
+
+"Keep moving, keep moving for God's sake," he urged himself hoarsely.
+"You'll freeze if you let up a moment. Don't let up, don't!"
+
+But oh, how hard it was not to rest! Every muscle in his body seemed to
+beg and pray for rest, yet the spirit in him drove them to work anew. He
+was making a certain mad headway, travelling, always travelling. He
+doubted not he was doomed, but instinct made him fight on as long as an
+atom of strength remained.
+
+He floundered to his armpits in a snowdrift. He struggled out and
+staggered on once more. In the mad buffoonery of that cutting wind he
+scarce could stand upright. His parka was frozen stiff as a board. He
+could feel his hands grow numb in his mits. From his fingers the icy
+cold crept up and up. Long since he had lost all sensation in his feet.
+From the ankles down they were like wooden clogs. He had an idea they
+were frozen. He lifted them, and watched them sink and disappear in the
+clinging snow. He beat his numb hands against his breast. It was of no
+use--he could not get back the feeling in them. A craving to lie down in
+the snow assailed him.
+
+Life was so sweet. He had visions of cities, of banquets, of theatres,
+of glittering triumphs, of glorious excitements, of women he had loved,
+conquered and thrown aside. Never again would he see that world. He
+would die here, and they would find him rigid and brittle, frozen so
+hard they would have to thaw him out before they buried him. He fancied
+he saw himself frozen in a grotesque position. There would be
+ice-crystals in the very centre of his heart, that heart that had glowed
+so fiercely with the lust of life. Yes, life was sweet. A vast self-pity
+surged over him. Well, he had done his best; he could struggle no more.
+
+But struggle he did, another hour, two hours, three hours. Where was he
+going? Maybe round in a circle. He was like an automaton now. He did not
+think any more, he just kept moving. His feet clumped up and down. He
+lifted himself out of snowpits; he staggered a few steps, fell, crawled
+on all fours in the darkness, then in a lull of the furious wind rose
+once more to his feet. The night was abysmal; closer and closer it
+hugged him. The wind was charging him from all points, baffling him like
+a merry monster, beating him down. The snow whirled around him in a
+narrow eddy, and he tried to grope out of it and failed. Oh, he was
+tired, tired!
+
+He must give up. It was too bad. He was so strong, and capable of so
+much for good or bad. Alas! it had been all for bad. Oh, if he had but
+another chance he might make his life tell a different tale! Well, he
+wasn't going to whine or cower. He would die game.
+
+His feet were frozen; his arms were frozen. Here he would lie down
+and--quit. It would soon be over, and it was a pleasant death, they
+said. One more look he gave through the writhing horror of the darkness;
+one more look before he closed his eyes to the horror of the Greater
+Darkness....
+
+Ha! what was that? He fancied he saw a dim glow just ahead. It could not
+be. It was one of those cheating dreams that came to a dying man, an
+illusion, a mockery. He closed his eyes. Then he opened them again--the
+glow was still there.
+
+Surely it must be real! It was steady. As he fell forward it seemed to
+grow more bright. On hands and knees he crawled to it. Brighter and
+brighter it grew. It was but a few feet away. Oh, God! could it be?
+
+Then there was a lull in the storm, and with a final plunge Locasto fell
+forward, fell towards a lamp lighted in a window, fell against the
+closed door of a little cabin.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Worm suffered acutely from the intense cold. He cursed it in his
+prolific and exhaustive way. He cursed the leaden weight of his
+snowshoes, and the thongs that chafed his feet. He cursed the pack he
+carried on his back, which momently grew heavier. He cursed the country;
+then, after a general debauch of obscenity, he decided it was time to
+feed.
+
+He gathered some dry twigs and built a fire on the snow. He hurried, for
+the freezing process was going on in his carcase, and he was afraid. It
+was all ready. Now to light it--the matches.
+
+Where in hell were the matches? Surely he could not have left them at
+the camp. With feverish haste he overturned his pack. No, they were not
+there. Could he have dropped them on the trail? He had a wild idea of
+going back. Then he thought of Locasto lying in the tent. He could never
+face that. But he must have a fire. He was freezing to death--right now.
+Already his fingers were tingling and stiffening.
+
+Huh! maybe he had some matches in his pockets. No--yes, he had--one,
+two, three, four, five, that was all. Five slim sulphur matches, part of
+a block, and jammed in a corner of his waistcoat pocket. Eagerly he lit
+one. The twigs caught. The flame leapt up. Oh it was good! He had a
+fire, a fire.
+
+He made tea, and ate some bread and meat. Then he felt his strength and
+courage return. He had four matches left. Four matches meant four fires.
+That would mean four more days' travel. By that time he would have
+reached the Dawson country.
+
+That night he made a huge blaze, chopping down several trees and setting
+them alight. There, lying in his sleeping-bag, he rested well. In the
+early dawn he was afoot once more.
+
+Was there ever such an atrocious soul-freezing cold! He cursed it with
+every breath he drew. At noon he felt a vast temptation to make another
+fire, but he refrained. Then that night he had bad luck, for one of his
+precious matches proved little more than a sliver tipped with the shadow
+of pink. In spite of his efforts it was abortive, and he was compelled
+to use another. He was down to his last match.
+
+Well, he must travel extra hard. So next day in a panic of fear he
+covered a vast stretch of country. He must be getting near to one of the
+gold creeks. As he surmounted the crest of every ridge he expected to
+see the blue smoke of cabin fires, yet always was there the same empty
+desolation. Then night came and he prepared to camp.
+
+Once more he chopped down some trees and piled them in a heap. He was
+very hungry, very cold, very tired. What a glorious blaze he would soon
+have! How gallantly the flames would leap and soar! He collected some
+dry moss and twigs. Never had he felt the cold so bitter. It was growing
+dusk. Above him the sky had a corpse-like glimmer, and on the snow
+strange bale-fires glinted. It was a weird, sardonic light that waited,
+keeping tryst with darkness.
+
+He shuddered and his fingers trembled. Then ever so carefully he drew
+forth that most precious of things, the last match.
+
+He must hurry; his fingers were tingling, freezing, stiffening fast. He
+would lie down on the snow, and strike it quickly.... "O God!"
+
+From his numb fingers the slim little match had dropped. There it lay on
+the snow. Gingerly he picked it up, with a wild hope that it would be
+all right. He struck it, but it doubled up. Again he struck it: the head
+came off--he was lost.
+
+He fell forward on his face. His hands were numb, dead. He lay supported
+by his elbows, his eyes gazing blankly at the unlit fire. Five minutes
+passed; he did not rise. He seemed dazed, stupid, terror-stricken. Five
+more minutes passed. He did not move. He seemed to stiffen, to grow
+rigid, and the darkness gathered around him.
+
+A thought came to his mind that he would straighten out, so that when
+they found him he would be in good shape to fit in a coffin. He did not
+want them to break his legs and arms. Yes, he would straighten out. He
+tried--but he could not, so he let it go at that.
+
+Over him the Wild seemed to laugh, a laugh of scorn, of mockery, of
+exquisite malice.
+
+And there in fifteen minutes the cold slew him. When they found him he
+lay resting on his elbows and gazing with blank eyes of horror at his
+unlit fire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+"It's a beast of a night," said the Halfbreed.
+
+He and I were paying a visit to Jim in the cabin he had built on Ophir.
+Jim was busy making ready for his hydraulic work of the coming Spring,
+and once in a while we took a run up to see him. I was much worried
+about the old man. He was no longer the cheerful, optimistic Jim of the
+trail. He had taken to living alone. He had become grim and taciturn. He
+cared only for his work, and, while he read his Bible more than ever, it
+was with a growing fondness for the stern old prophets. There was no
+doubt the North was affecting him strangely.
+
+"Lord! don't it blow? Seems as if the wind had a spite against us,
+wanted to put us out of business. It minds me of the blizzards we have
+in the Northwest, only it seems ten times worse."
+
+The Halfbreed went on to tell us of snowstorms he had known, while
+huddled round the stove we listened to the monstrous uproar of the gale.
+
+"Why don't you chink your cabin better, Jim?" I asked; "the snow's
+sifting through in spots."
+
+He shoved more wood into the stove, till it glowed to a dull red,
+starred with little sparks that came and went.
+
+"Snow with that wind would sift through a concrete wall," he said. "It's
+part an' parcel of the awful land. I tell you there's a curse on this
+country. Long, long ago godless people have lived in it, lived an'
+sinned an' perished. An' for its wickedness in the past the Lord has put
+His everlasting curse on it."
+
+Sharply I looked at him. His eyes were staring. His face was drawn into
+a knot of despair. He sat down and fell into a mood of gloomy silence.
+
+How the storm was howling! The Half breed smoked his cigarette stolidly,
+while I listened and shuddered, mightily thankful that I was so safe and
+warm.
+
+"Say, I wonder if there's any one out in this bedlam of a night?"
+
+"If there is, God help him," said the Halfbreed. "He'll last about as
+long as a snowball in hell."
+
+"Yes, fancy wandering round out there, dazed and desperate; fancy the
+wind knocking you down and heaping the snow on you; fancy going on and
+on in the darkness till you freeze stiff. Ugh!"
+
+Again I shuddered. Then, as the other two sat in silence, my mind
+strayed to other things. Chiefly I thought of Berna, all alone in
+Dawson. I longed to be back with her again. I thought of Locasto. Where
+in his wild wanderings had he got to? I thought of Glengyle and Garry.
+How had he fared after Mother died? Why did he not marry? Once a week I
+got a letter from him, full of affection and always urging me to come
+home. In my letters I had never mentioned Berna. There was time enough
+for that.
+
+Lord! a terrific gust of wind shook the cabin. It howled and screamed
+insanely through the heaving night. Then there came a lull, a strange,
+deep lull, deathlike after the mighty blast. And in the sudden quiet it
+seemed to me I heard a hollow cry.
+
+"Hist! What was that?" whispered the Halfbreed.
+
+Jim, too, was listening intently.
+
+"Seems to me I heard a moan."
+
+"Sounded like the cry of an outcast soul. Maybe it's the spirit of some
+poor devil that's lost away out in the night. I hate to open the door
+for nothing. It will make the place like an ice-house."
+
+Once more we listened intently, holding our breath. There it was again,
+a low, faint moan.
+
+"It's some one outside," gasped the Halfbreed. Horror-stricken, we
+stared at each other, then he rushed to the door. A great gust of wind
+came in on us.
+
+"Hurry up, you fellows," he cried; "lend a hand. I think it's a man."
+
+Frantically we pulled it in, an unconscious form that struck a strange
+chill to our hearts. Anxiously we bent over it.
+
+"He's not dead," said the Halfbreed, "only badly frozen, hands and feet
+and face. Don't take him near the fire."
+
+He had been peering inside the parka hood and suddenly he turned to me.
+
+"Well, I'm darned--it's Locasto."
+
+Locasto! I shrank back and stood there staring blankly. Locasto! all
+the old hate resurged into my heart. Many a time had I wished him dead;
+and even dying, never could I have forgiven him. As I would have shrank
+from a reptile, I drew back.
+
+"No, no," I said hoarsely, "I won't touch him. Curse him! Curse him! He
+can die."
+
+"Come on there," said Jim fiercely. "You wouldn't let a man die, would
+you? There's the brand of a dog on you if you do. You'll be little
+better than a murderer. It don't matter what wrong he's done you, it's
+your duty as a man to help him. He's only a human soul, an' he's like to
+die anyway. Come on. Get these mits off his hands."
+
+Mechanically I obeyed him. I was dazed. It was as if I was impelled by a
+stronger will than my own. I began pulling off the mits. The man's hands
+were white as putty. I slit the sleeves and saw that the awful whiteness
+went clear up the arm. It was horrible.
+
+Jim and the Halfbreed had cut open his mucklucks and taken off his
+socks, and there stretched out were two naked limbs, clay-white almost
+to the knees. Never did I see anything so ghastly. Tearing off his
+clothing we laid him on the bed, and forced some brandy between his
+lips.
+
+At last heat was beginning to come back to the frozen frame. He moaned,
+and opened his eyes in a wild gaze. He did not know us. He was still
+fighting the blizzard. He raised himself up.
+
+"Keep a-going, keep a-going," he panted.
+
+"Keep that bucket a-going," said the Halfbreed. "Thank God, we've got
+plenty of ice-water. We've got to thaw him out."
+
+Then for this man began a night of agony, such as few have endured. We
+lifted him onto a chair and put one of those clay-cold feet into the
+water. At the contact he screamed, and I could see ice crystallise on
+the edge of the bucket. I had forgotten my hatred of the man. I only
+thought of those frozen hands and feet, and how to get life into them
+once more. Our struggle began.
+
+"The blood's beginning to circulate back," said the Halfbreed. "I guess
+that water feels scalding hot to him right now. We'll have to hold him
+down presently. Ugh--hold on, boys, for all you're worth."
+
+He had not warned us any too soon. In a terrible spasm of agony Locasto
+threw us off quickly. We grasped him again. Now we were struggling with
+him. He fought like a demon. He was cursing us, praying us to leave him
+alone, raving, shrieking. Grimly we held on, yet, all three, it was as
+much as we could do to keep him down.
+
+"One would think we were murdering him," said the Halfbreed. "Keep his
+foot in the bucket there. I wish we'd some kind of dope to give him.
+There's boiling lead running through his veins right now. Keep him down,
+boys; keep him down."
+
+It was hard, but keep him down we did; though his cries of anguish
+deafened us through that awful night, and our muscles knotted as we
+gripped. Hour after hour we held him, plunging now a hand, now a foot
+in the ice-water, and holding it there. How long he fought! How strong
+he was! But the time came when he could fight no more. He was like a
+child in our hands.
+
+There, at last it was done. We wrapped the tender flesh in pieces of
+blanket. We laid him moaning on the bed. Then, tired out with our long
+struggle, we threw ourselves down and slept like logs.
+
+Next morning he was still unconscious. He suffered intense pain, so that
+Jim or the Halfbreed had to be ever by him. I, for my part, refused to
+go near. Indeed, I watched with a growing hatred his slow recovery. I
+was sorry, sorry. I wished he had died.
+
+At last he opened his eyes, and feebly he asked where he was. After the
+Halfbreed had told him, he lay silent awhile.
+
+"I've had a close call," he groaned. Then he went on triumphantly: "I
+guess the Wild hasn't got the bulge on me yet. I can give it another
+round."
+
+He began to pick up rapidly, and there in that narrow cabin I sat within
+a few feet of him, and beheld him grow strong again. I suppose my face
+must have showed my bitter hate, for often I saw him watching me through
+half-closed eyes, as if he realised my feelings. Then a sneering smile
+would curve his lips, a smile of satanic mockery. Again and again I
+thought of Berna. Fear and loathing convulsed me, and at times a great
+rage burned in me so that I was like to kill him.
+
+"Seems to me everything's healing up but that hand," said the
+Halfbreed. "I guess it's too far gone. Gangrene's setting in. Say,
+Locasto, looks like you'll have to lose it."
+
+Locasto had been favouring me with a particularly sardonic look, but at
+these words the sneer was wiped out, and horror crowded into his eyes.
+
+"Lose my hand--don't tell me that! Kill me at once! I don't want to be
+maimed. Lose my hand! Oh, that's terrible! terrible!"
+
+He gazed at the discoloured flesh. Already the stench of him was making
+us sick, but this hand with its putrid tissues was disgusting to a
+degree.
+
+"Yes," said the Halfbreed, "there's the line of the gangrene, and it's
+spreading. Soon mortification will extend all up your arm, then you'll
+die of blood poison. Locasto, better let me take off that hand. I've
+done jobs like that before. I'm a handy man, I am. Come, let me take it
+off."
+
+"Heavens! you're a cold-blooded butcher. You're going to kill me,
+between you all. You're in a plot leagued against me, and that
+long-faced fool over there's at the bottom of it. Damn you, then, go on
+and do what you want."
+
+"You're not very grateful," said the Halfbreed. "All right, lie there
+and rot."
+
+At his words Locasto changed his tune. He became alarmed to the point of
+terror. He knew the hand was doomed. He lay staring at it, staring,
+staring. Then he sighed, and thrust its loathsomeness into our faces.
+
+"Come on," he growled. "Do something for me, you devils, or I'll do it
+myself."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The hour of the operation was at hand. The Halfbreed got his jack-knife
+ready. He had filed the edge till it was like a rough saw. He cut the
+skin of the wrist just above the gangrene line, and raised it up an inch
+or so. It was here Locasto showed wonderful nerve. He took a large bite
+of tobacco and chewed steadily, while his keen black eyes watched every
+move of the knife.
+
+"Hurry up and get the cursed thing off," he snarled.
+
+The Halfbreed nicked the flesh down to the bone, then with the ragged
+jack-knife he began to saw. I could not bear to look. It made me deathly
+sick. I heard the grit, grit of the jagged blade. I will remember the
+sound to my dying day. How long it seemed to take! No man could stand
+such torture. A groan burst from Locasto's lips. He fell back on the
+bed. His jaws no longer worked, and a thin stream of brown saliva
+trickled down his chin. He had fainted.
+
+Quickly the Halfbreed finished his work. The hand dropped on the floor.
+He pulled down the flaps of skin and sewed them together.
+
+"How's that for home-made surgery?" he chuckled. He was vastly proud of
+his achievement. He took the severed hand upon a shovel and, going to
+the door, he threw it far out into the darkness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+"WHY don't you go outside?" I asked of the Jam-wagon.
+
+I had rescued him from one of his periodical plunges into the cesspool
+of debauch, and he was peaked, pallid, penitent. Listlessly he stared at
+me a long moment, the dull, hollow-eyed stare of the recently
+regenerate.
+
+"Well," he said at last, "I think I stay for the same reason many
+another man stays--pride. I feel that the Yukon owes me one of two
+things, a stake or a grave--and she's going to pay."
+
+"Seems to me, the way you're shaping you're more liable to get the
+latter."
+
+"Yes--well, that'll be all right."
+
+"Look here," I remonstrated, "don't be a rotter. You're a man, a
+splendid one. You might do anything, be anything. For Heaven's sake stop
+slipping cogs, and get into the game."
+
+His thin, handsome face hardened bitterly.
+
+"I don't know. Sometimes I think I'm not fit to play the game; sometimes
+I wonder if it's all worth while; sometimes I'm half inclined to end
+it."
+
+"Oh, don't talk nonsense."
+
+"I'm not; I mean it, every word. I don't often speak of myself. It
+doesn't matter who I am, or what I've been. I've gone through a
+lot--more than most men. For years I've been a sort of a human
+derelict, drifting from port to port of the seven seas. I've sprawled in
+their mire; I've eaten of their filth; I've wallowed in their moist,
+barbaric slime. Time and time again I've gone to the mat, but somehow I
+would never take the count. Something's always saved me at the last."
+
+"Your guardian angel."
+
+"Maybe. Somehow I wouldn't be utterly downed. I'm a bit of a fighter,
+and every day's been a battle with me. Oh, you don't know, you can't
+believe how I suffer! Often I pray, and my prayer always is: 'O dear
+God, don't allow me to _think_. Lash me with Thy wrath; heap burdens on
+me, but don't let me _think_.' They say there's a hell hereafter. They
+lie: it's here, now."
+
+I was astonished at his vehemence. His face was wrenched with pain, and
+his eyes full of remorseful misery.
+
+"What about your friends?"
+
+"Oh, them--I died long ago, died in the early '80's. In a little French
+graveyard there's a tombstone that bears my name, my real name, the name
+of the 'me' that was. Heart, soul and body, I died. My sisters mourned
+me, my friends muttered, 'Poor devil.' A few women cried, and a
+girl--well, I mustn't speak of that. It's all over long ago; but I must
+eternally do something, fight, drink, work like the devil--anything but
+think. I mustn't _think_."
+
+"What about your guardian angel?"
+
+"Yes, sometimes I think he's going to give me another chance. This is
+no life for a man like me, slaving in the drift, burning myself up in
+the dissipation of the town. A great, glad fight with a good sweet woman
+to fight for--that would save me. Oh, to get away from it all, get a
+clean start!"
+
+"Well, I believe in you. I'm sure you'll be all right. Let me lend you
+the money."
+
+"Thank you, a thousand thanks; but I cannot take it. There it is
+again--my pride. Maybe I'm all wrong. Maybe I'm a lost soul, and my
+goal's the potter's field. No; thanks! In a day or two I'll be
+fighting-fit again. I wouldn't have bored you with this talk, but I'm
+weak, and my nerve's gone."
+
+"How much money have you got?" I asked.
+
+He pulled a poor piece of silver from his pocket.
+
+"Enough to do me till I join the pick-and-shovel gang."
+
+"What are those tickets in your hand?"
+
+He laughed carelessly.
+
+"Chances in the ice pools. Funny thing, I don't remember buying them.
+Must have been drunk."
+
+"Yes, and you seem to have had a 'hunch.' You've got the same time on
+all three: seven seconds, seven minutes past one, on the ninth--that's
+to-day. It's noon now. That old ice will have to hurry up if you're
+going to win. Fancy, if you did! You'd clean up over three thousand
+dollars. There would be your new start."
+
+"Yes, fancy," he echoed mockingly. "Over five thousand betting, and the
+guesses as close as peas in a pod."
+
+"Well, the ice may go out any moment. It's awful rotten."
+
+With a curious fascination, we gazed down at the mighty river. Around us
+was a glow of spring sunshine, above us the renaissance of blue skies.
+Rags of snow still glimmered on the hills, and the brown earth, as if
+ashamed of its nakedness, was bursting greenly forth. On the slope
+overlooking the Klondike, girls in white dresses were gathering the wild
+crocus. All was warmth, colour, awakening life.
+
+Surely the river ice could not hold much longer. It was patchy, netted
+with cracks, heaved up in ridges, mottled with slushy pools, corroded to
+the bottom. Decidedly it was rotten, rotten. Still it held stubbornly.
+The Klondike hammered it with mighty bergs, black and heavy as a house.
+Down the swift current they sped, crashing, grinding, roaring, to batter
+into the unbroken armour of the Yukon. And along its banks, watching
+even as we watched, were thousands of others. On every lip was the
+question--"The ice--when will it go out?" For to these exiles of the
+North, after eight months of isolation, the sight of open water would be
+like Heaven. It would mean boats, freedom, friendly faces, and a step
+nearer to that "outside" of their dreams.
+
+Towards the centre of the vast mass of ice that belted in the city was a
+post, and on this lonely post thousands of eyes were constantly turning.
+For an electric wire connected it with the town, so that when it moved
+down a certain distance a clock would register the exact moment. Thus,
+thousands gazing at that solitary post thought of the bets they had
+made, and wondered if this year they would be the lucky ones. It is a
+unique incident in Dawson life, this gambling on the ice. There are
+dozens of pools, large and small, and both men and women take part in
+the betting, with an eagerness and excitement that is almost childish.
+
+I sat on a bench on the N. C. trail overlooking the town, and watched
+the Jam-wagon crawl down the hill to his cabin. Poor fellow! How drawn
+and white was his face, and his long, clean frame--how gaunt and weary!
+I felt sorry for him. What would become of him? He was a splendid
+"misfit." If he only had another chance! Somehow I believed in him, and
+fervently I hoped he would have that good clean start again.
+
+Up in the cold remoteness of the North are many of his kind--the black
+sheep, the undesirables, the discards of the pack. Their lips are
+sealed; their eyes are cold as glaciers, and often they drink deep. Oh,
+they are a mighty company, the men you don't enquire about; but it is
+the code of the North to take them as you find them, so they go their
+way unregarded.
+
+How clear the air was! It was like looking through a crystal lens--every
+leaf seemed to stand out vividly. Sounds came up to me with marvellous
+distinctness. Summer was coming, and with it the assurance of a new
+peace. Down there I could see our home, and on its veranda,
+hammock-swung, the white figure of Berna. How precious she was to me!
+How anxiously I watched over her! A look, a word meant more to me than
+volumes. If she was happy I was full of joy; if she was sad the sunshine
+paled, the flowers drooped, there was no gladness in the day. Often as
+she slept I watched her, marvelling at the fine perfection of her face.
+Always was she an object of wonder to me--something to be adored, to
+demand all that was fine and high in me.
+
+Yet sometimes it was the very intensity of my love that made me fear; so
+that in the ecstasy of a moment I would catch my breath and wonder if it
+all could last. And always the memory of Locasto was a sinister shadow.
+He had gone "outside," terribly broken in health, gone cursing me
+hoarsely and vowing he would return. Would he?
+
+Who that knows the North can ever deny its lure? Wherever you be, it
+will call and call to you. In the sluggish South you will hear it, will
+long for the keen tingle of its silver days, the vaster glory of its
+star-strewn nights. In the city's heart it will come to you till you
+hunger for its big, clean spaces, its racing rivers, its purple tundras.
+In the homes of the rich its voice will seek you out, and you will ache
+for your lonely camp-fire, a sunset splendouring to golden death, the
+night where the silence clutches and the heavens vomit forth white fire.
+Yes, you will hear it, and hear it, till a madness comes over you, till
+you leave the crawling men of the sticky pavements to seek it out once
+more, the sapphire of its lustrous lakes, the white yearning of its
+peaks to the myriad stars. Then, as a child comes home, will you come
+home. And I knew that some day to the land wherein he had reigned a
+conqueror, Locasto, too, would return.
+
+As I looked down on the grey town, the wonder of its growth came over
+me. How changed from the muddle of tents and cabins, the boat-lined
+river, the swarming hordes of the Argonauts! Where was the niggerhead
+swamp, the mud, the unrest, the mad fever of '98? I looked for these
+things and saw in their stead fine residences, trim gardens, well-kept
+streets. I almost rubbed my eyes as I realised the magic of the
+transformation.
+
+And great as was the city's outward change, its change of spirit was
+still greater. The day of dance-hall domination was over. Vice walked
+very circumspectly. No longer was it possible on the street to speak to
+a lady of easy virtue without causing comment.
+
+The demireps of the deadline had been banished over the Klondike, where,
+in a colony reached by a crazy rope bridge, their red lights gleamed
+like semaphores of sin. The dance-halls were still running, but the
+picturesque impunity of the old muckluck days was gone forever. You
+looked in vain for the crude scenes where the wilder passions were
+unleashed, and human nature revealed itself in primal nakedness.
+Heroism, brutality, splendid achievement, unbridled license, the North
+seems to bring out all that is best and worst in a man. It breeds an
+exuberant vitality, a madness for action, whether it be for good or
+evil.
+
+In the town, too, life was becoming a thing of more sober hues. Sick of
+slipshod morality, men were sending for their wives and children. The
+old ideals of home and love and social purity were triumphing. With the
+advent of the good woman, the dance-hall girl was doomed. The city was
+finding itself. Society divided into sets. The more pretentious were
+called Ping-pongs, while a majority rejoiced in the name of Rough-necks.
+The post-office abuses were remedied, the grafters ousted from the
+government offices. Rapidly the gold-camp was becoming modernised.
+
+Yes, its spectacular days were over. No more would the "live one"
+disport himself in his wild and woolly glory. The delirium of '98 was
+fast becoming a memory. The leading actors in that fateful drama--where
+were they? Dead: some by their own hands; down and out many, drivelling
+sottishly of by-gone days; poor prospectors a few, dreaming of a new
+gold strike.
+
+And, as I think of it, it comes over me that the thing is vastly tragic.
+Where are they now, these Klondike Kings, these givers of champagne
+baths, these plungers of the gold-camp? How many of those that stood out
+in the limelight of '98 can tell the tale to-day? Ladue is dead, leaving
+little behind. Big Alec MacDonald, after lavishing a dozen fortunes on
+his friends, dies at last, almost friendless and alone. Nigger Jim and
+Stillwater Willie--in what back slough of vicissitude do they languish
+to-day? Dick Low lies in a drunkard's grave. Skookum Jim would fain
+qualify for one. Dawson Charlie, reeling home from a debauch, drowns in
+the river. In impecunious despair, Harry Waugh hangs himself. Charlie
+Anderson, after squandering a fortune on a thankless wife, works for a
+labourer's hire.
+
+So I might go on and on. Their stories would fill volumes. And as I sat
+on the quiet hillside, listening to the drowsy hum of the bees, the
+inner meaning of it all came home to me. Once again the great lone land
+was sifting out and choosing its own. Far-reaching was its vengeance,
+and it worked in divers ways. It fell on them, even as it had fallen on
+their brethren of the trail. In the guise of fortune it dealt their
+ruin. From the austere silence of its snows it was mocking them,
+beguiling them to their doom. Again it was the Land of the Strong.
+Before all it demanded strength, moral and physical strength. I was
+minded of the words of old Jim, "Where one wins ninety and nine will
+fail"; and time had proved him true. The great, grim land was weeding
+out the unfit, was rewarding those who could understand it, the faithful
+brotherhood of the high North.
+
+Full of such thoughts as these, I raised my eyes and looked down the
+river towards the Moosehide Bluffs. Hullo! There, just below the town,
+was a great sheet of water, and even as I watched I saw it spread and
+spread. People were shouting, running from their houses, speeding to the
+beach. I was conscious of a thrill of excitement. Ever widening was the
+water, and now it stretched from bank to bank. It crept forward to the
+solitary post. Now it was almost there. Suddenly the post started to
+move. The vast ice-field was sliding forward. Slowly, serenely it went,
+on, on.
+
+Then, all at once, the steam-whistles shrilled out, the bells pealed,
+and from the black mob of people that lined the banks there went up an
+exultant cheer. "The ice is going out--the ice is going out!"
+
+I looked at my watch. Could I believe my eyes? Seven seconds, seven
+minutes past one--his "hunch" was right; his guardian angel had
+intervened; the Jam-wagon had been given his chance to make a new start.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+The waters were wild with joy. From the mountain snows the sun had set
+them free. Down hill and dale they sparkled, trickling from boulders,
+dripping from mossy crannies, rioting in narrow runlets. Then, leaping
+and laughing in a mad ecstasy of freedom, they dashed into the dam.
+
+Here was something they did not understand, some contrivance of the
+tyrant Man to curb them, to harness them, to make them his slaves. The
+waters were angry. They gloomed fearsomely. As they swelled higher in
+the broad basin their wrath grew apace. They chafed against their prison
+walls, they licked and lapped at the stolid bank. Higher and higher they
+mounted, growing stronger with every leap. More and more bitterly they
+fretted at their durance. Behind them other waters were pressing, just
+as eager to escape as they. They lashed and writhed in savage spite. Not
+much longer could these patient walls withstand their anger. Something
+must happen.
+
+The "something" was a man. He raised the floodgate, and there at last
+was a way of escape. How joyously the eager waters rushed at it! They
+tumbled and tossed in their mad hurry to get out. They surged and swept
+and roared about the narrow opening.
+
+But what was this? They had come on a wooden box that streaked down the
+slope as straight as an arrow from the bow. It was some other scheme of
+the tyrant Man. Nevertheless, they jostled and jammed to get into it. On
+its brink they poised a moment, then down, down they dashed.
+
+Like a cataract they rushed, ever and ever growing faster. Ho! this was
+motion now, this was action, strength, power. As they shot down that
+steep hill they shrieked for very joy. Freedom, freedom at last! No more
+trickling feebly from snowbanks; no more boring devious channels in oozy
+clay, no more stagnating in sullen dams. They were alive, alive, swift,
+intense, terrific. They gloried in their might. They roared the raucous
+song of freedom, and faster and faster they charged. Like a stampede of
+maddened horses they thundered on. What power on earth could stop them?
+"We must be free! We must be free!" they cried.
+
+Suddenly they saw ahead the black hole of a great pipe, a hollow shard
+of steel. Prison-like it looked, again some contrivance of the tyrant
+Man. They would fain have overleapt it, but it was too late. Countless
+other waters were behind them, forcing them forward with irresistible
+power. And, faster and faster still, they crashed into the shard of
+steel.
+
+They were trapped, atrociously trapped, cabined, confined, rammed
+forward by a vast and remorseless pressure. Yet there was escape just
+ahead. It was a tiny point of light, an outlet. They must squeeze
+through it. They were crushed and pinioned in that prison of steel, and
+mightily they tried to burst it. No! there was only that orifice; they
+must pass through it. Then with that great force behind them, tortured,
+maddened, desperate, the waters crashed through the shard of steel, to
+serve the will of Man.
+
+The man stood by his water-gun and from its nozzle, the gleaming terror
+leapt. At first it was only a slim volley of light, compact and solid as
+a shaft of steel. To pierce it would have splintered to pieces the
+sharpest sword. It was a core of water, round, glistening and smooth,
+yet in its mighty power it was a monster of destruction.
+
+The man was directing it here and there on the face of the hill. It flew
+like an arrow from the bow, and wherever he aimed it the hillside seemed
+to reel and shudder at the shock. Great cataracts of gravel shot out,
+avalanches of clay toppled over; vast boulders were hurled into the air
+like heaps of fleecy wool.
+
+Yes, the waters were mad. They were like an angry bull that gored the
+hillside. It seemed to melt and dissolve before them. Nothing could
+withstand that assault. In a few minutes they would reduce the stoutest
+stronghold to a heap of pitiful ruins.
+
+There, where the waters shot forth in their fury, stood their conqueror.
+He was one man, yet he was doing the work of a hundred. As he battered
+at that bank of clay he exulted in his power. A little turn of the wrist
+and a huge mass of gravel crumbled into nothingness. He bored deep holes
+in the frozen muck, he hammered his way down to bed rock, he swept it
+clean as a floor. There, with the solid force of a battering-ram, he
+pounded at the heart of the hill.
+
+The roar deafened him. He heard the crash of falling rock, but he was so
+intent on his work he did not hear another man approach. Suddenly he
+looked up and saw.
+
+He gave a mighty start, then at once he was calm again. This was the
+meeting he had dreaded, longed for, fought against, desired. Primordial
+emotions surged within him, but outwardly he gave no sign. Almost
+savagely, and with a curious blaze in his eyes he redirected the little
+giant.
+
+He waved his hand to the other man.
+
+"Go away!" he shouted.
+
+Mosher refused to budge. The generous living of Dawson had made him
+pursy, almost porcine. His pig eyes glittered, and he took off his hat
+to wipe some beads of sweat from the monumental baldness of his
+forehead. He caressed his coal-black beard with a podgy hand on which a
+large diamond sparkled. His manner was arrogance personified. He seemed
+to say, "I'll make this man dance to my music."
+
+His rich, penetrating voice pierced through the roar of the "giant."
+
+"Here, turn off your water. I want to speak to you. Got a business
+proposition to make."
+
+Still Jim was dumb.
+
+Mosher came close to him and shouted into his ear. The two men were very
+calm.
+
+"Say, your wife's in town. Been there for the last year. Didn't you
+know it?"
+
+Jim shook his head. He was particularly interested in his work just
+then. There was a great saddle of clay, and he scooped it up magically.
+
+"Yes, she's in town--living respectable."
+
+Jim redirected his giant with a savage swish.
+
+"Say, I'm a sort of a philant'ropic guy," went on Mosher, "an' there's
+nothing I like better than doing the erring wife restitootion act. I
+think I could induce that little woman of yours to come back to you."
+
+Jim gave him a swift glance, but the man went on.
+
+"To tell the truth, she's a bit stuck on me. Not my fault, of course.
+Can't help it if a girl gets daffy on me. But say, I think I could get
+her switched on to you if you made it worth my while. It's a business
+proposition."
+
+He was sneering now, frankly villainous. Jim gave no sign.
+
+"What d'ye say? This is a likely bit of ground--give me a half-share in
+this ground, an' I'll guarantee to deliver that little piece of goods to
+you. There's an offer."
+
+Again that smug look of generosity beamed on the man's face. Once more
+Jim motioned him to go, but Mosher did not heed. He thought the gesture
+was a refusal. His face grew threatening. "All right, if you won't," he
+snarled, "look out! I know you love her still. Let me tell you, I own
+that woman, body and soul, and I'll make life hell for her. I'll
+torture you through her. Yes, I've got a cinch. You'd better change your
+mind."
+
+He had stepped back as if to go. Then, whether it was an accident or not
+no one will ever know--but the little giant swung round till it bore on
+him.
+
+It lifted him up in the air. It shot him forward like a stone from a
+catapult. It landed him on the bank fifty feet away with a sickening
+crash. Then, as he lay, it pounded and battered him out of all semblance
+of a man.
+
+The waters were having their revenge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+"There's something the matter with Jim," the Prodigal 'phoned to me from
+the Forks; "he's gone off and left the cabin on Ophir, taken to the
+hills. Some prospectors have just come in and say they met him heading
+for the White Snake Valley. Seemed kind of queer, they say. Wouldn't
+talk much. They thought he was in a fair way to go crazy."
+
+"He's never been right since the accident," I answered; "we'll have to
+go after him."
+
+"All right. Come up at once. I'll get McCrimmon. He's a good man in the
+woods. We'll be ready to start as soon as you arrive."
+
+So the following day found the three of us on the trail to Ophir. We
+travelled lightly, carrying very little food, for we thought to find
+game in the woods. On the evening of the following day we reached the
+cabin.
+
+Jim must have gone very suddenly. There were the remains of a meal on
+the table, and his Bible was gone from its place. There was nothing for
+it but to follow and find him.
+
+"By going to the headwaters of Ophir Creek," said the Halfbreed, "we can
+cross a divide into the valley of the White Snake, and there we'll
+corral him, I guess."
+
+So we left the trail and plunged into the virgin Wild. Oh, but it was
+hard travelling! Often we would keep straight up the creek-bed, plunging
+through pools that were knee-deep, and walking over shingly bars. Then,
+to avoid a big bend of the stream, we would strike off through the bush.
+Every yard seemed to have its obstacle. There were windfalls and tangled
+growths of bush that defied our uttermost efforts to penetrate them.
+There were viscid sloughs, from whose black depths bubbles arose
+wearily, with grey tree-roots like the legs of spiders clutching the
+slimy mud of their banks. There were oozy bottoms, rankly speared with
+rush-grass. There were leprous marshes spotted with unsightly
+niggerheads. Dripping with sweat, we fought our way under the hot sun.
+Thorny boughs tore at us detainingly. Fallen trees delighted to bar our
+way. Without let or cease we toiled, yet at the day's end our progress
+was but a meagre one.
+
+Our greatest bane was the mosquitoes. Night and day they never ceased to
+nag us. We wore veils and had gloves on our hands, so that under our
+armour we were able to grin defiance at them. But on the other side of
+that netting they buzzed in an angry grey cloud. To raise our veils and
+take a drink was to be assaulted ferociously. As we walked we could feel
+them resisting our progress, and it seemed as if we were forcing our way
+through solid banks of them. If we rested, they alighted in such myriads
+that soon we appeared literally sheathed in tiny atoms of insect life,
+vainly trying to pierce the mesh of our clothing. To bare a hand was to
+have it covered with blood in a moment, and the thought of being at
+their mercy was an exquisitely horrible one. Night and day their voices
+blended in a vast drone, so that we ate, drank and slept under our
+veils.
+
+In that rankly growing wilderness we saw no sign of life, not even a
+rabbit. It was all desolate and God-forsaken. By nightfall our packs
+seemed very heavy, our limbs very tired. Three days, four days, five
+days passed. The creek was attenuated and hesitating, so we left it and
+struck off over the mountains. Soon we climbed to where the timber
+growth was less obstructive. The hillside was steep, almost vertical in
+places, and was covered with a strange, deep growth of moss. Down in it
+we sank, in places to our knees, and beneath it we could feel the points
+of sharp boulders. As we climbed we plunged our hands deep into the cool
+cushion of the moss, and half dragged ourselves upward. It was like an
+Oriental rug covering the stony ribs of the hill, a rug of bizarre
+colouring, strangely patterned in crimson and amber, in emerald and
+ivory. Birch-trees of slim, silvery beauty arose in it, and aided us as
+we climbed.
+
+So we came at last, after a weary journey, to a bleak, boulder-studded
+plateau. It was above timber-line, and carpeted with moss of great depth
+and gaudy hue. Suddenly we saw two vast pillars of stone upstanding on
+the aching barren. I think they must have been two hundred feet high,
+and, like monstrous sentinels in their lonely isolation, they
+overlooked that vast tundra. They startled us. We wondered by what
+strange freak of nature they were stationed there.
+
+Then we dropped down into a vast, hush-filled valley, a valley that
+looked as if it had been undisturbed since the beginning of time. Like a
+spirit-haunted place it was, so strange and still. It was loneliness
+made visible. It was stillness written in wood and stone. I would have
+been afraid to enter it alone, and even as we sank in its death-haunted
+dusk I shuddered with a horror of the place.
+
+The Indians feared and shunned this valley. They said, of old, strange
+things had happened there; it had been full of noise and fire and steam;
+the earth had opened up, belching forth great dragons that destroyed the
+people. And indeed it was all like the vast crater of an extinct
+volcano, for hot springs bubbled forth and a grey ash cropped up through
+the shallow soil.
+
+There was no game in the valley. In its centre was a solitary lake,
+black and bottomless, and haunted by a giant white water-snake,
+sluggish, blind and very old. Stray prospectors swore they had seen it,
+just at dusk, and its sightless, staring eyes were too terrible ever to
+forget.
+
+And into this still, cobweb-hued hollow we dropped--dropped almost
+straight down over the flanks of those lean, lank mountains that fringed
+it so forlornly. Here, ringed all around by desolate heights, we were as
+remote from the world as if we were in some sallow solitude of the moon.
+Sometimes the valley was like a gaping mouth, and the lips of it were
+livid grey. Sometimes it was like a cup into which the sunset poured a
+golden wine and filled it quivering to the brim. Sometimes it was like a
+grey grave full of silence. And here in this place of shadows, where the
+lichen strangled the trees, and under-foot the moss hushed the tread,
+where we spoke in whispers, and mirth seemed a mockery, where every
+stick and stone seemed eloquent of disenchantment and despair, here in
+this valley of Dead Things we found Jim.
+
+He was sitting by a dying camp-fire, all huddled up, his arms embracing
+his knees, his eyes on the fading embers. As we drew near he did not
+move, did not show any surprise, did not even raise his head. His face
+was very pale and drawn into a pucker of pain. It was the queerest look
+I ever saw on a man's face. It made me creep.
+
+His eyes followed us furtively. Silently we squatted in a ring round his
+camp-fire. For a while we said no word, then at last the Prodigal spoke:
+
+"Jim, you're coming back with us, aren't you?"
+
+Jim looked at him.
+
+"Hush!" says he, "don't speak so loud. You'll waken all them dead
+fellows."
+
+"What d'ye mean?"
+
+"Them dead fellows. The woods is full of them, them that can't rest.
+They're all around, ghosts. At night, when I'm a-sittin' over the fire,
+they crawl out of the darkness, an' they get close to me, closer,
+closer, an' they whisper things. Then I get scared an' I shoo them
+away."
+
+"What do they whisper, Jim?"
+
+"Oh say! they tell me all kinds of things, them fellows in the woods.
+They tell me of the times they used to have here in the valley; an' how
+they was a great people, an' had women an' slaves; how they fought an'
+sang an' got drunk, an' how their kingdom was here, right here where
+it's all death an' desolation. An' how they conquered all the other
+folks around an' killed the men an' captured the women. Oh, it was long,
+long ago, long before the flood!"
+
+"Well, Jim, never mind them. Get your pack ready. We're going home right
+now."
+
+"Goin' home?--I've no home any more. I'm a fugitive an' a vagabond in
+the earth. The blood of my brother crieth unto me from the ground. From
+the face of the Lord shall I be hid an' every one that findeth me shall
+slay me. I have no home but the wilderness. Unto it I go with prayer an'
+fastin'. I have killed, I have killed!"
+
+"Nonsense, Jim; it was an accident."
+
+"Was it? Was it? God only knows; I don't. Only I know the thought of
+murder was black in my heart. It was there for ever an' ever so long.
+How I fought against it! Then, just at that moment, everything seemed to
+come to a head. I don't know that I meant what I did, but I thought it."
+
+"Come home, Jim, and forget it."
+
+"When the rivers start to run up them mountain peaks I'll forget it.
+No, they won't let me forget it, them ghosts. They whisper to me all the
+time. Hist! don't you hear them? They're whispering to me now. 'You're a
+murderer, Jim, a murderer,' they say. 'The brand of Cain is on you, Jim,
+the brand of Cain.' Then the little leaves of the trees take up the
+whisper, an' the waters murmur it, an' the very stones cry out ag'in me,
+an' I can't shut out the sound. I can't, I can't."
+
+"Hush, Jim!"
+
+"No, no, the devil's a-hoein' out a place in the embers for me. I can't
+turn no more to the Lord. He's cast me out, an' the light of His
+countenance is darkened to me. Never again; oh, never again!"
+
+"Oh come, Jim, for the sake of your old partners, come home."
+
+"Well, boys, I'll come. But it's no good. I'm down an' out."
+
+Wearily we gathered together his few belongings. He had been living on
+bread, and but little remained. Had we not reached him, he would have
+starved. He came like a child, but seemed a prey to acute melancholy.
+
+It was indeed a sad party that trailed down that sad, dead valley. The
+trees were hung with a dreary drapery of grey, and the ashen moss
+muffled our footfalls. I think it was the _deadest_ place I ever saw.
+The very air seemed dead and stale, as if it were eternally still,
+unstirred by any wind. Spiders and strange creeping things possessed the
+trees, and at every step, like white gauze, a mist of mosquitoes was
+thrown up. And the way seemed endless.
+
+A great weariness weighed upon our spirits. Our feet flagged and our
+shoulders were bowed. As we looked into each other's faces we saw there
+a strange lassitude, a chill, grey despair. Our voices sounded hollow
+and queer, and we seldom spoke. It was as if the place was a vampire
+that was sucking the life and health from our veins.
+
+"I'm afraid the old man's going to play out on us," whispered the
+Prodigal.
+
+Jim lagged forlornly behind, and it was very anxiously we watched him.
+He seemed to know that he was keeping us back. His efforts to keep up
+were pitiful. We feigned an equal weariness, not to distress him, and
+our progress was slow, slow.
+
+"Looks as if we'll have to go on half-rations," said the Halfbreed.
+"It's taking longer to get out of this valley than I figured on."
+
+And indeed it was like a vast prison, and those peaks that brindled in
+the sunset glow were like bars to hold us in. Every day the old man's
+step was growing slower, so that at last we were barely crawling along.
+We were ascending the western slope of the valley, climbing a few miles
+a day, and every step we rose from that sump-hole of the gods was like
+the lifting of a weight. We were tired, tired, and in the wan light that
+filtered through the leaden clouds our faces were white and strained.
+
+"I guess we'll have to go on quarter-rations from now," said the
+Halfbreed, a few days later. He ranged far and wide, looking for game,
+but never a sign did he see. Once, indeed, we heard a shot. Eagerly we
+waited his return, but all he had got was a great, grey owl, which we
+cooked and ate ravenously.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+At last, at last we had climbed over the divide, and left behind us
+forever the vampire valley. Oh, we were glad! But other troubles were
+coming. Soon the day came when the last of our grub ran out. I remember
+how solemnly we ate it. We were already more than three-parts starved,
+and that meal was but a mouthful.
+
+"Well," said the Halfbreed, "we can't be far from the Yukon now. It must
+be the valley beyond this one. Then, in a few days, we can make a raft
+and float down to Dawson."
+
+This heartened us, so once more we took up our packs and started. Jim
+did not move.
+
+"Come on, Jim."
+
+Still no movement.
+
+"What's the matter, Jim? Come on."
+
+He turned to us a face that was grey and deathlike.
+
+"Go on, boys. Don't mind me. My time's up. I'm an old man. I'm only
+keeping you back. Without me you've got a chance; with me you've got
+none. Leave me here with a gun. I can shoot an' rustle grub. You boys
+can come back for me. You'll find old Jim spry an' chipper, awaitin' you
+with a smile on his face. Now go, boys. You'll go, won't you?"
+
+"Go be darned!" said the Prodigal. "You know we'll never leave you,
+Jim. You know the code of the trail. What d'ye take us for--skunks? Come
+on, we'll carry you if you can't walk."
+
+He shook his head pitifully, but once more he crawled after us. We
+ourselves were making no great speed. Lack of food was beginning to tell
+on us. Our stomachs were painfully empty and dead.
+
+"How d'ye feel?" asked the Prodigal. His face had an arrestively hollow
+look, but that frozen smile was set on it.
+
+"All right," I said, "only terribly weak. My head aches at times, but
+I've got no pain."
+
+"Neither have I. This starving racket's a cinch. It's dead easy. What
+rot they talk about the gnawing pains of hunger, an' ravenous men
+chewing up their boot-tops. It's easy. There's no pain. I don't even
+feel hungry any more."
+
+None of us did. It was as if our stomachs, in despair at not receiving
+any food, had sunk into apathy. Yet there was no doubt we were terribly
+weak. We only made a few miles a day now, and even that was an effort.
+The distance seemed to be elastic, to stretch out under our feet. Every
+few yards we had to help Jim over a bad place. His body was emaciated
+and he was getting very feeble. A hollow fire burned in his eyes. The
+Halfbreed persisted that beyond those despotic mountains lay the Yukon
+Valley, and at night he would rouse us up:
+
+"Say, boys, I hear the 'toot' of a steamer. Just a few more days and
+we'll get there."
+
+Running through the valley, we found a little river. It was muddy in
+colour and appeared to contain no fish. We ranged along it eagerly,
+hoping to find a few minnows, but without success. It seemed to me, as I
+foraged here and there for food, it was not hunger that impelled me so
+much as the instinct of self-preservation. I knew that if I did not get
+something into my stomach I would surely die.
+
+Down the river we trailed forlornly. For a week we had eaten nothing.
+Jim had held on bravely, but now he gave up.
+
+"For God's sake, leave me, boys! Don't make me feel guilty of your
+death. Haven't I got enough on my soul already? For God's pity, lads,
+save yourselves! Leave me here to die."
+
+He pleaded brokenly. His legs seemed to have become paralysed. Every
+time we stopped he would pitch forward on his face, or while walking he
+would fall asleep and drop. The Prodigal and I supported him, but it was
+truly hard to support ourselves, and sometimes we collapsed, coming down
+all three together in a confused and helpless heap. The Prodigal still
+wore that set grin. His face was nigh fleshless, and, through the
+straggling beard, it sometimes minded me of a grinning skull. Always Jim
+moaned and pleaded:
+
+"Leave me, dear boys, leave me!"
+
+He was like a drunken man, and his every step was agony.
+
+We threw away our packs. We no longer had the strength to bear them. The
+last thing to go was the Halfbreed's rifle. Several times it dropped out
+of his hand. He picked it up in a dazed way. Again and again it
+dropped, but at last the time came when he no longer picked it up. He
+looked at it for a stupid while, then staggered on without it.
+
+At night we would rest long hours round the camp-fire. Often far into the
+day would we rest. Jim lay like a dead man, moaning continually, while
+we, staring into each other's ghastly faces, talked in jerks. It was an
+effort to hunt food. It was an effort to goad ourselves to continue the
+journey.
+
+"Sure the river empties into the Yukon, boys," said the Halfbreed.
+"'Tain't so far, either. If we can just make a few miles more we'll be
+all right."
+
+At night, in my sleep, I was a prey to the strangest hallucinations.
+People I had known came and talked to me. They were so real that, when I
+awoke, I could scarce believe I had been dreaming. Berna came to me
+often. She came quite close, with great eyes of pity that looked into
+mine. Her lips moved.
+
+"Be brave, my boy. Don't despair," she pleaded. Always in my dreams she
+pleaded like that, and I think that but for her I would have given up.
+
+The Halfbreed was the most resolute of the party. He never lost his
+head. At times we others raved a little, or laughed a little, or cried a
+little, but the Halfbreed remained cool and grim. Ceaselessly he foraged
+for food. Once he found a nest of grouse eggs, and, breaking them open,
+discovered they contained half-formed birds. We ate them just as they
+were, crunched them between our swollen gums. Snails, too, we ate
+sometimes, and grass roots and moss which we scraped from the trees.
+But our greatest luck was the decayed grouse eggs.
+
+Early one afternoon we were all resting by a camp-fire on which was
+boiling some moss, when suddenly the Halfbreed pointed. There, in a
+glade down by the river's edge, were a cow moose and calf. They were
+drinking. Stupidly we gazed. I saw the Halfbreed's hand go out as if to
+clutch the rifle. Alas! his fingers closed on the empty air. So near
+they were we could have struck them with a stone. Taking his sheath
+knife in his mouth, the Halfbreed started to crawl on his belly towards
+them. He had gone but a few yards when they winded him. One look they
+gave, and in a few moments they were miles away. That was the only time
+I saw the Halfbreed put out. He fell on his face and lay there for a
+long time.
+
+Often we came to sloughs that we could not cross, and we had to go round
+them. We tried to build rafts, but we were too weak to navigate them. We
+were afraid we would roll off into the deep black water and drown
+feebly. So we went round, which in one case meant ten miles. Once, over
+a slough a few yards wide, the Halfbreed built a bridge of willows, and
+we crawled on hands and knees to the other side.
+
+From a certain point our trip seems like a nightmare to me. I can only
+remember parts of it here and there. We reeled like drunken men. We
+sobbed sometimes, and sometimes we prayed. There was no word from Jim
+now, not even a whimper, as we half dragged, half carried him on. Our
+eyes were large with fever, our hands were like claws. Long sickly
+beards grew on our faces. Our clothes were rags, and vermin overran us.
+We had lost all track of time. Latterly we had been travelling about
+half a mile a day, and we must have been twenty days without proper
+food.
+
+The Halfbreed had crawled ahead a mile or so, and he came back to where
+we lay. In a voice hoarse almost to a whisper he told us a bigger river
+joined ours down there, and on the bar was an old Indian camp. Perhaps
+in that place some one might find us. It seemed on the route of travel.
+So we made a last despairing effort and reached it. Indians had visited
+it quite recently. We foraged around and found some putrid fish bones,
+with which we made soup.
+
+There was a grave set high on stilts, and within it a body covered with
+canvas. The Halfbreed wrenched the canvas from the body, and with it he
+made a boat eight feet in length by six in breadth. It was too rotten to
+hold him up, and he nearly drowned trying to float it, so he left it
+lying on the edge of the bar. I remember this was a terrible
+disappointment to us, and we wept bitterly. I think that about this time
+we were all half-crazy. We lay on that bar like men already dead, with
+no longer hope of deliverance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then Jim passed in his checks. In the night he called me.
+
+"Boy," he whispered, "you an' I'se been good pals, ain't we?"
+
+"Yes, old man."
+
+"Boy, I'm in agony. I'm suffering untold pain. Get the gun, for God's
+sake, an' put me out of my misery."
+
+"There's no gun, Jim; we left it back on the trail."
+
+"Then take your knife."
+
+"No, no."
+
+"Give me your knife."
+
+"Jim, you're crazy. Where's your faith in God?"
+
+"Gone, gone; I've no longer any right to look to Him. I've killed. I've
+taken life He gave. 'Vengeance is mine,' He said, an' I've taken it out
+of His hands. God's curse is on me now. Oh, let me die, let me die!"
+
+I sat by him all night. He moaned in agony, and his passing was hard. It
+was about three in the morning when he spoke again:
+
+"Say, boy, I'm going. I'm a useless old man. I've lived in sin, an' I've
+repented, an' I've backslid. The Lord don't want old Jim any more. Say,
+kid, see that little girl of mine down in Dawson gets what money's
+comin' to me. Tell her to keep straight, an' tell her I loved her. Tell
+her I never let up on lovin' her all these years. You'll remember that,
+boy, won't you?"
+
+"I'll remember, Jim."
+
+"Oh, it's all a hoodoo, this Northern gold," he moaned. "See what it's
+done for all of us. We came to loot the land an' it's a-takin' its
+revenge on us. It's accursed. It's got me at last, but maybe I can help
+you boys to beat it yet. Call the others."
+
+I called them.
+
+"Boys," said Jim, "I'm a-goin'. I've been a long time about it. I've
+been dying by inches, but I guess I'll finish the job pretty slick this
+time. Well, boys, I'm in possession of all my faculties. I want you to
+know that. I was crazy when I started off, but that's passed away. My
+mind's clear. Now, pardners, I've got you into this scrape. I'm
+responsible, an' it seems to me I'd die happier if you'd promise me one
+thing. Livin', I can't help you; dead, I can--_you know how_. Well, I
+want you to promise me you'll do it. It's a reasonable proposition.
+Don't hesitate. Don't let sentiment stop you. I wish it. It's my dying
+wish. You're starvin', an' I can help you, can give you strength. Will
+you promise, if it comes to the last pass, you'll do it?"
+
+We were afraid to look each other in the face.
+
+"Oh, promise, boys, promise!"
+
+"Promise him anyway," said the Halfbreed. "He'll die easier."
+
+So we nodded our heads as we bent over him, and he turned away his face,
+content.
+
+'Twas but a little after he called me again.
+
+"Boy, give me your hand. Say a prayer for me, won't you? Maybe it'll
+help some, a prayer for a poor old sinner that's backslid. I can never
+pray again."
+
+"Yes, try to pray, Jim, try. Come on; say it after me: 'Our Father--'"
+
+"'Our Father--'"
+
+"'Which art in Heaven--'"
+
+"'Which art in--'"
+
+His head fell forward. "Bless you, my boy. Father, forgive, forgive--"
+
+He sank back very quietly.
+
+He was dead.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next morning the Halfbreed caught a minnow. We divided it into three and
+ate it raw. Later on he found some water-lice under a stone. We tried to
+cook them, but they did not help us much. Then, as night fell once more,
+a thought came into our minds and stuck there. It was a hidden thought,
+and yet it grew and grew. As we sat round in a circle we looked into
+each other's faces, and there we read the same revolting thought. Yet
+did it not seem so revolting after all. It was as if the spirit of the
+dead man was urging us to this thing, so insistent did the thought
+become. It was our only hope of life. It meant strength again, strength
+and energy to make a raft and float us down the river. Oh, if only--but,
+no! We could not do it. Better, a hundred times better, die.
+
+Yet life was sweet, and for twenty-three days we had starved. Here was a
+chance to live, with the dead man whispering in our ears to do it. You
+who have never starved a day in your lives, would you blame us? Life is
+sweet to you, too. What would you have done? The dead man was urging
+us, and life was sweet.
+
+But we struggled, God knows we struggled. We did not give in without
+agony. In our hopeless, staring eyes there was the anguish of the great
+temptation. We looked in each other's death's-head faces. We clasped
+skeleton hands round our rickety knees, and swayed as we tried to sit
+upright. Vermin crawled over us in our weakness. We were half-crazy, and
+muttered in our beards.
+
+It was the Halfbreed who spoke, and his voice was just a whisper:
+
+"It's our only chance, boys, and we've promised him. God forgive me, but
+I've a wife and children, and I'm a-goin' to do it."
+
+He was too weak to rise, and with his knife in his mouth he crawled to
+the body.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was ready, but we had not eaten. We waited and waited, hoping against
+hope. Then, as we waited, God was merciful to us. He saved us from this
+thing.
+
+"Say, I guess I've got a pipe-dream, but I think I see two men coming
+downstream on a raft."
+
+"No, it's no dream," I said; "two men."
+
+"Shout to them; I can't," said the Prodigal.
+
+I tried to shout, but my voice came as a whisper. The Halfbreed, too,
+tried to shout. There was scarcely any sound to it. The men did not see
+us as we lay on that shingly bar. Faster and faster they came. In
+hopeless, helpless woe we watched them. We could do nothing. In a few
+moments they would be past. With eyes of terror we followed them, tried
+to make signals to them. O God, help us!
+
+Suddenly they caught sight of that crazy boat of ours made of canvas and
+willows. They poled the raft in close, then one of them saw those three
+strange things writhing impotently on the sand. They were skeletons,
+they were in rags, they were covered with vermin.--  * * *
+
+We were saved; thank God, we were saved!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+"Berna, we must get married."
+
+"Yes, dearest, whenever you wish."
+
+"Well, to-morrow."
+
+She smiled radiantly; then her face grew very serious.
+
+"What will I wear?" she asked plaintively.
+
+"Wear? Oh, anything. That white dress you've got on--I never saw you
+looking so sweet. You mind me of a picture I know of Saint Cecilia, the
+same delicacy of feature, the same pure colouring, the same grace of
+expression."
+
+"Foolish one!" she chided; but her voice was deliciously tender, and her
+eyes were love-lit. And indeed, as she stood by the window holding her
+embroidery to the failing light, you scarce could have imagined a girl
+more gracefully sweet. In a fine mood of idealising, my eyes rested on
+her.
+
+"Yes, fairy girl, that briar rose you are doing in the centre of your
+little canvas hoop is not more delicate in the tinting than are your
+cheeks; your hands that ply the needle so daintily are whiter than the
+May blossoms on its border; those coils of shining hair that crown your
+head would shame the silk you use for softness."
+
+"Don't," she sighed; "you spoil me."
+
+"Oh no, it's true, true. Sometimes I wish you were not so lovely. It
+makes me care so much for you that--it hurts. Sometimes I wish you were
+plain, then I would feel more sure of you. Sometimes I fear, fear some
+one will steal you away from me."
+
+"No, no," she cried; "no one ever will. There will never be any one but
+you."
+
+She came over to me, and knelt by my chair, putting her arms around me
+prettily. The pure, sweet face looked up into mine.
+
+"We have been happy here, haven't we, boy?" she asked.
+
+"Exquisitely happy. Yet I have always been afraid."
+
+"Of what, dearest?"
+
+"I don't know. Somehow it seems too good to last."
+
+"Well, to-morrow we'll be married."
+
+"Yes, we should have done that a year ago. It's all been a mistake. It
+didn't matter at first; nobody noticed, nobody cared. But now it's
+different. I can see it by the way the wives of the men look at us. I
+wonder do women resent the fact that virtue is only its own reward--they
+are so down on those who stray. Well, we don't care anyway. We'll marry
+and live our lives. But there are other reasons."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Yes. Garry talks of coming out. You wouldn't like him to find us living
+like this--without benefit of the clergy?"
+
+"Not for the world!" she cried, in alarm.
+
+"Well, he won't. Garry's old-fashioned and terribly conventional, but
+you'll take to him at once. There's a wonderful charm about him. He's so
+good-looking, yet so clever. I think he could win any woman if he tried,
+only he's too upright and sincere."
+
+"What will he think of me, I wonder, poor, ignorant me? I believe I'm
+afraid of him. I wish he'd stay away and leave us alone. Yet for your
+sake, dear, I do wish him to think well of me."
+
+"Don't fear, Berna. He'll be proud of you. But there's a second reason."
+
+"What?"
+
+I drew her up beside me on the great Morris-chair.
+
+"Oh, my beloved! perhaps we'll not always be alone as we are now.
+Perhaps, perhaps some day there will be others--little ones--for their
+sakes."
+
+She did not speak. I could feel her nestle closer to me. Her cheek was
+pressed to mine; her hair brushed my brow and her lips were like
+rose-petals on my own. So we sat there in the big, deep chair, in the
+glow of the open fire, silent, dreaming, and I saw on her lashes the
+glimmer of a glorious tear.
+
+"Why do you cry, beloved?"
+
+"Because I'm so happy. I never thought I could be so happy. I want it to
+last forever, I never want to leave this little cabin of ours. It will
+always be home to me. I love it; oh, how I love it!--every stick and
+stone of it! This dear little room--there will never be another like it
+in the world. Some day we may have a fine home, but I think I'll always
+leave some of my heart here in the little cabin."
+
+I kissed away her tears. Foolish tears! I blessed her for them. I held
+her closer to me. I was wondrous happy. No longer did the shadow of the
+past hang over us. Even as children forget, were we forgetting. Outside
+the winter's day was waning fast. The ruddy firelight danced around us.
+It flickered on the walls, the open piano, the glass front of the
+bookcase. It lit up the Indian corner, the lounge with its cushions and
+brass reading-lamp, the rack of music, the pictures, the lace curtains,
+the gleaming little bit of embroidery. Yes, to me, too, these things
+were wistfully precious, for it seemed as if part of her had passed into
+them. It would have been like tearing out my heart-strings to part with
+the smallest of them.
+
+"_Husband_, I'm so happy," she sighed.
+
+"Wife, dear, dear wife, I too."
+
+There was no need for words. Our lips met in passionate kisses, but the
+next moment we started apart. Some one was coming up the garden path--a
+tall figure of a man. I started as if I had seen a ghost. Could it
+be?--then I rushed to the door.
+
+There on the porch stood Garry.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+As he stood before me once again it seemed as if the years had rolled
+away, and we were boys together. A spate of tender memories came over
+me, memories of the days of dreams and high resolves, when life rang
+true, when men were brave and women pure. Once more I stood upon that
+rock-envisaged coast, while below me the yeasty sea charged with a roar
+the echoing caves. The gulls were glinting in the sunshine, and by their
+little brown-thatched homes the fishermen were spreading out their nets.
+High on the hillside in her garden I could see my mother idling among
+her flowers. It all came back to me, that sunny shore, the whitewashed
+cottages, the old grey house among the birches, the lift of
+sheep-starred pasture, and above it the glooming dark of the heather
+hills.
+
+And it was but three years ago. How life had changed! A thousand things
+had happened. Fortune had come to me, love had come to me. I had lived,
+I had learned. I was no longer a callow, uncouth lad. Yet, alas! I no
+longer looked futurewards with joy; the savour of life was no more
+sweet. It was another "me" I saw in my mirror that day, a "me" with a
+face sorely lined, with hair grey-flecked, with eyes sad and bitter.
+Little wonder Garry, as he stood there, stared at me so sorrowfully.
+
+"How you've changed, lad!" said he at last.
+
+"Have I, Garry? You're just about the same."
+
+But indeed he, too, had changed, had grown finer than my fondest
+thoughts of him. He seemed to bring into the room the clean, sweet
+breath of Glengyle, and I looked at him with admiration in my eyes.
+Coming out of the cold, his colour was dazzling as that of a woman; his
+deep blue eyes sparkled; his fair silky hair, from the pressure of his
+cap, was moulded to the shape of his fine head. Oh, he was handsome,
+this brother of mine, and I was proud, proud of him!
+
+"By all that's wonderful, what brought you here?"
+
+His teeth flashed in that clever, confident smile.
+
+"The stage. I just arrived a few minutes ago, and hurried here at once.
+Aren't you glad to see me?"
+
+"Glad? Yes, indeed! I can't tell you how glad. But it's a shock to me
+your coming so suddenly. You might have let me know."
+
+"Yes, it was a sudden resolve; I should have wired you. However, I
+thought I would give you a surprise. How are you, old man?"
+
+"Me--oh, I'm all right, thanks."
+
+"Why, what's the matter with you, lad? You look ten years older. You
+look older than your big brother now."
+
+"Yes, I daresay. It's the life, it's the land. A hard life and a hard
+land."
+
+"Why don't you go out?"
+
+"I don't know, I don't know. I keep on planning to go out and then
+something turns up, and I put it off a little longer. I suppose I ought
+to go, but I'm tied up with mining interests. My partner is away in the
+East, and I promised to stay in and look after things. I'm making money,
+you see."
+
+"Not sacrificing your youth and health for that, are you?"
+
+"I don't know, I don't know."
+
+There was a puzzled look in his frank face, and for my part I was
+strangely ill at ease. With all my joy at his coming, there was a sense
+of anxiety, even of fear. I had not wanted him to come just then, to see
+me there. I was not ready for him. I had planned otherwise.
+
+He was fixing me with a clear, penetrating look. For a moment his eyes
+seemed to bore into me, then like a flash the charm came back into his
+face. He laughed that ringing laugh of his.
+
+"Well, I was tired of roaming round the old place. Things are in good
+order now. I've saved a little money and I thought I could afford to
+travel a little, so I came up to see my wandering brother, and his
+wonderful North."
+
+His gaze roved round the room. Suddenly it fell on the piece of
+embroidery. He started slightly and I saw his eyes narrow, his mouth
+set. His glance shifted to the piano with its litter of music. He looked
+at me again, in an odd, bewildered way. He went on speaking, but there
+was a queer constraint in his manner.
+
+"I'm going to stay here for a month, and then I want you to come back
+with me. Come back home and get some of the old colour into your cheeks.
+The country doesn't agree with you, but we'll have you all right pretty
+soon. We'll have you flogging the trout pools and tramping over the
+heather with a gun. You remember how--whir-r-r--the black-cock used to
+rise up right at one's very feet. They've been very plentiful the last
+two years. Oh, we'll have the good old times over again! You'll see,
+we'll soon put you right."
+
+"It's good of you, Garry, to think so much of me; but I'm afraid, I'm
+afraid I can't come just yet. I've got so much to do. I've got thirty
+men working for me. I've just got to stay."
+
+He sighed.
+
+"Well, if you stay I'll stay, too. I don't like the way you're looking.
+You're working too hard. Perhaps I can help you."
+
+"All right; I'm afraid you'll find it rather awful, though. No one lives
+up here in winter if they possibly can avoid it. But for a time it will
+interest you."
+
+"I think it will." And again his eyes stared fixedly at that piece of
+embroidery on its little hoop.
+
+"I'm terribly, glad to see you anyway, Garry. There's no use talking,
+words can't express things like that between us two. You know what I
+mean. I'm glad to see you, and I'll do my best to make your visit a
+happy one."
+
+Between the curtains that hung over the bedroom door I could see Berna
+standing motionless. I wondered if he could see her too. His eyes
+followed mine. They rested on the curtains and the strong, stern look
+came into his face. Yet again he banished it with a sunny smile.
+
+"Mother's one regret was that you were not with her when she died. Do
+you know, old man, I think she was always fonder of you than of me? You
+were the sentimental one of the family, and Mother was always a gentle
+dreamer. I took more after Dad; dry and practical, you know. Well,
+Mother used to worry a good deal about you. She missed you dreadfully,
+and before she died she made me promise I'd always stand by you, and
+look after you if anything happened."
+
+"There's not much need of that, Garry. But thanks all the same, old man.
+I've seen a lot in the past few years. I know something of the world
+now. I've changed. I'm sort of disillusioned. I seem to have lost my
+zest for things--but I know how to handle men, how to fight and how to
+win."
+
+"It's not that, lad. You know that to win is often to lose. You were
+never made for the fight, my brother. It's all been a mistake. You're
+too sensitive, too high-strung for a fighting-man. You have too much
+sentiment in you. Your spirit urged you to fields of conquest and
+romance, yet by nature you were designed for the gentler life. If you
+could have curbed your impulse and only dreamed your adventures, you
+would have been the happier. Imagination's been a curse to you, boy.
+You've tortured yourself all these years, and now you're paying the
+penalty."
+
+"What penalty?"
+
+"You've lost your splendid capacity for happiness; your health's
+undermined; your faith in mankind is destroyed. Is it worth while?
+You've plunged into the fight and you've won. What does your victory
+mean? Can it compare with what you've lost? Here, I haven't a third of
+what you have, and yet I'm magnificently happy. I don't envy you. I am
+going to enjoy every moment of my life. Oh, my brother, you've been
+making a sad mistake, but it's not too late! You're young, young. It's
+not too late."
+
+Then I saw that his words were true. I saw that I had never been meant
+for the fierce battle of existence. Like those high-strung horses that
+were the first to break their hearts on the trail, I was unsuited for it
+all. Far better would I have been living the sweet, simple life of my
+forefathers. My spirit had upheld me, but now I knew there was a poison
+in my veins, that I was a sick man, that I had played the game and
+won--at too great a cost. I was like a sprinter that breasts the tape,
+only to be carried fainting from the field. Alas! I had gained success
+only to find it was another name for failure.
+
+"Now," said Garry, "you must come home. Back there on the countryside we
+can find you a sweet girl to marry. You will love her, have children and
+forget all this. Come."
+
+I rose. I could no longer put it off.
+
+"Excuse me one moment," I said. I parted the curtains and entered the
+bedroom.
+
+She was standing there, white to the lips and trembling. She looked at
+me piteously.
+
+"I'm afraid," she faltered.
+
+"Be brave, little girl," I whispered, leading her forward. Then I threw
+aside the curtain.
+
+"Garry," I said, "this is--this is Berna."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+Garry, Berna--there they stood, face to face at last. Long ago I had
+visioned this meeting, planned for, yet dreaded it, and now with utter
+suddenness it had come.
+
+The girl had recovered her calm, and I must say she bore herself well.
+In her clinging dress of simple white her figure was as slimly graceful
+as that of a wood-nymph, her head poised as sweetly as a lily on its
+stem. The fair hair rippled away in graceful lines from the fine brow,
+and as she gazed at my brother there was a proud, high look in her eyes.
+
+And Garry--his smile had vanished. His face was cold and stern. There
+was a stormy antagonism in his bearing. No doubt he saw in her a
+creature who was preying on me, an influence for evil, an overwhelming
+indictment against me of sin and guilt. All this I read in his eyes;
+then Berna advanced to him with outstretched hand.
+
+"How do you do? I've heard so much about you I feel as if I'd known you
+long ago."
+
+She was so winning, I could see he was quite taken aback. He took the
+little white hand and looked down from his splendid height to the sweet
+eyes that gazed into his. He bowed with icy politeness.
+
+"I feel flattered, I assure you, that my brother should have mentioned
+me to you."
+
+Here he shot a dark look at me.
+
+"Sit down again, Garry," I said. "Berna and I want to talk to you."
+
+He complied, but with an ill grace. We all three sat down and a grave
+constraint was upon us. Berna broke the silence.
+
+"What sort of a trip have you had?"
+
+He looked at her keenly. He saw a simple girl, shy and sweet, gazing at
+him with a flattering interest.
+
+"Oh, not so bad. Travelling sixty miles a day on a jolting stage gets
+monotonous, though. The road-houses were pretty decent as a rule, but
+some were vile. However, it's all new and interesting to me."
+
+"You will stay with us for a time, won't you?"
+
+He favoured me with another grim look.
+
+"Well, that all depends--I haven't quite decided yet. I want to take
+Athol here home with me."
+
+"Home----" There was a pathetic catch in her voice. Her eyes went round
+the little room that meant "home" to her.
+
+"Yes, that will be nice," she faltered. Then, with a brave effort, she
+broke into a lively conversation about the North. As she talked an
+inspiration seemed to come to her. A light beaconed in her eyes. Her
+face, fine as a cameo, became eager, rapt. She was telling him of the
+magical summers, of the midnight sunsets, of the glorious largess of the
+flowers, of the things that meant so much to her. She was wonderfully
+animated. As I watched her I thought what a perfect little lady she was;
+and I felt proud of her.
+
+He was listening carefully, with evident interest. Gradually his look of
+stern antagonism had given way to one of attention. Yet I could see he
+was not listening so much to her as he was studying her. His intent gaze
+never moved from her face.
+
+Then I talked a while. The darkness had descended upon us, but the
+embers in the open fireplace lighted the room with a rosy glow. I could
+not see his eyes now, but I knew he was still watching us keenly. He
+merely answered "yes" and "no" to our questions, and his voice was very
+grave. Then, after a little, he rose to go.
+
+"I'll return to the hotel with you," I said.
+
+Berna gave us a pathetically anxious little look. There was a red spot
+on each cheek and her eyes were bright. I could see she wanted to cry.
+
+"I'll be back in half an hour, dear," I said, while Garry gravely shook
+hands with her.
+
+We did not speak on the way to his room. When we reached it he switched
+on the light and turned to me.
+
+"Brother, who's this girl?"
+
+"She's--she's my housekeeper. That's all I can say at present, Garry."
+
+"Married?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Good God!"
+
+Stormily he paced the floor, while I watched him with a great calm. At
+last he spoke.
+
+"Tell me about her."
+
+"Sit down, Garry; light a cigar. We may as well talk this thing over
+quietly."
+
+"All right. Who is she?"
+
+"Berna," I said, lighting my cigar, "is a Jewess. She was born of an
+unwed mother, and reared in the midst of misery and corruption."
+
+He stared at me. His mouth hardened; his brow contracted.
+
+"But," I went on, "I want to say this. You remember, Garry, Mother used
+to tell us of our sister who died when she was a baby. I often used to
+dream of my dead sister, and in my old, imaginative days I used to think
+she had never died at all, but she had grown up and was with us. How we
+would have loved her, would we not, Garry? Well, I tell you this--if our
+sister had grown up she could have been no sweeter, purer, gentler than
+this girl of mine, this Berna."
+
+He smiled ironically.
+
+"Then," he said, "if she is so wonderful, why, in the name of Heaven,
+haven't you married her?"
+
+His manner towards her in the early part of the interview had hurt me,
+had roused in me a certain perversity. I determined to stand by my guns.
+
+[Illustration: "Garry," I said, "this is--this is Berna"]
+
+"Marriage," said I, "isn't everything; often isn't anything. Love is,
+and always will be, the great reality. It existed long before marriage
+was ever thought of. Marriage is a good thing. It protects the wife and
+the children. As a rule, it enforces constancy. But there's a higher
+ideal of human companionship that is based on love alone, love so
+perfect, so absolute that legal bondage insults it; love that is its own
+justification. Such a love is ours."
+
+The ironical look deepened to a sneer.
+
+"And look you here, Garry," I went on; "I am living in Dawson in what
+you would call 'shame.' Well, let me tell you, there's not ninety-nine
+in a hundred legally married couples that have formed such a sweet,
+love-sanctified union as we have. That girl is purest gold, a pearl of
+untold price. There has never been a jar in the harmony of our lives. We
+love each other absolutely. We trust and believe in each other. We would
+make any sacrifice for each other. And, I say it again, our marriage is
+tenfold holier than ninety-nine out of a hundred of those performed with
+all the pomp of surplice and sacristy."
+
+"Oh, man! man!" he said crushingly, "what's got into you? What nonsense,
+what clap-trap is this? I tell you that the old way, the way that has
+stood for generations, is the best, and it's a sorry day I find a
+brother of mine talking such nonsense. I'm almost glad Mother's dead. It
+would surely have broken her heart to know that her son was living in
+sin and shame, living with a----"
+
+"Easy now, Garry," I cautioned him. We faced each other with the table
+between us.
+
+"I'm going to have my say out. I've come all this way to say it, and
+you've got to hear me. You're my brother. God knows I love you. I
+promised I'd look after you, and now I'm going to save you if I can."
+
+"Garry," I broke in, "I'm younger than you, and I respect you; but in
+the last few years I've grown to see things different from the way we
+were taught; broader, clearer, saner, somehow. We can't always follow in
+the narrow path of our forefathers. We must think and act for ourselves
+in these days. I see no sin and shame in what I'm doing. We love each
+other--that is our vindication. It's a pure, white light that dims all
+else. If you had seen and striven and suffered as I have done, you might
+think as I do. But you've got your smug old-fashioned notions. You gaze
+at the trees so hard you can't see the forest. Yours is an ideal, too;
+but mine is a purer, more exalted one."
+
+"Balderdash!" he cried. "Oh, you anger me! Look here, Athol, I came all
+this way to see you about this matter. It's a long way to come, but I
+knew my brother was needing me and I'd have gone round the world for
+you. You never told me anything of this girl in your letters. You were
+ashamed."
+
+"I knew I could never make you understand."
+
+"You might have tried. I'm not so dense in the understanding. No, you
+would not tell me, and I've had letters, warning letters. It was left to
+other people to tell me how you drank and gambled and squandered your
+money; how you were like to a madman. They told me you had settled down
+to live with one of the creatures, a woman who had made her living in
+the dance-halls, and every one knows no woman ever did that and remained
+straight. They warned me of the character of this girl, of your
+infatuation, of your callousness to public opinion. They told me how
+barefaced, how shameless you were. They begged me to try and save you. I
+would not believe it, but now I've come to see for myself, and it's all
+true, it's all true."
+
+He bowed his head in emotion.
+
+"Oh, she's good!" I cried. "If you knew her you would think so, too.
+You, too, would love her."
+
+"Heaven forbid! Boy, I must save you. I must, for the honour of the old
+name that's never been tarnished. I must make you come home with me."
+
+He put both hands on my shoulders, looking commandingly into my face.
+
+"No, no," I said, "I'll never leave her."
+
+"It will be all right. We can pay her. It can be arranged. Think of the
+honour of the old name, lad."
+
+I shook him off. "Pay!"--I laughed ironically. "Pay" in connection with
+the name of Berna--again I laughed.
+
+"She's good," I said once again. "Wait a little till you know her. Don't
+judge her yet. Wait a little."
+
+He saw it was of no use to waste further words on me. He sighed.
+
+"Well, well," he said, "have it your own way. I think she's ruining you.
+She's dragging you down, sapping your moral principles, lowering your
+standard of pure living. She must be bad, bad, or she wouldn't live with
+you like that. But have it your own way, boy; I'll wait and see."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+In the crystalline days that followed I did much to bring about a
+friendship between Garry and Berna. At first I had difficulty in
+dragging him to the house, but in a little while he came quite
+willingly. The girl, too, aided me greatly. In her sweet, shy way she
+did her best to win his regard, so that as the winter advanced a great
+change came over him. He threw off that stern manner of his as an actor
+throws off a part, and once again he was the dear old Garry I knew and
+loved.
+
+His sunny charm returned, and with it his brilliant smile, his warm,
+endearing frankness. He was now twenty-eight, and if there was a
+handsomer man in the Northland I had yet to see him. I often envied him
+for his fine figure and his clean, vivid colour. It was a wonderfully
+expressive face that looked at you, firm and manly, and, above all,
+clever. You found a pleasure in the resonant sweetness of his voice. You
+were drawn irresistibly to the man, even as you would have been drawn to
+a beautiful woman. He was winning, lovable, yet back of all his charm
+there was that great quality of strength, of austere purpose.
+
+He made a hit with every one, and I verily believe that half the women
+in the town were in love with him. However, he was quite unconscious of
+it, and he stalked through the streets with the gait of a young god. I
+knew there were some who for a smile would have followed him to the ends
+of the earth, but Garry was always a man's man. Never do I remember the
+time when he took an interest in a woman. I often thought, if women
+could have the man of their choice, a few handsome ones like Garry would
+monopolise them, while we common mortals would go wifeless. Sometimes it
+has seemed to me that love is but a second-hand article, and that our
+matings are at best only makeshifts.
+
+I must say I tried very hard to reconcile those two. I threw them
+together on every opportunity, for I wanted him to understand and to
+love her. I felt he had but to know her to appreciate her at her true
+value, and, although he spoke no word to me, I was soon conscious of a
+vast change in him. Short of brotherly regard, he was everything that
+could be desired to her--cordial, friendly, charming. Once I asked Berna
+what she thought of him.
+
+"I think he's splendid," she said quietly. "He's the handsomest man I've
+ever seen, and he's as nice as he's good-looking. In many ways you
+remind me of him--and yet there's a difference."
+
+"I remind you of him--no, girl. I'm not worthy to be his valet. He's as
+much above me as I am above--say a siwash. He has all the virtues; I,
+all the faults. Sometimes I look at him and I see in him my ideal self.
+He is all strength, all nobility, while I am but a commonplace mortal,
+full of human weaknesses. He is the self I should have been if the worst
+had been the best."
+
+"Hush! you are my sweetheart," she assured me with a caress, "and the
+dearest in the world."
+
+"By the way, Berna," I said, "you remember something we talked about
+before he came? Don't you think that now----?"
+
+"Now----?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"All right." She flashed a glad, tender look at me and left the room.
+That night she was strangely elated.
+
+Every evening Garry would drop in and talk to us. Berna would look at
+him as he talked and her eyes would brighten and her cheeks flush. On
+both of us he had a strangely buoyant effect. How happy we could be,
+just we three. It was splendid having near me the two I loved best on
+earth.
+
+That was a memorable winter, mild and bright and buoyant. At last Spring
+came with gracious days of sunshine. The sleighing was glorious, but I
+was busy, very busy, so that I was glad to send Garry and Berna off
+together in a smart cutter, and see them come home with their cheeks
+like roses, their eyes sparkling and laughter in their voices. I never
+saw Berna looking so well and happy.
+
+I was head over ears in work. In a mail just arrived I had a letter from
+the Prodigal, and a certain paragraph in it set me pondering. Here it
+was:
+
+     "You must look out for Locasto. He was in New York a week ago. He's
+     down and out. Blood-poisoning set in in his foot after he got
+     outside, and eventually he had to have it taken off. He's got a
+     false mit for the one Mac sawed off. But you should see him. He's
+     all shot to pieces with the 'hooch.' It's a fright the pace he's
+     gone. I had an interview with him, and he raved and blasphemed
+     horribly. Seemed to have a terrible pick at you. Seems you have
+     copped out his best girl, the only one he ever cared a red cent
+     for. Said he would get even with you if he swung for it. I think
+     he's dangerous, even a madman. He is leaving for the North now, so
+     be on your guard."
+
+Locasto coming! I had almost forgotten his existence. Well, I no longer
+cared for him. I could afford to despise him. Surely he would never dare
+to molest us. If he did--he was a broken, discredited blackguard. I
+could crush him.
+
+Coming here! He must even now be on the way. I had a vision of him
+speeding along that desolate trail, sitting in the sleigh wrapped in
+furs, and brooding, brooding. As day after day the spell of the great
+and gloomy land grew on his spirit, I could see the sombre eyes darken
+and deepen. I could see him in the road-house at night, gaunt and
+haggard, drinking at the bar, a desperate, degraded cripple. I could see
+him growing more reckless every day, every hour. He was coming back to
+the scene of his ruined fortunes, and God knows with what wild schemes
+of vengeance his heart was full. Decidedly I must beware.
+
+As I sat there dreaming, a ring came to the 'phone. It was the foreman
+at Gold Hill.
+
+"The hoisting machine has broken down," he told me. "Can you come out
+and see what is required?"
+
+"All right," I replied. "I'll leave at once."
+
+"Berna," I said, "I'll have to go out to the Forks to-night. I'll be
+back early to-morrow. Get me a bite to eat, dear, while I go round and
+order the horse."
+
+On my way I met Garry and told him I would be gone over night. "Won't
+you come?" I asked.
+
+"No, thanks, old man, I don't feel like a night drive."
+
+"All right. Good-bye."
+
+So I hurried off, and soon after, with a jingle of bells, I drove up to
+my door. Berna had made supper. She seemed excited. Her eyes were starry
+bright, her cheeks burned.
+
+"Aren't you well, sweetheart?" I asked. "You look feverish."
+
+"Yes, dear, I'm well. But I don't want you to go to-night. Something
+tells me you shouldn't. Please don't go, dear. Please, for my sake."
+
+"Oh, nonsense, Berna! You know I've been away before. Get one of the
+neighbour's wives to sleep with you. Get in Mrs. Brooks."
+
+"Oh, don't go, don't go, I beg you, dear. I don't want you to. I'm
+afraid, I'm afraid. Won't some one else do?"
+
+"Nonsense, girl. You mustn't be so foolish. It's only for a few hours.
+Here, I'll ring up Mrs. Brooks and you can ask her."
+
+She sighed. "No, never mind. I'll ring her up after you've gone."
+
+She clung to me tightly, so that I wondered what had got into the girl.
+Then gently I kissed her, disengaged her hands, and bade her good-night.
+
+As I was rattling off through the darkness, a boy handed me a note. I
+put it in my pocket, thinking I would read it when I reached Ogilvie
+Bridge. Then I whipped up the horse.
+
+The night was crisp and exhilarating. I had one of the best trotters in
+the country, and the sleighing was superb. As I sped along, with a
+jingle of bells, my spirits rose. Things were looking splendid. The mine
+was turning out far better than we had expected. Surely we could sell
+out soon, and I would have all the money I wanted. Even then the
+Prodigal was putting through a deal in New York that would realise our
+fortunes. My life-struggle was nearly over.
+
+Then again, I had reconciled Garry to Berna. When I told him of a
+certain secret I was hugging to my breast he would capitulate entirely.
+How happy we would all be! I would buy a small estate near home, and we
+would settle down. But first we would spend a few years in travel. We
+would see the whole world. What good times we would have, Berna and I!
+Bless her! It had all worked out beautifully.
+
+Why was she so frightened, so loath to let me go? I wondered vaguely and
+flicked up the horse so that it plunged sharply forward. The vast
+blue-black sky was like an inverted gold-pan and the stars were flake
+colours adhering to it. The cold snapped at me till my cheeks tingled,
+and my eyes felt as if they could spark. Oh, life was sweet!
+
+Bother! In my elation I had forgotten to get off at the Old Inn and
+read my note. Never mind, I would keep it till I reached the Forks.
+
+As I spun along, I thought of how changed it all was from the Bonanza I
+first knew. How I remembered tramping along that hillside slope, packing
+a sack of flour over a muddy trail, a poor miner in muddy overalls! Now
+I was driving a smart horse on a fine road. I was an operator of a
+first-class mine. I was a man of business, of experience. Higher and
+higher my spirits rose.
+
+How fast the horse flew! I would be at the Forks in no time. I flashed
+past cabin windows. I saw the solitary oil-lamp and the miner reading
+his book or filling his pipe. Never was there a finer, more intelligent
+man; but his day was passing. The whole country was falling into the
+hands of companies. Soon, thought I, one or two big combines would
+control the whole wealth of that land. Already they had their eyes on
+it. The gold-ships would float and roar where the old-time miner toiled
+with pick and pan. Change! Change!
+
+I almost fancied I could see the monster dredges ploughing up the
+valley, where now men panted at the windlass. I could see vast heaps of
+tailings filling the creek-bed; I could hear the crash of the steel
+grizzlies; I could see the buckets scooping up the pay-dirt. I felt
+strangely prophetic. My imagination ran riot in all kinds of wonders,
+great power plants, quartz discoveries. Change! Change!
+
+Yes, the stamp-mill would add its thunder to the other voices; the
+country would be netted with wires, and clamorous for far and wide. Man
+had sought out this land where Silence had reigned so long. He had
+awakened the echoes with the shot of his rifle and the ring of his axe.
+Silence had raised a startled head and poised there, listening. Then,
+with crack of pick and boom of blast, man had hurled her back. Further
+and further had he driven her. With his advancing horde, mad in their
+lust for the loot of the valley, he had banished her. His engines had
+frightened her with their canorous roar. His crashing giants had driven
+her cowering to the inviolate fastnesses of her hills. And there she
+broods and waits.
+
+But Silence will return. To her was given the land that she might rule
+and have dominion over it forever. And in a few years the clamour will
+cease, the din will die away. In a few years the treasure will be
+exhausted, and the looters will depart. The engines will lie in rust and
+ruin; the wind will sweep through the empty homes; the tailing-piles lie
+pallid in the moon. Then the last man will strike the last blow, and
+Silence will come again into her own.
+
+Yea, Silence will come home once more. Again will she rule despotic over
+peak and plain. She is only waiting, brooding in the impregnable
+desolation of her hills. To her has been given empery of the land, and
+hand in hand with Darkness will she return.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Ha! here I had reached the Forks at last. As I drew up at the hotel, the
+clerk came out to meet me.
+
+"Gent wants to speak to you at the 'phone, sir."
+
+It was Murray of Dawson, an old-timer, and rather a friend of mine.
+
+"Hello!"
+
+"Hello! Say, Meldrum, this is Murray speaking. Say, just wanted to let
+you know there's a stage due some time before morning. Locasto's on
+board, and they say he's heeled for you. Thought I'd better tell you
+so's you can get fixed up for him."
+
+"All right," I answered. "Thank you. I'll turn and come right back."
+
+So I switched round the horse, and once more I drove over the glistening
+road. No longer did I plan and exult. Indeed a grim fear was gripping
+me. Of a sudden the shadow of Locasto loomed up sinister and menacing.
+Even now he was speeding Dawsonward with a great hatred of me in his
+heart. Well, I would get back and prepare for him.
+
+There came to my mind a comic perception of the awkwardness of returning
+to one's own home unexpectedly, in the dead of night. At first I decided
+I would go to a hotel, then on second thoughts I determined to try the
+house, for I had a desire to be near Berna.
+
+I knocked gently, then a little louder, then at last quite loudly.
+Within all was still, dark as a sepulchre. Curious! she was such a light
+sleeper, too. Why did she not hear me?
+
+Once more I decided to go to the hotel; once more that vague, indefinite
+fear assailed me and again I knocked. And now my fear was becoming a
+panic. I had my latch-key in my pocket, so very quietly I opened the
+door.
+
+I was in the front room, and it was dark, very dark and quiet. I could
+not even hear her breathe.
+
+"Berna," I whispered.
+
+No reply.
+
+That dim, nameless dread was clutching at my heart, and I groped
+overhead in the darkness for the drop-light. How hard it was to find! A
+dozen times my hand circled in the air before I knocked my knuckles
+against it. I switched it on.
+
+Instantly the cabin was flooded with light. In the dining-room I could
+see the remains of our supper lying untidily. That was not like her. She
+had a horror of dirty dishes. I passed into the bedroom--Ah! the bed had
+never been slept on.
+
+What a fool I was! It flashed on me she had gone over to Mrs. Brooks' to
+sleep. She was afraid of being alone. Poor little girl! How surprised
+she would be to see me in the morning!
+
+Well, I would go to bed. As I was pulling off my coat, I found the note
+that had been given to me. Blaming myself for my carelessness, I pulled
+it out of my pocket and opened it. As I unfolded the sheet, I noticed
+it was written in what looked like a disguised hand. Strange! I thought.
+The writing was small and faint. I rubbed my eyes and held it up to the
+light.
+
+Merciful God! What was this? Oh no, it could not be! My eyes were
+deceiving me. It was some illusion. Feverishly I read again. Yes, they
+were the same words. What could they mean? Surely, surely--Oh, horror on
+horrors! They could not mean THAT. Again I read them. Yes, there they
+were:
+
+     "If you are fool enough to believe that Berna is faithful to you
+     visit your brother's room to-night.
+
+                                                        "A wellwisher."
+
+Berna! Garry!--the two I loved. Oh, it could not be! It was monstrous!
+It was too horrible! I would not believe it; I would not. Curse the vile
+wretch that wrote such words! I would kill him. Berna! my Berna! she was
+as good as gold, as true as steel. Garry! I would lay my life on his
+honour. Oh, vile calumny! what devil had put so foul a thing in words?
+God! it hurt me so, it hurt me so!
+
+Dazedly I sat down. A sudden rush of heat was followed by a sweat that
+pricked out of me and left me cold. I trembled. I saw a ghastly vision
+of myself in a mirror. I felt sick, sick. Going to the decanter on the
+bureau, I poured myself a stiff jolt of whisky.
+
+Again I sat down. The paper lay on the hearthrug, and I stared at it
+hatefully. It was unspeakably loathsome, yet I was fascinated by it. I
+longed to take it up, to read it again. Somehow I did not dare. I was
+becoming a coward.
+
+Well, it was a lie, a black devil's lie. She was with one of the
+neighbours. I trusted her. I would trust her with my life. I would go to
+bed. In the morning she would return, and then I would unearth the
+wretch who had dared to write such things. I began to undress.
+
+Slowly I unfastened my collar--that cursed paper; there it lay. Again it
+fascinated me. I stood glaring at it. Oh, fool! fool! go to bed.
+
+Wearily I took off my clothes--Oh, that devilish note! It was burning
+into my brain--it would drive me mad. In a frenzy of rage, I took it up
+as if it were some leprous thing, and dropped it in the fire.
+
+There I lay in bed with the darkness enfolding me, and I closed my eyes
+to make a double darkness. Ha! right in the centre of my eyes, burned
+the fatal paper with its atrocious suggestion. I sprang up. It was of no
+use. I must settle this thing once and for all. I turned on the light
+and deliberately dressed again.
+
+I was going to the hotel where Garry had his room. I would tell him I
+had come back unexpectedly and ask to share his room. I was not acting
+on the note! I did not suspect her. Heaven forbid! But the thing had
+unnerved me. I could not stay in this place.
+
+The hotel was quiet. A sleepy night-clerk stared at me, and I pushed
+past him. Garry's rooms were on the third floor. As I climbed the long
+stairway, my heart was beating painfully, and when I reached his door I
+was sadly out of breath. Through the transom I could see his light was
+burning.
+
+I knocked faintly.
+
+There was a sudden stir.
+
+Again I knocked.
+
+Did my ears deceive me or did I hear a woman's startled cry? There was
+something familiar about it--Oh, my God!
+
+I reeled. I almost fell. I clutched at the doorframe. I leaned sickly
+against the door for support. Heaven help me!
+
+"I'm coming," I heard him say.
+
+The door was unlocked, and there he stood. He was fully dressed. He
+looked at me with an expression on his face I could not define, but he
+was very calm.
+
+"Come in," he said.
+
+I went into his sitting-room. Everything was in order. I would have
+sworn I heard a woman scream, and yet no one was in sight. The bedroom
+door was slightly ajar. I eyed it in a fascinated way.
+
+"I'm sorry to disturb you, Garry," I said, and I was conscious how
+strained and queer my voice sounded. "I got back suddenly, and there's
+no one at home. I want to stay here with you, if you don't mind."
+
+"Certainly, old man; only too glad to have you."
+
+His voice was steady. I sat down on the edge of a chair. My eyes were
+riveted on that bedroom door.
+
+"Had a good drive?" he went on genially. "You must be cold. Let me give
+you some whisky."
+
+My teeth were chattering. I clutched the chair. Oh, that door! My eyes
+were fastened on it. I was convinced I heard some one in there. He rose
+to get the whisky.
+
+"Say when?"
+
+I held the glass with a shaking hand:
+
+"When."
+
+"What's the matter, old man? You're ill."
+
+I clutched him by the arm.
+
+"Garry, there's some one in that room."
+
+"Nonsense! there's no one there."
+
+"There is, I tell you. Listen! Don't you hear them breathing?"
+
+He was quiet. Distinctly I could hear the panting of human breath. I was
+going mad, mad. I could stand it no longer.
+
+"Garry," I gasped, "I'm going to see, I'm going to see."
+
+"Don't----"
+
+"Yes, I must, I say. Let me go. I'll drag them out."
+
+"Hold on----"
+
+"Leave go, man! I'm going, I say. You won't hold me. Let go, I tell you,
+let go--Now come out, come out, whoever you are--Ah!"
+
+It was a woman.
+
+"Ha!" I cried, "I told you so, brother; a woman. I think I know her,
+too. Here, let me see--I thought so."
+
+I had clutched her, pulled her to the light. It was Berna.
+
+Her face was white as chalk, her eyes dilated with terror. She trembled.
+She seemed near fainting.
+
+"I thought so."
+
+Now that it seemed the worst was betrayed to me, I was strangely calm.
+
+"Berna, you're faint. Let me lead you to a chair."
+
+I made her sit down. She said no word, but looked at me with a wild
+pleading in her eyes. No one spoke.
+
+There we were, the three of us: Berna faint with fear, ghastly, pitiful;
+I calm, yet calm with a strange, unnatural calmness, and Garry--he
+surprised me. He had seated himself, and with the greatest _sang-froid_
+he was lighting a cigarette.
+
+A long tense silence. At last I broke it.
+
+"What have you got to say for yourself, Garry?" I asked.
+
+It was wonderful how calm he was.
+
+"Looks pretty bad, doesn't it, brother?" he said gravely.
+
+"Yes, it couldn't look worse."
+
+"Looks as if I was a pretty base, despicable specimen of a man, doesn't
+it?"
+
+"Yes, about as base as a man could be."
+
+"That's so." He rose and turned up the light of a large reading-lamp,
+then coming to me he looked me square in the face. Abruptly his casual
+manner dropped. He grew sharp, forceful; his voice rang clear.
+
+"Listen to me."
+
+"I'm listening."
+
+"I came out here to save you, and I'm going to save you. You wanted me
+to believe that this girl was good. You believed it. You were bewitched,
+befooled, blinded. I could see it, but I had to make you see it. I had
+to make you realise how worthless she was, how her love for you was a
+sham, a pretence to prey on you. How could I prove it? You would not
+listen to reason: I had to take other means. Now, hear me."
+
+"I hear."
+
+"I laid my plans. For three months I've tried to conquer her, to win her
+love, to take her from you. She was truer to you than I had bargained
+for; I must give her credit for that. She made a good fight, but I think
+I have triumphed. To-night she came to my room at my invitation."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well. You got a note. _Now, I wrote that note._ I planned this scene,
+this discovery. I planned it so that your eyes would be opened, so that
+you would see what she was, so that you would cast her from
+you--unfaithful, a wanton, a----"
+
+"Hold on there," I broke in; "brother of mine or no, I won't hear you
+call her those names; no, not if she were ten times as unfaithful. You
+won't, I say. I'll choke the words in your throat. I'll kill you, if
+you utter a word against her. Oh, what have you done?"
+
+"What have I done! Try to be calm, man. What have I done? Well, this is
+what I've done, and it's the lucky day for you I've done it. I've saved
+you from shame; I've freed you from sin; I've shown you the baseness of
+this girl."
+
+He rose to his feet.
+
+"Oh, my brother, I've stolen from you your mistress; that's what I've
+done."
+
+"Oh, no, you haven't," I groaned. "God forgive you, Garry; God forgive
+you! She's not my--not what you think. She's my _wife_!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+I thought that he would faint. His face went white as paper and he
+shrank back. He gazed at me with wild, straining eyes.
+
+"God forgive me! Oh, why didn't you tell me, boy? Why didn't you tell
+me?"
+
+In his voice there was a note more poignant than a sob.
+
+"You should have trusted me," he went on. "You should have told me. When
+were you married?"
+
+"Just a month ago. I was keeping it as a surprise for you. I was waiting
+till you said you liked and thought well of her. Oh, I thought you would
+be pleased and glad, and I was treasuring it up to tell you."
+
+"This is terrible, terrible!"
+
+His voice was choked with agony. On her chair, Berna drooped wearily.
+Her wide, staring eyes were fixed on the floor in pitiful perplexity.
+
+"Yes, it's terrible enough. We were so happy. We lived so joyously
+together. Everything was perfect, a heaven for us both. And then you
+came, you with your charm that would lure an angel from high heaven. You
+tried your power on my poor little girl, the girl that never loved but
+me. And I trusted you, I tried to make you and her friends. I left you
+together. In my blind innocence I aided you in every way--a simple,
+loving fool. Oh, now I see!"
+
+"Yes, yes, I know. Your words stab me. It's all true, true."
+
+"You came like a serpent, a foul, crawling thing, to steal her from me,
+to wrong me. She was loving, faithful, pure. You would have dragged her
+in the mire. You----"
+
+"Stop, brother, stop, for Heaven's sake! You wrong me."
+
+He held out his hand commandingly. A wonderful change had come over him.
+His face had regained its calm. It was proud, stern.
+
+"You must not think I would have been guilty of that," he said quietly.
+"I've played a part I never thought to play; I've done a thing I never
+thought to have dirtied my hands in the doing, and I'm sorry and ashamed
+for it. But I tell you, Athol--that's all. As God's my witness, I've
+done you no wrong. Surely you don't think me as low as that? Surely you
+don't believe that of me? I did what I did for my very love for you, for
+your honour's sake. I asked her here that you might see what she
+was--but that's all, I swear it. She's been as safe as if in a cage of
+steel."
+
+"I know it," I said; "I know it. You don't need to tell me that. You
+brought her here to expose her, to show me what a fool I was. It didn't
+matter how much it hurt me, the more the better, anything to save the
+name. You would have broken my heart, sacrificed me on the altar of
+your accursed pride. Oh, I can see plainly now! There's a thousand years
+of prejudice and bigotry concentrated in you. Thank God, I have a human
+heart!"
+
+"I thought I was acting for the best!" he cried.
+
+I laughed scornfully.
+
+"I know it--according to your lights. You asked her here that I might
+see what she was. You tell me you have gained her love; you say she came
+here at your bidding; you swear she would have been unfaithful to me.
+Well, I tell you, brother of mine, in your teeth I tell you--_I don't
+believe you!_"
+
+Suddenly the little, drooping figure on the chair had raised itself; the
+white, woe-begone face with the wide, staring eyes was turned towards
+me; the pitiful look had gone, and in its stead was one of wild,
+unspeakable joy.
+
+"It's all right, Berna," I said; "I don't believe him, and if a million
+others were to say the same, if they were to thunder it in my ears down
+all eternity, I would tell them they lied, they lied!"
+
+A heaven-lit radiance was in the grey eyes. She made as if to come to
+me, but she swayed, and I caught her in my arms.
+
+"Don't be frightened, little girl. Give me your hand. See! I'll kiss it,
+dear. Now, don't cry; don't, honey."
+
+Her arms were around me. She clung to me ever so tightly.
+
+"Garry," I said, "this is my wife. When I have lost my belief in all
+else, I will believe in her. You have made us both suffer. As for what
+you've said--you're mistaken. She's a good, good girl. I will not
+believe that by thought, word or deed she has been untrue to me. She
+will explain everything. Now, good-bye. Come, Berna."
+
+Suddenly she stopped me. Her hand was on my arm, and she turned towards
+Garry. She held herself as proudly as a queen.
+
+"I want to explain now," she said, "before you both."
+
+She pulled from her bosom a little crumpled note, and handed it to me.
+Then, as I read it, a great light burst on me. Here it was:
+
+     "Dear Berna:
+
+     "For heaven's sake be on your guard. Jack Locasto is on his way
+     north again. I think he's crazy. I know he'll stick at nothing, and
+     I don't want to see blood spilt. He says he means to wipe out all
+     old scores. For your sake, and for the sake of one dear to you, be
+     warned.
+
+                                                "In haste,
+
+                                                        "Viola Lennoir."
+
+"I got it two days ago," she said. "Oh, I've been distracted with fear.
+I did not like to show it to you. I've brought you nothing but trouble,
+and I've never spoken of him, never once. You understand, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, little girl, I understand."
+
+"I wanted to save you, no matter at what cost. To-night I tried to
+prevent you going out there, for I feared you might meet him. I knew he
+was very near. Then, when you had gone, my fear grew and grew. There I
+sat, thinking over everything. Oh, if I only had a friend, I thought;
+some one to help me. Then, as I sat, dazed, distracted, the 'phone rang.
+It was your brother."
+
+"Yes, go on, dear."
+
+"He told me he wanted to see me; he begged me to come at once. I thought
+of you, of your danger, of some terrible mishap. I was terrified. I
+went."
+
+She paused a moment, as if the recital was infinitely painful to her,
+then she went on.
+
+"I found my way to his room. My mind was full of you, of that man, of
+how to save you. I did not think of myself, of my position. At first I
+was too agitated to speak. He bade me sit down, compose myself. His
+manner was quiet, grave. Again I feared for you. He asked me to excuse
+him for a moment, and left the room. He seemed to be gone an age, while
+I sat there, trying to fight down my terror. The suspense was killing
+me. Then he came back. He closed and locked the door. All at once I
+heard a step outside, a knock. 'Hush! go in there,' he said. He opened
+the door. I heard him speaking to some one. I waited, then you burst in
+on me. You know the rest."
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+"As for your brother, I've tried, oh, so hard, to be nice to him for
+your sake. I liked him; I wanted to be to him as a sister, but never an
+unfaithful thought has entered my head, never a wrong feeling sullied my
+heart. I've been true to you. You told me once of a love that gives all
+and asks for nothing; a love that would turn its back on friends and
+kindred for the sake of its beloved. You said: 'His smile will be your
+rapture, his frown your anguish. For him will you dare all, bear all. To
+him will you cling in sorrow, suffering and poverty. Living, you would
+follow him round the world; dying, you would desire but him.'--Well, I
+think I love you like that."
+
+"Oh, my dear, my dear!"
+
+"I want to bring you happiness, but I only bring you trouble, sorrow.
+Sometimes, for your sake, I wish we had never met."
+
+She turned to Garry.
+
+"As for you, you've done me a great wrong. I can never forget it. Will
+you go now, and leave us in peace?"
+
+His head was bent, so that I could not see his face.
+
+"Can you not forgive?" he groaned.
+
+She shook her head sadly. "No, I am afraid I can never forgive."
+
+"Can I do nothing to atone?"
+
+"No, I'm afraid your punishment must be--that you can do nothing."
+
+He said never a word. She turned to me:
+
+"Come, my husband, we will go."
+
+I was opening the door to leave him forever. Suddenly I heard a step
+coming up the stairs, a heavy, hurried tread. I looked down a moment,
+then I pushed her back into the room.
+
+"Be prepared, Berna," I said quietly; "here comes Locasto."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+There we waited, Garry and I, and between us Berna. We heard that heavy
+tread come up, up the creaking stairway, stumble a moment, then pause on
+the landing. There was something ominous, something pregnant in that
+pause. The steps halted, wavered a little, then, inflexible as doom, on
+they came towards us. The next instant the door was thrown open, and
+Locasto stood in the entrance.
+
+Even in that brief moment I was struck by the change in him. He seemed
+to have aged by twenty years. He was gaunt and lank as a starved timber
+wolf; his face was hollow almost as a death's head; his hair was long
+and matted, and his eyes burned with a strange, unnatural fire. In that
+dark, aquiline face the Indian was never more strongly revealed. He
+limped, and I noticed his left hand was gloved.
+
+From under his bristling brows he glared at us. As he swayed there he
+minded me of an evil beast, a savage creature, a mad, desperate thing.
+He reeled in the doorway, and to steady himself put out his gloved hand.
+Then with a malignant laugh, the fleering laugh of a fiend, he stepped
+into the room.
+
+"So! Seems as if I'd lighted on a pretty nest of love-birds. Ho! ho! my
+sweet! You're not satisfied with one lover, you must have two. Well, you
+are going to be satisfied with one from now on, and that's Jack
+Locasto. I've stood enough from you, you white-faced jade. You've
+haunted me, you've put some kind of a spell on me. You've lured me back
+to this land, and now I'm going to have you or die! You've played with
+me long enough. The jig's up. Stand out from between those two. Stand
+out, I say! March out of that door."
+
+She only shrank back the farther.
+
+"You won't come, curse you; you won't come, you milk-faced witch, with
+your great eyes that bore holes in me, that turn my heart to fire, that
+make me mad. You won't come. Stand back there, you two, and let the girl
+come."
+
+We shielded her.
+
+"Ha! that's it--you defy me. You won't let me get her. Well, it'll be
+all the worse for her. I'll make her life a hell. I'll beat her. You
+won't stand back. You, the dark one--don't I know you; haven't I hated
+you more than the devil hates a saint; hated you worse than bitter
+poison? These three black years you've balked me, you've kept her from
+me. Oh, I've itched to kill you times without number, and I've spared
+you. But now it's my call. Stand back there, stand back I say. Your
+time's come. Here's where I shoot."
+
+His hand leapt up and I saw it gripped a revolver. He had me covered.
+His face was contorted with devilish triumph, and I knew he meant to
+kill. At last, at last my time had come. I saw his fingers twitching on
+the trigger, I gazed into the hollow horror of that barrel. My heart
+turned to ice. I could not breathe. Oh, for a respite, a moment--Ugh!...
+he pulled the trigger, and, _at the same instant, Garry sprang at him_!
+
+What had happened? The shot rang in my ears. I was still standing there.
+I felt no wound. I felt no pain. Then, as I stared at my enemy, I heard
+a heavy fall. Oh, God! there at my feet lay Garry, lay in a huddled,
+quivering heap, lay on his face, and in his fair hair I saw a dark stain
+start and spread. Then, in a moment, I realised what my brother had
+done.
+
+I fell on my knees beside him.
+
+"Garry, Garry!" I moaned. I heard Berna scream, and I saw that Locasto
+was coming for me. He was a man no longer. He had killed. He was a
+brute, a fury, a devil, mad with the lust of slaughter. With a snarl he
+dashed at me. Again I thought he was going to shoot, but no! He raised
+the heavy revolver and brought it crashing down on my head. I felt the
+blow fall, and with it my strength seemed to shoot out of me. My legs
+were paralysed. I could not move. And, as I lay there in a misty daze,
+he advanced on Berna.
+
+There she stood at bay, a horror-stricken thing, weak, panting,
+desperate. I saw him corner her. His hands were stretched out to clutch
+her; a moment more and he would have her in his arms, a moment--ah! With
+a suddenness that was like a flash she had raised the heavy reading-lamp
+and dashed it in his face.
+
+I heard his shriek of fear; I saw him fall as the thing crashed between
+his eyes; I saw the flames spurt and leap. High in the air he rose,
+awful in his agony. He was in a shroud of fire; he was in a pool of
+flame. He howled like a dog and fell over on the bed.
+
+Then suddenly the oil-soaked bedding caught. The curtains seemed to leap
+and change into flame. As he rolled and roared in his agony, the blaze
+ran up the walls, and caught the roof. Help, help! the room was afire,
+was burning up. Fire! Fire!
+
+Out in the corridor I heard a great running about, shouting of men,
+screaming of women. The whole place seemed to be alive, panic-stricken,
+frenzied with fear. Everything was in flames now, burning fiercely,
+madly, and there was no stopping them. The hotel was burning, and I,
+too, must burn. What a horrible end! Oh, if I could only do something!
+But I could not move. From the waist down I was like a dead man. Where
+was Berna? Pray God she was safe. I could not cry for aid. The room was
+reeling round and round. I was faint, dizzy, helpless.
+
+The hotel was ablaze. In the streets below crowds were gathering. People
+were running up and down the stairway, fighting to get free, mad with
+terror, leaping from the windows. Oh, it was awful, to burn, to burn! I
+seemed to be caged in flames that were darting at me savagely,
+spitefully. Would nobody save me?
+
+Yes, some one was trying to save me, was dragging my body across the
+floor. Consciousness left me, and it seemed for ages I lay in a stupor.
+When I opened my eyes again some one was still tugging at me. We were
+going down the stairway, and on all sides of us were sheets of flapping
+flame. I was wrapped in a blanket. How had it got there? Who was that
+dark figure pulling at me so desperately, trying to lift me, staggering
+a few paces with me, stumbling blindly on? Brave one, noble one, whoever
+you be! Foolhardy one, reckless one, whoever you be! Save yourself while
+yet there is time. Leave me to my fate. But, oh, the agony of it to
+burn, to burn ...!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Another desperate effort and we are almost at the door. Flames are
+darting at us like serpents, leaping kitten-like at our heels. Above us
+is a billowy canopy of fire soaring upward with a vast crackling roar.
+Fiery splinters shoot around us, while before us is a black pit of
+smoke. Smooth walls of fire uprear about us. We are in a cavern of fire,
+and in another moment it will engulf us. Oh, my rescuer, a last frenzied
+effort! We are almost at the door. Then I am lifted up and we both
+tumble out into the street. Not a second too soon, for, like a savage
+beast foiled of its prey, a blast of flame shoots after us, and the
+doorway is a gulf of blazing wrath.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I am lying in the snow, lying on a blanket, and some one holds my head.
+
+"Berna, is that you?"
+
+She nods. She does not speak. I shudder as I look at her. Her face is
+like a great burn, a black mask in which her eyes and teeth gleam
+whitely....
+
+"Oh, Berna, Berna, and it was you that dragged me out...!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My eyes go to the fiery hell in front. As I look the roof crashes in and
+we are showered by falling sparks. I see a fireman run back. He is
+swathed in flame. Madly he rolls in the snow. The hotel is like a
+cascade of flame; it spouts outward like water, beautiful golden water.
+In its centre is a wonderful whirlpool. I see the line of a black girder
+leap out, and hanging over it a limp, charred shape. A moment it hangs
+uncertainly, then plunges downward into the roasting heart of the pit.
+And I know it for Locasto.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Oh, Berna, Berna! I can't bear to look at her. Why did she do it? It's
+pitiful, pitiful....
+
+The fire is spreading. Right and left it swings and leaps in giant
+strides. Sudden flames shoot out, curl over and roll like golden velvet
+down the black faces of the buildings. The fire leaps the street. All is
+pandemonium now. Mad with fear and excitement, men and women rave and
+curse and pray. Water! water! is the cry; but no water comes. Suddenly a
+mob of terror-goaded men comes surging down the street. They bring the
+long hose line that connects with the pump-station on the river. Hurrah!
+now they will soon have the flames under control. Water, water is
+coming.
+
+The line is laid and a cry goes up to turn on the water. Hurry there!
+But no water comes. What can be the matter? Then the dread whisper goes
+round that the man in charge of the pumping-station has neglected his
+duty, and the engine fires are cold. A howl of fury and despair goes up
+to the lurid heavens. Women wring their hands and moan; men stand by in
+a stupor of hopeless agony. And the fire, as if it knew of its victory,
+leaps up in a roaring ecstasy of triumph.
+
+There we watched, Berna and I, lying in the snow that melts all around
+us in the fierce, scorching glare. Through the lurid rift of smoke I can
+see the friendly stars. Against that curtain of blaze, strangely
+beautiful in its sinuous strength, I watch the black silhouettes of men
+running hither and thither like rats, gutting the houses, looting the
+stores, tearing the hearts out of the homes. The fire seems a great
+bird, and from its nest of furnace heat it spreads its flapping wings
+over the city.
+
+Yes, there is no hope. The gold-born city is doomed. From where I lie
+the scene is one long vista of blazing gables, ribs and rafters hugged
+by tawny arms of fire. Squat cabins swirling in mad eddies of flame;
+hotels, dance-halls, brothels swathed and smothered in flame-rent
+blankets of swirling smoke. There is no hope. The fire is a vast
+avenger, and before its wrath the iniquity of the tenderloin is swept
+away. That flimsy hive of humanity, with its sins and secrets and
+sorrows, goes up in smoke and ashes to the silent stars.
+
+The gold-born city is doomed. Yet, as I lay there, it seemed to me like
+a judgment, and that from its ruins would arise a new city, clean,
+upright, incorruptible. Yes, the gold-camp would find itself. Even as
+the gold, must it pass through the furnace to be made clean. And from
+the site where in the olden days the men who toiled for the gold were
+robbed by every device of human guile, a new city would come to be--a
+great city, proud and prosperous, beloved of homing hearts, and blessed
+in its purity and peace.
+
+"Beloved," I sighed through a gathering mist of consciousness. I felt
+some hot tears falling on my face. I felt a kiss seal my lips. I felt a
+breathing in my ear.
+
+"Oh, my dear, my dear!" she said. "I've only brought you sorrow and
+pain, but you've brought me love, that love that is a dazzling light,
+beside which the sunshine is as darkness."
+
+"Berna!" I raised myself; I put out my arms to clasp her. They clasped
+the empty air. Wildly, wildly I looked around. She was gone!
+
+"Berna!" Again I cried, but there was no reply. I was alone, alone. Then
+a great weakness came over me....
+
+I never saw her again.
+
+
+
+
+THE LAST
+
+
+It is finished. I have written here the story of my life, or of that
+portion of it which means everything to me, for the rest means nothing.
+Now that it is done, I too have done, so I sit me down and wait. For
+what am I waiting? A divine miracle perhaps.
+
+Somehow I feel I will see her again, somehow, somewhere. Surely God
+would not reveal to us the shining light of the Great Reality only to
+plunge us again into outer darkness? Love cannot be in vain. I will not
+believe it. Somehow, somewhere!
+
+So in the glow of the great peat fire I sit me down and wait, and the
+faith grows in me that she will come to me again; that I will feel the
+soft caress of her hand upon my pillow, that I will hear her voice all
+tuned to tenderness, that I will see through my tear-blinded eyes her
+sweet compassionate face. Somehow, somewhere!
+
+With the aid of my crutch I unlatch one of the long windows and step out
+onto the terrace. I peer through the darkness and once more I have a
+sense of that land of imperious vastitudes so unfathomably lonely. With
+an unspeakable longing in my heart, I try to pierce the shadows that
+surround me. From the cavernous dark the snowflakes sting my face, but
+the great night seems good to me, and I sink into a garden seat. Oh, I
+am tired, tired....
+
+I am waiting, waiting. I close my eyes and wait. I know she will come.
+The snow is covering me. White as a statue, I sit and wait.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ah, Berna, my dear, my dear! I knew you would return; I knew, I knew.
+Come to me, little one. I'm tired, so tired. Put your arms around me,
+girl; kiss me, kiss me. I'm weak and ill, but now you've come I'll soon
+be well again. You won't leave me any more; will you, honey? Oh, it's
+good to have you once again! It seems like a dream. Kiss me once more,
+sweetheart. It's all so cold and dark. Put your arms around me....
+
+Oh, Berna, Berna, light of my life, I knew all would come right at
+last--beyond the mists, beyond the dreaming; at last, dear love, at
+last!...
+
+
+
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+<html>
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Trail of '98, by Robert W. Service</title>
+  <style type="text/css">
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+<body>
+<h1 class="pg">The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Trail of '98, by Robert W. Service,
+Illustrated by Maynard Dixon</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: The Trail of '98</p>
+<p>       A Northland Romance</p>
+<p>Author: Robert W. Service</p>
+<p>Release Date: July 13, 2007  [eBook #22063]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRAIL OF '98***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3 class="pg">E-text prepared by Roger Frank<br />
+    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style='width:400px'>
+<a name="illus-000" id="illus-000"></a>
+<img src="images/illus-fpc.jpg" alt="We were in a caldron of fire. The roar of doom was in our ears (page 143)" title=""  /><br />
+<span class="caption">We were in a caldron of fire. The roar of doom was in our ears (page 143)</span>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='major' />
+
+<table style="margin: auto; border: black 1px solid; width: 400px;" summary=""><tr><td>
+<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 200%; margin-top:40px; margin-bottom:30px;">THE TRAIL OF &#8217;98</p>
+<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 180%; margin-bottom:30px;">A Northland Romance</p>
+<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 100%; margin-bottom:25px;">BY</p>
+<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 120%; margin-bottom:10px;">ROBERT W. SERVICE</p>
+<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 80%; margin-bottom:0px;">Author of</p>
+<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 80%; margin-bottom:40px;">"The Spell of the Yukon" and "Ballads of a Cheechako"</p>
+<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 100%; margin-bottom:10px;"><i>With illustrations by</i></p>
+<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 120%; margin-bottom:40px;">MAYNARD DIXON</p>
+<div style='text-align: center'>
+  <img alt='emblem' src='images/illus-emb.jpg' />
+</div>
+<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 110%; margin-top:40px;">NEW YORK</p>
+<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 110%; margin-bottom:0px;">DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY</p>
+<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 100%; margin-bottom:40px;">1911</p>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<hr class='major' />
+
+<table style="margin: auto; width: 400px;" summary=""><tr><td>
+<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 80%; margin-top:10px;">Copyright, 1910, by</p>
+<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 100%; margin-bottom:10px;">DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY</p>
+<hr style='width:10%' />
+<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 80%; margin-bottom:40px;">Entered at Stationers' Hall</p>
+<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 70%; margin-bottom:0px;">THE QUINN &amp; BODEN CO. PRESS</p>
+<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 70%; margin-bottom:10px;">RAHWAY, N. J.</p>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<hr class='major' />
+
+<h2><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span>PRELUDE</h2>
+
+<p>The north wind is keening overhead. It minds me of the howl of a
+wolf-dog under the Arctic stars. Sitting alone by the glow of the great
+peat fire I can hear it high up in the braeside firs. It is the voice,
+inexorably scornful, of the Great White Land.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, I hate it, I hate it! Why cannot a man be allowed to forget? It is
+near ten years since I joined the Eager Army. I have travelled: I have
+been a pilgrim to the shrines of beauty; I have pursued the phantom of
+happiness even to the ends of the earth. Still it is always the same&mdash;I
+cannot forget.</p>
+
+<p>Why should a man be ever shadowed by the vampire wing of his past? Have
+I not a right to be happy? Money, estate, name, are mine, all that means
+an open sesame to the magic door. Others go in, but I beat against its
+flinty portals with hands that bleed. No! I have no right to be happy.
+The ways of the world are open; the banquet of life is spread; the
+wonder-workers plan their pageants of beauty and joy, and yet there is
+no praise in my heart. I have seen, I have tasted, I have tried. Ashes
+and dust and bitterness are all my gain. I will try no more. It is the
+shadow of the vampire wing.</p>
+
+<p>So I sit in the glow of the great peat fire, tired and sad beyond
+belief. Thank God! at least I am home. Everything is so little changed.
+The fire lights the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span>oak-panelled hall; the crossed claymores gleam; the
+eyes in the mounted deer-heads shine glassily; rugs of fur cover the
+polished floor; all is comfort, home and the haunting atmosphere of my
+boyhood. Sometimes I fancy it has been a dream, the Great White Silence,
+the lure of the gold-spell, the delirium of the struggle; a dream, and I
+will awake to hear Garry calling me to shoot over the moor, to see dear
+little Mother with her meek, sensitive mouth, and her cheeks as
+delicately tinted as the leaves of a briar rose. But no! The hall is
+silent. Mother has gone to her long rest. Garry sleeps under the snow.
+Silence everywhere; I am alone, alone.</p>
+
+<p>So I sit in the big, oak-carved chair of my forefathers, before the
+great peat fire, a peak-faced drooping figure of a man with hair
+untimely grey. My crutch lies on the floor by my side. My old nurse
+comes up quietly to look at the fire. Her rosy, wrinkled face smiles
+cheerfully, but I can see the anxiety in her blue eyes. She is afraid
+for me. Maybe the doctor has told her&mdash;<i>something</i>.</p>
+
+<p>No doubt my days are numbered, so I am minded to tell of it all: of the
+Big Stampede, of the Treasure Trail, of the Gold-born City; of those who
+followed the gold-lure into the Great White Land, of the evil that
+befell them, of Garry and of Berna. Perhaps it will comfort me to tell
+of these things. To-morrow I will begin; to-night, leave me to my
+memories.</p>
+
+<p>Berna! I spoke of her last. She rises before me now with her spirit-pale
+face and her great troubleful <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span>grey eyes, a little tragic figure,
+ineffably pitiful. Where are you now, little one? I have searched the
+world for you. I have scanned a million faces. Day and night have I
+sought, always hoping, always baffled, for, God help me, dear, I love
+you. Among that mad, lusting horde you were so weak, so helpless, yet so
+hungry for love.</p>
+
+<p>With the aid of my crutch I unlatch one of the long windows, and step
+out onto the terrace. From the cavernous dark the snowflakes sting my
+face. Yet as I stand there, once more I have a sense of another land, of
+imperious vastitudes, of a silent empire, unfathomably lonely.</p>
+
+<p>Ghosts! They are all around me. The darkness teems with them, Garry, my
+brother, among them. Then they all fade and give way to one face....</p>
+
+<p><i>Berna, I love you always. Out of the night I cry to you, Berna, the cry
+of a broken heart. Is it your little, pitiful ghost that comes down to
+me? Oh, I am waiting, waiting! Here will I wait, Berna, till we meet
+once more. For meet we will, beyond the mists, beyond the dreaming, at
+last, dear love, at last.</i></p>
+
+<hr class='major' />
+
+<h2 class="toc"><a name="Contents" id="Contents"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+<table border="0" width="500" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto">
+<col style="width:85%;" />
+<col style="width:15%;" />
+<tr>
+  <td align="center" colspan='2'>BOOK I</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style='font-size:x-small'>PAGE</span></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align="left"><span class='smcap'>The Road to Anywhere</span></td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#THE_ROAD_TO_ANYWHERE_205">1</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align="center" colspan='2'>BOOK II</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align="left"><span class='smcap'>The Trail</span></td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#THE_TRAIL_1476">49</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align="center" colspan='2'>BOOK III</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align="left"><span class='smcap'>The Camp</span></td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#THE_CAMP_4765">167</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align="center" colspan='2'>BOOK IV</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align="left"><span class='smcap'>The Vortex</span></td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#THE_VORTEX_9034">321</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class='major' />
+
+<h2 class="loi"><a name="Illustrations" id="Illustrations"></a>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+<table border="0"  width="500" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Illustrations" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto">
+<col style="width:80%;" />
+<col style="width:20%;" />
+<tr><td align="left">We were in a caldron of fire. The roar of doom was in our ears (page 143)</td><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#illus-000"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style='font-size:x-small'>FACING PAGE</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&#34;No,&#34; she said firmly, &#34;you can&#39;t see the girl&#34;</td><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#illus-001">116</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Then, as I hung half in, half out of the window, he clutched me by the throat</td><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#illus-002">316</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">&#34;Garry,&#34; I said, &#34;this is&mdash;this is Berna&#34;</td><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#illus-003">476</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class='major' />
+
+<table summary=""><tr><td>
+This is the law of the Yukon, and ever she makes it plain:<br />
+"Send not your foolish and feeble; send me your strong and your sane.<br />
+Strong for the red rage of battle; sane, for I harry them sore;<br />
+Send me men girt for the combat, men who are grit to the core;<br />
+Swift as the panther in triumph, fierce as the bear in defeat,<br />
+Sired of a bulldog parent, steeled in the furnace heat.<br />
+Send me the best of your breeding, lend me your chosen ones;<br />
+Them will I take to my bosom, them will I call my sons;<br />
+Them will I gild with my treasure, them will I glut with my meat;<br />
+But the others&mdash;the misfits, the failures&mdash;I trample under my feet."<br />
+</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>&mdash;"Songs of a Sourdough."
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<hr class='major' />
+
+<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em">
+<h2><a name="BOOK_I" id="BOOK_I"></a>BOOK I</h2>
+<a name="THE_ROAD_TO_ANYWHERE_205" id="THE_ROAD_TO_ANYWHERE_205"></a>
+<h3>THE ROAD TO ANYWHERE</h3>
+</div>
+
+<table summary=""><tr><td>
+Can you recall, dear comrade, when we tramped God's land together,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And we sang the old, old Earth-Song, for our youth was very sweet;</span><br />
+When we drank and fought and lusted, as we mocked at tie and tether,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Along the road to Anywhere, the wide world at our feet.</span><br />
+<br />
+Along the road to Anywhere, when each day had its story;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">When time was yet our vassal, and life's jest was still unstale;</span><br />
+When peace unfathomed filled our hearts as, bathed in amber glory,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Along the road to Anywhere we watched the sunsets pale.</span><br />
+<br />
+Alas! the road to Anywhere is pitfalled with disaster;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">There's hunger, want, and weariness, yet O we loved it so!</span><br />
+As on we tramped exultantly, and no man was our master,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And no man guessed what dreams were ours, as swinging heel and toe,</span><br />
+We tramped the road to Anywhere, the magic road to Anywhere,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The tragic road to Anywhere such dear, dim years ago.</span><br />
+</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>&mdash;"Songs of a Sourdough."
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<div>
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_3" id="page_3" title="3"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>As far back as I can remember I have faithfully followed the banner of
+Romance. It has given colour to my life, made me a dreamer of dreams, a
+player of parts. As a boy, roaming alone the wild heather hills, I have
+heard the glad shouts of the football players on the green, yet never
+ettled to join them. Mine was the richer, rarer joy. Still can I see
+myself in those days, a little shy-mannered lad in kilts, bareheaded to
+the hill breezes, with health-bright cheeks, and a soul happed up in
+dreams.</p>
+
+<p>And, indeed, I lived in an enchanted land, a land of griffins and
+kelpies, of princesses and gleaming knights. From each black tarn I
+looked to see a scaly reptile rise, from every fearsome cave a corby
+emerge. There were green spaces among the heather where the fairies
+danced, and every scaur and linn had its own familiar spirit. I peopled
+the good green wood with the wild creatures of my thought, nymph and
+faun, naiad and dryad, and would have been in nowise surprised to meet
+in the leafy coolness the great god Pan himself.</p>
+
+<p>It was at night, however, that my dreams were most compelling. I strove
+against the tyranny of sleep. Lying in my small bed, I revelled in
+delectable imaginings. Night after night I fought battles, devised
+pageants, partitioned empires. I gloried in details. <a class="pagenum" name="page_4" id="page_4" title="4"></a>My rugged
+war-lords were very real to me, and my adventures sounded many periods
+of history. I was a solitary caveman with an axe of stone; I was a Roman
+soldier of fortune; I was a Highland outlaw of the Rebellion. Always I
+fought for a lost cause, and always my sympathies were with the rebel. I
+feasted with Robin Hood on the King's venison; I fared forth with Dick
+Turpin on the gibbet-haunted heath; I followed Morgan, the Buccaneer,
+into strange and exotic lands of trial and treasure. It was a wonderful
+gift of visioning that was mine in those days. It was the bird-like
+flight of the pure child-mind to whom the unreal is yet the real.</p>
+
+<p>Then, suddenly, I arrived at a second phase of my mental growth in which
+fancy usurped the place of imagination. The modern equivalents of
+Romance attracted me, and, with my increasing grasp of reality, my gift
+of vision faded. As I had hitherto dreamed of knight-errants, of
+corsairs and of outlaws, I now dreamed of cowboys, of gold-seekers, of
+beach-combers. Fancy painted scenes in which I, too, should play a
+rousing part. I read avidly all I could find dealing with the Far West,
+and ever my wistful gaze roved over the grey sea. The spirit of Romance
+beaconed to me. I, too, would adventure in the stranger lands, and face
+their perils and brave their dangers. The joy of the thought exulted in
+my veins, and scarce could I bide the day when the roads of chance and
+change would be open to my feet.</p>
+
+<p>It is strange that in all these years I confided in <a class="pagenum" name="page_5" id="page_5" title="5"></a>no one. Garry, who
+was my brother and my dearest friend, would have laughed at me in that
+affectionate way of his. You would never have taken us for brothers. We
+were so different in temperament and appearance that we were almost the
+reverse of each other. He was the handsomest boy I have ever seen,
+frank, fair-skinned and winning, while I was dark, dour and none too
+well favoured. He was the best runner and swimmer in the parish, and the
+idol of the village lads. I cared nothing for games, and would be found
+somewhere among the heather hills, always by my lone self, and nearly
+always with a story book in my pocket. He was clever, practical and
+ambitious, excelling in all his studies; whereas, except in those which
+appealed to my imagination, I was a dullard and a dreamer.</p>
+
+<p>Yet we loved each others as few brothers do. Oh, how I admired him! He
+was my ideal, and too often the hero of my romances. Garry would have
+laughed at my hero-worship; he was so matter-of-fact, effective and
+practical. Yet he understood me, my Celtic ideality, and that shy
+reserve which is the armour of a sensitive soul. Garry in his fine
+clever way knew me and shielded me and cheered me. He was so buoyant and
+charming he heartened you like Spring sunshine, and braced you like a
+morning wind on the mountain top. Yes, not excepting Mother, Garry knew
+me better than any one has ever done, and I loved him for it. It seems
+overfond to say this, but he did not have a fault: tenderness, humour,
+enthusiasm, sympathy and the beauty of a young god&mdash;all <a class="pagenum" name="page_6" id="page_6" title="6"></a>that was
+manfully endearing was expressed in this brother of mine.</p>
+
+<p>So we grew to manhood there in that West Highland country, and surely
+our lives were pure and simple and sweet. I had never been further from
+home than the little market town where we sold our sheep. Mother managed
+the estate till Garry was old enough, when he took hold with a vigour
+and grasp that delighted every one. I think our little Mother stood
+rather in awe of my keen, capable, energetic brother. There was in her a
+certain dreamy, wistful idealism that made her beautiful in my eyes, and
+to look on she was as fair as any picture. Specially do I remember the
+delicate colouring of her face and her eyes, blue like deep
+corn-flowers. She was not overstrong, and took much comfort from
+religion. Her lips, which were fine and sensitive, had a particularly
+sweet expression, and I wish to record of her that never once did I see
+her cross, always sweet, gentle, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>Thus our home was an ideal one; Garry, tall, fair and winsome; myself,
+dark, dreamy, reticent; and between us, linking all three in a perfect
+bond of love and sympathy, our gentle, delicate Mother.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_7" id="page_7" title="7"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>So in serenity and sunshine the days of my youth went past. I still
+maintained my character as a drone and a dreamer. I used my time
+tramping the moorland with a gun, whipping the foamy pools of the burn
+for trout, or reading voraciously in the library. Mostly I read books of
+travel, and especially did I relish the literature of Vagabondia. I had
+come under the spell of Stevenson. His name spelled Romance to me, and
+my fancy etched him in his lonely exile. Forthright I determined I too
+would seek these ultimate islands, and from that moment I was a changed
+being. I nursed the thought with joyous enthusiasm. I would be a
+frontiersman, a trail-breaker, a treasure-seeker. The virgin prairies
+called to me; the susurrus of the giant pines echoed in my heart; but
+most of all, I felt the spell of those gentle islands where care is a
+stranger, and all is sunshine, song and the glowing bloom of eternal
+summer.</p>
+
+<p>About this time Mother must have worried a good deal over my future.
+Garry was now the young Laird, and I was but an idler, a burden on the
+estate. At last I told her I wanted to go abroad, and then it seemed as
+if a great difficulty was solved. We remembered of a cousin who was
+sheep-ranching in the Saskatchewan valley and had done well. It was
+arranged that I should join him as a pupil, then, <a class="pagenum" name="page_8" id="page_8" title="8"></a>when I had learned
+enough, buy a place of my own. It may be imagined that while I
+apparently acquiesced in this arrangement, I had already determined that
+as soon as I reached the new land I would take my destiny into my own
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>I will never forget the damp journey to Glasgow and the misty landscape
+viewed through the streaming window pane of a railway carriage. I was in
+a wondrous state of elation. When we reached the great smoky city I was
+lost in amazement not unmixed with fear. Never had I imagined such
+crowds, such houses, such hurry. The three of us, Mother, Garry and I,
+wandered and wondered for three days. Folks gazed at us curiously,
+sometimes admiringly, for our cheeks were bright with Highland health,
+and our eyes candid as the June skies. Garry in particular, tall, fair
+and handsome, seemed to call forth glances of interest wherever he went.
+Then as the hour of my departure drew near a shadow fell on us.</p>
+
+<p>I will not dwell on our leave-taking. If I broke down in unmanly grief,
+it must be remembered I had never before been from home. I was but a
+lad, and these two were all in all to me. Mother gave up trying to be
+brave, and mingled her tears with mine. Garry alone contrived to make
+some show of cheerfulness. Alas! all my elation had gone. In its place
+was a sense of guilt, of desertion, of unconquerable gloom. I had an
+inkling then of the tragedy of motherhood, the tender love that would
+hold yet cannot, the world-call and the ruthless, estranging years, <a class="pagenum" name="page_9" id="page_9" title="9"></a>all
+the memories of clinging love given only to be taken away.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't cry, sweetheart Mother," I said; "I'll be back again in three
+years."</p>
+
+<p>"Mind you do, my boy, mind you do."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at me woefully sad, and I had a queer, heartrending prevision
+I would never see her more. Garry was supporting her, and she seemed to
+have suddenly grown very frail. He was pale and quiet, but I could see
+he was vastly moved.</p>
+
+<p>"Athol," said he, "if ever you need me just send for me. I'll come, no
+matter how long or how hard the way."</p>
+
+<p>I can see them to this day standing there in the drenching rain, Garry
+fine and manly, Mother small and drooping. I can see her with her
+delicate rose colour, her eyes like wood violets drowned in tears, her
+tender, sensitive lips quivering with emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, laddie, good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>I forced myself away, and stumbled on board. When I looked back again
+they were gone, but through the grey shadows there seemed to come back
+to me a cry of heartache and irremediable loss.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, good-bye."</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' /><a class="pagenum" name="page_10" id="page_10" title="10"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>It was on a day of early Autumn when I stood knee-deep in the heather of
+Glengyle, and looked wistfully over the grey sea. 'Twas but a month
+later when, homeless and friendless, I stood on the beach by the Cliff
+House of San Francisco, and gazed over the fretful waters of another
+ocean. Such is the romance of destiny.</p>
+
+<p>Consigned, so to speak, to my cousin the sheep-raiser of the
+Saskatchewan, I found myself setting foot on the strange land with but
+little heart for my new vocation. My mind, cramful of book notions,
+craved for the larger life. I was valiantly mad for adventure; to fare
+forth haphazardly; to come upon naked danger; to feel the bludgeonings
+of mischance; to tramp, to starve, to sleep under the stars. It was the
+callow boy-idea perpetuated in the man, and it was to lead me a sorry
+dance. But I could not overbear it. Strong in me was the spirit of the
+gypsy. The joy of youth and health was brawling in my veins. A few
+thistledown years, said I, would not matter. And there was Stevenson and
+his glamorous islands winning me on.</p>
+
+<p>So it came about I stood solitary on the beach by the seal rocks, with a
+thousand memories confusing in my head. There was the long train ride
+with its strange pictures: the crude farms, the glooming forests, the
+gleaming lakes that would drown my whole <a class="pagenum" name="page_11" id="page_11" title="11"></a>country, the aching plains,
+the mountains that rip-sawed the sky, the fear-made-eternal of the
+desert. Lastly, a sudden, sunlit paradise, California.</p>
+
+<p>I had lived through a week of wizardry such as I had never dreamed of,
+and here was I at the very throne of Western empire. And what a place it
+was, and what a people&mdash;with the imperious mood of the West softened by
+the spell of the Orient and mellowed by the glamour of Old Spain. San
+Francisco! A score of tongues clamoured in her streets and in her
+byways a score of races lurked austerely. She suckled at her breast the
+children of the old grey nations and gave them of her spirit, that swift
+purposeful spirit so proud of past achievement and so convinced of
+glorious destiny.</p>
+
+<p>I marvelled at the rush of affairs and the zest of amusement. Every one
+seemed to be making money easily and spending it eagerly. Every one was
+happy, sanguine, strenuous. At night Market Street was a dazzling alley
+of light, where stalwart men and handsome women jostled in and out of
+the glittering restaurants. Yet amid this eager, passionate life I felt
+a dreary sense of outsideness. At times my heart fairly ached with
+loneliness, and I wandered the pathways of the park, or sat forlornly in
+Portsmouth Square as remote from it all as a gazer on his mountain top
+beneath the stars.</p>
+
+<p>I became a dreamer of the water front, for the notion of the South Seas
+was ever in my head. I loafed in the sunshine, sitting on the pier-edge,
+with eyes fixed on the lazy shipping. These were care-free,
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_12" id="page_12" title="12"></a>irresponsible days, and not, I am now convinced, entirely misspent. I
+came to know the worthies of the wharfside, and plunged into an
+under-world of fascinating repellency. Crimpdom eyed and tempted me, but
+it was always with whales or seals, and never with pearls or copra. I
+rubbed shoulders with eager necessity, scrambled for free lunches in
+frowsy bar-rooms, and amid the scum and d&eacute;bris of the waterside found
+much food for sober thought. Yet at times I blamed myself for thus
+misusing my days, and memories of Glengyle and Mother and Garry loomed
+up with reproachful vividness.</p>
+
+<p>I was, too, a seeker of curious experience, and this was to prove my
+undoing. The night-side of the city was unveiled to me. With the
+assurance of innocence I wandered everywhere. I penetrated the warrens
+of underground Chinatown, wondering why white women lived there, and why
+they hid at sight of me. Alone I poked my way into the opium joints and
+the gambling dens. Vice, amazingly unabashed, flaunted itself in my
+face. I wondered what my grim, Covenanting ancestors would have made of
+it all. I never thought to have seen the like, and in my inexperience it
+was like a shock to me.</p>
+
+<p>My nocturnal explorations came to a sudden end. One foggy midnight,
+coming up Pacific Street with its glut of saloons, I was clouted
+shrewdly from behind and dropped most neatly in the gutter. When I came
+to, very sick and dizzy in a side alley, I found I had been robbed of my
+pocketbook with nearly all my money therein. Fortunately I had left <a class="pagenum" name="page_13" id="page_13" title="13"></a>my
+watch in the hotel safe, and by selling it was not entirely destitute;
+but the situation forced me from my citadel of pleasant dreams, and
+confronted me with the grimmer realities of life.</p>
+
+<p>I became a habitu&eacute; of the ten-cent restaurant. I was amazed to find how
+excellent a meal I could have for ten cents. Oh for the uncaptious
+appetite of these haphazard days! With some thirty-odd dollars standing
+between me and starvation, it was obvious I must become a hewer of wood
+and a drawer of water, and to this end I haunted the employment offices.
+They were bare, sordid rooms, crowded by men who chewed, swapped
+stories, yawned and studied the blackboards where the day's wants were
+set forth. Only driven to labour by dire necessity, their lives, I
+found, held three phases&mdash;looking for work, working, spending the
+proceeds. They were the Great Unskilled, face to face with the necessary
+evil of toil.</p>
+
+<p>One morning, on seeking my favourite labour bureau, I found an unusual
+flutter among the bench-warmers. A big contractor wanted fifty men
+immediately. No experience was required, and the wages were to be two
+dollars a day. With a number of others I pressed forward, was
+interviewed and accepted. The same day we were marched in a body to the
+railway depot and herded into a fourth-class car.</p>
+
+<p>Where we were going I knew not; of what we were going to do I had no
+inkling. I only knew we were southbound, and at long last I might fairly
+consider myself to be the shuttlecock of fortune.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' /><a class="pagenum" name="page_14" id="page_14" title="14"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>I left San Francisco blanketed in grey fog and besomed by a roaring
+wind; when I opened my eyes I was in a land of spacious sky and broad,
+clean sunshine. Orange groves rushed to welcome us; orchards of almond
+and olive twinkled joyfully in the limpid air; tall, gaunt and ragged,
+the scaly eucalyptus fluttered at us a morning greeting, while snowy
+houses, wallowing in greenery, flashed a smile as we rumbled past. It
+seemed like a land of promise, of song and sunshine, and silent and
+apart I sat to admire and to enjoy.</p>
+
+<p>"Looks pretty swell, don't it?"</p>
+
+<p>I will call him the Prodigal. He was about my own age, thin, but
+sun-browned and healthy. His hair was darkly red and silky, his teeth
+white and even as young corn. His eyes twinkled with a humorsome light,
+but his face was shrewd, alert and aggressive.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said soberly, for I have always been backward with strangers.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty good line. The banana belt. Old Sol working overtime. Blossom
+and fruit cavorting on the same tree. Eternal summer. Land of the
+<i>ma&ntilde;ana</i>, the festive frijole, the never-chilly chili. Ever been here
+before?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_15" id="page_15" title="15"></a>"Neither have I. Glad I came, even if it's to do the horny-handed son
+of toil stunt. Got the makings?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm sorry; I don't smoke."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, guess I got enough."</p>
+
+<p>He pulled forth a limp sack of powdery tobacco, and spilled some grains
+into a brown cigarette paper, twisting it deftly and bending over the
+ends. Then he smoked with such enjoyment that I envied him.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are we going, have you any idea?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Search me," he said, inhaling deeply; "the guy in charge isn't exactly
+a free information bureau. When it comes to peddling the bull con he's
+there, but when you try to pry off a few slabs of cold hard fact it's
+his Sunday off."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I persisted, "have you no idea?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, one thing you can bank on, they'll work the Judas out of us. The
+gentle grafter nestles in our midst. This here's a cinch game and we are
+the fall guys. The contractors are a bum outfit. They'll squeeze us at
+every turn. There was two plunks to the employment man; they got half.
+Twenty for railway fare; they come in on that. Stop at certain hotels: a
+rake-off there. Stage fare: more graft. Five dollars a week for board:
+costs them two-fifty, and they will be stomach robbers at that. Then
+they'll ring in twice as many men as they need, and lay us off half the
+time, so that we just about even up on our board bill. Oh, I'm onto
+their curves all right."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_16" id="page_16" title="16"></a>"Then," I said, "if you know so much why did you come with us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if I know so much you just bet I know some more. I'll go one
+better. You watch my smoke."</p>
+
+<p>He talked on with a wonderful vivid manner and an outpouring knowledge
+of life, so that I was hugely interested. Yet ever and anon an allusion
+of taste would betray him, and at no time did I fail to see that his
+roughness was only a veneer. As it turned out he was better educated by
+far than I, a Yale boy taking a post-graduate course in the University
+of Hard Luck.</p>
+
+<p>My reserve once thawed, I told him much of my simple life. He listened,
+intently sympathetic.</p>
+
+<p>"Say," said he earnestly when I had finished, "I'm rough-and-ready in my
+ways. Life to me's a game, sort of masquerade, and I'm the worst
+masquerader in the bunch. But I know how to handle myself, and I can
+jolly my way along pretty well. Now, you're green, if you'll excuse me
+saying it, and maybe I can help you some. Likewise you're the only one
+in all the gang of hoboes that's my kind. Come on, let's be partners."</p>
+
+<p>I felt greatly drawn to him and agreed gladly.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said he, "I must go and jolly along the other boys. Aren't they a
+fierce bunch? Coloured gentlemen, Slavonians, Polaks, Dagoes,
+Swedes&mdash;well, I'll go prospecting, and see what I can strike."</p>
+
+<p>He went among them with a jabber of strange terms, a bright smile and
+ready banter, and I could <a class="pagenum" name="page_17" id="page_17" title="17"></a>see that he was to be a quick favourite. I
+envied him for his ease of manner, a thing I could never compass.
+Presently he returned to me.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, partner, got any money?"</p>
+
+<p>There was something frank and compelling in his manner, so that I
+produced the few dollars I had left, and spread them before him.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all my wealth," I said smilingly.</p>
+
+<p>He divided it into two equal portions and returned one to me. He took a
+note of the other, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"All right, I'll settle up with you later on."</p>
+
+<p>He went off with my money. He seemed to take it for granted I would not
+object, and on my part I cared little, being only too eager to show I
+trusted him. A few minutes later behold him seated at a card-table with
+three rough-necked, hard-bitten-looking men. They were playing poker,
+and, thinks I: "Here's good-bye to my money." It minded me of wolves and
+a lamb. I felt sorry for my new friend, and I was only glad he had so
+little to lose.</p>
+
+<p>We were drawing in to Los Angeles when he rejoined me. To my surprise he
+emptied his pockets of wrinkled notes and winking silver to the tune of
+twenty dollars, and dividing it equally, handed half to me.</p>
+
+<p>"Here," says he, "plant that in your dip."</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said, "just give me back what you borrowed; that's all I want."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, forget it! You staked me, and it's well won. These guinneys took me
+for a jay. Thought I was <a class="pagenum" name="page_18" id="page_18" title="18"></a>easy, but I've forgotten more than they ever
+knew, and I haven't forgotten so much either."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you keep it, please. I don't want it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come! put your Scotch scruples in your pocket. Take the money."</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said obstinately.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, this partnership of ours is based on financial equality. If
+you don't like my gate, you don't need to swing on it."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said I tartly, "I don't want to."</p>
+
+<p>Then I turned on my heel.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_19" id="page_19" title="19"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>On either side of us were swift hills mottled with green and gold, ahead
+a curdle of snow-capped mountains, above a sky of robin's-egg blue. The
+morning was lyric and set our hearts piping as we climbed the canyon. We
+breathed deeply of the heady air, exclaimed at sight of a big bee ranch,
+shouted as a mule team with jingling bells came swinging down the trail.
+With cries of delight we forded the little crystal stream wherever the
+trail plunged knee-deep through it. Higher and higher we climbed, mile
+after mile, our packs on our shoulders, our hearts very merry. I was as
+happy as a holiday schoolboy, willing this should go on for ever,
+dreading to think of the grim-visaged toil that awaited us.</p>
+
+<p>About midday we reached the end. Gangs of men were everywhere, ripping
+and tearing at the mountain side. There was a roar of blasting, and
+rocks hurtled down on us. Bunkhouses of raw lumber sweated in the sun.
+Everywhere was the feverish activity of a construction camp.</p>
+
+<p>We were assigned to a particular bunkhouse, and there was a great rush
+for places. It was floorless, doorless and in part roofless. Above the
+medley of voices I heard that of the Prodigal:</p>
+
+<p>"Say, fellows, let's find the softest side of this board! Strikes me the
+Company's mighty considerate. <a class="pagenum" name="page_20" id="page_20" title="20"></a>All kinds of ventilation. Good chance to
+study astronomy. Wonder if I couldn't borrow a mattress somewhere? Ha!
+Good eye! Watch me, fellows!"</p>
+
+<p>We saw him make for a tent nearby where horses were stabled. He
+reconnoitred carefully, then darted inside to come out in a twinkling,
+staggering under a bale of hay.</p>
+
+<p>"How's that for rustling? I guess I'm slow&mdash;hey, what? Guess this is
+poor!"</p>
+
+<p>He was wadding his bunk with the hay, while the others looked on rather
+enviously. Then, as a bell rang, he left off.</p>
+
+<p>"Hash is ready, boys; last call to the dining-car. Come on and see the
+pigs get their heads in the trough."</p>
+
+<p>We hurried to the cookhouse, where a tin plate, a tin cup, a tin spoon
+and a cast-iron knife was laid for each of us at a table of unplaned
+boards. A great mess of hash was ready, and excepting myself every one
+ate voraciously. I found something more to my taste, a can of honey and
+some soda crackers, on which I supped gratefully.</p>
+
+<p>When I returned to the bunkhouse I found my bunk had been stuffed with
+nice soft hay, and my blankets spread on top. I looked over to the
+Prodigal. He was reading, a limp cigarette between his yellow-stained
+fingers. I went up to him.</p>
+
+<p>"It's very good of you to do this," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no! Not at all. Don't mention it," he answered <a class="pagenum" name="page_21" id="page_21" title="21"></a>with much
+politeness, never raising his eyes from the book.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "I've just got to thank you. And look here, let's make
+it up. Don't let the business of that wretched money come between us.
+Can't we be friends anyway?"</p>
+
+<p>He sprang up and gripped my hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure! nothing I want more. I'm sorry. Another time I'll make allowance
+for that shorter-catechism conscience of yours. Now let's go over to
+that big fire they've made and chew the rag."</p>
+
+<p>So we sat by the crackling blaze of mesquite, sagebrush and live-oak
+limbs, while over us twinkled the friendly stars, and he told me many a
+strange story of his roving life.</p>
+
+<p>"You know, the old man's all broke up at me playing the fool like this.
+He's got a glue factory back in Massachusetts. Guess he stacks up about
+a million or so. Wanted me to go into the glue factory, begin at the
+bottom, stay with it. 'Stick to glue, my boy,' he says; 'become the Glue
+King,' and so on. But not with little Willie. Life's too interesting a
+proposition to be turned down like that. I'm not repentant. I know the
+fatted calf's waiting for me, getting fatter every day. One of these
+days I'll go back and sample it."</p>
+
+<p>It was he I first heard talk of the Great White Land, and it stirred me
+strangely.</p>
+
+<p>"Every one's crazy about it. They're rushing now in thousands, to get
+there before the winter begins. Next spring there will be the biggest
+stampede <a class="pagenum" name="page_22" id="page_22" title="22"></a>the world has ever seen. Say, Scotty, I've the greatest notion
+to try it. Let's go, you and I. I had a partner once, who'd been up
+there. It's a big, dark, grim land, but there's the gold, shining,
+shining, and it's calling us to go. Somehow it haunts me, that soft,
+gleamy, virgin gold there in the solitary rivers with not a soul to pick
+it up. I don't care one rip for the value of it. I can make all I want
+out of glue. But the adventure, the excitement, it's that that makes me
+fit for the foolish house."</p>
+
+<p>He was silent a long time while my imagination conjured up terrible,
+fascinating pictures of the vast, unawakened land, and a longing came
+over me to dare its shadows.</p>
+
+<p>As we said good-night, his last words were:</p>
+
+<p>"Remember, Scotty, we're both going to join the Big Stampede, you and
+I."</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_23" id="page_23" title="23"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>I slept but fitfully, for the night air was nipping, and the bunkhouse
+nigh as open as a cage. A bonny morning it was, and the sun warmed me
+nicely, so that over breakfast I was in a cheerful humour. Afterwards I
+watched the gang labouring, and showed such an injudicious interest that
+that afternoon I too was put to work.</p>
+
+<p>It was very simple. Running into the mountain there was a tunnel, which
+they were lining with concrete, and it was the task of I and another to
+push cars of the stuff from the outlet to the scene of operations. My
+partner was a Swede who had toiled from boyhood, while I had never done
+a day's work in my life. It was as much as I could do to lift the loaded
+boxes into the car. Then we left the sunshine behind us, and for a
+quarter of a mile of darkness we strained in an uphill effort.</p>
+
+<p>From the roof, which we stooped to avoid, sheets of water descended.
+Every now and then the heavy cars would run off the rails, which were of
+scantling, worn and frayed by friction. Then my Swede would storm in
+Berserker rage, and we would lift till the veins throbbed in my head.
+Never had time seemed so long. A convict working in the salt mines of
+Siberia did not revolt more against his task than I. The sweat blinded
+me; a bright steel pain <a class="pagenum" name="page_24" id="page_24" title="24"></a>throbbed in my head; my heart seemed to hammer.
+Never so thankful was I as when we had made our last trip, and sick and
+dizzy I put on my coat to go home.</p>
+
+<p>It was dark. There was a cable line running from the tunnel to the camp,
+and down this we shot in buckets two at a clip. The descent gave me a
+creepy sensation, but it saved a ten minutes' climb down the mountain
+side, and I was grateful.</p>
+
+<p>Tired, wet and dirty, how I envied the Prodigal lying warm and cosy on
+his fragrant hay. He was reading a novel. But the thought that I had
+earned a dollar comforted me. After supper he, with Ginger and Dutchy,
+played solo till near midnight, while I tossed on my bunk too weary and
+sore to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Next day was a repetition of the first, only worse. I ached as if I had
+been beaten. Stiff and sore I dragged myself to the tunnel again. I
+lifted, strained, tugged and shoved with a set and tragic face. Five
+hours of hell passed. It was noon. I nursed my strength for the after
+effort. Angrily I talked to myself, and once more I pulled through.
+Weary and slimy with wet mud, I shot down the cable line. Snugly settled
+in his bunk, the Prodigal had read another two hundred pages of "Les
+Mis&eacute;rables." Yet&mdash;I reflected somewhat sadly&mdash;I had made two dollars.</p>
+
+<p>On the third day sheer obstinacy forced me to the tunnel. My
+self-respect goaded me on. I would not give in. I must hold this job
+down, I <i>must</i>, I <span class="smcap">MUST</span>. Then at the noon hour I fainted.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_25" id="page_25" title="25"></a>No one saw me, so I gritted my teeth and once more threw my weight
+against the cars. Once more night found me waiting to descend in the
+bucket. Then as I stood there was a crash and shouts from below. The
+cable had snapped. My Swede and another lay among the rocks with sorely
+broken bones. Poor beggars! how they must have suffered jolting down
+that boulder-strewn trail to the hospital.</p>
+
+<p>Somehow that destroyed my nerve. I blamed myself indeed. I flogged
+myself with reproaches, but it was of no avail. I would sooner beg my
+bread than face that tunnel once again. The world seemed to be divided
+into two parts, the rest of it and that tunnel. Thank God, I didn't
+<i>have</i> to go into it again. I was exultantly happy that I didn't. The
+Prodigal had finished his book, and was starting another. That night he
+borrowed some of my money to play solo with.</p>
+
+<p>Next day I saw the foreman. I said:</p>
+
+<p>"I want to go. The work up there's too hard for me."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me kindly.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, sonny," says he, "don't quit. I'll put you in the gravel
+pit."</p>
+
+<p>So next day I found a more congenial task. There were four of us. We
+threw the gravel against a screen where the finer stuff that sifted
+through was used in making concrete.</p>
+
+<p>The work was heart-breaking in its monotony. In the biting cold of the
+morning we made a start, long before the sun peeped above the wall of
+mountain.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_26" id="page_26" title="26"></a>We watched it crawl, snail-like, over the virgin sky. We panted in its
+heat. We saw it drop again behind the mountain wall, leaving the sky
+gorgeously barred with colour from a tawny orange glow to an ice-pale
+green&mdash;a regular <i>pousse caf&eacute;</i> of a sunset. Then when the cold and the
+dark surged back, by the light of the evening star we straightened our
+weary spines, and throwing aside pick and shovel hurried to supper.</p>
+
+<p>Heigh-ho! what a life it was. Resting, eating, sleeping; negative
+pleasures became positive ones. Life's great principle of compensation
+worked on our behalf, and to lie at ease, reading an old paper, seemed
+an exquisite enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>I was much troubled about the Prodigal. He complained of muscular
+rheumatism, and except to crawl to meals was unable to leave his bunk.
+Every day came the foreman to inquire anxiously if he was fit to go to
+work, but steadily he grew worse. Yet he bore his suffering with great
+spirit, and, among that nondescript crew, he was a thing of joy and
+brightness, a link with that other world which was mine own. They
+nicknamed him "Happy," his cheerfulness was so invincible. He played
+cards on every chance, and he must have been unlucky, for he borrowed
+the last of my small hoard.</p>
+
+<p>One morning I woke about six, and found, pinned to my blanket, a note
+from my friend.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Scotty:</span></p>
+
+<p>"I grieve to leave you thus, but the cruel foreman insists on me
+working off my ten days' board. Racked with <a class="pagenum" name="page_27" id="page_27" title="27"></a>pain as I am, there
+appears to be no alternative but flight. Accordingly I fade away
+once more into the unknown. Will write you general delivery, Los
+Angeles. Good luck and good-bye. Yours to a cinder,</p>
+
+<p style='text-align:right'>
+"<span class="smcap">Happy.</span>"<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>There was a hue and cry after him, but he was gone, and a sudden disgust
+for the place came over me. For two more days I worked, crushed by a
+gloom that momently intensified. Clamant and imperative in me was the
+voice of change. I could not become toil-broken, so I saw the foreman.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you want to go?" he asked reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, the work's too monotonous."</p>
+
+<p>"Monotonous! Well, that's the rummest reason I ever heard a man give for
+quitting. But every man knows his own business best. I'll give you a
+time-cheque."</p>
+
+<p>While he was making it out I wondered if, indeed, I did know my own
+business best; but if it had been the greatest folly in the world, I was
+bound to get out of that canyon.</p>
+
+<p>Treasuring the slip of paper representing my labour, I sought one of the
+bosses, a sour, stiff man of dyspeptic tendencies. With a smile of
+malicious sweetness he returned it to me.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, take it to our Oakland office, and you'll get the cash."</p>
+
+<p>Expectantly I had been standing there, thinking to receive my money, the
+first I had ever earned (and to <a class="pagenum" name="page_28" id="page_28" title="28"></a>me so distressfully earned, at that).
+Now I gazed at him very sick at heart: for was not Oakland several
+hundred miles away, and I was penniless.</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't you cash it here?" I faltered at last.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" (very sourly).</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't you discount it, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"No!" (still more tartly).</p>
+
+<p>I turned away, crestfallen and smarting. When I told the other boys they
+were indignant, and a good deal alarmed on their own account. I made my
+case against the Company as damning as I could, then, slinging my
+blankets on my back, set off once more down the canyon.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_29" id="page_29" title="29"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>I was gaining in experience, and as I hurried down the canyon and the
+morning burgeoned like a rose, my spirits mounted invincibly. It was the
+joy of the open road and the care-free heart. Like some hideous
+nightmare was the memory of the tunnel and the gravel pit. The bright
+blood in me rejoiced; my muscles tensed with pride in their toughness; I
+gazed insolently at the world.</p>
+
+<p>So, as I made speed to get the sooner to the orange groves, I almost set
+heel on a large blue envelope which lay face up on the trail. I examined
+it and, finding it contained plans and specifications of the work we had
+been at, I put it in my pocket.</p>
+
+<p>Presently came a rider, who reined up by me.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, young man, you haven't seen a blue envelope, have you?"</p>
+
+<p>Something in the man's manner aroused in me instant resentment. I was
+the toiler in mud-stiffened overalls, he arrogant and supercilious in
+broadcloth and linen.</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said sourly, and, going on my way, heard him clattering up the
+canyon.</p>
+
+<p>It was about evening when I came onto a fine large plain. Behind me was
+the canyon, gloomy like the lair of some evil beast, while before me the
+sun was setting, and made the valley like a sea of golden <a class="pagenum" name="page_30" id="page_30" title="30"></a>glaze. I
+stood, knight-errant-wise, on the verge of one of those enchanted lands
+of precious memory, seeking the princess of my dreams; but all I saw was
+a man coming up the trail. He was reeling homeward, with under one arm a
+live turkey, and swinging from the other a demijohn of claret.</p>
+
+<p>He would have me drink. He represented the Christmas spirit, and his
+accent was Scotch, so I up-tilted his demijohn gladly enough. Then, for
+he was very merry, he would have it that we sing "Auld Lang Syne." So
+there, on the heath, in the golden dance of the light, we linked our
+hands and lifted our voices like two daft folk. Yet, for that it was
+Christmas Eve, it seemed not to be so mad after all.</p>
+
+<p>There was my first orange grove. I ran to it eagerly, and pulled four of
+the largest fruit I could see. They were green-like of rind and bitter
+sour, but I heeded not, eating the last before I was satisfied. Then I
+went on my way.</p>
+
+<p>As I entered the town my spirits fell. I remembered I was quite without
+money and had not yet learned to be gracefully penniless. However, I
+bethought me of the time-cheque, and entering a saloon asked the
+proprietor if he would cash it. He was a German of jovial face that
+seemed to say: "Welcome, my friend," and cold, beady eyes that queried:
+"How much can I get of your wad?" It was his eyes I noticed.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don'd touch dot. I haf before been schvindled. Himmel, no! You
+take him avay."</p>
+
+<p>I sank into a chair. Catching a glimpse of my <a class="pagenum" name="page_31" id="page_31" title="31"></a>face in a bar mirror, I
+wondered if that hollow-cheeked, weary-looking lad was I. The place was
+crowded with revellers of the Christmastide, and geese were being diced
+for. There were three that pattered over the floor, while in the corner
+the stage-driver and a red-haired man were playing freeze-out for one of
+them.</p>
+
+<p>I drowsed quietly. Wafts of bar-front conversation came to me. "Envelope
+... lost plans ... great delay." Suddenly I sat up, remembering the
+package I had found.</p>
+
+<p>"Were you looking for some lost plans?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said one man eagerly, "did you find them?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't say I did, but if I could get them for you, would you cash
+this time-cheque for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure," he says, "one good turn deserves another. Deliver the goods and
+I'll cash your time-cheque."</p>
+
+<p>His face was frank and jovial. I drew out the envelope and handed it
+over. He hurriedly ran through the contents and saw that all were there.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! That saves a trip to 'Frisco," he said, gay with relief.</p>
+
+<p>He turned to the bar and ordered a round of drinks. They all had a drink
+on him, while he seemed to forget about me. I waited a little, then
+pressed forward with my time-cheque.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh that," said he, "I won't cash that. I was only joshing."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_32" id="page_32" title="32"></a>A feeling of bitter anger welled up within me. I trembled like a leaf.</p>
+
+<p>"You won't go back on your word?" I said.</p>
+
+<p>He became flustered.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I can't do it anyway. I've got no loose cash."</p>
+
+<p>What I would have said or done I know not, for I was nigh desperate; but
+at this moment the stage-driver, flushed with his victory at freeze-out,
+snatched the paper from my hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, I'll discount that for you. I'll only give you five dollars for
+it, though."</p>
+
+<p>It called for fourteen, but by this time I was so discouraged I gladly
+accepted the five-dollar goldpiece he held out to tempt me.</p>
+
+<p>Thus were my fortunes restored. It was near midnight and I asked the
+German for a room. He replied that he was full up, but as I had my
+blankets there was a nice dry shed at the back. Alas! it was also used
+by his chickens. They roosted just over my head, and I lay on the filthy
+floor at the mercy of innumerable fleas. To complete my misery the green
+oranges I had eaten gave me agonizing cramps. Glad, indeed, was I when
+day dawned, and once more I got afoot, with my face turned towards Los
+Angeles.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_33" id="page_33" title="33"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Los Angeles will always be written in golden letters in the archives of
+my memory. Crawling, sore and sullen, from the clutch of toil, I
+revelled in a lotus life of ease and idleness. There was infinite
+sunshine, and the quiet of a public library through whose open windows
+came the fragrance of magnolias. Living was incredibly cheap. For
+seventy-five cents a week I had a little sunlit attic, and for ten cents
+I could dine abundantly. There was soup, fish, meat, vegetables, salad,
+pudding and a bottle of wine. So reading, dreaming and roaming the
+streets, I spent my days in a state of beatitude.</p>
+
+<p>But even five dollars will not last for ever, and the time came when
+once more the grim face of toil confronted me. I must own that I had now
+little stomach for hard labour, yet I made several efforts to obtain it.
+However, I had a bad manner, being both proud and shy, and one rebuff in
+a day always was enough. I lacked that self-confidence that readily
+finds employment, and again I found myself mixing with the spineless
+residuum of the employment bureau.</p>
+
+<p>At last the morning came when twenty-five cents was all that remained to
+me in the world. I had just been seeking a position as a dish-washer,
+and had been rather sourly rejected. Sitting solitary on the bench in
+that dreary place, I soliloquized:</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_34" id="page_34" title="34"></a>"And so it has come to this, that I, Athol Meldrum, of gentle birth and
+Highland breeding, must sue in vain to understudy a scullion in a
+third-rate hash joint. I am, indeed, fallen. What mad folly is this that
+sets me lower than a menial? Here I might be snug in the Northwest
+raising my own fat sheep. A letter home would bring me instant help. Yet
+what would it mean? To own defeat; to lose my self-esteem; to call
+myself a failure. No, I won't. Come what may, I will play the game."</p>
+
+<p>At that moment the clerk wrote:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style='text-align:center;'>
+"<i>Man Wanted to Carry Banner.</i>"
+</p>
+
+<p>"How much do you want for that job?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, two bits will hold you," he said carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Any experience required?" I asked again.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I guess even you'll do for that," he answered cuttingly.</p>
+
+<p>So I parted with my last quarter and was sent to a Sheeny store in
+Broadway. Here I was given a vociferous banner announcing:</p>
+
+<p>"Great retiring sale," and so forth.</p>
+
+<p>With this hoisted I sallied forth, at first very conscious and not a
+little ashamed. Yet by and by this feeling wore off, and I wandered up
+and down with no sense of my employment, which, after all, was one
+adapted to philosophic thought. I might have gone through the day in
+this blissful coma of indifference had not a casual glance at my banner
+thrilled me with <a class="pagenum" name="page_35" id="page_35" title="35"></a>horror. There it was in hideous, naked letters of red:</p>
+
+<p style='text-align:center;'>
+"<i>Retireing Sale.</i>"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>I reeled under the shock. I did not mind packing a banner, but a
+misspelt one....</p>
+
+<p>I hurried back to the store, resolved to throw up my position. Luckily
+the day was well advanced, and as I had served my purpose I was given a
+silver dollar.</p>
+
+<p>On this dollar I lived for a month. Not every one has done that, yet it
+is easy to do. This is how I managed.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place I told the old lady who rented me my room that I
+could not pay her until I got work, and I gave her my blankets as
+security. There remained only the problem of food. This I solved by
+buying every day or so five cents' worth of stale bread, which I ate in
+my room, washing it down with pure spring water. A little imagination
+and lo! my bread was beef, my water wine. Thus breakfast and dinner. For
+supper there was the Pacific Gospel Hall, where we gathered nightly one
+hundred strong, bawled hymns, listened to sundry good people and
+presently were given mugs of coffee and chunks of bread. How good the
+fragrant coffee tasted and how sweet the fresh bread!</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the third week I got work as an orange-picker. It was a
+matter of swinging long ladders into fruit-flaunting trees, of sunshiny
+days and fluttering leaves, of golden branches plundered, and <a class="pagenum" name="page_36" id="page_36" title="36"></a>boxes
+filled from sagging sacks. There is no more ideal occupation. I revelled
+in it. The others were Mexicans; I was "El Gringo." But on an average I
+only made fifty cents a day. On one day, when the fruit was unusually
+large, I made seventy cents.</p>
+
+<p>Possibly I would have gone on, contentedly enough, perched on a ladder,
+high up in the sunlit sway of treetops, had not the work come to an end.
+I had been something of a financier on a picayune scale, and when I
+counted my savings and found that I had four hundred and ninety-five
+cents, such a feeling of affluence came over me that I resolved to
+gratify my taste for travel. Accordingly I purchased a ticket for San
+Diego, and once more found myself southward bound.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_37" id="page_37" title="37"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>A few days in San Diego reduced my small capital to the vanishing point,
+yet it was with a light heart I turned north again and took the All-Tie
+route for Los Angeles. If one of the alluring conditions of a walking
+tour is not to be overburdened with cash surely I fulfilled it, for I
+was absolutely penniless. The Lord looks after his children, said I, and
+when I became too inexorably hungry I asked for bread, emphasising my
+willingness to do a stunt on the woodpile. Perhaps it was because I was
+young and notably a novice in vagrancy, but people were very good to me.</p>
+
+<p>The railway track skirts the ocean side for many a sonorous league. The
+mile-long waves roll in majestically, as straight as if drawn with a
+ruler, and crash in thunder on the sandy beach. There were glorious
+sunsets and weird storms, with underhanded lightning stabs at the sky. I
+built little huts of discarded railway ties, and lit camp-fires, for I
+was fearful of the crawling things I saw by day. The coyote called from
+the hills. Uneasy rustlings came from the sagebrush. My teeth,
+a-chatter with cold, kept me awake, till I cinched a handkerchief around
+my chin. Yet, drenched with night-dews, half-starved and travel-worn, I
+seemed to grow every day stronger and more fit. Between bondage and
+vagabondage I did not hesitate to choose.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_38" id="page_38" title="38"></a>Leaving the sea, I came to a country of grass and she-oaks very pretty
+to see, like an English park. I passed horrible tul&eacute; swamps, and reached
+a cattle land with corrals and solitary cowboys. There was a quaint old
+Spanish Mission that lingers in my memory, then once again I came into
+the land of the orange-groves and the irrigating ditch. Here I fell in
+with two of the hobo fraternity, and we walked many miles together. One
+night we slept in a refrigerator car, where I felt as if icicles were
+forming on my spine. But walking was not much in their line, so next
+morning they jumped a train and we separated. I was very thankful, as
+they did not look over-clean, and I had a wholesome horror of
+"seam-squirrels."</p>
+
+<p>On arriving in Los Angeles I went to the Post Office. There was a letter
+from the Prodigal dated New York, and inclosing fourteen dollars, the
+amount he owed me. He said:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"I returned to the paternal roof, weary of my r&ocirc;le. The fatted calf
+awaited me. Nevertheless, I am sick again for the unhallowed
+swine-husks. Meet me in 'Frisco about the end of February, and I
+will a glorious proposition unfold. Don't fail. I must have a
+partner and I want you. Look for a letter in the General Delivery."</p></div>
+
+<p>There was no time to lose, as February was nearly over. I took a
+steerage passage to San Francisco, resolving that I would mend my
+fortunes. It is so easy to drift. I was already in the social slough, a
+hobo and an outcast. I saw that as long as I remained <a class="pagenum" name="page_39" id="page_39" title="39"></a>friendless and
+unknown nothing but degraded toil was open to me. Surely I could climb
+up, but was it worth while? A snug farm in the Northwest awaited me. I
+would work my way back there, and arrive decently clad. Then none would
+know of my humiliation. I had been wayward and foolish, but I had
+learned something.</p>
+
+<p>The men who toiled, endured and suffered were kind and helpful, their
+masters mean and rapacious. Everywhere was the same sordid grasping for
+the dollar. With my ideals and training nothing but discouragement and
+defeat would be my portion. Oh, it is so easy to drift!</p>
+
+<p>I was sick of the whole business.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_40" id="page_40" title="40"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>What with steamer fare and a few small debts to settle, I found when I
+landed in San Francisco that once more I was flatly broke. I was
+arrestively seedy, literally on my uppers, for owing to my long tramp my
+boots were barely holding together. There was no letter for me, and
+perhaps it was on account of my disappointment, perhaps on account of my
+extreme shabbiness, but I found I had quite lost heart. Looking as I
+did, I would not ask any one for work. So I tightened my belt and sat in
+Portsmouth Square, cursing myself for the many nickels I had squandered
+in riotous living.</p>
+
+<p>Two days later I was still drawing in my belt. All I had eaten was one
+meal, which I had earned by peeling half a sack of potatoes for a
+restaurant. I slept beneath the floor of an empty house out the Presidio
+way.</p>
+
+<p>On this day I was drowsing on my bench when some one addressed me.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, young fellow, you look pretty well used up."</p>
+
+<p>I saw an elderly, grey-haired man.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no!" I said, "I'm not. That's just my acting. I'm a millionaire in
+disguise, studying sociology."</p>
+
+<p>He came and sat by me.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_41" id="page_41" title="41"></a>"Come, buck up, kid, you're pretty near down and out. I've been
+studyin' you them two days."</p>
+
+<p>"Two days," I echoed drearily. "It seems like two years." Then, with
+sudden fierceness:</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, I am a stranger to you. Never in my life before have I tried to
+borrow money. It is asking a great deal of you to trust me, but it will
+be a most Christian act. I am starving. If you have ten cents that isn't
+working lend it to me for the love of God. I'll pay you back if it takes
+me ten years."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, son," he said cheerfully; "let's go and feed."</p>
+
+<p>He took me to a restaurant where he ordered a dinner that made my head
+swim. I felt near to fainting, but after I had had some brandy, I was
+able to go on with the business of eating. By the time I got to the
+coffee I was as much excited by the food as if I had been drinking wine.
+I now took an opportunity to regard my benefactor.</p>
+
+<p>He was rather under medium height, but so square and solid you felt he
+was a man to be reckoned with. His skin was as brown as an Indian's, his
+eyes light-blue and brightly cheerful, as from some inner light. His
+mouth was firm and his chin resolute. Altogether his face was a curious
+blend of benevolence and ruthless determination.</p>
+
+<p>Now he was regarding me in a manner entirely benevolent.</p>
+
+<p>"Feel better, son? Well, go ahead an' tell me as much of your story as
+you want to."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_42" id="page_42" title="42"></a>I gave an account of all that had happened to me since I had set foot
+on the new land.</p>
+
+<p>"Huh!" he ejaculated when I had finished. "That's the worst of your
+old-country boys. You haven't got the get-up an' nerve to rustle a job.
+You go to a boss an' tell him: 'You've no experience, but you'll do your
+best.' An American boy says: 'I can do anything. Give me the job an'
+I'll just show you.' Who's goin' to be hired? Well, I think I can get
+you a job helpin' a gardener out Alameda way."</p>
+
+<p>I expressed my gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," he said; "I'm glad by the grace of God I've been the
+means of givin' you a hand-up. Better come to my room an' stop with me
+till somethin' turns up. I'm goin' North in three days."</p>
+
+<p>I asked if he was going to the Yukon.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I'm goin' to join this crazy rush to the Klondike. I've been
+minin' for twenty years, Arizona, Colorado, all over, an' now I am
+a-goin' to see if the North hasn't got a stake for me."</p>
+
+<p>Up in his room he told me of his life.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm saved by the grace of God, but I've been a Bad Man. I've been
+everything from a city marshal to boss gambler. I have gone heeled for
+two years, thinking to get my pass to Hell at any moment."</p>
+
+<p>"Ever killed any one?" I queried.</p>
+
+<p>He was beginning to pace up and down the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Glory to God, I haven't, but I've shot.... There was a time when I
+could draw a gun an' drive a nail in the wall. I was quick, but there
+was <a class="pagenum" name="page_43" id="page_43" title="43"></a>lots that could give me cards and spades. Quiet men, too, you would
+never think it of 'em. The quiet ones was the worst. Meek, friendly,
+decent men, to see them drinkin' at a bar, but they didn't know Fear,
+an' every one of 'em had a dozen notches on his gun. I know lots of
+them, chummed with them, an' princes they were, the finest in the land,
+would give the shirts off their backs for a friend. You'd like them&mdash;but
+Lord be praised, I'm a saved man."</p>
+
+<p>I was deeply interested.</p>
+
+<p>"I know I'm talking as I shouldn't. It's all over now, an' I've seen the
+evil of my ways, but I've got to talk once in a while. I'm Jim Hubbard,
+known as 'Salvation Jim,' an' I know minin' from Genesis to Revelation.
+Once I used to gamble an' drink the limit. One morning I got up from the
+card-table after sitting there thirty-six hours. I'd lost five thousand
+dollars. I knew they'd handed me out 'cold turkey,' but I took my
+medicine.</p>
+
+<p>"Right then I said I'd be a crook too. I learned to play with marked
+cards. I could tell every card in the deck. I ran a stud-poker game,
+with a Jap an' a Chinaman for partners. They were quicker than white
+men, an' less likely to lose their nerve. It was easy money, like taking
+candy from a kid. Often I would play on the square. No man can bluff
+strong without showing it. Maybe it's just a quiver of the eyelash,
+maybe a shuffle of the foot. I've studied a man for a month till I found
+the sign that gave him away. Then I've raised an' raised him till the
+sweat pricked through his brow. He was my meat. I <a class="pagenum" name="page_44" id="page_44" title="44"></a>went after the men
+that robbed me, an' I went one better. Here, shuffle this deck."</p>
+
+<p>He produced a pack of cards from a drawer.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll never go back to the old trade. I'm saved. I trust in God, but
+just for diversion I keep my hand in."</p>
+
+<p>Talking to me, he shuffled the pack a few times.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, I'm dealing; what do you want? Three kings?"</p>
+
+<p>I nodded.</p>
+
+<p>He dealt four hands. In mine there were three kings.</p>
+
+<p>Taking up another he showed me three aces.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm out of practice," he said apologetically. "My hands are calloused.
+I used to keep them as soft as velvet."</p>
+
+<p>He showed me some false shuffles, dealing from under the deck, and other
+tricks.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I got even with the ones that got my money. It was eat or be
+eaten. I went after the suckers. There was never a man did me dirt but I
+paid him with interest. Of course, it's different now. The Good Book
+says: 'Do good unto them that harm you.' I guess I would, but I wouldn't
+recommend no one to try and harm me. I might forget."</p>
+
+<p>The heavy, aggressive jaw shot forward; the eyes gleamed with a fearless
+ferocity, and for a moment the man took on an air that was almost
+tigerish. I could scarce believe my sight; yet the next instant it was
+the same cheerful, benevolent face, and I thought my eyes must have
+played me some trick.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_45" id="page_45" title="45"></a>Perhaps it was that sedate Puritan strain in me that appealed to him,
+but we became great friends. We talked of many things, and most of all I
+loved to get him to tell of his early life. It was just like a story:
+thrown on the world while yet a child; a shoeblack in New York, fighting
+for his stand; a lumber-jack in the woods of Michigan; lastly a miner in
+Arizona. He told me of long months on the desert with only his pipe for
+company, talking to himself over the fire at night, and trying not to go
+crazy. He told me of the girl he married and worshipped, and of the man
+who broke up his home. Once more I saw that flitting tiger-look appear
+on his face and vanish immediately. He told me of his wild days.</p>
+
+<p>"I was always a fighter, an' I never knew what fear meant. I never saw
+the man that could beat me in a rough-an'-tumble scrap. I was uncommon
+husky an' as quick as a cat, but it was my fierceness that won out for
+me. Get a man down an' give him the leather. I've kicked a man's face to
+a jelly. It was kick, bite an' gouge in them days&mdash;anything went.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I never knew fear. I've gone up unarmed to a man I knew was heeled
+to shoot me on sight, an' I've dared him to do it. Just by the power of
+the eye I've made him take water. He thought I had a gun an' could draw
+quicker'n him. Then, as the drink got hold of me, I got worse and worse.
+Time was when I would have robbed a bank an' shot the man that tried to
+stop me. Glory to God! I've seen the evil of my ways."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_46" id="page_46" title="46"></a>"Are you sure you'll never backslide?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Never! I'm born again. I don't smoke, drink or gamble, an' I'm as happy
+as the day's long. There was the drink. I would go on the water-wagon
+for three months at a stretch, but day and night, wherever I went, the
+glass of whisky was there right between my eyes. Sooner or later it got
+the better of me. Then one night I went half-sober into a Gospel Hall.
+The glass was there, an' I was in agony tryin' to resist it. The speaker
+was callin' sinners to come forward. I thought I'd try the thing anyway,
+so I went to the penitents' bench. When I got up the glass was gone. Of
+course it came back, but I got rid of it again in the same way. Well, I
+had many a struggle an' many a defeat, but in the end I won. It's a
+divine miracle."</p>
+
+<p>I wish I could paint or act the man for you. Words cannot express his
+curious character. I came to have a great fondness for him, and
+certainly owed him a huge debt of gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>One day I was paying my usual visit to the Post Office, when some one
+gripped me by the arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo, Scotty! By all that's wonderful. I was just going to mail you a
+letter."</p>
+
+<p>It was the Prodigal, very well dressed and spruce-looking.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, I'm so tickled I got you; we're going to start in two days."</p>
+
+<p>"Start! Where?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, for the Golden North, for the land of the <a class="pagenum" name="page_47" id="page_47" title="47"></a>Midnight Sun, for the
+treasure-troves of the Klondike Valley."</p>
+
+<p>"You maybe," I said soberly; "but I can't."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes you can, and you are, old sport. I fixed all that. Come on, I want
+to talk to you. I went home and did the returned prodigal stunt. The old
+man was mighty decent when I told him it was no good, I couldn't go into
+the glue factory yet awhile. Told him I had the gold-bug awful bad and
+nothing but a trip up there would cure me. He was rather tickled with
+the idea. Staked me handsomely, and gave me a year to make good. So here
+I am, and you're in with me. I'm going to grubstake you. Mind, it's a
+business proposition. I've got to have some one, and when you make the
+big strike you've got to divvy up."</p>
+
+<p>I said something about having secured employment as an under-gardener.</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw! you'll soon be digging gold-nuggets instead of potatoes. Why,
+man, it's the chance of a lifetime, and anybody else would jump at it.
+Of course, if you're afraid of the hardships and so on&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said quickly, "I'll go."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha!" he laughed, "you're too much of a coward to be afraid. Well, we're
+going to be blighted Argonauts, but we've got to get busy over our
+outfits. We haven't got any too much time."</p>
+
+<p>So we hustled around. It seemed as if half of San Francisco was
+Klondike-crazy. On every hand was there speculation and excitement. All
+the <a class="pagenum" name="page_48" id="page_48" title="48"></a>merchants had their outfitting departments, and wild and vague were
+their notions as to what was required. We did not do so badly, though
+like every one else we bought much that was worthless and foolish.
+Suddenly I bethought me of Salvation Jim, and I told the Prodigal of my
+new friend.</p>
+
+<p>"He's an awfully good sort," I said; "white all through; all kinds of
+experience, and he's going alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Why," said the Prodigal, "that's just the man we want. We'll ask him to
+join us."</p>
+
+<p>I brought the two together, and it was arranged. So it came about that
+we three left San Francisco on the fourth day of March to seek our
+fortunes in the Frozen North.</p>
+
+<hr class='major' />
+
+<h2><a name="BOOK_II" id="BOOK_II"></a>BOOK II</h2>
+
+<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em">
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_49" id="page_49" title="49"></a>
+<a name="THE_TRAIL_1476" id="THE_TRAIL_1476"></a>
+<h3>THE TRAIL</h3>
+</div>
+
+<table summary=""><tr><td>
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_50" id="page_50" title="50"></a>
+Gold! We leaped from our benches. Gold! We sprang from our stools.<br />
+Gold! We wheeled in the furrow, fired with the faith of fools.<br />
+Fearless, unfound, unfitted, far from the night and the cold,<br />
+Heard we the clarion summons, followed the master-lure&mdash;Gold!<br />
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<div>
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_51" id="page_51" title="51"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Say! you're looking mighty blue. Cheer up, darn you! What's the
+matter?" said the Prodigal affectionately.</p>
+
+<p>And indeed there was matter enough, for had I not just received letters
+from home, one from Garry and one from Mother? Garry's was gravely
+censorious, almost remonstrant. Mother, he said, was poorly, and greatly
+put out over my escapade. He pointed out that I was in a fair way of
+being a rolling stone, and hoped that I would at once give up my mad
+notion of the South Seas and soberly proceed to the Northwest.</p>
+
+<p>Mother's letter was reproachful, in parts almost distressful. She was
+failing, she said, and she begged me to be a good son, give up my
+wanderings and join my cousin at once. Also she enclosed post-office
+orders for forty pounds. Her letter, written in a fine faltering hand
+and so full of gentle affection, brought the tears to my eyes; so that
+it was very bleakly I leaned against the ship's rail and watched the
+bustle of departure. Poor Mother! Dear old Garry! With what tender
+longing I thought of those two in far-away Glengyle, the Scotch mist
+silvering the heather and the wind blowing caller from the sea. Oh, for
+the clean, keen breath of it! Yet alas, every day was the memory
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_52" id="page_52" title="52"></a>fading, and every day was I fitting more snugly into the new life.</p>
+
+<p>"I've just heard from the folks," I said, "and I feel like going back on
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, beat it," he cried; "you can't renig now. You've got to see the
+thing through. Mothers are all like that when you cut loose from their
+apron-strings. Ma's scared stiff about me, thinks the devil's got an
+option on my future sure. They get wised up pretty soon. What you want
+to do is to get busy and make yourself acquainted. Here I've been
+snooping round for the last two hours, and got a line on nearly every
+one on board. Say! Of all the locoed outfits this here aggregation has
+got everything else skinned to a hard-boiled finish. Most of them are
+indoor men, ink-slingers and calico snippers; haven't done a day's hard
+work in their lives, and don't know a pick from a mattock. They've got a
+notion they've just got to get up there and pick big nuggets out of the
+water like cherries out of a cocktail. It's the limit."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me about them," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, see that young fellow standing near us?"</p>
+
+<p>I looked. He was slim, with gentle, refined features and an unnaturally
+fresh complexion.</p>
+
+<p>"That fellow was a pen-pusher in a mazuma emporium&mdash;I mean a bank clerk.
+Pinklove's his name. He wanted to get hitched to some girl, but the
+directors wouldn't stand for it. Now he's chucked his job and staked his
+savings on this trip. There's his girl in the crowd."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_53" id="page_53" title="53"></a>Bedded in that mosaic of human faces I saw one that was all sweetness,
+yet shamelessly tear-stained.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucky beggar," I said, "to have some one who cares so much about his
+going."</p>
+
+<p>"Unlucky, you mean, lad. You don't want to have any strings on you when
+you play this game."</p>
+
+<p>He pointed to a long-haired young man in a flowing-end tie.</p>
+
+<p>"See that pale-faced, artistic-looking guy alongside him. That's his
+partner. Ineffectual, moony sort of a mut. He's a wood-carver; they call
+him Globstock; told me his knowledge of wood-carving would come in handy
+when we came to make boats at Lake Bennett. Then there's a third. See
+that little fellow shooting off his face?"</p>
+
+<p>I saw a weazened, narrow-chested mannikin, with an aggressive certainty
+of feature.</p>
+
+<p>"He's a professor, plumb-full of book dope on the Yukon. He's Mister
+Wise Mike. He knows it all. Hear his monologue on 'How It Should Be
+Done.' He's going to live on deck to inure himself to the rigours of the
+Arctic climate. Works with a pair of spring dumb-bells to get up his
+muscle so's he can shovel out the nuggets."</p>
+
+<p>Our eyes roved round from group to group, picking out characteristic
+figures.</p>
+
+<p>"See that big bleached-blond Englishman? Came over with me on the
+Pullman from New York. 'Awfully bored, don't you know.' When we got to
+'Frisco, he says to me: 'Thank God, old chappie, the worst part of the
+journey's over.' Then there's <a class="pagenum" name="page_54" id="page_54" title="54"></a>Romulus and Remus, the twins, strapping
+young fellows. Only way I know them apart is one laces his boots tight,
+the other slack. They think the world of each other."</p>
+
+<p>He swung around to where Salvation Jim was talking to two men.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a pair of winners. I put my money on them. Nothing on earth can
+stop those fellows, native-born Americans, all grit and get-up. See that
+tall one smoking a cigar and looking at the women? He's an athlete.
+Name's Mervin; all whipcord and whalebone; springy as a bent bow. He's a
+type of the Swift. He's bound to get there. See the other. Hewson's his
+name; solid as a tower; muscled like a bear; built from the ground up.
+He represents the Strong. Look at the grim, determined face of him. You
+can't down a man like that."</p>
+
+<p>He indicated another group.</p>
+
+<p>"Now there's three birds of prey. Bullhammer, Marks and Mosher. The big,
+pig-eyed heavy-jowled one is Bullhammer. He's in the saloon business.
+The middle-sized one in the plug hat is Marks. See his oily, yellow face
+dotted with pimples. He's a phoney piece of work; calls himself a mining
+broker. The third's Jake Mosher. He's an out-and-out gambler, a
+sure-thing man, once was a parson."</p>
+
+<p>I looked again. Mosher had just taken off his hat. His high-domed head
+was of monumental baldness, his eyes close-set and crafty, his nose
+negligible. <a class="pagenum" name="page_55" id="page_55" title="55"></a>The rest of his face was mostly beard. It grew black as the
+Pit to near the bulge of his stomach, and seemed to have drained his
+scalp in its rank luxuriance. Across the deck came the rich, oily tones
+of his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"A bad-looking bunch," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, there's heaps like them on board. There's a crowd of dance-hall
+girls going up, and the usual following of parasites. Look at that
+Halfbreed. There's a man for the country now, part Scotch, part Indian;
+the quietest man on the boat; light, but tough as wire nails."</p>
+
+<p>I saw a lean, bright-eyed brown man with flat features, smoking a
+cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>"Say! Just get next to those two Jews, Mike and Rebecca Winklestein.
+They're going to open up a sporty restaurant."</p>
+
+<p>The man was a small bandy-legged creature, with eyes that squinted, a
+complexion like ham fat and waxed moustaches. But it was the woman who
+seized my attention. Never did I see such a strapping Amazon, six foot
+if an inch, and massive in proportion. She was handsome too, in a
+swarthy way, though near at hand her face was sensuous and bold. Yet she
+had a suave, flattering manner and a coarse wit that captured the crowd.
+Dangerous, unscrupulous and cruel, I thought; a man-woman, a shrew, a
+termagant!</p>
+
+<p>But I was growing weary of the crowd and longed to go below. I was no
+longer interested, yet the voice of the Prodigal droned in my ear.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_56" id="page_56" title="56"></a>"There's an old man and his granddaughter, relatives of the
+Winklesteins, I believe. I think the old fellow's got a screw loose.
+Handsome old boy, though; looks like a Hebrew prophet out of a job.
+Comes from Poland. Speaks Yiddish or some such jargon; Only English he
+knows is 'Klondike, Klondike.' The girl looks heartbroken, poor little
+beggar."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor little beggar!" I heard the words indeed, but my mind was far
+away. To the devil with Polish Jews and their granddaughters. I wished
+the Prodigal would leave me to my own thoughts, thoughts of my Highland
+home and my dear ones. But no! he persisted:</p>
+
+<p>"You're not listening to what I'm saying. Look, why don't you!"</p>
+
+<p>So, to please him, I turned full round and looked. An old man,
+patriarchal in aspect, crouched on the deck. Erect by his side, with her
+hand on his shoulder, stood a slim figure in black, the figure of a
+girl. Indifferently my eyes travelled from her feet to her face. There
+they rested. I drew a deep breath. I forgot everything else. Then for
+the first time I saw&mdash;Berna.</p>
+
+<p>I will not try to depict the girl. Pen descriptions are so futile. I
+will only say that her face was very pale, and that she had large
+pathetic grey eyes. For the rest, her cheeks were woefully pinched and
+her lips drooped wistfully. 'Twas the face, I thought, of a virgin
+martyr with a fear-haunted look hard to forget. All this I saw, but most
+of all I <a class="pagenum" name="page_57" id="page_57" title="57"></a>saw those great, grey eyes gazing unseeingly over the crowd,
+ever so sadly fixed on that far-away East of her dreams and memories.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor little beggar!"</p>
+
+<p>Then I cursed myself for a sentimental impressionist and I went below.
+Stateroom forty-seven was mine. We three had been separated in the
+shuffle, and I knew not who was to be my room-mate. Feeling very
+downhearted, I stretched myself on the upper berth, and yielded to a
+mood of penitential sadness. I heard the last gang-plank thrown off, the
+great crowd cheer, the measured throb of the engines, yet still I
+sounded the depths of reverie. There was a bustle outside and growing
+darkness. Then, as I lay, there came voices to my door, guttural tones
+blended with liquid ones; lastly a timid knock. Quickly I answered it.</p>
+
+<p>"Is this room number forty-seven?" a soft voice asked.</p>
+
+<p>Even ere she spoke I divined it was the Jewish girl of the grey eyes,
+and now I saw her hair was like a fair cloud, and her face fragile as a
+flower.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I answered her.</p>
+
+<p>She led forward the old man.</p>
+
+<p>"This is my grandfather. The Steward told us this was his room."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, all right; he'd better take the lower berth."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, indeed; he's an old man and not very strong."</p>
+
+<p>Her voice was clear and sweet, and there was an infinite tenderness in
+the tone.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_58" id="page_58" title="58"></a>"You must come in," I said. "I'll leave you with him for a while so
+that you can make him comfortable."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you again," she responded gratefully.</p>
+
+<p>So I withdrew, and when I returned she was gone; but the old man slept
+peacefully.</p>
+
+<p>It was late before I turned in. I went on deck for a time. We were
+cleaving through blue-black night, and on our right I could dimly
+discern the coast festooned by twinkling lights. Every one had gone
+below, I thought, and the loneliness pleased me. I was very quiet,
+thinking how good it all was, the balmy wind, the velvet vault of the
+night frescoed with wistful stars, the freedom-song of the sea; how
+restful, how sane, how loving!</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly I heard a sound of sobbing, the merciless sobbing of a woman's
+breast. Distinct above the hollow breathing of the sea it assailed me,
+poignant and insistent. Wonderingly I looked around. Then, in a shadow
+of the upper deck, I made out a slight girl-figure, crouching all alone.
+It was Grey Eyes, crying fit to break her heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor little beggar!" I muttered.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_59" id="page_59" title="59"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Gr-r-r&mdash;you little brat! If you open your face to him I'll kill you,
+kill you, see!"</p>
+
+<p>The voice was Madam Winklestein's, and the words, hissed in a whisper of
+incredible malignity, arrested me as if I had been struck by a live
+wire. I listened. Behind the stateroom door there followed a silence,
+grimly intense; then a dull pounding; then the same savage undertone.</p>
+
+<p>"See here, Berna, we're next to you two&mdash;we're onto your curves. We know
+the old man's got the stuff in his gold-belt, two thousand in bills.
+Now, my dear, my sweet little angel what thinks she's too good to mix
+with the likes o' us, we need the mon, see!" (Knock, knock.) "And we're
+goin' to have it, see!" (Knock, knock.) "That's where you come in,
+honey, you're goin' to get it for us. Ain't you now, darlin'!" (Knock,
+knock, knock.)</p>
+
+<p>Faintly, very faintly, I heard a voice:</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>If it be possible to scream in a whisper, the woman did it.</p>
+
+<p>"You will! you will! Oh! oh! oh! There's the cursed mule spirit of your
+mother in you. She'd never tell us the name of the man that was the ruin
+of 'er, blast 'er."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't speak of my mother, you vile woman!"</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_60" id="page_60" title="60"></a>The voice of the virago contracted to an intensity of venom I have
+never heard the equal of.</p>
+
+<p>"Vile woman! Vile woman! You, you to call <i>me</i> a vile woman, me that's
+been three times jined in holy wedlock.... Oh, you bastard brat! You
+whelp of sin! You misbegotten scum! Oh, I'll fix you for that, if I've
+got to swing for it."</p>
+
+<p>Her scalding words were capped with an oath too foul to repeat, and once
+more came the horrible pounding, like a head striking the woodwork.
+Unable to bear it any longer, I rapped sharply on the door.</p>
+
+<p>Silence, a long, panting silence; then the sound of a falling body; then
+the door opened a little and the twitching face of Madam appeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there somebody sick?" I asked. "I'm sorry to trouble you, but I was
+thinking I heard groans and&mdash;I might be able to do something."</p>
+
+<p>Piercingly she looked at me. Her eyes narrowed to slits and stabbed me
+with their spite. Her dark face grew turgid with impotent anger. As I
+stood there she was like to have killed me. Then like a flash her
+expression changed. With a dirty bejewelled hand she smoothed her
+tousled hair. Her coarse white teeth gleamed in a gold-capped smile.
+There was honey in her tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, no! my niece in here's got a toothache, but I guess we can fix it
+between us. We don't need no help, thanks, young feller."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's all right," I said. "If you should, you know, I'll be
+nearby."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_61" id="page_61" title="61"></a>Then I moved away, conscious that her eyes followed me malevolently.</p>
+
+<p>The business worried me sorely. The poor girl was being woefully abused,
+that was plain. I felt indignant, angry and, last of all, anxious.
+Mingled with my feelings was a sense of irritation that I should have
+been elected to overhear the affair. I had no desire just then to
+champion distressed damsels, least of all to get mixed up in the family
+brawls of unknown Jewesses. Confound her, anyway! I almost hated her.
+Yet I felt constrained to watch and wait, and even at the cost of my own
+ease and comfort to prevent further violence.</p>
+
+<p>For that matter there were all kinds of strange doings on board,
+drinking, gambling, nightly orgies and hourly brawls. It seemed as if we
+had shipped all the human dregs of the San Francisco deadline. Never, I
+believe, in those times when almost daily the Argonaut-laden boats were
+sailing for the Golden North, was there one in which the sporting
+element was so dominant. The social hall reeked with patchouli and stale
+whiskey. From the staterooms came shrill outbursts of popular melody,
+punctuated with the popping of champagne corks. Dance-hall girls,
+babbling incoherently, reeled in the passageways, danced on the cabin
+table, and were only held back from licentiousness by the restraint of
+their bullies. The day was one long round of revelry, and the night was
+pregnant with sinister sound.</p>
+
+<p>Already among the better element a moral secession was apparent.
+Convention they had left behind <a class="pagenum" name="page_62" id="page_62" title="62"></a>with their boiled shirts and their
+store clothes, and crazed with the idea of speedy fortune, they were
+even now straining at the leash of decency. It was a howling mob,
+elately riotous, and already infected by the virus of the goldophobia.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, it was good to get on deck of a night, away from this saturnalia, to
+watch the beacon stars strewn vastly in the skyey uplift, to listen to
+the ancient threnody of the outcast sea. Blue and silver the nights
+were, and crystal clear, with a keen wind that painted the cheek and
+kindled the eye. And as I sat in silent thought there came to me
+Salvation Jim. His face was grim, his eyes brooding. From the
+brilliantly lit social hall came a blare of music-hall melody.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like the way of things a bit," he said; "I don't like it. Look
+here now, lad, I've lived round mining camps for twenty years, I've
+followed the roughest callings on earth, I've tramped the States all
+over, yet never have I seen the beat of this. Mind you, I ain't
+prejudiced, though I've seen the error of my ways, glory to God! I can
+make allowance once in a while for the boys gettin' on a jamboree, but
+by Christmas! Say! There's enough evil on this boat to stake a
+sub-section in Hell. There's men should be at home with their dinky
+little mothers an' their lovin' wives an' children, down there right now
+in that cabin buyin' wine for them painted Jezebels.</p>
+
+<p>"There's doctors an' lawyers an' deacons in the church back in old Ohio,
+that never made a bad <a class="pagenum" name="page_63" id="page_63" title="63"></a>break in their lives, an' now they're rowin' like
+barroom bullies for the kisses of a baggage. In the bay-window of their
+souls the devil lolls an' grins an' God is freezin' in the attic. You
+mark my words, boy; there's a curse on this northern gold. The Yukon's
+a-goin' to take its toll. You mark my words."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Jim," I said, "you're superstitious."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I ain't. I've just got a hunch. Here we are a bit of floatin'
+iniquity glidin' through the mystery of them strange seas, an' the very
+officers on dooty sashed to the neck an' reekin' from the arms of the
+scented hussies below. It'll be God's mercy if we don't crash on a rock,
+an' go down good an' all to the bitter bottom. But it don't matter.
+Sooner or later there's goin' to be a reckonin'. There's many a one
+shoutin' an' singin' to-night'll leave his bones to bleach up in that
+bleak wild land."</p>
+
+<p>"No, Jim," I protested, "they will be all right once they get ashore."</p>
+
+<p>"Right nothin'! They're a pack of fools. They think they've got a bulge
+on fortune. Hear them a-howlin' now. They're all millionaires in their
+minds. There's no doubt with them. It's a cinch. They're spendin' it
+right now. You mark my words, young feller, for I'll never live to see
+them fulfilled&mdash;there's ninety in a hundred of all them fellers that's
+goin' to this here Klondike will never make good, an' of the other ten,
+nine won't <i>do</i> no good."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_64" id="page_64" title="64"></a>"One per cent. that will keep their stakes&mdash;that's absurd, Jim."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you'll see. An' as for me, I feel as sure as God's above us
+guidin' us through the mazes of the night, I'll never live to make the
+trip back. I've got a hunch. Old Jim's on his last stampede."</p>
+
+<p>He sighed, then said sharply:</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see that feller that passed us?"</p>
+
+<p>It was Mosher, the gambler and ex-preacher.</p>
+
+<p>"That man's a skunk, a renegade sky-pilot. I'm keepin' tabs on that man.
+Maybe him an' me's got a score to settle one of them days. Maybe."</p>
+
+<p>He went off abruptly, leaving me to ponder long over his gloomy words.</p>
+
+<p>We were now three days out. The weather was fine, and nearly every one
+was on deck in the sunshine. Even Bullhammer, Marks and Mosher had
+deserted the card-room for a time. The Bank clerk and the Wood-carver
+talked earnestly, planned and dreamed. The Professor was busy expounding
+a theory of the gold origin to a party of young men from Minnesota.
+Silent and watchful the athletic Mervin smoked his big cigar, while,
+patient and imperturbable, the iron Hewson chewed stolidly. The twins
+were playing checkers. The Winklesteins were making themselves solid
+with the music-hall clique. In and out among the different groups darted
+the Prodigal, as volatile as a society reporter at a church bazaar. And
+besides these, always alone, austerely aloof as if framed in a picture
+by themselves, <a class="pagenum" name="page_65" id="page_65" title="65"></a>a picture of dignity and sweetness, were the Jewish maid
+and her aged grandfather.</p>
+
+<p>Although he was my room-mate I had seen but little of him. He was abed
+before I retired and I was up and out ere he awoke. For the rest I
+avoided the two because of their obvious connection with the
+Winklesteins. Surely, thought I, she cannot be mixed up with those two
+and be everything that's all right. Yet there was something in the
+girl's clear eyes, and in the old man's fine face, that reproached me
+for my doubt.</p>
+
+<p>It was while I was thus debating, and covertly studying the pair, that
+something occurred.</p>
+
+<p>Bullhammer and Marks were standing by me, and across the deck came the
+acridly nasal tones of the dance-hall girls. I saw the libertine eyes of
+Bullhammer rove incontinently from one unlovely demirep to another, till
+at last they rested on the slender girl standing by the side of her
+white-haired grandfather. Appreciatively he licked his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Monkey, who's the kid with old Whiskers there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Search me, Pete," said Marks; "want a knockdown?"</p>
+
+<p>"Betcher! Seems kind-a standoffish, though, don't she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Standoffish be darned! Never yet saw the little bit of all right that
+could stand off Sam Marks. I'm a winner, I am, an' don' you forget it.
+Just watch my splash."</p>
+
+<p>I must say the man was expensively dressed in <a class="pagenum" name="page_66" id="page_66" title="66"></a>a flashy way. His oily,
+pimple-garnished face wreathed itself in a smirk of patronising
+familiarity, and with the bow of a dancing master he advanced. I saw her
+give a quick start, bite her lip and shrink back. "Good for you, little
+girl," I thought. But the man was in no way put out.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Sis, it's all right. Just want to interdooce you to a gentleman
+fren' o' mine."</p>
+
+<p>The girl gazed at him, and her dilated eyes were eloquent of fear and
+distrust. It minded me of the panic of a fawn run down by the hunter, so
+that I found myself trembling in sympathy. A startled moment she gazed;
+then swiftly she turned her back.</p>
+
+<p>This was too much for Marks. He flushed angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"Say! what's the matter with you? Come off the perch there. Ain't we
+good enough to associate with you? Who the devil are you, anyhow?"</p>
+
+<p>His face was growing red and aggressive. He closed in on her. He laid a
+rough hand on her shoulder. Thinking the thing had gone far enough I
+stepped forward to interfere, when the unexpected happened.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the old man had risen to his feet, and it was a surprise to me
+how tall he was. Into his face there had come the ghost of ancient power
+and command. His eyes blazed with wrath, and his clenched fist was
+raised high in anathema. Then it came swiftly down on the head of Marks,
+crushing his stiff hat tightly over his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The climax was ludicrous in a way. There was <a class="pagenum" name="page_67" id="page_67" title="67"></a>a roar of laughter, and
+hearing it Marks spluttered as he freed himself. With a curse of rage he
+would have rushed the old man, but a great hand seized him by the
+shoulder. It was the grim, taciturn Hewson, and judging by the way his
+captive squirmed, his grip must have been peculiarly vise-like. The old
+man was pale as death, the girl crying, the passengers crowding round.
+Every one was gabbling and curious, so feeling I could do no good, I
+went below.</p>
+
+<p>What was there about this slip of a girl that interested me so? Ever and
+anon I found myself thinking of her. Was it the conversation I had
+overheard? Was it the mystery that seemed to surround her? Was it the
+irrepressible instinct of my heart for the romance of life? With the old
+man, despite our stateroom propinquity, I had made no advances. With the
+girl I had passed no further words.</p>
+
+<p>But the Gods of destiny act in whimsical ways. Doubtless the voyage
+would have finished without the betterment of our acquaintance;
+doubtless our paths would have parted, nevermore to cross; doubtless our
+lives would have been lived out to their fulness and this story never
+have been told&mdash;had it not been for the luckless fatality of the Box of
+Grapes.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_68" id="page_68" title="68"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Puget Sound was behind us and we had entered on that great sea that
+stretched northward to the Arctic barrens. Misty and wet was the wind,
+and cold with the kiss of many icebergs. Under a grey sky, glooming to
+purple, the gelid water writhed nakedly. Spectral islands elbowed each
+other, to peer at us as we flitted past. Still more wraithlike the
+mainland, fringed to the sea foam with saturnine pine, faded away into
+fastnesses of impregnable desolation. There was a sense of deathlike
+passivity in the land, of overwhelming vastitude, of unconquerable
+loneliness. It was as if I had felt for the first time the Spirit of the
+Wild; the Wild where God broods amid His silence; the Wild, His infinite
+solace and His sanctuary.</p>
+
+<p>As we forged through the vague sea lanes, we were like a glittering
+trinket on the bosom of the night. Our mad merriment scarce ever abated.
+We were a blare of revelry and a blaze of light. Excitement mounted to
+fever heat. In the midst of it the women with the enamelled cheeks
+reaped a bountiful harvest. I marvel now that, with all the besotted
+recklessness of those that were our pilots, we met with no serious
+mishap.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't mind you much of a Sunday-school picnic, does it?" commented the
+Prodigal. "It's <a class="pagenum" name="page_69" id="page_69" title="69"></a>fierce the way the girls are prying some of these crazy
+jays loose from their wads. They're all plumb batty. I'm tired trying to
+wise them up. 'Go and chase yourself,' they say; 'we're all right. Don't
+matter if we do loosen up a bit now, there's all kinds of easy money
+waiting for us up there.' Then they talk of what they're going to do
+when they've got the dough. One gazebo wants to buy a castle in the old
+country; another wants a racing stable; another a steam yacht. Oh,
+they're a hot bunch of sports. They're all planning to have a purple
+time in the sweet by-and-bye. I don't hear any of them speak of endowing
+a home for decrepit wash-ladies or pensioning off their aged
+grandmothers. They make me sick. There's a cold juicy awakening coming."</p>
+
+<p>He was right. In their visionary leaps to affluence they soared to giddy
+heights. They strutted and bragged as if the millions were already
+theirs. To hear them, you would think they had an exclusive option on
+the treasure-troves of the Klondike. Yet, before and behind us, were
+dozens of similar vessels, bearing just as eager a mob of
+fortune-hunters, all drawn irresistibly northward by the Golden Magnet.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, it was hard not to be affected by the prevailing spirit of
+optimism. For myself the gold had but little attraction, but the
+adventure was very dear to my heart. Once more the clarion call of
+Romance rang in my ears, and I leapt to its summons. And indeed, I
+reflected, it was a wonderful <a class="pagenum" name="page_70" id="page_70" title="70"></a>kaleidoscope of a world, wherein I, but a
+half-year back cooling my heels in a highland burn, should be now part
+and parcel of this great Argonaut army. Already my native uncouthness
+was a thing of the past, and the quaint mannerisms of my Scots tongue
+were yielding to the racy slang of the frontier. More to the purpose,
+too, I was growing in strength and wiry endurance. As I looked around me
+I realised that there were many less fitted for the trail than I, and
+there was none with such a store of glowing health. You may picture me
+at this time, a tallish young man, with a fine colour in my cheeks,
+black hair that curled crisply, and dark eyes that were either alight
+with eagerness or agloom with dreams.</p>
+
+<p>I have said that we were all more or less in a ferment of excitement,
+but to this I must make a reservation. One there was who, amid all our
+unrest, remained cold, distant and alien&mdash;the Jewish girl, Berna. Even
+in the old man the gold fever betrayed itself in a visionary eye and a
+tremor of the lips; but the girl was a statue of patient resignation, a
+living reproof to our febrile and purblind imaginings.</p>
+
+<p>The more I studied her, the more out of place she seemed in my picture,
+and, almost unconsciously, I found myself weaving about her a fabric of
+romance. I endowed her with a mystery that piqued and fascinated me, yet
+without it I have no doubt I would have been attracted to her. I longed
+to know her uncommon well, to win her regard, to do something <a class="pagenum" name="page_71" id="page_71" title="71"></a>for her
+that should make her eyes rest very kindly on me. In short, as is the
+way of young men, I was beginning to grope blindly for that affection
+and sympathy which are the forerunners of passion and love.</p>
+
+<p>The land was wintry and the wind shrilled so that the attendant gulls
+flapped their wings hard in the face of it. The wolf-pack of the sea
+were snarling whitely as they ran. The decks were deserted, and so many
+of the brawlers were sick and lay like dead folk that it almost seemed
+as if a Sabbath quiet lay on the ship. That day I had missed the old
+man, and on going below, found him lying as one sore stricken. A
+withered hand lay on his brow, and from his lips, which were almost
+purple, thin moans issued.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old beggar," I thought; "I wonder if I cannot do anything for
+him." And while I was thus debating, a timid knock came to the door. I
+opened it, and there was the girl, Berna.</p>
+
+<p>There was a nervous anxiety in her manner, and a mute interrogation in
+her grey eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid he's a little sick to-day," I said gently; "but come in,
+won't you, and see him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you." Pity, tenderness and love seemed to struggle in her face as
+she softly brushed past me. With some words of endearment, she fell on
+her knees beside him, and her small white hand sought his thin gnarled
+one. As if galvanised into life, the old man turned gratefully to her.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_72" id="page_72" title="72"></a>"Maybe he would care for some coffee," I said. "I think I could rustle
+him some."</p>
+
+<p>She gave me a queer, sad look of thanks.</p>
+
+<p>"If you could," she answered.</p>
+
+<p>When I returned she had the old man propped up with pillows. She took
+the coffee from me, and held the cup to his lips; but after a few sips
+he turned away wearily.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid he doesn't care for that," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm afraid he won't take it."</p>
+
+<p>She was like an anxious nurse hovering over a patient. She thought a
+while.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if I only had some fruit!"</p>
+
+<p>Then it was I bethought me of the box of grapes. I had bought them just
+before leaving, thinking they would be a grateful surprise to my
+companions. Obviously I had been inspired, and now I produced them in
+triumph, big, plump, glossy fellows, buried in the fragrant cedar dust.
+I shook clear a large bunch, and once more we tried the old man. It
+seemed as if we had hit on the one thing needful, for he ate eagerly.
+She watched him for a while with a growing sense of relief, and when he
+had finished and was resting quietly, she turned to me.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know how I can thank you, sir, for your kindness."</p>
+
+<p>"Very easily," I said quickly; "if you will yourself accept some of the
+fruit, I shall be more than repaid."</p>
+
+<p>She gave me a dubious look; then such a bright, merry light flashed into
+her eyes that she was radiant <a class="pagenum" name="page_73" id="page_73" title="73"></a>in my sight. It was as if half a dozen
+years had fallen from her, revealing a heart capable of infinite joy and
+happiness.</p>
+
+<p>"If you will share them with me," she said simply.</p>
+
+<p>So, for the lack of chairs, we squatted on the narrow stateroom floor,
+under the old man's kindly eye. The fruit minded us of sunlit vines, and
+the careless rapture of the South. To me the situation was one of rare
+charm. She ate daintily, and as we talked, I studied her face as if I
+would etch it on my memory forever.</p>
+
+<p>In particular I noticed the wistful contour of her cheek, her sensitive
+mouth, and the fine modelling of her chin. She had clear, candid eyes
+and sweeping lashes, too. Her ears were shell-like, and her hair soft,
+wavy and warm. These things I marked minutely, thinking she was more
+than beautiful&mdash;she was even pretty. I was in a state of extraordinary
+elation, like a man that has found a jewel in the mire.</p>
+
+<p>It must be remembered, lest I appear to be taking a too eager interest
+in the girl, that up till now the world of woman had been <i>terra
+incognita</i> to me; that I had lived a singularly cloistered life, and
+that first and last I was an idealist. This girl had distinction,
+mystery and charm, and it is not to be wondered at that I found a joy in
+her presence. I proved myself a perfect artesian well of conversation,
+talking freely of the ship, of our fellow-passengers and of the chances
+of the venture. I found her <a class="pagenum" name="page_74" id="page_74" title="74"></a>wonderfully quick in the uptake. Her mind
+seemed nimbly to outrun mine, and she divined my words ere I had them
+uttered. Yet she never spoke of herself, and when I left them together I
+was full of uneasy questioning.</p>
+
+<p>Next day the old man was still abed, and again the girl came to visit
+him. This time I noticed that much of her timid manner was gone, and in
+its stead was a shy friendliness. Once more the box of grapes proved a
+mediator between us, and once more I found in her a reticent but
+sympathetic audience&mdash;so much so that I was frank in telling her of
+myself, my home and my kinsfolk. I thought that maybe my talk would
+weary her, but she listened with a bright-eyed regard, nodding her head
+eagerly at times. Yet she spoke no word of her own affairs, so that when
+again I left them together I was as much in the dark as ever.</p>
+
+<p>It was on the third day I found the old man up and dressed, and Berna
+with him. She looked brighter and happier than I had yet seen her, and
+she greeted me with a smiling face. Then, after a little, she said:</p>
+
+<p>"My grandfather plays the violin. Would you mind if he played over some
+of our old-country songs? It would comfort him."</p>
+
+<p>"No, go ahead," I said; "I wish he would."</p>
+
+<p>So she got an ancient violin, and the old man cuddled it lovingly and
+played soft, weird melodies, songs of the Czech race, that made me think
+of Romance, of love and hate, and passion and despair. <a class="pagenum" name="page_75" id="page_75" title="75"></a>Piece after
+piece he played, as if pouring out the sadness and heart-hunger of a
+burdened people, until my own heart ached in sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>The wild music throbbed with passionate sweetness and despair.
+Unobserved, the pale twilight stole into the little cabin. The ruggedly
+fine face of the old man was like one inspired, and with clasped hands,
+the girl sat, very white-faced and motionless. Then I saw a gleam on her
+cheek, the soft falling of tears. Somehow, at that moment, I felt drawn
+very near to those two, the music, the tears, the fervent sadness of
+their faces. I felt as if I had been allowed to share with them a few
+moments consecrated to their sorrow, and that they knew I understood.</p>
+
+<p>That day as I was leaving, I said to her:</p>
+
+<p>"Berna, this is our last night on board."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow our trails divide, maybe never again to cross. Will you come
+up on deck for a little while to-night? I want to talk to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Talk to me?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked startled, incredulous. She hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Please, Berna, it's the last time."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," she answered in a low tone.</p>
+
+<p>Then she looked at me curiously.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_76" id="page_76" title="76"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>She came to meet me, lily-white and sweet. She was but thinly wrapped,
+and shivered so that I put my coat around her. We ventured forward,
+climbing over a huge anchor to the very bow of the boat, and crouching
+down in its peak, were sheltered from the cold breeze.</p>
+
+<p>We were cutting through smooth water, and crowding in on us were haggard
+mountains, with now and then the greenish horror of a glacier. Overhead,
+in the desolate sky, the new moon nursed the old moon in her arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Berna!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You're not happy, Berna. You're in sore trouble, little girl. I don't
+know why you come up to this God-forsaken country or why you are with
+those people. I don't want to know; but if there's anything I can do for
+you, any way I can prove myself a true friend, tell me, won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>My voice betrayed emotion. I could feel her slim form, very close to me,
+all a-tremble. In the filtered silver of the crescent moon, I could see
+her face, wan and faintly sweet. Gently I prisoned one of her hands in
+mine.</p>
+
+<p>She did not speak at once. Indeed, she was quiet for a long time, so
+that it seemed as if she must be <a class="pagenum" name="page_77" id="page_77" title="77"></a>stricken dumb, or as if some feelings
+were conflicting within her. Then at last, very gently, very quietly,
+very sweetly, as if weighing her words, she spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"No, there's nothing you can do. You've been too kind all along. You're
+the only one on the boat that's been kind. Most of the others have
+looked at me&mdash;well, you know how men look at a poor, unprotected girl.
+But you, you're different; you're good, you're honourable, you're
+sincere. I could see it in your face, in your eyes. I knew I could trust
+you. You've been kindness itself to grandfather and I, and I never can
+thank you enough."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! Don't talk of thanks, Berna. You don't know what a happiness
+it's been to help you. I'm sorry I've done so little. Oh, I'm going to
+be sincere and frank with you. The few hours I've had with you have made
+me long for others. I'm a lonely beggar. I never had a sister, never a
+girl friend. You're the first, and it's been like sudden sunshine to me.
+Now, can't I be really and truly your friend, Berna; your friend that
+would do much for you? Let me do something, anything, to show how
+earnestly I mean it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know. Well, then, you are my dear, true friend&mdash;there, now."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes,&mdash;but, Berna! To-morrow you'll go and we'll likely never see each
+other again. What's the good of it all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what do you want? We will both have a memory, a very sweet, nice
+memory, won't we? Believe me, it's better so. You don't want to have
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_78" id="page_78" title="78"></a>anything to do with a girl like me. You don't know anything about me,
+and you see the kind of people I'm going with. Perhaps I am just as bad
+as they."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't say that, Berna," I interposed sternly; "you're all that's good
+and pure and sweet."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not, either. We're all of us pretty mixed. But I'm not so bad,
+and it's nice of you to think those things.... Oh! if I had never come
+on this terrible trip! I don't even know where we are going, and I'm
+afraid, afraid."</p>
+
+<p>"No, little girl."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I can't tell you how afraid I am. The country's so savage and
+lonely; the men are so like brute beasts; the women&mdash;well, they're
+worse. And here are we in the midst of it. I don't know what's going to
+become of us."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Berna, if it's like that, why don't you and your grandfather turn
+back? Why go on?"</p>
+
+<p>"He will never turn back. He'll go on till he dies. He only knows one
+word of English and that's Klondike, Klondike. He mutters it a thousand
+times a day. He has visions of gold, glittering heaps of it, and he'll
+stagger and struggle on till he finds it."</p>
+
+<p>"But can't you reason with him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's all no use. He's had a dream. He's like a man that's crazy. He
+thinks he has been chosen, and that to him will a great treasure be
+revealed. You might as well reason with a stone. All I can do is to
+follow him, is to take care of him."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_79" id="page_79" title="79"></a>"What about the Winklesteins, Berna?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, they're at the bottom of it all. It is they who have inflamed his
+mind. He has a little money, the savings of a lifetime, about two
+thousand dollars; and ever since he came to this country, they've been
+trying to get it. They ran a little restaurant in New York. They tried
+to get him to put his little store in that. Now they are using the gold
+as a bait, and luring him up here. They'll rob and kill him in the end,
+and the cruel part is&mdash;he's not greedy, he doesn't want it for
+himself&mdash;but for me. That's what breaks my heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Surely you're mistaken, Berna; they can't be so bad as that."</p>
+
+<p>"Bad! I tell you they're <i>vile</i>. The man's a worm, and the woman, she's
+a devil incarnate. She's so strong and so violent in her tempers that
+when she gets drinking&mdash;well, it's just awful. I should know it, I lived
+with them for three years."</p>
+
+<p>"Where?"</p>
+
+<p>"In New York. I came from the old country to them. They worked me in the
+restaurant at first. Then, after a bit, I got employment in a
+shirt-waist factory. I was quick and handy, and I worked early and late.
+I attended a night school. I read till my eyes ached. They said I was
+clever. The teacher wanted me to train and be a teacher too. But what
+was the good of thinking of it? I had my living to get, so I stayed at
+the factory and worked and worked. Then when I had saved a few dollars,
+I sent for grandfather, and he came and we <a class="pagenum" name="page_80" id="page_80" title="80"></a>lived in the tenement and
+were very happy for a while. But the Winklesteins never gave us any
+peace. They knew he had a little money laid away, and they itched to get
+their hands on it. The man was always telling us of get-rich-quick
+schemes, and she threatened me in horrible ways. But I wasn't afraid in
+New York. Up here it's different. It's all so shadowy and sinister."</p>
+
+<p>I could feel her shudder.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Berna," I said, "can't I help you?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"No, you can't; you have enough trouble of your own. Besides it doesn't
+matter about me. I didn't mean to tell you all this, but now, if you
+want to be a true friend, just go away and forget me. You don't want to
+have anything to do with me. Wait! I'll tell you something more. I'm
+called Berna Wilovich. That's my grandfather's name. My mother ran away
+from home. Two years later she came back&mdash;with me. Soon after she died
+of consumption. She would never tell my father's name, but said he was a
+Christian, and of good family. My grandfather tried to find out. He
+would have killed the man. So, you see, I am nameless, a child of shame
+and sorrow. And you are a gentleman, and proud of your family. Now, see
+the kind of friend you've made. You don't want to make friends with such
+as I."</p>
+
+<p>"I want to make friends with such as need my friendship. What is going
+to happen to you, Berna?"</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_81" id="page_81" title="81"></a>"Happen! God knows! It doesn't matter. Oh, I've always been in trouble.
+I'm used to it. I never had a really happy day in my life. I never
+expect to. I'll just go on to the end, enduring patiently, and getting
+what comfort I can out of things. It's what I was made for, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>She shrugged her shoulders and shivered a little.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me go now, my friend. It's cold up here; I'm chilled. Don't look so
+terribly downcast. I expect I'll come out all right. Something may
+happen. Cheer up! Maybe you'll see me a Klondike queen yet."</p>
+
+<p>I could see that her sudden brightness but hid a black abyss of
+bitterness and apprehension. What she had told me had somehow stricken
+me dumb. There seemed a stark sordidness in the situation that repelled
+me. She had arisen and was about to step over the fluke of the great
+anchor, when I aroused myself.</p>
+
+<p>"Berna," I said, "what you have told me wrings my heart. I can't tell
+you how terribly sorry I feel. Is there nothing I can do for you,
+nothing to show I am not a mere friend of words and phrases? Oh, I hate
+to let you go like this."</p>
+
+<p>The moon had gone behind a cloud. We were in a great shadow. She halted,
+so that, as we stood, we were touching each other. Her voice was full of
+pathetic resignation.</p>
+
+<p>"What can you do? If we were going in together it might be different.
+When I met you at first I hoped, oh, I hoped&mdash;well, it doesn't matter
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_82" id="page_82" title="82"></a>what I hoped. But, believe me, I'll be all right. You won't forget me,
+will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Forget you! No, Berna, I'll never forget you. It cuts me to the heart I
+can do nothing now, but we'll meet up there. We can't be divided for
+long. And you'll be all right, believe me too, little girl. Be good and
+sweet and true and every one will love and help you. Ah, you must go.
+Well, well&mdash;God bless you, Berna."</p>
+
+<p>"And I wish you happiness and success, dear friend of mine."</p>
+
+<p>Her voice trembled. Something seemed to choke her. She stood a moment as
+if reluctant to go.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a great impulse of tenderness and pity came over me, and before
+I knew it, my arms were around her. She struggled faintly, but her face
+was uplifted, her eyes starlike. Then, for a moment of bewildering
+ecstasy, her lips lay on mine, and I felt them faintly answer.</p>
+
+<p>Poor yielding lips! They were cold as ice.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_83" id="page_83" title="83"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Never shall I forget the last I saw of her, a forlorn, pathetic figure
+in black, waving a farewell to me as I stood on the wharf. She wore, I
+remember, a low collar, and well do I mind the way it showed off the
+slim whiteness of her throat; well do I mind the high poise of her head,
+and the silken gloss of her hair. The grey eyes were clear and steady as
+she bade good-bye to me, and from where we stood apart, her face had all
+the pathetic sweetness of a Madonna.</p>
+
+<p>Well, she was going, and sad enough her going seemed to me. They were
+all for Dyea, and the grim old Chilcoot, with its blizzard-beaten
+steeps, while we had chosen the less precipitous, but more drawn-out,
+Skagway trail. Among them I saw the inseparable twins; the grim Hewson,
+the silent Mervin, each quiet and watchful, as if storing up power for a
+tremendous effort. There was the large unwholesomeness of Madam
+Winklestein, all jewellery, smiles and coarse badinage, and near her,
+her perfumed husband, squinting and smirking abominably. There was the
+old man, with his face of a Hebrew Seer, his visionary eye now aglow
+with fanatical enthusiasm, his lips ever muttering: "Klondike,
+Klondike"; and lastly, by his side, with a little wry smile on her lips,
+there was the white-faced girl.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_84" id="page_84" title="84"></a>How my heart ached for her! But the time for sentiment was at an end.
+The clarion call to action rang out. Inflexibly the trail was mustering
+us. The hour was come for every one to give of the best that was in him,
+even as he had never given it before. The reign of peace was over; the
+fight was on.</p>
+
+<p>On all sides were indescribable bustle, confusion and excitement; men
+shouting, swearing, rushing hither, thither; wrangling, anxious-eyed and
+distracted over their outfits. A mood of unsparing energy dominated
+them. Their only thought was to get away on the gold-trail. A frantic
+eagerness impelled them; insistent, imperative; the trail called to
+them, and the light of the gold-lust smouldered and flamed in their
+uneasy eyes. Already the spirit of the gold-trail was awakening.</p>
+
+<p>Hundreds of scattered tents; a few frame buildings, mostly saloons,
+dance-halls and gambling joints; an eager, excited mob crowding on the
+loose sidewalks, floundering knee-deep in the mire of the streets,
+struggling and squabbling and cursing over their outfits&mdash;that is all I
+remember of Skagway. The mountains, stark and bare to the bluff, seemed
+to overwhelm the flimsy town, and between them, like a giant funnel, a
+great wind was roaring.</p>
+
+<p>Lawlessness was rampant, but it did not touch us. The thugs lay in wait
+for the men with pokes from the "inside." To the great Cheechako army,
+they gave little heed. They were captained by one Smith, known as
+"Soapy," whom I had the fortune to meet. He was a pleasant-appearing,
+sociable <a class="pagenum" name="page_85" id="page_85" title="85"></a>man, and no one would have taken him for a desperado, a killer
+of men.</p>
+
+<p>One picture of Skagway is still vivid in my memory. The scene is a
+saloon, and along with the Prodigal, I am having a glass of beer. In a
+corner sits a befuddled old man, half asleep. He is long and lank, with
+a leathery face and a rusty goatee beard&mdash;as ragged, disreputable an old
+sinner as ever bellied up to a bar. Suddenly there is a sound of
+shooting. We rush out and there are two toughs blazing away at each
+other from the sheltering corners of an opposite building.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey, Dad! There's some shootin' goin' on," says the barkeeper.</p>
+
+<p>The old man rouses and cocks up a bleary, benevolent eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Shooting', did ye say? Pshaw! Them fellers don't know how to shoot. Old
+Dad'll show 'em how to shoot."</p>
+
+<p>He comes to the door, and lugging out a big rusty revolver, blazes away
+at one of the combatants. The man, with a howl of surprise and pain,
+limps away. The old man turns to the other fellow. Bang! We see
+splinters fly, and a man running for dear life.</p>
+
+<p>"Told you I'd show 'em how to shoot," remarks old Dad to us. "Thanks,
+I'll have a gin-fizz for mine."</p>
+
+<p>The Prodigal developed a wonderful executive ability about this time; he
+was a marvel of activity, seemed to think of everything and to glory in
+his <a class="pagenum" name="page_86" id="page_86" title="86"></a>responsibility as a leader. Always cheerful, always thoughtful, he
+was the brains of our party. He never abated in his efforts a moment,
+and was an example and a stimulus to us all. <a name="ft01"></a>I say "all," for we had
+added the "Jam-wagon"<a class="fn" href="#fn01">&nbsp;1&nbsp;</a> to our number. It was the Prodigal who
+discovered him. He was a tall, dissolute Englishman, gaunt, ragged and
+verminous, but with the earmarks of a gentleman. He seemed indifferent
+to everything but whiskey and only anxious to hide himself from his
+friends. I discovered he had once been an officer in a Hussar regiment,
+but he was obviously reluctant to speak of his past. A lost soul in
+every sense of the word, the North was to him a refuge and an
+unrestricted stamping-ground. So, partly in pity, partly in hope of
+winning back his manhood, we allowed him to join the party.</p>
+
+<p>Pack animals were in vast demand, for it was considered a pound of grub
+was the equal of a pound of gold. Old horses, fit but for the knacker's
+yard, and burdened till they could barely stand, were being goaded
+forward through the mud. Any kind of a dog was a prize, quickly stolen
+if left unwatched. Sheep being taken in for the butcher were driven
+forward with packs on their backs. Even was there an effort to make pack
+animals out of pigs, but they grunted, squealed and rolled their
+precious burdens in the mire. What crazy excitement, what urging and
+shouting, what desperate device to make a start!</p>
+
+<p>We were lucky in buying a yoke of oxen from a <a class="pagenum" name="page_87" id="page_87" title="87"></a>packer for four hundred
+dollars. On the first day we hauled half of our outfit to Canyon City,
+and on the second we transferred the balance. This was our plan all
+through, though in bad places we had to make many relays. It was simple
+enough, yet, oh, the travail of it! Here is an extract from my diary of
+these days.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Turn out at 4 <span class="smcap">A.M.</span> Breakfasted on flapjacks and coffee. Find one
+of our oxen dying. Dies at seven o'clock. Harness remaining ox and
+start to remove goods up Canyon. Find trail in awful condition, yet
+thousands are struggling to get through. Horses often fall in pools
+of water ten to fifteen feet deep, trying to haul loads over the
+boulders that render trail almost impassable. Drive with sleigh
+over places that at other times one would be afraid to walk over
+without any load. Two feet of snow fell during the night, but it is
+now raining. Rains and snows alternately. At night bitterly cold.
+Hauled five loads up Canyon to-day. Finished last trip near
+midnight and turned in, cold, wet and played out."</p></div>
+
+<p>The above is a fairly representative day and of such days we were to
+have many ere we reached the water. Slowly, with infinite effort, with
+stress and strain to every step of the way, we moved our bulky outfit
+forward from camp to camp. All days were hard, all exasperating, all
+crammed with discomfort; yet, bit by bit, we forged ahead. The army
+before us and the army behind never faltered. Like a stream of black
+ants they were, between mountains that reared up swiftly to
+storm-smitten palisades of <a class="pagenum" name="page_88" id="page_88" title="88"></a>ice. In the darkness of night the army
+rested uneasily, yet at the first streak of dawn it was in motion. It
+was an endless procession, in which every man was for himself. I can see
+them now, bent under their burdens, straining at their hand-sleighs,
+flogging their horses and oxen, their faces crimped and puckered with
+fatigue, the air acrid with their curses and heavy with their moans. Now
+a horse stumbles and slips into one of the sump-holes by the trail side.
+No one can pass, the army is arrested. Frenzied fingers unhitch the poor
+frozen brute and drag it from the water. Men, frantic with rage, beat
+savagely at their beasts of burden to make up the precious time lost.
+There is no mercy, no humanity, no fellowship. All is blasphemy, fury
+and ruthless determination. It is the spirit of the gold-trail.</p>
+
+<p>At the canyon head was a large camp, and there, very much in evidence,
+the gambling fraternity. Dozens of them with their little green tables
+were doing a roaring business. On one side of the canyon they had
+established a camp. It was evening and we three, the Prodigal, Salvation
+Jim and myself, strolled over to where a three-shell man was holding
+forth.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo!" says the Prodigal. "It's our old friend Jake. Jake skinned me
+out of a hundred on the boat. Wonder how he's making out?"</p>
+
+<p>It was Mosher, with his bald head, his crafty little eyes, his flat
+nose, his black beard. I saw Jim's face harden. He had always shown a
+bitter hatred of this man, and often I wondered why.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_89" id="page_89" title="89"></a>We stood a little way off. The crowd thinned and filtered away until
+but one remained, one of the tall young men from Minnesota. We heard
+Mosher's rich voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, pard, bet ten dollars you can't place the bean. See! I put the
+little joker under here, right before your eyes. Now, where is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Here," said the man, touching one of the shells.</p>
+
+<p>"Right you are, my hearty! Well, here's your ten."</p>
+
+<p>The man from Minnesota took the money and was going away.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on," said Mosher; "how do I know you had the money to cover that
+bet?"</p>
+
+<p>The man laughed and took from his pocket a wad of bills an inch thick.</p>
+
+<p>"Guess that's enough, ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Quick as lightning Mosher had snatched the bills from him, and the man
+from Minnesota found himself gazing into the barrel of a six-shooter.</p>
+
+<p>"This here's my money," said Mosher; "now you <i>git</i>."</p>
+
+<p>A moment only&mdash;a shot rang out. I saw the gun fall from Mosher's hand,
+and the roll of bills drop to the ground. Quickly the man from Minnesota
+recovered them and rushed off to tell his party. Then the men from
+Minnesota got their Winchesters, and the shooting began.</p>
+
+<p>From their camp the gamblers took refuge behind the boulders that
+strewed the sides of the canyon, and blazed away at their opponents. A
+regular <a class="pagenum" name="page_90" id="page_90" title="90"></a>battle followed, which lasted till the fall of night. As far as
+I heard, only one casualty resulted. A Swede, about half a mile down the
+trail, received a spent bullet in the cheek. He complained to the Deputy
+Marshal. That worthy, sitting on his horse, looked at him a moment. Then
+he spat comprehensively.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't do anything, Ole. But I'll tell you what. Next time there's
+bullets flying round this section of the country, don't go sticking your
+darned whiskers in the way. See!"</p>
+
+<p>That night I said to Jim:</p>
+
+<p>"How did you do it?"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed and showed me a hole in his coat pocket which a bullet had
+burned.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, having been in the game myself, I knew what was comin' and
+acted accordin'."</p>
+
+<p>"Good job you didn't hit him worse."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a while, sonny, wait a while. There's something mighty familiar
+about Jake Mosher. He's mighty like a certain Sam Mosely I'm interested
+in. I've just written a letter outside to see, an' if it's him&mdash;well,
+I'm saved; I'm a good Christian, but&mdash;God help him!"</p>
+
+<p>"And who was Sam Mosely, Jim?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sam Mosely? Sam Mosely was the skunk that busted up my home an' stole
+my wife, blast him!"</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+<p class="fn"><span><a class="fn" href="#ft01">&nbsp;1&nbsp;</a></span><a name="fn01"></a>
+A Jam-wagon was the general name given to an Englishman on the trail.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_91" id="page_91" title="91"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Day after day, each man of us poured out on the trail the last heel-tap
+of his strength, and the coming of night found us utterly played out.
+Salvation Jim was full of device and resource, the Prodigal, a dynamo of
+eager energy; but it was the Jam-wagon who proved his mettle in a
+magnificent and relentless way. Whether it was from a sense of
+gratitude, or to offset the cravings that assailed him, I know not, but
+he crammed the days with merciless exertion.</p>
+
+<p>A curious man was the Jam-wagon, Brian Wanless his name, a world tramp,
+a derelict of the Seven Seas. His story, if ever written, would be a
+human document of moving and poignant interest. He must once have been a
+magnificent fellow, and even now, with strength and will-power impaired,
+he was a man among men, full of quick courage and of a haughty temper.
+It was ever a word and a blow with him, and a fight to the desperate
+finish. He was insular, imperious and aggressive, and he was always
+looking for trouble.</p>
+
+<p>Though taciturn and morose with men, the Jam-wagon showed a tireless
+affection for animals. From the first he took charge of our ox; but it
+was for horses his fondness was most expressed, so that on the trail,
+where there was so much cruelty, he was constantly on the verge of
+combat.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_92" id="page_92" title="92"></a>"That's a great man," said the Prodigal to me, "a fighter from heel to
+head. There's one he can't fight, though, and that's old man Booze."</p>
+
+<p>But on the trail every man was a fighter. It was fight or fall, for the
+trail would brook no weaklings. Good or bad, a man must be a man in the
+primal sense, dominant, savage and enduring. The trail was implacable.
+From the start it cried for strong men; it weeded out its weaklings. I
+had seen these fellows on the ship feed their vanity with foolish
+fancies; kindled to ardours of hope, I had seen debauch regnant among
+them; now I was to see them crushed, cowed, overwhelmed, realising each,
+according to his kind, the menace and antagonism of the way. I was to
+see the weak falter and fall by the trail side; I was to see the
+fainthearted quail and turn back; but I was to see the strong, the
+brave, grow grim, grow elemental in their desperate strength, and
+tightening up their belts, go forward unflinchingly to the bitter end.
+Thus it was the trail chose her own. Thus it was, from passion, despair
+and defeat, the spirit of the trail was born.</p>
+
+<p>The spirit of the Gold Trail, how shall I describe it? It was based on
+that primal instinct of self-preservation that underlies our thin veneer
+of humanity. It was rebellion, anarchy; it was ruthless, aggressive,
+primitive; it was the man of the stone age in modern garb waging his
+fierce, incessant warfare with the forces of nature. Spurred on by the
+fever of the gold-lust, goaded by the fear of losing in the race;
+maddened by the difficulties and obstacles <a class="pagenum" name="page_93" id="page_93" title="93"></a>of the way, men became
+demons of cruelty and aggression, ruthlessly thrusting aside and
+trampling down the weaker ones who thwarted their progress. Of pity,
+humanity, love, there was none, only the gold-lust, triumphant and
+repellent. It was the survival of the fittest, the most tenacious, the
+most brutal. Yet there was something grandly terrible about it all. It
+was a barbaric invasion, an army, each man fighting for his own hand
+under the banner of gold. It was conquest. Every day, as I watched that
+human torrent, I realised how vast, how irresistible it was. It was
+Epic, it was Historical.</p>
+
+<p>Many pitiful things I saw&mdash;men with haggard, hopeless faces, throwing
+their outfits into the snow and turning back broken-hearted; men
+staggering blindly on, exhausted to despair, then dropping wearily by
+the trail side in the bitter cold and sinister gloom; weaklings, every
+one. Many terrible things I saw&mdash;men cursing each other, cursing the
+trail, cursing their God, and in the echo of their curses, grinding
+their teeth and stumbling on. Then they would vent their fury and spite
+on the poor dumb animals. Oh, what cruelty there was! The life of the
+brute was as nothing; it was the tribute of the trail; it was a
+sacrifice on the altar of human greed.</p>
+
+<p>Long before dawn the trail awakened and the air was full of breakfast
+smells, chiefly that of burnt porridge: for pots were seldom scraped,
+neither were dishes washed. Soon the long-drawn-out army was on the
+march, jaded animals straining at their loads, their drivers reviling
+and beating them. All the <a class="pagenum" name="page_94" id="page_94" title="94"></a>men were bearded, and many of them wore
+parkas. As many of the women had discarded petticoats, it was often
+difficult at a short distance to tell the sex of a person. There were
+tents built on sleighs, with faces of women and children peering out
+from behind. It was a wonderful procession, all classes, all
+nationalities, greybeards and striplings, parsons and prostitutes, rich
+and poor, filing past in their thousands, drawn desperately on by the
+golden magnet.</p>
+
+<p>One day we were making a trip with a load of our stuff when, just ahead,
+there was a check in the march, so I and the Jam-wagon went forward to
+investigate. It was our old friend Bullhammer in difficulties. He had
+rather a fine horse, and in passing a sump-hole, his sled had skidded
+and slipped downhill into the water. Now he was belabouring the animal
+unmercifully, acting like a crazy man, shouting in a frenzy of rage.</p>
+
+<p>The horse was making the most gallant efforts I ever saw, but, with
+every fresh attempt, its strength weakened. Time and again it came down
+on its knees, which were raw and bleeding. It was shining with sweat so
+that there was not a dry hair on its body, and if ever a dumb brute's
+eyes spoke of agony and fear, that horse's did. But Bullhammer grew
+every moment more infuriated, wrenching its mouth and beating it over
+the head with a club. It was a sickening sight and, used as I was to the
+inhumanity of the trail, I would have interfered had not the Jam-wagon
+jumped in. He was deadly pale and his eyes burned.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_95" id="page_95" title="95"></a>"You infernal brute! If you strike that horse another blow, I'll break
+your club over your shoulders."</p>
+
+<p>Bullhammer turned on him. Surprise paralysed the man, rage choked him.
+They were both big husky fellows, and they drew up face to face. Then
+Bullhammer spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Curse you, anyway. Don't interfere with me. I'll beat bloody hell out
+of the horse if I like, an' you won't say one word, see?"</p>
+
+<p>With that he struck the horse another vicious blow on the head. There
+was a quick scuffle. The club was wrenched from Bullhammer's hand. I saw
+it come down twice. The man sprawled on his back, while over him stood
+the Jam-wagon, looking very grim. The horse slipped quietly back into
+the water.</p>
+
+<p>"You ugly blackguard! I've a good mind to beat you within an ace of your
+life. But you're not worth it. Ah, you cur!"</p>
+
+<p>He gave Bullhammer a kick. The man got on his feet. He was a coward, but
+his pig eyes squinted in impotent rage. He looked at his horse lying
+shivering in the icy water.</p>
+
+<p>"Get the horse out yourself, then, curse you. Do what you please with
+him. But, mark you&mdash;I'll get even with you for this&mdash;I'll&mdash;get&mdash;even."</p>
+
+<p>He shook his fist and, with an ugly oath, went away. The block in the
+traffic was relieved. The trail was again in motion. When we got abreast
+of the submerged horse, we hitched on the ox and hastily pulled it out,
+and (the Jam-wagon proving <a class="pagenum" name="page_96" id="page_96" title="96"></a>to have no little veterinary skill) in a few
+days it was fit to work again.</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>Another week had gone and we were still on the trail, between the head
+of the canyon and the summit of the Pass. Day after day was the same
+round of unflinching effort, under conditions that would daunt any but
+the stoutest hearts. The trail was in a terrible condition, sometimes
+well-nigh impassable, and many a time, but for the invincible spirit of
+the Prodigal, would I have turned back. He had a way of laughing at
+misfortune and heartening one when things seemed to have passed the
+limit of all endurance.</p>
+
+<p>Here is another day selected from my diary:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Rose at 4:30 <span class="smcap">A.M.</span> and started for summit with load. Trail all
+filled in with snow, and had dreadful time shovelling it out. Load
+upsets number of times. Got to summit at three o'clock. Ox almost
+played out. Snowing and blowing fearfully on summit. Ox tired;
+tries to lie down every few yards. Bitterly cold and have hard time
+trying to keep hands and feet from freezing. Keep on going to make
+Balsam City. Arrived there about ten o'clock at night. Clothing
+frozen stiff. Snow from seven to one hundred feet deep. No wood
+within a quarter mile and then only soft balsam. Had to go for
+wood. Almost impossible to start fire. Was near midnight when I had
+fire going well and supper cooked. Eighteen hours on the trail
+without a square meal. The way of the Klondike is hard, hard."</p></div>
+
+<p>And yet I believe, compared with others, we were getting along finely.
+Every day, as the difficulties <a class="pagenum" name="page_97" id="page_97" title="97"></a>of the trail increased, I saw more and
+more instances of suffering and privation, and to many the name of the
+White Pass was the death-knell of hope. I could see their faces blanch
+as they gazed upward at that white immensity; I could see them tighten
+their pack-straps, clench their teeth and begin the ascent; could see
+them straining every muscle as they climbed, the grim lines harden round
+their mouths, their eyes full of hopeless misery and despair; I could
+see them panting at every step, ghastly with fatigue, lurching and
+stumbling on under their heavy packs. These were the weaker ones, who,
+sooner or later, gave up the struggle.</p>
+
+<p>Then there were the strong, ruthless ones, who had left humanity at
+home, who flogged their staggering skin-and-bone pack animals till they
+dropped, then, with a curse, left them to die.</p>
+
+<p>Far, far above us the monster mountains nuzzled among the clouds till
+cloud and mountain were hard to tell apart. These were giant heights
+heaved up to the stars, where blizzards were cradled and the storm-winds
+born, stupendous horrific familiars of the tempest and the thunder. I
+was conscious of their absolute sublimity. It was like height piled on
+height as one would pile up sacks of flour. As Jim remarked: "Say,
+wouldn't it give you crick in the neck just gazin' at them there
+mountains?"</p>
+
+<p>How ant-like seemed the black army crawling up the icy pass, clinging to
+its slippery face in the blinding buffet of snow and rain! Men dropped
+from its ranks uncared for and unpitied. Heedless of those <a class="pagenum" name="page_98" id="page_98" title="98"></a>that fell,
+the gap closed up, the march went on. The great army crawled up and over
+the summit. Far behind could we see them, hundreds, thousands, a
+countless host, all with "Klondike" on their lips and the lust of the
+gold-lure in their hearts. It was the Great Stampede.</p>
+
+<p>"Klondike or bust," was the slogan. It was ever on the lips of those
+bearded men. "Klondike or bust"&mdash;the strong man, with infinite patience,
+righted his overturned sleigh, and in the face of the blinding blizzard,
+pushed on through the clogging snow. "Klondike or bust"&mdash;the weary,
+trail-worn one raised himself from the hole where he had fallen, and
+stiff, cold, racked with pain, gritted his teeth doggedly and staggered
+on a few feet more. "Klondike or bust"&mdash;the fanatic of the trail, crazed
+with the gold-lust, performed mad feats of endurance, till nature
+rebelled, and raving and howling, he was carried away to die.</p>
+
+<p>"'Member Joe?" some one would say, as a pack-horse came down the trail
+with, strapped on it, a dead, rigid shape. "Joe used to be plumb-full of
+fun; always joshin' or takin' some guy off; well&mdash;that's Joe."</p>
+
+<p>Two weary, woe-begone men were pulling a hand-sleigh down from the
+summit. On it was lashed a man. He was in a high fever, raving,
+delirious. Half-crazed with suffering themselves, his partners plodded
+on unheedingly. I recognised in them the Bank clerk and the Professor,
+and I hailed them. From black hollows their eyes stared at me
+unrememberingly, <a class="pagenum" name="page_99" id="page_99" title="99"></a>and I saw how emaciated were their faces.</p>
+
+<p>"Spinal meningitis," they said laconically, and they were taking him
+down to the hospital. I took a look and saw in that mask of terror and
+agony the familiar face of the Wood-carver.</p>
+
+<p>He gazed at me eagerly, wildly: "I'm rich," he cried, "rich. I've found
+it&mdash;the gold&mdash;in millions, millions. Now I'm going outside to spend it.
+No more cold and suffering and poverty. I'm going down there to <i>live</i>,
+thank God, to live."</p>
+
+<p>Poor Globstock! He died down there. He was buried in a nameless grave.
+To this day I fancy his old mother waits for his return. He was her sole
+support, the one thing she lived for, a good, gentle son, a man of sweet
+simplicity and loving kindness. Yet he lies under the shadow of those
+hard-visaged mountains in a nameless grave.</p>
+
+<p>The trail must have its tribute.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_100" id="page_100" title="100"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>It was at Balsam City, and things were going badly. Marks and Bullhammer
+had formed a partnership with the Halfbreed, the Professor and the Bank
+clerk, and the arrangement was proving a regrettable one for the latter
+two. It was all due to Marks. At the best of times, he was a
+cross-grained, domineering bully, and on the trail, which would have
+worn to a wire edge the temper of an angel, his yellow streak became an
+eyesore. He developed a chronic grouch, and it was not long before he
+had the two weaker men toeing the mark. He had a way of speaking of
+those who had gone up against him in the past and were "running yet," of
+shooting scrapes and deadly knife-work in which he had displayed a
+spirit of cold-blooded ferocity. Both the Professor and the Bank clerk
+were men of peace and very impressionable. Consequently, they conceived
+for Marks a shuddering respect, not unmixed with fear, and were ready to
+stand on their heads at his bidding.</p>
+
+<p>On the Halfbreed, however, his intimidation did not work. While the
+other two trembled at his frown, and waited on him hand and foot, the
+man of Indian blood ignored him, and his face was expressionless.
+Whereby he incurred the intense dislike of Marks.</p>
+
+<p>Things were going from bad to worse. The man's <a class="pagenum" name="page_101" id="page_101" title="101"></a>aggressions were daily
+becoming more unbearable. He treated the others like Dagoes and on every
+occasion he tried to pick a quarrel with the Halfbreed, but the latter,
+entrenching himself behind his Indian phlegm, regarded him stolidly.
+Marks mistook this for cowardice and took to calling the Halfbreed nasty
+names, particularly reflecting on the good character of his mother.
+Still the Halfbreed took no notice, yet there was a contempt in his
+manner that stung more than words. This was the state of affairs when
+one evening the Prodigal and I paid them a visit.</p>
+
+<p>Marks had been drinking all day, and had made life a little hell for the
+others. When we arrived he was rotten-ripe for a quarrel. Then the
+Prodigal suggested a game of poker, so four of them, himself, Marks,
+Bullhammer and the Halfbreed, sat in.</p>
+
+<p>At first they made a ten-cent limit, which soon they raised to
+twenty-five; then, at last, there was no limit but the roof. A bottle
+passed from mouth to mouth and several big jack-pots were made.
+Bullhammer and the Prodigal were about breaking even, Marks was losing
+heavily, while steadily the Halfbreed was adding to his pile of chips.</p>
+
+<p>Through one of those freaks of chance the two men seemed to buck one
+another continually. Time after time they would raise and raise each
+other, till at last Marks would call, and always his opponent had the
+cards. It was exasperating, maddening, especially as several times Marks
+himself was called on a bluff. The very fiend of ill-luck seemed to have
+gotten into him, and as the game proceeded, Marks <a class="pagenum" name="page_102" id="page_102" title="102"></a>grew more flushed and
+excited. He cursed audibly. He always had good cards, but always somehow
+the other just managed to beat him. He became explosively angry and
+abusive. The Halfbreed offered to retire from the game, but Marks would
+not hear of it.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, you nigger!" he shouted. "Don't sneak away. Give me a chance
+to get my money back."</p>
+
+<p>So they sat down once more, and a hand was dealt. The Halfbreed called
+for cards, but Marks did not draw. Then the betting began. After the
+second round the others dropped out, and Marks and the Halfbreed were
+left. The Halfbreed was inimitably cool, his face was a perfect mask.
+Marks, too, had suddenly grown very calm. They started to boost each
+other.</p>
+
+<p>Both seemed to have plenty of money and at first they raised in tens and
+twenties, then at last fifty dollars at a clip. It was getting exciting.
+You could hear a pin drop. Bullhammer and the Prodigal watched very
+quietly. Sweat stood on Marks's forehead, though the Halfbreed was
+utterly calm. The jack-pot held about three hundred dollars. Then Marks
+could stand it no longer.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bet a hundred," he cried, "and see you."</p>
+
+<p>He triumphantly threw down a straight.</p>
+
+<p>"There, now," he snarled, "beat that, you stinking Malamute."</p>
+
+<p>There was a perceptible pause. I felt sorry for the Halfbreed. He could
+not afford to lose all that <a class="pagenum" name="page_103" id="page_103" title="103"></a>money, but his face showed no shade of
+emotion. He threw down his cards and there arose from us all a roar of
+incredulous surprise.</p>
+
+<p>For the Halfbreed had thrown down a royal flush in diamonds. Marks rose.
+He was now livid with passion.</p>
+
+<p>"You cheating swine," he cried; "you crooked devil!"</p>
+
+<p>Quickly he struck the other on the face, a blow that drew blood. I
+thought for a moment the Halfbreed would return the blow. Into his eyes
+there came a look of cold and deadly fury. But, no! quickly bending
+down, he scooped up the money and left the tent.</p>
+
+<p>We stared at each other.</p>
+
+<p>"Marvellous luck!" said the Prodigal.</p>
+
+<p>"Marvellous hell!" shouted Marks. "Don't tell me it's luck. He's a
+sharper, a dirty thief. But I'll get even. He's got to fight now. He'll
+fight with guns and I'll kill the son of a dog."</p>
+
+<p>He was drinking from the bottle in big gulps, fanning himself into an
+ungovernable fury with fiery objurgations. At last he went out, and
+again swearing he would kill the Halfbreed, he made for another tent,
+from which a sound of revelry was coming.</p>
+
+<p>Vaguely fearing trouble, the Prodigal and I did not go to bed, but sat
+talking. Suddenly I saw him listen intently.</p>
+
+<p>"Hist! Did you hear that?"</p>
+
+<p>I seemed to hear a sound like the fierce yelling of a wild animal.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_104" id="page_104" title="104"></a>We hurried out. It was Marks running towards us. He was crazy with
+liquor, and in one hand he flourished a gun. There was foam on his lips
+and he screamed as he ran. Then we saw him stop before the tent occupied
+by the Halfbreed, and throw open the flap.</p>
+
+<p>"Come out, you dirty tin-horn, you crook, you Indian bastard; come out
+and fight."</p>
+
+<p>He rushed in and came out again, dragging the Halfbreed at arm's length.
+They were tussling together, and we flung ourselves on them and
+separated them.</p>
+
+<p>I was holding Marks, when suddenly he hurled me off, and flourishing a
+revolver, fired one chamber, crying:</p>
+
+<p>"Stand back, all of you; stand back! Let me shoot at him. He's my meat."</p>
+
+<p>We stepped back pretty briskly, for Marks had cut loose. In fact, we
+ducked for shelter, all but the Halfbreed, who stood straight and still.</p>
+
+<p>Marks took aim at the man waiting there so coolly. He fired, and a tide
+of red stained the other man's shirt, near the shoulder. Then something
+happened. The Halfbreed's arm rose quickly. A six-shooter spat twice.</p>
+
+<p>He turned to us. "I didn't want to do it, boys, but you see he druv' me
+to it. I'm sorry. He druv' me to it."</p>
+
+<p>Marks lay in a huddled, quivering heap. He was shot through the heart
+and quite dead.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_105" id="page_105" title="105"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>We were camping in Paradise Valley. Before us and behind us the great
+Cheechako army laboured along with infinite travail. We had suffered,
+but the trail of the land was near its end. And what an end! With every
+mile the misery and difficulty of the way seemed to increase. Then we
+came to the trail of Rotting Horses.</p>
+
+<p>Dead animals we had seen all along the trail in great numbers, but the
+sight as we came on this particular place beggared description. There
+were thousands of them. One night we dragged away six of them before we
+could find room to put up the tent. There they lay, sprawling horribly,
+their ribs protruding through their hides, their eyes putrid in the
+sunshine. It was like a battlefield, hauntingly hideous.</p>
+
+<p>And every day was adding to their numbers. The trail ran over great
+boulders covered with icy slush, through which the weary brutes sank to
+their bellies. Struggling desperately, down they would come between two
+boulders. Then their legs would snap like pipe-stems, and there usually
+they were left to die.</p>
+
+<p>One would see, jammed in the cleft of a rock, the stump of a hoof, or
+sticking up sharply, the jagged splinter of a leg; while far down the
+bluff lay the <a class="pagenum" name="page_106" id="page_106" title="106"></a>animal to which it belonged. One would see the poor dead
+brutes lying head and tail for an hundred yards at a stretch. One would
+see them deserted and desperate, wandering round foraging for food. They
+would come to the camp at night whinnying pitifully, and with a look of
+terrible entreaty on their starved faces. Then one would take pity on
+them&mdash;and shoot them.</p>
+
+<p>I remember stumbling across a big, heavy horse one night in the gloom.
+It was swaying from side to side, and as I drew near I saw its throat
+was hideously cut. It looked at me with such agony in its eyes that I
+put my handkerchief over its face, and, with the blow of an axe, ended
+its misery. The most spirited of the horses were the first to fall. They
+broke their hearts in gallant effort. Goaded to desperation, sometimes
+they would destroy themselves, throw themselves frantically over the
+bluff. Oh, it was horrible! horrible!</p>
+
+<p>Our own horse proved a ready victim. To tell the truth, no one but the
+Jam-wagon was particularly sorry. If there was a sump-hole in sight,
+that horse was sure to flounder into it. Sometimes twice in one day we
+had to unhitch the ox and pull him out. There was a place dug out of the
+snow alongside the trail, which was being used as a knacker's yard, and
+here we took him with a broken leg and put a bullet in his brain. While
+we waited there were six others brought in to be shot.</p>
+
+<p>It was a Sunday and we were in the tent, indescribably glad of a day's
+rest. The Jam-wagon was <a class="pagenum" name="page_107" id="page_107" title="107"></a>mending a bit of harness; the Prodigal was
+playing solitaire. Salvation Jim had just returned from a trip to
+Skagway, where he had hoped to find a letter from the outside regarding
+one Jake Mosher. His usually hale and kindly face was drawn and
+troubled. Wearily he removed his snow-sodden clothes.</p>
+
+<p>"I always did say there was God's curse on this Klondike gold," he said;
+"now I'm sure of it. There's a hoodoo on it. What it's a-goin' to cost,
+what hearts it's goin' to break, what homes it's goin' to wreck no
+man'll ever know. God only knows what it's cost already. But this last
+is the worst yet."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter, Jim?" I said; "what last?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, haven't you heard? Well, there's just been a snow-slide on the
+Chilcoot an' several hundred people buried."</p>
+
+<p>I stared aghast. Living as we did in daily danger of snow-slides, this
+disaster struck us with terror.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't say!" said the Prodigal. "Where?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, somewhere's near Lindeman. Hundreds of poor sinners cut off without
+a chance to repent."</p>
+
+<p>He was going to improve on the occasion when the Prodigal cut in.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor devils! I guess we must know some of them too." He turned to me.
+"I wonder if your little Polak friend's all right?"</p>
+
+<p>Indeed my thoughts had just flown to Berna. Among the exigencies of the
+trail (when we had to fix our minds on the trouble of the moment and
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_108" id="page_108" title="108"></a>every moment had its trouble) there was little time for reflection.
+Nevertheless, I had found at all times visions of her flitting before
+me, thoughts of her coming to me when I least expected them. Pity,
+tenderness and a good deal of anxiety were in my mind. Often I wondered
+if ever I would see her again. A feeling of joy and a great longing
+would sweep over me in the hope. At these words then of the Prodigal, it
+seemed as if all my scattered sentiments crystallised into one, and a
+vast desire that was almost pain came over me. I suppose I was silent,
+grave, and it must have been some intuition of my thoughts that made the
+Prodigal say to me:</p>
+
+<p>"Say, old man, if you would like to take a run over the Dyea trail, I
+guess I can spare you for a day or so."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed, I'd like to see the trail."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, we've observed your enthusiastic interest in trails. Why don't
+you marry the girl? Well, cut along, old chap. Don't be gone too long."</p>
+
+<p>So next morning, travelling as lightly as possible, I started for
+Bennett. How good it seemed to get off unimpeded by an outfit, and I
+sped past the weary mob, struggling along on the last lap of their
+journey. I had been in some expectation of the trail bettering itself,
+but indeed it appeared at every step to grow more hopelessly terrible.
+It was knee-deep in snowy slush, and below that seemed to be literally
+paved with dead horses.</p>
+
+<p>I only waited long enough at Bennett to have breakfast. A pie nailed to
+a tent-pole indicated a <a class="pagenum" name="page_109" id="page_109" title="109"></a>restaurant, and there, for a dollar, I had a
+good meal of beans and bacon, coffee and flapjacks. It was yet early
+morning when I started for Linderman.</p>
+
+<p>The air was clear and cold, ideal mushing weather, and already parties
+were beginning to struggle into Bennett, looking very weary and jaded.
+On the trail a man did a day's work by nine in the morning, another by
+four in the afternoon, and a third by nightfall. You were lucky to get
+off at that.</p>
+
+<p>I was jogging along past the advance guard of the oncoming army, when
+who should I see but Mervin and Hewson. They looked thoroughly seasoned,
+and had made record time with a large outfit. In contrast to the worn,
+weary-eyed men with faces pinched and puckered, they looked insolently
+fit and full of fight. They had heard of the snow-slide but could give
+me no particulars. I inquired for Berna and the old man. They were
+somewhere behind, between Chilcoot and Lindeman. "Yes, they were
+probably buried under the slide. Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>I hurried forward, full of apprehension. A black stream of Cheechakos
+were surging across Lindeman; then I realised the greatness of the other
+advancing army, and the vastness of the impulse that was urging these
+indomitable atoms to the North. It was blowing quite hard and many had
+put up sails on their sleds with good effect. I saw a Jew driving an ox,
+to which he had four small sleds harnessed. On each of these he had
+hoisted a small sail. Suddenly the ox looked round and saw the sails.
+Here <a class="pagenum" name="page_110" id="page_110" title="110"></a>was something that did not come within the scope of his
+experience. With a bellow of fear, he stampeded, pursued by a yelling
+Hebrew, while from the chain of sleds articles scattered in all
+directions. When last I saw them in the far distance, Jew and ox were
+still going.</p>
+
+<p>Why was I so anxious about Berna? I did not know, but with every mile my
+anxiety increased. A dim unreasoning fear possessed me. I imagined that
+if anything happened to her I would forever blame myself. I saw her
+lying white and cold as the snow itself, her face peaceful in death. Why
+had I not thought more of her? I had not appreciated her enough, her
+precious sweetness and her tenderness. If only she was spared, I would
+show her what a good friend I could be. I would protect her and be near
+her in case of need. But then how foolish to think anything could have
+happened to her. The chances were one in a hundred. Nevertheless, I
+hurried forward.</p>
+
+<p>I met the Twins. They had just escaped the slide, they told me, and had
+not yet recovered from the shock. A little way back on the trail it was.
+I would see men digging out the bodies. They had dug out seventeen that
+morning. Some were crushed as flat as pancakes.</p>
+
+<p>Again, with a pain at my heart, I asked after Berna and her grandfather.
+Twin number one said they were both buried under the slide. I gasped and
+was seized with sudden faintness. "No," said twin number two, "the old
+man is missing, but the <a class="pagenum" name="page_111" id="page_111" title="111"></a>girl has escaped and is nearly crazy with
+grief. Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>Once more I hurried on. Gangs of men were shovelling for the dead. Every
+now and then a shovel would strike a hand or a skull. Then a shout would
+be raised and the poor misshapen body turned out.</p>
+
+<p>Again I put my inquiries. A busy digger paused in his work. He was a
+sottish-looking fellow, and there was something of the glare of a ghoul
+in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that must have been the old guy with the whiskers they dug out
+early on from the lower end of the slide. Relative, name of Winklestein,
+took charge of him. Took him to the tent yonder. Won't let any one go
+near."</p>
+
+<p>He pointed to a tent on the hillside, and it was with a heavy heart I
+went forward. The poor old man, so gentle, so dignified, with his dream
+of a golden treasure that might bring happiness to others. It was cruel,
+cruel....</p>
+
+<p>"Say, what d'ye want here? Get to hell outa this."</p>
+
+<p>The words came with a snarl. I looked up in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>There at the door of the tent, all a-bristle like a gutter-bred cur, was
+Winklestein.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_112" id="page_112" title="112"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>I stared at the man a moment, for little had I expected so gracious a
+reception.</p>
+
+<p>"Mush on, there," he repeated truculently; "you're not wanted 'round
+here. Mush! Pretty darned smart."</p>
+
+<p>I felt myself grow suddenly, savagely angry. I measured the man for a
+moment and determined I could handle him.</p>
+
+<p>"I want," I said soberly, "to see the body of my old friend."</p>
+
+<p>"You do, do you? Well, you darned well won't. Besides, there ain't no
+body here."</p>
+
+<p>"You're a liar!" I observed. "But it's no use wasting words on you. I'm
+going on anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>With that I gripped him suddenly and threw him sideways with some force.
+One of the tent ropes took away his feet violently, and there on the
+snow he sprawled, glowering at me with evil eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said I, "I've got a gun, and if you try any monkey business, I'll
+fix you so quick you won't know what's happened."</p>
+
+<p>The bluff worked. He gathered himself up and followed me into the tent,
+looking the picture of malevolent impotence. On the ground lay a longish
+object covered with a blanket. With a strange feeling <a class="pagenum" name="page_113" id="page_113" title="113"></a>of reluctant
+horror I lifted the covering. Beneath it lay the body of the old man.</p>
+
+<p>He was lying on his back, and had not been squeezed out of all human
+semblance like so many of the others. Nevertheless, he was ghastly
+enough, with his bluish face and wide bulging eyes. What had worn his
+fingers to the bone so? He must have made a desperate struggle with his
+bare hands to dig himself out. I will never forget those torn, nailless
+fingers. I felt around his waist. Ha! the money belt was gone!</p>
+
+<p>"Winklestein," I said, turning suddenly on the little Jew, "this man had
+two thousand dollars on him. What have you done with it?"</p>
+
+<p>He started violently. A look of fear came into his eyes. It died away,
+and his face was convulsed with rage.</p>
+
+<p>"He did not," he screamed; "he didn't have a red cent. He's no more than
+an old pauper I was taking in to play the fiddle. He owes <i>me</i>, curse
+him! And who are you anyways, you blasted meddler, that accuses a decent
+man of being a body robber?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was this dead man's friend. I'm still his granddaughter's friend. I'm
+going to see justice done. This man had two thousand dollars in a gold
+belt round his waist. It belongs to the girl now. You've got to give it
+up, Winklestein, or by&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Prove it, prove it!" he spluttered. "You're a liar; she's a liar;
+you're all a pack of liars, trying to blackmail a decent man. He had no
+money, I say! <a class="pagenum" name="page_114" id="page_114" title="114"></a>He had no money, and if ever he said so, he's a liar."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you vile wretch!" I cried. "It's you that's lying. I've a mind to
+choke your dirty throat. But I'll hound you till I make you cough up
+that money. Where's Berna?"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he had become quietly malicious.</p>
+
+<p>"Find her," he jibed; "find her for yourself. And take yourself out of
+my sight as quickly as you please."</p>
+
+<p>I saw he had me over a barrel, so, with a parting threat, I left him. A
+tent nearby was being run as a restaurant, and there I had a cup of
+coffee. Of the man who kept it, a fat, humorous cockney, I made
+enquiries regarding the girl. Yes, he knew her. She was living in yonder
+tent with Madam Winklestein.</p>
+
+<p>"They sy she's tykin' on horful baht th' old man, pore kid!"</p>
+
+<p>I thanked him, gulped down my coffee, and made for the tent. The flap
+was down, but I rapped on the canvas, and presently the dark face of
+Madam appeared. When she saw me, it grew darker.</p>
+
+<p>"What d'you want?" she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to see Berna," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you can't. Can't you hear her? Isn't that enough?"</p>
+
+<p>Surely I could hear a very low, pitiful sound coming from the tent,
+something between a sob and a moan, like the wailing of an Indian woman
+over <a class="pagenum" name="page_115" id="page_115" title="115"></a>her dead, only infinitely subdued and anguished. I was shocked,
+awed, immeasurably grieved.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," I said; "I'm sorry. I don't want to intrude on her in her
+hour of affliction. I'll come again."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," she laughed tauntingly; "come again."</p>
+
+<p>I had failed. I thought of turning back, then I thought I might as well
+see what I could of the far-famed Chikoot, so once more I struck out.</p>
+
+<p>The faces of the hundreds I met were the same faces I had passed by the
+thousand, stamped with the seal of the trail, seamed with lines of
+suffering, wan with fatigue, blank with despair. There was the same
+desperate hurry, the same indifference to calamity, the same grim
+stoical endurance.</p>
+
+<p>A snowstorm was raging on the summit of the Chikoot and the snow was
+drifting, covering the thousands of caches to the depth of ten and
+fifteen feet. I stood on the summit of that nearly perpendicular ascent
+they call the "Scales." Steps had been cut in the icy steep, and up
+these men were straining, each with a huge pack on his back. They could
+only go in single file. It was the famous "Human Chain." At regular
+distances, platforms had been cut beside the trail, where the exhausted
+ones might leave the ranks and rest; but if a worn-out climber reeled
+and crawled into one of the shelters, quickly the line closed up and
+none gave him a glance.</p>
+
+<p>The men wore ice-creepers, so that their feet would clutch the slippery
+surface. Many of them <a class="pagenum" name="page_116" id="page_116" title="116"></a>had staffs, and all were bent nigh double under
+their burdens. They did not speak, their lips were grimly sealed, their
+eyes fixed and stern. They bowed their heads to thwart the buffetings of
+the storm-wind, but every way they turned it seemed to meet them. The
+snow lay thick on their shoulders and covered their breasts. On their
+beards the spiked icicles glistened. As they moved up step by step, it
+seemed as if their feet were made of lead, so heavily did they lift
+them. And the resting-places by the trail were never empty.</p>
+
+<p>You saw them in the canyon at the trail top, staggering in the wind that
+seemed to blow every way at once. You saw them blindly groping for the
+caches they had made but yesterday and now fathoms deep under the
+snowdrift. You saw them descending swiftly, dizzily, leaning back on
+their staffs, for the down trail was like a slide. In a moment they were
+lost to sight, but to-morrow they would come again, and to-morrow and
+to-morrow, the men of the Chilcoot.</p>
+
+<p>The Trail of Travail&mdash;surely it was all epitomised in the tribulations
+of that stark ascent. From my eyrie on its blizzard-beaten crest I could
+see the Human Chain drag upward link by link, and every link a man. And
+as he climbed that pitiless treadmill, on each man's face there could be
+deciphered the palimpsest of his soul.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, what a drama it was, and what a stage! The Trail of '98&mdash;high
+courage, frenzied fear, despotic greed, unflinching sacrifice. But over
+all&mdash;its hunger and its hope, its passion and its pain&mdash;triumphed the
+dauntless spirit of the Pathfinder&mdash;the mighty Pioneer.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style='width:400px'>
+<a name="illus-001" id="illus-001"></a>
+<img src="images/illus-116.jpg" alt="&#34;No,&#34; she said firmly, &#34;you can&#39;t see the girl&#34;" title=""  /><br />
+<span class="caption">&#34;No,&#34; she said firmly, &#34;you can&#39;t see the girl&#34;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_117" id="page_117" title="117"></a>Then I knew, I knew. These silent, patient, toiling ones were the
+Conquerors of the Great White Land; the Men of the High North, the
+Brotherhood of the Arctic Wild. No saga will ever glorify their deeds,
+no epic make them immortal. Their names will be written in the snows
+that melt and vanish at the smile of Spring; but in their works will
+they live, and their indomitable spirit will be as a beacon-light,
+shining down the dim corridors of Eternity.</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>I slept at a bunkhouse that night, and next morning I again made a call
+at the tent within which lay Berna. Again Madam, in a gaudy wrapper,
+answered my call, but this time, to my surprise, she was quite pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she said firmly, "you can't see the girl. She's all prostrated.
+We've given her a sleeping powder and she's asleep now. But she's mighty
+sick. We've sent for a doctor."</p>
+
+<p>There was indeed nothing to be done. With a heavy heart I thanked her,
+expressed my regrets and went away. What had got into me, I wondered,
+that I was so distressed about the girl. I thought of her continually,
+with tenderness and longing. I had seen so little of her, yet that
+little had meant so much. I took a sad pleasure in recalling her to mind
+in varying aspects; always she appeared different to me somehow. I could
+get no definite idea of her; <a class="pagenum" name="page_118" id="page_118" title="118"></a>ever was there something baffling,
+mysterious, half revealed.</p>
+
+<p>To me there was in her, beauty, charm, every ideal quality. Yet must my
+eyes have been anointed, for others passed her by without a second
+glance. Oh, I was young and foolish, maybe; but I had never before known
+a girl that appealed to me, and it was very, very sweet.</p>
+
+<p>So I went back to the restaurant and gave the fat cockney a note which
+he promised to deliver into her own hands. I wrote:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">"Dear Berna</span>: I cannot tell you how deeply grieved I am over your
+grandfather's death, and how I sympathise with you in your sorrow.
+I came over from the other trail to see you, but you were too ill.
+Now I must go back at once. If I could only have said a word to
+comfort you! I feel terribly about it.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Berna, dear, go back, go back. This is no country for you. If
+I can help you, Berna, let me know. If you come on to Bennett, then
+I will see you.</p>
+
+<p>"Believe me again, dear, my heart aches for you.</p>
+
+<p>"Be brave.</p>
+
+<p style='text-align:right'>
+"Always affectionately yours,&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br />
+"<span class="smcap">Athol Meldrum</span>."
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Then once more I struck out for Bennett.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_119" id="page_119" title="119"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Our last load was safely landed in Bennett and the trail of the land was
+over. We had packed an outfit of four thousand pounds over a
+thirty-seven-mile trail and it had taken us nearly a month. For an
+average of fifteen hours a day we had worked for all that was in us;
+yet, looking back, it seems to have been more a matter of dogged
+persistence and patience than desperate endeavour and endurance.</p>
+
+<p>There is no doubt that to the great majority, the trail spelt privation,
+misery and suffering; but they were of the poor, deluded multitude that
+never should have left their ploughs, their desks and their benches.
+Then there were others like ourselves to whom it meant hardship, more or
+less extreme, but who managed to struggle along fairly well. Lastly,
+there was a minority to whom it was little more than discomfort. They
+were the seasoned veterans of the trail to whom its trials were all in
+the day's work. It was as if the Great White Land was putting us to the
+test, was weeding out the fit from the unfit, was proving itself a land
+of the Strong, a land for men.</p>
+
+<p>And indeed our party was well qualified to pass the test of the trail.
+The Prodigal was full of irrepressible enthusiasm, and always loaded to
+the muzzle with ideas. Salvation Jim was a mine of <a class="pagenum" name="page_120" id="page_120" title="120"></a>foresight and
+resource, while the Jam-wagon proved himself an insatiable glutton for
+work. Altogether we fared better than the average party.</p>
+
+<p>We were camped on the narrow neck of water between Lindeman and Bennett,
+and as hay was two hundred and fifty dollars a ton, the first thing we
+did was to butcher the ox. The next was to see about building a boat. We
+thought of whipsawing our own boards, but the timber near us was poor or
+thinned out, so that in the end we bought lumber, paying for it twenty
+cents a foot. We were all very unexpert carpenters; however, by watching
+others, we managed to make a decent-looking boat.</p>
+
+<p>These were the busy days. At Bennett the two great Cheechako armies
+converged, and there must have been thirty thousand people camped round
+the lake. The night was ablaze with countless camp-fires, the day a buzz
+of busy toil. Everywhere you heard the racket of hammer and saw, beheld
+men in feverish haste over their boat-building. There were many fine
+boats, but the crude makeshift effort of the amateur predominated. Some
+of them, indeed, had no more shape than a packing-case, and not a few
+resembled a coffin. Anything that would float and keep out the water was
+a "boat."</p>
+
+<p>Oh, it was good to think that from thenceforward, the swift, clear
+current would bear us to our goal. No more icy slush to the knee, no
+more putrid horse-flesh under foot, no more blinding blizzards and
+heart-breaking drift of snows. But the blue sky would canopy us, the
+gentle breezes fan us, the warm <a class="pagenum" name="page_121" id="page_121" title="121"></a>sun lock us in her arms. No more bitter
+freezings and sinister dawns and weary travail of mind and body. The
+hills would busk themselves in emerald green, the wild crocus come to
+gladden our eyes, the long nights glow with sunsets of theatric
+splendour. No wonder, in the glory of reaction, we exulted and laboured
+on our boat with brimming hearts. And always before us gleamed the
+Golden Magnet, making us chafe and rage against the stubborn ice that
+stayed our progress.</p>
+
+<p>The days were full of breezy sunshine and at all times the Eager Army
+watched the rotting ice with anxious eyes. In places it was fairly
+honeycombed now, in others corroded and splintered into silver spears.
+Here and there it heaved up and cracked across in gaping chasms; again
+it sagged down suddenly. There were sheets of surface water and
+stretches of greenish slush that froze faintly overnight. In large,
+flaming letters of red, the lake was dangerous, near to a break-up, a
+death trap; yet every day the reckless ones were going over it to be
+that much nearer the golden goal.</p>
+
+<p>In this game of taking desperate chances, many a wild player lost, many
+a foolhardy one never reached the shore. No one will ever know the
+number of victims claimed by these black unfathomable waters.</p>
+
+<p>It was the Professor who opened our eyes to the danger of crossing the
+lake. He and the Bank clerk quarrelled over the wisdom of delay. The
+Professor was positive it was quite safe. The ice was four <a class="pagenum" name="page_122" id="page_122" title="122"></a>feet thick.
+Go fast over the weak spots and you would be all right. He argued, fumed
+and ranted. They were losing precious time, time which might mean all
+the difference between failure and success. It was expedient to get
+ahead of the rabble. He, for one, was no craven; he had staked his all
+on this trip. He had studied the records of Arctic explorers. He thought
+he was no man's fool. If others were cowardly enough to hold back, he
+would go alone.</p>
+
+<p>The upshot of it was that one grey morning he took his share of the
+outfit and started off by himself.</p>
+
+<p>Said the Bank clerk, half crying:</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old Pondersby! In spite of the words we had, we parted the best of
+friends. We shook hands and I wished him all good-speed. I saw him
+twisting and wriggling among the patches of black and white ice. For a
+long time I watched him with a heavy heart. Yet he seemed to be getting
+along nicely, and I was beginning to think he was right and to call
+myself a fool. He was getting quite small in the distance, when suddenly
+he seemed to disappear. I got the glasses. There was a big hole in the
+ice, no sleigh, no Pondersby. Poor old fellow!"</p>
+
+<p>There were many such cases of separation on the shores of Lake Bennett.
+Parties who had started out on that trail as devoted chums, finished it
+as lifelong enemies. Tempers were ground to a razor-edge; words dropped
+crudely; anger flamed to meet anger. You could scarcely blame them. They
+did <a class="pagenum" name="page_123" id="page_123" title="123"></a>not realise that the trail demanded all that was in a man of
+gentleness, patience and forbearance. Poor human nature was strained and
+tested inexorably, and the most loving friends became the most deadly
+foes forevermore.</p>
+
+<p>One instance of this was the twins.</p>
+
+<p>"Say," said the Prodigal, "you ought to see Romulus and Remus. They're
+scrapping like cat and dog. Seems they've had a bunch of trouble right
+along the line&mdash;you know how the trail brings out the yellow streak in a
+man. Well, they're both fiery as Hades, so after a particularly warm
+evening they swore that as soon as they got to Bennett, they'd divvy up
+the stuff and each go off by his lonesome. Somehow, they patched it up
+when they reached here and got busy on their boat. Now it seems they've
+quarrelled worse than ever. Romulus is telling Remus his real name and
+<i>vice-versa</i>. They're raking up old grievances of their childhood days,
+and the end of it is they've once more decided to halve tip the outfit.
+They're mad enough to kill each other. They've even decided to cut their
+boat in two."</p>
+
+<p>It was truly so. We went and watched them. Each had a bitter
+determination on his face. They were sawing the boat through the middle.
+Afterwards, I believe, they patched up their ends and made a successful
+trip to Dawson.</p>
+
+<p>The ice was going fast. Strangers were still coming in over the trail
+with awful tales of its horrors. Bennett was all excitement and seething
+life. Thousands <a class="pagenum" name="page_124" id="page_124" title="124"></a>of ungainly boats, rafts and scows were waiting to be
+launched. Already craft were beginning to come through from Lindeman,
+rushing down the fierce torrent between the two lakes. From where we
+were camped we saw them pass. There were ugly rapids and a fang-like
+rock, against which many a luckless craft was piled up.</p>
+
+<p>It was the most fascinating thing in the world to watch these daring
+Argonauts rush the rapids, to speculate whether or not they would get
+through. The stroke of an oar, a few feet to right or left, meant
+unspeakable calamity. Poor souls! Their faces of utter despair as they
+landed dripping from the water and saw their precious goods disappearing
+in the angry foam would have moved a heart of stone. As one man said, in
+the bitterness of his heart:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, boys, what a funny God we've got!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a man who came sailing through the passage with a fine boat
+and a rich outfit. He had lugged it over the trail at the cost of
+infinite toil and weariness. Now his heart was full of hope. Suddenly he
+was in the whirl of the current, then all at once loomed up the cruel
+rock. His face blanched with horror. Frantically he tried to avoid it.
+No use. Crash! and his frail boat splintered like matchwood.</p>
+
+<p>But this man was a fighter. He set his jaw. Once more he went back over
+that deadly trail. He bought, at great expense, a new outfit and had
+packers hustle it over the trail. He procured a new <a class="pagenum" name="page_125" id="page_125" title="125"></a>boat. Once more he
+sailed through the narrow canyon. His face was set and grim.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, like some iron Nemesis, once more loomed up the fatal rock. He
+struggled gallantly, but again the current seemed to grip him and throw
+him on that deadly fang. With another sickening crash he saw his goods
+sink in the seething waters.</p>
+
+<p>Did he give up? No! A third time he struggled, weary, heartbroken, over
+that trail. He had little left now, and with that little he bought his
+third outfit, a poor, pathetic shadow of the former ones, but enough for
+a desperate man.</p>
+
+<p>Once more he packed it over the trail, now a perfect Avernus of horror.
+He reached the river, and in a third poor little boat, again he sailed
+down the passage. There was the swift-leaping current, the ugly tusk of
+rock staked with wreckage. A moment, a few feet, a turn of the
+oar-blade, and he would have been past. But, no! The rock seemed to
+fascinate him as the eyes of a snake fascinate a bird. He stared at it
+fearfully, a look of terror and despair. Then for the third time, with a
+hideous crash, his frail boat was piled up in a pitiful ruin.</p>
+
+<p>He was beaten now.</p>
+
+<p>He climbed on the bank, and there, with a last look at the ugly snarl of
+waters, and the jagged up-thrust of that evil rock, he put a bullet
+smashing through his brain.</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_126" id="page_126" title="126"></a>The ice was loose and broken. We were all ready to start in a few days.
+The mighty camp was in a ferment of excitement. Every one seemed elated
+beyond words. On, once more, to Eldorado!</p>
+
+<p>It was near midnight, but the sky, where the sun had dipped below the
+mountain rim, was a sea of translucent green, weirdly and wildly
+harmonious with the desolation of the land. On the bleak lake one could
+hear the lap of waves, while the high, rocky shore to the left was a
+black wall of shadow. I stood by the beach near our boat, all alone in
+the wan light, and tried to think calmly of the strange things that had
+happened to me.</p>
+
+<p>Surely there was something of Romance left in this old world yet if one
+would only go to seek it. Here I was, sun-browned, strong, healthy,
+having come through many trials and still on the edge of adventure, when
+I might, but for my own headstrong perversity, have yet been vegetating
+on the hills of Glengyle. A great exultation welled up in me, the voice
+of youth and ambition, the lust to conquer. I would succeed, I would
+wrest from the vast, lonely, mysterious North some of its treasure. I
+would be a conqueror.</p>
+
+<p>Silent and abstracted, I looked into the brooding disk of sheeny sky, my
+eyes dream-troubled.</p>
+
+<p>Then I felt a ghostly hand touch my arm, and with a great start of
+surprise, I turned.</p>
+
+<p>"Berna!"</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_127" id="page_127" title="127"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>The girl was wearing a thin black shawl around her shoulders, but in the
+icy wind blowing from the lake, she trembled like a wand. Her face was
+pale, waxen, almost spiritual in its expression, and she looked at me
+with just the most pitiably sweet smile in the world.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry I startled you; but I wanted to thank you for your letter and
+for your sympathy."</p>
+
+<p>It was the same clear voice, with the throb of tender feeling in it.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, I'm all alone now." The voice faltered, but went on bravely.
+"I've got no one that cares about me any more, and I've been sick, so
+sick I wonder I lived. I knew you'd forgotten me, and I don't blame you.
+But I've never forgotten you, and I wanted to see you just once more."</p>
+
+<p>She was speaking quite calmly and unemotionally.</p>
+
+<p>"Berna!" I cried; "don't say that. Your reproach hurts me so. Indeed I
+did try to find you, but it's such a vast camp. There are so many
+thousands of people here. Time and again I inquired, but no one seemed
+to know. Then I thought you must surely have gone back, and it's been
+such a busy time, building our boat and getting ready. No, Berna, I
+didn't forget. Many's and many's a night I've lain awake thinking of
+you, wondering, longing <a class="pagenum" name="page_128" id="page_128" title="128"></a>to see you again&mdash;but haven't you forgotten a
+little?"</p>
+
+<p>I saw the sensitive lips smile almost bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"No! not even a little."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I'm sorry, Berna. I'm sorry I've looked after you so badly. I'll
+never forgive myself. You've been terribly sick, too. What a little
+white whisp you are! You look as if a breeze would blow you away. You
+shouldn't be out this night, girl. Put my coat around you, come now."</p>
+
+<p>I wrapped her in it and saw with gladness her shivering cease. As I
+buttoned it at her throat I marvelled at the thinness of her, and at the
+delicacy of her face. In the opal light of the luminous sky her great
+grey eyes were lustrous.</p>
+
+<p>"Berna," I said again, "why did you come in here, why? You should have
+gone back."</p>
+
+<p>"Gone back," she repeated; "indeed I would have, oh, so gladly. But you
+don't understand&mdash;they wouldn't let me. After they had got all his
+money&mdash;and they <i>did</i> get it, though they swear he had nothing&mdash;they
+made me come on with them. They said I owed them for his burial, and for
+the care and attention they gave me when I was sick. They said I must
+come on with them and work for them. I protested, I struggled. But
+what's the use? I can't do anything against them any more. I'm weak, and
+I'm terribly afraid of her."</p>
+
+<p>She shuddered, then a look of fear came into her eyes. I put my hand on
+her arm and drew her close to me.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_129" id="page_129" title="129"></a>"I just slipped away to-night. She thinks I'm asleep in the tent. She
+watches me like a cat, and will scarce let me speak to any one. She's so
+big and strong, and I'm so slight and weak. She would kill me in one of
+her rages. Then she tells every one I'm no good, an ingrate, everything
+that's bad. Once when I threatened to run away, she said she would
+accuse me of stealing and have me put in gaol. That's the kind of woman
+she is."</p>
+
+<p>"This is terrible, Berna. What have you been doing all the time?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I've been working, working for them. They've been running a little
+restaurant and I've waited on table. I saw you several times, but you
+were always too busy or too far away in dreams to see me, and I couldn't
+get a chance to speak. But we're going down the lake to-morrow, so I
+thought I would just slip away and say good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>"Not good-bye," I faltered; "not good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>Her tone was measured, her eyes closed almost.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I'm afraid I must say it. When we get down there, it's good-bye,
+good-bye. The less you have to do with me, the better."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I mean this. These people are not decent. They're vile. I must go
+with them; I cannot get away. Already, though I'm as pure as your sister
+would be, already my being with them has smirched me in everybody's
+eyes. I can see it by the way the men look at me. No, go your way and
+leave me to whatever fate is in store for me."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_130" id="page_130" title="130"></a>"Never!" I said harshly. "What do you take me for, Berna?"</p>
+
+<p>"My friend ... you know, after his death, when I was so sick, I wanted
+to die. Then I got your letter, and I felt I must see you again for&mdash;I
+thought a lot of you. No man's ever been so kind to me as you have.
+They've all been&mdash;the other sort. I used to think of you a good deal,
+and I wanted to do some little thing to show you I was really grateful.
+On the boat I used to notice you because you were so quiet and
+abstracted. Then you were grandfather's room-mate and gentle and kind to
+him. You looked different from the others, too; your eyes were good&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come, Berna, never mind that."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I mean it. I just wanted to tell you the things a poor girl
+thought of you. But now it's all nearly over. We've neither of us got to
+think of each other any more ... and I just wanted to give you this&mdash;to
+remind you sometimes of Berna."</p>
+
+<p>It was a poor little locket and it contained a lock of her silken hair.</p>
+
+<p>"It's worth nothing, I know, but just keep it for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed I will, Berna, keep it always, and wear it for you. But I can't
+let you go like this. See here, girl, is there nothing I can do?
+Nothing? Surely there must be some way. Berna, Berna, look at me, listen
+to me! Is there? What can I do? Tell me, tell me, my girl."</p>
+
+<p>She seemed to sway to me gently. Indeed I did <a class="pagenum" name="page_131" id="page_131" title="131"></a>not intend it, but
+somehow she was in my arms. She felt so slight and frail a thing, I
+feared to hurt her.</p>
+
+<p>Then I felt her bosom heaving greatly, and I knew she was crying. For a
+little I let her cry, but presently I lifted up the white face that lay
+on my shoulder. It was wet with tears. Again and again I kissed her. She
+lay passively in my arms. Never did she try to escape nor hide her face,
+but seemed to give herself up to me. Her tears were salt upon my lips,
+yet her own lips were cold, and she did not answer to my kisses.</p>
+
+<p>At last she spoke. Her voice was like a little sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if it could only be!"</p>
+
+<p>"What, Berna? Tell me what?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you could only take me away from them, protect me, care for me. Oh,
+if you could only <i>marry</i> me, make me your wife. I would be the best
+wife in the world to you; I would work my fingers to the bone for you; I
+would starve and suffer for you, and walk the world barefoot for your
+sake. Oh, my dear, my dear, pity me!"</p>
+
+<p>It seemed as if a sudden light had flashed upon my brain, stunning me,
+bewildering me. I thought of the princess of my dreams. I thought of
+Garry and of Mother. Could I take her to them?</p>
+
+<p>"Berna," I said sternly, "look at me."</p>
+
+<p>She obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>"Berna, tell me, by all you regard as pure and holy, do you love me?"</p>
+
+<p>She was silent and averted her eyes.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_132" id="page_132" title="132"></a>"No, Berna," I said, "you don't; you're afraid. It's not the sort of
+love you've dreamed of. It's not your ideal. It would be gratitude and
+affection, love of a kind, but never that great dazzling light, that
+passion that would raise to heaven or drag to hell."</p>
+
+<p>"How do I know? Perhaps that would come in time. I care a great deal for
+you. I think of you always. I would be a true, devoted wife&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know, Berna; but you don't love me, love me; see, dear. It's so
+different. You might care and care till doomsday, but it wouldn't be the
+other thing; it wouldn't be love as I have conceived of it, dreamed of
+it. Listen, Berna! Here's where our difference in race comes in. You
+would rush blindly into this. You would not consider, test and prove
+yourself. It's the most serious matter in life to me, something to be
+looked at from every side, to be weighed and balanced."</p>
+
+<p>As I said this, my conscience was whispering fiercely: "Oh, fool!
+Coward! Paltering, despicable coward! This girl throws herself on you,
+on your honour, chivalry, manhood, and you screen yourself behind a
+barrier of convention."</p>
+
+<p>However, I went on.</p>
+
+<p>"You might come to love me in time, but we must wait a while, little
+girl. Surely that is reasonable? I care for you a great, great deal, but
+I don't know if I love you in the great way people should love. Can't we
+wait a little, Berna? I'll look after you, dear; won't that do?"</p>
+
+<p>She disengaged herself from me, sighing woefully.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_133" id="page_133" title="133"></a>"Yes, I suppose that'll do. Oh, I'll never forgive myself for saying
+that to you. I shouldn't, but I was so desperate. You don't know what it
+meant to me. Please forget it, won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Berna, I'll never forget it, and I'll always bless you for having
+said it. Believe me, dear, it will all come right. Things aren't so bad.
+You're just scared, little one. I'll watch no one harms you, and love
+will come to both of us in good time, that love that means life and
+death, hate and adoration, rapture and pain, the greatest thing in the
+world. Oh, my dear, my dear, trust me! We have known each other such a
+brief space. Let us wait a little longer, just a little longer."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that's right, a little longer."</p>
+
+<p>Her voice was faint and toneless. She disengaged herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, good-night; they may have missed me."</p>
+
+<p>Almost before I could realise it she had disappeared amid the tents,
+leaving me there in the gloom with my heart full of doubt, self-reproach
+and pain.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, despicable, paltering coward!</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_134" id="page_134" title="134"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Spring in the Yukon! Majestic mountains crowned with immemorial snow!
+The mad midnight melodies of birds! From the kindly stars to the leaves
+of grass that glimmer in the wind, a world pregnant with joy, a land
+jewel-bright and virgin-sweet!</p>
+
+<p>After the obsession of the long, long night, Spring leaps into being
+with a sudden sun-thrilled joy, a radiant uplift. The shy emerald
+mantles the valleys and fledges the heights; the pussy-willows tremble
+by lake and stream; the wild crocus brims the hollows with a haze of
+violet; trailing his last ragged pennants of snow on the hills, winter
+makes his sullen retreat.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps I am over-sensitive, but I have ecstasied moments when to me it
+seems the grass is greener, the sky bluer than they are to most; I
+surrender my heart to wonder and joy; I am in tune with the triumphant
+cadence of Things; I am an atom of praise; I live, therefore I exult.</p>
+
+<p>Only in hyperbole could I express that golden Spring, as we set sail on
+the sunlit waters of Lake Bennett. Never had I felt so glad. And indeed
+it was a vastly merry mob that sailed with us, straining their eyes once
+more to the Eldorado of their dreams. Bottled-up spirits effervesced
+wildly; hearts beat bravely; hopes were high. The bitter landtrail <a class="pagenum" name="page_135" id="page_135" title="135"></a>was
+forgotten. The clear, bright water leaped laughingly at the bow; the
+gallant breeze was blowing behind. The strong men bared their breasts
+and drank of it deeply.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, they were the strong, the fit, suffered by the North to survive,
+stiffened and braced and seasoned, the Chosen of the Test, the Proven of
+the Trail. Songs of jubilation rang in the night air; men, eager-eyed
+and watchful, roared snatches of melody as they toiled at sweep and oar;
+banjos, mandolins, fiddles, flutes, mingled in maddest confusion. Once
+more the great invading army of the Cheechakos moved forward
+tumultuously, but now with mirth and rejoicing.</p>
+
+<p>The great calm night was never dark, the great deep lakes infinitely
+serene, the great mountains majestically solemn. In the lighted sky the
+pale ghost-moon seemed ever apologising for itself. The world was a
+grand harmonious symphony that even the advancing tide of the Argonauts
+could not mar.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, under all the mirth and gaiety, you could feel, tense, ruthless and
+dominant, the spirit of the trail. In that invincible onrush of human
+effort, as the oars bent with their strokes of might, as the sail
+bellied before the breeze, as the eager wave leapt at the bow, you could
+feel the passion that quickened their hearts and steeled their arms.
+Klondike or bust! Once more the slogan rang on bearded lips; once more
+the gold-lust smouldered in their eyes. The old primal lust resurged: to
+win at any cost, to thrust down those in the way, to fight fiercely,
+brutally, <a class="pagenum" name="page_136" id="page_136" title="136"></a>even as wolf-dogs fight, this was the code, the terrible code
+of the Gold-trail. The basic passions up-leapt, envy and hate and fear
+triumphed, and with ever increasing excitement the great fleet of the
+gold-hunters strained onward to the valley of the treasure.</p>
+
+<p>Of all who had started out with us but a few had got this far. Of these
+Mervin and Hewson were far in front, victors of the trail, qualified to
+rank with the Men of the High North, the Sourdoughs of the Yukon Valley.
+Somewhere in the fleet were the Bank clerk, the Halfbreed and
+Bullhammer, while three days' start ahead were the Winklesteins.</p>
+
+<p>"These Jews have the only system," commented the Prodigal; "they ran the
+'Elight' Restaurant in Bennett and got action on their beans and flour
+and bacon. The Madam cooked, the old man did the chores and the girl
+waited on table. They've roped in a bunch of money, and now they've lit
+out for Dawson in a nice, tight little scow with their outfits turned
+into wads of the long green."</p>
+
+<p>I kept a keen lookout for them and every day I hoped we would overtake
+their scow, for constantly I thought of Berna. Her little face, so
+wistfully tender, haunted me, and over and over in my mind I kept
+recalling our last meeting.</p>
+
+<p>At times I blamed myself for letting her go so easily, and then again I
+was thankful that I had not allowed my heart to run away with my head.
+For I was beginning to wonder if I had not given her my heart, given it
+easily, willingly and without reserve. <a class="pagenum" name="page_137" id="page_137" title="137"></a>And in truth at the idea I felt
+a strange thrill of joy. The girl seemed to me all that was fair,
+lovable and sweet.</p>
+
+<p>We were now skimming over Tagish Lake. With grey head bared to the
+breeze and a hymn stave on his lips, Salvation Jim steered in the strong
+sunlight. His face was full of cheer, his eyes alight with kindly hope.
+Leaning over the side, the Prodigal was dragging a spoon-bait to catch
+the monster trout that lived in those depths. The Jam-wagon, as if
+disgusted at our enforced idleness, slumbered at the bow. As he slept I
+noticed his fine nostrils, his thin, bitter lips, his bare brawny arms,
+tattooed with strange devices. How clean he kept his teeth and nails!
+There was the stamp of the thoroughbred all over him. In what strange
+parts of the world had he run amuck? What fair, gracious women mourned
+for him in far-away England?</p>
+
+<p>Ah, those enchanted days, the sky spaces abrim with light, the
+gargantuan mountains, the eager army of adventurers, undismayed at the
+gloomy vastness!</p>
+
+<p>We came to Windy Arm, rugged, desolate and despairful. Down it, with
+menace and terror on its wings, rushes the furious wind, driving boats
+and scows crashing on an iron shore. In the night we heard shouts; we
+saw wreckage piled up on the beach, but we pulled away. For twelve weary
+hours we pulled at the oars, and in the end our danger was past.</p>
+
+<p>We came to Lake Tagish; a dead calm, a blazing sun, a seething mist of
+mosquitoes. We sweltered <a class="pagenum" name="page_138" id="page_138" title="138"></a>in the heat; we strained, with blistered
+hands, at the oars; we cursed and toiled like a thousand others of that
+grotesque fleet. There were boats of every shape, square, oblong,
+circular, three-cornered, flat, round&mdash;anything that would float. They
+were made mostly of boards, laboriously hand-sawn in the woods, and from
+a half-inch to four inches thick. Black pitch smeared the seams of the
+raw lumber. They travelled sideways as well as in any other fashion. And
+in such crazy craft were thousands of amateur boatmen, sailing serenely
+along, taking danger with sang-froid, and at night, over their
+camp-fires, hilariously telling of their hairbreadth escapes.</p>
+
+<p>We entered the Fifty-mile River; we were in a giant valley; tier after
+tier of benchland rose to sentinel mountains of austerest grandeur.
+There at the bottom the little river twisted like a silver wire, and
+down it rowed the eager army. They shattered the silence into wildest
+echo, they roused the bears out of their frozen sleep; the forest flamed
+from their careless fires.</p>
+
+<p>The river was our beast of burden now, a tireless, gentle beast.
+Serenely and smoothly it bore us onward, yet there was a note of menace
+in its song. They had told us of the canyon and of the rapids, and as we
+pulled at the oars and battled with the mosquitoes, we wondered when the
+danger was coming, how we would fare through it when it came.</p>
+
+<p>Then one evening as we were sweeping down the placid river, the current
+suddenly quickened. The banks were sliding past at a strange speed.
+Swiftly <a class="pagenum" name="page_139" id="page_139" title="139"></a>we whirled around a bend, and there we were right on top of the
+dreadful canyon. Straight ahead was what seemed to be a solid wall of
+rock. The river looked to have no outlet; but as we drew nearer we saw
+that there was a narrow chasm in the stony face, and at this the water
+was rearing and charging with an angry roar.</p>
+
+<p>The current was gripping us angrily now; there was no chance to draw
+back. At his post stood the Jam-wagon with the keen, alert look of the
+man who loves danger. A thrill of excitement ran through us all. With
+set faces we prepared for the fight.</p>
+
+<p>I was in the bow. All at once I saw directly in front a scow struggling
+to make the shore. In her there were three people, two women and a man.
+I saw the man jump out with a rope and try to snub the scow to a tree.
+Three times he failed, running along the bank and shouting frantically.
+I saw one of the women jump for the shore. Then at the same instant the
+rope parted, and the scow, with the remaining woman, went swirling on
+into the canyon.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_140" id="page_140" title="140"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>All this I saw, and so fascinated was I that I forgot our own peril. I
+heard a shrill scream of fear; I saw the solitary woman crouch down in
+the bottom of the scow, burying her face in her hands; I saw the scow
+rise, hover, and then plunge downward into the angry maw of the canyon.</p>
+
+<p>The river hurried us on helplessly. We were in the canyon now. The air
+grew dark. On each side, so close it seemed we could almost touch them
+with our oars, were black, ancient walls, towering up dizzily. The river
+seemed to leap and buck, its middle arching four feet higher than its
+sides, a veritable hog-back of water. It bounded on in great billows,
+green, hillocky and terribly swift, like a liquid toboggan slide. We
+plunged forward, heaved aloft, and the black, moss-stained walls
+brindled past us.</p>
+
+<p>About midway in the canyon is a huge basin, like the old crater of a
+volcano, sloping upwards to the pine-fringed skyline. Here was a giant
+eddy, and here, circling round and round, was the runaway scow. The
+forsaken woman was still crouching on it. The light was quite wan, and
+we were half blinded by the flying spray, but I clung to my place at the
+bow and watched intently.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep clear of that scow," I heard some one shout. "Avoid the eddy."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_141" id="page_141" title="141"></a>It was almost too late. The ill-fated scow spun round and swooped down
+on us. In a moment we would have been struck and overturned, but I saw
+Jim and the Jam-wagon give a desperate strain at the oars. I saw the
+scow swirling past, just two feet from us. I looked again&mdash;then with a
+wild panic of horror I saw that the crouching figure was that of Berna.</p>
+
+<p>I remember jumping&mdash;it must have been five feet&mdash;and I landed half in,
+half out of the water. I remember clinging a moment, then pulling myself
+aboard. I heard shouts from the others as the current swept them into
+the canyon. I remember looking round and cursing because both sweeps had
+been lost overboard, and lastly I remember bending over Berna and
+shouting in her ear:</p>
+
+<p>"All right, I'm with you!"</p>
+
+<p>If an angel had dropped from high heaven to her rescue I don't believe
+the girl could have been more impressed. For a moment she stared at me
+unbelievingly. I was kneeling by her and she put her hands on my
+shoulders as if to prove to herself that I was real. Then, with a
+half-sob, half-cry of joy, she clasped her arms tightly around me.
+Something in her look, something in the touch of her slender, clinging
+form made my heart exult. Once again I shouted in her ear.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right, don't be frightened. We'll pull through, all right."</p>
+
+<p>Once more we had whirled off into the main current; once more we were in
+that roaring torrent, with <a class="pagenum" name="page_142" id="page_142" title="142"></a>its fearsome dips and rises, its columned
+walls corroded with age and filled with the gloom of eternal twilight.
+The water smashed and battered us, whirled us along relentlessly, lashed
+us in heavy sprays; yet with closed eyes and thudding hearts we waited.
+Then suddenly the light grew strong again. The prim&aelig;val walls were gone.
+We were sweeping along smoothly, and on either side of us the valley
+sloped in green plateaus up to the smiling sky.</p>
+
+<p>I unlocked my arms and peered down to where her face lay half hidden on
+my breast.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God, I was able to reach you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, thank God!" she answered faintly. "Oh, I thought it was all over.
+I nearly died with fear. It was terrible. Thank God for you!"</p>
+
+<p>But she had scarce spoken when I realised, with a vast shock, that the
+danger was far from over. We were hurrying along helplessly in that
+fierce current, and already I heard the roar of the Squaw Rapids. Ahead,
+I could see them dancing, boiling, foaming, blood-red in the sunset
+glow.</p>
+
+<p>"Be brave, Berna," I had to shout again; "we'll be all right. Trust me,
+dear!"</p>
+
+<p>She, too, was staring ahead with dilated eyes of fear. Yet at my words
+she became wonderfully calm, and in her face there was a great, glad
+look that made my heart rejoice. She nestled to my side. Once more she
+waited.</p>
+
+<p>We took the rapids broadside on, but the scow was light and very strong.
+Like a cork in a mill-stream we tossed and spun around. The vicious,
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_143" id="page_143" title="143"></a>mauling wolf-pack of the river heaved us into the air, and worried us
+as we fell. Drenched, deafened, stunned with fierce, nerve-shattering
+blows, every moment we thought to go under. We were in a caldron of
+fire. The roar of doom was in our ears. Giant hands with claws of foam
+were clutching, buffeting us. Shrieks of fury assailed us, as demon
+tossed us to demon. Was there no end to it? Thud, crash, roar, sickening
+us to our hearts; lurching, leaping, beaten, battered ... then all at
+once came a calm; we must be past; we opened our eyes.</p>
+
+<p>We were again sweeping round a bend in the river in the shadow of a high
+bluff. If we could only make the bank&mdash;but, no! The current hurled us
+along once more. I saw it sweep under a rocky face of the hillside, and
+then I knew that the worst was coming. For there, about two hundred
+yards away, were the dreaded Whitehorse Rapids.</p>
+
+<p>"Close your eyes, Berna!" I cried. "Lie down on the bottom. Pray as you
+never prayed before."</p>
+
+<p>We were on them now. The rocky banks close in till they nearly meet.
+They form a narrow gateway of rock, and through those close-set jaws the
+raging river has to pass. Leaping, crashing over its boulder-strewn bed,
+gaining in terrible impetus at every leap, it gathers speed for its last
+desperate burst for freedom. Then with a great roar it charges the gap.</p>
+
+<p>But there, right in the way, is a giant boulder. Water meets rock in a
+crash of terrific onset. The river is beaten, broken, thrown back on
+itself, and <a class="pagenum" name="page_144" id="page_144" title="144"></a>with a baffled roar rises high in the air in a raging hell
+of spume and tempest. For a moment the chasm is a battleground of the
+elements, a fierce, titanic struggle. Then the river, wrenching free,
+falls into the basin below.</p>
+
+<p>"Lie down, Berna, and hold on to me!"</p>
+
+<p>We both dropped down in the bottom of the scow, and she clasped me so
+tightly I marvelled at the strength of her. I felt her wet cheek pressed
+to mine, her lips clinging to my lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, dear, just a moment and it will all be over."</p>
+
+<p>Once again the angry thunder of the waters. The scow took them nose on,
+riding gallantly. Again we were tossed like a feather in a whirlwind,
+pitchforked from wrath to wrath. Once more, swinging, swerving,
+straining, we pelted on. On pinnacles of terror our hearts poised
+nakedly. The waters danced a fiery saraband; each wave was a demon
+lashing at us as we passed; or again they were like fear-maddened horses
+with whipping manes of flame. We clutched each other convulsively. Would
+it never, never end ... then ... then ...</p>
+
+<p>It seemed the last had come. Up, up we went. We seemed to hover
+uncertainly, tilted, hair-poised over a yawning gulf. Were we going to
+upset? Mental agony screamed in me. But, no! We righted. Dizzily we
+dipped over; steeply we plunged down. Oh! it was terrible! We were in a
+hornets' nest of angry waters and they were stinging us to death; we
+were in a hollow cavern roofed over with slabs <a class="pagenum" name="page_145" id="page_145" title="145"></a>of seething foam; the
+fiery horses were trampling us under their myriad hoofs. I gave up all
+hope. I felt the girl faint in my arms. How long it seemed! I wished for
+the end. <i>The flying hammers of hell were pounding us, pounding us&mdash;Oh,
+God! Oh, God!...</i></p>
+
+<p>Then, swamped from bow to stern, half turned over, wrecked and broken,
+we swept into the peaceful basin of the river below.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_146" id="page_146" title="146"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>On the flats around the Whitehorse Rapids was a great largess of wild
+flowers. The shooting stars gladdened the glade with gold; the bluebells
+brimmed the woodland hollow with amethyst; the fire-weed splashed the
+hills with the pink of coral. Daintily swinging, like clustered pearls,
+were the petals of the orchid. In glorious profusion were begonias,
+violets, and Iceland poppies, and all was in a setting of the keenest
+emerald. But over the others dominated the wild rose, dancing everywhere
+and flinging its perfume to the joyful breeze.</p>
+
+<p>Boats and scows were lined up for miles along the river shore. On the
+banks water-soaked outfits lay drying in the sun. We, too, had shipped
+much water in our passage, and a few days would be needed to dry out
+again. So it was that I found some hours of idleness and was able to see
+a good deal of Berna.</p>
+
+<p>Madam Winklestein I found surprisingly gracious. She smiled on me, and
+in her teeth, like white quartz, the creviced gold gleamed. She had a
+smooth, flattering way with her that disarmed enmity. Winklestein, too,
+had conveniently forgotten our last interview, and extended to me the
+paw of spurious friendship. I was free to see Berna as much as I chose.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it came about that we rambled among the <a class="pagenum" name="page_147" id="page_147" title="147"></a>woods and hills, picking
+wild flowers and glad almost with the joy of children. In these few days
+I noted a vast change in the girl. Her cheeks, pale as the petals of the
+wild orchid, seemed to steal the tints of the briar-rose, and her eyes
+beaconed with the radiance of sun-waked skies. It was as if in the poor
+child a long stifled capacity for joy was glowing into being.</p>
+
+<p>One golden day, with her cheeks softly flushed, her eyes shining, she
+turned to me.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I could be so happy if I only had a chance, if I only had the
+chance other girls have. It would take so little to make me the happiest
+girl in the world&mdash;just to have a home, a plain, simple home where all
+was sunshine and peace; just to have the commonest comforts, to be
+care-free, to love and be loved. That would be enough." She sighed and
+went on:</p>
+
+<p>"Then if I might have books, a little music, flowers&mdash;oh, it seems like
+a dream of heaven; as well might I sigh for a palace."</p>
+
+<p>"No palace could be too fair for you, Berna, no prince too noble. Some
+day, your prince will come, and you will give him that great love I told
+you of once."</p>
+
+<p>Swiftly a shadow came into the bright eyes, the sweet mouth curved
+pathetically.</p>
+
+<p>"Not even a beggar will seek me, a poor nameless girl travelling in the
+train of dishonour ... and again, I will never love."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you will indeed, girl&mdash;infinitely, supremely. <a class="pagenum" name="page_148" id="page_148" title="148"></a>I know you, Berna;
+you'll love as few women do. Your dearest will be all your world, his
+smile your heaven, his frown your death. Love was at the fashioning of
+you, dear, and kissed your lips and sent you forth, saying, 'There goeth
+my handmaiden.'"</p>
+
+<p>I thought for a while ere I went on.</p>
+
+<p>"You cared for your grandfather; you gave him your whole heart, a love
+full of self-sacrifice, of renunciation. Now he is gone, you will love
+again, but the next will be to the last as wine is to water. And the day
+will come when you will love grandly. Yours will be a great, consuming
+passion that knows no limit, no assuagement. It will be your glory and
+your shame. For him will your friends be foes, your light darkness. You
+will go through fire and water for your beloved's sake; your parched
+lips will call his name, your frail hands cling to him in the shadow of
+death. Oh, I know, I know. Love has set you apart. You will immolate
+yourself on his altars. You will dare, defy and die for him. I'm sorry
+for you, Berna."</p>
+
+<p>Her face hung down, her lips quivered. As for me, I was surprised at my
+words and scarce knew what I was saying.</p>
+
+<p>At last she spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"If ever I loved like that, the man I loved must be a king among men, a
+hero, almost a god."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps, Berna, perhaps; but not needfully. He may be a grim man with a
+face of power and passion, a virile, dominant brute, but&mdash;well, I think
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_149" id="page_149" title="149"></a>he will be more of a god. Let's change the subject."</p>
+
+<p>I found she had all the sad sophistication of the lowly-born, yet with
+it an invincible sense of purity, a delicate horror of the physical
+phases of love. She was a finely motived creature with impossible
+ideals, but out of her stark knowledge of life she was na&iuml;vely
+outspoken.</p>
+
+<p>Once I asked of her:</p>
+
+<p>"Berna, if you had to choose between death and dishonour, which would
+you prefer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Death, of course," she answered promptly.</p>
+
+<p>"Death's a pretty hard proposition," I commented.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it's easy; physical death, compared with the other, compared with
+moral death."</p>
+
+<p>She was very emphatic and angry with me for my hazarded demur. In an
+atmosphere of disillusionment and moral miasma she clung undauntedly to
+her ideals. Never was such a brave spirit, so determined in goodness, so
+upright in purity, and I blessed her for her unfaltering words. "May
+such sentiments as yours," I prayed, "be ever mine. In doubt, despair,
+defeat, oh Life, take not away from me my faith in the pure heart of
+woman!"</p>
+
+<p>Often I watched her thoughtfully, her slim, well-poised figure, her grey
+eyes that were fuller of soul than any eyes I have ever seen, her brown
+hair wherein the sunshine loved to pick out threads of gold, her
+delicate features with their fine patrician quality. We were dreamers
+twain, but while my <a class="pagenum" name="page_150" id="page_150" title="150"></a>outlook was gay with hope, hers was dark with
+despair. Since the episode of the scow I had never ventured to kiss her,
+but had treated her with a curious reserve, respect and courtesy.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, I was diagnosing my case, wondering if I loved her, affirming,
+doubting on a very see-saw of indetermination. When with her I felt for
+her an intense fondness and at times an almost irresponsible tenderness.
+My eyes rested longingly on her, noting with tremulous joy the curves
+and shading of her face, and finding in its very defects, beauties.</p>
+
+<p>When I was away from her&mdash;oh, the easeless longing that was almost pain,
+the fanciful elaboration of our last talk, the hint of her graces in
+bird and flower and tree! I wanted her wildly, and the thought of a
+world empty of her was monstrous. I wondered how in the past we had both
+existed and how I had lived, carelessly, happy and serenely indifferent.
+I tried to think of a time when she should no longer have power to make
+my heart quicken with joy or contract with fear&mdash;and the thought of such
+a state was insufferable pain. Was I in love? Poor, fatuous fool! I
+wanted her more than everything else in all the world, yet I hesitated
+and asked myself the question.</p>
+
+<p>Hundreds of boats and scows were running the rapids, and we watched them
+with an untiring fascination. That was the most exciting spectacle in
+the whole world. The issue was life or death, ruin or salvation, and
+from dawn till dark, and with every few minutes of the day, was the
+breathless <a class="pagenum" name="page_151" id="page_151" title="151"></a>climax repeated. The faces of the actors were sick with
+dread and anxiety. It was curious to study the various expressions of
+the human countenance unmasked and confronted with gibbering fear. Yes,
+it was a vivid drama, a drama of cheers and tears, always thrilling and
+often tragic. Every day were bodies dragged ashore. The rapids demanded
+their tribute. The men of the trail must pay the toll. Sullen and
+bloated the river disgorged its prey, and the dead, without prayer or
+pause, were thrown into nameless graves.</p>
+
+<p>On our first day at the rapids we met the Halfbreed. He was on the point
+of starting downstream. Where was the Bank clerk? Oh, yes; they had
+upset coming through; when last he had seen little Pinklove he was
+struggling in the water. However, they expected to get the body every
+hour. He had paid two men to find and bury it. He had no time to wait.</p>
+
+<p>We did not blame him. In those wild days of headstrong hurry and
+gold-delirium human life meant little. "Another floater," one would say,
+and carelessly turn away. A callousness to death that was almost
+medi&aelig;val was in the air, and the friends of the dead hurried on, the
+richer by a partner's outfit. It was all new, strange, sinister to me,
+this unveiling of life's naked selfishness and lust.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning they found the body, a poor, shapeless, sodden thing with
+such a crumpled skull. My thoughts went back to the sweet-faced girl who
+had wept so bitterly at his going. Even then, maybe, <a class="pagenum" name="page_152" id="page_152" title="152"></a>she was thinking
+of him, fondly dreaming of his return, seeing the glow of triumph in his
+boyish eyes. She would wait and hope; then she would wait and despair;
+then there would be another white-faced woman saying, "He went to the
+Klondike, and never came back. We don't know what became of him."</p>
+
+<p>Verily, the way of the gold-trail was cruel.</p>
+
+<p>Berna was with me when they buried him.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor boy, poor boy!" she repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, poor little beggar! He was so quiet and gentle. He was no man for
+the trail. It's a funny world."</p>
+
+<p>The coffin was a box of unplaned boards loosely nailed together, and the
+men were for putting him into a grave on top of another coffin. I
+protested, so sullenly they proceeded to dig a new grave. Berna looked
+very unhappy, and when she saw that crude, shapeless pine coffin she
+broke down and cried bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>At last she dried her tears and with a happier look in her eyes bade me
+wait a little until she returned. Soon again she came back, carrying
+some folds of black sateen over her arm. As she ripped at this with a
+pair of scissors, I noticed there was a deep frilling to it. Also a
+bright blush came into her cheek at the curious glance I gave to the
+somewhat skimpy lines of her skirt. But the next instant she was busy
+stretching and tacking the black material over the coffin.</p>
+
+<p>The men had completed the new grave. It was only three feet deep, but
+the water coming in had <a class="pagenum" name="page_153" id="page_153" title="153"></a>prevented them from digging further. As we laid
+the coffin in the hole it looked quite decent now in its black covering.
+It floated on the water, but after some clods had been thrown down, it
+sank with many gurglings. It was as if the dead man protested against
+his bitter burial. We watched the grave-diggers throw a few more
+shovelsful of earth over the place, then go off whistling. Poor little
+Berna! she cried steadily. At last she said:</p>
+
+<p>"Let's get some flowers."</p>
+
+<p>So out of briar-roses she fashioned a cross and a wreath, and we laid
+them reverently on the muddy heap that marked the Bank clerk's grave.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, the pitiful mockery of it!</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_154" id="page_154" title="154"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Soon I knew that Berna and I must part, and but two nights later it
+came. It was near midnight, yet in no ways dark, and everywhere the camp
+was astir. We were sitting by the river, I remember, a little way from
+the boats. Where the sun had set, the sky was a luminous veil of
+ravishing green, and in the elusive light her face seemed wanly sweet
+and dreamlike.</p>
+
+<p>A sad spirit rustled amid the shivering willows and a great sadness had
+come over the girl. All the happiness of the past few days seemed to
+have ebbed away from her and left her empty of hope. As she sat there,
+silent and with hands clasped, it was as if the shadows that for a
+little had lifted, now enshrouded her with a greater gloom.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me your trouble, Berna."</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head, her eyes wide as if trying to read the future.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing."</p>
+
+<p>Her voice was almost a whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, there is, I know. Tell me, won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>Again she shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter, little chum?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's nothing; it's only my foolishness. If I tell you, it wouldn't help
+me any. And then&mdash;it doesn't <a class="pagenum" name="page_155" id="page_155" title="155"></a>matter. You wouldn't care. Why should you
+care?"</p>
+
+<p>She turned away from me and seemed absorbed in bitter thought.</p>
+
+<p>"Care! why, yes, I would care; I do care. You know I would do anything
+in the world to help you. You know I would be unhappy if you were
+unhappy. You know&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then it would only worry you."</p>
+
+<p>She was regarding me anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you must tell me, Berna. It will worry me indeed if you don't."</p>
+
+<p>Once more she refused. I pleaded with her gently. I coaxed, I entreated.
+She was very reluctant, yet at last she yielded.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if I must," she said; "but it's all so sordid, so mean, I hate
+myself; I despise myself that I should have to tell it."</p>
+
+<p>She kneaded a tiny handkerchief nervously in her fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"You know how nice Madam Winklestein's been to me lately&mdash;bought me new
+clothes, given me trinkets. Well, there's a reason&mdash;she's got her eye on
+a man for me."</p>
+
+<p>I gave an exclamation of surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; you know she's let us go together&mdash;it's all to draw him on. Oh,
+couldn't you see it? Didn't you suspect something? You don't know how
+bitterly they hate you."</p>
+
+<p>I bit my lip.</p>
+
+<p>"Who's the man?"</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_156" id="page_156" title="156"></a>"Jack Locasto."</p>
+
+<p>I started.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you heard of him?" she asked. "He's got a million-dollar claim on
+Bonanza."</p>
+
+<p>Had I heard of him! Who had not heard of Black Jack, his spectacular
+poker plays, his meteoric rise, his theatric display?</p>
+
+<p>"Of course he's married," she went on, "but that doesn't matter up here.
+There's such a thing as a Klondike marriage, and they say he behaves
+well to his discarded mis&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Berna!" angry and aghast, I had stopped her. "Never let me hear you
+utter that word. Even to say it seems pollution."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed harshly, bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"What's this whole life but pollution?... Well, anyway, he wants me."</p>
+
+<p>"But you wouldn't, surely you wouldn't?"</p>
+
+<p>She turned on me fiercely.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you take me for? Surely you know me better than that. Oh, you
+almost make me hate you."</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly she pressed the little handkerchief to her eyes. She fell to
+sobbing convulsively. Vainly I tried to soothe her, whispering:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my dear, tell me all about it. I'm sorry, girl, I'm sorry."</p>
+
+<p>She ceased crying. She went on in her fierce, excited way.</p>
+
+<p>"He came to the restaurant in Bennett. He used to watch me a lot. His
+eyes were always following <a class="pagenum" name="page_157" id="page_157" title="157"></a>me. I was afraid. I trembled when I served
+him. He liked to see me tremble, it gave him a feeling of power. Then he
+took to giving me presents, a diamond ring, a heart-shaped locket,
+costly gifts. I wanted to return them, but she wouldn't let me, took
+them from me, put them away. Then he and she had long talks. I know it
+was all about me. That was why I came to you that night and begged you
+to marry me&mdash;to save me from him. Now it's gone from bad to worse. The
+net's closing round me in spite of my flutterings."</p>
+
+<p>"But he can't get you against your will," I cried.</p>
+
+<p>"No! no! but he'll never give up. He'll try so long as I resist him. I'm
+nice to him just to humour him and gain time. I can't tell you how much
+I fear him. They say he always gets his way with women. He's masterly
+and relentless. There's a cold, sneering command in his smile. You hate
+him but you obey him."</p>
+
+<p>"He's an immoral monster, Berna. He spares neither time nor money to
+gratify his whims where a woman is concerned. And he has no pity."</p>
+
+<p>"I know, I know."</p>
+
+<p>"He's intensely masculine, handsome in a vivid, gipsy sort of way; big,
+strong and compelling, but a callous libertine."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he's all that. And can you wonder then my heart is full of fear,
+that I am distracted, that I asked you what I did? He is relentless and
+of all women he wants me. He would break me on the wheel of dishonour.
+Oh, God!"</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_158" id="page_158" title="158"></a>Her face grew almost tragic in its despair.</p>
+
+<p>"And everything's against me; they're all helping him. I haven't a
+single friend, not one to stand by me, to aid me. Once I thought of you,
+and you failed me. Can you wonder I'm nearly crazy with the terror of
+it? Can you wonder I was desperate enough to ask you to save me? I'm all
+alone, friendless, a poor, weak girl. No, I'm wrong. I've one
+friend&mdash;death; and I'll die, I'll die, I swear it, before I let him get
+me."</p>
+
+<p>Her words came forth in a torrent, half choked by sobs. It was hard to
+get her calmed. Never had I thought her capable of such force, such
+passion. I was terribly distressed and at a loss how to comfort her.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, Berna," I pleaded, "please don't say such things. Remember you
+have a friend in me, one that would do anything in his power to help
+you."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at me a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"How can you help me?"</p>
+
+<p>I held both of her hands firmly, looking into her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"By marrying you. Will you marry me, dear? Will you be my wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"No!"</p>
+
+<p>I started. "Berna!"</p>
+
+<p>"No! I wouldn't marry you if you were the last man left in the world,"
+she cried vehemently.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" I tried to be calm.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_159" id="page_159" title="159"></a>"Why! why, you don't love me; you don't care for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do, Berna. I do indeed, girl. Care for you! Well, I care so much
+that&mdash;I beg you to marry me."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, but you don't love me right, not in your great, grand way.
+Not in the way you told me of. Oh, I know; it's part pity, part
+friendship. It would be different if I cared in the same way, if&mdash;if I
+didn't care so very much more."</p>
+
+<p>"You do, Berna; you love me like that?"</p>
+
+<p>"How do I know? How can I tell? How can any of us tell?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, dear," I said, "love has no limits, no bounds, it is always holding
+something in reserve. There are yet heights beyond the heights, that
+mock our climbing, never perfection; no great love but might have been
+eclipsed by a greater. There's a master key to every heart, and we poor
+fools delude ourselves with the idea we are opening all the doors. We
+are on sufferance, we are only understudies in the love drama, but
+fortunately the star seldom appears on the scene. However, this I
+know&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I rose to my feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Since the moment I set eyes on you, I loved you. Long before I ever met
+you, I loved you. I was just waiting for you, waiting. At first I could
+not understand, I did not know what it meant, but now I do, beyond the
+peradventure of a doubt; there never was any but you, never will be any
+but you. Since the beginning of time it was all planned <a class="pagenum" name="page_160" id="page_160" title="160"></a>that I should
+love you. And you, how do you care?"</p>
+
+<p>She stood up to hear my words. She would not let me touch her, but there
+was a great light in her eyes. Then she spoke and her voice was vibrant
+with passion, all indifference gone from it.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you blind! you coward! Couldn't you see? Couldn't you feel? That
+day on the scow it came to me&mdash;Love. It was such as I had never dreamed
+of, rapture, ecstasy, anguish. Do you know what I wished as we went
+through the rapids? I wished that it might be the end, that in such a
+supreme moment we might go down clinging together, and that in death I
+might hold you in my arms. Oh, if you'd only been like that afterwards,
+met love open-armed with love. But, no! you slipped back to friendship.
+I feel as if there were a barrier of ice between us now. I will try
+never to care for you any more. Now leave me, leave me, for I never want
+to see you again."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you will, you must, you must, Berna. I'd sell my immortal soul to
+win that love from you, my dearest, my dearest; I'd crawl around the
+world to kiss your shadow. If you called to me I would come from the
+ends of the earth, through storm and darkness, to your side. I love you
+so, I love you so."</p>
+
+<p>I crushed her to me, I kissed her madly, yet she was cold.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you nothing more to say than fine words?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_161" id="page_161" title="161"></a>"Marry me, marry me," I repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"Now?"</p>
+
+<p>Now! I hesitated again. The suddenness of it was like a cold douche. God
+knows, I burned for the girl, yet somehow convention clamped me.</p>
+
+<p>"Now if you wish," I faltered; "but better when we get to Dawson. Better
+when I've made good up there. Give me one year, Berna, one year and
+then&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"One year!"</p>
+
+<p>The sudden gleam of hope vanished from her eyes. For the third time I
+was failing her, yet my cursed prudence overrode me.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it will pass swiftly, dear. You will be quite safe. I will be near
+you and watch over you."</p>
+
+<p>I reassured her, anxiously explaining how much better it would be if we
+waited a little.</p>
+
+<p>"One year!" she repeated, and it seemed to me her voice was toneless.
+Then she turned to me in a sudden spate of passion, her face pleading,
+furrowed, wretchedly sad.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my dear, my dear, I love you better than the whole world, but I
+hoped you would care enough for me to marry me now. It would have been
+best, believe me. I thought you would rise to the occasion, but you've
+failed me. Well, be it so, we'll wait one year."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, believe me, trust me, dear; it will be all right. I'll work for
+you, slave for you, think only of you, and in twelve short months&mdash;I'll
+give my whole life to make you happy."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_162" id="page_162" title="162"></a>"Will you, dear? Well, it doesn't matter now.... I've loved you."</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>All that night I wrestled with myself. I felt I ought to marry her at
+once to shield her from the dangers that encompassed her. She was like a
+lamb among a pack of wolves. I juggled with my conscience. I was young
+and marriage to me seemed such a terribly all-important step.</p>
+
+<p>Yet in the end my better nature triumphed, and ere the camp was astir I
+arose. I was going to marry Berna that day. A feeling of relief came
+over me. How had it ever seemed possible to delay? I was elated beyond
+measure.</p>
+
+<p>I hurried to tell her, I pictured her joy. I was almost breathless. Love
+words trembled on my tongue tip. It seemed to me I could not bear to
+wait a moment.</p>
+
+<p>Then as I reached the place where they had rested I gazed unbelievingly.
+A sickening sense of loss and failure crushed me.</p>
+
+<p>For the scow was gone.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_163" id="page_163" title="163"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>It was three days before we made a start again, and to me each day was
+like a year. I chafed bitterly at the delay. Would those sacks of flour
+never dry? Longingly I gazed down the big, blue Yukon and cursed the
+current that was every moment carrying her farther from me. Why her
+sudden departure? I had no doubt it was enforced. I dreaded danger. Then
+in a while I grew calmer. I was foolish to worry. She was safe enough.
+We would meet in Dawson.</p>
+
+<p>At last we were under way. Once more we sped down that devious river,
+now swirling under the shadow of a steep bank, now steering around a
+sandspit. The scenery was hideous to me, bluffs of clay with pines
+peeping over their rims, willow-fringed flats, swamps of niggerhead,
+ugly drab hills in endless monotony.</p>
+
+<p>How full of kinks and hooks was the river! How vicious with snags! How
+treacherous with eddies! It was beginning to bulk in my thoughts almost
+like an obsession. Then one day Lake Labarge burst on my delighted eyes.
+The trail was nearing its end.</p>
+
+<p>Once more with swelling sail we drove before the wind. Once more we were
+in a fleet of Argonaut boats, and now, with the goal in sight, each man
+redoubled his efforts. Perhaps the rich ground would <a class="pagenum" name="page_164" id="page_164" title="164"></a>all be gone ere we
+reached the valley. Maddening thought after what we had endured! We must
+get on.</p>
+
+<p>There was not a man in all that fleet but imagined that fortune awaited
+him with open arms. They talked exultantly. Their eyes shone with the
+gold-lust. They strained at sweep and oar. To be beaten at the last! Oh,
+it was inconceivable! A tigerish eagerness filled them; a panic of fear
+and cupidity spurred them on.</p>
+
+<p>Labarge was a dream lake, mirroring noble mountains in its depths (for
+soon after we made it, a dead calm fell). But we had no eyes for its
+beauty. The golden magnet was drawing us too strongly now. We cursed
+that exquisite serenity that made us sweat at the oars; we cursed the
+wind that never would arise; the currents that always were against us.
+In that breathless tranquillity myriads of mosquitoes assailed us,
+blinded us, covered our food as we ate, made our lives a perfect hell of
+misery. Yet the trail was nearing its finish.</p>
+
+<p>What a relief it was when a sudden storm came up! White-caps tossed
+around us, and the wind drove us on a precipitous shore, so that we
+nearly came to a sorry end. But it was over at last, and we swept on
+into the Thirty-mile River.</p>
+
+<p>A furious, hurling stream was this, that matched our mad, impatient
+mood; but it was staked with hidden dangers. We gripped our weary oars.
+Keenly alert we had to be, steering and watching for rocks that would
+have ripped us from bow to stern. <a class="pagenum" name="page_165" id="page_165" title="165"></a>There was a famously terrible one, on
+which scows smashed like egg-shells under a hammer, and we missed it by
+a bare hand's-breadth. I felt sick to think of our bitterness had we
+piled up on it. That was an evil, ugly river, full of capricious turns
+and eddies, and the bluffs were high and steep.</p>
+
+<p>Hootalinqua, Big Salmon, Little Salmon, these are names to me now. All I
+can remember is long days of toil at the oar, fighting the growing
+obsession of mosquitoes, ever pressing on to the golden valley. The
+ceaseless strain was beginning to tell on us. We suffered from
+rheumatism, we barked with cold. Oh, we were weary, weary, yet the trail
+was nearing its end.</p>
+
+<p>One sunlit Sabbath evening I remember well. We were drifting along and
+we came on a lovely glade where a creek joined the river. It was a
+green, velvety, sparkling place, and by the creek were two men
+whipsawing lumber. We hailed them jauntily and asked them if they had
+found prospects. Were they getting out lumber for sluice-boxes?</p>
+
+<p>One of the men came forward. He was very tired, very quiet, very solemn.
+"No," he said, "we are sawing out a coffin for our dead."</p>
+
+<p>Then we saw a limp shape in their boat and we hurried on, awed and
+abashed.</p>
+
+<p>The river was mud colour now, swirling in great eddies or convulsed from
+below with sudden upheavals. Drifting on that oily current one seemed to
+be quite motionless, and only the gliding banks assured us of progress.
+The country seemed terrible <a class="pagenum" name="page_166" id="page_166" title="166"></a>to me, sinister, guilty, God-forsaken. At
+the horizon, jagged mountains stabbed viciously at the sky.</p>
+
+<p>The river overwhelmed me. Sometimes it was a stream of blood, running
+into the eye of the setting sun, beautiful, yet weird and menacing. It
+broadened, deepened, and every day countless streams swelled its volume.
+Islands waded in it greenly. Always we heard it <i>singing</i>, a seething,
+hissing noise supposed to be the pebbles shuffling on the bottom.</p>
+
+<p>The days were insufferably hot and mosquito-curst; the nights chilly,
+damp and mosquito-haunted. I suffered agonies from neuralgia. Never
+mind, it would soon be over. We were on our last lap. The trail was near
+its end.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, it was indeed the homestretch. Suddenly sweeping round a bend we
+raised a shout of joy. There was that great livid scar on the mountain
+face&mdash;the "Slide," and clustered below it like shells on the seashore,
+an army of tents. It was the gold-born city.</p>
+
+<p>Trembling with eagerness we pulled ashore. Our troubles were over. At
+last we had gained our Eldorado, thank God, thank God!</p>
+
+<p>A number of loafers were coming to meet us. They were strangely calm.</p>
+
+<p>"How about the gold?" said the Prodigal; "lots of ground left to stake?"</p>
+
+<p>One of them looked at us contemptuously. He chewed a moment ere he
+spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"You Cheechakers better git right home. There ain't a foot of ground to
+stake. Everything in sight <a class="pagenum" name="page_167" id="page_167" title="167"></a>was staked last Fall. The rest is all mud.
+There's nothing doin' an' there's ten men for every job! The whole
+thing's a fake. You Cheechakers better git right home."</p>
+
+<p>Yes, after all our travail, all our torment, we had better go right
+home. Already many were preparing to do so. Yet what of that great
+oncoming horde of which we were but the vanguard? What of the eager
+army, the host of the Cheechakos? For hundreds of miles were lake and
+river white with their grotesque boats. Beyond them again were thousands
+and thousands of others struggling on through mosquito-curst morasses,
+bent under their inexorable burdens. Reckless, indomitable,
+hope-inspired, they climbed the passes and shot the rapids; they drowned
+in the rivers, they rotted in the swamps. Nothing could stay them. The
+golden magnet was drawing them on; the spell of the gold-lust was in
+their hearts.</p>
+
+<p>And this was the end. For this they had mortgaged homes and broken
+hearts. For this they had faced danger and borne suffering: to be told
+to return.</p>
+
+<p>The land was choosing its own. All along it had weeded out the
+weaklings. Now let the fainthearted go back. This land was only for the
+Strong.</p>
+
+<p>Yet it was sad, so much weariness, and at the end disenchantment and
+failure.</p>
+
+<p>Verily the ways of the gold-trail were cruel.</p>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+
+<h2><a name="BOOK_III" id="BOOK_III"></a>BOOK III</h2>
+
+<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em">
+<a name="THE_CAMP_4765" id="THE_CAMP_4765"></a>
+<h3>THE CAMP</h3>
+</div>
+
+<table summary=""><tr><td>
+For once you've panned the speckled sand and seen the bonny dust,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Its peerless brightness blinds you like a spell;</span><br />
+It's little else you care about; you go because you must,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And you feel that you could follow it to hell.</span><br />
+You'd follow it in hunger, and you'd follow it in cold;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">You'd follow it in solitude and pain;</span><br />
+And when you're stiff and battened down let some one whisper "Gold,"<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">You're lief to rise and follow it again.</span><br />
+</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>&mdash;"The Prospector."</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<div>
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_171" id="page_171" title="171"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>I will always remember my first day in the gold-camp. We were well in
+front of the Argonaut army, but already thousands were in advance of us.
+The flat at the mouth of Bonanza was a congestion of cabins; shacks and
+tents clustered the hillside, scattered on the heights and massed again
+on the slope sweeping down to the Klondike. An intense vitality charged
+the air. The camp was alive, ahum, vibrant with fierce, dynamic energy.</p>
+
+<p>In effect the town was but one street stretching alongside the water
+front. It was amazingly packed with men from side to side, from end to
+end. They lounged in the doorways of oddly assorted buildings, and
+jostled each other on the dislocated sidewalks. Stores of all kinds,
+saloons, gambling joints flourished without number, and in one block
+alone there were half a dozen dance-halls. Yet all seemed plethorically
+prosperous.</p>
+
+<p>Many of the business houses were installed in tents. That huge canvas
+erection was a mining exchange; that great log barn a dance-hall.
+Dwarfish log cabins impudently nestled up to pretentious three-story
+hotels. The effect was oddly staccato. All was grotesque, makeshift,
+haphazard. Back of the main street lay the red-light quarter, and behind
+it again a swamp of niggerheads, the breeding-place of fever and
+mosquito.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_172" id="page_172" title="172"></a>The crowd that vitalised the street was strikingly cosmopolitan. Mostly
+big, bearded fellows they were, with here the full-blooded face of the
+saloon man, and there the quick, pallid mask of the gambler. Women too I
+saw in plenty, bold, free, predacious creatures, a rustle of silk and a
+reek of perfume. Till midnight I wandered up and down the long street;
+but there was no darkness, no lull in its clamorous life.</p>
+
+<p>I was looking for Berna. My heart hungered for her; my eyes ached for
+her; my mind was so full of her there seemed no room for another single
+thought. But it was like looking for a needle in a strawstack to find
+her in that seething multitude. I knew no one, and it seemed futile to
+inquire regarding her. These keen-eyed men with eager talk of claims and
+pay-dirt could not help me. There seemed to be nothing for it but to
+wait. So with spirits steadily sinking zerowards I waited.</p>
+
+<p>We found, indeed, that there was little ground left to stake. The mining
+laws were in some confusion, and were often changing. Several creeks
+were closed to location, but always new strikes were being made and
+stampedes started. So, after a session of debate, we decided to reserve
+our rights to stake till a good chance offered. It was a bitter
+awakening. Like all the rest we had expected to get ground that was gold
+from the grass-roots down. But there was work to be had, and we would
+not let ourselves be disheartened.</p>
+
+<p>The Jam-wagon had already deserted us. He was <a class="pagenum" name="page_173" id="page_173" title="173"></a>off up on Eldorado
+somewhere, shovelling dirt into a sluice-box for ten dollars a day. I
+made up my mind I would follow him. Jim also would get to work, while
+the Prodigal, we agreed, would look after all our interests, and stake
+or buy a good claim.</p>
+
+<p>Thus we planned, sitting in our little tent near the beach. We were in a
+congeries of tents. The beach was fast whitening with them. If one was
+in a hurry it was hard to avoid tripping over ropes and pegs. As each
+succeeding party arrived they had to go further afield to find
+camping-ground. And they were arriving in thousands daily. The shore for
+a mile was lined five deep with boats. Scows had been hauled high and
+dry on the gravel, and there the owners were living. A thousand stoves
+were eloquent of beans and bacon. I met a man taking home a prize, a
+porterhouse steak. He was carrying it over his arm like a towel, paper
+was so scarce. The camp was a hive of energy, a hum of occupation.</p>
+
+<p>But how many, after they had paraded that mile-long street with its mud,
+its seething foam of life, its blare of gramophones and its blaze of
+dance-halls, ached for their southland homes again! You could read the
+disappointment in their sun-tanned faces. Yet they were the eager
+navigators of the lakes, the reckless amateurs of the rivers. This was a
+something different from the trail. It was as if, after all their
+efforts, they had butted up against a stone wall. There was "nothing
+doing," no ground left, and only hard work, the hardest on earth.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_174" id="page_174" title="174"></a>Moreover, the country was at the mercy of a gang of corrupt officials
+who were using the public offices for their own enrichment. Franchises
+were being given to the favourites of those in power, concessions sold,
+liquor permits granted, and abuses of every kind practised on the free
+miner. All was venality, injustice and exaction.</p>
+
+<p>"Go home," said the Man in the Street; "the mining laws are rotten. All
+kinds of ground is tied up. Even if you get hold of something good, them
+dam-robber government sharks will flim-flam you out of it. There's no
+square deal here. They tax you to mine; they tax you to cut a tree; they
+tax you to sell a fish; pretty soon they'll be taxing you to breathe. Go
+home!"</p>
+
+<p>And many went, many of the trail's most indomitable. They could face
+hardship and danger, the blizzards, the rapids, nature savage and
+ravening; but when it came to craft, graft and the duplicity of their
+fellow men they were discouraged, discomfited.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, boys, I guess I've done a slick piece of work," said the Prodigal
+with some satisfaction, as he entered the tent. "I've bought three whole
+outfits on the beach. Got them for twenty-five per cent. less than the
+cost price in Seattle. I'll pull out a hundred per cent. on the deal.
+Now's the time to get in and buy from the quitters. They so soured at
+the whole frame-up they're ready to pull their freights at any moment.
+All they want's to get away. They want to put a few thousand miles
+between them and <a class="pagenum" name="page_175" id="page_175" title="175"></a>this garbage dump of creation. They never want to hear
+the name of Yukon again except as a cuss-word. I'm going to keep on
+buying outfits. You boys see if I don't clean up a bunch of money."</p>
+
+<p>"It's too bad to take advantage of them," I suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Too bad nothing! That's business; your necessity, my opportunity. Oh,
+you'd never make a money-getter, my boy, this side of the
+millennium&mdash;and you Scotch too."</p>
+
+<p>"That's nothing," said Jim; "wait till I tell you of the deal I made
+to-day. You recollect I packed a flat-iron among my stuff, an' you boys
+joshed me about it, said I was bughouse. But I figured out: there's
+camp-meetin's an' socials up there, an' a nice, dinky, white shirt once
+in a way goes pretty good. Anyway, thinks I, if there ain't no one else
+to dress for in that wilderness, I'll dress for the Almighty. So I
+sticks to my old flat-iron."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at us with a twinkle in his eye and then went on.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it seems there's only three more flat-irons in camp, an' all the
+hot sports wantin' boiled shirts done up, an' all the painted Jezebels
+hollerin' to have their lingery fixed, an' the wash-ladies just goin'
+round crazy for flat-irons. Well, I didn't want to sell mine, but the
+old coloured lady that runs the Bong Tong Laundry (an' a sister in the
+Lord) came to me with tears in her eyes, an' at last I was prevailed on
+to separate from it."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_176" id="page_176" title="176"></a>"How much, Jim?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I didn't want to be too hard on the old girl, so I let her down
+easy."</p>
+
+<p>"How much?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you see there's only three or four of them flat-irons in camp, so
+I asked a hundred an' fifty dollars, an' quick's a flash, she took me
+into a store an' paid me in gold-dust."</p>
+
+<p>He flourished a little poke of dust in our laughing faces.</p>
+
+<p>"That's pretty good," I said; "everything seems topsy-turvy up here.
+Why, to-day I saw a man come in with a box of apples which the crowd
+begged him to open. He was selling those apples at a dollar apiece, and
+the folks were just fighting to get them."</p>
+
+<p>It was so with everything. Extraordinary prices ruled. Eggs and candles
+had been sold for a dollar each, and potatoes for a dollar a pound;
+while on the trail in '97 horse-shoe nails were selling at <i>a dollar a
+nail</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Once more I roamed the long street with that awful restless agony in my
+heart. Where was she, my girl, so precious now it seemed I had lost her?
+Why does love mean so much to some, so little to others? Perhaps I am
+the victim of an intensity of temperament, but I craved for her; I
+visioned evils befalling her; I pierced my heart with dagger-thrusts of
+fear for her. Oh, if I only knew she was safe and well! Every slim woman
+I saw in the distance looked to be her, and made my heart leap with
+emotion. Yet always <a class="pagenum" name="page_177" id="page_177" title="177"></a>I chewed on the rind of disappointment. There was
+never a sign of Berna.</p>
+
+<p>In the agitation and unrest of my mind I climbed the hill that
+overshadows the gold-born city. The Dome they call it, and the face of
+it is vastly scarred, blanched as by a cosmic blow. There on its topmost
+height by a cairn of stone I stood at gaze, greatly awestruck.</p>
+
+<p>The view was a spacious one, and of an overwhelming grandeur. Below me
+lay the mighty Yukon, here like a silken ribbon, there broadening out to
+a pool of quicksilver. It seemed motionless, dead, like a piece of
+tinfoil lying on a sable shroud.</p>
+
+<p>The great valley was preternaturally still, and pall-like as if steeped
+in the colours of the long, long night. The land so vast, so silent, so
+lifeless, was round in its contours, full of fat creases and bold
+curves. The mountains were like sleeping giants; here was the swell of a
+woman's breast, there the sweep of a man's thigh. And beyond that huddle
+of sprawling Titans, far, far beyond, as if it were an enclosing
+stockade, was the jagged outline of the Rockies.</p>
+
+<p>Quite suddenly they seemed to stand up against the blazing sky,
+monstrous, horrific, smiting the senses like a blow. Their primordial
+faces were hacked and hewed fantastically, and there they posed in their
+immemorial isolation, virgin peaks, inviolate valleys, impregnably
+desolate and savagely sublime.</p>
+
+<p>And beyond their stormy crests, surely a world was consuming in the
+kilns of chaos. Was ever anything so insufferably bright as the
+incandescent glow that <a class="pagenum" name="page_178" id="page_178" title="178"></a>brimmed those jagged clefts? That fierce
+crimson, was it not the hue of a cooling crucible, that deep vermillion
+the rich glory of a rose's heart? Did not that tawny orange mind you of
+ripe wheat-fields and the exquisite intrusion of poppies? That pure,
+clear gold, was it not a bank of primroses new washed in April rain?
+What was that luminous opal but a lagoon, a pearly lagoon, with floating
+in it islands of amber, their beaches crisped with ruby foam? And, over
+all the riot of colour, that shimmering chrysoprase so tenderly
+luminous&mdash;might it not fitly veil the splendours of paradise?</p>
+
+<p>I looked to where gulped the mouth of Bonanza, cavernously wide and
+filled with the purple smoke of many fires. There was the golden valley,
+silent for centuries, now strident with human cries, vehement with human
+strife. There was the timbered basin of the Klondike bleakly rising to
+mountains eloquent of death. It was dominating, appalling, this vastness
+without end, this unappeasable loneliness. Glad was I to turn again to
+where, like white pebbles on a beach, gleamed the tents of the gold-born
+city.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhere amid that confusion of canvas, that muddle of cabins, was
+Berna, maybe lying in some wide-eyed vigil of fear, maybe staining with
+hopeless tears her restless pillow. Somewhere down there&mdash;Oh, I must
+find her!</p>
+
+<p>I returned to the town. I was tramping its long street once more, that
+street with its hundreds of canvas signs. It was a city of signs. Every
+place of business seemed to have its fluttering banner, and beneath
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_179" id="page_179" title="179"></a>these banners moved the ever restless throng. There were men from the
+mines in their flannel shirts and corduroys, their Stetsons and high
+boots. There were men from the trail in sweaters and mackinaws, German
+socks and caps with ear-flaps. But all were bronzed and bearded,
+fleshless and clean-limbed. I marvelled at the seriousness of their
+faces, till I remembered that here was no problem of a languorous
+sunland, but one of grim emergency. It was a man's game up here in the
+North, a man's game in a man's land, where the sunlight of the long,
+long day is ever haunted by the shadow of the long, long night.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, if I could only find her! The land was a great symphony; she the
+haunting theme of it.</p>
+
+<p>I bought a copy of the "Nugget" and went into the Sourdough Restaurant
+to read it. As I lingered there sipping my coffee and perusing the paper
+indifferently, a paragraph caught my eye and made my heart glow with
+sudden hope.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_180" id="page_180" title="180"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Here was the item:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p style='text-align:center'><i>Jack Locasto loses $19,000.</i></p>
+
+<p>"One of the largest gambling plays that ever occurred in Dawson
+came off last night in the Malamute Saloon. Jack Locasto of
+Eldorado, well known as one of the Klondike's wealthiest
+claim-owners, Claude Terry and Charlie Haw were the chief actors in
+the game, which cost the first-named the sum of $19,000.</p>
+
+<p>"Locasto came to Dawson from his claim yesterday. It is said that
+before leaving the Forks he lost a sum ranging in the neighbourhood
+of $5,000. Last night he began playing in the Malamute with Haw and
+Terry in an effort, it is supposed, to recoup his losses at the
+Forks. The play continued nearly all night, and at the wind-up,
+Locasto, as stated above, was loser to the amount of $19,000. This
+is probably the largest individual loss ever sustained at one
+sitting in the history of Klondike poker playing."</p></div>
+
+<p>Jack Locasto! Why had I not thought of him before? Surely if any one
+knew of the girl's whereabouts, it would be he. I determined I would ask
+him at once.</p>
+
+<p>So I hastily finished my coffee and inquired of the emasculated-looking
+waiter where I might find the Klondike King.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_181" id="page_181" title="181"></a>"Oh, Black Jack," he said: "well, at the Green Bay Tree, or the Tivoli,
+or the Monte Carlo. But there's a big poker game on and he's liable to
+be in it."</p>
+
+<p>Once more I paraded the seething street. It was long after midnight, but
+the wondrous glow, still burning in the Northern sky, filled the land
+with strange enchantment. In spite of the hour the town seemed to be
+more alive than ever. Parties with pack-laden mules were starting off
+for the creeks, travelling at night to avoid the heat and mosquitoes.
+Men with lean brown faces trudged sturdily along carrying extraordinary
+loads on their stalwart shoulders. A stove, blankets, cooking utensils,
+axe and shovel usually formed but a part of their varied accoutrement.</p>
+
+<p>Constables of the Mounted Police were patrolling the streets. In the
+drab confusion their scarlet tunics were a piercing note of colour. They
+walked very stiffly, with grim mouths and eyes sternly vigilant under
+the brims of their Stetsons. Women were everywhere, smoking cigarettes,
+laughing, chaffing, strolling in and out of the wide-open saloons. Their
+cheeks were rouged, their eye-lashes painted, their eyes bright with
+wine. They gazed at the men like sleek animals, with looks that were
+wanton and alluring. A libertine spirit was in the air, a madcap
+freedom, an effluence of disdainful sin.</p>
+
+<p>I found myself by the stockade that surrounded the Police reservation.
+On every hand I saw traces of a recent overflow of the river that had
+transformed <a class="pagenum" name="page_182" id="page_182" title="182"></a>the street into a navigable canal. Now in places there were
+mudholes in which horses would flounder to their bellies. One of the
+Police constables, a tall, slim Englishman with a refined manner, proved
+to me a friend in need.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, in answer to my query, "I think I can find your man.
+He's downtown somewhere with some of the big sporting guns. Come on,
+we'll run him to earth."</p>
+
+<p>As we walked along we compared notes, and he talked of himself in a
+frank, friendly way.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not long out from the old country? Thought not. Left there
+myself about four years ago&mdash;I joined the Force in Regina. It's
+altogether different 'outside,' patrol work, a free life on the open
+prairie. Here they keep one choring round barracks most of the time.
+I've been for six months now on the town station. I'm not sorry, though.
+It's all devilish interesting. Wouldn't have missed it for a farm. When
+I write the people at home about it they think I'm yarning&mdash;stringing
+them, as they say here. The governor's a clergyman. Sent me to Harrow,
+and wanted to make a Bishop out of me. But I'm restless; never could
+study; don't seem to fit in, don't you know."</p>
+
+<p>I recognised his type, the clean, frank, breezy Englishman that has
+helped to make an Empire. He went on:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, how the old dad would stare if I could only have him in Dawson for
+a day. He'd never be able to get things just in focus any more. He would
+be <a class="pagenum" name="page_183" id="page_183" title="183"></a>knocked clean off the pivot on which he's revolved these thirty
+years. Seems to me every one's travelling on a pivot in the old country.
+It's no use trying to hammer it into their heads there are more points
+of view than one. If you don't just see things as they see them, you're
+troubled with astigmatism. Come, let's go in here."</p>
+
+<p>He pushed his way through a crowded doorway and I followed. It was the
+ordinary type of combined saloon and gambling-joint. In one corner was a
+very ornate bar, and all around the capacious room were gambling devices
+of every kind. There were crap-tables, wheel of fortune, the Klondike
+game, Keno, stud poker, roulette and faro outfits. The place was
+chock-a-block with rough-looking men, either looking on or playing the
+games. The men who were running the tables wore shades of green over
+their eyes, and their strident cries of "Come on, boys," pierced the
+smoky air.</p>
+
+<p>In a corner, presiding over a stud-poker game, I was surprised to see
+our old friend Mosher. He was dealing with one hand, holding the pack
+delicately and sending the cards with a dexterous flip to each player.
+Miners were buying chips from a man at the bar, who with a pair of gold
+scales was weighing out dust in payment.</p>
+
+<p>My companion pointed to an inner room with a closed door.</p>
+
+<p>"The Klondike Kings are in there, hard at it. They've been playing now
+for twenty-four hours, and goodness knows when they'll let up."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_184" id="page_184" title="184"></a>At that moment a peremptory bell rang from the room and a waiter
+hurried up.</p>
+
+<p>"There they are," said my friend, as the door opened. "There's Black
+Jack and Stillwater Willie and Claude Terry and Charlie Haw."</p>
+
+<p>Eagerly I looked in. The men were wearied, their faces haggard and
+ghastly pale. Quickly and coolly they fingered the cards, but in their
+hollow eyes burned the fever of the game, a game where golden eagles
+were the chips and thousand-dollar jack-pots were unremarkable. No doubt
+they had lost and won greatly, but they gave no sign. What did it
+matter? In the dumps waiting to be cleaned up were hundreds of thousands
+more; while in the ground were millions, millions.</p>
+
+<p>All but Locasto were medium-sized men. Stillwater Willie was in
+evening-dress. He wore a red tie in which glittered a huge diamond pin,
+and yellow tan boots covered with mud.</p>
+
+<p>"How did he get his name?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you see, they say he was the only one that funked the Whitehorse
+Rapids. He's a high flier, all right."</p>
+
+<p>The other two were less striking. Haw was a sandy-haired man with
+shifty, uneasy eyes; Terry of a bulldog type, stocky and powerful. But
+it was Locasto who gripped and riveted my attention.</p>
+
+<p>He was a massive man, heavy of limb and brutal in strength. There was a
+great spread to his shoulders and a conscious power in his every
+movement. He had a square, heavy chin, a grim, sneering mouth, a <a class="pagenum" name="page_185" id="page_185" title="185"></a>falcon
+nose, black eyes that were as cold as the water in a deserted shaft. His
+hair was raven dark, and his skin betrayed the Mexican strain in his
+blood. Above the others he towered, strikingly masterful, and I felt
+somehow the power that emanated from the man, the brute force, the
+remorseless purpose.</p>
+
+<p>Then the waiter returned with a tray of drinks and the door was closed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you've seen him now," said Chester of the Police. "Your only
+plan, if you want to speak to him, is to wait till the game breaks up.
+When poker interferes with your business, to the devil with your
+business. They won't be interrupted. Well, old man, if you can't be
+good, be careful; and if you want me any time, ring up the town station.
+Bye, bye."</p>
+
+<p>He sauntered off. For a time I strolled from game to game, watching the
+expressions on the faces of the players, and trying to take an interest
+in the play. Yet my mind was ever on the closed door and my ear strained
+to hear the click of chips. I heard the hoarse murmurs of their voices,
+an occasional oath or a yawn of fatigue. How I wished they would come
+out! Women went to the door, peered in cautiously, and beat a hasty
+retreat to the tune of reverberated curses. The big guns were busy; even
+the ladies must await their pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, the weariness of that waiting! In my longing for Berna I had worked
+myself up into a state that bordered on distraction. It seemed as if a
+cloud was in my brain, obsessing me at all times. I <a class="pagenum" name="page_186" id="page_186" title="186"></a>felt I must
+question this man, though it raised my gorge even to speak of her in his
+presence. In that atmosphere of corruption the thought of the girl was
+intolerably sweet, as of a ray of sunshine penetrating a noisome
+dungeon.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the young morn when the game broke up. The outside air was
+clear as washed gold; within it was foul and fetid as a drunkard's
+breath. Men with pinched and pallid faces came out and inhaled the
+breeze, which was buoyant as champagne. Beneath the perfect blue of the
+spring sky the river seemed a shimmer of violet, and the banks dipped
+down with the green of chrysoprase.</p>
+
+<p>Already a boy was sweeping up the dirty, nicotine-frescoed sawdust from
+the floor. (It was his perquisite, and from the gold he panned out he
+ultimately made enough to put him through college.) Then the inner door
+opened and Black Jack appeared.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_187" id="page_187" title="187"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>He was wan and weary. Around his sombre eyes were chocolate-coloured
+hollows. His thick raven hair was disordered. He had lost heavily, and,
+bidding a curt good-bye to the others, he strode off. In a moment I had
+followed and overtaken him.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Locasto."</p>
+
+<p>He turned and gave me a stare from his brooding eyes. They were vacant
+as those of a dope-fiend, vacant with fatigue.</p>
+
+<p>"Jack Locasto's my name," he answered carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>I walked alongside him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir," I said, "my name's Meldrum, Athol Meldrum."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't care what the devil your name is," he broke in petulantly.
+"Don't bother me just now. I'm tired."</p>
+
+<p>"So am I," I said, "infernally tired; but it won't hurt you to listen to
+my name."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mr. Athol Meldrum, good-day."</p>
+
+<p>His voice was cold, his manner galling in its indifference, and a sudden
+anger glowed in me.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on," I said; "just a moment. You can very easily do me an immense
+favour. Listen to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what do you want," he demanded roughly; "work?"</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_188" id="page_188" title="188"></a>"No," I said, "I just want a scrap of information. I came into the
+country with some Jews the name of Winklestein. I've lost track of them
+and I think you may be able to tell me where they are."</p>
+
+<p>He was all attention now. He turned half round and scrutinised me with
+deliberate intensity. Then, like a flash, his rough manner changed. He
+was the polished gentleman, the San Francisco club-lounger, the man of
+the world.</p>
+
+<p>He rasped the stubble on his chin; his eyes were bland, his voice smooth
+as cream.</p>
+
+<p>"Winklestein," he echoed reflectively, "Winklestein; seems to me I do
+remember the name, but for the life of me I can't recall where."</p>
+
+<p>He was watching me like a cat, and pretending to think hard.</p>
+
+<p>"Was there a girl with them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said eagerly, "a young girl."</p>
+
+<p>"A young girl, ah!" He seemed to reflect hard again. "Well, my friend,
+I'm afraid I can't help you. I remember noticing the party on the way
+in, but what became of them I can't think. I don't usually bother about
+that kind of people. Well, good-night, or good-morning rather. This is
+my hotel."</p>
+
+<p>He had half entered when he paused and turned to me. His face was
+urbane, his voice suave to sweetness; but it seemed to me there was a
+subtle mockery in his tone.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, if I should hear anything of them, I'll let <a class="pagenum" name="page_189" id="page_189" title="189"></a>you know. Your
+name? Athol Meldrum&mdash;all right, I'll let you know. Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>He was gone and I had failed. I cursed myself for a fool. The man had
+baffled me. Nay, even I had hurt myself by giving him an inkling of my
+search. Berna seemed further away from me than ever. Home I went,
+discouraged and despairful.</p>
+
+<p>Then I began to argue with myself. He must know where they were, and if
+he really had designs on the girl and was keeping her in hiding my
+interview with him would alarm him. He would take the first opportunity
+of warning the Winklesteins. When would he do it? That very night in all
+likelihood. So I reasoned; and I resolved to watch.</p>
+
+<p>I stationed myself in a saloon from where I could command a view of his
+hotel, and there I waited. I think I must have watched the place for
+three hours, but I know it was a weariful business, and I was heartsick
+of it. Doggedly I stuck to my post. I was beginning to think he must
+have evaded me, when suddenly coming forth alone from the hotel I saw my
+man.</p>
+
+<p>It was about midnight, neither light nor dark, but rather an absence of
+either quality, and the Northern sky was wan and ominous. In the crowded
+street I saw Locasto's hat overtopping all others, so that I had no
+difficulty in shadowing him. Once he stopped to speak to a woman, once
+to light a cigar; then he suddenly turned up a side street that ran
+through the red-light district.</p>
+
+<p>He was walking swiftly and he took a path that <a class="pagenum" name="page_190" id="page_190" title="190"></a>skirted the swamp behind
+the town. I had no doubt of his mission. My heart began to beat with
+excitement. The little path led up the hill, clothed with fresh foliage
+and dotted with cabins. Once I saw him pause and look round. I had
+barely time to dodge behind some bushes, and feared for a moment he had
+seen me. But no! on he went again faster than ever.</p>
+
+<p>I knew now I had divined his errand. He was at too great pains to cover
+his tracks. The trail had plunged among a maze of slender cotton-woods,
+and twisted so that I was sore troubled to keep him in view. Always he
+increased his gait and I followed breathlessly. There were few cabins
+hereabouts; it was a lonely place to be so near to town, very quiet and
+thickly screened from sight. Suddenly he seemed to disappear, and,
+fearing my pursuit was going to be futile, I rushed forward.</p>
+
+<p>I came to a dead stop. There was no one to be seen. He had vanished
+completely. The trail climbed steeply up, twisty as a corkscrew. These
+cursed poplars, how densely they grew! Blindly I blundered forward. Then
+I came to a place where the trail forked. Panting for breath I hesitated
+which way to take, and it was in that moment of hesitation that a heavy
+hand was laid on my shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Where away, my young friend?" It was Locasto. His face was
+Mephistophelian, his voice edged with irony. I was startled I admit, but
+I tried to put a good face on it.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello," I said; "I'm just taking a stroll."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_191" id="page_191" title="191"></a>His black eyes pierced me, his black brows met savagely. The heavy jaw
+shot forward, and for a moment the man, menacing and terrible, seemed to
+tower above me.</p>
+
+<p>"You lie!" like explosive steam came the words, and wolf-like his lips
+parted, showing his powerful teeth. "You lie!" he reiterated. "You
+followed me. Didn't I see you from the hotel? Didn't I determine to
+decoy you away? Oh, you fool! you fool! who are you that would pit your
+weakness against my strength, your simplicity against my cunning? You
+would try to cross me, would you? You would champion damsels in
+distress? You pretty fool, you simpleton, you meddler&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, without warning, he struck me square on the face, a blinding,
+staggering blow that brought me to my knees as falls a pole-axed steer.
+I was stunned, swaying weakly, trying vainly to get on my feet. I
+stretched out my clenched hands to him. Then he struck me again, a
+bitter, felling blow.</p>
+
+<p>I was completely at his mercy now and he showed me none. He was like a
+fiend. Rage seemed to rend him. Time and again he kicked me, brutally,
+relentlessly, on the ribs, on the chest, on the head. Was the man going
+to do me to death? I shielded my head. I moaned in agony. Would he never
+stop? Then I became unconscious, knowing that he was still kicking me,
+and wondering if I would ever open my eyes again.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_192" id="page_192" title="192"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Long live the cold-feet tribe! Long live the soreheads!"</p>
+
+<p>It was the Prodigal who spoke. "This outfit buying's got gold-mining
+beaten to a standstill. Here I've been three weeks in the burg and got
+over ten thousand dollars' worth of grub cached away. Every pound of it
+will net me a hundred per cent. profit. I'm beginning to look on myself
+as a second John D. Rockefeller."</p>
+
+<p>"You're a confounded robber," I said. "You're working a cinch-game.
+What's your first name? Isaac?"</p>
+
+<p>He turned the bacon he was frying and smiled gayly.</p>
+
+<p>"Snort away all you like, old sport. So long as I get the mon you can
+call me any old name you please."</p>
+
+<p>He was very sprightly and elate, but I was in no sort of mood to share
+in his buoyancy. Physically I had fully recovered from my terrible
+manhandling, but in spirit I still writhed at the outrage of it. And the
+worst was I could do nothing. The law could not help me, for there were
+no witnesses to the assault. I could never cope with this man in bodily
+strength. Why was I not a stalwart? If I had been as tall and strong as
+Garry, for instance. True, I might shoot; but there the Police would
+take a hand <a class="pagenum" name="page_193" id="page_193" title="193"></a>in the game, and I would lose out badly. There seemed to be
+nothing for it but to wait and pray for some means of retaliation.</p>
+
+<p>Yet how bitterly I brooded over the business. At times there was even
+black murder in my heart. I planned schemes of revenge, grinding my
+teeth in impotent rage the while; and my feelings were complicated by
+that awful gnawing hunger for Berna that never left me. It was a perfect
+agony of heart, a panic-fear, a craving so intense that at times I felt
+I would go distracted with the pain of it.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps I am a poor sort of being. I have often wondered. I either feel
+intensely, or I am quite indifferent. I am a prey to my emotions, a
+martyr to my moods. Apart from my great love for Berna it seemed to me
+as if nothing mattered. All through these stormy years it was like
+that&mdash;nothing else mattered. And now that I am nearing the end of my
+life I can see that nothing else has ever mattered. Everything that
+happened appealed to me in its relation to her. It seemed to me as if I
+saw all the world through the medium of my love for her, and that all
+beauty, all truth, all good was but a setting for this girl of mine.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on," said Jim; "let's go for a walk in the town."</p>
+
+<p>The "Modern Gomorrah" he called it, and he was never tired of
+expatiating on its iniquity.</p>
+
+<p>"See that man there?" he said, pointing to a grey-haired pedestrian, who
+was talking to an emphatic blonde. "That man's a lawyer. He's got a
+lovely <a class="pagenum" name="page_194" id="page_194" title="194"></a>home in Los Angeles, an' three of the sweetest girls you ever
+saw. A young fellow needed to have his credentials O. K.'d by the Purity
+Committee before he came butting round that man's home. Now he's off to
+buy wine for Daisy of the Deadline."</p>
+
+<p>The grey-haired man had turned into a saloon with his companion.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that's Dawson for you. We're so far from home. The good old
+moralities don't apply here. The hoary old Yukon won't tell on us. We've
+been a Sunday School Superintendent for ten years. For fifty more we've
+passed up the forbidden fruit. Every one else is helping themselves.
+Wonder what it tastes like? Wine is flowing like water. Money's the
+cheapest thing in sight. Cut loose, drink up. The orchestra's a-goin'.
+Get your partners for a nice juicy two-step. Come on, boys!"</p>
+
+<p>He was particularly bitter, and it really seemed in that general lesion
+of the moral fibre that civilisation was only a makeshift, a veneer of
+hypocrisy.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should we marvel," I said, "at man's brutality, when but an &aelig;on ago
+we all were apes?"</p>
+
+<p>Just then we met the Jam-wagon. He had mushed in from the creeks that
+very day. Physically he looked supreme. He was berry-brown, lean,
+muscular and as full of suppressed energy as an unsprung bear-trap.
+Financially he was well ballasted. Mentally and morally he was in the
+state of a volcano before an eruption.</p>
+
+<p>You could see in the quick breathing, in the restlessness <a class="pagenum" name="page_195" id="page_195" title="195"></a>of this man,
+a pent-up energy that clamoured to exhaust itself in violence and
+debauch. His fierce blue eyes were wild and roving, his lips twitched
+nervously. He was an atavism; of the race of those white-bodied,
+ferocious sea-kings that drank deep and died in the din of battle. He
+must live in the white light of excitement, or sink in the gloom of
+despair. I could see his fine nostrils quiver like those of a charger
+that scents the smoke of battle, and I realised that he should have been
+a soldier still, a leader of forlorn hopes, a partner of desperate
+hazards.</p>
+
+<p>As we walked along, Jim did most of the talking in his favourite
+morality vein. The Jam-wagon puffed silently at his briar pipe, while I,
+very listless and downhearted, thought largely of my own troubles. Then,
+in the middle of the block, where most of the music-halls were situated,
+suddenly we met Locasto.</p>
+
+<p>When I saw him my heart gave a painful leap, and I think my face must
+have gone as white as paper. I had thought much over this meeting, and
+had dreaded it. There are things which no man can overlook, and, if it
+meant death to me, I must again try conclusions with the brute.</p>
+
+<p>He was accompanied by a little bald-headed Jew named Spitzstein, and we
+were almost abreast of them when I stepped forward and arrested them. My
+teeth were clenched; I was all a-quiver with passion; my heart beat
+violently. For a moment I stood there, confronting him in speechless
+excitement.</p>
+
+<p>He was dressed in that miner's costume in which <a class="pagenum" name="page_196" id="page_196" title="196"></a>he always looked so
+striking. From his big Stetson to his high boots he was typically the
+big, strong man of Alaska, the Conqueror of the Wild. But his mouth was
+grim as granite, and his black eyes hard and repellent as those of a
+toad.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you coward!" I cried. "You vile, filthy coward!"</p>
+
+<p>He was looking down on me from his imperious height, very coolly, very
+cynically.</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you?" he drawled; "I don't know you."</p>
+
+<p>"Liar as well as coward," I panted. "Liar to your teeth. Brute, coward,
+liar&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Here, get out of my way," he snarled; "I've got to teach you a lesson."</p>
+
+<p>Once more before I could guard he landed on me with that terrible
+right-arm swing, and down I went as if a sledgehammer had struck me.
+But instantly I was on my feet, a thing of blind passion, of desperate
+fight. I made one rush to throw myself on this human tower of brawn and
+muscle, when some one pinioned me from behind. It was Jim.</p>
+
+<p>"Easy, boy," he was saying; "you can't fight this big fellow."</p>
+
+<p>Spitzstein was looking on curiously. With wonderful quickness a crowd
+had collected, all avidly eager for a fight. Above them towered the
+fierce, domineering figure of Locasto. There was a breathless pause,
+then, at the psychological moment, the Jam-wagon intervened.</p>
+
+<p>The smouldering fire in his eye had brightened into <a class="pagenum" name="page_197" id="page_197" title="197"></a>a fierce joy; his
+twitching mouth was now grim and stern as a prison door. For days he had
+been fighting a dim intangible foe. Here at last was something human and
+definite. He advanced to Locasto.</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you strike some one nearer your own size?" he demanded. His
+voice was tense, yet ever so quiet.</p>
+
+<p>Locasto flashed at him a look of surprise, measuring him from head to
+foot.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a brute," went on the Jam-wagon evenly; "a cowardly brute."</p>
+
+<p>Black Jack's face grew dark and terrible. His eyes glinted sparks of
+fire.</p>
+
+<p>"See here, Englishman," he said, "this isn't your scrap. What are you
+butting in about?"</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't," said the Jam-wagon, and I could see the flame of fight
+brighten joyously in him. "It isn't, but I'll soon make it mine. There!"</p>
+
+<p>Quick as a flash he dealt the other a blow on the cheek, an open-handed
+blow that stung like a whiplash.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, fight me, you coward."</p>
+
+<p>There and then Locasto seemed about to spring on his challenger. With
+hands clenched and teeth bared, he half bent as if for a charge. Then,
+suddenly, he straightened up.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," he said softly; "Spitzstein, can we have the Opera House?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I guess so. We can clear away the benches."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_198" id="page_198" title="198"></a>"Then tell the crowd to come along; we'll give them a free show."</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>I think there must have been five hundred men around that ring. A big
+Australian pugilist was umpire. Some one suggested gloves, but Locasto
+would not hear of it.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, "I want to mark the son of a dog so his mother will never
+know him again."</p>
+
+<p>He had become frankly brutal, and prepared for the fray exultantly. Both
+men fought in their underclothing.</p>
+
+<p>Stripped down, the Jam-wagon was seen to be much the smaller man, not
+only in height, but in breadth and weight. Yet he was a beautiful figure
+of a fighter, clean, well-poised, firm-limbed, with a body that seemed
+to taper from the shoulders down. His fair hair glistened; his eyes were
+wary and cool, his lips set tightly. In the person of this living
+adversary he was fighting an unseen one vastly more dread and terrific.</p>
+
+<p>Locasto looked almost too massive. His muscles bulged out. The veins in
+his forearms were cord-like. His great chest seemed as broad as a door.
+His legs were statuesque in their size and strength. In that camp of
+strong men probably he was the most powerful.</p>
+
+<p>And nowhere in the world could a fight have been awaited with greater
+zest. These men, miners, gamblers, adventurers of all kinds, pushed and
+struggled for a place. A great joy surged through <a class="pagenum" name="page_199" id="page_199" title="199"></a>them at the thought
+of the approaching combat. Keen-eyed, hard-breathing, a-thrill with
+expectation, the crowd packed closer and closer. Outside, people were
+clamouring for admission. They climbed on the stage, and into the boxes.
+They hung over the galleries. All told, there must have been a thousand
+of them.</p>
+
+<p>As the two men stood up it was like the lithe Greek athlete compared
+with the brawny Roman gladiator. "Three to one on Locasto," some one
+shouted. Then a great hush came over the house, so that it might have
+been empty and deserted. Time was called. The fight began.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_200" id="page_200" title="200"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>With one tiger-rush Locasto threw himself on his man. There was no
+preliminary fiddling here; they were out for blood, and the sooner they
+wallowed in it the better. Right and left he struck with mighty swings
+that would have felled an ox, but the Jam-wagon was too quick for him.
+Twice he ducked in time to avoid a furious blow, and, before Locasto
+could recover, he had hopped out of reach. The big man's fist swished
+through the empty air. He almost overbalanced with the force of his
+effort, but he swung round quickly, and there was the Jam-wagon, cool
+and watchful, awaiting his next attack.</p>
+
+<p>Locasto's face grew fiendish in its sinister wrath; he shot forth a foul
+imprecation, and once more he hurled himself resistlessly on his foe.
+This time I thought my champion must go down, but no! With a dexterity
+that seemed marvellous, he dodged, ducked and side-stepped; and once
+more Locasto's blows went wide and short. Jeers began to go up from the
+throng. "Even money on the little fellow," sang out a voice with the
+flat twang of a banjo.</p>
+
+<p>Locasto glared round on the crowd. He was accustomed to lord it over
+these men, and the jeers goaded him like banderilleros goad a bull.
+Again and again he repeated his tremendous rushes, only to find his
+powerful arms winnowing the empty air, <a class="pagenum" name="page_201" id="page_201" title="201"></a>only to see his agile antagonist
+smiling at him in mockery from the centre of the ring. Not one of his
+sledgehammer smashes reached their mark, and the round closed without a
+blow having landed.</p>
+
+<p>From the mob of onlookers a chorus of derisive cheers went up. The
+little man with the banjo voice was holding up a poke of dust. "Even
+money on the little one." A hum of eager conversation broke forth.</p>
+
+<p>I was at the ring-side. At the beginning I had been in an agony of fear
+for the Jam-wagon. Looking at the two men, it seemed as if he could
+hardly hope to escape terrible punishment at the hands of one so
+massively powerful, and every blow inflicted on him would have been like
+one inflicted on myself. But now I took heart and looked forward with
+less anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>Again time was called, and Locasto sprang up, seemingly quite refreshed
+by his rest. Once more he plunged after his man, but now I could see his
+rushes were more under control, his smashing blows better timed, his
+fierce jabs more shrewdly delivered. Again I began to quake for the
+Jam-wagon, but he showed a wonderful quickness in his footwork, darting
+in and out, his hands swinging at his sides, a smile of mockery on his
+lips. He was deft as a dancing-master; he twinkled like a gleam of
+light, and amid that savage thresh of blows he was as cool as if he were
+boxing in the school gymnasium.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is he?" those at the ring-side began to whisper. Time and again it
+seemed as if he were <a class="pagenum" name="page_202" id="page_202" title="202"></a>cornered, but in a marvellous way he wormed
+himself free. I held my breath as he evaded blow after blow, some of
+which seemed to miss him by a mere hair's breadth. He was taking
+chances, I thought, so narrowly did he permit the blows to miss him. I
+was all keyed up, on edge with excitement, eager for my man to strike,
+to show he was not a mere ring-tactician. But the Jam-wagon bided his
+time.</p>
+
+<p>And so the round ended, and it was evident that the crowd was of the
+same opinion as myself. "Why don't he mix up a little?" said one. "Give
+him time," said another. "He's all right: there's some class to that
+work."</p>
+
+<p>Locasto came up for the third round looking sobered, subdued, grimly
+determined. Evidently he had made up his mind to force his opponent out
+of his evasive tactics. He was wary as a cat. He went cautiously. Yet
+again he assumed the aggressive, gradually working the Jam-wagon into a
+corner. A collision was inevitable; there was no means of escape for my
+friend; that huge bulk, with its swinging, flail-like arms, menaced him
+hopelessly.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Locasto closed in. He swooped down on the Jam-wagon. He had
+him. He shortened his right arm for a jab like the crash of a
+pile-driver. The arm shot out, but once again the Jam-wagon was not
+there. He ducked quickly, and Locasto's great fist brushed his hair.</p>
+
+<p>Then, like lightning, the two came to a clinch. Now, thought I, it's all
+off with the Jam-wagon. I saw Locasto's eyes dilate with ferocious joy.
+He had <a class="pagenum" name="page_203" id="page_203" title="203"></a>the other in his giant arms; he could crush him in a mighty hug,
+the hug of a grizzly, crush him like an egg-shell. But, quick as the
+snap of a trap, the Jam-wagon had pinioned his arms at the elbow, so
+that he was helpless. For a moment he held him, then, suddenly releasing
+his arms, he caught him round the body, shook him with a mighty
+side-heave, gave him the cross-buttock, and, before he could strike a
+single blow, threw him in the air and dashed him to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"Time!" called the umpire. It was all done so quickly it was hard for
+the eye to follow, but a mighty cheer went up from the house. "Two to
+one on the little fellow," called the banjo-voice. Suddenly Locasto rose
+to his feet. He was shamed, angered beyond all expression. Heaving and
+panting, he lurched to his corner, and in his eyes there was a look that
+boded ill for his adversary.</p>
+
+<p>Time again. With the lightness of a panther the Jam-wagon sprang into
+the centre of the ring. More than halfway he met Locasto, and now his
+intention seemed to be to draw his man on rather than to avoid him. I
+watched his every movement with a sense of thrilling fascination. He had
+resumed his serpentine movements, advancing and retreating with
+shadow-like quickness, feinting, side-stepping, pawing the air till he
+had his man baffled and bewildered. Yet he never struck a blow.</p>
+
+<p>All this seemed to be getting on Locasto's nerves. He was going steadily
+enough, trying by every means in his power to get the other man to "mix
+it up." <a class="pagenum" name="page_204" id="page_204" title="204"></a>He shouted the foulest abuse at him. "Stand up like a man, you
+son of a dog, and fight." The smile left the Jam-wagon's lips, and he
+settled down to business.</p>
+
+<p>I saw him edging up to Locasto. He feinted wildly, then, stepping in
+closely, he swung a right and left to Black Jack's face. A moment later
+he was six feet away, with a bitter smile on his lips.</p>
+
+<p>With a fierce bellow of rage Locasto, forgetting all his caution,
+charged him. He smashed his heavy right with all its might for the
+other's face, but, quick as the quiver of a bow-string, the Jam-wagon
+side-stepped and the blow missed. Then the Jam-wagon shifted and brought
+his left, full-weight, crash on Locasto's mouth.</p>
+
+<p>At that fierce triumphant blow there was the first dazzling blood-gleam,
+and the crowd screeched with excitement. In a wild whirlwind of fury
+Locasto hurled himself on the Jam-wagon, his arms going like windmills.
+Any one of these blows, delivered in a vital spot, would have meant
+death, but his opponent was equal to this blind assault. Dodging,
+ducking, side-stepping, blocking, he foiled the other at every turn,
+and, just before the round ended, drove his left into the pit of the big
+man's stomach, with a thwack that resounded throughout the building.</p>
+
+<p>Once more time was called. The Jam-wagon was bleeding about the
+knuckles. Several of Locasto's teeth had been loosened, and he spat
+blood frequently. Otherwise he looked as fit as ever. He <a class="pagenum" name="page_205" id="page_205" title="205"></a>pursued his
+man with savage determination, and seemed resolved to get in a deadly
+body-blow that would end the fight.</p>
+
+<p>It was pretty to see the Jam-wagon work. He was sprightly as a ballet
+dancer, as, weaving in and out, he dodged the other's blows. His arms
+swung at his sides, and he threw his head about in a manner insufferably
+mocking and tantalising. Then he took to landing light body-blows, that
+grew more frequent till he seemed to be beating a regular tattoo on
+Locasto's ribs. He was springy as a panther, elusive as an eel. As for
+Locasto, his face was sober now, strained, anxious, and he seemed to be
+waiting with menacing eyes to get in that vital smash that meant the
+end.</p>
+
+<p>The Jam-wagon began to put more force into his arms. He drove in a
+short-arm left to the stomach, then brought his right up to the other's
+chin. Locasto swung a deadly knock-out blow at the Jam-wagon, which just
+grazed his jaw, and the Jam-wagon retaliated with two lightning rights
+and a nervous left, all on the big man's face.</p>
+
+<p>Then he sprang back, for he was excited now. In and out he wove. Once
+more he landed a hard left on Locasto's heaving stomach, and then,
+rushing in, he rained blow after blow on his antagonist. It was a
+furious mix-up, a whirling storm of blows, brutal, savage and murderous.
+No two men could keep up such a gait. They came into a clinch, but this
+time the Jam-wagon broke away, giving the deadly kidney blow as they
+parted. When time was called both <a class="pagenum" name="page_206" id="page_206" title="206"></a>men were panting hard, bruised and
+covered with blood.</p>
+
+<p>How the house howled with delight! All the primordial brute in these men
+was glowing in their hearts. Nothing but blood could appease it. Their
+throats were parched, their eyes wild.</p>
+
+<p>Round six. Locasto sprang into the centre of the ring. His face was
+hideously disfigured. Only in that battered, blood-stained mask could I
+recognise the black eyes gleaming deadly hatred. Rushing for the
+Jam-wagon, he hurled him across the ring. Again charging, he overbore
+him to the floor, but failed to hold him.</p>
+
+<p>Then in the Jam-wagon there awoke the ancient spirit of the Berserker.
+He cared no more for punishment. He was insensible to pain. He was the
+sea-pirate again, mad with the lust of battle. Like a fiend he tore
+himself loose, and went after his man, rushing him with a swift,
+battering hail of blows around the ring. Like a tiger he was, and the
+violent lunges of Locasto only infuriated him the more.</p>
+
+<p>Now they were in a furious mix-up, and suddenly Locasto, seizing him
+savagely, tried to whip him smashing to the floor. Then the wonderful
+agility of the Englishman was displayed. In a distance of less than a
+two-foot drop he turned completely like a cat. Leaping up, he was free,
+and, getting a waist-hold with a Cornish heave, he bore Locasto to the
+floor. Quickly he changed to a crotch-lock, and, lastly, holding
+Locasto's legs, he brought him to a bridge and worked his weight up on
+his body.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_207" id="page_207" title="207"></a>Black Jack, with a mighty heave, broke away and again regained his
+feet. This seemed to enrage the Jam-wagon the more, for he tore after
+his man like a maddened bull. Getting a hold with incredible strength,
+he lifted him straight up in the air and hurled him to the ground with
+sickening force.</p>
+
+<p>Locasto lay there. His eyes were closed. He did not move. Several men
+rushed forward. "He's all right," said a medical-looking individual;
+"just stunned. I guess you can call the fight over."</p>
+
+<p>The Jam-wagon slowly put on his clothes. Once more, in the person of
+Locasto, he had successfully grappled with "Old Man Booze." He was badly
+bruised about the body, but not seriously hurt in any way. Shudderingly
+I looked down at Locasto's face, beaten to a pulp, his body livid from
+head to foot. And then, as they bore him off to the hospital, I realised
+I was revenged.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you know that man Spitzstein was charging a dollar for admission?"
+queried the Prodigal.</p>
+
+<p>"No!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's right. That darned little Jew netted nearly a thousand dollars."</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_208" id="page_208" title="208"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Let me introduce you," said the Prodigal, "to my friend the 'Pote.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Glad to meet you," said the Pote cheerfully, extending a damp hand.
+"Just been having a dishwashing bee. Excuse my dishybeel."</p>
+
+<p>He wore a pale-blue undershirt, white flannel trousers girt round the
+waist with a red silk handkerchief, very gaudy moccasins, and a rakish
+Panama hat with a band of chocolate and gold.</p>
+
+<p>"Take a seat, won't you?" Through his gold-rimmed spectacles his eyes
+shone benevolently as he indicated an easy-looking chair. I took it. It
+promptly collapsed under me.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, excuse me," he said; "you're not onto the combination of that
+chair. I'll fix it."</p>
+
+<p>He performed some operation on it which made it less unstable, and I sat
+down gingerly.</p>
+
+<p>I was in a little log-cabin on the hill overlooking the town. Through
+the bottle window the light came dimly. The walls showed the bark of
+logs and tufts of intersecting moss. In the corner was a bunk over which
+lay a bearskin robe, and on the little oblong stove a pot of beans was
+simmering.</p>
+
+<p>The Pote finished his dishwashing and joined us, pulling on an old
+Tuxedo jacket.</p>
+
+<p>"Whew! Glad that job's over. You know, I <a class="pagenum" name="page_209" id="page_209" title="209"></a>guess I'm fastidious, but I
+can't bear to use a plate for more than three meals without passing a
+wet rag over it. That's the worst of having refined ideas, they make
+life so complex. However, I mustn't complain. There's a monastic
+simplicity about this joint that endears it to me. And now, having
+immolated myself on the altar of cleanliness, I will solace my soul with
+a little music."</p>
+
+<p>He took down a banjo from the wall and, striking a few chords, began to
+sing. His songs seemed to be original, even improvisations, and he sang
+them with a certain quaintness and point that made them very piquant. I
+remember one of the choruses. It went like this:</p>
+
+<table summary=""><tr><td>
+"In the land of pale blue snow<br />
+Where it's ninety-nine below,<br />
+And the polar bears are dancing on the plain,<br />
+In the shadow of the pole,<br />
+Oh, my Heart, my Life, my Soul,<br />
+I will meet thee when the ice-worms nest again."<br />
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>Every now and then he would pause to make some lively comment.</p>
+
+<p>"You've never heard of the blue snow, Cheechako? The rabbits have blue
+fur, and the ptarmigans' feathers are a bright azure. You've never had
+an ice-worm cocktail? We must remedy that. Great dope. Nothing like
+ice-worm oil for salads. Oh, I forgot, didn't give you my card."</p>
+
+<p>I took it. It was engraved thus:</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_210" id="page_210" title="210"></a></p>
+
+<table style="margin: auto; border: black 1px solid; width: 400px; height: 15em;" summary=""><tr><td>
+<p style='text-align:center'>OLLIE GABOODLER.<br />
+Poetic Expert.</p>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>Turning it over, I read:</p>
+
+<table style="margin: auto; border: black 1px solid; width: 400px; height: 15em;" summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<p style='text-align:center'>Graduate of the University of Hard Knocks.<br />
+All kinds of verse made to order with efficiency and<br />
+dispatch.<br />
+Satisfaction guaranteed or money returned.<br />
+A trial solicited.<br />
+In Memoriam Odes a specialty.<br />
+Ballads, Rondeaux and Sonnets at modest prices.<br />
+Try our lines of Love Lyrics.<br />
+Leave orders at the Comet Saloon.</p>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>I stared at him curiously. He was smoking a cigarette and watching me
+with shrewd, observant eyes. He was a blond, blue-eyed, cherubic youth,
+with a whimsical mouth that seemed to alternate between seriousness and
+fun.</p>
+
+<p>He laughed merrily at my look of dismay.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you think it's a josh, but it's not. I've been a 'ghost' ever since
+I could push a pen. You know Will Wilderbush, the famous novelist? Well,
+Bill <a class="pagenum" name="page_211" id="page_211" title="211"></a>died six years ago from over-assiduous cultivation of John
+Barleycorn, and they hushed it up. But every year there's a new novel
+comes from his pen. It's 'ghosts.' I was Bill number three. Isn't it
+rummy?"</p>
+
+<p>I expressed my surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it's a great joke this book-faking. Wouldn't Thackeray have
+lambasted the best sellers? A fancy picture of a girl on the cover,
+something doing all the time, and a happy ending&mdash;that's the recipe. Or
+else be as voluptuous as velvet. Wait till my novel, 'Three Minutes,'
+comes out. Order in advance."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed I will," I said.</p>
+
+<p>He suddenly became grave.</p>
+
+<p>"If I only could take the literary game seriously I might make good. But
+I'm too much of a 'farceur.' Well, one day we'll see. Maybe the North
+will inspire me. Maybe I'll yet become the Spokesman of the Frozen
+Silence, the Avatar of the Great White Land."</p>
+
+<p>He strutted up and down, inflating his chest.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you framed up any dope lately?" asked the Prodigal.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes; only this morning, while I was eating my beans and bacon, I
+dashed off a few lines. I always write best when I'm eating. Want to
+hear them?"</p>
+
+<p>He drew from his pocket an old envelope.</p>
+
+<p>"They were written to the order of Stillwater Willie. He wants to
+present them to one of the Labelle Sisters. You know&mdash;that fat lymphatic
+blonde, <a class="pagenum" name="page_212" id="page_212" title="212"></a>Birdie Labelle. It is short and sweet. He wants to have it
+engraved on a gold-backed hand-mirror he's giving her.</p>
+
+<table summary=""><tr><td>
+"I see within my true love's eyes<br />
+The wide blue spaces of the skies;<br />
+I see within my true love's face<br />
+The rose and lily vie in grace;<br />
+I hear within my true love's voice<br />
+The songsters of the Spring rejoice.<br />
+Oh, why need I seek Nature's charms&mdash;<br />
+I hold my true love in my arms.
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>"How'll that hit her? There's such a lot of natural beauty about
+Birdie."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you get much work?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it's dull. Poetry's rather a drug on the market up here. It's just
+a side-line. For a living I clean shoes at the 'Elight' Barbershop&mdash;I,
+who have lingered on the sunny slopes of Parnassus, and quenched my
+soul-thirst at the Heliconian spring&mdash;gents' tans a specialty."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever publish a book?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure! Did you never read my 'Rhymes of a Rustler'? One reviewer would
+say I was the clear dope, the genuine eighteen-carat, jewelled-movement
+article; the next would aver I was the rankest dub that ever came down
+the pike. They said I'd imitated people, people I'd never read, people
+I'd never heard of, people I never dreamt existed. I was accused of
+imitating over twenty different writers. Then the pedants got after me,
+said I didn't conform <a class="pagenum" name="page_213" id="page_213" title="213"></a>to academic formulas, advised me to steep myself
+in tradition. They talked about form, about classic style and so on. As
+if it matters so long as you get down the thing itself so that folks can
+see it, and feel it go right home to their hearts. I can write in all
+the artificial verse forms, but they're mouldy with age, back numbers.
+Forget them. Quit studying that old Greek dope: study life, modern life,
+palpitating with colour, crying for expression. Life! Life! The sunshine
+of it was in my heart, and I just naturally tried to be its singer."</p>
+
+<p>"I say," said the Prodigal from the bunk where he was lounging, in a
+haze of cigarette smoke, "read us that thing you did the other day, 'The
+Last Supper.'"</p>
+
+<p>The Pote's eyes twinkled with pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," he said. Then, in a clear voice, he repeated the following
+lines:</p>
+
+<table summary=""><tr><td>
+"THE LAST SUPPER.<br />
+<br />
+Marie Vaux of the Painted Lips,<br />
+And the mouth so mocking gay;<br />
+A wanton you to the finger tips,<br />
+That break men's hearts in play;<br />
+A thing of dust I have striven for,<br />
+Honour and Manhood given for,<br />
+Headlong for ruin driven for&mdash;<br />
+And this is the last, you say:<br />
+<br />
+<i>Drinking your wine with dainty sips,<br />
+Marie Vaux of the Painted Lips.</i><br />
+<br />
+Marie Vaux of the Painted Lips,<br /><a class="pagenum" name="page_214" id="page_214" title="214"></a>
+Long have you held your sway;<br />
+I have laughed at your merry quips,<br />
+Now is my time to pay.<br />
+What we sow we must reap again;<br />
+When we laugh we must weep again;<br />
+So to-night we will sleep again,<br />
+Nor wake till the Judgment Day.<br />
+<br />
+'<i>Tis a prison wine that your palate sips,<br />
+Marie Vaux of the Painted Lips</i>.<br />
+<br />
+Marie Vaux of the Painted Lips,<br />
+Down on your knees and pray;<br />
+Pray your last ere the moment slips,<br />
+Pray ere the dark and the terror grips,<br />
+And the bright world fades away:<br />
+Pray for the good unguessed of us,<br />
+Pray for the peace and rest of us.<br />
+Here comes the Shape in quest of us,<br />
+Now must we go away&mdash;<br />
+<br />
+<i>You and I in the grave's eclipse,<br />
+Marie Vaux of the Painted Lips</i>."
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>Just as he finished there came a knock at the door, and a young man
+entered. He had the broad smiling face of a comedian, and the bulgy
+forehead of a Baptist Missionary. The Pote introduced him to me.</p>
+
+<p>"The Yukon Yorick."</p>
+
+<p>"Hello," chuckled the newcomer, "how's the bunch? Don't let me stampede
+you. How d'ye do, <a class="pagenum" name="page_215" id="page_215" title="215"></a>Horace! Glad to meet you." (He called everybody
+Horace.) "Just come away from a meeting of my creditors. What's that?
+Have a slab of booze? Hardly that, old fellow, hardly that. Don't tempt
+me, Horace, don't tempt me. Remember I'm only a poor working-girl."</p>
+
+<p>He seemed brimming over with jovial acceptance of life in all its
+phases. He lit a cigar.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, boys, you know old Dingbats the lawyer. Ha, yes. Well, met him on
+Front Street just now. Says I: 'Horace, that was a pretty nifty spiel
+you gave us last night at the Zero Club.' He looked at me all tickled up
+the spine. Ha, yes. He was pleased as Punch. 'Say, Horace,' I says, 'I'm
+on, but I won't give you away. I've got a book in my room with every
+word of that speech in it.' He looked flabbergasted. So I have&mdash;ha, yes,
+the dictionary."</p>
+
+<p>He rolled his cigar unctuously in his mouth, with many chuckles and a
+histrionic eye.</p>
+
+<p>"No, don't tempt me, Horace. Remember, I'm only a poor working-girl.
+Thanks, I'll just sit down on this soap-box. Knew a man once, Jobcroft
+was his name, Charles Alfred Jobcroft, sat down on a custard pie at a
+pink tea; was so embarrassed he wouldn't get up. Just sat on till every
+one else was gone. Every one was wondering why he wouldn't budge: just
+sat tight."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess he <i>cussed hard</i>," ventured the Prodigal.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Horace, spare me that! Remember I'm only a poor working-girl.
+Hardly that, old fellow. <a class="pagenum" name="page_216" id="page_216" title="216"></a>Say, hit me with a slab of booze quick. Make
+things sparkle, boys, make things sparkle."</p>
+
+<p>He drank urbanely of the diluted alcohol that passed for whisky.</p>
+
+<p>"Hit me easy, boys, hit me easy," he said, as they refilled his glass.
+"I can't hold my hootch so well as I could a few summers ago&mdash;and many
+hard Falls. Talking about holding your 'hooch,' the best I ever saw was
+a man called Podstreak, Arthur Frederick Podstreak. You couldn't get
+that man going. The way he could lap up the booze was a caution. He
+would drink one bunch of boys under the table, then leave them and go on
+to another. He would start in early in the morning and keep on going
+till the last thing at night. And he never got hilarious even; it didn't
+seem to phase him; he was as sober after the twentieth drink as when he
+started. Gee! but he was a wonder."</p>
+
+<p>The others nodded their heads appreciatively.</p>
+
+<p>"He was a fine, healthy-looking chap, too; the booze didn't seem to hurt
+him. Never saw such a constitution. I often watched him, for I suspected
+him of 'sluffing,' but no! He always had a bigger drink than every one
+else, always drank whisky, always drank it neat, and always had a chaser
+of water after. I said to myself: 'What's your system?' and I got to
+studying him hard. Then, one day, I found him out."</p>
+
+<p>"What was it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, one day I noticed something. I noticed he always held his glass
+in a particular way when he <a class="pagenum" name="page_217" id="page_217" title="217"></a>drank, and at the same time he pressed his
+stomach in the region of the 'solar plexus.' So that night I took him
+aside.</p>
+
+<p>"'Look here, Podstreak,' I said, 'I'm next to you.' I really wasn't, but
+the bluff worked. He grew white.</p>
+
+<p>"'For Heaven's sake, don't give me away,' he cried; 'the boys'll lynch
+me.'</p>
+
+<p>"'All right,' I said; 'if you'll promise to quit.'</p>
+
+<p>"Then he made a full confession, and showed me how he did it. He had an
+elastic rubber bag under his shirt, and a tube going up his arm and down
+his sleeve, ending in a white nozzle inside his cuff. When he went to
+empty his glass of whisky he simply pressed some air out of the rubber
+bag, put the nozzle in the glass, and let it suck up all the whisky. At
+night he used to empty all the liquor out of the bag and sell it to a
+saloon-keeper. Oh, he was a phoney piece of work.</p>
+
+<p>"'I've been a total abstainer (in private) for seven years,' he told me.
+'Yes,' I said, 'and you'll become one in public for another seven.' And
+he did."</p>
+
+<p>Several men had dropped in to swell this Bohemian circle. Some had
+brought bottles. There was a painter who had been "hung," a Mus Bac., an
+ex-champion amateur pugilist, a silver-tongued orator, a man who had
+"suped" for Mansfield, and half a dozen others. The little cabin was
+crowded, the air hazy with smoke, the conversation animated. But mostly
+it was a monologue by the inimitable Yorick.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_218" id="page_218" title="218"></a>Suddenly the conversation turned to the immorality of the town.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, I have a theory," said the Pote, "that the regeneration of Dawson
+is at hand. You know Good is the daughter of Evil, Virtue the offspring
+of Vice. You know how virtuous a man feels after a jag. You've got to
+sin to feel really good. Consequently, Sin must be good to be the means
+of good, to be the raw material of good, to be virtue in the making,
+mustn't it? The dance-halls are a good foil to the gospel-halls. If we
+were all virtuous, there would be no virtue in virtue, and if we were
+all bad no one would be bad. And because there's so much bad in this old
+burg of ours, it makes the good seem unnaturally good."</p>
+
+<p>The Pote had the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"A friend of mine had a beautiful pond of water-lilies. They painted the
+water exultantly and were a triumphant challenge to the soul. Folks came
+from far and near to see them. Then, one winter, my friend thought he
+would clean out his pond, so he had all the nasty, slimy mud scraped
+away till you could see the silver gravel glimmering on the bottom. But
+the lilies, with all their haunting loveliness, never came back."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what are you driving at, you old dreamer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, just this: in the nasty mud and slime of Dawson I saw a lily-girl.
+She lives in a cabin by the Slide along with a Jewish couple. I only
+caught a glimpse of her twice. They are unspeakable, but <a class="pagenum" name="page_219" id="page_219" title="219"></a>she is fair
+and sweet and pure. I would stake my life on her goodness. She looks
+like a young Madonna&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He was interrupted by a shout of cynical laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, get off your foot! A Madonna in Dawson&mdash;Ra! Ra!"</p>
+
+<p>He shut up abashed, but I had my clue. I waited until the last noisy
+roisterer had gone.</p>
+
+<p>"In the cabin by the Slide?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>He started, looked at me searchingly: "You know her?"</p>
+
+<p>"She means a good deal to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I understand. Yes, that long, queer cabin highest up the hill."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, old chap."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, good luck." He accompanied me to the door, staring at the
+marvel of the glamorous Northern midnight.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, for a medium to express it all! Your pedantic poetry isn't big
+enough; prose isn't big enough. What we want is something between the
+two, something that will interpret life, and stir the great heart of the
+people. Good-night."</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_220" id="page_220" title="220"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Very softly I approached the cabin, for a fear of encountering her
+guardians was in my heart. It was in rather a lonely place, perched at
+the base of that vast mountain abrasion they call the Slide, a long, low
+cabin, quiet and dark, and surrounded by rugged boulders. Carefully I
+reconnoitered, and soon, to my infinite joy, I saw the Jewish couple
+come forth and make their way townward. The girl was alone.</p>
+
+<p>How madly beat my heart! It was a glooming kind of a night, and the
+cabin looked woefully bleak and solitary. No light came through the
+windows, no sound through the moss-chinked walls. I drew near.</p>
+
+<p>Why this wild commotion of my being? What was it? Anxiety, joy, dread? I
+was poised on the pinnacle of hope that overhangs the abyss of despair.
+Fearfully I paused. I was racked with suspense, conscious of a longing
+so poignant that the thought of disappointment became insufferable pain.
+So violent was my emotion that a feeling almost of nausea overcame me.</p>
+
+<p>I knew now that I cared for this girl more than I had ever thought to
+care for woman. I knew that she was dearer to me than all the world
+else; I knew that my love for her would live as long as life is long.</p>
+
+<p>I knocked at the door. No answer.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_221" id="page_221" title="221"></a>"Berna," I cried in a faltering whisper.</p>
+
+<p>Came the reply: "Who is there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Love, love, dear; love is waiting."</p>
+
+<p>Then, at my words, the door was opened, and the girl was before me. I
+think she had been lying down, for her soft hair was a little ruffled,
+but her eyes were far too bright for sleep. She stood gazing at me, and
+a little fluttering hand went up to her heart as if to still its
+beating.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my dear, I knew you were coming."</p>
+
+<p>A great radiance of joy seemed to descend on her.</p>
+
+<p>"You knew?"</p>
+
+<p>"I knew, yes, I knew. Something told me you were come at last. And I've
+waited&mdash;how I've waited! I've dreamed, but it's not a dream now, is it,
+dear; it's you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it's me. I've tried so hard to find you. Oh, my dear, my dear!"</p>
+
+<p>I seized the sweet, soft hand and covered it with kisses. At that moment
+I could have kissed the shadow of that little hand; I could have fallen
+before her in speechless adoration; I could have made my heart a
+footstool for her feet; I could have given her, O, so gladly, my paltry
+life to save her from a moment's sorrow&mdash;I loved her so, I loved her so!</p>
+
+<p>"High and low I've sought you, beloved. Morning, noon and night you've
+been in my brain, my heart, my soul. I've loved you every moment of my
+life. It's been desire feeding despair, and, O, the agony of it! Thank
+God, I've found you, dear! thank God! thank God!"</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_222" id="page_222" title="222"></a>O Love, look down on us and choir your harmonies! Transported was I,
+speaking with whirling words of sweetest madness, tremulous, uplifted
+with rapture, scarce conscious of my wild, impassioned metaphors. It was
+she, most precious of all creation; she, my beloved. And there, in the
+doorway, she poised, white as a lily, lustrous-eyed, and with hair soft
+as sunlit foam. O Divinity of Love, look down on us thy children; fold
+us in thy dove-soft wings; illumine us in thy white radiance; touch us
+with thy celestial hands. Bless us, Love!</p>
+
+<p>How vastly alight were the grey eyes! How ineffably tender the sweet
+lips! A faint glow had come into her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"O, it's you, really, really you at last," she cried again, and there
+was a tremor, the surface ripple of a sob in that clear voice. She
+fetched a deep sigh: "And I thought I'd lost you forever. Wait a moment.
+I'll come out."</p>
+
+<p>Endlessly long the moment seemed, yet wondrously irradiate. The shadow
+had lifted from the world; the skies were alight with gladness; my heart
+was heaven-aspiring in its ecstasy. Then, at last, she came.</p>
+
+<p>She had thrown a shawl around her shoulders, and coaxed her hair into
+charming waves and ripples.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, let us go up the trail a little distance. They won't be back for
+nearly an hour."</p>
+
+<p>She led the way along that narrow path, looking over her shoulder with a
+glorious smile, sometimes extending <a class="pagenum" name="page_223" id="page_223" title="223"></a>her hand back to me as one would
+with a child.</p>
+
+<p>Along the brow of the bluff the way wound dizzily, while far below the
+river swept in a giant eddy. For a long time we spoke no word. 'Twas as
+if our hearts were too full for utterance, our happiness too vast for
+expression. Yet, O, the sweetness of that silence! The darkling gloom
+had silvered into lustrous light, the birds were beginning again their
+mad midnight melodies. Then, suddenly turning a bend in the narrow
+trail, a blaze of glory leapt upon our sight.</p>
+
+<p>"Look, Berna," I cried.</p>
+
+<p>The swelling river was a lake of saffron fire; the hills a throne of
+rosy garnet; the sky a dazzling panoply of rubies, girdled with flames
+of gold. We almost cringed, so gorgeous was its glow, so fierce its
+splendour.</p>
+
+<p>Then, when we had seated ourselves on the hillside, facing the
+conflagration, she turned to me.</p>
+
+<p>"And so you found me, dear. I knew you would, somehow. In my heart I
+knew you would not fail me. So I waited and waited. The time seemed
+pitilessly long. I only thought of you once, and that was always. It was
+cruel we left so suddenly, not even time to say good-bye. I can't tell
+you how bad I felt about it, but I could not help myself. They dragged
+me away. They began to be afraid of you, and he bade them leave at once.
+So in the early morning we started."</p>
+
+<p>"I see, I see." I looked into the pools of her <a class="pagenum" name="page_224" id="page_224" title="224"></a>eyes; I sheathed her
+white hands in my brown ones, thrilling greatly at the contact of them.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me about it, child. Has he bothered you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, not so much. He thinks he has me safe enough, trapped, awaiting his
+pleasure. But he's taken up with some woman of the town just now.
+By-and-bye he'll turn his attention to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Terrible! Terrible! Berna, you wring my heart. How can you talk of such
+things in that matter-of-fact way&mdash;it maddens me."</p>
+
+<p>An odd, hard look ridged the corners of her mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. Sometimes I'm surprised at myself how philosophical I'm
+getting."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Berna, surely nothing in this world would ever make you yield? O,
+it's horrible! horrible!"</p>
+
+<p>She leaned to me tenderly. She put my arms around her neck; she looked
+at me till I saw my face mirrored in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing in the world, dear, so long as I have you to love me and help
+me. If ever you fail me, well, then it wouldn't matter much what became
+of me."</p>
+
+<p>"Even then," I said, "it would be too awful for words. I would rather
+drag your body from that river than see you yield to him. He's a
+monster. His very touch is profanation. He could not look on a woman
+without cynical lust in his heart."</p>
+
+<p>"I know, my boy, I know. Believe me and trust me. I would rather throw
+myself from the bluff here than let him put a hand on me. And so long as
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_225" id="page_225" title="225"></a>I have your love, dear, I'm safe enough. Don't fear. O, it's been
+terrible not seeing you! I've craved for you ceaselessly. I've never
+been out since we came here. They wouldn't let me. They kept in
+themselves. He bade them. He has them both under his thumb. But now, for
+some reason, he has relaxed. They're going to open a restaurant
+downtown, and I'm to wait on table."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you're not!" I cried, "not if I have anything to say in the matter.
+Berna, I can't bear to think of you in that garbage-heap of corruption
+down there. You must marry me&mdash;now."</p>
+
+<p>"Now," she echoed, her eyes wide with surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, right away, dear. There's nothing to prevent us. Berna, I love
+you, I want you, I need you. I'm just distracted, dear. I never know a
+moment's peace. I cannot take an interest in anything. When I speak to
+others I'm thinking of you, you all the time. O, I can't bear it,
+dearest; have pity on me: marry me now."</p>
+
+<p>In an agony of suspense I waited for her answer. For a long time she sat
+there, thoughtful and quiet, her eyes cast down. At last she raised them
+to me.</p>
+
+<p>"You said one year."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but I was sorry afterwards. I want you now. I can't wait."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at me gravely. Her voice was very soft, very tender.</p>
+
+<p>"I think it better we should wait, dear. This is a blind, sudden desire
+on your part. I mustn't take advantage <a class="pagenum" name="page_226" id="page_226" title="226"></a>of it. You pity me, fear for me,
+and you have known so few other girls. It's generosity, chivalry, not
+love for poor little me. O, we mustn't, we mustn't. And then&mdash;you might
+change."</p>
+
+<p>"Change! I'll never, never change," I pleaded. "I'll always be yours,
+absolutely, wholly yours, little girl; body and soul, to make or to mar,
+for ever and ever and ever."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it seems so sudden, so burning, so intense, your love, dear. I'm
+afraid, I'm afraid. Maybe it's not the kind that lasts. Maybe you'll
+tire. I'm not worth it, indeed I'm not. I'm only a poor ignorant girl.
+If there were others near, you would never think of me."</p>
+
+<p>"Berna," I said, "if you were among a thousand, and they were the most
+adorable in all the world, I would pass over them all and turn with joy
+and gratitude to you. Then, if I were an Emperor on a throne, and you
+the humblest in all that throng, I would raise you up beside me and call
+you 'Queen.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, no," she said sadly, "you were wise once. I saw it afterwards.
+Better wait one year."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my dearest," I reproached her, "once you offered yourself to me
+under any conditions. Why have you changed?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. I'm bitterly ashamed of that. Never speak of it again."</p>
+
+<p>She went on very quietly, full of gentle patience.</p>
+
+<p>"You know, I've been thinking a great deal since then. In the long, long
+days and longer nights, when <a class="pagenum" name="page_227" id="page_227" title="227"></a>I waited here in misery, hoping always you
+would come to me, I had time to reflect, to weight your words. I
+remember them all: 'love that means life and death, that great dazzling
+light, that passion that would raise to heaven or drag to hell.' You
+have awakened the woman in me; I must have a love like that."</p>
+
+<p>"You have, my precious; you have, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, let me have time to test it. This is June. Next June, if
+you have not made up your mind you were foolish, blind, hasty, I will
+give myself to you with all the love in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps <i>you</i> will change."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled a peculiar little smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Never, never fear that. I will be waiting for you, longing for you,
+loving you more and more every day."</p>
+
+<p>I was bitterly cast down, crestfallen, numbed with the blow of her
+refusal.</p>
+
+<p>"Just now," she said, "I would only be a drag on you. I believe in you.
+I have faith in you. I want to see you go out and mix in the battle of
+life. I know you will win. For my sake, dear, win. I would handicap you
+just now. There are all kinds of chances. Let us wait, boy, just a
+year."</p>
+
+<p>I saw the pathetic wisdom of her words.</p>
+
+<p>"I know you fear something will happen to me. No! I think I will be
+quite safe. I can withstand him. After a while he will leave me alone.
+And if it should come to the worst I can call on you. You mustn't go too
+far away. I will die rather than let <a class="pagenum" name="page_228" id="page_228" title="228"></a>him lay a hand on me. Till next
+June, dear, not a day longer. We will both be the better for the wait."</p>
+
+<p>I bowed my head. "Very well," I said huskily; "and what will I do in the
+meantime?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do! Do what you would have done otherwise. Do not let a woman divert
+the current of your life; let her swim with it. Go out on the creeks!
+Work! It will be better for you to go away. It will make it easier for
+me. Here we will both torture each other. I, too, will work and live
+quietly, and long for you. The time will pass quickly. You will come and
+see me sometimes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I answered. My voice choked with emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"Now we must go home," she said; "I'm afraid they will be back."</p>
+
+<p>She rose, and I followed her down the narrow trail. Once or twice she
+turned and gave me a bright, tender look. I worshipped her more than
+ever. Was there ever maid more sweet, more gentle, more quick with
+anxious love? "Bless her, O bless her," I sighed. "Whatever comes, may
+she be happy." I adored her, but a great sadness filled my heart, and
+never a word I spoke.</p>
+
+<p>We reached the cabin, and on the threshold she paused. The others had
+not yet returned. She held out both hands to me, and her eyes were
+glittering with tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Be brave, my dearest; it's all for my sake&mdash;if you love me."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_229" id="page_229" title="229"></a>"I love you, my darling; anything for your sake. I'll go to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"We're betrothed now, aren't we, dearest?"</p>
+
+<p>"We're betrothed, my love."</p>
+
+<p>She swayed to me and seemed to fit into my arms as a sword fits into its
+sheath. My lips lay on hers, and I kissed her with a passionate joy. She
+took my face between her hands and gazed at me long and earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>"I love you, I love you," she murmured; "next June, my darling, next
+June."</p>
+
+<p>Then she gently slipped away from me, and I was gazing blankly at the
+closed door.</p>
+
+<p>"Next June," I heard a voice echo; and there, looking at me with a
+smile, was Locasto.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_230" id="page_230" title="230"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>It comes like a violent jar to be awakened so rudely from a trance of
+love, to turn suddenly from the one you care for most in all the world,
+and behold the one you have best reason to hate. Nevertheless, it is not
+in human nature to descend rocket-wise from the ethereal heights of
+love. I was still in an exalted state of mind when I turned and
+confronted Locasto. Hate was far from my heart, and when I saw the man
+himself was regarding me with no particular unfriendliness, I was
+disposed to put aside for the moment all feelings of enmity. The
+generosity of the victor glowed within me.</p>
+
+<p>As he advanced to me his manner was almost urbane in its geniality.</p>
+
+<p>"You must forgive me," he said, not without dignity, "for overhearing
+you; but by chance I was passing and dropped upon you before I realised
+it."</p>
+
+<p>He extended his hand frankly.</p>
+
+<p>"I trust my congratulations on your good luck will not be entirely
+obnoxious. I know that my conduct in this affair cannot have impressed
+you in a very favourable light; but I am a badly beaten man. Can't you
+be generous and let by-gones be by-gones? Won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>I had not yet come down to earth. I was still <a class="pagenum" name="page_231" id="page_231" title="231"></a>soaring in the rarefied
+heights of love, and inclined to a general amnesty towards my enemies.</p>
+
+<p>As he stood there, quiet and compelling, there was an assumption of
+frankness and honesty about this man that it was hard to withstand. For
+the nonce I was persuaded of his sincerity, and weakly I surrendered my
+hand. His grip made me wince.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, again I congratulate you. I know and admire her. They don't make
+them any better. She's pure gold. She's a little queen, and the man she
+cares for ought to be proud and happy. Now, I'm a man of the world, I'm
+cynical about woman as a rule. I respect my mother and my
+sisters&mdash;beyond that&mdash;&mdash;" He shrugged his shoulders expressively.</p>
+
+<p>"But this girl's different. I always felt in her presence as I used to
+feel twenty-five years ago when I was a youth, with all my ideals
+untarnished, my heart pure, and woman holy in my sight."</p>
+
+<p>He sighed.</p>
+
+<p>"You know, young man, I've never told it to a soul before, but I'd give
+all I'm worth&mdash;a clear million&mdash;to have those days back. I've never been
+happy since."</p>
+
+<p>He drew away quickly from the verge of sentiment.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you mustn't mind me taking an interest in your sweetheart. I'm
+old enough to be her father, you know, and she touches me strangely.
+Now, don't distrust me. I want to be a friend to you both. I want to
+help you to be happy. Jack Locasto's not such a bad lot, as you'll find
+when you know him. Is <a class="pagenum" name="page_232" id="page_232" title="232"></a>there anything I can do for you? What are you
+going to do in this country?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't quite know yet," I said. "I hope to stake a good claim when the
+chance comes. Meantime I'm going to get work on the creeks."</p>
+
+<p>"You are?" he said thoughtfully; "do you know any one?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll tell you what: I've got laymen working on my Eldorado claim;
+I'll give you a note to them if you like."</p>
+
+<p>I thanked him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's all right," he said. "I'm sorry I played such a mean part in
+the past, and I'll do anything in my power to straighten things out.
+Believe me, I mean it. Your English friend gave me the worst drubbing of
+my life, but three days after I went round and shook hands with him.
+Fine fellow that. We opened a case of wine to celebrate the victory. Oh,
+we're good friends now. I always own up when I'm beaten, and I never
+bear ill-will. If I can help you in any way, and hasten your marriage to
+that little girl there, well, you can just bank on Jack Locasto: that's
+all."</p>
+
+<p>I must say the man could be most conciliating when he chose. There was a
+gravity in his manner, a suave courtesy in his tone, the heritage of his
+Spanish forefathers, that convinced me almost in spite of my better
+judgment. No doubt he was magnetic, dominating, a master of men. I
+thought: there are two Locastos, the primordial one, the Indian, who had
+assaulted <a class="pagenum" name="page_233" id="page_233" title="233"></a>me; and the dignified genial one, the Spaniard, who was
+willing to own defeat and make amends. Why should I not take him as I
+found him?</p>
+
+<p>So, as he talked entertainingly to me, my fears were dissipated, my
+suspicions lulled. And when we parted we shook hands cordially.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't forget," he said; "if you want help bank on me. I mean it now, I
+mean it."</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>'Twas early in the bright and cool of the morning when we started for
+Eldorado, Jim and I. I had a letter from Locasto to Ribwood and Hoofman,
+the laymen, and I showed it to Jim. He frowned.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean to say you've palled up with that devil," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he's not so bad," I expostulated. "He came to me like a man and
+offered me his hand in friendship. Said he was ashamed of himself. What
+could I do? I've no reason to doubt his sincerity."</p>
+
+<p>"Sincerity be danged. He's about as sincere as a tame rattlesnake. Put
+his letter in the creek."</p>
+
+<p>But no! I refused to listen to the old man.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, go your own gait," he said; "but don't say that I didn't warn
+you."</p>
+
+<p>We had crossed over the Klondike to its left limit, and were on a
+hillside trail beaten down by the feet of miners and packers. Cabins
+clustered on the flat, and from them plumes of violet smoke mounted into
+the golden air. Already the camp was astir. Men were chopping their
+wood, carrying their water. The long, long day was beginning.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_234" id="page_234" title="234"></a>Following the trail, we struck up Bonanza, a small muddy stream in a
+narrow valley. Down in the creek-bed we could see ever-increasing signs
+of an intense mining activity. On every claim were dozens of cabins, and
+many high cones of greyish muck. We saw men standing on raised platforms
+turning windlasses. We saw buckets come up filled with the same dark
+grey dirt, to be dumped over the edge of the platform. Sometimes, where
+the dump had gradually arisen around man and windlass, the platform in
+the centre of that dark-greyish cone was twenty feet high.</p>
+
+<p>Every mile the dumps grew more numerous, till some claims seemed covered
+with them. Looking down from the trail, they were like innumerable
+anthills blocking up the narrow channel, and around them swarmed the
+little ant-men in never-resting activity. The golden valley opened out
+to us in a vista of green curves, and the cleft of it was packed with
+tents, cabins, dumps and tailing piles, all bedded in a blue haze of
+wood fires.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at that great centipede striding across the valley," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Jim, "it's a long line of sluice-boxes. See the water
+a-shinin' in the sun. Looks like some big golden-backed caterpillar."</p>
+
+<p>The little ants were shovelling into it from one of their heaps, and
+from that point it swirled on into the stream, a current of mud and
+stone.</p>
+
+<p>"Seems to me that stream would wash away all the gold," I said. "I know
+it's all caught in the riffles, but I think if that dump was mine I
+would want sluice-boxes <a class="pagenum" name="page_235" id="page_235" title="235"></a>a mile long and about sixteen hundred riffles.
+But I guess they know what they are doing."</p>
+
+<p>About noon we descended into the creek-bed and came to the Forks. It was
+a little town, a Dawson in miniature, with all its sordid aspects
+infinitely accentuated. It had dance-halls, gambling dens and many
+saloons: every convenience to ease the miner of the plethoric poke.
+There in the din and daze and dirt we tarried awhile; then, after eating
+heartily, we struck up Eldorado.</p>
+
+<p>Here was the same feverish activity of gold-getting. Every claim was
+valued at millions, and men who had rarely owned enough to buy a decent
+coat were crying in the saloons because life was not long enough to
+allow them to spend their sudden wealth. Nevertheless, they were making
+a good stab at it. At the Forks I enquired regarding Ribwood and
+Hoofman: "Goin' to work for them, are you? Well, they've got a blamed
+hard name. If you get a job elsewhere, don't turn it down."</p>
+
+<p>Jim left me; he would work on no claim of Locasto's, he said. He had a
+friend, a layman, who was a good man, belonged to the Army. He would try
+him. So we parted.</p>
+
+<p>Ribwood was a tall, gaunt Cornishman, with a narrow, jutting face and a
+gloomy air; Hoofman, a burly, beet-coloured Australian with a bulging
+stomach.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we'll put you to work," said Hoofman, reading the letter. "Get
+your coat off and shovel in."</p>
+
+<p>So, right away, I found myself in the dump-pile, jamming a shovel into
+the pay-dirt and swinging it <a class="pagenum" name="page_236" id="page_236" title="236"></a>into a sluice-box five feet higher than my
+head. Keeping at this hour after hour was no fun, and if ever a man
+desisted for a moment the hard eyes of Hoofman were upon him, and the
+gloomy Ribwood had snatched up a shovel and was throwing in the muck
+furiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, boys," he would shout; "make the dirt fly. 'Taint every part
+of the world you fellers can make your ten bucks a day."</p>
+
+<p>And it can be said that never labourer proved himself more worthy of his
+hire than the pick-and-shovel man of those early days. Few could stand
+it long without resting. They were lean as wolves those men of the dump
+and drift, and their faces were gouged and grooved with relentless toil.</p>
+
+<p>Well, for three days I made the dirt fly; but towards quitting time, I
+must say, its flight was a very uncertain one. Again I suffered all the
+tortures of becoming toil-broken, the old aches and pains of the tunnel
+and the gravel-pit. Towards evening every shovelful of dirt seemed to
+weigh as much as if it was solid gold; indeed, the stuff seemed to get
+richer and richer as the day advanced, and during the last half-hour I
+judged it must be nearly all nuggets. The constant hoisting into the
+overhead sluice-box somehow worked muscles that had never gone into
+action before, and I ached elaborately.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning the pains were fiercest. How I groaned until the muscles
+became limber. I found myself using very rough language, groaning,
+gritting my teeth viciously. But I stayed with the work and <a class="pagenum" name="page_237" id="page_237" title="237"></a>held up my
+end, while the laymen watched us sedulously, and seemed to grudge us
+even a moment to wipe the sweat out of our blinded eyes.</p>
+
+<p>I was glad, indeed, when, on the evening of the third day, Ribwood came
+to me and said:</p>
+
+<p>"I guess you'd better work up at the shaft to-morrow. We want a man to
+wheel muck."</p>
+
+<p>They had a shaft sunk on the hillside. They were down some forty feet
+and were drifting in, wheeling the pay-dirt down a series of planks
+placed on trestles to the dump. I gripped the handles of a wheelbarrow
+loaded to overspilling, and steered it down that long, unsteady gangway
+full of uneven joins and sudden angles. Time and again I ran off the
+track, but after the first day I became quite an expert at the business.
+My spirits rose. I was on the way of becoming a miner.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_238" id="page_238" title="238"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Turning the windlass over the shaft was a little, tough mud-rat, who
+excited in me the liveliest sense of aversion. Pat Doogan was his name,
+but I will call him the "Worm."</p>
+
+<p>The Worm was the foulest-mouthed specimen I have yet met. He had the
+lowest forehead I have ever seen in a white man, and such a sharp,
+ferrety little face. His reddish hair had the prison clip, and his
+little reddish eyes were alive with craft and cruelty. I noticed he
+always regarded me with a peculiarly evil grin, that wrinkled up his
+cheeks and revealed his hideously blackened teeth. From the first he
+gave me a creepy feeling, a disgust as if I were near some slimy
+reptile.</p>
+
+<p>Yet the Worm tried to make up to me. He would tell me stories blended of
+the horrible and the grotesque. One in particular I remember.</p>
+
+<p>"Youse wanta know how I lost me last job. I'll tell youse. You see, it
+was like dis. Dere was two Blackmoor guys dat got into de country dis
+Spring; came by St. Michaels; Hindoos dey was. One of dem 'Sicks' (an'
+dey looked sick, dey was so loose an' weary in der style) got a job from
+old man Gustafson down de shaft muckin' up and fillin' de buckets.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, dere was dat Blackmoor down in de deep <a class="pagenum" name="page_239" id="page_239" title="239"></a>hole one day when I comes
+along, an' strikes old Gus for a job. So, seein' as de man on de
+windlass wanted to quit, he passed it up to me, an' I took right hold
+an' started in.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, I was feelin' powerful mean. I'd just finished up a two weeks'
+drunk, an' you tink de booze wasn't workin' in me some. I was seein' all
+kinds of funny t'ings. Why, as I was a-turnin' away at dat ol' windlass
+dere was red spiders crawlin' up me legs. But I was wise. I wouldn't
+look at dem, give dem de go-by. Den a yeller rat got gay wid me an' did
+some stunts on me windlass. But still I wouldn't let on. Den dere was
+some green snakes dat wriggled over de platform like shiny streaks on de
+water. Sure, I didn't like dat one bit, but I says, 'Dere ain't no
+snakes in de darned country, Pat, and you knows it. It's just a touch of
+de horrors, dat's all. Just pass 'em up, boy; don't take no notice of
+dem.'</p>
+
+<p>"Well, dis went on till I begins to get all shaky an' jumpy, an' I was
+mighty glad when de time came to quit, an' de boys down below gives me
+de holler to pull dem up.</p>
+
+<p>"So I started hoistin' wid dose snakes an' spiders an' rats jus'
+cavortin' round me like mad, when all to once who should I hoist outa de
+bowels of de earth but de very devil himself.</p>
+
+<p>"His face was black. I could see de whites of his eyes, an' he had a big
+dirty towel tied round his head. Well, say, it was de limit. At de sight
+of dat ferocious monster comin' after old Pat I gives one yell, <a class="pagenum" name="page_240" id="page_240" title="240"></a>drops
+de crank-handle of de windlass, an' makes a flyin' leap down de dump. I
+hears an awful shriek, an' de bucket an' de devil goes down smash to de
+bottom of de shaft, t'irty-five feet. But I kep' on runnin'. I was so
+scared.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, how was I to know dey had a Blackmoor down dere? He was a stiff
+when dey got him up, but how was I to know? So I lost me job."</p>
+
+<p>On another occasion he told me:</p>
+
+<p>"Say, kid, youse didn't know as I was liable to fits, did youse? Dat's
+so; eppylepsy de doctor tells me. Dat's what I am scared of. You see,
+it's like dis: if one of dem fits should hit me when I'm hoistin' de
+boys outer de shaft, den it would be a pity. I would sure lose me job
+like de oder time."</p>
+
+<p>He was the most degraded type of man I had yet met on my travels, a
+typical degenerate, dirty, drunken, diseased. He had three suits of
+underclothing, which he never washed. He would wear through all three in
+succession, and when the last got too dirty for words he would throw it
+under his trunk and sorrowfully go back to the first, keeping up this
+rotation, till all were worn out.</p>
+
+<p>One day Hoofman told me he wanted me to go down the shaft and work in
+the drift. Accordingly, next morning I and a huge Slav, by name Dooley
+Rileyvich, were lowered down into the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>The Slav initiated me. Every foot of dirt had to be thawed out by means
+of wood fires. We built a fire at the far end of the drift every night,
+covering the face we were working. First we would lay <a class="pagenum" name="page_241" id="page_241" title="241"></a>kindling, then
+dry spruce lying lengthways, then a bank of green wood standing on end
+to keep in the heat and shed the dirt that sloughed down from the roof.
+In the morning our fire would be burned out, and enough pay-dirt thawed
+to keep us picking all day.</p>
+
+<p>Down there I found it the hardest work of all. We had to be careful that
+the smoke had cleared from the drift before we ventured in, for
+frequently miners were asphyxiated. Indeed, the bad air never went
+entirely away. It made my eyes sore, my head ache. Yet, curiously
+enough, so long as you were below it did not affect you so much. It was
+when you stepped out of the bucket and struck the pure outer air that
+you reeled and became dizzy. It was blinding, too. Often at supper have
+my eyes been so blurred and sore I had to grope around uncertainly for
+the sugar bowl and the tin of cream.</p>
+
+<p>In the drift it was always cool. The dirt kept sloughing down on us, and
+we had really gone in too far for our own safety, but the laymen cared
+little for that. At the end of the drift the roof was so low we were
+bent almost double, picking at the face in all kinds of cramped
+positions, and dragging after us the heavy bucket. To the big Slav it
+was all in the day's work, but to me it was hard, hard.</p>
+
+<p>The shaft was almost forty feet deep. For the first ten feet a ladder
+ran down it, then stopped suddenly as if the excavators had decided to
+abandon it. I often looked at this useless bit of ladder and wondered
+why it had been left unfinished.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_242" id="page_242" title="242"></a>Every morning the Worm hoisted us down into the darkness, and at night
+drew us up. Once he said to me:</p>
+
+<p>"Say, wouldn't it be de tough luck if I was to take a fit when I was
+hoistin' youse up? Such a nice bit of a boy, too, an' I guess I'd lose
+my job over de head of it."</p>
+
+<p>I said: "Cut that out, or you'll have me so scared I won't go down."</p>
+
+<p>He grinned unpleasantly and said nothing more. Yet somehow he was
+getting on my nerves terribly.</p>
+
+<p>It was one evening we had banked our fires and were ready to be hoisted
+up. Dooley Rileyvich went first, and I watched him blot out the bit of
+blue for a while. Then, slowly, down came the bucket for me.</p>
+
+<p>I got in. I was feeling uneasy all of a sudden, and devoutly wished I
+were anywhere else but in that hideous hole. I felt myself leave the
+ground and rise steadily. The walls of the shaft glided past me. Up, up
+I went. The bit of blue sky grew bigger, bigger. There was a star
+shining there. I watched it. I heard the creak, creak of the windlass
+crank. Somehow it seemed to have a sinister sound. It seemed to say:
+"Have a care, have a care, have a care." I was now ten feet from the
+top. The bucket was rocking a little, so I put out my hand and grasped
+the lowest rung of the ladder to steady myself.</p>
+
+<p>Then, at that instant, it seemed the weight of the bucket pressing up
+against my feet was suddenly removed, and my arm was nigh jerked out of
+its socket. <a class="pagenum" name="page_243" id="page_243" title="243"></a>There I was hanging desperately on the lowest rung of the
+ladder, while, with a crash that made my heart sick, the bucket dashed
+to the bottom. At last, I realised, the Worm had had his fit.</p>
+
+<p>Quickly I gripped with both hands. With a great effort I raised myself
+rung by rung on the ladder. I was panic-stricken, faint with fear; but
+some instinct had made me hold on desperately. Dizzily I hung all
+a-shudder, half-sobbing. A minute seemed like a year.</p>
+
+<p>Ah! there was the face of Dooley looking down on me. He saw me clinging
+there. He was anxiously shouting to me to come up. Mastering an
+overpowering nausea I raised myself. At last I felt his strong arm
+around me, and here I swear it on a stack of Bibles that brutish Slav
+seemed to me like one of God's own angels.</p>
+
+<p>I was on firm ground once more. The Worm was lying stiff and rigid.
+Without a word the stalwart Slav took him on his brawny shoulder. The
+creek was downhill but fifty yards. Ere we reached it the Worm had
+begun to show signs of reviving consciousness. When we got to the edge
+of the icy water he was beginning to groan and open his eyes in a dazed
+way.</p>
+
+<p>"Leave me alone," he says to Rileyvich; "you Slavonian swine, lemme go."</p>
+
+<p>Not so the Slav. Holding the wriggling, writhing little man in his
+powerful arms he plunged him heels over head in the muddy current of the
+creek.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess I cure dose fits anyway," he said grimly.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_244" id="page_244" title="244"></a>Struggling, spluttering, blaspheming, the little man freed himself at
+last and staggered ashore. He cursed Rileyvich most comprehensively. He
+had not yet seen me, and I heard him wailing:</p>
+
+<p>"Sure de boy's a stiff. Just me luck; I've lost me job."</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_245" id="page_245" title="245"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>"You'd better quit," said the Prodigal.</p>
+
+<p>It was the evening of my mishap, and he had arrived unexpectedly from
+town.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I mean to," I answered. "I wouldn't go down there again for a
+farm. I feel as weak as a sick baby. I couldn't stay another day."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that goes," said he. "It just fits in with my plans. I'm getting
+Jim to come in, too. I've realised on that stuff I bought, made over
+three thousand clear profit, and with it I've made a dicker for a
+property on the bench above Bonanza, Gold Hill they call it. I've a
+notion it's all right. Anyway, we'll tunnel in and see. You and Jim will
+have a quarter share each for your work, while I'll have an extra
+quarter for the capital I've put in. Is it a go?"</p>
+
+<p>I said it was.</p>
+
+<p>"Thought it would be. I've had the papers made out; you can sign right
+now."</p>
+
+<p>So I signed, and next day found us all three surveying our claim. We put
+up a tent, but the first thing to do was to build a cabin. Right away we
+began to level off the ground. The work was pleasant, and conducted in
+such friendship that the time passed most happily. Indeed, my only worry
+was about Berna. She had never ceased to be at the forefront of my mind.
+I schooled myself into the belief <a class="pagenum" name="page_246" id="page_246" title="246"></a>that she was all right, but, thank
+God, every moment was bringing her nearer to me.</p>
+
+<p>One morning, when we were out in the woods cutting timber for the cabin,
+I said to Jim:</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever hear anything more about that man Mosely?"</p>
+
+<p>He stopped chopping, and lowered the axe he had poised aloft.</p>
+
+<p>"No, boy; I've had no mail at all. Wait awhile."</p>
+
+<p>He swung his axe with viciously forceful strokes. His cheery face had
+become so downcast that I bitterly blamed myself for my want of tact.
+However, the cloud soon passed.</p>
+
+<p>About two days after that the Prodigal said to me:</p>
+
+<p>"I saw your little guttersnipe friend to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, where?" I asked; for I had often thought of the Worm, thought
+of him with fear and loathing.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, he was just getting the grandest dressing-down I ever saw a
+man get. And do you know who was handing it to him&mdash;Locasto, no less."</p>
+
+<p>He lit a cigarette and inhaled the smoke.</p>
+
+<p>"I was just coming along the trail from the Forks when I suddenly heard
+voices in the bush. The big man was saying:</p>
+
+<p>"'Lookee here, Pat, you know if I just liked to say half a dozen words I
+could land you in the penitentiary for the rest of your days.'</p>
+
+<p>"Then the little man's wheedling voice:</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, I did me best, Jack. I know I bungled the job, but youse don't
+want to cast dem t'ings up <a class="pagenum" name="page_247" id="page_247" title="247"></a>to me. Dere's more dan me orter be in de
+pen. Dere's no good in de pot callin' de kettle black, is dere?'</p>
+
+<p>"Then Black Jack flew off the handle. You know he's got a system of
+manhandling that's near the record in these parts. Well, he just landed
+on the little man. He got him down and started to lambast the Judas out
+of him. He gave him the 'leather,' and then some. I guess he'd have done
+him to a finish hadn't I been Johnnie on the spot. At sight of me he
+gives a curse, jumps on his horse and goes off at a canter. Well, I
+propped the little man against a tree, and then some fellows came along,
+and we got him some brandy. But he was badly done up. He kept saying:
+'Oh, de devil, de big devil, sure I'll give him his before I get
+t'rough.' Funny, wasn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it's strange;" and for some time I pondered over the remarkable
+strangeness of it.</p>
+
+<p>"That reminds me," said Jim; "has any one seen the Jam-wagon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes," answered the Prodigal; "poor beggar! he's down and out. After
+the fight he went to pieces, every one treating him, and so on. You
+remember Bullhammer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the last I saw of the Jam-wagon&mdash;he was cleaning cuspidors in
+Bullhammer's saloon."</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>We had hauled the logs for the cabin, and the foundation was laid. Now
+we were building up the <a class="pagenum" name="page_248" id="page_248" title="248"></a>walls, placing between every log a thick
+wadding of moss. Every day saw our future home nearer completion.</p>
+
+<p>One evening I spied the saturnine Ribwood climbing the hill to our tent.
+He hailed me:</p>
+
+<p>"Say, you're just the man I want."</p>
+
+<p>"What for?" I asked; "not to go down that shaft again?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Say! we want a night watchman up at the claim to go on four hours a
+night at a dollar an hour. You see, there's been a lot of sluice-box
+robberies lately, and we're scared for our clean-up. We're running two
+ten-hour shifts now and cleaning up every three days; but there's four
+hours every night the place is deserted, and Hoofman proposed we should
+get you to keep watch."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said; "I'll run up every evening if the others don't object."</p>
+
+<p>They did not; so the next night, and for about a dozen after that, I
+spent the darkest hours watching on the claim where previously I had
+worked.</p>
+
+<p>There was never any real darkness down there in that narrow valley, but
+there was dusk of a kind that made everything grey and uncertain. It was
+a vague, nebulous atmosphere in which objects merged into each other
+confusedly. Bushes came down to within a few feet of where we were
+working, dense-growing alder and birch that would have concealed a whole
+regiment of sluice-robbers.</p>
+
+<p>It was the dimmest and most uncertain hour of the four, and I was
+sitting at my post of guard. As the <a class="pagenum" name="page_249" id="page_249" title="249"></a>night was chilly I had brought
+along an old grey blanket, similar in colour to the mound of the
+pay-dirt. There had been quite a cavity dug in the dump during the day,
+and into this I crawled and wrapped myself in my blanket. From my
+position I could see the string of boxes containing the riffles. Over me
+brooded the vast silence of the night. By my side lay a loaded shot-gun.</p>
+
+<p>"If the swine comes," said Ribwood, "let him have a clean-up of lead
+instead of gold."</p>
+
+<p>Lying there, I got to thinking of the robberies. They were remarkable.
+All had been done by an expert. In some cases the riffles had been
+extracted and the gold scooped out; in others a quantity of mercury had
+been poured in at the upper end of the boxes, and, as it passed down,
+the "quick" had gathered up the dust. Each time the robbers had cleaned
+up from two to three thousand dollars, and all within the past month.
+There was some mysterious master-crook in our midst, one who operated
+swiftly and surely, and left absolutely no clue of his identity.</p>
+
+<p>It was strange, I thought. What nerve, what cunning, what skill must
+this midnight thief be possessed of! What desperate chances was he
+taking! For, in the miners' eyes, cache-stealing and sluice-box robbing
+were in the same category, and the punishment was&mdash;well, a rope and the
+nearest tree of size. Among those strong, grim men justice would be
+stern and swift.</p>
+
+<p>I was very quiet for a while, watching dreamily the dark shadows of the
+dusk.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_250" id="page_250" title="250"></a>Hist! What was that? Surely the bushes were moving over there by the
+hillside. I strained my eyes. I was right: they were.</p>
+
+<p>I was all nerves and excitement now, my heart beating wildly, my eyes
+boring through the gloom. Very softly I put out my hand and grasped the
+shot-gun.</p>
+
+<p>I watched and waited. A man was parting the bushes. Stealthily, very
+stealthily, he peered around. He hesitated, paused, peered again,
+crouched on all-fours, crept forward a little. Everything was quiet as a
+grave. Down in the cabins the tired men slept peacefully; stillness and
+solitude.</p>
+
+<p>Cautiously the man, crawling like a snake, worked his way to the
+sluice-boxes. None but a keen watcher could have seen him. Again and
+again he paused, peered around, listened intently. Very carefully, with
+my eyes fixed on him, I lifted the gun.</p>
+
+<p>Now he had gained the shadow of the nearest sluice-box. He clung to the
+trestle-work, clung so closely you could scarce tell him apart from it.
+He was like a rat, dark, furtive, sinister. Slowly I lifted the gun to
+my shoulder. I had him covered.</p>
+
+<p>I waited. Somehow I was loath to shoot. My nerves were a-quiver. Proof,
+more proof, I said. I saw him working busily, lying flat alongside the
+boxes. How crafty, how skilful he was! He was disconnecting the boxes.
+He would let the water run to the ground; then, there in the exposed
+riffles, would be his harvest. Would I shoot ... now ... now....</p>
+
+<p>Then, in the midnight hush, my gun blazed forth. With one scream the man
+tumbled down, carrying <a class="pagenum" name="page_251" id="page_251" title="251"></a>along with him the disconnected box. The water
+rushed over the ground in a deluge. I must capture him. There he lay in
+that pouring stream.... Now I had him.</p>
+
+<p>In that torrent of icy water I grappled with my man. Over and over we
+rolled. He tried to gouge me. He was small, but oh, how strong! He held
+down his face. Fiercely I wrenched it up to the light. Heavens! it was
+the Worm.</p>
+
+<p>I gave a cry of surprise, and my clutch on him must have weakened, for
+at that moment he gave a violent wrench, a cat-like twist, and tore
+himself free. Men were coming, were shouting, were running in from all
+directions.</p>
+
+<p>"Catch him!" I cried. "Yonder he goes."</p>
+
+<p>But the little man was shooting forward like a deer. He was in the
+bushes now, bursting through everything, dodging and twisting up the
+hill. Right and left ran his pursuers, mistaking each other for the
+robber in the semi-gloom, yelling frantically, mad with the excitement
+of a man-hunt. And in the midst of it all I lay in a pool of mud and
+water, with a sprained wrist and a bite on my leg.</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you hold him?" shouted Ribwood.</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't," I answered. "I saved your clean-up, and he got some of the
+lead. Besides, I know who he is."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't! Who is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pat Doogan."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't say. Well, I'm darned. You're sure?"</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_252" id="page_252" title="252"></a>"Dead sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Swear it in Court?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's all right. We'll get him. I'll go into town first thing in
+the morning and get out a warrant for him."</p>
+
+<p>He went, but the next evening back he returned, looking very surly and
+disgruntled.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what about the warrant?" said Hoofman.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't get it."</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't get&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, didn't get it," snapped Ribwood. "Look here, Hoofman, I met
+Locasto. Black Jack says Pat was cached away, dead to all the world, in
+the backroom of the Omega Saloon all night. There's two loafers and the
+barkeeper to back him up. What can we do in the face of that? Say, young
+feller, I guess you mistook your man."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess I did not," I protested stoutly.</p>
+
+<p>They both looked at me for a moment and shrugged their shoulders.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_253" id="page_253" title="253"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Time went on and the cabin was quietly nearing completion. The roof of
+poles was in place. It only remained to cover it with moss and
+thawed-out earth to make it our future home. I think these were the
+happiest days I spent in the North. We were such a united trio. Each was
+eager to do more than the other, and we vied in little acts of mutual
+consideration.</p>
+
+<p>Once again I congratulated myself on my partners. Jim, though sometimes
+bellicosely evangelical, was the soul of kindly goodness, cheerfulness
+and patience. It was refreshing to know among so many sin-calloused men
+one who always rang true, true as the gold in the pan. As for the
+Prodigal, he was a Prince. I often thought that God at the birth of him
+must have reached out to the sunshine and crammed a mighty handful of it
+into the boy. Surely it is better than all the riches in the world to
+have a temperament of eternal cheer.</p>
+
+<p>As for me, I have ever been at the mercy of my moods, easily elated,
+quickly cast down. I have always been abnormally sensitive, affected by
+sunshine and by shadows, vacillating, intense in my feelings. I was
+truly happy in those days, finding time in the long evenings to think of
+the scenes of stress and sorrow I had witnessed, reconstructing the
+past, and having <a class="pagenum" name="page_254" id="page_254" title="254"></a>importune me again and again the many characters in my
+life drama.</p>
+
+<p>Always and always I saw the Girl, elusively sweet, almost unreal, a
+thing to enshrine in that ideal alcove of our hearts we keep for our
+saints. (And God help us always to keep shining there a great light.)</p>
+
+<p>Many others importuned me: Pinklove, Globstock, Pondersby, Marks, old
+Wilovich, all dead; Bullhammer, the Jam-wagon, Mosher, the Winklesteins,
+plunged in the vortex of the gold-born city; and lastly, looming over
+all, dark and ominous, the handsome, bold, sinister face of Locasto.
+Well, maybe I would never see any of them again.</p>
+
+<p>Yet more and more my dream hours were jealously consecrated to Berna.
+How ineffably sweet were they! How full of delicious imaginings! How
+pregnant of high hope! O, I was born to love, I think, and I never loved
+but one. This story of my life is the story of Berna. It is a thing of
+words and words and words, yet every word is Berna, Berna. Feel the
+heartache behind it all. Read between the lines, Berna, Berna.</p>
+
+<p>Often in the evenings we went to the Forks, which was a lively place
+indeed. Here was all the recklessness and revel of Dawson on a smaller
+scale, and infinitely more gross. Here were the dance-hall girls, not
+the dazzling creatures in diamonds and Paris gowns, the belles of the
+Monte Carlo and the Tivoli, but drabs self-convicted by their coarse,
+puffy faces. Here the men, fresh from their day's work, the mud of the
+claim hardly dry on their boot-tops, were buying <a class="pagenum" name="page_255" id="page_255" title="255"></a>wine with nuggets they
+had filched from sluice-box, dump and drift.</p>
+
+<p>There was wholesale robbery going on in the gold-camp. On many claims
+where the owners were known to be unsuspicious, men would work for small
+wages because of the gold they were able to filch. On the other hand,
+many of the operators were paying their men in trade-dust valued at
+sixteen dollars an ounce, yet so adulterated with black sand as to be
+really worth about fourteen. All these things contributed to the low
+morale of the camp. Easy come, easy go with money, a wild intoxication
+of success in the air; gold gouged in glittering heaps from the ground
+during the day, and at night squandered in a carnival of lust and sin.</p>
+
+<p>The Prodigal was always "snooping" around and gleaning information from
+most mysterious sources. One evening he came to us.</p>
+
+<p>"Boys, get ready, quick. There's a rumour of a stampede for a new creek,
+Ophir Creek they call it, away on the other side of the divide
+somewhere. A prospector went down ten feet and got fifty-cent dirt.
+We've got to get in on this. There's a mob coming from Dawson, but we'll
+get there before the rush."</p>
+
+<p>Quickly we got together blankets and a little grub, and, keeping out of
+sight, we crawled up the hill under cover of the brush. Soon we came to
+a place from which we could command a full view of the valley. Here we
+lay down, awaiting developments.</p>
+
+<p>It was at the hour of dusk. Scarfs of smoke wavered over the cabins down
+in the valley. On the <a class="pagenum" name="page_256" id="page_256" title="256"></a>far slope of Eldorado I saw a hawk soar upwards.
+Surely a man was moving amid the brush, two men, a dozen men, moving in
+single file very stealthily. I pointed them out.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the stampede," whispered Jim. "We've got to get on to the trail of
+that crowd. Travel like blazes. We can cut them off at the head of the
+valley."</p>
+
+<p>So we struck into the stampede gait, a wild, jolting, desperate pace,
+that made the wind pant in our lungs like bellows, and jarred our bones
+in their sockets. Through brush and scrub timber we burst. Thorny vines
+tore at us detainingly, swampy niggerheads impeded us; but the
+excitement of the stampede was in our blood, and we plunged down
+gulches, floundered over marshes, climbed steep ridges and crashed
+through dense masses of underwood.</p>
+
+<p>"Throw away your blankets, boys," said the Prodigal. "Just keep a little
+grub. Eldorado was staked on a stampede. Maybe we're in on another
+Eldorado. We must connect with that bunch if we break our necks."</p>
+
+<p>It was hours after when we overtook them, about a dozen men, all in the
+maddest hurry, and casting behind them glances of furtive apprehension.
+When they saw us they were hugely surprised. Ribwood was one of the
+party.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello," he says roughly; "any more coming after you boys?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't see them," said the Prodigal breathlessly. "We spied you and
+cottoned on to what was up, so <a class="pagenum" name="page_257" id="page_257" title="257"></a>we made a fierce hike to get in on it.
+Gee, I'm all tuckered out."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, get in line. I guess there's lots for us all. You're in on a
+good thing, all right. Come along."</p>
+
+<p>So off we started again. The leader was going like one possessed. We
+blundered on behind. We were on the other side of the divide looking
+into another vast valley. What a magnificent country it was! What a
+great man&oelig;uvring-ground it would make for an army! What splendid
+open spaces, and round smooth hills, and dimly blue valleys, and silvery
+winding creeks! It was veritably a park of the Gods, and enclosing it
+was the monstrous, corrugated palisade of the Rockies.</p>
+
+<p>But there was small time to look around. On we went in the same mad,
+heart-breaking hurry, mile after mile, hour after hour.</p>
+
+<p>"This is going to be a banner creek, boys," the whisper ran down the
+line. "We're in luck. We'll all be Klondike Kings yet."</p>
+
+<p>Cheering, wasn't it? So on we went, hotter than ever, content to follow
+the man of iron who was guiding us to the virgin treasure.</p>
+
+<p>We had been pounding along all night, up hill and down dale. The sun
+rose, the dawn blossomed, the dew dried on the blueberry; it was
+morning. Still we kept up our fierce gait. Would our leader never come
+to his destination? By what roundabout route was he guiding us? The sun
+climbed up in the blue sky, the heat quivered; it was noon. We panted as
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_258" id="page_258" title="258"></a>we pelted on, parched and weary, faint and footsore. The excitement of
+the stampede had sustained us, and we scarcely had noted the flight of
+time. We had been walking for fourteen hours, yet not a man faltered. I
+was ready to drop with fatigue; my feet were a mass of blisters, and
+every step was intolerable pain to me. But still our leader kept on.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess we'll fool those trying to follow us," snapped Ribwood grimly.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the Prodigal said to me: "Say, you boys will have to go on
+without me. I'm all in. Go ahead, I'll follow after I'm rested up."</p>
+
+<p>He dropped in a limp heap on the ground and instantly fell asleep.
+Several of the others had dropped out too. They fell asleep where they
+gave up, utterly exhausted. We had now been going sixteen hours, and
+still our leader kept on.</p>
+
+<p>"You're pretty tough for a youngster," growled one of them to me. "Keep
+it up, we're almost there."</p>
+
+<p>So I hobbled along painfully, though the desire to throw myself down was
+becoming imperative. Just ahead was Jim, sturdily holding his own. The
+others were reduced to a bare half-dozen.</p>
+
+<p>It was about four in the afternoon when we reached the creek. Up it our
+leader plunged, till he came to a place where a rude shaft had been dug.
+We gathered around him. He was a typical prospector, a child of hope,
+lean, swarthy, clear-eyed.</p>
+
+<p>"Here it is, boys," he said. "Here's my discovery stake. Now you fellows
+go up or down, anywhere <a class="pagenum" name="page_259" id="page_259" title="259"></a>you've a notion to, and put in your stakes. You
+all know what a lottery it is. Maybe you'll stake a million-dollar
+claim, maybe a blank. Mining's all a gamble. But go ahead, boys. I wish
+you luck."</p>
+
+<p>So we strung out, and, coming in rotation, Jim and I staked seven and
+eight below discovery.</p>
+
+<p>"Seven's a lucky number for me," said Jim; "I've a notion this claim's a
+good one."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care," I said, "for all the gold in the world. What I want is
+sleep, sleep, rest and sleep."</p>
+
+<p>So I threw myself down on a bit of moss, and, covering my head with my
+coat to ward off the mosquitoes, in a few minutes I was dead to the
+world.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_260" id="page_260" title="260"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>I was awakened by the Prodigal.</p>
+
+<p>"Rouse up," he was saying; "you've slept right round the clock. We've
+got to get back to town and record those claims. Jim's gone three hours
+ago."</p>
+
+<p>It was five o'clock of a crystal Yukon morning, with the world clear-cut
+and fresh as at the dawn of Things. I was sleep-stupid, sore, stiff in
+every joint. Racking pains made me groan at every movement, and the
+chill night air had brought on twinges of rheumatism. I looked at my
+location stake, beside which I had fallen.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't do it," I said; "my feet are out of business."</p>
+
+<p>"You must," he insisted. "Come, buck up, old man. Bathe your feet in the
+creek, and then you'll feel as fit as a fighting-cock. We've got to get
+into town hot-foot. They've got a bunch of crooks at the gold office,
+and we're liable to lose our claims if we are late."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you staked, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"You bet. I've got thirteen below. Hurry up. There's a wild bunch coming
+from town."</p>
+
+<p>I groaned grievously, yet felt mighty refreshed by a dip in the creek.
+Then we started off once more. Every few moments we would meet parties
+coming post-haste from town. They looked worn <a class="pagenum" name="page_261" id="page_261" title="261"></a>and jaded, but spread
+eagerly up and down. There must have been several hundred of them, all
+sustained by the mad excitement of the stampede.</p>
+
+<p>We did not take the circuitous route of the day before, but one that
+shortened the distance by some ten miles. We travelled a wild country,
+crossing unknown creeks that have since proved gold-bearing, and
+climbing again the high ridge of the divide. Then once more we dropped
+down into the Bonanza basin, and by nightfall we had reached our own
+cabin.</p>
+
+<p>We lay down for a few hours. It seemed my weary head had just touched
+the pillow when once more the inexorable Prodigal awakened me.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, kid, we've got to get to Dawson when the recording office
+opens." So once more we pelted down Bonanza. Fast as we had come, we
+found many of those who had followed us were ahead. The North is the
+land of the musher. In that pure, buoyant air a man can walk away from
+himself. Any one of us thought nothing of a fifty-mile tramp, and one of
+eighty was scarcely considered notable.</p>
+
+<p>It was about nine in the morning when we got to the gold office. Already
+a crowd of stampeders were waiting. Foremost in the crowd I saw Jim. The
+Prodigal looked thoughtful.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," he said, "I guess it's all right to push in with that
+bunch, but there's a slicker way of doing it for those that are 'next.'
+Of course, it's not according to Hoyle. There's a little side-door where
+you can get in ahead of the gang. See that <a class="pagenum" name="page_262" id="page_262" title="262"></a>fellow, Ten-Dollar Jim they
+call him; well, they say he can work the oracle for us."</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said, "you can pay him ten dollars if you like. I'll take my
+chance in the regulation way."</p>
+
+<p>So the Prodigal slipped away from me, and presently I saw him admitted
+at the side entrance. Surely, thought I, there must be some mistake. The
+public would not "stand for" such things.</p>
+
+<p>There was quite a number ahead of me, and I knew I was in for a long
+wait. I will never forget it. For three days, with the exception of two
+brief sleep-spells, I had been in a fierce helter-skelter of excitement,
+and I had eaten no very satisfying food. As I stood in that sullen crowd
+I swayed with weariness, and my legs were doubling under me. Invisible
+hands were dragging me down, throwing dust in my eyes, hypnotising me
+with soporific gestures. I staggered forward and straightened up
+suddenly. On the outskirts of the crowd I saw the Prodigal trying to
+locate me. When he saw me he waved a paper.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, you goat," he shouted; "have a little sense. I'm all fixed
+up."</p>
+
+<p>I shook my head. An odd sense of fair play in me made me want to win the
+game squarely. I would wait my turn. Noon came. I saw Jim coming out,
+tired but triumphant.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," he megaphoned to me; "I'm through. Now I'll go and sleep my
+head off."</p>
+
+<p>How I envied him. I felt I, too, had a "big bunch" of sleep coming to
+me. I was moving forward slowly. Bit by bit I was wedging nearer the
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_263" id="page_263" title="263"></a>door. I watched man after man push past the coveted threshold. They
+were all miners, brawny, stubble-chinned fellows with grim, determined
+faces. I was certainly the youngest there.</p>
+
+<p>"What have you got?" asked a thick-set man on my right.</p>
+
+<p>"Eight below," I answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Gee! you're lucky."</p>
+
+<p>"What'll you take for it?" asked a tall, keen-looking fellow on my left.</p>
+
+<p>"Five thousand."</p>
+
+<p>"Give you two."</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, come round and see me to-morrow at the Dominion, and we'll talk
+it over. My name's Gunson. Bring your papers."</p>
+
+<p>"All right."</p>
+
+<p>Something like dizziness seized me. Five thousand! The crowd seemed to
+be composed of angels and the sunshine to have a new and brilliant
+quality of light and warmth. Five thousand! Would I take it? If the
+claim was worth a cent it ought to be worth fifty thousand. I soared on
+rosy wings of optimism. I revelled in dreams. My claim! Mine! Eight
+below! Other men had bounded into affluence. Why not I?</p>
+
+<p>No longer did I notice the flight of time. I was ready to wait till
+doomsday. A new lease of strength came to me. I was near the wicket now.
+Only two were ahead of me. A clerk was recording their claims. One had
+thirty-four above, the other fifty-two <a class="pagenum" name="page_264" id="page_264" title="264"></a>below. The clerk looked
+flustered, fatigued. His dull eyes were pursy with midnight debauches;
+his flesh sagged. In contrast with the clean, hard, hawk-eyed miners, he
+looked blotched and unwholesome.</p>
+
+<p>Crossly he snatched from the other two their miner's certificates, made
+the entries in his book, and gave them their receipts. It was my turn
+now. I dashed forward eagerly. Then I stopped, for the man with the
+bleary eyes had shut the wicket in my face.</p>
+
+<p>"Three o'clock," he snapped.</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't you take mine?" I faltered; "I've been waiting now these
+seven hours."</p>
+
+<p>"Closing time," he ripped out still more tartly; "come again to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>There was a growling thunder from the crowd behind, and the weary,
+disappointed stampeders slouched away.</p>
+
+<p>Body and soul of me craved for sleep. Beyond an overwhelming desire for
+rest, I was conscious of nothing else. My eyelids were weighted with
+lead. I lagged along dejectedly. At the hotel I saw the Prodigal.</p>
+
+<p>"Get fixed up?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, too late."</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better take advantage of the general corruption and the services
+of Ten-Dollar Jim."</p>
+
+<p>I was disheartened, disgusted, desperate.</p>
+
+<p>"I will," I said. Then, throwing myself on the bed, I launched on a
+dreamless sea of sleep.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_265" id="page_265" title="265"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Next morning bright and early found me at the side-door, and the tall man
+admitted me. I slipped a ten-dollar gold piece into his palm, and
+presently found myself waiting at the yet unopened wicket. Outside I
+could see the big crowd gathering for their weary wait. I felt a
+sneaking sense of meanness, but I did not have long to enjoy my
+despicable sensations.</p>
+
+<p>The recording clerk came to the wicket. He was very red-faced and
+watery-eyed. Involuntarily I turned my head away at the reek of his
+breath.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to record eight below on Ophir," I said.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me curiously. He hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"What name?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>I gave it. He turned up his book.</p>
+
+<p>"Eight below, you say. Why, that's already recorded."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't be," I retorted. "I just got down from there yesterday after
+planting my stakes."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't help it. It's recorded by some one else, recorded early
+yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," I exclaimed; "what kind of a game are you putting up on me?
+I tell you I was the first on the ground. I alone staked the claim."</p>
+
+<p>"That's strange," he said. "There must be some mistake. Anyway, you'll
+have to move on and let the <a class="pagenum" name="page_266" id="page_266" title="266"></a>others get up to the wicket. You're
+blocking the way. All I can do is to look into the matter for you, and
+I've got no time now. Come back to-morrow. Next, please."</p>
+
+<p>The next man pushed me aside, and there I stood, gaping and gasping. A
+man in the waiting line looked at me pityingly.</p>
+
+<p>"It's no use, young fellow; you'd better make up your mind to lose that
+claim. They'll flim-flam you out of it somehow. They've sent some one
+out now to stake over you. If you kick, they'll say you didn't stake
+proper."</p>
+
+<p>"But I have witnesses."</p>
+
+<p>"It don't matter if you call the Angel Gabriel to witness, they're going
+to grab your claim. Them government officials is the crookedest bunch
+that ever made fuel for hell-fire. You won't get a square deal; they're
+going to get the fat anyhow. They've got the best claims spotted, an'
+men posted to jump them at the first chance. Oh, they're feathering
+their nests all right. They're like a lot of greedy pike just waiting to
+gobble down all they can. A man can't buy wine at twenty dollars per,
+and make dance-hall Flossies presents of diamond tararas on a government
+salary. That's what a lot of them are doing. Wine and women, and their
+wives an' daughters outside thinkin' they're little tin gods. Somehow
+they've got to foot the bill. Oh, it's a great country."</p>
+
+<p>I was stunned with disappointment.</p>
+
+<p>"What you want," he continued, "is to get a pull with some of the
+officials. Why, there's friends of <a class="pagenum" name="page_267" id="page_267" title="267"></a>mine don't need to go out of town to
+stake a claim. Only the other day a certain party known to me, went
+to&mdash;well, I mustn't mention names, anyway, he's high up in the
+government, and a friend of Quebec Suzanne's,&mdash;and says to him,'I want
+you to get number so and so on Hunker recorded for me. Of course I
+haven't been able to get out there, but&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"The government bug puts his hands to his ears. 'Don't give me any
+unnecessary information,' he says; 'you want so and so recorded, Sam.
+Well, that's all right. I'll fix it.'</p>
+
+<p>"That was all there was to it, and when next day a man comes in
+post-haste claiming to have staked it, it was there recorded in Sam's
+name. Get a stand-in, young fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"But surely," I said, "somehow, somewhere there must be justice. Surely
+if these facts were represented at Ottawa and proof forthcoming&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ottawa!" He gave a sniffing laugh. "Ottawa! Why, it's some of the big
+guns at Ottawa that's gettin' the cream of it all. The little fellows
+are just lapping up the drips. Look at them big concessions they're
+selling for a song, good placer ground that would mean pie to the poor
+miner, closed tight and everlastingly tied up. How is it done? Why,
+there's some politician at the bottom of the whole business. Look at the
+liquor permits&mdash;crude alcohol sent into the country by the thousand
+gallons, diluted to six times its bulk, and sold to the poor prospector
+for whisky at a dollar a drink. An' you can't pour your own drinks at
+that."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_268" id="page_268" title="268"></a>"Well," I said, "I'm not going to be cheated out of my claim. If I've
+got to move Heaven and earth&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll do nothing of the kind. If you get sassy there's the police to
+put the lid on you. You can talk till you're purple round the gills. It
+won't cut no figure. They've got us all cinched. We've just got to take
+our medicine. It's no use goin' round bellyaching. You'd better go away
+and sit down."</p>
+
+<p>And I did.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_269" id="page_269" title="269"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>I had to see Berna at once. Already I had paid a visit to the Paragon
+Restaurant, that new and glittering place of resort run by the
+Winklesteins, but she was not on duty. I saw Madam, resplendent in her
+false jewellery, with her beetle-black hair elaborately coiffured, and
+her large, bold face handsomely enamelled. She looked the picture of
+fleshy prosperity, a big handsome Jewess, hawk-eyed and rapacious. In
+the background hovered Winklestein, his little, squeezed-up, tallowy
+face beaded with perspiration. But he was dressed quite superbly, and
+his moustache was more wondrously waxed than ever.</p>
+
+<p>I mingled with the crowd of miners, and in my rough garb, swarthy and
+bearded as I was, the Jewish couple did not know me. As I paid her,
+Madam gave me a sharp glance. But there was no recognisant gleam in her
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening I returned. I took a seat in one of the curtained boxes.
+At the long lunch-counter rough-necked fellows perched on tripod stools
+were guzzling food. The place was brilliantly lit up, many-mirrored and
+flashily ornate in gilt and white. The bill of fare was elaborate, the
+prices exalted. In the box before me a white-haired lawyer was
+entertaining a lady of easy virtue; in the box behind, a larrikin
+quartette from the Pavilion Theatre were holding <a class="pagenum" name="page_270" id="page_270" title="270"></a>high revelry. There
+was no mistaking the character of the place. In the heart of the city's
+tenderloin it was a haunt of human riff-raff, a palace of gilt and
+guilt, a first scene in the nightly comedy of "The Lobster."</p>
+
+<p>I was feeling profoundly depressed, miserable, disgusted with
+everything. For the first time I began to regret ever leaving home. Out
+on the creeks I was happy. Here in the town the glaring corruption of
+things jarred on my nerves.</p>
+
+<p>And it was in this place Berna worked. She waited on these wantons; she
+served those swine. She heard their loose talk, their careless oaths.
+She saw them foully drunk, staggering off to their shameful
+assignations. She knew everything. O, it was pitiful; it sickened me to
+the soul. I sat down and buried my face in my hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Order, please."</p>
+
+<p>I knew that sweet voice. It thrilled me, and I looked up suddenly. There
+was Berna standing before me.</p>
+
+<p>She gave a quick start, then recovered herself. A look of delight came
+into her eyes, eager, vivid delight.</p>
+
+<p>"My, how you frightened me, I wasn't expecting you. Oh, I am so glad to
+see you again."</p>
+
+<p>I looked at her. I was conscious of a change in her, and the
+consciousness came with a sense of shearing pain.</p>
+
+<p>"Berna," I said, "what are you doing with that paint on your face?"</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_271" id="page_271" title="271"></a>"Oh, I'm sorry." She was rubbing distressfully at a dab of rouge on her
+cheek. "I knew you would be cross, but I had to; they made me. They said
+I looked like a spectre at the feast with my chalk face; I frightened
+away the customers. It's just a little pink,&mdash;all the women do it. It
+makes me look happier, and it doesn't hurt me any."</p>
+
+<p>"What I want is to see in your cheeks, dear, the glow of health, not the
+flush of a cosmetic. However, never mind. How are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty well&mdash;&mdash;" hesitatingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Berna," boomed the rough, contumacious voice of Madam, "attend to the
+customers."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," I said; "get me anything. I just wanted to see you."</p>
+
+<p>She hurried away. I saw her go behind the curtains of one of the closed
+boxes carrying a tray of dishes. I heard coarse voices chaffing her. I
+saw her come out, her cheeks flushed, yet not with rouge. A miner had
+tried to detain her. Somehow it all made me writhe, agitated me so that
+I could hardly keep my seat.</p>
+
+<p>Presently she came hurrying round, bringing me some food.</p>
+
+<p>"When can I see you, girl?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"To-night. See me home. I'm off at midnight."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. I'll be waiting."</p>
+
+<p>She was kept very busy, and, though once or twice a tipsy roysterer
+ventured on some rough pleasantry, I noticed with returning satisfaction
+that most of the big, bearded miners treated her with chivalrous
+respect. <a class="pagenum" name="page_272" id="page_272" title="272"></a>She was quite friendly with them. They called her by name, and
+seemed to have a genuine affection for her. There was a protective
+manliness in the manner of these men that reassured me. So I swallowed
+my meal and left the place.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a good little girl," said a grizzled old fellow to me, as he
+stood picking his teeth energetically outside the restaurant. "Straight
+as a string, and there ain't many up here you can say that of. If any
+one was to try any monkey business with that little girl, sir, there's a
+dozen of the boys would make him a first-rate case for the hospital
+ward. Yes, siree, that's a jim-dandy little girl. I just wish she was my
+darter."</p>
+
+<p>In my heart I blessed him for his words, and pressed on him a fifty-cent
+cigar.</p>
+
+<p>Again I wandered up and down the now familiar street, but the keen edge
+of my impression had been blunted. I no longer took the same interest in
+its sights. More populous it was, noisier, livelier than ever. In the
+gambling-annex of the Paystreak Saloon was Mr. Mosher shuffling and
+dealing methodically. Everywhere I saw flushed and excited miners, each
+with his substantial poke of dust. It was usually as big as a
+pork-sausage, yet it was only his spending-poke. Safely in the bank he
+had cached half a dozen of them ten times as big.</p>
+
+<p>These were the halcyon days. Success was in the air. Men were drunk with
+it; carried off their feet, delirious. Money! It had lost its value.
+Every one you met was "lousy" with it; threw it away <a class="pagenum" name="page_273" id="page_273" title="273"></a>with both hands,
+and fast as they emptied one pocket it filled up the others. Little
+wonder a mad elation, a semi-frenzy of prodigality prevailed, for every
+day the golden valley was pouring into the city a seemingly exhaustless
+stream of treasure.</p>
+
+<p>I saw big Alec, one of the leading operators, coming down the street
+with his men. He carried a Winchester, and he had a pack-train of
+burros, each laden down with gold. At the bank flushed and eager mobs
+were clamouring to have their pokes weighed. In buckets, coal-oil cans,
+every kind of receptacle, lay the precious dust. Sweating clerks were
+handling it as carelessly as a grocer handles sugar. Goldsmiths were
+making it into wonders of barbaric jewellery. There seemed no limit to
+the camp's wealth. Every one was mad, and the demi-mondaine was queen of
+all.</p>
+
+<p>I saw Hewson and Mervin. They had struck it rich on a property they had
+bought on Hunker. Fortune was theirs.</p>
+
+<p>"Come and have a drink," said Hewson. Already he had had many. His face
+was relaxed, flushed, already showing signs of a flabby degeneration. In
+this man of iron sudden success was insidiously at work, enervating his
+powers.</p>
+
+<p>Mervin, too. I caught a glimpse of him, in the doorway of the Green Bay
+Tree. The Maccaroni Kid had him in tow, and he was buying wine.</p>
+
+<p>I looked in vain for Locasto. He was on a big debauch, they told me.
+Viola Lennoir had "got him going."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_274" id="page_274" title="274"></a>At midnight, at the door of the Paragon, I was waiting in a fever of
+impatience when Berna came out.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm living up at the cabin," she said; "you can walk with me as far as
+that. That is, if you want to," she added coquettishly.</p>
+
+<p>She was very bright and did most of the talking. She showed a vast joy
+at seeing me.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me what you've been doing, dear&mdash;everything. Have you made a
+stake? So many have. I have prayed you would, too. Then we'll go away
+somewhere and forget all this. We'll go to Italy, where it's always
+beautiful. We'll just live for each other. Won't we, honey?"</p>
+
+<p>She nestled up to me. She seemed to have lost much of her shyness. I
+don't know why, but I preferred my timid, shrinking Berna.</p>
+
+<p>"It will take a whole lot to make me forget this," I said grimly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know. Isn't it frightful? Somehow I don't seem to mind so much
+now. I'm getting used to it, I suppose. But at first&mdash;O, it was
+terrible! I thought I never could stand it. It's wonderful how we get
+accustomed to things, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I answered bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"You know, those rough miners are good to me. I'm a queen among them,
+because they know I'm&mdash;all right. I've had several offers of marriage,
+too, really, really good ones from wealthy claim-owners."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," still more bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, young man; so you want to make a strike <a class="pagenum" name="page_275" id="page_275" title="275"></a>and take me away to
+Italy. Oh, how I plan and plan for us two. I don't care, my dearest, if
+you haven't got a cent in the world, I'm yours, always yours."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right, Berna," I said. "I'm going to make good. I've just
+lost a fifty-thousand dollar claim, but there's more coming up. By the
+first of June next I'll come to you with a bank account of six figures.
+You'll see, my little girl. I'm going to make this thing stick."</p>
+
+<p>"You foolish boy," she said; "it doesn't matter if you come to me a
+beggar in rags. Come to me anyway. Come, and do not fail."</p>
+
+<p>"What about Locasto?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I've scarcely seen anything of him. He leaves me alone. I think he's
+interested elsewhere."</p>
+
+<p>"And are you sure you're all right, dear, down there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite sure. These men would risk their lives for me. The other kind
+know enough to leave me alone. Besides, I know better now how to take
+care of myself. You remember the frightened cry-baby I used to be&mdash;well,
+I've learned to hold my own."</p>
+
+<p>She was extraordinarily affectionate, full of unexpected little ways of
+endearment, and clung to me when we parted, making me promise to return
+very soon. Yes, she was my girl, devoted to me, attached to me by every
+tendril of her being. Every look, every word, every act of her expressed
+a bright, fine, radiant love. I was satisfied, yet unsatisfied, and once
+again I entreated her.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_276" id="page_276" title="276"></a>"Berna, are you sure, quite sure, you're all right in that place among
+all that folly and drunkenness and vice? Let me take you away, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no," she said very tenderly; "I'm all right. I would tell you at
+once, my boy, if I had any fear. That's just what a poor girl has to put
+up with all the time; that's what I've had to put up with all my life.
+Believe me, boy, I'm wonderfully blind and deaf at times. I don't think
+I'm very bad, am I?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're as good as gold."</p>
+
+<p>"For your sake I'll always try to be," she answered.</p>
+
+<p>As we were kissing good-bye she asked timidly:</p>
+
+<p>"What about the rouge, dear? Shall I cease to use it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Poor little girl! Oh no, I don't suppose it matters. I've got very
+old-fashioned ideas. Good-bye, darling."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, beloved."</p>
+
+<p>I went away treading on sunshine, trembling with joy, thrilled with love
+for her, blessing her anew.</p>
+
+<p>Yet still the rouge stuck in my crop as if it were the symbol of some
+insidious decadence.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_277" id="page_277" title="277"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>It was about two months later when I returned from a flying visit to
+Dawson.</p>
+
+<p>"Lots of mail for you two," I cried, exultantly bursting into the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>"Mail? Hooray!"</p>
+
+<p>Jim and the Prodigal, who were lying on their bunks, leapt up eagerly.
+No one longs for his letters like your Northern exile, and for two whole
+months we had not heard from the outside.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I got over fifty letters between us three. Drew about a dozen
+myself, there's half a dozen for you, Jim, and the balance for you, old
+sport."</p>
+
+<p>I handed the Prodigal about two dozen letters.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! now we'll have the whole evening just to browse on them. My, what a
+stack! How was it you had a time getting them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you see, when I got into town the mail had just been sorted, and
+there was a string of over three hundred men waiting at the general
+delivery wicket. I took my place at the tail-end of the line, and every
+newcomer fell in behind me. My! but it was such weary waiting, moving up
+step by step; but I'd just about got there when closing-time came. They
+wouldn't give out any more mail&mdash;after my three hours' wait, too."</p>
+
+<p>"What did you do?"</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_278" id="page_278" title="278"></a>"Well, it seems every one gives way to the womenfolk. So I happened to
+see a girl friend of mine, and she said she would go round first thing
+in the morning and enquire if there were any letters for us. She brought
+me this bunch."</p>
+
+<p>I indicated the pile of letters.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm told lots of women in town make a business of getting letters for
+men, and charge a dollar a letter. It's awful how hard it is to get
+mail. Half of the clerks seem scarcely able to read the addresses on the
+envelopes. It's positively sad to watch the faces of the poor wretches
+who get nothing, knowing, too, that the chances are there is really
+something for them sorted away in a wrong box."</p>
+
+<p>"That's pretty tough."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you should have seen them; men just ravenous to hear from their
+families; a clerk carelessly shuffling through a pile of letters.
+'Beachwood, did you say? Nope, nothing for you.' 'Hold on there! what's
+that in your hand? Surely I know my wife's writing.' 'Beachwood&mdash;yep,
+that's right. Looked like Peachwood to me. All right. Next there.' Then
+the man would go off with his letter, looking half-wrathful,
+half-radiant. Well, I enjoyed my trip, but I'm glad I'm home."</p>
+
+<p>I threw myself on my bunk voluptuously, and began re-reading my letters.
+There were some from Garry and some from Mother. While still
+unreconciled to the life I was leading, they were greatly interested in
+my wildly cheerful accounts of the country. They were disposed to be
+less censorious, and I <a class="pagenum" name="page_279" id="page_279" title="279"></a>for my part was only too glad Mother was well
+enough to write, even if she did scold me sometimes. So I was able to
+open my mail without misgivings.</p>
+
+<p>But I was still aglow with memories of the last few hours. Once more I
+had seen Berna, spent moments with her of perfect bliss, left her with
+my mind full of exaltation and bewildered gratitude. She was the perfect
+answer to my heart's call, a mirror that seemed to flash back the
+challenge of my joy. I saw the love mists gather in her eyes, I felt her
+sweet lips mould themselves to mine, I thrilled with the sheathing
+ardour of her arms. Never in my fondest imaginings had I conceived that
+such a wealth of affection would ever be for me. Buoyant she was, brave,
+inspiring, and always with her buoyancy so wondrous tender I felt that
+willingly would I die for her.</p>
+
+<p>Once again I told her of my fear, my anxiety for her safety among those
+rough men in that cesspool of iniquity. Very earnestly she strove to
+reassure me.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my dear, it is in those rough men, the uncouth, big-hearted miners,
+that I place my trust. They know I'm a good girl. They wouldn't say a
+coarse thing before me for the world. You've no idea the chivalrous
+respect they show for me, and the rougher they are the finer their
+instincts seem to be. It's the others, the so-called gentlemen, who
+would like to take advantage of me if they could."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at me with bright, clear eyes, fearless in their scorn of
+sham and pretence.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_280" id="page_280" title="280"></a>"Then there are the women. It's strange, but no matter how degraded
+they are they try to shield and protect me. Only last week Kimona Kate
+made a fearful scene with her escort because he said something bad
+before me. I'm getting tolerant. Oh, you've no idea until you know them
+what good qualities some of these women have. Often their hearts are as
+big as all outdoors; they would nurse you devotedly if you were sick;
+they would give you their last dollar if you were in want. Many of them
+have old mothers and little children they're supporting outside, and
+they would rather die than that their dear ones should know the life
+they are living. It's the men, the men that are to blame."</p>
+
+<p>I shook my head sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like it, Berna, I don't like it at all. I hate you to know the
+like of such people, such things. I just want you to be again the dear,
+sweet little girl I first knew, all maidenly modesty and shuddering
+aversion of evil."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid, dear, I shall never be that again," she said sorrowfully;
+"but am I any the worse for knowing? Why should you men want to keep all
+such knowledge to yourselves? Is our innocence simply to be another name
+for ignorance?"</p>
+
+<p>She put her arms round my neck and kissed me fervently.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, my dear, my dear. I have seen the vileness of things, and it
+only makes me more in love with love and beauty. We'll go, you and I, to
+Italy very soon, and forget, forget. Even if we have to <a class="pagenum" name="page_281" id="page_281" title="281"></a>toil like
+peasants in the vineyards we'll go, far, far away."</p>
+
+<p>So I felt strengthened, stimulated, gladdened, and, as I lay on my bunk
+listening to the merry crackle of the wood fire, I was in a purring
+lethargy of content. Then I remembered something.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, say, boys, I forgot to tell you. I met McCrimmon down the creek.
+You remember him on the trail, the Halfbreed. He was asking after you
+both; then all at once he said he wanted to see us on important
+business. He has a proposal to make, he says, that would be greatly to
+our advantage. He's coming along this evening.&mdash;What's the matter, Jim?"</p>
+
+<p>Jim was staring blankly at one of the letters he had received. His face
+was a picture of distress, misery, despair. Without replying, he went
+and knelt down by his bed. He sighed deeply. Slowly his face grew calm
+again; then I saw that he was praying. We were silent in respectful
+sympathy, but when, in a little, he got up and went out, I followed him.</p>
+
+<p>"Had bad news, old man?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've had a letter that's upset me. I'm in a terrible position. If ever
+I wanted strength and guidance, I want it now."</p>
+
+<p>"Heard about that man?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it's him, all right; it's Mosher. I suspicioned it all along.
+Here's a letter from my brother. He says there's no doubt that Mosher is
+Moseley."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_282" id="page_282" title="282"></a>His eyes were stormy, his face tragic in its bitterness.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you don't know how I worshipped that woman, trusted her, would have
+banked my life on her; and when I was away making money for her she ups
+and goes away with that slimy reptile. In the old days I would have torn
+him to pieces, but now&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He sighed distractedly.</p>
+
+<p>"What am I to do? What am I to do? The Good Book says forgive your
+enemies, but how can I forgive a wrong like that? And my poor girl&mdash;he
+deserted her, drove her to the streets. Ugh! if I could kill him by slow
+torture, gloat over his agony&mdash;but I can't, can I?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Jim, you can't do anything. Vengeance is the Lord's."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know, I know. But it's hard, it's hard. O my girl, my girl!"</p>
+
+<p>Tears overran his cheeks. He sat down on a log, burying his face in his
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>"O God, help and sustain me in this my hour of need."</p>
+
+<p>I was at a loss how to comfort him, and it was while I was waiting there
+that suddenly we saw the Halfbreed coming up the trail.</p>
+
+<p>"Better come in, Jim," I said, "and hear what he's got to say."</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_283" id="page_283" title="283"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>We made McCrimmon comfortable. We kept no whisky in the cabin, but we
+gave him some hot coffee, which he drank with great satisfaction. Then
+he twisted a cigarette, lit it, and looked at us keenly. On his brown,
+flattish face were remarkable the impassivity of the Indian and the
+astuteness of the Scot. We were regarding him curiously. Jim had
+regained his calm, and was quietly watchful. The Prodigal seemed to have
+his ears cocked to listen. There was a feeling amongst us as if we had
+reached a crisis in our fortunes.</p>
+
+<p>The Halfbreed lost no time in coming to the point.</p>
+
+<p>"I like you boys. You're square and above-board. You're workers, and you
+don't drink&mdash;that's the main thing.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, to get right down to cases. I'm a bit of a mining man. I've mined
+at Cassiar and Caribou, and I know something of the business. Now I've
+got next to a good thing.&mdash;I don't know how good yet, but I'll swear to
+you it's a tidy bit. There may be only ten thousand in it, and there may
+be one hundred and ten. It's a gambling proposition, and I want
+pardners, pardners that'll work like blazes and keep their faces shut.
+Are you on?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's got us kodaked," said the Prodigal. "We're that sort, and if the
+proposition looks good <a class="pagenum" name="page_284" id="page_284" title="284"></a>to us we're with you. Anyway, we're clams at
+keeping our food-traps tight."</p>
+
+<p>"All right; listen. You know the Arctic Transportation Co. have claims
+on upper Bonanza&mdash;well, a month back I was working for them. We were
+down about twenty feet and were drifting in. They set me to work in the
+drift. The roof kept sloughing in on me, and it was mighty dangerous. So
+far we hadn't got pay-dirt, but their mining manager wanted us to drift
+in a little further. If we didn't strike good pay in a few more feet we
+were to quit.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, one morning I went down and cleaned away the ash of my fire. The
+first stroke of my pick on the thawed face made me jump, stare, stand
+stock-still, thinking hard. For there, right in the hole I had made, was
+the richest pocket I ever seen."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't say! Are you sure?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, boys, as I'm alive there was nuggets in it as thick as raisins in
+a Christmas plum-duff. I could see the yellow gleam where the pick had
+grazed them, and the longer I looked the more could I see."</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord! What did you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"What did I do! I just stepped back and picked at the roof for all I was
+worth. A big bunch of muck came down, covering up the face. Then, like a
+crazy man, I picked wherever the dirt seemed loose all the way down the
+drift. Great heaps of dirt caved in on me. I was stunned, nearly buried,
+but I did the trick. There were tons of dirt between me and my find."</p>
+
+<p>We gasped with amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"The rest was easy. I went up the shaft groaning <a class="pagenum" name="page_285" id="page_285" title="285"></a>and cursing. I
+pretended to faint. I told them the roof of the drift had fallen in on
+me. It was rotten stuff, anyway, and they knew it. They didn't mind me
+risking my life. I cursed them, said I would sue the Company, and went
+off looking too sore for words. The Manager was disgusted, he went down
+and took a look at things; declared he would throw up the work at that
+place; the ground was no good. He made that report to the Company."</p>
+
+<p>The Halfbreed looked round triumphantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, here's the point. We can get a lay on that ground. One of you boys
+must apply for it. They mustn't know I'm in with you, or they would
+suspect right away. They're none too scrupulous themselves in their
+dealings."</p>
+
+<p>He paused impressively.</p>
+
+<p>"You cinch that lay agreement. Get it signed right away. We'll go in and
+work like Old Nick. We'll make a big clean-up by Spring. I'll take you
+right to the gold. There's thousands and thousands lying snug in the
+ground just waiting for us. It's right in our mit. Oh, it's a cinch, a
+cinch!"</p>
+
+<p>The Halfbreed almost grew excited. Bending forward, he eyed us keenly.
+In a breathless silence we stared at each other.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I objected, "seems to be putting up rather a job on the
+Company."</p>
+
+<p>Jim was silent, but the Prodigal cut in sharply:</p>
+
+<p>"Job nothing&mdash;it's a square proposition. We don't know for certain that
+gold's there. Maybe it's only a piffling pocket, and we'll get souped
+for our <a class="pagenum" name="page_286" id="page_286" title="286"></a>pains. No, it seems to me it's a fair gambling proposition.
+We're taking all kinds of chances. It means awful hard work; it means
+privation and, maybe, bitter disappointment. It's a gamble, I tell you,
+and are we going to be such poor sports as turn it down? I for one am
+strongly in favour of it. What do you say? A big sporting chance&mdash;are
+you there, boys, are you there?"</p>
+
+<p>He almost shouted in his excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush! Some one might hear you," warned the Halfbreed.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that's right. Well, it looks mighty good to me, and if you boys
+are willing we'll just draw up papers and sign an agreement right away.
+Is it a go?"</p>
+
+<p>We nodded, so he got ink and paper and drew up a form of partnership.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said he, his eyes dancing, "now, to secure that lay before any
+one else cuts in on us. Gee! but it's getting dark and cold outdoors
+these days. Snow falling; well, I must mush to Dawson to-night."</p>
+
+<p>He hurried on some warm, yet light, clothing, all the time talking
+excitedly of the chance that fortune had thrown in our way, and gleeful
+as a schoolboy.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, boys," he says, "hope I'll have good luck. Jim, put in a prayer
+for me. Well, see you all to-morrow. Good-bye."</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>It was late next night when he returned. We were sitting in the cabin,
+anxious and expectant, when he threw open the door. He was tired, wet,
+dirty, but irrepressibly jubilant.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_287" id="page_287" title="287"></a>"Hurrah, boys!" he cried. "I've cinched it. I saw Mister Manager of the
+big Company. He was very busy, very important, very patronising. I was
+the poor miner seeking a lay. I played the part well. He began by
+telling me he didn't want to give any lays at present; just wanted to
+stand me off, you know; make me more keen. I spoke about some of their
+ground on Hunker. He didn't seem enthusiastic. Then, at last, as if in
+despair, I mentioned this bit on Bonanza. I could see he was itching to
+let me have it, but he was too foxy to show it. He actually told me it
+was an extra rich piece of ground, when all the time he knew his own
+mining engineer had condemned it."</p>
+
+<p>The Prodigal's eyes danced delightedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we sparred round a bit like two fake fighters. My! but he was
+wily, that old Jew. Finally he agreed to let me have it on a
+fifty-per-cent. basis. Don't faint, boys. Fifty per cent., I said. I'm
+sorry. It was the best I could do, and you know I'm not slow. That means
+they get half of all we take out. Oh, the old shark! the robber! I tried
+to beat him down, but he stood pat; wouldn't budge. So I gave in, and we
+signed the lay agreement, and now everything's in shape. Gee whiz!
+didn't I give a sigh of relief when I got outside! He thinks I'm the
+fall guy, and went off chuckling."</p>
+
+<p>He raised his voice triumphantly.</p>
+
+<p>"And now, boys, we've got the ground cinched, so get action on
+yourselves. Here's where we make our first real stab at fortune. Here's
+where we even <a class="pagenum" name="page_288" id="page_288" title="288"></a>up on the hard jabs she's handed us in the past; here's
+where we score a bull's-eye, or I miss my guess. The gold's there, boys,
+you can bank on that; and the harder we work the more we're going to get
+of it. Now, we're going to work hard. We're going to make ordinary hard
+work look like a Summer vacation. We're going to work for all we're
+worth&mdash;and then some. Are you there, boys, are you there?"</p>
+
+<p>"We are," we shouted with one accord.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_289" id="page_289" title="289"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>There was no time to lose. Every hour for us meant so much more of that
+precious pay-dirt that lay under the frozen surface. The Winter leapt on
+us with a swoop, a harsh, unconciliating Winter, that made out-door work
+an unmitigated hardship. But there was the hope of fortune nerving and
+bracing us, till we lost in it all thought of self. Nothing short of
+desperate sickness, death even, would drive us from our posts. It was
+with this dauntless spirit we entered on the task before us.</p>
+
+<p>And, indeed, it was one that called for all in a man of energy and
+self-sacrifice. There was wood to get for the thawing of the ground;
+there was a cabin to be built on the claim; and, lastly, there was a
+vast dump to be taken out of the ground for the spring sluicing. We
+planned things so that no man would be idle for a moment, and so that
+every ounce of strength expended would show its result.</p>
+
+<p>The Halfbreed took charge, and we, recognising it as his show, obeyed
+him implicitly. He decided to put down two holes to bed-rock, and, after
+much deliberation, selected the places. This was a matter for the
+greatest judgment and experience, and we were satisfied that he had
+both.</p>
+
+<p>We ran up a little cabin and banked it nearly to the low eaves with
+snow. By-and-bye more fell <a class="pagenum" name="page_290" id="page_290" title="290"></a>on the roof to the depth of three feet, so
+that the place seemed like a huge white hummock. Only in front could you
+recognise it as a cabin by the low doorway, where we had always to stoop
+on entering. Within were our bunks, a tiny stove, a few boxes to sit on,
+a few dishes, our grub; that was all. Often we regretted our big cabin
+on the hill, with its calico-lined "den" and its separate kitchen. But
+in this little box of a home we were to put in many weary months.</p>
+
+<p>Not that the time seemed long to us; we were too busy for that. Indeed,
+often we wished it were twice as long. Snow had fallen in September, and
+by December we were in an Arctic world of uncompromising harshness. Day
+after day the glass stood between forty and fifty below zero. It was
+hatefully, dangerously cold. It seemed as if the frost-fiend had a cruel
+grudge against us. It made us grim&mdash;and careful. We didn't talk much in
+those days. We just worked, worked, worked, and when we did talk it was
+of our work, our ceaseless work.</p>
+
+<p>Would we strike it rich? It was all a gamble, the most exciting gamble
+in the world. It thrilled our day hours with excitement; it haunted our
+sleep; it lent strength to the pick-stroke and vigour to the
+windlass-crank. It made us forget the bitter cold, till some one would
+exclaim, and gently knead the fresh snow on our faces. The cold burned
+our cheeks a fierce brick-red, and a frostbite showed on them like a
+patch of white putty. The old scars, never healing, were like blotches
+of lamp-black.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_291" id="page_291" title="291"></a>But neither cold nor fatigue could keep us away from the shaft and the
+drift. We had gone down to bed-rock, and were tunnelling in to meet the
+hole the Halfbreed had covered up. So far we had found nothing. Every
+day we panned samples of the dirt, always getting colours, sometimes a
+fifty-cent pan, but never what we dreamed of, hoped for.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait, boys, till we get a two-hundred-dollar pan, then we'll begin to
+whoop it up some."</p>
+
+<p>Once the Company Manager came down on a dog-team. He looked over our
+shaft. He wore a coon coat, with a cap of beaver, and huge fur mits hung
+by a cord around his neck. He was massive and impassive. Spiky icicles
+bristled around his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"What luck, boys?" His breath came like steam.</p>
+
+<p>"None, so far," we told him, wearily, and off he went into the frozen
+gloom, saying he hoped we would strike it before long.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a while."</p>
+
+<p>We were working two men to a shaft, burning our ground over night. The
+Prodigal and I manned the windlasses, while the old miners went down the
+drifts. It was a cold, cold job standing there on that rugged platform
+turning the windlass-crank. Long before it was fairly light we got to
+our posts, and lowered our men into the hole. The air was warmer down
+there; but the work was harder, more difficult, more dangerous.</p>
+
+<p>At noon there was no sunshine, only a wan, ashen light that suffused the
+sky. A deathlike stillness lay <a class="pagenum" name="page_292" id="page_292" title="292"></a>on the valley, not a quiver or movement
+in leaf or blade. The snow was a shroud, smooth save where the funereal
+pines pricked through. In that intensity of cold, that shivering agony
+of desolation, it seemed as if nature was laughing at us&mdash;the Cosmic
+Laugh.</p>
+
+<p>Our meals were hurriedly cooked and bolted. We grudged every moment of
+our respite from toil. At night we often were far too weary to undress.
+We lost our regard for cleanliness; we neglected ourselves. Always we
+talked of the result of the day's panning and the chances of to-morrow.
+Surely we would strike it soon.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait awhile."</p>
+
+<p>Colder it grew and colder. Our kerosene flowed like mush. The water
+froze solid in our kettle. Our bread was full of icy particles.
+Everything had to be thawed out continually. It was tiresome,
+exasperating, when we were in such a devil of a hurry. It kept us back;
+it angered us, this pest of a cold. Our tempers began to suffer. We were
+short, taciturn. The strain was beginning to tell on us.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait awhile."</p>
+
+<p>Then, one afternoon, the Something happened. It was Jim who was the
+chosen one. About three o'clock he signalled to be hoisted up, and when
+he appeared he was carrying a pan of dirt. "Call the others," he said.</p>
+
+<p>All together in the little cabin we stood round, while Jim washed out
+the pan in snow-water melt over our stove. I will never forget how
+eagerly we watched the gravel, and the whirling, dexterous movements <a class="pagenum" name="page_293" id="page_293" title="293"></a>of
+the old man. We could see gleams of yellow in the muddy water. Thrills
+of joy and hope went through us. We had got the thing, the big thing, at
+last.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurry, Jim," I said, "or I'll die of suspense."</p>
+
+<p>Patiently he went on. There it was at last in the bottom of the
+pan&mdash;sweeter to our eyes than to a woman the sight of her first-born.
+There it lay, glittering, gleaming gold, fine gold, coarse gold, nuggety
+gold.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, boys, you can whoop it up," said Jim quietly; "for there's many
+and many a pan like it down there in the drift."</p>
+
+<p>But never a whoop. What was the matter with us? When the fortune we had
+longed for so eagerly came at last, we did not greet it even with a
+cheer. Oh, we were painfully silent.</p>
+
+<p>Solemnly we shook hands all round.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_294" id="page_294" title="294"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Now to weigh it," said the Prodigal.</p>
+
+<p>On the tiny pair of scales we turned it out&mdash;ninety-five dollars' worth.</p>
+
+<p>Well, it was a good start, and we were all possessed with a frantic
+eagerness to go down in the drift. I crawled along the tunnel. There, in
+the face of it, I could see the gold shining, and the longer I looked
+the more I seemed to see. It was rich, rich. I picked out and burnished
+a nugget as large as a filbert. There were lots of others like it. It
+was a strike. The question was: how much was there of it? The Halfbreed
+soon settled our doubts on that score.</p>
+
+<p>"It stands to reason the pay runs between where I first found it and
+where we've struck it now. That alone means a tidy stake for each of us.
+Say, boys, if you were to cover all that distance with twenty-dollar
+gold pieces six feet wide, and packed edge to edge, I wouldn't take them
+for our interest in that bit of ground. I see a fine big ranch in
+Manitoba for my share; ay, and hired help to run it. The only thing that
+sticks in my gullet is that fifty per cent. to the Company."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we can't kick," I said; "we'd never have got the lay if they'd
+had a hunch. My! won't they be sore?"</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_295" id="page_295" title="295"></a>Sure enough, in a few days the news leaked out, and the Manager came
+post-haste.</p>
+
+<p>"Hear you've struck it rich, boys."</p>
+
+<p>"So rich that I guess we'll have to pack down gravel from the benches to
+mix in before we can sluice it," said the Prodigal.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't say. Well, I'll have to have a man on the ground to look
+after our interests."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. It means a good thing for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but it would have meant a better if we had worked it ourselves.
+However, you boys deserve your luck. Hello, the devil&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He turned round and saw the Halfbreed. He gave a long whistle and went
+away, looking pensive.</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>It was the night of the discovery when the Prodigal made us an address.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, boys; do you know what this means? It means victory; it
+means freedom, happiness, the things we want, the life we love. To me it
+means travel, New York, Paris, evening dress, the opera. To McCrimmon
+here it means his farm. To each according to his notion, it means the
+'Things That Matter.'</p>
+
+<p>"Now, we've just begun. The hardest part is to come, is to get out the
+fortune that's right under our feet. We're going to get every cent of
+it, boys. There's a little over three months to do it in, leaving about
+a month to make sluice-boxes and clean up the dirt. We've got to work
+like men at a burning barn. We've worked hard, but we've got to go <a class="pagenum" name="page_296" id="page_296" title="296"></a>some
+yet. For my part, I'm willing to do stunts that will make my previous
+record look like a plugged dime. I guess you boys all feel the same
+way."</p>
+
+<p>"You bet we do."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, nuf sed; let's get busy."</p>
+
+<p>So, once more, with redoubled energy, we resumed our tense, unremitting
+round of toil. Now, however, it was vastly different. Every bucket of
+dirt meant money in our pockets, every stroke of the pick a dollar. Not
+that it was all like the first rich pocket we had struck. It proved a
+most erratic and puzzling paystreak&mdash;one day rich beyond our dreams,
+another too poor to pay for the panning. We swung on a pendulum of hope
+and despair. Perhaps this made it all the more exciting, and stimulated
+us unnaturally, and always we cursed that primitive method of mining
+that made every bucket of dirt the net result of infinite labor.</p>
+
+<p>Every day our two dumps increased in size (for we had struck pay on the
+other shaft), and every day our assurance and elation increased
+correspondingly. It was bruited around that we had one of the richest
+bits of ground in the country, and many came to gaze at us. It used to
+lighten my labours at the windlass to see their looks of envy and to
+hear their awe-stricken remarks.</p>
+
+<p>"That's one of them," they would say; "one of the lucky four, the lucky
+laymen."</p>
+
+<p>So, as the facts, grossly exaggerated, got noised abroad, they came to
+call us the "Lucky Laymen."</p>
+
+<p>Looking back, there will always seem to me something <a class="pagenum" name="page_297" id="page_297" title="297"></a>weird and
+incomprehensible in those twilight days, an unreality, a vagueness like
+some dreary, feverish dream. For three months I did not see my face in a
+mirror. Not that I wanted to, but I mention this just to show how little
+we thought of ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>In like manner, never did I have a moment's time to regard my inner self
+in the mirror of consciousness. No mental analysis now; no long hours of
+retrospection, no t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te interviews with my soul. At times I felt
+as if I had lost my identity. I was a slave of the genie Gold, releasing
+it from its prison in the frozen bowels of the earth. I was an automaton
+turning a crank in the frozen stillness of the long, long night.</p>
+
+<p>It was a life despotically objective, and now, as I look back, it seems
+as if I had never lived it at all. I seem to look down a long, dark
+funnel and see a little machine-man bearing my semblance, patiently,
+steadily, wearily turning the handle of a windlass in the clear,
+lancinating cold of those sombre, silent days.</p>
+
+<p>I say "bearing my outward semblance," and yet I sometimes wonder if that
+rough-bearded figure in heavy woollen clothes looked the least like me.
+I wore heavy sweaters, mackinaw trousers, thick German socks and
+moccasins. From frequent freezing my cheeks were corroded. I was
+miserably thin, and my eyes had a wild, staring expression through the
+pupils dilating in the long darkness. Yes, mentally and physically I was
+no more like myself than a convict enduring out his life in the soulless
+routine of a prison.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_298" id="page_298" title="298"></a>The days were lengthening marvellously. We noted the fact with dull
+joy. It meant more light, more time, more dirt in the dump. So it came
+about that, from ten hours of toil, we went to twelve, to fourteen;
+then, latterly, to sixteen, and the tension of it was wearing us down to
+skin and bone.</p>
+
+<p>We were all feeling wretched, overstrained, ill-nourished, and it was
+only voicing the general sentiment when, one day, the Prodigal remarked:</p>
+
+<p>"I guess I'll have to let up for a couple of days. My teeth are all on
+the bum. I'm going to town to see a dentist."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me look at them," said the Halfbreed.</p>
+
+<p>He looked. The gums were sullen, unwholesome-looking.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, it's a touch of scurvy, lad; a little while, and you'd be spitting
+out your teeth like orange pips; your legs would turn black, and when
+you squeezed your fingers into the flesh the hole would stay. You'd get
+rotten, then you'd mortify and die. But it's the easiest thing in the
+world to cure. Nothing responds to treatment so readily."</p>
+
+<p>He made a huge brew of green-spruce tea, of which we all partook, and in
+a few days the Prodigal was fit again.</p>
+
+<p>It was mid-March when we finished working out our ground. We had done
+well, not so well, perhaps, as we had hoped for, but still magnificently
+well. Never had men worked harder, never fought more desperately for
+success. There were our two <a class="pagenum" name="page_299" id="page_299" title="299"></a>dumps, pyramids of gold-permeated dirt at
+whose value we could only guess. We had wrested our treasure from the
+icy grip of the eternal frost. Now it remained&mdash;and O, the sweetness of
+it&mdash;to glean the harvest of our toil.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_300" id="page_300" title="300"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>"The water's beginning to run, boys," said the Halfbreed. "A few more
+days and we'll be able to start sluicing."</p>
+
+<p>The news was like a flood of sunshine to us. For days we had been fixing
+up the boxes and getting everything in readiness. The sun beat strongly
+on the snow, which almost visibly seemed to retreat before it. The
+dazzlingly white surface was crisp and flaky, and around the tree boles
+curving hollows had formed. Here and there brown earth peered nakedly
+through. Every day the hillside runnels grew in strength.</p>
+
+<p>We were working at the mouth of a creek down which ran a copious little
+stream all through the Springtime. We tapped it some distance above us,
+and ran part of it along our line of sluice-boxes. These boxes went
+between our two dumps, so that it was easy to shovel in from both sides.
+Nothing could have been more convenient.</p>
+
+<p>At last, after a day of hot sunshine, we found quite a freshet of water
+coming down the boxes, leaping and dancing in the morning light. I
+remember how I threw in the first shovelful of dirt, and how good it was
+to see the bright stream discolour as our friend the water began his
+magic work. For three days we shovelled in, and on the fourth we made a
+clean-up.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_301" id="page_301" title="301"></a>"I guess it's time," said Jim, "or those riffles will be gettin' choked
+up."</p>
+
+<p>And, sure enough, when we ran off the water there were some of them
+almost full of the yellow metal, wet and shiny, gloriously agleam in the
+morning light.</p>
+
+<p>"There's ten thousand dollars if there's an ounce," said the Company's
+man, and the weigh-up proved he was right. So the gold was packed in two
+long buckskin pokes and sent into town to be deposited in the bank.</p>
+
+<p>Day after day we went on shovelling in, and about twice a week we made a
+clean-up. The month of May was half over when we had only a third of our
+dirt run through the boxes. We were terribly afraid of the water failing
+us, and worked harder than ever. Indeed, it was difficult to tell when
+to leave off. The nights were never dark now; the daylight was over
+twenty hours in duration. The sun described an ellipse, rising a little
+east of north and setting a little west of north. We shovelled in till
+we were too exhausted to lift another ounce. Then we lay down in our
+clothes and slept as soon as we touched the pillow.</p>
+
+<p>"There's eighty thousand to our credit in the bank, and only a third of
+our dump's gone. Hooray, boys!" said the Prodigal.</p>
+
+<p>About one o'clock in the morning the birds began to sing, and the sunset
+glow had not faded from the sky ere the sunrise quickened it with life
+once more. Who that has lived in the North will ever forget the charm,
+the witchery of those midnight skies, where <a class="pagenum" name="page_302" id="page_302" title="302"></a>the fires of the sun are
+banked and never cold? Surely, long after all else is forgotten, will
+linger the memory of those mystic nights with all their haunting spell
+of weird, disconsolate solitude.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon I was working on the dump, intent on shovelling in as much
+dirt as possible before supper, when, on looking up, who should greet me
+but Locasto. Since our last interview in town I had not seen him, and,
+somehow, this sudden sight of him came as a kind of a shock. Yet the
+manner of the man as he approached me was hearty in the extreme. He held
+out his great hand to me, and, as I had no desire to antagonise him, I
+gave him my own.</p>
+
+<p>He was riding. His big, handsome face was bronzed, his black eyes clear
+and sparkling, his white teeth gleamed like mammoth ivory. He certainly
+was a dashing, dominant figure of a man, and, in spite of myself, I
+admired him.</p>
+
+<p>His manner in his salutation was cordial, even winning.</p>
+
+<p>"I've just been visiting some of my creek properties," he said. "I heard
+you fellows had made a good strike, and I thought I'd come down and
+congratulate you. It is pretty good, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said; "not quite so good as we expected, but we'll all have a
+tidy sum."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad. Well, I suppose you'll go outside this Fall."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I think I'll stay in. You see, we've the Gold Hill property, which
+looks promising; and then we have two claims on Ophir."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_303" id="page_303" title="303"></a>"Oh, Ophir! I don't think you'll ever take a fortune out of Ophir. I
+bought a claim there the other day. The man pestered me, so I gave him
+five thousand for it, just to get rid of him. It's eight below."</p>
+
+<p>"Why," I said, "that's the claim I staked and got beaten out of."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't say so. Well, now, that's too bad. I bought it from a man
+named Spankiller; his brother's a clerk in the gold office. Tell you
+what I'll do. I'll let you have it for the five thousand I gave for it."</p>
+
+<p>"No," I answered, "I don't think I want it now."</p>
+
+<p>"All right; think it over, anyway. If you should change your mind, let
+me know. Well, I must go. I've got to get into town to-night. That's my
+mule-train back there on the trail. I've got pretty nearly ten thousand
+ounces over there."</p>
+
+<p>I looked and saw the mules with the gold-packs slung over their backs.
+There were four men to guard them, and it seemed to me that in one of
+these men I recognised the little wizened figure of the Worm.</p>
+
+<p>I shivered.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I've done pretty well," he continued; "but it don't make any
+difference. I spend it as fast as I get it. A month ago I didn't have
+enough ready cash to pay my cigar bill, yet I could have gone to the
+bank and borrowed a hundred thousand. It was there in the dump. Oh, it's
+a rum business this mining. Well, good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>He was turning to go when, suddenly, he stopped.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_304" id="page_304" title="304"></a>"Oh, by the way, I saw a friend of yours before I left. No need to
+mention names, you lucky dog. When's the big thing coming off? Well, I
+must congratulate you again. She looks sweeter than ever. By-by."</p>
+
+<p>He was off, leaving a very sinister impression on my mind. In his
+parting smile there was a trace of mockery that gravely disquieted me. I
+had thought much of Berna during the past few months, but as the gold
+fever took hold of me I put her more and more from my mind. I told
+myself that all this struggle was for her. In the thought that she was
+safe I calmed all anxious fear. Sometimes by not thinking so much of
+dear ones, one can be more thoughtful of them. So it was with me. I knew
+that all my concentration of effort was for her sake, and would bring
+her nearer to me. Yet at Locasto's words all my old longing and
+heartache vehemently resurged.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of myself, I was the prey of a growing uneasiness. Things
+seemed vastly different, now success had come to me. I could not bear to
+think of her working in that ambiguous restaurant, rubbing shoulders
+with its unspeakable habitu&eacute;s. I wondered how I had ever deceived myself
+into thinking it was all right. I began to worry, so that I knew only a
+trip into Dawson would satisfy me. Accordingly, I hired a big Swede to
+take my place at the shovel, and set out once more on the hillside trail
+for town.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_305" id="page_305" title="305"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>I found the town more animated than ever, the streets more populous, the
+gaiety more unrestrained. Everywhere were flaunting signs of a plethoric
+wealth. The anxious Cheechako had vanished from the scene, and the
+victorious miner masqueraded in his place. He swaggered along in the
+glow of the Spring sunshine, a picture of perfect manhood, bronzed and
+lean and muscular. He was brimming over with the exuberance of health.
+He had come into town to "live" things, to transmute this yellow dust
+into happiness, to taste the wine of life, to know the lips of flame.</p>
+
+<p>It was the day of the Man with the Poke. He was King. The sheer
+animalism of him overflowed in midnight roysterings, in bacchanalian
+revels, in debauches among the human d&eacute;bris of the tenderloin.</p>
+
+<p>Every one was waiting for him, to fleece him, rob him, strip him. It was
+also the day of the man behind the bar, of the gambler, of the harpy.</p>
+
+<p>My strange, formless fears for Berna were soon set at rest. She was
+awaiting me. She looked better than I had ever seen her, and she
+welcomed me with an eager delight that kindled me to rapture.</p>
+
+<p>"Just think of it," she said, "only two weeks, and we'll be together for
+always. It seems too good to be true. Oh, my dear, how can I ever love
+you <a class="pagenum" name="page_306" id="page_306" title="306"></a>enough? How happy we are going to be, aren't we?"</p>
+
+<p>"We're going to be happier than any two people ever were before," I
+assured her.</p>
+
+<p>We crossed the Yukon to the green glades of North Dawson, and there, on
+a little rise, we sat down, side by side. How I wish I could put into
+words the joy that filled my heart! Never was lad so happy as I. I spoke
+but little, for love's silences are sweeter than all words. Well, well I
+mind me how she looked: just like a picture, her hands clasped on her
+lap, her eyes star-bright, angel-sweet, mother-tender. From time to time
+she would give me a glance so full of trust and love that my heart would
+leap to her, and wave on wave of passionate tenderness come sweeping
+over me.</p>
+
+<p>It may be there was something humble in my stintless adoration; it may
+be I was like a child for the pleasure of her nearness; it may be my
+eyes told all too well of the fire that burned within me, but O, the
+girl was kind, gentler than forgiveness, sweeter than all heaven.
+Caressingly she touched my hair. I kissed her fingers, kissed them again
+and again; and then she lifted my hand to her lips, and I felt her kiss
+fall upon it. How wondrously I tingled at the touch. My hand seemed mine
+no longer&mdash;a consecrated thing. Proud, happy me!</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she went on, "doesn't it seem as if we were dreaming? You know, I
+always thought it was a dream, and now it's coming true. You'll take me
+away from this place, won't you, boy?&mdash;far, far away. <a class="pagenum" name="page_307" id="page_307" title="307"></a>I'll tell you
+now, dear, I've borne it all for your sake, but I don't think I could
+bear it any longer. I would rather die than sink in the mire, and yet
+you can't imagine how this life affects one. It's sad, sad, but I don't
+get shocked at things in the way I used to. You know, I sometimes think
+a girl, no matter how good, sweet, modest to begin with, placed in such
+surroundings could fall gradually."</p>
+
+<p>I agreed with her. Too well I knew I was becoming calloused to the evils
+around me. Such was the insidious corruption of the gold-camp, I now
+regarded with indifference things that a year ago I would have shrunk
+from with disgust.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it will be all over very soon, won't it, dear? I don't know what
+I'd have done if it hadn't been for the rough miners. They've been so
+kind to me. When they saw I was straight and honest they couldn't be
+good enough. They shielded me in every way, and kept back the other kind
+of men. Even the women have been my friends and helped me."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at me archly.</p>
+
+<p>"And, you know, I've had ever so many offers of marriage, too, from
+honest, rough, kindly men&mdash;and I've refused them ever so gracefully."</p>
+
+<p>"Has Locasto ever made any more overtures?"</p>
+
+<p>Her face grew grave.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, about a month ago he besieged me, gave me no rest, made all kinds
+of proposals and promises. He wanted to divorce his 'outside' wife and
+marry me. He wanted to settle a hundred thousand dollars on me. He tried
+everything in his power to force <a class="pagenum" name="page_308" id="page_308" title="308"></a>me to his will. Then, when he saw it
+was no use, he turned round and begged me to let him be my friend. He
+spoke so nicely of you. He said he would help us in any way he could.
+He's everything that's kind to me now. He can't do enough for me. Yet,
+somehow, I don't trust him."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my precious," I assured her, "all danger, doubt, despair, will
+soon be over. Locasto and the rest of them will be as shadows, never to
+haunt my little girl again. The Great, Black North will fade away, will
+dissolve into the land of sunshine and flowers and song. You will forget
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"The Great Black North.&mdash;I will never forget it, and I will always bless
+it. It has given me my love, the best love in all the world."</p>
+
+<p>"O my darling, my Life, I'll take you away from it all soon, soon. We'll
+go to my home, to Garry, to Mother. They will love you as I love you."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure I will love them. What you have told me of them makes them
+seem very real to me. Will you not be ashamed of me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will be proud, proud of you, my girl."</p>
+
+<p>Ah, would I not! I looked at that flower-like face the sunshine
+glorified so, the pretty, bright hair falling away from her low brow in
+little waves, the lily throat, the delicately patrician features, the
+proud poise of her head. Who would not have been proud of her? She awoke
+all that was divine in me. I looked as one might look on a vision,
+scarce able to believe it real.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_309" id="page_309" title="309"></a>Suddenly she pointed excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Look, dear, look at the rainbow. Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it
+beautiful?"</p>
+
+<p>I gazed in rapt admiration. Across the river a shower had fallen, and
+the clouds, clearing away abruptly, had left there a twin rainbow of
+matchless perfection. Its double arch was poised as accurately over the
+town as if it had been painted there. Each hoop was flawless in form,
+lovely in hue, tenderly luminous, exquisite in purity. Never had I seen
+the double iris so immaculate in colouring, and, with its bases resting
+on the river, it curved over the gold-born city like a frame of ethereal
+beauty.</p>
+
+<p>"Does it not seem, dear, like an answer to our prayer, an omen of good
+hope, a promise for the future?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, beloved, our future, yours and mine. The clouds are rolling away.
+All is bright with sunshine once again, and God sends His rainbow to
+cheer and comfort us. It will not be long now. On the first day of June,
+beloved, I will come to you, and we will be made man and wife. You will
+be waiting for me, will you not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, waiting ever so eagerly, my lover, counting every hour, every
+minute."</p>
+
+<p>I kissed her passionately, and we held each other tightly for a moment.
+I saw come into her eyes that look which comes but once into the eyes of
+a maid, that look of ineffable self-surrender, of passionate
+abandonment. Life is niggard of such moments, yet can our lives be
+summed up in them.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_310" id="page_310" title="310"></a>She rested her head on my shoulder; her lips lay on mine, and they
+moved faintly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, lover, yes, the first of June. Don't fail me, honey, don't fail
+me."</p>
+
+<p>We parted, buoyant with hope, in an ecstasy of joy. She was for me, this
+beautiful, tender girl, for me. And the time was nigh when she should be
+mine, mine to adore until the end. Always would she be by my side; daily
+could I plot and plan to give her pleasure; every hour by word and look
+and act could I lavish on her the exhaustless measure of my love. Ah!
+life would be too short for me. Could aught in this petty purblind
+existence of ours redeem it and exalt it so: her love, this pure sweet
+girl's, and mine. Let nations grapple, let Mammon triumph, let
+pestilence o'erwhelm; what matter, we love, we love. O proud, happy me!</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>I got back to the claim. Everything was going merrily, but I felt little
+desire to resume my toil. I was strangely wearied, worn out somehow. Yet
+I took up my shovel again with a body that rebelled in every tissue.
+Never had I felt like this before. Something was wrong with me. I was
+weak. At night I sweated greatly. I cared not to eat.</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>"Well," said the Prodigal, "it's all over but the shouting. From my
+calculations we've cleaned up two hundred and six thousand dollars.
+That's a hundred and three between us four. It's cost us about three to
+get out the stuff; so there will be, <a class="pagenum" name="page_311" id="page_311" title="311"></a>roughly speaking, about
+twenty-five thousand for each of us."</p>
+
+<p>How jubilant every one was looking&mdash;every one but me. Somehow I felt as
+if money didn't matter just then, for I was sick, sick.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what's the matter?" said the Prodigal, staring at me curiously.
+"You look like a ghost."</p>
+
+<p>"I feel like one, too," I answered. "I'm afraid I'm in for a bad spell.
+I want to lie down awhile, boys ... I'm tired.... The first of June,
+I've got a date on the first of June. I must keep it, I must.... Don't
+let me sleep too long, boys. I mustn't fail. It's a matter of life and
+death. The first of June...."</p>
+
+<p>Alas, on the first of June I lay in the hospital, raving and tossing in
+the clutches of typhoid fever.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_312" id="page_312" title="312"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>I was lying in bed, and a heavy weight was pressing on me, so that, in
+spite of my struggles, I could not move. I was hot, insufferably hot.
+The blood ran boiling through my veins. My flesh was burning up. My
+brain would not work. It was all cobwebs, murky and stale as a
+charnel-house. Yet at times were strange illuminations, full of terror
+and despair. Blood-red lights and purple shadows alternated in my
+vision. Then came the dreams.</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>There was always Berna. Through a mass of grimacing, greed-contorted
+faces gradually there formed and lingered her sweet and pensive one. We
+were in a strange costume, she and I. It seemed like that of the early
+Georges. We were running away, fleeing from some one. For her sake a
+great fear and anxiety possessed me. We were eloping, I fancied.</p>
+
+<p>There was a marsh to cross, a hideous quagmire, and our pursuers were
+close. We started over the quaking ground, then, suddenly, I saw her
+sink. I rushed to aid her, and I, too, sank. We were to our necks in the
+soft ooze, and there on the bank, watching us, was the foremost of our
+hunters. He laughed at our struggles; he mocked us; he rejoiced to see
+us <a class="pagenum" name="page_313" id="page_313" title="313"></a>drown. And in my dream the face of the man seemed strangely like
+Locasto.</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>We were in a bower of roses, she and I. It was still further back in
+history. We seemed to be in the garden of a palace. I was in doublet and
+hose, and she wore a long, flowing kirtle. The air was full of fragrance
+and sunshine. Birds were singing. A fountain scattered a shower of
+glittering diamonds on the breeze. She was sitting on the grass, while I
+reclined by her side, my head lying on her lap. Above me I could see her
+face like a lily bending over me. With dainty fingers she crumpled a
+rose and let the petals snow down on me.</p>
+
+<p>Then, suddenly, I was seized, torn away from her by men in black, who
+roughly choked her screams. I was dragged off, thrown into a foul cell,
+left many days. Then, one night, I was dragged forth and brought before
+a grim tribunal in a hall of gloom and horror. They pronounced my
+doom&mdash;Death. The chief Inquisitor raised his mask, and in those gloating
+features I recognised&mdash;Locasto.</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>Again it seemed as if I were still further back in history, in some city
+under the Roman rule. I was returning from the Temple with my bride. How
+fair and fresh and beautiful she was, garlanded with flowers and
+radiantly happy. Again it was Berna.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly there are shouts, the beating of drums, the clash of cymbals.
+The great Governor of the <a class="pagenum" name="page_314" id="page_314" title="314"></a>Province is coming. He passes with his
+retinue. Suddenly he catches sight of her whom I have but newly wed. He
+stops. He asks who is the maid. They tell him. He looks at me with
+haughty contempt. He gives a sign. His servants seize her and drag her
+screaming away. I try to follow, to kill him. I, too, am seized,
+overpowered. They bind me, put out my eyes. The Roman sees them do it.
+He laughs as the red-hot iron kisses my eye-balls. He mocks me, telling
+me what a dainty feast awaits him in my bride. Again I see Locasto.</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>Then came another phase of my delirium, in which I struggled to get to
+her. She was waiting for me, wanting me, breaking her heart at my delay.
+O, Berna, my soul, my life, since the beginning of things we were fated.
+'Tis no flesh love, but something deeper, something that has its source
+at the very core of being. It is not for your sweet face, your gentle
+spirit, my own, that you are dearer to me than all else: it is
+because&mdash;you are you. If all the world were to turn against you, flout
+you, stone you, then would I rush to your side, shield you, die with
+you. If you were attainted with leprosy, I would enter the lazar-house
+for your sake.</p>
+
+<p>"O Berna, I must see you, I must, I must. Let me go to her ... now ...
+dear! She's calling me. She's in trouble. Oh, for the love of God, let
+me go ... let me go, I say.... Curse you, I will. She's in trouble. You
+can't hold me. I'm stronger than you all when she calls.... Let me ...
+let <a class="pagenum" name="page_315" id="page_315" title="315"></a>me.... Oh, oh, oh ... you're hurting me so. I'm weak, yes, weak as
+a baby.... Berna, my child, my poor little girl, I can do nothing.
+There's a mountain weighing me down. There's a slab of gold on my chest.
+They're burning me up. My veins are on fire. I can't come.... I can't,
+dear.... I'm tired...."</p>
+
+<p>Then the fever, the ravings, the wild threshing of my pillow, all passed
+away, and I was left limp, weak, helpless, resigned to my fate.</p>
+
+<p>I was on the sunny slope of convalescence. The Prodigal had remained
+with me as long as I was in danger, but now that I had turned the
+corner, he had gone back to the creeks, so that I was left with only my
+thoughts for company. As I turned and twisted on my narrow cot it seemed
+as if the time would never pass. All I wanted was to get better fast,
+and to get out again. Then, I thought, I would marry Berna and go
+"outside." I was sick of the country, of everything.</p>
+
+<p>I was lying thinking over these things, when I became aware that the man
+in the cot to the right was trying to attract my attention. He had been
+brought in that very morning, said to have been kicked by a horse. One
+of his ribs was broken, and his face badly smashed. He was in great
+pain, but quite conscious, and he was making stealthy motions to me.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, mate," he said, "I piped you off soon's I set me lamps on you.
+Don't youse know me?"</p>
+
+<p>I looked at the bandaged face wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_316" id="page_316" title="316"></a>"Don't you spot de man dat near let youse down de shaft?"</p>
+
+<p>Then, with a great start, I saw it was the Worm.</p>
+
+<p>"'Taint no horse done me up," he said in a hoarse whisper; "'twas a man.
+You know de man, de worst devil in all Alaska, Black Jack. Bad luck to
+him! He knocked me down and give me de leather. But I'm goin' to get
+even some day. I'm just laying for him. I wouldn't be in his shoes for
+de richest claim in de Klondike."</p>
+
+<p>The man's eyes glittered vengefully between the white bandages.</p>
+
+<p>"'Twas all on account of de little girl he done it. You know de girl I
+mean. Black Jack's dead stuck on her, an' de furder she stands him off
+de more set he is to get her. Youse don't know dat man. He's never had
+de cold mit yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me what's the matter, for Heaven's sake."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, when youse didn't come, de little girl she got worried. I used to
+be doin' chores round de restaurant, an' she asks me to take a note up
+to you. So I said I would. But I got on a drunk dat day, an' for a week
+after I didn't draw a sober breath. When I gets around again I told her
+I'd seen you an' given you de note an' you was comin' in right away."</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven forgive you for that."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style='width:500px'>
+<a name="illus-002" id="illus-002"></a>
+<img src="images/illus-316.jpg" alt="Then, as I hung half in, half out of the window, he clutched me by the throat" title=""  /><br />
+<span class="caption">Then, as I hung half in, half out of the window, he clutched me by the throat</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_317" id="page_317" title="317"></a>"Yep, dat's what I say now. But it's all too late. Well, a week went on
+an' you never showed up, an' meantime Locasto was pesterin' her cruel.
+She got mighty peaked like, pale as a ghost, an' I could see she cried
+most all her nights. Den she gives me anudder note. She gives me a
+hundred dollars to take dat note to you. I said she could lay on me dis
+time. I was de hurry-up kid, an' I starts off. But Black Jack must have
+cottoned on, for he meets me back of de town an' taxes me wid takin' a
+message. Den he sets on me like a wild beast an' does me up good and
+proper. But I'll fix him yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Where are the notes?" I cried.</p>
+
+<p>"In de pocket of me coat. Tell de nurse to fetch in me clothes, an' I'll
+give dem to youse."</p>
+
+<p>The nurse brought the clothes, but the little man was too sore to move.</p>
+
+<p>"Feel in de inside pocket."</p>
+
+<p>There were the notes, folded very small, and written in pencil. There
+was a strange faintness at my heart, and my fingers trembled as I opened
+them. Fear, fear was clutching me, compressing me in an agonising grip.</p>
+
+<p>Here was the first.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">My Darling Boy</span>: Why didn't you come? I was all ready for you. O,
+it was such a terrible disappointment. I've cried myself to sleep
+every night since. Has anything happened to you, dear? For Heaven's
+sake write or send a message. I can't bear the suspense.</p>
+
+<p style='text-align:right'>
+"Your loving&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br />
+"<span class="smcap">Berna</span>."<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Blankly, dully, almost mechanically, I read the second.</p>
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_318" id="page_318" title="318"></a></p>
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"O, come, my dear, at once. I'm in serious danger. He's grown
+desperate. Swears if he can't get me by fair means he'll have me by
+foul. I'm terribly afraid. Why ar'n't you here to protect me? Why
+have you failed me? O, my darling, have pity on your poor little
+girl. Come quickly before it is too late."</p></div>
+
+<p>It was unsigned.</p>
+
+<p>Heavens! I must go to her at once. I was well enough. I was all right
+again. Why would they not let me go to her? I would crawl on my hands
+and knees if need be. I was strong, so strong now.</p>
+
+<p>Ha! there were the Worm's clothes. It was after midnight. The nurse had
+just finished her rounds. All was quiet in the ward.</p>
+
+<p>Dizzily I rose and slipped into the frayed and greasy garments. There
+were the hospital slippers. I must wear them. Never mind a hat.</p>
+
+<p>I was out in the street. I shuffled along, and people stared at me, but
+no one delayed me. I was at the restaurant now. She wasn't there. Ah!
+the cabin on the hill.</p>
+
+<p>I was weaker than I had thought. Once or twice in a half-fainting
+condition I stopped and steadied myself by holding a sapling tree. Then
+the awful intuition of her danger possessed me, and gave me fresh
+strength. Many times I stumbled, cutting myself on the sharp boulders.
+Once I lay for a long time, half-unconscious, wondering if I would ever
+be able to rise. I reeled like a drunken man. The way seemed endless,
+yet stumbling, staggering on, there was the cabin at last.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_319" id="page_319" title="319"></a>A light was burning in the front room. Some one was at home at all
+events. Only a few steps more, yet once again I fell. I remember
+striking my face against a sharp rock. Then, on my hands and knees, I
+crawled to the door.</p>
+
+<p>I raised myself and hammered with clenched fists. There was silence
+within, then an agitated movement. I knocked again. Was the door ever
+going to be opened? At last it swung inward, with a suddenness that
+precipitated me inside the room.</p>
+
+<p>The Madam was standing over me where I had fallen. At sight of me she
+screamed. Surprise, fear, rage, struggled for mastery on her face. "It's
+him," she cried, "<i>him</i>." Peering over her shoulder, with ashy,
+horrified face, I saw her trembling husband.</p>
+
+<p>"Berna," I gasped hoarsely. "Where is she? I want Berna. What are you
+doing to her, you devils? Give her to me. She's mine, my promised bride.
+Let me go to her, I say."</p>
+
+<p>The woman barred the way.</p>
+
+<p>All at once I realised that the air was heavy with a strange odour, the
+odour of <i>chloroform</i>. Frenzied with fear, I rushed forward.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Amazon roused herself. With a cry of rage she struck me.
+Savagely both of them came for me. I struggled, I fought; but, weak as I
+was, they carried me before them and threw me from the door. I heard the
+lock shoot; I was outside; I was impotent. Yet behind those log
+walls.... Oh, it <a class="pagenum" name="page_320" id="page_320" title="320"></a>was horrible! horrible! Could such things be in God's
+world? And I could do nothing.</p>
+
+<p>I was strong once more. I ran round to the back of the cabin. She was in
+there, I knew. I rushed at the window and threw myself against it. The
+storm frame had not been taken off. Crash! I burst through both sheets
+of glass. I was cruelly cut, bleeding in a dozen places, yet I was half
+into the room. There, in the dirty, drab light, I saw a face, the
+fiendish, rage-distorted face of my dream. It was Locasto.</p>
+
+<p>He turned at the crash. With a curse he came at me. Then, as I hung half
+in, half out of the window, he clutched me by the throat. Using all his
+strength, he raised me further into the room, then he hurled me
+ruthlessly out onto the rocks outside.</p>
+
+<p>I rose, reeling, covered with blood, blind, sick, speechless. Weakly I
+staggered to the window. My strength was leaving me. "O God, sustain me!
+Help me to save her."</p>
+
+<p>Then I felt the world go blank. I swayed; I clutched at the walls; I
+fell.</p>
+
+<p>There I lay in a ghastly, unconscious heap.</p>
+
+<p>I had lost!</p>
+
+<hr class='major' />
+
+<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em">
+<h2><a name="BOOK_IV" id="BOOK_IV"></a>BOOK IV</h2>
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_321" id="page_321" title="321"></a>
+<a name="THE_VORTEX_9034" id="THE_VORTEX_9034"></a>
+<h3>THE VORTEX</h3>
+</div>
+
+<table summary=""><tr><td><a class="pagenum" name="page_322" id="page_322" title="322"></a>
+He burned a hole in the frozen muck; <br />
+He scratched the icy mould;<br />
+And there in six-foot dirt he struck<br />
+A sack or so of gold.<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">He burned a hole in the Decalogue,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And then it came about&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For Fortune's only a lousy rogue&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">His "pocket" petered out.</span><br />
+<br />
+And lo! it was but a year all told,<br />
+When there in the shadow grim,<br />
+But six feet deep in the icy mould,<br />
+They burned a hole for him.
+</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>&mdash;"The Yukoner."</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<div>
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_323" id="page_323" title="323"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>"No, no, I'm all right. Really I am. Please leave me alone. You want me
+to laugh? Ha! Ha! There! Is that all right now?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, it isn't all right. It's very far from all right, my boy; and this
+is where you and your little uncle here are going to have a real heart
+to heart talk."</p>
+
+<p>It was in the big cabin on Gold Hill, and the Prodigal was addressing
+me. He went on:</p>
+
+<p>"Now, look here, kid, when it comes to expressing my feelings I'm in the
+kindergarten class; when it comes to handing out the high-toned dope I
+drop my cue every time; but when I'm needed to do the solid pardner
+stunt then you don't need to holler for me&mdash;I'm there. Well, I'm giving
+you a straight line of talk. Ever since the start I've taken a strong
+notion to you. You've always been ace-high with me, and there never will
+come the day when you can't eat on my meal-ticket. We tackled the Trail
+of Trouble together. You were always wanting to lift the heavy end of
+the log, and when the God of Cussedness was doing his best to rasp a man
+down to his yellow streak, you showed up white all through. Say, kid,
+we've been in tight places together; we've been stacked up against hard
+times together: <a class="pagenum" name="page_324" id="page_324" title="324"></a>and now I'll be gol-darned if I'm going to stand by and
+see you go downhill, while the devil oils the bearings."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm all right," I protested.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you're all right," he echoed grimly. "In an impersonation of an
+'all-right' man it's the hook for yours. I've seen 'all-right' men like
+you hitting the hurry trail for the boneyard before now. You're 'all
+right'! Why, for the last two hours you've been sitting with that
+'just-break-the-news-to mother' expression of yours, and paying no more
+heed to my cheerful brand of conversation than if I had been a measly
+four-flusher. You don't eat more than a sick sparrow, and often you
+don't bat an eye all night. You're looking worse than the devil in a
+gale of wind. You've lost your grip, my boy. You don't care whether
+school keeps or not. In fact, if it wasn't for your folks, you'd as lief
+take a short cut across the Great Divide."</p>
+
+<p>"You're going it a little strong, old man."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, I'm not. You know you're sick of everything. Feel as if life's a
+sort of penitentiary, and you've just got to do time. You don't expect
+to get any more fun out of it. Look at me. Every day's my sunshine day.
+If the sky's blue I like it; if it's grey I like it just as well. I
+never worry. What's the use? Yesterday's a dead one; to-morrow's always
+to-morrow. All we've got's the 'now,' and it's up to us to live it for
+all we're worth. You can use up more human steam to the square inch in
+worrying than you can to the square yard in hard <a class="pagenum" name="page_325" id="page_325" title="325"></a>work. Eliminate worry
+and you've got the only system."</p>
+
+<p>"It's all very well for you to preach," I said, "you forget I've been a
+pretty sick man."</p>
+
+<p>"That's no nursemaid's dream. You almost cashed in. Typhoid's a serious
+proposition at the best; but when you take a crazy streak on top of it,
+make a midnight getaway from the sick-ward and land up on the Slide
+looking as if you'd been run through a threshing machine, well, you're
+sure letting death get a short option on you. And you gave up. You
+didn't want to fight. You shirked, but your youth and constitution
+fought for you. They healed your wounds, they soothed your ravings, they
+cooled your fever. They were a great team, and they pulled you through.
+Seems as if they'd pulled you through a knot-hole, but they were on to
+their job. And you weren't one bit grateful&mdash;seemed to think they had no
+business to butt in."</p>
+
+<p>"My hurts are more than physical."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know; there was that girl. You seemed to have a notion that that
+was the only girl on God's green brush-pile. As I camped there by your
+bedside listening to your ravings, and getting a strangle-hold on you
+when you took it into your head to get funny, you blabbed out the whole
+yarn. Oh, sonny, why didn't you tell your uncle? Why didn't you put me
+wise? I could have given you the right steer. Have you ever known me
+handle a job I couldn't make good at? I'm a whole matrimonial bureau
+rolled into one. I'd have had you prancing to the tune of the wedding
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_326" id="page_326" title="326"></a>march before now. But you kept mum as a mummy. Wouldn't even tell your
+old pard. Now you've lost her."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I've lost her."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever see her after you came out of the hospital?"</p>
+
+<p>"Once, once only. It was the first day. I was as thin as a rail, as
+white as the pillow from which I had just raised my head. Death's
+reprieve was written all over me. I dragged along wearily, leaning on a
+stick. I was thinking of her, thinking, thinking always. As I scanned
+the faces of the crowds that thronged the streets, I thought only of her
+face. Then suddenly she was before me. She looked like a ghost, poor
+little thing; and for a fluttering moment we stared at each other, she
+and I, two wan, weariful ghosts."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, what did she say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Say! she said nothing. She just looked at me. Her face was cold as ice.
+She looked at me as if she wanted to <i>pity</i> me. Then into her eyes there
+came a shadow of bitterness, of bitterness and despair such as might
+gloom the eyes of a lost soul. It unnerved me. It seemed as if she was
+regarding me almost with horror, as if I were a sort of a leper. As I
+stood there, I thought she was going to faint. She seemed to sway a
+moment. Then she drew a great, gasping breath, and turning on her heel
+she was gone."</p>
+
+<p>"She cut you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, cut me dead, old fellow. And my only <a class="pagenum" name="page_327" id="page_327" title="327"></a>thought was of love for her,
+eternal love. But I'll never forget the look on her face as she turned
+away. It was as if I had lashed her with a whip. My God!"</p>
+
+<p>"And you've never seen her since?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, never. That was enough, wasn't it? She didn't want to speak to me
+any more, never wanted to set eyes on me any more. I went back to the
+ward; then, in a little, I came on here. My body was living, but my
+heart was dead. It will never live again."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, rot! You mustn't let the thing down you like that. It's going to
+kill you in the end. Buck up! Be a man! If you don't care to live for
+yourself, live for others. Anyway, it's likely all for the best. Maybe
+love had you locoed. Maybe she wasn't really good. See now how she lives
+openly with Locasto. They call her the Madonna; they say she looks more
+like a virgin-martyr than the mistress of a dissolute man."</p>
+
+<p>I rose and looked at him, conscious that my face was all twisted with
+the pain of the thought.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," I said, "never did God put the breath of life into a better
+girl. There's been foul play. I know that girl better than any one in
+the world, and if every living being were to tell me she wasn't good I
+would tell them they lied, they lied. I would burn at the stake
+upholding that girl."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why did she turn you down so cruelly?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know; I can't understand it. I know so little about women. I
+have not wavered a moment. <a class="pagenum" name="page_328" id="page_328" title="328"></a>To-day in my loneliness and heartbreak I
+care and hunger for her more than ever. She's always here, right here in
+my head, and no power can drive her out. Let them say of her what they
+will, I would marry her to-morrow. It's killing me. I've aged ten years
+in the last few months. Oh, if I only could forget."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, old man, do you ever hear from your old lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"Every mail."</p>
+
+<p>"You've often told me of your home. Say! just give us a mental frame-up
+of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Glengyle? Yes. I can see the old place now, as plainly as a picture:
+the green, dimpling hills all speckled with sheep; the grey house
+nestling snugly in a grove of birch; the wild water of the burn leaping
+from black pool to pool, just mad with the joy of life; the midges
+dancing over the water in the still sunshine, and the trout jumping for
+them&mdash;oh, it's the bonny, bonny place. You would think so too. You would
+like it, tramping knee-deep in the heather, to see the moorcock rise
+whirring at your feet; you would like to set sail with the fisher folk
+after the silver herring. It would make you feel good to see the calm
+faces of the shepherds, the peace in the eyes of the women. Ay, that was
+the best of it all, the Rest of it, the calm of it. I was pretty happy
+in those days."</p>
+
+<p>"You were happy&mdash;then why not go back? That's your proper play; go back
+to your Mother. She <a class="pagenum" name="page_329" id="page_329" title="329"></a>wants you. You're pretty well heeled now. A little
+money goes a long way over there. You can count on thirty thousand.
+You'll be comfortable; you'll devote yourself to the old lady; you'll be
+happy again. Time's a regular steam-roller when it comes to smoothing
+out the rough spots in the past. You'll forget it all, this place, this
+girl. It'll all seem like the after effects of a midnight Welsh rabbit.
+You've got mental indigestion. I hate to see you go. I'm really sorry to
+lose you; but it's your only salvation, so go, go!"</p>
+
+<p>Never had I thought of it before. Home! how sweet the word seemed.
+Mother! yes, Mother would comfort me as no one else could. She would
+understand. Mother and Garry! A sudden craving came over me to see them
+again. Maybe with them I could find relief from this awful agony of
+heart, this thing that I could scarce bear to think of, yet never ceased
+to think of. Home! that was the solution of it all. Ah me! I would go
+home.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said, "I can't go too soon; I'll start to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>So I rose and proceeded to gather together my few belongings. In the
+early morning I would start out. No use prolonging the business of my
+going. I would say good-bye to those two partners of mine, with a grip
+of the hand, a tear in the eye, a husky: "Take care of yourself." That
+would be all. Likely I would never see them again.</p>
+
+<p>Jim came in and sat down quietly. The old man had been very silent of
+late. Putting on his <a class="pagenum" name="page_330" id="page_330" title="330"></a>spectacles, he took out his well-worn Bible and
+opened it. Back in Dawson there was a man whom he hated with the hate
+that only death can end, but for the peace of his soul he strove to
+conquer it. The hate slumbered, yet at times it stirred, and into the
+old man's eyes there came the tiger-look that had once made him a force
+and a fear. Woe betide his enemy if that tiger ever woke.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been a-thinkin' out a scheme," said Jim suddenly, "an' I'm a-goin'
+to put all of that twenty-five thousand of mine back into the ground.
+You know us old miners are gamblers to the end. It's not the gold, but
+the gettin' of it. It's the excitement, the hope, the anticipation of
+one's luck that counts. We're fighters, an' we've just got to keep on
+fightin'. We can't quit. There's the ground, and there's the precious
+metals it's a-tryin' to hold back on us. It's up to us to get them out.
+It's for the good of humanity. The miner an' the farmer rob no one. They
+just get down to that old ground an' coax it an' beat it an' bully it
+till it gives up. They're working for the good of humanity&mdash;the farmer
+an' the miner." The old man paused sententiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I can't quit this minin' business. I've just got to go on so
+long's I've got health an' strength; an' I'm a-goin' to shove all I've
+got once more into the muck. I stand to make a big pile, or lose my
+wad."</p>
+
+<p>"What's your scheme, Jim?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's just this: I'm goin' to install a hydraulic plant on my Ophir
+Creek claim, I've got a great notion of <a class="pagenum" name="page_331" id="page_331" title="331"></a>that claim. It's an
+out-of-sight proposition for workin' with water. There's a little stream
+runs down the hill, an' the hill's steep right there. There's one
+hundred feet of fall, an' in Spring a mighty powerful bunch of water
+comes a-tumblin' down. Well, I'm goin' to dam it up above, bring it down
+a flume, hitch on a little giant, an' turn it loose to rip an' tear at
+that there ground. I'm goin' to begin a new era in Klondike minin'."</p>
+
+<p>"Bully for you, Jim."</p>
+
+<p>"The values are there in the ground, an' I'm sick of the old slow way of
+gettin' them out. This looks mighty good to me. Anyway, I'm a-goin' to
+give it a trial. It's just the start of things; you'll see others will
+follow suit. The individual miner's got to go; it's only a matter of
+time. Some day you'll see this whole country worked over by them big
+power dredges they've got down in Californy. You mark my words, boys;
+the old-fashioned miner's got to go."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I've written out for piping an' a monitor, an' next Spring I hope
+I'll have the plant in workin' order. The stuff's on the way now. Hullo!
+Come in!"</p>
+
+<p>The visitors were Mervin and Hewson on their way to Dawson. These two
+men had been successful beyond their dreams. It was just like finding
+money the way fortune had pushed it in front of their noses. They were
+offensively prosperous; they reeked of success.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_332" id="page_332" title="332"></a>In both of them a great change had taken place, a change only too
+typical of the gold-camp. They seemed to have thawed out; they were
+irrepressibly genial; yet instead of that restraint that had formerly
+distinguished them, there was a grafted quality of weakness, of
+flaccidity, of surrender to the enervating vices of the town.</p>
+
+<p>Mervin was remarkably thin. Dark hollows circled his eyes, and a curious
+nervousness twisted his mouth. He was "a terror for the women," they
+said. He lavished his money on them faster than he made it. He was
+vastly more companionable than formerly, but somehow you felt his
+virility, his fighting force had gone.</p>
+
+<p>In Hewson the change was even more marked. Those iron muscles had
+couched themselves in easy flesh; his cheeks sagged; his eyes were
+bloodshot and untidy. Nevertheless he was more of a good fellow, talked
+rather vauntingly of his wealth, and affected a patronising manner. He
+was worth probably two hundred thousand, and he drank a bottle of brandy
+a day.</p>
+
+<p>In the case of these two men, as in the case of a thousand others in the
+gold-camp, it seemed as if easy, unhoped-for affluence was to prove
+their undoing. On the trail they had been supreme; in fen or forest, on
+peak or plain, they were men among men, fighting with nature savagely,
+exultantly. But when the fight was over their arms rested, their muscles
+relaxed, they yielded to sensuous pleasures. It seemed as if to them
+victory really meant defeat.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_333" id="page_333" title="333"></a>As I went on with my packing I paid but little heed to their talk. What
+mattered it to me now, this babble of dumps and dust, of claims and
+clean-ups? I was going to thrust it all behind me, blot it clean out of
+my memory, begin my life anew. It would be a larger, more luminous life.
+I would live for others. Home! Mother! again how exquisitely my heart
+glowed at the thought of them.</p>
+
+<p>Then all at once I pricked up my ears. They were talking of the town, of
+the men and women who were making it famous (or rather infamous), when
+suddenly they spoke the name of Locasto.</p>
+
+<p>"He's gone off," Mervin was saying; "gone off on a big stampede. He got
+pretty thick with some of the Peel River Indians, and found they knew of
+a ledge of high-grade, free-milling quartz somewhere out there in the
+Land Back of Beyond. He had a sample of it, and you could just see the
+gold shining all through it. It was great stuff. Jack Locasto's the last
+man to turn down a chance like that. He's the worst gambler in the
+Northland, and no amount of wealth will ever satisfy him. So he's off
+with an Indian and one companion, that little Irish satellite of his,
+Pat Doogan. They have six months' grub. They'll be away all winter."</p>
+
+<p>"What's become of that girl of his?" asked Hewson, "the last one he's
+been living with? You remember she came in on the boat with us. Poor
+little kid! Blast that man anyway. He's not content with women of his
+own kind, he's got to get his clutches on the best of them. That was a
+good little <a class="pagenum" name="page_334" id="page_334" title="334"></a>girl before he got after her. If she was a friend of mine
+I'd put a bullet in his ugly heart."</p>
+
+<p>Hewson growled like a wrathful bear, but Mervin smiled his cynical
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you mean the Madonna," he said; "why, she's gone on the
+dance-halls."</p>
+
+<p>They continued to talk of other things, but I did not hear them any
+more. I was in a trance, and I only aroused when they rose to go.</p>
+
+<p>"Better say good-bye to the kid here," said the Prodigal; "he's going to
+the old country to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not," I answered sullenly; "I'm just going as far as Dawson."</p>
+
+<p>He stared and expostulated, but my mind was made up. I would fight,
+fight to the last.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_335" id="page_335" title="335"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Berna on the dance-halls&mdash;words cannot convey all that this simple
+phrase meant to me. For two months I had been living in a dull apathy of
+pain, but this news galvanised me into immediate action.</p>
+
+<p>For although there were many degrees of dance-hall depravity, at the
+best it meant a brand of ineffaceable shame. She had lived with Locasto,
+had been recognised as his mistress&mdash;that was bad enough; but the
+other&mdash;to be at the mercy of all, to be classed with the harpies that
+preyed on the Man with the Poke, the vampires of the gold-camp.
+Berna&mdash; Oh, it was unspeakable! The thought maddened me. The
+needle-point of suffering that for weeks had been boring into my brain
+seemed to have pierced its core at last.</p>
+
+<p>When the Prodigal expostulated with me I laughed&mdash;a bitter, mirthless
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to Dawson," I said, "and if it was hell itself, I'd go there
+for that girl. I don't care what any one thinks. Home, society, honour
+itself, let them all go; they don't matter now. I was a fool to think I
+could ever give her up, a fool. Now I know that as long as there's life
+and strength in my body, I'll fight for her. Oh, I'm not the
+sentimentalist I was six months ago. I've lived since then. I can hold
+my own now. I can meet men on <a class="pagenum" name="page_336" id="page_336" title="336"></a>their own level. I can fight, I can win.
+I don't care any more, after what I've gone through. I don't set any
+particular value on my life. I'll throw it away as recklessly as the
+best of them. I'm going to have a fierce fight for that girl, and if I
+lose there'll be no more 'me' left to fight. Don't try to reason with
+me. Reason be damned! I'm going to Dawson, and a hundred men couldn't
+hold me."</p>
+
+<p>"You seem to have some new stunts in your repertoire," he said, looking
+at me curiously; "you've got me guessing. Sometimes I think you're a
+candidate for the dippy-house, then again I think you're on to yourself.
+There's a grim set to your mouth and a hard look in your eyes that I
+didn't use to see. Maybe you can hold up your end. Well, anyway, if you
+will go I wish you good luck."</p>
+
+<p>So, bidding good-bye to the big cabin, with my two partners looking
+ruefully after me, I struck off down Bonanza. It was mid-October. A
+bitter wind chilled me to the marrow. Once more the land lay stark
+beneath its coverlet of snow, and the sky was wan and ominous. I
+travelled fast, for a painful anxiety gripped me, so that I scarce took
+notice of the improved trail, of the increased activity, of the heaps of
+tailings built up with brush till they looked like walls of a
+fortification. All I thought of was Dawson and Berna.</p>
+
+<p>How curious it was, this strange new strength, this indifference to
+self, to physical suffering, to danger, to public opinion! I thought
+only of the girl. I would make her marry me. I cared nothing for what
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_337" id="page_337" title="337"></a>had happened to her. I might be a pariah, an outcast for the rest of my
+days; at least I would save her, shield her, cherish her. The thought
+uplifted me, exalted me. I had suffered beyond expression. I had
+rearranged my set of ideas; my concept of life, of human nature, had
+broadened and deepened. What did it matter if physically they had
+wronged her? Was not the pure, virgin soul of her beyond their reach?</p>
+
+<p>I was just in time to see the last boat go out. Already the river was
+"throwing ice," and every day the jagged edges of it crept further
+towards midstream. An immense and melancholy mob stood on the wharf as
+the little steamer backed off into the channel. There were uproarious
+souls on board, and many women of the town screaming farewells to their
+friends. On the boat all was excited, extravagant joy; on the wharf, a
+sorry attempt at resignation.</p>
+
+<p>The last boat! they watched her as her stern paddle churned the freezing
+water; they watched her forge her slow way through the ever-thickening
+ice-flakes; they watched her in the far distance battling with the
+Klondike current; then, sad and despondent, they turned away to their
+lonely cabins. Never had their exile seemed so bitter. A few more days
+and the river would close tight as a drum. The long, long night would
+fall on them, and for nigh on eight weary months they would be cut off
+from the outside world.</p>
+
+<p>Yet soon, very soon, a mood of reconciliation would set in. They would
+begin to make the best of things. To feed that great Octopus, the town,
+the miners <a class="pagenum" name="page_338" id="page_338" title="338"></a>would flock in from the creeks with treasure hoarded up in
+baking-powder tins; the dance-halls and gambling-places would absorb
+them; the gaiety would go on full swing, and there would seem but little
+change in the glittering abandon of the gold-camp. As I paced its
+sidewalks once more I marvelled at its growth. New streets had been
+made; the stores boasted expensive fittings and gloried in costly goods;
+in the bar-rooms were splendid mirrors and ornate woodwork; the
+restaurants offered European delicacies; all was on a new scale of
+extravagance, of garish display, of insolent wealth.</p>
+
+<p>Everywhere the man with the fat "poke" was in evidence. He came into
+town unshorn, wild-looking, often raggedly clad, yet always with the
+same wistful hunger in his eyes. You saw that look, and it took you back
+to the dark and dirt and drudgery of the claim, the mirthless months of
+toil, the crude cabin with its sugar barrel of ice behind the door, its
+grease light dimly burning, its rancid smell of stale food. You saw him
+lying smoking his strong pipe, looking at that can of nuggets on the
+rough shelf, and dreaming of what it would mean to him&mdash;out there where
+the lights glittered and the gramophones blared. Surely, if patience,
+endurance, if grim, unswerving purpose, if sullen, desperate toil
+deserved a reward, this man had a peckful of pleasure for his due.</p>
+
+<p>And always that hungry, wistful look. The women with the painted cheeks
+knew that look; the black-jack boosters knew it; the barkeeper with his
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_339" id="page_339" title="339"></a>knock-out drops knew it. They waited for him; he was their "meat."</p>
+
+<p>Yet in a few days your wild and woolly man is transformed, and no longer
+does your sympathy go out towards him. Shaven and shorn, clad in silken
+underwear, with patent leather shoes, and a suit in New York style, you
+absolutely fail to recognise him as your friend of the moccasins and
+mackinaw coat. He is smoking a dollar Laranago, he has half a dozen
+whiskies "under his belt," and later on he has a "date" with a lady
+singer of the Pavilion Theatre. He is having a "whale" of a good time,
+he tells you; you wonder how long he will last.</p>
+
+<p>Not for long. Sharp and short and sweet it is. He is brought up with a
+jerk, and the Dago Queen, for whom he has bought so much wine at twenty
+dollars a bottle, has no recognition for him in her flashing eyes. He
+has been "taken down the line," "trimmed to a finish" by an artist in
+the business. Ruefully he turns his poke inside out&mdash;not a "colour." He
+cannot even command the price of a penitential three-fingers of rye.
+Such is one of the commonest phases of life in the gold-camp.</p>
+
+<p>As I strolled the streets I saw many a familiar face. Mosher I saw. He
+had grown very fat, and was talking to a diminutive woman with heavy
+blond hair (she must have weighed about ninety-five pounds, I think).
+They went off together.</p>
+
+<p>A knife-edged wind was sweeping down from the north, and men in bulging
+coonskin coats filled up the <a class="pagenum" name="page_340" id="page_340" title="340"></a>sidewalks. At the Aurora corner I came
+across the Jam-wagon. He was wearing a jacket of summer flannels, and,
+as if to suggest extra warmth, he had turned up its narrow collar. In
+his trembling fingers he held an emaciated cigarette, which he inhaled
+avidly. He looked wretched, pinched with hunger, peaked with cold, but
+he straightened up when he saw me into a semblance of well-being. Then,
+in a little, he sagged forward, and his eyes went dull and abject. It
+was a business of the utmost delicacy to induce him to accept a small
+loan. I knew it would only plunge him more deeply into the mire; but I
+could not bear to see him suffer.</p>
+
+<p>I went into the Parisian Restaurant. It was more glittering, more
+raffish, more clamant of the tenderloin than ever. There were men
+waiters in the conventional garb of waiterdom, and there was Madam,
+harder looking and more vulturish. You wondered if such a woman could
+have a soul, and what was the end and aim of her being. There she sat, a
+creature of rapacity and sordid lust. I marched up to her and asked
+abruptly:</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Berna?"</p>
+
+<p>She gave a violent start. There was a quality of fear in her bold eyes.
+Then she laughed, a hard, jarring laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"In the Tivoli," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Strange again! Now that the worst had come to pass, and I had suffered
+all that it was in my power to suffer, this new sense of strength and
+mastery had come to me. It seemed as if some of the iron spirit <a class="pagenum" name="page_341" id="page_341" title="341"></a>of the
+land had gotten into my blood, a grim, insolent spirit that made me
+fearless; at times a cold cynical spirit, a spirit of rebellion, of
+anarchy, of aggression. The greatest evil had befallen me. Life could do
+no more to harm me. I had everything to gain and nothing to lose. I
+cared for no man. I despised them, and, to back me in my bitterness, I
+had twenty-five thousand dollars in the bank.</p>
+
+<p>I was still weak from my illness and my long mush had wearied me, so I
+went into a saloon and called for drinks. I felt the raw whisky burn my
+throat. I tingled from head to foot with a strange, pleasing warmth.
+Suddenly the bar, with its protecting rod of brass, seemed to me a very
+desirable place, bright, warm, suggestive of comfort and
+good-fellowship. How agreeably every one was smiling! Indeed, some were
+laughing for sheer joy. A big, merry-hearted miner called for another
+round, and I joined in.</p>
+
+<p>Where was that bitter feeling now? Where that morbid pain at my heart?
+As I drank it all seemed to pass away. Magical change! What a fool I
+was! What was there to make such a fuss about? Take life easy. Laugh
+alike at the good and bad of it. It was all a farce anyway. What would
+it matter a hundred years from now? Why were we put into this world to
+be tortured? I, for one, would protest. I would writhe no more in the
+strait-jacket of existence. Here was escape, heartsease, happiness&mdash;here
+in this bottled impishness. Again I drank.</p>
+
+<p>What a rotten world it all was! But I had no <a class="pagenum" name="page_342" id="page_342" title="342"></a>hand in the making of it,
+and it wasn't my task to improve it. I was going to get the best I could
+out of it. Eat, drink and be merry, that was the last word of
+philosophy. Others seemed to be able to extract all kinds of happiness
+from things as they are, so why not I? In any case, here was the
+solution of my troubles. Better to die happily drunk than miserably
+sober. I was not drinking from weakness. Oh no! I was drinking with
+deliberate intent to kill pain.</p>
+
+<p>How wonderfully strong I felt! I smashed my clenched fist against the
+bar. My knuckles were bruised and bleeding, but I felt no pain. I was so
+light of foot, I imagined I could jump over the counter. I ached to
+fight some one. Then all at once came the thought of Berna. It came with
+tragical suddenness, with poignant force. Intensely it smote me as never
+before. I could have burst into maudlin tears.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter, Slim?" asked a mouldy mannikin, affectionately
+hanging on to my arm.</p>
+
+<p>Disgustedly I looked at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Take your filthy paws off me," I said.</p>
+
+<p>His jaw dropped and he stared at me. Then, before he could draw on his
+fund of profanity, I burst through the throng and made for the door.</p>
+
+<p>I was drunk, deplorably drunk, and I was bound for the Tivoli.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_343" id="page_343" title="343"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>I wish it to be understood that I make no excuses for myself at this
+particular stage of my chronicle. I am only conscious of a desire to
+tell the truth. Many of the stronger-minded will no doubt condemn me;
+many of those inclined to a rigid system of morality will be disgusted
+with me; but, however it may be, I will write plainly and without
+reserve.</p>
+
+<p>When I reeled out of the Grubstake Saloon I was in a peculiar state of
+exaltation. No longer was I conscious of the rasping cold, and it seemed
+to me I could have couched me in the deep snow as cosily as in a bed of
+down. Surpassingly brilliant were the lights. They seemed to convey to
+me a portentous wink. They twinkled with jovial cheer. What a desirable
+place the world was, after all!</p>
+
+<p>With an ebullient sense of eloquence, of extravagant oratory, I longed
+for a sympathetic ear. An altruistic emotion pervaded me. Who would
+suspect, thought I, as I walked a little too circumspectly amid the
+throng, that my heart was aglow, that I was tensing my muscles in the
+pride of their fitness, that my brain was a bewildering kaleidoscope of
+thoughts and images?</p>
+
+<p>Gramophones were braying in every conceivable key. Brazen women were
+leering at me. Potbellied men regarded me furtively. Alluringly the
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_344" id="page_344" title="344"></a>gambling-dens and dancing-dives invited me. The town was a giant spider
+drawing in its prey, and I was the prey, it seemed. Others there were in
+plenty, men with the eager, wistful eyes; but who was there so eager and
+wistful as I? And I didn't care any more. Strike up the music! On with
+the dance! Only one life have we to live. Ah! there was the Tivoli.</p>
+
+<p>To the right as I entered was a palatial bar set off with burnished
+brass, bevelled mirrors and glittering, vari-coloured pyramids of costly
+liqueurs. Up to the bar men were bellying, and the bartenders in white
+jackets were mixing drinks with masterly dexterity. It was a motley
+crowd. There were men in broadcloth and fine linen, men in blue shirts
+and mud-stiffened overalls, grey-bearded elders and beardless boys. It
+was a noisy crowd, laughing, brawling, shouting, singing. Here was the
+foam of life, with never a hint of the muddy sediment underneath.</p>
+
+<p>To the left I had a view of the gambling-room, a glimpse of green
+tables, of spinning balls, of cool men, with shades over their eyes,
+impassively dealing. There were huge wheels of fortune, keno tables,
+crap outfits, faro layouts, and, above all, the dainty, fascinating
+roulette. Everything was in full swing. Miners with flushed faces and a
+wild excitement in their eyes were plunging recklessly; others, calm,
+alert, anxious, were playing cautiously. Here and there were the fevered
+faces of women. Gold coin was stacked on the tables, while a man with a
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_345" id="page_345" title="345"></a>pair of scales was weighing dust from the tendered pokes.</p>
+
+<p>In front of me was a double swing-door painted in white and gold, and,
+pushing through this, for the first time I found myself in a Dawson
+dance-hall.</p>
+
+<p>I remember being struck by the gorgeousness of it, its glitter and its
+glow. Who would have expected, up in this bleak-visaged North, to find
+such a fairyland of a place? It was painted in white and gold, and set
+off by clusters of bunched lights. There was much elaborate scroll-work
+and ornate decoration. Down each side, raised about ten feet from the
+floor, and supported on gilt pillars, were little private boxes hung
+with curtains of heliotrope silk. At the further end of the hall was a
+stage, and here a vaudeville performance was going on.</p>
+
+<p>I sat down on a seat at the very back of the audience. Before me were
+row after row of heads, mostly rough, rugged and unwashed. Their faces
+were eager, rapt as those of children. They were enjoying, with the deep
+satisfaction of men who for many a weary month had been breathing the
+free, unbranded air of the Wild. The sensuous odour of patchouli was
+strangely pleasant to them; the sight of a woman was thrillingly sweet;
+the sound of a song was ravishing. Looking at many of those toil-grooved
+faces one could see that there was no harm in their hearts. They were
+honest, uncouth, simple; they were just like children, the children of
+the Wild.</p>
+
+<p>A woman of generous physique was singing in a shrill, nasal voice a
+pathetic ballad. She sang without <a class="pagenum" name="page_346" id="page_346" title="346"></a>expression, bringing her hands with
+monotonous gestures alternately to her breast. Her squat, matronly
+figure, beef from the heels up, looked singularly absurd in her short
+skirt. Her face was excessively over-painted, her mouth good-naturedly
+large, and her eyes out of their slit-like lids leered at the audience.</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't she great?" said a tall bean-pole of a man on my right, as she
+finished off with a round of applause. "There's some class to her work."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me in a confidential way, and his pale-blue eyes were full
+of rapturous appreciation. Then he did something that surprised me. He
+tugged open his poke and, dipping into it, he produced a big nugget.
+Twisting this in a scrap of paper, he rose up, long, lean and awkward,
+and with careful aim he threw it on the stage.</p>
+
+<p>"Here ye are, Lulu," he piped in his shrill voice. The woman, turning in
+her exit, picked up the offering, gave her admirer a wide, gold-toothed
+smile, and threw him an emphatic kiss. As the man sat down I could see
+his mouth twisting with excitement, and his watery blue eyes snapped
+with pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"By heck," he said, "she's great, ain't she? Many's the bottle of wine
+I've opened for that there girl. Guess she'll be glad when she hears old
+Henry's in town again. Henry's my name, Hard-pan Henry they call me, an'
+I've got a claim on Hunker. Many's the wallopin' poke have I toted into
+town an' blowed in on that there girl. An' I just guess this one'll go
+the same gait. Well, says I, <a class="pagenum" name="page_347" id="page_347" title="347"></a>what's the odds? I'm havin' a good time
+for my money. When it's gone there's lots more in the ground. It ain't
+got no legs. It can't run away."</p>
+
+<p>He chuckled and hefted his poke in a horny hand. There was a flutter of
+the heliotrope curtains, and the face of Lulu, peeping over the plush
+edge of a box, smiled bewitchingly upon him. With another delighted
+chuckle the old man went to join her.</p>
+
+<p>"Darned old fool," said a young man on my left. He looked as if his
+veins were chuckful of health; his skin was as clear as a girl's, his
+eye honest and fearless. He was dressed in mackinaw, and wore a fur cap
+with drooping ear-flaps.</p>
+
+<p>"He's the greatest mark in the country," the Youth went on. "He's got no
+more brains than God gave geese. All the girls are on to him. Before he
+can turn round that old bat up there will have him trimmed to a finish.
+He'll be doing flip-flaps, and singing ''Way Down on the Suwanee River'
+standing on his head. Then the girl will pry him loose from his poke,
+and to-morrow he'll start off up the creek, teetering and swearing he's
+had a dooce of a good time. He's the easiest thing on earth."</p>
+
+<p>The Youth paused to look on a new singer. She was a soubrette, trim,
+dainty and confident. She wore a blond wig, and her eyes in their pits
+of black were alluringly bright. Paint was lavished on her face in
+violent dabs of rose and white, and the inevitable gold teeth gleamed in
+her smile. She wore a black dress trimmed with sequins, stockings of
+black, a black velvet band around her slim neck. She <a class="pagenum" name="page_348" id="page_348" title="348"></a>was greeted with
+much applause, and she began to sing in a fairly sweet voice.</p>
+
+<p>"That's Nellie Lestrange," said the Youth. "She's a great
+rustler&mdash;Touch-the-button-Nell, they call her. They say that when she
+gets a jay into a box it's all day with him. She's such a nifty
+wine-winner the end of her thumb's calloused pressing the button for
+fresh bottles."</p>
+
+<p>Touch-the-button-Nell was singing a comic ditty of a convivial order.
+She put into it much vivacity, appealing to the audience to join in the
+chorus with a pleading, "Now all together, boys." She had tripping steps
+and dainty kicks that went well with the melody. When she went off half
+a dozen men rose in their places, and aimed nuggets at her. She captured
+them, then, with a final saucy flounce of her skirt, made her smiling
+exit.</p>
+
+<p>"By Gosh!" said the Youth, "I wonder these fellows haven't got more
+savvy. You wouldn't catch <i>me</i> chucking away an ounce on one of those
+fairies. No, sir! Nothing doing! I've got a five-thousand-dollar poke in
+the bank, and to-morrow I'll be on my way outside with a draft for every
+cent of it. A certain little farm 'way back in Vermont looks pretty good
+to me, and a little girl that don't know the use of face powder, bless
+her. She's waiting for me."</p>
+
+<p>The excitement of the liquor had died away in me, and what with the heat
+and smoke of the place, I was becoming very drowsy. I was almost dozing
+off to sleep when some one touched me on the arm. It <a class="pagenum" name="page_349" id="page_349" title="349"></a>was a negro waiter
+I had seen dodging in and out of the boxes, and known as the Black
+Prince.</p>
+
+<p>"Dey's a lady up'n de box wants to speak with yuh, sah," he said
+politely.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is it?" I asked in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Labelle, sah, Miss Birdie Labelle."</p>
+
+<p>I started. Who in the Klondike had not heard of Birdie Labelle, the
+eldest of the three sisters, who married Stillwater Willie? A thought
+flashed through me that she could tell me something of Berna.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," I said; "I'll come."</p>
+
+<p>I followed him upstairs, and in a moment I was ushered into the presence
+of the famous soubrette.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo, kid!" she exclaimed, "sit down. I saw you in the audience and
+kind-a took a notion to your face. How d'ye do?"</p>
+
+<p>She extended a heavily bejewelled hand. She was plump, pleasant-looking,
+with a piquant smile and flaxen hair. I ordered the waiter to bring her
+a bottle of wine.</p>
+
+<p>"I've heard a lot about you," I said tentatively.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I guess so," she answered. "Most folks have up here. It's a sort
+of reflected glory. I guess if it hadn't been for Bill I'd never have
+got into the limelight at all."</p>
+
+<p>She sipped her champagne thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I came in here in '97, and it was then I met Bill. He was there with
+the coin all right. We got hitched up pretty quick, but he was such a
+mut I soon got sick of him. Then I got skating round with another guy.
+Well, an egg famine came along. <a class="pagenum" name="page_350" id="page_350" title="350"></a>There was only nine hundred samples of
+hen fruit in town, and one store had a corner on them. I went down to
+buy some. Lord! how I wanted them eggs. I kept thinking how I'd have
+them done, shipwrecked, two on a raft or sunny side up, when who should
+come along but Bill. He sees what I want, and quick as a flash what does
+he do but buy up the whole bunch at a dollar apiece! 'Now,' says he to
+me, 'if you want eggs for breakfast just come home where you belong.'</p>
+
+<p>"Well, say, I was just dying for them eggs, so I comes to my milk like a
+lady. I goes home with Bill."</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head sadly, and once more I filled up her glass.</p>
+
+<p>She prattled on with many a gracious smile, and I ordered another bottle
+of wine. In the next box I could hear the squeaky laugh of Hard-pan
+Henry and the teasing tones of his inamorata. The visits of the Black
+Prince to this box with fresh bottles had been fast and furious, and at
+last I heard the woman cry in a querulous voice: "Say, that black man
+coming in so often gives me a pain. Why don't you order a case?"</p>
+
+<p>Then the man broke in with his senile laugh:</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Lulu, whatever you say goes. Say, Prince, tote along a case,
+will you?"</p>
+
+<p>Surely, thought I, there's no fool like an old fool.</p>
+
+<p>A little girl was singing, a little, winsome girl with a sweet childish
+voice and an innocent face. How terribly out of place she looked in that
+palace of sin. <a class="pagenum" name="page_351" id="page_351" title="351"></a>She sang a simple, old-world song full of homely pathos
+and gentle feeling. As she sang she looked down on those furrowed faces,
+and I saw that many eyes were dimmed with tears. The rough men listened
+in rapt silence as the childish treble rang out:</p>
+
+<table summary=""><tr><td>
+"Darling, I am growing old;<br />
+Silver threads among the gold<br />
+Shine upon my brow to-day;<br />
+Life is fading fast away."
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>Then from behind the scenes a pure alto joined in and the two voices,
+blending in exquisite harmony, went on:</p>
+
+<table summary=""><tr><td>
+"But, my darling, you will be, will be,<br />
+Always young and fair to me.<br />
+Yes, my darling, you will be<br />
+Always young and fair to me."
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>As the last echo died away the audience rose as one man, and a shower of
+nuggets pelted on the stage. Here was something that touched their
+hearts, stirred in them strange memories of tenderness, brought before
+them half-forgotten scenes of fireside happiness.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a shame to let that kid work in the halls," said Miss Labelle.
+There were tears in her eyes, too, and she hurriedly blinked them away.</p>
+
+<p>Then the curtain fell. Men were clearing the floor for the dance, so,
+bidding the lady adieu, I went downstairs.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_352" id="page_352" title="352"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>I found the Youth awaiting me.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, pardner," said he, "I was just getting a bit anxious about you. I
+thought sure that fairy had you in tow for a sucker. I'm going to stay
+right with you, and you're not going to shake me. See!"</p>
+
+<p>"All right," I said; "come on and we'll watch the dance."</p>
+
+<p>So we got in the front row of spectators, while behind us the crowd
+packed as closely as matches in a box. The champagne I had taken had
+again aroused in me that vivid sense of joy and strength and colour.
+Again the lights were effulgent, the music witching, the women divine.
+As I swayed a little I clutched unsteadily at the Youth. He looked at me
+curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Brace up, old man," he said. "Guess you're not often in town. You're
+not much used to the dance-hall racket."</p>
+
+<p>"No," I assured him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he continued, "it's the rottenest game ever. I've seen more poor
+beggars put plumb out of business by the dance-halls than by all the
+saloons and gambling-joints put together. It's the game of catching the
+sucker brought to the point of perfection, and there's very few cases
+where it fails."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_353" id="page_353" title="353"></a>He perceived I was listening earnestly, and he warmed up to his
+subject.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, the boys get in after they've been out on the claim for six
+months at a stretch, and town looks mighty good to them. The music
+sounds awful nice, and the women, well, they look just like angels. The
+boys are all right, but they've got that mad craving for the sight of a
+woman a man gets after he's been off out in the Wild, and these women
+have got the captivation of men down to a fine art. Once one of them
+gets to looking at you with eyes that eat right into you, and soft white
+hands, and pretty coaxing ways, well, it's mighty hard to hold back. A
+man's a fool to come near these places if he's got a poke&mdash;'cept, like
+me, he knows the ropes and he's right onto himself."</p>
+
+<p>The Youth said this with quite a complacent air. He went on:</p>
+
+<p>"These girls work on a percentage basis. You'll notice every time you
+buy them a drink the waiter gives them a check. That means that when the
+night's over they cash in and get twenty-five per cent, of the money
+you've spent on them. That's how they're so keen on ordering fresh
+bottles. Sometimes they'll say a bottle's gone flat before it's empty,
+and have you order another. Or else they'll pour half of it into the
+cuspidor when you're not looking. Then, when you get too full to notice
+the difference, they'll run in ginger ale on you. Or else they'll get
+you ordering by the case, and have half a dozen dummy bottles in it. Oh,
+there's all kinds of schemes <a class="pagenum" name="page_354" id="page_354" title="354"></a>these box rustlers are on to. When you pay
+for a drink you toss over your poke, and they take the price out. Do you
+think they're particular to a quarter ounce or so? No, sir! and you
+always get the short end of it. It's a bad game to go up against."</p>
+
+<p>The Youth looked at me as though proud of his superior sophistication.</p>
+
+<p>The floor was cleared. Girls were now coming from behind the stage,
+preening themselves and chaffing with the crowd. The orchestra struck up
+some jubilant ragtime that set the heart dancing and the heels tapping
+in tune. Brighter than ever seemed the lights; more dazzling the white
+and gilt of the walls. Some of the girls were balancing lightly to a
+waltz rhythm. There was a witching grace in their movements, and the
+Youth watched them intently. He looked down at his feet clad in old
+moccasins.</p>
+
+<p>"Gee, I'd like just to have one spin," he said; "just one before I leave
+the darned old country for good. I was always crazy about dancing. I'd
+ride thirty miles to attend a dance back home."</p>
+
+<p>His eyes grew very wistful. Suddenly the music stopped and the
+floor-master came forward. He was a tall, dark man with a rich and
+vibrant baritone voice.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the best spieler in the Yukon," said the Youth.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, boys," boomed the spieler. "Look alive there. Don't keep the
+ladies waiting. Take your hands out of your pockets and get in the game.
+Just going to begin, a dreamy waltz or a nice juicy <a class="pagenum" name="page_355" id="page_355" title="355"></a>two-step, whichever
+you prefer. Hey, professor, strike up that waltz!"</p>
+
+<p>Once more the music swelled out.</p>
+
+<p>"How's that, boys? Doesn't that make your feet like feathers? Come on,
+boys! Here you are for the nice, glossy floor and the nice, flossy
+girls. Here you are! Here you are! That's right, select your partners!
+Swing your honeys! Hurry up there! Just a-goin' to begin. What's the
+matter with you fellows? Wake up! a dance won't break you. Come on!
+don't be a cheap skate. The girls are fine, fit and fairy-like, the
+music's swell and the floor's elegant. Come on, boys!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a compelling power in his voice, and already a number of
+couples were waltzing round. The women were exquisite in their grace and
+springy lightness. They talked as they danced, gazing with languishing
+eyes and siren smiles at the man of the moment.</p>
+
+<p>Some of them, who had not got partners, were picking out individuals
+from the crowd and coaxing them to come forward. A drunken fellow
+staggered onto the floor and grabbed a girl. She was young, dainty and
+pretty, but she showed no repugnance for him. Round and round he
+cavorted, singing and whooping, a wild, weird object; when, suddenly, he
+tripped and fell, bringing her down with him. The crowd roared; but the
+girl good-naturedly picked him up, and led him off to the bar.</p>
+
+<p>A man in a greasy canvas suit with mucklucks on his feet had gone onto
+the floor. His hair was long <a class="pagenum" name="page_356" id="page_356" title="356"></a>and matted, his beard wild and rank. He
+was dancing vehemently, and there was the glitter of wild excitement in
+his eyes. He looked as if he had not bathed for years, but again I could
+see no repulsion in the face of the handsome brunette with whom he was
+waltzing. Dance after dance they had together, locked in each other's
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a 'live one,'" said the Youth. "He's just come in from Dominion
+with a hundred ounces, and it won't last him over the night. Amber,
+there, will get it all. She won't let the other girls go near. He's her
+game."</p>
+
+<p>Between dances the men promenaded to the bar and treated their
+companions to a drink. In the same free, trusting way they threw over
+their pokes to the bartender and had the price weighed out. The dances
+were very short, and the drinks very frequent.</p>
+
+<p>Madder and madder grew the merriment. The air was hot; the odour of
+patchouli mingled with the stench of stale garments and the reek of
+alcohol. Men dripping with sweat whirled round in wild gyrations. Some
+of them danced beautifully; some merely shuffled over the floor. It did
+not make any difference to the girls. They were superbly muscular and
+used to the dragging efforts of novices. After a visit to the bar back
+they came once more, licking their lips, and fell to with fresh energy.</p>
+
+<p>There was no need to beg the crowd now. A wave of excitement seemed to
+have swept over them. They clamoured to get a dance. The "live one"
+whooped <a class="pagenum" name="page_357" id="page_357" title="357"></a>and pranced on his wild career, while Amber steered him calmly
+through the mazes of the waltz. Touch-the-button-Nell was talking to a
+tall fair-moustached man whom I recognised as a black-jack booster.
+Suddenly she left him and came over to us. She went up to the Youth.</p>
+
+<p>She had discarded her blond wig, and her pretty brown hair parted in the
+middle and rippled behind her ears. Her large violet-blue eyes had a
+devouring look that would stir the pulse of a saint. She accosted the
+Youth with a smile of particular witchery.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, kid, won't you come and have a two-step with me? I've been looking
+at you for the last half-hour and wishing you'd ask me."</p>
+
+<p>The Youth had advised me: "If any of them asks you, tell them to go to
+the devil;" but now he looked at her and his boyish face flushed.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing doing," he said stoutly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come now," she pleaded; "honest to goodness, kid, I've turned down
+the other fellow for you. You won't refuse me, will you? Come on; just
+one, sweetheart."</p>
+
+<p>She was holding the lapels of his coat and dragging him gently forward.
+I could see him biting his lip in embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>"No, thanks, I'm sorry," he stammered. "I don't know how to dance.
+Besides, I've got no money."</p>
+
+<p>She grew more coaxing.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind about the coin, honey. Come on, have one on me. Don't turn
+me down, I've taken <a class="pagenum" name="page_358" id="page_358" title="358"></a>such a notion to you. Come on now; just one turn."</p>
+
+<p>I watched his face. His eyes clouded with emotion, and I knew the
+psychology of it. He was thinking:</p>
+
+<p>"Just one&mdash;surely it wouldn't hurt. Surely I'm man enough to trust
+myself, to know when to quit. Oh, lordy, wouldn't it be sweet just to
+get my arm round a woman's waist once more! The sight of them's honey to
+me; surely it wouldn't matter. One round and I'll shake her and go
+home."</p>
+
+<p>The hesitation was fatal. By an irresistible magnetism the Youth was
+drawn to this woman whose business it ever was to lure and beguile. By
+her siren strength she conquered him as she had conquered many another,
+and as she led him off there was a look of triumph on her face. Poor
+Youth! At the end of the dance he did not go home, nor did he "shake"
+her. He had another and another and another. The excitement began to
+paint his cheeks, the drink to stoke wild fires in his eyes. As I stood
+deserted I tried to attract him, to get him back; but he no longer
+heeded me.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see the Madonna to-night," said a little, dark individual in
+spectacles. Somehow he looked to me like a newspaper man "chasing" copy.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said one of the girls; "she ain't workin'. She's sick; she don't
+take very kindly to the business, somehow. Don't seem to get broke in
+easy. She's funny, poor kid."</p>
+
+<p>Carelessly they went on to talk of other things, <a class="pagenum" name="page_359" id="page_359" title="359"></a>while I stood there
+gasping, staring, sick at heart. All my vinous joy was gone, leaving me
+a haggard, weary wretch of a man, disenchanted and miserable to the
+verge of&mdash;what? I shuddered. The lights seemed to have gone blurred and
+dim. The hall was tawdry, cheap and vulgar. The women, who but a moment
+before had seemed creatures of grace and charm, were now nothing more
+than painted, posturing harridans, their seductive smiles the leers of
+shameless sin.</p>
+
+<p>And this was a Dawson dance-hall, the trump card in the nightly game of
+despoliation. Dance-halls, saloons, gambling-dens, brothels, the heart
+of the town was a cancer, a hive of iniquity. Here had flocked the most
+rapacious of gamblers, the most beautiful and unscrupulous women on the
+Pacific slope. Here in the gold-born city they waited for their prey,
+the Man with the Poke. Back there in the silent Wild, with pain and
+bloody sweat, he toiled for them. Sooner or later must he come within
+reach of their talons to be fleeced, flouted and despoiled. It was an
+organised system of sharpers, thugs, harpies, and birds of prey of every
+kind. It was a blot on the map. It was a great whirlpool, and the eddy
+of it encircled the furthest outpost of the golden valley. It was a
+vortex of destruction, of ruin and shame. And here was I, hovering on
+its brink, likely to be soon sucked down into its depths.</p>
+
+<p>I pressed my way to the door, and stood there staring and swaying, but
+whether with wine or weakness I knew not. In the vociferous and
+flamboyant <a class="pagenum" name="page_360" id="page_360" title="360"></a>street I could hear the raucous voices of the spielers, the
+jigging tunes of the orchestras, the click of ivory balls, the popping
+of corks, the hoarse, animal laughter of men, the shrill, inane giggles
+of women. Day and night the game went on without abatement, the game of
+despoliation.</p>
+
+<p>And I was on the verge of the vortex. Memories of Glengyle, the laughing
+of the silver-scaled sea, the tawny fisher-lads with their honest eyes,
+the herring glittering like jewels in the brown nets, the women with
+their round health-hued cheeks and motherly eyes. Oh, Home, with your
+peace and rest and content, can you not save me from this?</p>
+
+<p>And as I stood there wretchedly a timid little hand touched my arm.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_361" id="page_361" title="361"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is odd how people who have been parted a weary while, yet who have
+thought of each other constantly, will often meet with as little show of
+feeling as if they had but yesterday bid good-bye. I looked at her and
+she at me, and I don't think either of us betrayed any emotion. Yet must
+we both have been infinitely moved.</p>
+
+<p>She was changed, desperately, pitifully changed. All the old sweetness
+was there, that pathetic sweetness which had made the miners call her
+the Madonna; but alas, forever gone from her was the fragrant flower of
+girlhood. Her pallor was excessive, and the softness had vanished out of
+her face, leaving there only lines of suffering. Sorrow had kindled in
+her grey eyes a spiritual lustre, a shining, tearless brightness. Ah me,
+sad, sad, indeed, was the change in her!</p>
+
+<p>So she looked at me, a long and level look in which I could see neither
+love nor hate. The bright, grey eyes were clear and steady, and the
+pinched and pitiful lips did not quiver. And as I gazed on her I felt
+that nothing ever would be the same again. Love could no more be the
+radiant spirit of old, the prompter of impassioned words, the painter of
+bewitching scenes. Never again could we feel the world recede from us as
+we poised on bright wings of fancy; <a class="pagenum" name="page_362" id="page_362" title="362"></a>never again compare our joy with
+that of the heaven-born; never again welcome that pure ideal that comes
+to youth alone, and that pitifully dies in the disenchantment of graver
+days. We could sacrifice all things for each other; joy and grieve for
+each other; live and die for each other,&mdash;but the Hope, the Dream, the
+exaltation of love's dawn, the peerless white glory of it&mdash;had gone from
+us forever and forever.</p>
+
+<p>Her lips moved:</p>
+
+<p>"How you have changed!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Berna, I have been ill. But you, you too have changed."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said very slowly. "I have been&mdash;dead."</p>
+
+<p>There was no faltering in her voice, never a throb of pathos. It was
+like the voice of one who has given up all hope, the voice of one who
+has arisen from the grave. In that cold mask of a face I could see no
+glimmer of the old-time joy, the joy of the season when wild roses were
+aglow. We both were silent, two pitifully cold beings, while about us
+the howling bedlam of pleasure-plotters surged and seethed.</p>
+
+<p>"Come upstairs where we can talk," said she. So we sat down in one of
+the boxes, while a great freezing shadow seemed to fall and wrap us
+around. It was so strange, this silence between us. We were like two
+pale ghosts meeting in the misty gulfs beyond the grave.</p>
+
+<p>"And why did you not come?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_363" id="page_363" title="363"></a>"Come&mdash;I tried to come."</p>
+
+<p>"But you did not." Her tone was measured, her face averted.</p>
+
+<p>"I would have sold my soul to come. I was ill, desperately ill, nigh to
+death. I was in the hospital. For two weeks I was delirious, raving of
+you, trying to get to you, making myself a hundred times worse because
+of you. But what could I do? No man could have been more helpless. I was
+out of my mind, weak as a child, fighting for my life. That was why I
+did not come."</p>
+
+<p>When I began to speak she started. As I went on she drew a quick,
+choking breath. Then she listened ever so intently, and when I had
+finished a great change came over her. Her eyes stared glassily, her
+head dropped, her hands clutched at the chair, she seemed nigh to
+fainting. When she spoke her voice was like a whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"And they lied to me. They told me you were too eager gold-getting to
+think of me; that you were in love with some other woman out there; that
+you cared no more for me. They lied to me. Well, it's too late now."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed, and the once tuneful voice was harsh and grating. Still
+were her eyes blank with misery. Again and again she murmured: "Too
+late, too late."</p>
+
+<p>Quietly I sat and watched her, yet in my heart was a vast storm of
+agony. I longed to comfort her, to kiss that face so white and worn and
+weariful, to bring tears to those hopeless eyes. There seemed to <a class="pagenum" name="page_364" id="page_364" title="364"></a>grow
+in me a greater hunger for the girl than ever before, a longing to bring
+joy to her again, to make her forget. What did it all matter? She was
+still my love. I yearned for her. We both had suffered, both been
+through the furnace. Surely from it would come the love that passeth
+understanding. We would rear no lily walls, but out of our pain would we
+build an abiding place that would outlast the tomb.</p>
+
+<p>"Berna," I said, "it is not too late."</p>
+
+<p>There was a desperate bitterness in her face. "Yes, yes, it is. You do
+not understand. You&mdash;it's all right for you, you are blameless; but
+I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You too are blameless, dear. We have both been miserably duped. Never
+mind, Berna, we will forget all. I love you, Oh how much I never can
+tell you, girl! Come, let us forget and go away and be happy."</p>
+
+<p>It seemed as if my every word was like a stab to her. The sweet face was
+tragically wretched.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no," she answered, "it can never be. You think it can, but it can't.
+You could not forget. I could not forget. We would both be thinking;
+always, always torturing each other. To you the thought would be like a
+knife thrust, and the more you loved me the deeper would pierce its
+blade. And I, too, can you not realise how fearfully I would look at
+you, always knowing you were thinking of <span class="smcap">THAT</span>, and what an agony it
+would be to me to watch your agony? Our home would be a haunted one, a
+place of ghosts. Never again can there be joy between you and me. It's
+too late, too late!"</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_365" id="page_365" title="365"></a>She was choking back the sobs now, but still the tears did not come.</p>
+
+<p>"Berna," I said gently, "I think I could forget. Please give me a chance
+to prove it. Other men have forgotten. I know it was not your fault. I
+know that spiritually you are the same pure girl you were before. You
+are an angel, dear; my angel."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I was not to blame. When you failed to come I grew desperate. When
+I wrote you and still you failed to come I was almost distracted. Night
+and day he was persecuting me. The others gave me no peace. If ever a
+poor girl was hounded to dishonour I was. Yet I had made up my mind to
+die rather than yield. Oh, it's too horrible."</p>
+
+<p>She shuddered.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind, dear, don't tell me about it."</p>
+
+<p>"When I awoke to life sick, sick for many days, I wanted to die, but I
+could not. There seemed to be nothing for it but to stay on there. I was
+so weak, so ill, so indifferent to everything that it did not seem to
+matter. That was where I made my mistake. I should have killed myself.
+Oh, there's something in us all that makes us cling to life in spite of
+shame! But I would never let him come near me again. You believe me,
+don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you."</p>
+
+<p>"And though, when he went away, I've gone into this life, there's never
+been any one else. I've danced with them, laughed with them, but that's
+all. You believe me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dear."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_366" id="page_366" title="366"></a>"Thank God for that! And now we must say good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Good-bye?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"I said&mdash;good-bye. I would not spoil your life. You know how proud I am,
+how sensitive. I would not give you such as I. Once I would have given
+myself to you gladly, but now&mdash;please go away."</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible."</p>
+
+<p>"No, the other is impossible. You don't know what these things mean to a
+woman. Leave me, please."</p>
+
+<p>"Leave you&mdash;to what?"</p>
+
+<p>"To death, ruin&mdash;I don't know what. If I'm strong enough I will die. If
+I am weak I will sink in the mire. Oh, and I am only a girl too, a young
+girl!"</p>
+
+<p>"Berna, will you marry me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No! No! No!"</p>
+
+<p>"Berna, I will never leave you. Here I tell you frankly, plainly, I
+don't know whether or not you still love me&mdash;you haven't said a word to
+show it&mdash;but I know I love you, and I will love you as long as life
+lasts. I will never leave you. Listen to me, dear: let us go away, far,
+far away. You will forget, I will forget. It will never be the same, but
+perhaps it will be better, greater than before. Come with me, O my love!
+Have pity on me, Berna, have pity. Marry me. Be my wife."</p>
+
+<p>She merely shook her head, sitting there cold as a stone.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," I said, "if you call yourself dishonoured, <a class="pagenum" name="page_367" id="page_367" title="367"></a>I too will become
+dishonoured. If you choose to sink in the mire, I too will sink. We will
+go down together, you and I. Oh, I would rather sink with you, dear,
+than rise with the angels. You have chosen&mdash;well, I too have chosen. We
+stand on the edge of the vortex, now will we plunge down. You will see
+me steep myself in shame, then when I am a hundred shades blacker than
+you can ever hope to be, my angel, you will stoop and pity me. Oh, I
+don't care any more. I've played the fool too long; now I'll play the
+devil, and you'll stand by and watch me. Sometimes it's nice to make
+those we love suffer, isn't it? I would break my arm to make you feel
+sorry for me. But now you'll see me in the vortex. We'll go down
+together, dear. Hand in hand hell-ward we'll go down, we'll go down."</p>
+
+<p>She was looking at me in a frightened way. A madness seemed to have
+gotten into me.</p>
+
+<p>"Berna, you're on the dance-halls. You're at the mercy of the vilest
+wretch that's got an ounce of gold in his filthy poke. They can buy you
+as they buy white flesh everywhere on earth. You must dance with them,
+drink with them, go away with them. Berna, I can buy you. Come, dance
+with me, drink with me. We'll live, live. We'll eat, drink and be merry.
+On with the dance! Oh, for the joy of life! Since you'll not be my love
+you'll be my light-of-love. Come, Berna, come!"</p>
+
+<p>I paused. With her head lying on the cushioned edge of the box she was
+crying. The plush was streaky with her tears.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_368" id="page_368" title="368"></a>"Will you come?" I asked again.</p>
+
+<p>She did not move.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said I, "there are others, and I have money, lots of it. I can
+buy them. I am going down into the vortex. Look on and watch me."</p>
+
+<p>I left her crying.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_369" id="page_369" title="369"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is with shame I write the following pages. Would I could blot them
+out of my life. To this day there must be many who remember my meteoric
+career in the firmament of fast life. It did not last long, but in less
+than a week I managed to squander a small fortune.</p>
+
+<p>Those were the days when Dawson might fitly have been called the
+dissolute. It was the r&eacute;gime of the dance-hall girl, and the taint of
+the tenderloin was over the town. So far there were few decent women to
+be seen on the streets. Respectable homes were being established, but
+even there social evils were discussed with an astonishing frankness and
+indifference. In the best society men were welcomed who were known to be
+living in open infamy. A general callousness to social corruption
+prevailed.</p>
+
+<p>For Dawson was at this time the Mecca of the gambler and the courtesan.
+Of its population probably two-thirds began their day when most people
+finished it. It was only towards nightfall that the town completely
+roused up, that the fever of pleasure providing began. Nearly every one
+seemed to be affected by the spirit of degeneracy. On the faces of many
+of the business men could be seen the stamp of the pace they were going.
+Cases in Court had to be adjourned because of the debauches of lawyers.
+Bank <a class="pagenum" name="page_370" id="page_370" title="370"></a>tellers stepped into their cages sleepless from all-night orgies.
+Government officials lived openly with wanton women. High and low were
+attainted by the corruption. In those days of headstrong excitement, of
+sudden fortune, of money to be had almost for the picking up, when the
+gold-camp was a reservoir into which poured by a thousand channels the
+treasure of the valley, few were those among the men who kept a steady
+head, whose private records were pure and blameless.</p>
+
+<p>No town of its size has ever broken up more homes. Men in the
+intoxication of fast-won wealth in that far-away land gave way to
+excesses of every kind. Fathers of families paraded the streets arm in
+arm with demi-mondaines. To be seen talking to a loose woman was
+unworthy of comment, not to have a mistress was not to be in the swim.
+Words cannot express the infinite and general degradation. It is
+scarcely possible to exaggerate it. That teeming town at the mouth of
+the Klondike set a pace in libertinism that has never been equalled.</p>
+
+<p>I would divide its population into three classes: the sporting
+fraternity, whose business it was to despoil and betray; the business
+men, drawn more or less into the vortex of dissipation; the miners from
+the creeks, the Man with the Poke, here to-day, gone, to-morrow, and of
+them all the most worthy of respect. He was the prop and mainstay of the
+town. It was like a vast trap set to catch him. He would "blow in"
+brimming with health and high spirits; for a time he would "get into the
+game;" sooner or <a class="pagenum" name="page_371" id="page_371" title="371"></a>later he would cut loose and "hit the high places";
+then, at last, beggared and broken, he would crawl back in shame and
+sorrow to the claim. O, that grey city! could it ever tell its woes and
+sorrows the great, white stars above would melt into compassionate
+tears.</p>
+
+<p>Ah well, to the devil with all moralising! A short life and a merry one.
+Switch on the lights! Ring up the curtain! On with the play!</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>In the casino a crowd is gathering round the roulette wheel. Three-deep
+they stand. A woman rushes out from the dance-hall and pushes her way
+through the throng. She is very young, very fair and redundant of life.
+A man jostles her. From frank blue eyes she flashes a look at him, and
+from lips sweet as those of a child there comes the remonstrance: "Curse
+you; take care."</p>
+
+<p>The men make way for her, and she throws a poke of dust on the red. "A
+hundred dollars out of that," she says. The coupier nods; the wheel
+spins round; she loses.</p>
+
+<p>"Give me another two hundred in chips," she cries eagerly. The dealer
+hands them to her, and puts her poke in a drawer. Again and again she
+plays, placing chips here and there round the table. Sometimes she wins,
+sometimes she loses. At last she has quite a pile of chips before her.
+She laughs gleefully. "I guess I'll cash in now," she says. "That's good
+enough for to-night."</p>
+
+<p>The man hands her back her poke, writes out a <a class="pagenum" name="page_372" id="page_372" title="372"></a>cheque for her winnings,
+and off she goes like a happy child.</p>
+
+<p>"Who's that?" I ask.</p>
+
+<p>"That? that's Blossom. She's a 'bute,' she is. Want a knockdown? Come on
+round to the dance-hall."</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>Once more I see the Youth. He is nearing the end of his tether. He
+borrows a few hundred dollars from me. "One more night," he says with a
+bitter grin, "and the hog goes back to wallow in the mire. They've got
+you going too&mdash; Oh, Lord, it's a great game! Ha! ha!"</p>
+
+<p>He goes off unsteadily; then from out of the luminous mists there
+appears the Jam-wagon. In a pained way he looks at me. "Here, chuck it,
+old man," he says; "come home to my cabin and straighten up."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," I answer; "just one drink more."</p>
+
+<p>One more means still one more. Poor old Jam-wagon! It's the blind
+leading the blind.</p>
+
+<p>Mosher haunts me with his gleaming bald head and his rat-like eyes. He
+is living with the little ninety-five-pound woman, the one with the mop
+of hair.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, it is a hades of a life I am steeped in! I drink and I drink. It
+seems to me I am always drinking. Rarely do I eat. I am one of half a
+dozen spectacular "live ones." All the camp is talking of us, but it
+seems to me I lead the bunch in the race to ruin. I wonder what Berna
+thinks of it all. Was there ever such a sensitive creature? Where did
+she get <a class="pagenum" name="page_373" id="page_373" title="373"></a>that obstinate pride? Child of misfortune! She minded me of a
+delicate china cup that gets mixed in with the coarse crockery of a hash
+joint.</p>
+
+<p>Remonstrantly the Prodigal speeds to town.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you crazy?" he cries. "I don't mind you making an ass of yourself,
+but lushing around all that coin the way you're doing&mdash;it's wicked; it
+makes me sick. Come home at once."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't," I say. "What if I am crazy? Isn't it my money? I've never
+sown my wild oats yet. I'm trying to catch up, that's all. When the
+money's done I'll quit. I'm having the time of my life. Don't come
+spoiling it with your precepts. What a lot of fun I've missed by being
+good. Come along; 'listen to the last word of human philosophy&mdash;have a
+drink.'"</p>
+
+<p>He goes away shaking his head. There's no fear of him ever breaking
+loose. He, with his smile of sunshine, would make misfortune pay. He is
+a rolling stone that gathers no moss, but manages to glue itself to
+greenbacks at every turn.</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>I am in a box at the Palace Grand. The place is packed with rowdy men
+and ribald women. I am at the zenith of my shame. Right and left I am
+buying wine. Like vultures at a feast they bunch into the box. Like
+carrion flies they buzz around me. That is what I feel myself to
+be&mdash;carrion.</p>
+
+<p>How I loathe myself! but I think of Berna, and the thought goads me to
+fresh excesses. I will go on till flesh and blood can stand it no
+longer, till I drop <a class="pagenum" name="page_374" id="page_374" title="374"></a>in my tracks. I realise that somehow I must make
+her pity me, must awake in her that guardian angel which exists in every
+woman. Only in that way can I break down the barrier of her pride and
+arouse the love latent in her heart.</p>
+
+<p>There are half a dozen girls in the box, a bevy of beauties, and I buy a
+case of wine for each, over a thousand dollars' worth. Screaming with
+laughter they toss it in bottles down to their friends in the audience.
+It is a scene of riotous excitement. The audience roars, the girls
+shriek, the orchestra tries to make itself heard. Madder and madder
+grows the merriment. The fierce fever of it scorches in my veins. I am
+mad to spend, to throw away money, to outdo all others in bitter,
+reckless prodigality. I fling twenty-dollar gold pieces to the singers.
+I open bottle after bottle of wine. The girls are spraying the crowd
+with it, the floor of the box swims with it. I drop my pencil signing a
+tab, and when I look down it is floating in a pool of champagne.</p>
+
+<p>Then comes the last. The dance has begun. Men in fur caps, mackinaw
+coats and mucklucks are waltzing with women clad in Paris gowns and
+sparkling with jewels. The floor is thronged. I have a large,
+hundred-ounce poke of dust, and I unloose the thong. Suddenly with a mad
+shout I scatter its contents round the hall. Like a shower of golden
+rain it falls on men and women alike. See how they grovel for it, the
+brutes, the vampires! How they fight and grab and sprawl over it! How
+they shriek and howl and curse! It is like an arena of wild <a class="pagenum" name="page_375" id="page_375" title="375"></a>beasts; it
+is pandemonium. Oh, how I despise them! My gorge rises, but&mdash;to the end,
+to the end. I must play my part.</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>Always amid that lurid carnival of sin floats the figure of Blossom,
+Blossom with her child-face of dazzling fairness, her china-blue eyes,
+her round, smooth cheeks. How different from the pinched pallid face of
+Berna! Poor, poor Berna! I never see her, but amid all the saturnalia
+she haunts me. The thought of her is agony, agony. I cannot bear to
+think of her. I know she watches me. If she would only stoop and save me
+now! Or have I not fallen low enough? What a faith I have in that deep
+mother-love of hers that will redeem me in the end. I must go deeper
+yet. Faster and faster must I swirl into the vortex.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, these women, how in my heart I loathe them! I laugh with them, I
+quaff with them, I let them rob me; but that's all.</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>In all that fierce madness of debauch, thank God, I retained my honour.
+They beguiled me, they tried to lure me into their rooms; but at the
+moment I went to enter I recoiled. It was as if an invisible arm
+stretched across the doorway and barred me out.</p>
+
+<p>And Blossom, she, too, tried so hard to lure me, and because I resisted
+it inflamed her. Half angel, half devil was Blossom, a girl in years,
+but woefully wise, a soft siren when pleased, a she-devil when roused.
+She made me her special quarry. She <a class="pagenum" name="page_376" id="page_376" title="376"></a>fought for me. She drove off all
+the other girls. We talked together, we drank together, we "played the
+tables" together, but nothing more. She would coax me with the
+prettiest gestures, and cajole me with the sweetest endearments; then,
+when I steadfastly resisted her, she would fly into a fury and flout me
+with the foulness of the stews. She was beautiful, but born to be bad.
+No power on heaven or earth could have saved her. Yet in her badness she
+was frank, natural and untroubled as a child.</p>
+
+<p>It was in one of the corridors of the dance-hall in the early hours of
+the morning. The place was deserted, strewed with d&eacute;bris of the night's
+debauch. The air was fetid, and from the gambling-hall down below arose
+the shouts of the players. We were up there, Blossom and I. I was in a
+strange state of mind, a state bordering on frenzy. Not much longer, I
+felt, could I keep up this pace. Something had to happen, and that soon.</p>
+
+<p>She put her arms around me. I could feel her cheek pressed to mine. I
+could see her bosom rise and fall.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," she said.</p>
+
+<p>She led me towards her room. No longer was I able to resist. My foot was
+on the threshold and I was almost over when&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Telegram, sir."</p>
+
+<p>It was a messenger. Confusedly I took the flimsy envelope and tore it
+open. Blankly I stared at the line of type. I stared like a man in a
+dream. I was sober enough now.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_377" id="page_377" title="377"></a>"Ain't you coming?" said Blossom, putting her arms round me.</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said hoarsely, "leave me, please leave me. Oh, my God!"</p>
+
+<p>Her face changed, became vindictive, the face of a fury.</p>
+
+<p>"Curse you!" she hissed, gnashing her teeth. "Oh, I knew. It's that
+other, that white-faced doll you care for. Look at me! Am I not better
+than her? And you scorn me. Oh, I hate you. I'll get even with you and
+her. Curse you, curse you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She snatched up an empty wine bottle. Swinging it by the neck she struck
+me square on the forehead. I felt a stunning blow, a warm rush of blood.
+Then I fell limply forward, and all the lights seemed to go out.</p>
+
+<p>There I lay in a heap, and the blood spurting from my wound soaked the
+little piece of paper. On it was written:</p>
+
+<p>
+"<i>Mother died this morning. Garry.</i>"<br />
+</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_378" id="page_378" title="378"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Where am I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Here, with me."</p>
+
+<p>Low and sweet and tender was the voice. I was in bed and my head was
+heavily bandaged, so that the cloths weighed upon my eyelids. It was
+difficult to see, and I was too weak to raise myself, but I seemed to be
+in semi-darkness. A lamp burning on a small table nearby was turned low.
+By my bedside some one was sitting, and a soft, gentle hand was holding
+mine.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is <i>here</i>?" I asked faintly.</p>
+
+<p>"Here&mdash;my cabin. Rest, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that you, Berna?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, please don't talk."</p>
+
+<p>I thrilled with a sudden sweetness of joy. A flood of sunshine bathed
+me. It was all over, then, the turmoil, the storm, the shipwreck. I was
+drifting on a tranquil ocean of content. Blissfully I closed my eyes.
+Oh, I was happy, happy!</p>
+
+<p>In her cabin, with her, and she was nursing me&mdash;what had happened? What
+new turn of events had brought about this wonderful thing? As I lay
+there in the quiet, trying to recall the something that went before, my
+poor sick brain groped but feebly amid a murk of sinister shadows.</p>
+
+<p>"Berna," I said, "I've had a bad dream."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_379" id="page_379" title="379"></a>"Yes, dear, you've been sick, very sick. You've had an attack of fever,
+brain fever. But don't try to think, just rest quietly."</p>
+
+<p>So for a while longer I lay there, thrilled with a strange new joy,
+steeped in the ineffable comfort of her presence, and growing better,
+stronger with every breath. Memories came thronging back, memories that
+made me cringe and wince, and shudder with the shame of them. Yet ever
+the thought that she was with me was like a holy blessing. Surely it was
+all good since it had ended in this.</p>
+
+<p>Yet there was something else, some memory darker than the others, some
+shadow of shadows that baffled me. Then as I battled with a growing
+terror and suspense, it all came back to me, the telegram, the news, my
+collapse. A great grief welled up in me, and in my agony I spoke to the
+girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Berna, tell me, is it true? Is my Mother dead?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it's true, dear. You must try to bear it bravely."</p>
+
+<p>I could feel her bending over me, could feel her hand holding mine,
+could feel her hair brush my cheek, yet I forgot even her just then. I
+thought only of Mother, of her devotion and of how little I had done to
+deserve it. So this was the end: a narrow grave, a rending grief and the
+haunting spectre of reproach.</p>
+
+<p>I saw my Mother sitting at that window that faced the west, her hands
+meekly folded on her lap, her eyes wistfully gazing over the grey sea. I
+knew there was never a day of her life when she did not sit thus <a class="pagenum" name="page_380" id="page_380" title="380"></a>and
+think of me. I could guess at the heartache that gentle face would not
+betray, the longing those tender lips would not speak, the grief those
+sweet eyes studied to conceal. As, sitting there in the strange clouded
+sunset of my native land, she let her knitting drop on her lap, I knew
+she prayed for me. Oh, Mother! Mother!</p>
+
+<p>My sobs were choking me, and Berna was holding my hand very tightly. Yet
+in a little I grew calmer.</p>
+
+<p>"Berna," I said, "I've only got you now, only you, little girl. So you
+must love me, you mustn't leave me."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll never leave you&mdash;if you want me to stay."</p>
+
+<p>"God bless you, dear. I can't tell you the comfort you are to me. I'll
+try to be quiet now."</p>
+
+<p>I will always remember those days as I grew slowly well again. The cot
+in which I lay stood in the sitting-room of the cabin, and from the
+window I could overlook the city. Snow had fallen, the days were diamond
+bright, and the smoke ascended sharply in the glittering air. The little
+room was papered with a design of wild roses that minded me of the
+Whitehorse Rapids. On the walls were some little framed pictures; the
+floor was carpeted in dull brown, and a little heater gave out a
+pleasant warmth. Through a doorway draped with a curtain I could see her
+busy in her little kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>She left me much alone, alone with my thoughts. Often when all was quiet
+I knew she was sitting there beyond the curtain, sitting thinking, just
+as I was thinking. Quiet was the keynote of our life, quiet <a class="pagenum" name="page_381" id="page_381" title="381"></a>and
+sunshine. That little cabin might have been a hundred miles from the
+gold-born city, it was so quiet. Here drifted no echo of its abandoned
+gaiety, its glory of demoralisation. How sweet she looked in her
+spotless home attire, her neat waist, her white apron with bib and
+sleeves, her general air of a little housewife. And never was there so
+devoted a nurse.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes she would read to me from one of the few books I had taken
+everywhere on my travels, a page or two from my beloved Stevenson, a
+poem from my great-hearted Henley, a luminous passage from my Thoreau.
+How those readings brought back the time when, tired of flicking the
+tawny pools, I would sit on the edge of the boisterous little burn and
+read till the grey shadows sifted down! I was so happy then, and I did
+not know it. Now everything seemed changed. Life had lost its zest. Its
+savour was no longer sweet. Its very success was more bitter than
+failure. Would I ever get back that old-time rapture, that youthful joy,
+that satisfaction with all the world?</p>
+
+<p>It was sweet prolonging my convalescence, yet the time came when I could
+no longer let her wait upon me. What was going to happen to us? I
+thought of that at all times, and she knew I thought of it. Sometimes I
+could see a vivid colour in her cheeks, an eager brightness in her eye.
+Was ever a stranger situation? She slept in the little kitchen, and
+between us there was but that curtain. The faintest draught stirred it.
+There I lay through the long, <a class="pagenum" name="page_382" id="page_382" title="382"></a>long night in that quiet cabin. I heard
+her breathing. Sometimes even I heard her murmur in her sleep. I knew
+she was there, within a few yards of me. I thought of her always. I
+loved her beyond all else on earth. I was gaining daily in health and
+strength, yet not for the wealth of the world would I have passed that
+little curtain. She was as safe there as if she were guarded with
+swords. And she knew it.</p>
+
+<p>Once when I was in agony I called to her in the night, and she came to
+me. She came with a mother's tenderness, with exquisite endearments,
+with the great love shining in her eyes. She leaned over me, she kissed
+me. As she bent over my bed I put my arm round her. There in the
+darkness were we, she and I, her kisses warm upon my lips, her hair
+brushing my brow, and a great love devouring us. Oh, it was hard, but I
+released her, put her from me, told her to go away.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll play the game fair," I said to myself. I must be very, very
+careful. Our position was full of danger. So I forced myself to be cold
+to her, and she looked both surprised and pained at the change in me.
+Then she seemed to put forth special efforts to please me. She changed
+the fashion of her hair, she wore pretty bows of ribbon. She talked
+brightly and lightly in a febrile way. She showed little coquettish
+tricks of manner that were charming to my mind. Ever she looked at me
+with wistful concern. Her heart was innocent, and she could not
+understand my sudden coldness. Yet that night had given me a lightning
+glimpse of my nature that <a class="pagenum" name="page_383" id="page_383" title="383"></a>frightened me. The girl was winsome beyond
+words, and I knew I had but to say it and she would come to me. Yet I
+checked myself. I retreated behind a barrier of reserve. "Play the
+game," I said; "play the game."</p>
+
+<p>So as I grew better and stronger she seemed to lose her cheerfulness.
+Always she had that anxious, wistful look. Once came a sound from the
+kitchen like stifled sobbing, and again in the night I heard her cry.
+Then the time came when I was well enough to get up, to go away.</p>
+
+<p>I dressed, looking like the cadaverous ghost I felt myself to be. She
+was there in the kitchen, sitting quietly, waiting.</p>
+
+<p>"Berna," I called.</p>
+
+<p>She came, with a smile lighting up her face.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going."</p>
+
+<p>The smile vanished, and left her with that high proud look, yet behind
+it was a lurking fear.</p>
+
+<p>"You're going?" she faltered.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said roughly, "I'm going."</p>
+
+<p>She did not speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you ready?" I went on.</p>
+
+<p>"Ready?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you're going, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Where?"</p>
+
+<p>I took her suddenly in my arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you dear little angel, to get married, of course. Come on, Berna,
+we'll find the nearest parson. We won't lose any more precious time."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_384" id="page_384" title="384"></a>Then a great rush of tears came into her eyes. But still she hung back.
+She shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Berna, what's the matter? Won't you come?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think not."</p>
+
+<p>"In Heaven's name, what is wrong, dear? Don't you love me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I love you. It's because I love you I won't come."</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you marry me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, I can't. You know what I said before. I haven't changed any.
+I'm still the same&mdash;dishonoured girl. You could never give me your
+name."</p>
+
+<p>"You're as pure as the driven snow, little one."</p>
+
+<p>"No one thinks so but you, and it's that that makes all the difference.
+Everybody knows. No, I could never marry you, never take your name,
+never bind you to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what's to be done?"</p>
+
+<p>"You must go away, or&mdash;stay."</p>
+
+<p>"Stay?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. You've been living alone with me for a month. I picked you up that
+night in the dance-hall. I had you brought here. I nursed you. Do you
+think people don't give us credit for the worst? We are as innocent as
+children, yet do you think I have a shred of reputation left? Already I
+am supposed to be your mistress. Everybody knows; nobody cares. There
+are so many living that way here. If you told them we were innocent they
+would scoff at us. If you go they will say you have discarded me."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_385" id="page_385" title="385"></a>"What shall I do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just stay. Oh, why can't we go on as we've been doing? It's been so
+like home. Don't leave me, dear. I don't want to bind you. I just want
+to be of some use to you, to help you, to be with you always. Love me
+for a little, anyway. Then when you're tired of me you can go, but don't
+go now."</p>
+
+<p>I was dazed, but she went on.</p>
+
+<p>"What does the ceremony matter? We love each other. Isn't that the real
+marriage? It's more; it's an ideal. We'll both be free to go if we wish.
+There will be no bonds but those of love. Is not that beautiful, two
+people cleaving together for love's sake, living for each other,
+sacrificing for each other, yet with no man-made law to tell them: 'This
+must ye do'? Oh, stay, stay!"</p>
+
+<p>Her arms were round my neck. The grey eyes were full of pleading. The
+sweet lips had the old, pathetic droop. I yielded to the empery of love.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "we will go on awhile, on one condition&mdash;that by-and-bye
+you marry me."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I will, I will; I promise. If you don't tire of me; if you are
+sure beyond all doubt you will never regret it, then I will marry you
+with the greatest joy in the world."</p>
+
+<p>So it came about that I stayed.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_386" id="page_386" title="386"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>In this infernal irony of an existence why do the good things of life
+always come when we no longer have the same appetite to enjoy them? The
+year following, in which Berna and I kept house, was not altogether a
+happy one. Somehow we had both just missed something. We had suffered
+too much to recover our poise very easily. We were sick, not in body,
+but in mind. The thought of her terrible experience haunted her. She was
+as sensitive as the petal of a delicate flower, and often would I see
+her lips quiver and a look of pain come into her eyes. Then I knew of
+what she was thinking. I knew, and I, too, suffered.</p>
+
+<p>I tried to make her forget, yet I could not succeed; and even in my most
+happy moments there was always a shadow, the shadow of Locasto; there
+was always a fear, the fear of his return. Yes, it seemed at times as if
+we were two unfortunates, as if our happiness had come too late, as if
+our lives were irretrievably shipwrecked.</p>
+
+<p>Locasto! where was he? For near a year had he been gone, somewhere in
+that wild country at the Back of Beyond. Somewhere amid the wilder peaks
+and valleys of the Rockies he fought his desperate battle with the Wild.
+There had been sinister rumours of two lone prospectors who had perished
+up <a class="pagenum" name="page_387" id="page_387" title="387"></a>in that savage country, of two bodies that lay rotting and half
+buried by a landslide. I had a sudden, wild hope that one of them might
+be my enemy; for I hated him and I would have joyed at his death. When I
+loved Berna most exquisitely, when I gazed with tender joy upon her
+sweetness, when, with glad, thankful eyes, I blessed her for the
+sympathy and sunshine of her presence, then between us would come a
+shadow, dark, menacing and mordant. So the joy-light would vanish from
+my eyes and a great sadness fall upon me.</p>
+
+<p>What would I do if he returned? I wondered. Perhaps if he left us alone
+I might let by-gones be by-gones; but if he ever came near her
+again&mdash;well, I oiled the chambers of my Colt and heard its joyous click
+as it revolved. "That's for him," I said, "that's for him, if by look,
+by word, or by act he ever molests her again." And I meant it, too.
+Suffering had hardened me, made me dangerous. I would have killed him.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as the months went past and the suspicion of his fate deepened
+almost to a certainty, I began to breathe more freely. I noticed, too, a
+world of difference in Berna. She grew light-hearted. She sang and
+laughed a good deal. The sunshine came back to her eyes, and the shadow
+seldom lingered there. Sometimes the thought that we were not legally
+married troubled me, but on all sides were men living with their
+Klondike wives, either openly or secretly, and where this domestic
+m&eacute;nage was conducted in quietness there was little comment on it. We
+lived <a class="pagenum" name="page_388" id="page_388" title="388"></a>to ourselves, and for ourselves. We left our neighbours alone. We
+made few friends, and in the ferment of social life we were almost
+unnoticed.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, the Prodigal expostulated with me in severe terms. I did not
+attempt to argue with him. He would not have understood my point of
+view. There are heights and depths in life to which he with his
+practical mind could never attain. Yet he became very fond of Berna, and
+often visited us.</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you go and get churched decently, if you love her?" he
+demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"So I will," I answered calmly; "give me a little time. Wait till we get
+more settled."</p>
+
+<p>And, indeed, we were up to our necks in business these days. Our Gold
+Hill property had turned out well. We had a gang of men employed there,
+and I made frequent trips out to Bonanza. We had given the Halfbreed a
+small interest, and installed him as manager. The Jam-wagon, too, we had
+employed as a sort of assistant foreman. Jim was busy installing his
+hydraulic plant on Ophir Creek, and altogether we had enough to think
+about. I had set my heart on making a hundred thousand dollars, and as
+things were looking it seemed as if two more years would bring me to
+that mark.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said I to Berna, "we'll go and travel all over the world, and do
+it in style."</p>
+
+<p>"Will we, dear?" she answered tenderly. "But I don't want money much
+now, and I don't know that I care so much about travel either. What I
+would like would be to go to your home, and settle down <a class="pagenum" name="page_389" id="page_389" title="389"></a>and live
+quietly. What I want is a nice flower garden, and a pony to drive into
+town, and a home to fuss about. I would embroider, and read, and play a
+little, and cook things, and&mdash;just be with you."</p>
+
+<p>She was greatly interested in my description of Glengyle. She never
+tired of questioning me about it. Particularly was she interested in my
+accounts of Garry, and rather scoffed at my enthusiastic description of
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that wonderful brother of yours! One would think he was a small
+god, to hear you talk. I declare I'm half afraid of him. Do you think he
+would like me?"</p>
+
+<p>"He would love you, little girl; any one would."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be foolish," she chided me. And then she drew my head down and
+kissed me.</p>
+
+<p>I think we had the prettiest little cabin in all Dawson. The big logs
+were peeled smooth, and the ends squarely cut. The chinks were filled in
+with mortar. The whole was painted a deep rich crimson. The roof was
+covered with sheet-iron, and it, too, was painted crimson. There was a
+deep porch to it. It was the snuggest, neatest little home in the world.</p>
+
+<p>Windows hung with dainty lace curtains peeped through its clustering
+greenery of vines, but the glory of it all was the flower garden. There
+was a bewildering variety of flowers, but mostly I remember stocks and
+pinks, Iceland poppies, marguerites, asters, marigolds, verbenas,
+hollyhocks, pansies and petunias, growing in glorious profusion. Even
+the <a class="pagenum" name="page_390" id="page_390" title="390"></a>roughest miner would stand and stare at them as he tramped past on
+the board sidewalk.</p>
+
+<p>They were a mosaic of glowing colour, yet the crowning triumph was the
+poppies and sweet peas. Set in the centre of the lawn was a circle that
+was a leaping glow of poppies. Of every shade were they, from starry
+pink to luminous gold, from snowy white to passionate crimson. Like
+vari-coloured lamps they swung, and wakened you to wonder and joy with
+the exultant challenge of their beauty. And the sweet peas! All up the
+south side of the cabin they grew, overtopping the eaves in their
+riotous perfection. They rivalled the poppies in the radiant confusion
+of their colour, and they were so lavish of blossom we could not pick
+them fast enough. I think ours was the pioneer garden of the gold-born
+city, and awakened many to the growth-giving magic of the long, long
+day.</p>
+
+<p>And it was the joy and pride of Berna's heart. I would sit on the porch
+of a summer's evening when down the mighty Yukon a sunset of vast and
+violent beauty flamed and languished, and I would watch her as she
+worked among her flowers. I can see her flitting figure in a dress of
+dainty white as she hovered over a beautiful blossom. I can hear her
+calling me, her voice like the music of a flute, calling me to come and
+see some triumph of her skill. I have a picture of her coming towards me
+with her arms full of flowers, burying her face lovingly among the
+velvet petals, and raising it again, the sweetest flower of all. How
+radiantly outshone her eyes, and her <a class="pagenum" name="page_391" id="page_391" title="391"></a>face, delicate as a cameo, seemed
+to have stolen the fairest tints of the lily and the rose.</p>
+
+<p>Starry vines screened the porch, and everywhere were swinging baskets of
+silver birch, brimming over with the delicate green of smilax or clouded
+in an amethystine mist of lobelias. I can still see the little
+sitting-room with its piano, its plenitude of cushions, its book-rack,
+its Indian corner, its tasteful paper, its pictures, and always and
+everywhere flowers, flowers. The air was heavy with the fragrance of
+them. They glorified the crudest corner, and made our home like a nook
+in fairyland.</p>
+
+<p>I remember one night as I sat reading she came to me. Never did I see
+her look so happy. She was almost childlike in her joy. She sat down by
+my chair and looked up at me. Then she put her arms around me.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm so happy," she said with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you, dearest?" I caressed the soft floss of her hair.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I just wish we could live like this forever;" and she nestled up
+to me ever so fondly.</p>
+
+<p>Aye, she was happy, and I will always bless the memory of those days,
+and thank God I was the means of bringing a little gladness into her
+marred life. She was happy, and yet we were living in what society would
+call sin. Conventionally we were not man and wife, yet never were man
+and wife more devoted, more self-respecting. Never were man and wife
+endowed with purer ideals, with a more exalted conception of the
+sanctity of love. Yet there were <a class="pagenum" name="page_392" id="page_392" title="392"></a>many in the town not half so delicate,
+so refined, so spiritual, who would have passed my little lady like a
+pariah. But what cared we?</p>
+
+<p>And perhaps it was the very greatness of my love for her that sometimes
+made me fear; so that often in the ecstasy of a moment I would catch my
+breath and wonder if it all could last. And when the poplars turned to
+gold, and up the valley stole a shuddering breath of desolation, my fear
+grew apace. The sky was all resplendent with the winter stars, and keen
+and hard their facets sparkled. And I knew that somewhere underneath
+those stars there slept Locasto. But was it the sleep of the living or
+of the dead? Would he return?</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_393" id="page_393" title="393"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Two men were crawling over the winter-locked plain. In the aching circle
+of its immensity they were like little black ants. One, the leader, was
+of great bulk and of a vast strength; while the other was small and
+wiry, of the breed that clings like a louse to life while better men
+perish.</p>
+
+<p>On all sides of the frozen lake over which they were travelling were
+hills covered with harsh pine, that pricked funereally up to the
+boulder-broken snows. Above that was a stormy and fantastic sea of
+mountains baring many a fierce peak-fang to the hollow heavens. The sky
+was a waxen grey, cold as a corpse-light. The snow was an immaculate
+shroud, unmarked by track of bird or beast. Death-sealed the land lay in
+its silent vastitude, in its despairful desolation.</p>
+
+<p>The small man was breaking trail. Down almost to his knees in the soft
+snow, he sank at every step; yet ever he dragged a foot painfully
+upward, and made another forward plunge. The snowshoe thong, jagged with
+ice, chafed him cruelly. The muscles of his legs ached as insistently as
+if clamped in a vice. He lurched forward with fatigue, so that he seemed
+to be ever stumbling, yet recovering himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on there, you darned little shrimp; get a <a class="pagenum" name="page_394" id="page_394" title="394"></a>move on you," growled
+the big man from within the frost-fringed hood of his parka.</p>
+
+<p>The little man started as if galvanised into sudden life. His breath
+steamed and almost hissed as it struck the icy air. At each raw intake
+of it his chest heaved. He beat his mittened hands on his breast to keep
+them from freezing. Under the hood of his parka great icicles had
+formed, hanging to the hairs of his beard, walrus-like, and his eyes,
+thickly wadded with frost, glared out with the furtive fear of a hunted
+beast.</p>
+
+<p>"Curse him, curse him," he whimpered; but once more he lifted those
+leaden snowshoes and staggered on.</p>
+
+<p>The big man lashed fiercely at the dogs, and as they screamed at his
+blows he laughed cruelly. They were straining forward in the harness,
+their bellies almost level with the ground, their muscles standing out
+like whalebone. Great, gaunt brutes they were, with ribs like
+barrel-staves, and hip-bones sharp as stakes. Their woolly coats were
+white with frost, their sly, slit-eyed faces ice-sheathed, their feet
+torn so that they left a bloody track on the snow at every step.</p>
+
+<p>"Mush on there, you curs, or I'll cut you in two," stormed the big man,
+and once again the heavy whip fell on the yelling pack. They were
+pulling for all they were worth, their heads down, their shoulders
+squared. Their breath came pantingly, their tongues gleamed redly, their
+white teeth shone. They were fighting, fighting for life, fighting to
+placate a cruel <a class="pagenum" name="page_395" id="page_395" title="395"></a>master in a world where all was cruelty and oppression.</p>
+
+<p>For there in the Winter Wild pity was not even a name. It was the
+struggle for life, desperate and never-ending. The Wild abhorred life,
+abhorred most of all these atoms of heat and hurry in the midst of her
+triumphant stillness. The Wild would crush those defiant pigmies that
+disputed the majesty of her invincible calm.</p>
+
+<p>A dog was hanging back in the harness. It whined; then as the husky
+following snapped at it savagely, it gave a lurch and fell. The big man
+shot forward with a sudden fury in his eyes. Swinging the heavy-thonged
+whip, again and again he brought it down on the writhing brute. Then he
+twisted the thong around his hand and belaboured its hollow ribs with
+the butt. It screamed for a while, but soon it ceased to scream; it only
+moaned a little. With glistening fangs and ears up-pricked the other
+dogs looked at their fallen comrade. They longed to leap on it, to rend
+its gaunt limbs apart, to tear its quivering flesh; but there was the
+big man with his murderous whip, and they cowered before him.</p>
+
+<p>The big man kicked the fallen dog repeatedly. The little man paused in
+his painful progress to look on apathetically.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll stave in its ribs," he remarked presently; "and then we'll never
+make timber by nightfall."</p>
+
+<p>The big man had failed in his efforts to rouse the dog. There in that
+lancinating cold, in an ecstasy of rage, despairfully he poised over it.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_396" id="page_396" title="396"></a>"Who told you to put in your lip?" he snarled. "Who's running this
+show, you or I? I'll stave in its ribs if I choose, and I'll hitch you
+to the sled and make you pull your guts out, too."</p>
+
+<p>The little man said no more. Then, the dog still refusing to rise, the
+big man leapt over the harness and came down on the animal with both
+feet. There was a scream of pitiful agony, and the snap of breaking
+bones. But the big man slipped and fell. Down he came, and like a flash
+the whole pack piled onto him.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment there was a confused muddle of dogs and master. This was
+the time for which they had waited, these savage semi-wolves. This man
+had beaten them, had starved them, had been a devil to them, and now he
+was down and at their mercy. Ferociously they sprang on him, and their
+white fangs snapped like traps in his face. They fought to get at his
+throat. They tore at his parka. Oh, if they could only make their teeth
+meet in his warm flesh! But no; they were all tangled up in the harness,
+and the man was fighting like a giant. He had the leader by the throat
+and was using her as a shield against the others. His right hand swung
+the whip with flail-like blows. Foiled and confused the dogs fell to
+fighting among themselves, and triumphantly the man leapt to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>He was like a fiend now. Fiercely he raged among the snarling pack,
+kicking, clubbing, cursing, till one and all he had them beaten into
+cowering subjection.</p>
+
+<p>He was still panting from his struggle. His face <a class="pagenum" name="page_397" id="page_397" title="397"></a>was deathly pale, and
+his eyes were glittering. He strode up to the little man, who had
+watched the performance stolidly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you help me, you dirty little whelp?" he hissed. "You wanted
+to see them chew me up; you know you did. You'd like to have them rip me
+to ribbons. You wouldn't move a finger to save me. Oh, I know, I know.
+I've had enough of you this trip to last me a lifetime. You've bucked me
+right along. Now, blast your dirty little soul, I hate you, and for the
+rest of the way I'm going to make your life hell. See! Now I'll begin."</p>
+
+<p>The little man was afraid. He seemed to grow smaller, while over him
+towered the other, dark, fierce and malignant. The little man was
+desperate. Defensively he crouched, yet the next instant he was
+overthrown. Then, as he lay sprawling in the snow, the big man fell to
+lashing him with the whip. Time after time he struck, till the screams
+of his victim became one long, drawn-out wail of agony. Then he
+desisted. Jerking the other on his feet once more, he bade him go on
+breaking trail.</p>
+
+<p>Again they struggled on. The light was beginning to fail, and there was
+no thought in their minds but to reach that dark belt of timber before
+darkness came. There was no sound but the crunch of their snowshoes, the
+panting of the dogs, the rasping of the sleigh. When they paused the
+silence seemed to fall on them like a blanket. There was something awful
+in the quality of this deathly silence. It was as if something material,
+something tangible, hovered <a class="pagenum" name="page_398" id="page_398" title="398"></a>over them, closed in on them, choked them,
+throttled them. It was almost like a Presence.</p>
+
+<p>Weary and worn were men and dogs as they struggled onwards in the
+growing gloom, but because of the feeling in his heart the little man no
+longer was conscious of bodily pain. It was black murder that raged
+there.</p>
+
+<p>With straining sinews and bones that cracked, the dogs bent to a heavy
+pull, while at the least sign of shirking down swished the relentless
+whip. And the big man, as if proud of his strength, gazed insolently
+round on the Wild. He was at home in this land, this stark wolf-land, so
+callous, so cruel. Was he not cruel, too? Surely this land cowered
+before him. Its hardships could not daunt him, nor its terrors dismay.
+As he urged on his bloody-footed dogs, he exulted greatly. Of all Men of
+the High North was he not king?</p>
+
+<p>At last they reached the forest fringe, and after a few harsh directions
+he had the little man making camp. The little man worked with a strange
+willingness. All his taciturnity had gone. As he gathered the firewood
+and filled the Yukon stove, he hummed a merry air. He had the water
+boiling and soon there was the fragrance of tea in the little tent. He
+produced sourdough bread (which he fried in bacon fat), and some dried
+moose-meat.</p>
+
+<p>To men of the trail this was a treat. They ate ravenously, but they did
+not speak. Yet the little man was oddly cheerful. Time and again the big
+man looked at him suspiciously. Outside it was a <a class="pagenum" name="page_399" id="page_399" title="399"></a>steely night, with an
+icicle of a moon. The cold leapt on one savagely. To step from the tent
+was like plunging into icy water, yet within those canvas walls the men
+were warm and snug. The stove crackled its cheer. A grease-light
+sputtered, and by its rays the little man was mending his ice-stiffened
+moccasins. He hummed an Irish air, and he seemed to be tickled with some
+thought he had.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop that tune," growled the other. "If you don't know anything else,
+cut it out. I'm sick of it."</p>
+
+<p>The little man shut up meekly. Again there was silence, broken by a
+whining and a scratching outside. It was the five dogs crying for their
+supper, crying for the frozen fish they had earned so well. They
+wondered why it was not forthcoming. When they received it they would
+lie on it, to warm it with the heat of their bodies, and then gnaw off
+the thawed portions. They were very wise, these dogs. But to-night there
+was no fish, and they whined for it.</p>
+
+<p>"Dog feed all gone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yep," said the small man.</p>
+
+<p>"Hell! I'll silence these brutes anyway."</p>
+
+<p>He went to the door and laid onto them so that they slunk away into the
+shadows. But they did not bury themselves in the snow and sleep. They
+continued to prowl round the tent, hunger-mad and desperate.</p>
+
+<p>"We've only got enough grub left for ourselves now," said the big man;
+"and none too much at that. I guess I'll put you on half-rations."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_400" id="page_400" title="400"></a>He laughed as if it was the hugest joke. Then rolling himself in a
+robe, he lay down and slept.</p>
+
+<p>The little man did not sleep. He was still turning over the thought that
+had come to him. Outside in the atrocious cold the whining malamutes
+crept nearer and nearer. Savage were they, Indian raised and sired by a
+wolf. And now, in the agonies of hunger, they cried for fish, and there
+was none for them, only kicks and curses. Oh, it was a world of ghastly
+cruelty! They howled their woes to the weary moon.</p>
+
+<p>"Short rations, indeed," mumbled the little man. He crawled into his
+sleeping bag, but he did not close his eyes. He was watching.</p>
+
+<p>About dawn he rose. An evil dawn it was, sallow, sinister and askew.</p>
+
+<p>The little man selected the heavy-handled whip for the job. Carefully he
+felt its butt, then he struck. It was a shrewd blow and a neatly
+delivered, for the little man had been in the business before. It fell
+on the big man's head, and he crumpled up. Then the little man took some
+rawhide thongs and trussed up his victim. There lay the big man, bound
+and helpless, with a clotted blood-hole in his black hair.</p>
+
+<p>Then the little man gathered up the rest of the provisions. He looked
+around carefully, as if fearful of leaving anything behind. He made a
+pack of the food and lashed it on his back. Now he was ready to start.
+He knew that within fifty miles, travelling to the south, he would
+strike a settlement. He was safe.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_401" id="page_401" title="401"></a>He turned to where lay the unconscious body of his partner. Again and
+again he kicked it; he cursed it; he spat on it. Then, after a final
+look of gloating hate, he went off and left the big man to his fate.</p>
+
+<p>At last, at long last, the Worm had turned.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_402" id="page_402" title="402"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>The dogs! The dogs were closing in. Nearer and nearer they drew, headed
+by a fierce Mackenzie River bitch. They wondered why their master did
+not wake; they wondered why the little tent was so still; why no plume
+of smoke rose from the slim stovepipe. All was oddly quiet and lifeless.
+No curses greeted them; no whiplash cut into them; no strong arm jerked
+them over the harness. Perhaps it was a primordial instinct that drew
+them on, that made them strangely bold. Perhaps it was only the despair
+of their hunger, the ache of empty bellies. Closer and closer they crept
+to the silent tent.</p>
+
+<p>Locasto opened his eyes. Within a foot of his face were the fangs of a
+malamute. At his slight movement it drew back with a snarl, and
+retreated to the door. Locasto could see the other dogs crouching and
+eyeing him fixedly. What could be the matter? What had gotten into the
+brutes? Where was the Worm? Where were the provisions? Why was the tent
+flap open and the stove stone-cold? Then with a dawning comprehension
+that he had been deserted, Locasto uttered a curse and tried to rise.</p>
+
+<p>At first he thought he was stiff with cold, but a downward glance showed
+him his condition. He was helpless. He grew sick at the pit of his
+stomach, <a class="pagenum" name="page_403" id="page_403" title="403"></a>and glared at the dogs. They were drawing in on him. They
+seemed to bulk suddenly, to grow huge and menacing. Their gleaming teeth
+snapped in his face. He could fancy these teeth stripping the flesh from
+his body, gnawing at his bones with drooling jaws. Violently he
+shuddered. He must try to free himself, so that at least he could fight.</p>
+
+<p>Grimly the Worm had done his work, but he had hardly reckoned on the
+strength of this man. With a vast throe of fear Locasto tried to free
+himself. Tenser, tenser grew the thongs; they strained, they bit into
+his flesh, but they would not break. Yet as he relaxed it seemed to him
+they were less tight. Then he rested for another effort.</p>
+
+<p>Once again the gaunt, grey bitch was crawling up. He remembered how
+often he had starved it, clubbed it until it could barely stand. Now it
+was going to get even. It would snap at his throat, rip out his
+windpipe, bury its fangs in his bleeding flesh. He cursed it in the old
+way. With a spring it backed out again and stood with the others. He
+made another giant effort. Once again he felt the thongs strain and
+strain; then, when he ceased, he imagined they were still looser.</p>
+
+<p>The dogs seemed to have lost all fear. They stood in a circle within a
+few feet of him, regarding him intently. They smelled the blood on his
+head, and a slaver ran from their jaws. Again he cursed them, but this
+time they did not move. They seemed to realise he could not harm them.
+With their evilly-slanted <a class="pagenum" name="page_404" id="page_404" title="404"></a>eyes they watched his struggles. Strange,
+wise, uncanny brutes, they were biding their time, waiting to rush in on
+him, to rend him.</p>
+
+<p>Again he tried to get free. Now he fancied he could move his arm a
+little. He must hurry, for every instant the malamutes were growing
+bolder. Another strain and a wrench. Ha! he was able to squeeze his
+right arm from under the rawhide.</p>
+
+<p>He felt the foul breath of the dogs on his face, and quickly he struck
+at them. They jumped back, then, as if at a signal, they sprang in
+again. There was no time to lose. They were attacking him in earnest.
+Quickly he wrenched out his other arm. He was just in time, for the dogs
+were upon him.</p>
+
+<p>He struggled to his knees and shielded his head with his arms. Wildly he
+swung at the nearest dog. Full on the face he struck it, and it shot
+back as if hit by a bullet. But the others were on him. They had him
+down, snarling and ripping, a mad ferment of fury. Two of them were
+making for his face. As he lay on his back he gripped each by the
+throat. His hands were torn and bleeding, but he had them fast. In his
+grip of steel they struggled to free themselves in vain. They backed,
+they writhed, they twisted in a bow. With his huge hands he was choking
+them, choking them to death, using them as a shield against the other
+three. Then slowly he worked himself into a sitting position. He hurled
+one of the dogs to the tent door. He swung bludgeon blows at the others.
+They fled yelping and howling. He still held the Mackenzie River bitch.
+Getting <a class="pagenum" name="page_405" id="page_405" title="405"></a>his knee on her body, he bent her almost into a circle, bent
+her till her back broke with a snap.</p>
+
+<p>Then he rose and freed himself from the remaining thongs. He was torn
+and cut and bleeding, but he had triumphed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the devil!" he growled, grinding his teeth. "He would have me
+chewed to rags by malamutes."</p>
+
+<p>He stared around.</p>
+
+<p>"He's taken everything, the scum! left me to starve. Ha! one thing he's
+forgotten&mdash;the matches. At least I can keep warm."</p>
+
+<p>He picked up the canister of matches and relit the stove.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll kill him for this," he muttered. "Night and day I'll follow him.
+I'll camp on his trail till I find him. Then&mdash;I'll torture him; I'll
+strip him and leave him naked in the snow."</p>
+
+<p>He slipped into his snowshoes, gave a last look around to see that no
+food had been left, and with a final growl of fury he started in
+pursuit.</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>Ahead of him, ploughing their way through the virgin snow, he could see
+the dragging track of the long snowshoes. He examined it, and noted that
+it was sharp and crisp at the edges.</p>
+
+<p>"He's got a good five hours' start of me! Travelling fast, too, by the
+length of the track."</p>
+
+<p>He had a thought of capturing the dogs and hitching them up; but,
+thoroughly terrified, they had retreated into the woods. To overtake
+this man, to <a class="pagenum" name="page_406" id="page_406" title="406"></a>glut his lust for revenge, he must depend on his own
+strength and endurance.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Jack Locasto," he told himself grimly, "you've got a fight on your
+hands, such a fight as you never had before. Get right down to it."</p>
+
+<p>So, with head bowed and shoulders sloping forward, he darted on the
+track of the Worm.</p>
+
+<p>"He's got to break trail, the viper! and that's where I score. I can
+make twice the time. Oh, just wait, you little devil! just wait!"</p>
+
+<p>He ground his teeth vindictively, and put an inch more onto his stride.
+He was descending a long, open valley that seemed from its trackless
+snows to have been immemorially life-shunned and accursed. Black,
+witch-like pines sentinelled its flanks, and accentuated its desolation.
+And over all there was the silence of the Wild, that double-strong
+solution of silence from which all other silences are distilled, and
+spread out. Yet, as he gazed around him in this everlasting solitude,
+there was no fear in his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"I can fight this accursed land and beat it out every time," he exulted.
+"It can't get any the better of me."</p>
+
+<p>It was cold, so cold that it was difficult to imagine it could ever be
+warm again. To expose flesh was to feel instantly the sharp sting that
+heralds frostbite. As he ran, the sharp intake of icy air made his lungs
+seem to contract. His eyes smarted and tingled. The lashes froze
+closely. Ice formed in his nostrils and his nose began to bleed. He
+pulled up a moment.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_407" id="page_407" title="407"></a>"Curse this infernal country!"</p>
+
+<p>He had not eaten and the icy air begot a ravenous hunger. He dreamed of
+food, but chiefly of bacon, fat, greasy bacon. How glorious it would be
+just to eat of it, raw, tallow bacon! He had nothing to eat. He would
+have nothing till he had overtaken the Worm. On! On!</p>
+
+<p>He came to where the Worm had made a camp. There were the ashes of a
+fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Curse him; he's got some matches after all," he said with bitter
+chagrin. Eagerly he searched all around in the snow to see if he could
+not find even a crumb of food. There was nothing. He pushed on. Night
+fell and he was forced to make camp.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, he was hungry! The night was vastly resplendent, a spendthrift night
+scattering everywhere its largess of stars. The cold had a crystalline
+quality and the trees detonated strangely in the silence. He built a
+huge fire: that at least he could have, and through eighteen hours of
+darkness he crouched by it, afraid to sleep for fear of freezing.</p>
+
+<p>"If I only had a tin to boil water in," he muttered; "there's lots of
+reindeer moss, and I could stew some of my mucklucks. Ah! I'll try and
+roast a bit of them."</p>
+
+<p>He cut a strip from the Indian boots he was wearing, and held it over
+the fire. The hair singed away and the corners crisped and charred. He
+put it in his mouth. It was pleasantly warm, but even his strong teeth
+refused to meet in it. However, he tore it into smaller pieces, and
+bolted them.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_408" id="page_408" title="408"></a>At last the dawn came, that evil, sneaking, corpse-like dawn, and
+Locasto flung himself once more on the trail. He was not feeling so fit
+now. Hunger and loss of blood had weakened him so that his stride
+insensibly shortened, and his step had lost its spring. However, he
+plodded on doggedly, an incarnation of vengeance and hate. Again he
+examined the snowshoe trail ever stretching in front, and noticed how
+crisped and hard was its edge. He was not making the time he had
+reckoned on. The Worm must be a long way ahead.</p>
+
+<p>Still he did not despair. The little man might rest a day, or oversleep,
+or strain a sinew, then&mdash; Locasto pictured with gloating joy the
+terror of the Worm as he awoke to find himself overtaken. Oh, the snake!
+the vermin! On! On!</p>
+
+<p>Beyond a doubt he was growing weaker. Once or twice he stumbled, and the
+last time he lay a few moments before rising. He wanted to rest badly.
+The cold was keener than ever; it was merciless; it was excruciating. He
+no longer had the vitality to withstand it. It stabbed and stung him
+whenever he exposed bare flesh. He pulled the parka hood very close, so
+that only his eyes peered out. So he moved through the desolation of the
+Arctic Wild, a dark, muffled figure, a demon of vengeance, fierce and
+menacing.</p>
+
+<p>He stood on a vast, still plateau. The sky was like a great grotto of
+ice. The land lay in a wan apathy of suffering, dumb, hopeless, drear.
+Icy land and icy sky met in a trap, a trap that held him fast; <a class="pagenum" name="page_409" id="page_409" title="409"></a>and over
+all, vast, titanic, terrible, the Spirit of the Wild seemed to brood. It
+laughed at him, a laugh of derision, of mockery, of callous gloating
+triumph. Locasto shuddered. Then night came and he built another giant
+fire.</p>
+
+<p>Again he bolted down some roasted muckluck. Overhead the stars glittered
+vindictively. They were green and blue and red, and they had spiny rays
+like starfish on which they danced. This night he had to make tremendous
+efforts to keep from sleeping. Several times he drowsed forward, and
+almost fell into the fire. As he crouched there his beard was singeing
+and his face scorched, but his back seemed as if it was cased in ice.
+Often he would turn and warm it at the fire, but not for long. He hated
+to face the terror of the silence and the dark, the shadow where waited
+Death. Better the crackling cheer of the spruce flame.</p>
+
+<p>At dawn the sky was leaden and the cold less despotic. Stretching
+interminably ahead was that lonely snowshoe trail. Locasto was puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"Where in creation is the little devil going to, anyway?" he said,
+knitting his brows. "I figured he'd make direct for Dawson, but he's
+either changed his mind or got a wrong steer. By Heavens, that's it&mdash;the
+little varmint's lost his way."</p>
+
+<p>Locasto had an Indian's unerring sense of location.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess I can't afford to follow him any more," he reflected. "I've
+gone too far already. I'm all petered out. I'll have to let him go in
+the meantime. <a class="pagenum" name="page_410" id="page_410" title="410"></a>It's save yourself, Jack Locasto, while there's yet time.
+Me for Dawson."</p>
+
+<p>He struck off almost at right angles to the trail he had been following,
+over a low range of hills. It was evil going, and as he broke through
+the snow-crust mile after wearing mile, he felt himself grow weaker and
+weaker. "Buck up, old man," he adjured himself fiercely. "You've got to
+fight, fight."</p>
+
+<p>There was a strange stillness in the air, not the natural stillness of
+the Wild, but an unhealthy one, as of a suspension of something, of a
+vacuum, of bated breath. It was curiously full of terror. More and more
+he felt like a trapped animal, caught in a vast cage. The sky to the
+north was glooming ominously. Every second the horizon grew blacker,
+more bodeful, and Locasto stared at it, with a sudden quake at his
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Blizzard, by thunder!" he gasped.</p>
+
+<p>Was that a breath of wind that stung his cheek? Was it a snowflake that
+drifted along with it? Denser and denser grew the gloom, and now there
+was a roaring as of a great wind. King Blizzard was come.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess I'm done for," he hissed through clenched teeth. "But I'll
+fight to the finish. I'll die game."</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_411" id="page_411" title="411"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>It was on him now with a swoop and a roar. He was in the thick of a
+mud-grey darkness, a bitter, blank darkness full of whirling wind-eddies
+and vast flurries of snow. He could not see more than a few feet before
+him. The stinging flakes blinded him; the coal-black night engulfed him.
+In that seething turmoil of the elements he was as helpless as a child.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess you're on your last trail, Jack Locasto," he muttered grimly.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless he lowered his head and butted desperately into the heart
+of the storm. He was very faint from lack of food, but despair had given
+him a new strength, and he plunged through drift and flurry with the
+fury of a goaded bull.</p>
+
+<p>The night had fallen black as the pit. He was in an immensity of
+darkness, a darkness that packed close up to him, and hugged him, and
+enfolded him like a blanket. And in the black void winds were raging
+with an insane fury, whirling aloft mountains of snow and hurling them
+along plain and valley. The forests shrieked in fear; the creatures of
+the Wild cowered in their lairs, but the solitary man stumbled on and
+on. As if by magic barriers of snow piled up before him, and almost to
+his shoulders he floundered through them. The wind had a hatchet edge
+that pierced his clothes and hacked him viciously. <a class="pagenum" name="page_412" id="page_412" title="412"></a>He knew his only
+plan was to keep moving, to stumble, stagger on. It was a fight for
+life.</p>
+
+<p>He had forgotten his hunger. Those wild visions of gluttony had gone
+from him. He had forgotten his thirst for revenge, forgotten everything
+but his own dire peril.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep moving, keep moving for God's sake," he urged himself hoarsely.
+"You'll freeze if you let up a moment. Don't let up, don't!"</p>
+
+<p>But oh, how hard it was not to rest! Every muscle in his body seemed to
+beg and pray for rest, yet the spirit in him drove them to work anew. He
+was making a certain mad headway, travelling, always travelling. He
+doubted not he was doomed, but instinct made him fight on as long as an
+atom of strength remained.</p>
+
+<p>He floundered to his armpits in a snowdrift. He struggled out and
+staggered on once more. In the mad buffoonery of that cutting wind he
+scarce could stand upright. His parka was frozen stiff as a board. He
+could feel his hands grow numb in his mits. From his fingers the icy
+cold crept up and up. Long since he had lost all sensation in his feet.
+From the ankles down they were like wooden clogs. He had an idea they
+were frozen. He lifted them, and watched them sink and disappear in the
+clinging snow. He beat his numb hands against his breast. It was of no
+use&mdash;he could not get back the feeling in them. A craving to lie down in
+the snow assailed him.</p>
+
+<p>Life was so sweet. He had visions of cities, of banquets, of theatres,
+of glittering triumphs, of glorious <a class="pagenum" name="page_413" id="page_413" title="413"></a>excitements, of women he had loved,
+conquered and thrown aside. Never again would he see that world. He
+would die here, and they would find him rigid and brittle, frozen so
+hard they would have to thaw him out before they buried him. He fancied
+he saw himself frozen in a grotesque position. There would be
+ice-crystals in the very centre of his heart, that heart that had glowed
+so fiercely with the lust of life. Yes, life was sweet. A vast self-pity
+surged over him. Well, he had done his best; he could struggle no more.</p>
+
+<p>But struggle he did, another hour, two hours, three hours. Where was he
+going? Maybe round in a circle. He was like an automaton now. He did not
+think any more, he just kept moving. His feet clumped up and down. He
+lifted himself out of snowpits; he staggered a few steps, fell, crawled
+on all fours in the darkness, then in a lull of the furious wind rose
+once more to his feet. The night was abysmal; closer and closer it
+hugged him. The wind was charging him from all points, baffling him like
+a merry monster, beating him down. The snow whirled around him in a
+narrow eddy, and he tried to grope out of it and failed. Oh, he was
+tired, tired!</p>
+
+<p>He must give up. It was too bad. He was so strong, and capable of so
+much for good or bad. Alas! it had been all for bad. Oh, if he had but
+another chance he might make his life tell a different tale! Well, he
+wasn't going to whine or cower. He would die game.</p>
+
+<p>His feet were frozen; his arms were frozen. Here <a class="pagenum" name="page_414" id="page_414" title="414"></a>he would lie down
+and&mdash;quit. It would soon be over, and it was a pleasant death, they
+said. One more look he gave through the writhing horror of the darkness;
+one more look before he closed his eyes to the horror of the Greater
+Darkness....</p>
+
+<p>Ha! what was that? He fancied he saw a dim glow just ahead. It could not
+be. It was one of those cheating dreams that came to a dying man, an
+illusion, a mockery. He closed his eyes. Then he opened them again&mdash;the
+glow was still there.</p>
+
+<p>Surely it must be real! It was steady. As he fell forward it seemed to
+grow more bright. On hands and knees he crawled to it. Brighter and
+brighter it grew. It was but a few feet away. Oh, God! could it be?</p>
+
+<p>Then there was a lull in the storm, and with a final plunge Locasto fell
+forward, fell towards a lamp lighted in a window, fell against the
+closed door of a little cabin.</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>The Worm suffered acutely from the intense cold. He cursed it in his
+prolific and exhaustive way. He cursed the leaden weight of his
+snowshoes, and the thongs that chafed his feet. He cursed the pack he
+carried on his back, which momently grew heavier. He cursed the country;
+then, after a general debauch of obscenity, he decided it was time to
+feed.</p>
+
+<p>He gathered some dry twigs and built a fire on the snow. He hurried, for
+the freezing process was going on in his carcase, and he was afraid. It
+was all ready. Now to light it&mdash;the matches.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_415" id="page_415" title="415"></a>Where in hell were the matches? Surely he could not have left them at
+the camp. With feverish haste he overturned his pack. No, they were not
+there. Could he have dropped them on the trail? He had a wild idea of
+going back. Then he thought of Locasto lying in the tent. He could never
+face that. But he must have a fire. He was freezing to death&mdash;right now.
+Already his fingers were tingling and stiffening.</p>
+
+<p>Huh! maybe he had some matches in his pockets. No&mdash;yes, he had&mdash;one,
+two, three, four, five, that was all. Five slim sulphur matches, part of
+a block, and jammed in a corner of his waistcoat pocket. Eagerly he lit
+one. The twigs caught. The flame leapt up. Oh it was good! He had a
+fire, a fire.</p>
+
+<p>He made tea, and ate some bread and meat. Then he felt his strength and
+courage return. He had four matches left. Four matches meant four fires.
+That would mean four more days' travel. By that time he would have
+reached the Dawson country.</p>
+
+<p>That night he made a huge blaze, chopping down several trees and setting
+them alight. There, lying in his sleeping-bag, he rested well. In the
+early dawn he was afoot once more.</p>
+
+<p>Was there ever such an atrocious soul-freezing cold! He cursed it with
+every breath he drew. At noon he felt a vast temptation to make another
+fire, but he refrained. Then that night he had bad luck, for one of his
+precious matches proved little more than a sliver tipped with the shadow
+of pink. In spite of his efforts it was abortive, and he was compelled
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_416" id="page_416" title="416"></a>to use another. He was down to his last match.</p>
+
+<p>Well, he must travel extra hard. So next day in a panic of fear he
+covered a vast stretch of country. He must be getting near to one of the
+gold creeks. As he surmounted the crest of every ridge he expected to
+see the blue smoke of cabin fires, yet always was there the same empty
+desolation. Then night came and he prepared to camp.</p>
+
+<p>Once more he chopped down some trees and piled them in a heap. He was
+very hungry, very cold, very tired. What a glorious blaze he would soon
+have! How gallantly the flames would leap and soar! He collected some
+dry moss and twigs. Never had he felt the cold so bitter. It was growing
+dusk. Above him the sky had a corpse-like glimmer, and on the snow
+strange bale-fires glinted. It was a weird, sardonic light that waited,
+keeping tryst with darkness.</p>
+
+<p>He shuddered and his fingers trembled. Then ever so carefully he drew
+forth that most precious of things, the last match.</p>
+
+<p>He must hurry; his fingers were tingling, freezing, stiffening fast. He
+would lie down on the snow, and strike it quickly.... "O God!"</p>
+
+<p>From his numb fingers the slim little match had dropped. There it lay on
+the snow. Gingerly he picked it up, with a wild hope that it would be
+all right. He struck it, but it doubled up. Again he struck it: the head
+came off&mdash;he was lost.</p>
+
+<p>He fell forward on his face. His hands were numb, dead. He lay supported
+by his elbows, his <a class="pagenum" name="page_417" id="page_417" title="417"></a>eyes gazing blankly at the unlit fire. Five minutes
+passed; he did not rise. He seemed dazed, stupid, terror-stricken. Five
+more minutes passed. He did not move. He seemed to stiffen, to grow
+rigid, and the darkness gathered around him.</p>
+
+<p>A thought came to his mind that he would straighten out, so that when
+they found him he would be in good shape to fit in a coffin. He did not
+want them to break his legs and arms. Yes, he would straighten out. He
+tried&mdash;but he could not, so he let it go at that.</p>
+
+<p>Over him the Wild seemed to laugh, a laugh of scorn, of mockery, of
+exquisite malice.</p>
+
+<p>And there in fifteen minutes the cold slew him. When they found him he
+lay resting on his elbows and gazing with blank eyes of horror at his
+unlit fire.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_418" id="page_418" title="418"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>"It's a beast of a night," said the Halfbreed.</p>
+
+<p>He and I were paying a visit to Jim in the cabin he had built on Ophir.
+Jim was busy making ready for his hydraulic work of the coming Spring,
+and once in a while we took a run up to see him. I was much worried
+about the old man. He was no longer the cheerful, optimistic Jim of the
+trail. He had taken to living alone. He had become grim and taciturn. He
+cared only for his work, and, while he read his Bible more than ever, it
+was with a growing fondness for the stern old prophets. There was no
+doubt the North was affecting him strangely.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord! don't it blow? Seems as if the wind had a spite against us,
+wanted to put us out of business. It minds me of the blizzards we have
+in the Northwest, only it seems ten times worse."</p>
+
+<p>The Halfbreed went on to tell us of snowstorms he had known, while
+huddled round the stove we listened to the monstrous uproar of the gale.</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you chink your cabin better, Jim?" I asked; "the snow's
+sifting through in spots."</p>
+
+<p>He shoved more wood into the stove, till it glowed to a dull red,
+starred with little sparks that came and went.</p>
+
+<p>"Snow with that wind would sift through a concrete wall," he said. "It's
+part an' parcel of the <a class="pagenum" name="page_419" id="page_419" title="419"></a>awful land. I tell you there's a curse on this
+country. Long, long ago godless people have lived in it, lived an'
+sinned an' perished. An' for its wickedness in the past the Lord has put
+His everlasting curse on it."</p>
+
+<p>Sharply I looked at him. His eyes were staring. His face was drawn into
+a knot of despair. He sat down and fell into a mood of gloomy silence.</p>
+
+<p>How the storm was howling! The Half breed smoked his cigarette stolidly,
+while I listened and shuddered, mightily thankful that I was so safe and
+warm.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, I wonder if there's any one out in this bedlam of a night?"</p>
+
+<p>"If there is, God help him," said the Halfbreed. "He'll last about as
+long as a snowball in hell."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, fancy wandering round out there, dazed and desperate; fancy the
+wind knocking you down and heaping the snow on you; fancy going on and
+on in the darkness till you freeze stiff. Ugh!"</p>
+
+<p>Again I shuddered. Then, as the other two sat in silence, my mind
+strayed to other things. Chiefly I thought of Berna, all alone in
+Dawson. I longed to be back with her again. I thought of Locasto. Where
+in his wild wanderings had he got to? I thought of Glengyle and Garry.
+How had he fared after Mother died? Why did he not marry? Once a week I
+got a letter from him, full of affection and always urging me to come
+home. In my letters I had never mentioned Berna. There was time enough
+for that.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_420" id="page_420" title="420"></a>Lord! a terrific gust of wind shook the cabin. It howled and screamed
+insanely through the heaving night. Then there came a lull, a strange,
+deep lull, deathlike after the mighty blast. And in the sudden quiet it
+seemed to me I heard a hollow cry.</p>
+
+<p>"Hist! What was that?" whispered the Halfbreed.</p>
+
+<p>Jim, too, was listening intently.</p>
+
+<p>"Seems to me I heard a moan."</p>
+
+<p>"Sounded like the cry of an outcast soul. Maybe it's the spirit of some
+poor devil that's lost away out in the night. I hate to open the door
+for nothing. It will make the place like an ice-house."</p>
+
+<p>Once more we listened intently, holding our breath. There it was again,
+a low, faint moan.</p>
+
+<p>"It's some one outside," gasped the Halfbreed. Horror-stricken, we
+stared at each other, then he rushed to the door. A great gust of wind
+came in on us.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurry up, you fellows," he cried; "lend a hand. I think it's a man."</p>
+
+<p>Frantically we pulled it in, an unconscious form that struck a strange
+chill to our hearts. Anxiously we bent over it.</p>
+
+<p>"He's not dead," said the Halfbreed, "only badly frozen, hands and feet
+and face. Don't take him near the fire."</p>
+
+<p>He had been peering inside the parka hood and suddenly he turned to me.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm darned&mdash;it's Locasto."</p>
+
+<p>Locasto! I shrank back and stood there staring <a class="pagenum" name="page_421" id="page_421" title="421"></a>blankly. Locasto! all
+the old hate resurged into my heart. Many a time had I wished him dead;
+and even dying, never could I have forgiven him. As I would have shrank
+from a reptile, I drew back.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," I said hoarsely, "I won't touch him. Curse him! Curse him! He
+can die."</p>
+
+<p>"Come on there," said Jim fiercely. "You wouldn't let a man die, would
+you? There's the brand of a dog on you if you do. You'll be little
+better than a murderer. It don't matter what wrong he's done you, it's
+your duty as a man to help him. He's only a human soul, an' he's like to
+die anyway. Come on. Get these mits off his hands."</p>
+
+<p>Mechanically I obeyed him. I was dazed. It was as if I was impelled by a
+stronger will than my own. I began pulling off the mits. The man's hands
+were white as putty. I slit the sleeves and saw that the awful whiteness
+went clear up the arm. It was horrible.</p>
+
+<p>Jim and the Halfbreed had cut open his mucklucks and taken off his
+socks, and there stretched out were two naked limbs, clay-white almost
+to the knees. Never did I see anything so ghastly. Tearing off his
+clothing we laid him on the bed, and forced some brandy between his
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>At last heat was beginning to come back to the frozen frame. He moaned,
+and opened his eyes in a wild gaze. He did not know us. He was still
+fighting the blizzard. He raised himself up.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep a-going, keep a-going," he panted.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep that bucket a-going," said the Halfbreed. <a class="pagenum" name="page_422" id="page_422" title="422"></a>"Thank God, we've got
+plenty of ice-water. We've got to thaw him out."</p>
+
+<p>Then for this man began a night of agony, such as few have endured. We
+lifted him onto a chair and put one of those clay-cold feet into the
+water. At the contact he screamed, and I could see ice crystallise on
+the edge of the bucket. I had forgotten my hatred of the man. I only
+thought of those frozen hands and feet, and how to get life into them
+once more. Our struggle began.</p>
+
+<p>"The blood's beginning to circulate back," said the Halfbreed. "I guess
+that water feels scalding hot to him right now. We'll have to hold him
+down presently. Ugh&mdash;hold on, boys, for all you're worth."</p>
+
+<p>He had not warned us any too soon. In a terrible spasm of agony Locasto
+threw us off quickly. We grasped him again. Now we were struggling with
+him. He fought like a demon. He was cursing us, praying us to leave him
+alone, raving, shrieking. Grimly we held on, yet, all three, it was as
+much as we could do to keep him down.</p>
+
+<p>"One would think we were murdering him," said the Halfbreed. "Keep his
+foot in the bucket there. I wish we'd some kind of dope to give him.
+There's boiling lead running through his veins right now. Keep him down,
+boys; keep him down."</p>
+
+<p>It was hard, but keep him down we did; though his cries of anguish
+deafened us through that awful night, and our muscles knotted as we
+gripped. Hour after hour we held him, plunging now a hand, now <a class="pagenum" name="page_423" id="page_423" title="423"></a>a foot
+in the ice-water, and holding it there. How long he fought! How strong
+he was! But the time came when he could fight no more. He was like a
+child in our hands.</p>
+
+<p>There, at last it was done. We wrapped the tender flesh in pieces of
+blanket. We laid him moaning on the bed. Then, tired out with our long
+struggle, we threw ourselves down and slept like logs.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning he was still unconscious. He suffered intense pain, so that
+Jim or the Halfbreed had to be ever by him. I, for my part, refused to
+go near. Indeed, I watched with a growing hatred his slow recovery. I
+was sorry, sorry. I wished he had died.</p>
+
+<p>At last he opened his eyes, and feebly he asked where he was. After the
+Halfbreed had told him, he lay silent awhile.</p>
+
+<p>"I've had a close call," he groaned. Then he went on triumphantly: "I
+guess the Wild hasn't got the bulge on me yet. I can give it another
+round."</p>
+
+<p>He began to pick up rapidly, and there in that narrow cabin I sat within
+a few feet of him, and beheld him grow strong again. I suppose my face
+must have showed my bitter hate, for often I saw him watching me through
+half-closed eyes, as if he realised my feelings. Then a sneering smile
+would curve his lips, a smile of satanic mockery. Again and again I
+thought of Berna. Fear and loathing convulsed me, and at times a great
+rage burned in me so that I was like to kill him.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_424" id="page_424" title="424"></a>"Seems to me everything's healing up but that hand," said the
+Halfbreed. "I guess it's too far gone. Gangrene's setting in. Say,
+Locasto, looks like you'll have to lose it."</p>
+
+<p>Locasto had been favouring me with a particularly sardonic look, but at
+these words the sneer was wiped out, and horror crowded into his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Lose my hand&mdash;don't tell me that! Kill me at once! I don't want to be
+maimed. Lose my hand! Oh, that's terrible! terrible!"</p>
+
+<p>He gazed at the discoloured flesh. Already the stench of him was making
+us sick, but this hand with its putrid tissues was disgusting to a
+degree.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the Halfbreed, "there's the line of the gangrene, and it's
+spreading. Soon mortification will extend all up your arm, then you'll
+die of blood poison. Locasto, better let me take off that hand. I've
+done jobs like that before. I'm a handy man, I am. Come, let me take it
+off."</p>
+
+<p>"Heavens! you're a cold-blooded butcher. You're going to kill me,
+between you all. You're in a plot leagued against me, and that
+long-faced fool over there's at the bottom of it. Damn you, then, go on
+and do what you want."</p>
+
+<p>"You're not very grateful," said the Halfbreed. "All right, lie there
+and rot."</p>
+
+<p>At his words Locasto changed his tune. He became alarmed to the point of
+terror. He knew the hand was doomed. He lay staring at it, staring,
+staring. Then he sighed, and thrust its loathsomeness into our faces.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_425" id="page_425" title="425"></a>"Come on," he growled. "Do something for me, you devils, or I'll do it
+myself."</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>The hour of the operation was at hand. The Halfbreed got his jack-knife
+ready. He had filed the edge till it was like a rough saw. He cut the
+skin of the wrist just above the gangrene line, and raised it up an inch
+or so. It was here Locasto showed wonderful nerve. He took a large bite
+of tobacco and chewed steadily, while his keen black eyes watched every
+move of the knife.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurry up and get the cursed thing off," he snarled.</p>
+
+<p>The Halfbreed nicked the flesh down to the bone, then with the ragged
+jack-knife he began to saw. I could not bear to look. It made me deathly
+sick. I heard the grit, grit of the jagged blade. I will remember the
+sound to my dying day. How long it seemed to take! No man could stand
+such torture. A groan burst from Locasto's lips. He fell back on the
+bed. His jaws no longer worked, and a thin stream of brown saliva
+trickled down his chin. He had fainted.</p>
+
+<p>Quickly the Halfbreed finished his work. The hand dropped on the floor.
+He pulled down the flaps of skin and sewed them together.</p>
+
+<p>"How's that for home-made surgery?" he chuckled. He was vastly proud of
+his achievement. He took the severed hand upon a shovel and, going to
+the door, he threw it far out into the darkness.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_426" id="page_426" title="426"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>"WHY don't you go outside?" I asked of the Jam-wagon.</p>
+
+<p>I had rescued him from one of his periodical plunges into the cesspool
+of debauch, and he was peaked, pallid, penitent. Listlessly he stared at
+me a long moment, the dull, hollow-eyed stare of the recently
+regenerate.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said at last, "I think I stay for the same reason many
+another man stays&mdash;pride. I feel that the Yukon owes me one of two
+things, a stake or a grave&mdash;and she's going to pay."</p>
+
+<p>"Seems to me, the way you're shaping you're more liable to get the
+latter."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;well, that'll be all right."</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," I remonstrated, "don't be a rotter. You're a man, a
+splendid one. You might do anything, be anything. For Heaven's sake stop
+slipping cogs, and get into the game."</p>
+
+<p>His thin, handsome face hardened bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. Sometimes I think I'm not fit to play the game; sometimes
+I wonder if it's all worth while; sometimes I'm half inclined to end
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't talk nonsense."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not; I mean it, every word. I don't often speak of myself. It
+doesn't matter who I am, or what I've been. I've gone through a
+lot&mdash;more than <a class="pagenum" name="page_427" id="page_427" title="427"></a>most men. For years I've been a sort of a human
+derelict, drifting from port to port of the seven seas. I've sprawled in
+their mire; I've eaten of their filth; I've wallowed in their moist,
+barbaric slime. Time and time again I've gone to the mat, but somehow I
+would never take the count. Something's always saved me at the last."</p>
+
+<p>"Your guardian angel."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe. Somehow I wouldn't be utterly downed. I'm a bit of a fighter,
+and every day's been a battle with me. Oh, you don't know, you can't
+believe how I suffer! Often I pray, and my prayer always is: 'O dear
+God, don't allow me to <i>think</i>. Lash me with Thy wrath; heap burdens on
+me, but don't let me <i>think</i>.' They say there's a hell hereafter. They
+lie: it's here, now."</p>
+
+<p>I was astonished at his vehemence. His face was wrenched with pain, and
+his eyes full of remorseful misery.</p>
+
+<p>"What about your friends?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, them&mdash;I died long ago, died in the early '80's. In a little French
+graveyard there's a tombstone that bears my name, my real name, the name
+of the 'me' that was. Heart, soul and body, I died. My sisters mourned
+me, my friends muttered, 'Poor devil.' A few women cried, and a
+girl&mdash;well, I mustn't speak of that. It's all over long ago; but I must
+eternally do something, fight, drink, work like the devil&mdash;anything but
+think. I mustn't <i>think</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"What about your guardian angel?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sometimes I think he's going to give me <a class="pagenum" name="page_428" id="page_428" title="428"></a>another chance. This is
+no life for a man like me, slaving in the drift, burning myself up in
+the dissipation of the town. A great, glad fight with a good sweet woman
+to fight for&mdash;that would save me. Oh, to get away from it all, get a
+clean start!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I believe in you. I'm sure you'll be all right. Let me lend you
+the money."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, a thousand thanks; but I cannot take it. There it is
+again&mdash;my pride. Maybe I'm all wrong. Maybe I'm a lost soul, and my
+goal's the potter's field. No; thanks! In a day or two I'll be
+fighting-fit again. I wouldn't have bored you with this talk, but I'm
+weak, and my nerve's gone."</p>
+
+<p>"How much money have you got?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>He pulled a poor piece of silver from his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"Enough to do me till I join the pick-and-shovel gang."</p>
+
+<p>"What are those tickets in your hand?"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Chances in the ice pools. Funny thing, I don't remember buying them.
+Must have been drunk."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and you seem to have had a 'hunch.' You've got the same time on
+all three: seven seconds, seven minutes past one, on the ninth&mdash;that's
+to-day. It's noon now. That old ice will have to hurry up if you're
+going to win. Fancy, if you did! You'd clean up over three thousand
+dollars. There would be your new start."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, fancy," he echoed mockingly. "Over five thousand betting, and the
+guesses as close as peas in a pod."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_429" id="page_429" title="429"></a>"Well, the ice may go out any moment. It's awful rotten."</p>
+
+<p>With a curious fascination, we gazed down at the mighty river. Around us
+was a glow of spring sunshine, above us the renaissance of blue skies.
+Rags of snow still glimmered on the hills, and the brown earth, as if
+ashamed of its nakedness, was bursting greenly forth. On the slope
+overlooking the Klondike, girls in white dresses were gathering the wild
+crocus. All was warmth, colour, awakening life.</p>
+
+<p>Surely the river ice could not hold much longer. It was patchy, netted
+with cracks, heaved up in ridges, mottled with slushy pools, corroded to
+the bottom. Decidedly it was rotten, rotten. Still it held stubbornly.
+The Klondike hammered it with mighty bergs, black and heavy as a house.
+Down the swift current they sped, crashing, grinding, roaring, to batter
+into the unbroken armour of the Yukon. And along its banks, watching
+even as we watched, were thousands of others. On every lip was the
+question&mdash;"The ice&mdash;when will it go out?" For to these exiles of the
+North, after eight months of isolation, the sight of open water would be
+like Heaven. It would mean boats, freedom, friendly faces, and a step
+nearer to that "outside" of their dreams.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the centre of the vast mass of ice that belted in the city was a
+post, and on this lonely post thousands of eyes were constantly turning.
+For an electric wire connected it with the town, so that when <a class="pagenum" name="page_430" id="page_430" title="430"></a>it moved
+down a certain distance a clock would register the exact moment. Thus,
+thousands gazing at that solitary post thought of the bets they had
+made, and wondered if this year they would be the lucky ones. It is a
+unique incident in Dawson life, this gambling on the ice. There are
+dozens of pools, large and small, and both men and women take part in
+the betting, with an eagerness and excitement that is almost childish.</p>
+
+<p>I sat on a bench on the N. C. trail overlooking the town, and watched
+the Jam-wagon crawl down the hill to his cabin. Poor fellow! How drawn
+and white was his face, and his long, clean frame&mdash;how gaunt and weary!
+I felt sorry for him. What would become of him? He was a splendid
+"misfit." If he only had another chance! Somehow I believed in him, and
+fervently I hoped he would have that good clean start again.</p>
+
+<p>Up in the cold remoteness of the North are many of his kind&mdash;the black
+sheep, the undesirables, the discards of the pack. Their lips are
+sealed; their eyes are cold as glaciers, and often they drink deep. Oh,
+they are a mighty company, the men you don't enquire about; but it is
+the code of the North to take them as you find them, so they go their
+way unregarded.</p>
+
+<p>How clear the air was! It was like looking through a crystal lens&mdash;every
+leaf seemed to stand out vividly. Sounds came up to me with marvellous
+distinctness. Summer was coming, and with it the assurance of a new
+peace. Down there I could see <a class="pagenum" name="page_431" id="page_431" title="431"></a>our home, and on its veranda,
+hammock-swung, the white figure of Berna. How precious she was to me!
+How anxiously I watched over her! A look, a word meant more to me than
+volumes. If she was happy I was full of joy; if she was sad the sunshine
+paled, the flowers drooped, there was no gladness in the day. Often as
+she slept I watched her, marvelling at the fine perfection of her face.
+Always was she an object of wonder to me&mdash;something to be adored, to
+demand all that was fine and high in me.</p>
+
+<p>Yet sometimes it was the very intensity of my love that made me fear; so
+that in the ecstasy of a moment I would catch my breath and wonder if it
+all could last. And always the memory of Locasto was a sinister shadow.
+He had gone "outside," terribly broken in health, gone cursing me
+hoarsely and vowing he would return. Would he?</p>
+
+<p>Who that knows the North can ever deny its lure? Wherever you be, it
+will call and call to you. In the sluggish South you will hear it, will
+long for the keen tingle of its silver days, the vaster glory of its
+star-strewn nights. In the city's heart it will come to you till you
+hunger for its big, clean spaces, its racing rivers, its purple tundras.
+In the homes of the rich its voice will seek you out, and you will ache
+for your lonely camp-fire, a sunset splendouring to golden death, the
+night where the silence clutches and the heavens vomit forth white fire.
+Yes, you will hear it, and hear it, till a madness comes over you, till
+you leave the crawling men of the sticky pavements to seek it out once
+more, the sapphire of <a class="pagenum" name="page_432" id="page_432" title="432"></a>its lustrous lakes, the white yearning of its
+peaks to the myriad stars. Then, as a child comes home, will you come
+home. And I knew that some day to the land wherein he had reigned a
+conqueror, Locasto, too, would return.</p>
+
+<p>As I looked down on the grey town, the wonder of its growth came over
+me. How changed from the muddle of tents and cabins, the boat-lined
+river, the swarming hordes of the Argonauts! Where was the niggerhead
+swamp, the mud, the unrest, the mad fever of '98? I looked for these
+things and saw in their stead fine residences, trim gardens, well-kept
+streets. I almost rubbed my eyes as I realised the magic of the
+transformation.</p>
+
+<p>And great as was the city's outward change, its change of spirit was
+still greater. The day of dance-hall domination was over. Vice walked
+very circumspectly. No longer was it possible on the street to speak to
+a lady of easy virtue without causing comment.</p>
+
+<p>The demireps of the deadline had been banished over the Klondike, where,
+in a colony reached by a crazy rope bridge, their red lights gleamed
+like semaphores of sin. The dance-halls were still running, but the
+picturesque impunity of the old muckluck days was gone forever. You
+looked in vain for the crude scenes where the wilder passions were
+unleashed, and human nature revealed itself in primal nakedness.
+Heroism, brutality, splendid achievement, unbridled license, the North
+seems to bring out all that is best and worst in a man. It <a class="pagenum" name="page_433" id="page_433" title="433"></a>breeds an
+exuberant vitality, a madness for action, whether it be for good or
+evil.</p>
+
+<p>In the town, too, life was becoming a thing of more sober hues. Sick of
+slipshod morality, men were sending for their wives and children. The
+old ideals of home and love and social purity were triumphing. With the
+advent of the good woman, the dance-hall girl was doomed. The city was
+finding itself. Society divided into sets. The more pretentious were
+called Ping-pongs, while a majority rejoiced in the name of Rough-necks.
+The post-office abuses were remedied, the grafters ousted from the
+government offices. Rapidly the gold-camp was becoming modernised.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, its spectacular days were over. No more would the "live one"
+disport himself in his wild and woolly glory. The delirium of '98 was
+fast becoming a memory. The leading actors in that fateful drama&mdash;where
+were they? Dead: some by their own hands; down and out many, drivelling
+sottishly of by-gone days; poor prospectors a few, dreaming of a new
+gold strike.</p>
+
+<p>And, as I think of it, it comes over me that the thing is vastly tragic.
+Where are they now, these Klondike Kings, these givers of champagne
+baths, these plungers of the gold-camp? How many of those that stood out
+in the limelight of '98 can tell the tale to-day? Ladue is dead, leaving
+little behind. Big Alec MacDonald, after lavishing a dozen fortunes on
+his friends, dies at last, almost friendless and alone. Nigger Jim and
+Stillwater Willie&mdash;in what <a class="pagenum" name="page_434" id="page_434" title="434"></a>back slough of vicissitude do they languish
+to-day? Dick Low lies in a drunkard's grave. Skookum Jim would fain
+qualify for one. Dawson Charlie, reeling home from a debauch, drowns in
+the river. In impecunious despair, Harry Waugh hangs himself. Charlie
+Anderson, after squandering a fortune on a thankless wife, works for a
+labourer's hire.</p>
+
+<p>So I might go on and on. Their stories would fill volumes. And as I sat
+on the quiet hillside, listening to the drowsy hum of the bees, the
+inner meaning of it all came home to me. Once again the great lone land
+was sifting out and choosing its own. Far-reaching was its vengeance,
+and it worked in divers ways. It fell on them, even as it had fallen on
+their brethren of the trail. In the guise of fortune it dealt their
+ruin. From the austere silence of its snows it was mocking them,
+beguiling them to their doom. Again it was the Land of the Strong.
+Before all it demanded strength, moral and physical strength. I was
+minded of the words of old Jim, "Where one wins ninety and nine will
+fail"; and time had proved him true. The great, grim land was weeding
+out the unfit, was rewarding those who could understand it, the faithful
+brotherhood of the high North.</p>
+
+<p>Full of such thoughts as these, I raised my eyes and looked down the
+river towards the Moosehide Bluffs. Hullo! There, just below the town,
+was a great sheet of water, and even as I watched I saw it spread and
+spread. People were shouting, running from their houses, speeding to the
+beach. I was conscious <a class="pagenum" name="page_435" id="page_435" title="435"></a>of a thrill of excitement. Ever widening was the
+water, and now it stretched from bank to bank. It crept forward to the
+solitary post. Now it was almost there. Suddenly the post started to
+move. The vast ice-field was sliding forward. Slowly, serenely it went,
+on, on.</p>
+
+<p>Then, all at once, the steam-whistles shrilled out, the bells pealed,
+and from the black mob of people that lined the banks there went up an
+exultant cheer. "The ice is going out&mdash;the ice is going out!"</p>
+
+<p>I looked at my watch. Could I believe my eyes? Seven seconds, seven
+minutes past one&mdash;his "hunch" was right; his guardian angel had
+intervened; the Jam-wagon had been given his chance to make a new start.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_436" id="page_436" title="436"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>The waters were wild with joy. From the mountain snows the sun had set
+them free. Down hill and dale they sparkled, trickling from boulders,
+dripping from mossy crannies, rioting in narrow runlets. Then, leaping
+and laughing in a mad ecstasy of freedom, they dashed into the dam.</p>
+
+<p>Here was something they did not understand, some contrivance of the
+tyrant Man to curb them, to harness them, to make them his slaves. The
+waters were angry. They gloomed fearsomely. As they swelled higher in
+the broad basin their wrath grew apace. They chafed against their prison
+walls, they licked and lapped at the stolid bank. Higher and higher they
+mounted, growing stronger with every leap. More and more bitterly they
+fretted at their durance. Behind them other waters were pressing, just
+as eager to escape as they. They lashed and writhed in savage spite. Not
+much longer could these patient walls withstand their anger. Something
+must happen.</p>
+
+<p>The "something" was a man. He raised the floodgate, and there at last
+was a way of escape. How joyously the eager waters rushed at it! They
+tumbled and tossed in their mad hurry to get out. They surged and swept
+and roared about the narrow opening.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_437" id="page_437" title="437"></a>But what was this? They had come on a wooden box that streaked down the
+slope as straight as an arrow from the bow. It was some other scheme of
+the tyrant Man. Nevertheless, they jostled and jammed to get into it. On
+its brink they poised a moment, then down, down they dashed.</p>
+
+<p>Like a cataract they rushed, ever and ever growing faster. Ho! this was
+motion now, this was action, strength, power. As they shot down that
+steep hill they shrieked for very joy. Freedom, freedom at last! No more
+trickling feebly from snowbanks; no more boring devious channels in oozy
+clay, no more stagnating in sullen dams. They were alive, alive, swift,
+intense, terrific. They gloried in their might. They roared the raucous
+song of freedom, and faster and faster they charged. Like a stampede of
+maddened horses they thundered on. What power on earth could stop them?
+"We must be free! We must be free!" they cried.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly they saw ahead the black hole of a great pipe, a hollow shard
+of steel. Prison-like it looked, again some contrivance of the tyrant
+Man. They would fain have overleapt it, but it was too late. Countless
+other waters were behind them, forcing them forward with irresistible
+power. And, faster and faster still, they crashed into the shard of
+steel.</p>
+
+<p>They were trapped, atrociously trapped, cabined, confined, rammed
+forward by a vast and remorseless pressure. Yet there was escape just
+ahead. It was a tiny point of light, an outlet. They must squeeze
+through it. They were crushed and pinioned in that <a class="pagenum" name="page_438" id="page_438" title="438"></a>prison of steel, and
+mightily they tried to burst it. No! there was only that orifice; they
+must pass through it. Then with that great force behind them, tortured,
+maddened, desperate, the waters crashed through the shard of steel, to
+serve the will of Man.</p>
+
+<p>The man stood by his water-gun and from its nozzle, the gleaming terror
+leapt. At first it was only a slim volley of light, compact and solid as
+a shaft of steel. To pierce it would have splintered to pieces the
+sharpest sword. It was a core of water, round, glistening and smooth,
+yet in its mighty power it was a monster of destruction.</p>
+
+<p>The man was directing it here and there on the face of the hill. It flew
+like an arrow from the bow, and wherever he aimed it the hillside seemed
+to reel and shudder at the shock. Great cataracts of gravel shot out,
+avalanches of clay toppled over; vast boulders were hurled into the air
+like heaps of fleecy wool.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, the waters were mad. They were like an angry bull that gored the
+hillside. It seemed to melt and dissolve before them. Nothing could
+withstand that assault. In a few minutes they would reduce the stoutest
+stronghold to a heap of pitiful ruins.</p>
+
+<p>There, where the waters shot forth in their fury, stood their conqueror.
+He was one man, yet he was doing the work of a hundred. As he battered
+at that bank of clay he exulted in his power. A little turn of the wrist
+and a huge mass of gravel crumbled into nothingness. He bored deep holes
+in the frozen muck, he hammered his way down to bed <a class="pagenum" name="page_439" id="page_439" title="439"></a>rock, he swept it
+clean as a floor. There, with the solid force of a battering-ram, he
+pounded at the heart of the hill.</p>
+
+<p>The roar deafened him. He heard the crash of falling rock, but he was so
+intent on his work he did not hear another man approach. Suddenly he
+looked up and saw.</p>
+
+<p>He gave a mighty start, then at once he was calm again. This was the
+meeting he had dreaded, longed for, fought against, desired. Primordial
+emotions surged within him, but outwardly he gave no sign. Almost
+savagely, and with a curious blaze in his eyes he redirected the little
+giant.</p>
+
+<p>He waved his hand to the other man.</p>
+
+<p>"Go away!" he shouted.</p>
+
+<p>Mosher refused to budge. The generous living of Dawson had made him
+pursy, almost porcine. His pig eyes glittered, and he took off his hat
+to wipe some beads of sweat from the monumental baldness of his
+forehead. He caressed his coal-black beard with a podgy hand on which a
+large diamond sparkled. His manner was arrogance personified. He seemed
+to say, "I'll make this man dance to my music."</p>
+
+<p>His rich, penetrating voice pierced through the roar of the "giant."</p>
+
+<p>"Here, turn off your water. I want to speak to you. Got a business
+proposition to make."</p>
+
+<p>Still Jim was dumb.</p>
+
+<p>Mosher came close to him and shouted into his ear. The two men were very
+calm.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_440" id="page_440" title="440"></a>"Say, your wife's in town. Been there for the last year. Didn't you
+know it?"</p>
+
+<p>Jim shook his head. He was particularly interested in his work just
+then. There was a great saddle of clay, and he scooped it up magically.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, she's in town&mdash;living respectable."</p>
+
+<p>Jim redirected his giant with a savage swish.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, I'm a sort of a philant'ropic guy," went on Mosher, "an' there's
+nothing I like better than doing the erring wife restitootion act. I
+think I could induce that little woman of yours to come back to you."</p>
+
+<p>Jim gave him a swift glance, but the man went on.</p>
+
+<p>"To tell the truth, she's a bit stuck on me. Not my fault, of course.
+Can't help it if a girl gets daffy on me. But say, I think I could get
+her switched on to you if you made it worth my while. It's a business
+proposition."</p>
+
+<p>He was sneering now, frankly villainous. Jim gave no sign.</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye say? This is a likely bit of ground&mdash;give me a half-share in
+this ground, an' I'll guarantee to deliver that little piece of goods to
+you. There's an offer."</p>
+
+<p>Again that smug look of generosity beamed on the man's face. Once more
+Jim motioned him to go, but Mosher did not heed. He thought the gesture
+was a refusal. His face grew threatening. "All right, if you won't," he
+snarled, "look out! I know you love her still. Let me tell you, I own
+that woman, body and soul, and I'll make life hell <a class="pagenum" name="page_441" id="page_441" title="441"></a>for her. I'll
+torture you through her. Yes, I've got a cinch. You'd better change your
+mind."</p>
+
+<p>He had stepped back as if to go. Then, whether it was an accident or not
+no one will ever know&mdash;but the little giant swung round till it bore on
+him.</p>
+
+<p>It lifted him up in the air. It shot him forward like a stone from a
+catapult. It landed him on the bank fifty feet away with a sickening
+crash. Then, as he lay, it pounded and battered him out of all semblance
+of a man.</p>
+
+<p>The waters were having their revenge.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_442" id="page_442" title="442"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>"There's something the matter with Jim," the Prodigal 'phoned to me from
+the Forks; "he's gone off and left the cabin on Ophir, taken to the
+hills. Some prospectors have just come in and say they met him heading
+for the White Snake Valley. Seemed kind of queer, they say. Wouldn't
+talk much. They thought he was in a fair way to go crazy."</p>
+
+<p>"He's never been right since the accident," I answered; "we'll have to
+go after him."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. Come up at once. I'll get McCrimmon. He's a good man in the
+woods. We'll be ready to start as soon as you arrive."</p>
+
+<p>So the following day found the three of us on the trail to Ophir. We
+travelled lightly, carrying very little food, for we thought to find
+game in the woods. On the evening of the following day we reached the
+cabin.</p>
+
+<p>Jim must have gone very suddenly. There were the remains of a meal on
+the table, and his Bible was gone from its place. There was nothing for
+it but to follow and find him.</p>
+
+<p>"By going to the headwaters of Ophir Creek," said the Halfbreed, "we can
+cross a divide into the valley of the White Snake, and there we'll
+corral him, I guess."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_443" id="page_443" title="443"></a>So we left the trail and plunged into the virgin Wild. Oh, but it was
+hard travelling! Often we would keep straight up the creek-bed, plunging
+through pools that were knee-deep, and walking over shingly bars. Then,
+to avoid a big bend of the stream, we would strike off through the bush.
+Every yard seemed to have its obstacle. There were windfalls and tangled
+growths of bush that defied our uttermost efforts to penetrate them.
+There were viscid sloughs, from whose black depths bubbles arose
+wearily, with grey tree-roots like the legs of spiders clutching the
+slimy mud of their banks. There were oozy bottoms, rankly speared with
+rush-grass. There were leprous marshes spotted with unsightly
+niggerheads. Dripping with sweat, we fought our way under the hot sun.
+Thorny boughs tore at us detainingly. Fallen trees delighted to bar our
+way. Without let or cease we toiled, yet at the day's end our progress
+was but a meagre one.</p>
+
+<p>Our greatest bane was the mosquitoes. Night and day they never ceased to
+nag us. We wore veils and had gloves on our hands, so that under our
+armour we were able to grin defiance at them. But on the other side of
+that netting they buzzed in an angry grey cloud. To raise our veils and
+take a drink was to be assaulted ferociously. As we walked we could feel
+them resisting our progress, and it seemed as if we were forcing our way
+through solid banks of them. If we rested, they alighted in such myriads
+that soon we appeared literally sheathed in tiny atoms of insect life,
+vainly trying to pierce the mesh of our <a class="pagenum" name="page_444" id="page_444" title="444"></a>clothing. To bare a hand was to
+have it covered with blood in a moment, and the thought of being at
+their mercy was an exquisitely horrible one. Night and day their voices
+blended in a vast drone, so that we ate, drank and slept under our
+veils.</p>
+
+<p>In that rankly growing wilderness we saw no sign of life, not even a
+rabbit. It was all desolate and God-forsaken. By nightfall our packs
+seemed very heavy, our limbs very tired. Three days, four days, five
+days passed. The creek was attenuated and hesitating, so we left it and
+struck off over the mountains. Soon we climbed to where the timber
+growth was less obstructive. The hillside was steep, almost vertical in
+places, and was covered with a strange, deep growth of moss. Down in it
+we sank, in places to our knees, and beneath it we could feel the points
+of sharp boulders. As we climbed we plunged our hands deep into the cool
+cushion of the moss, and half dragged ourselves upward. It was like an
+Oriental rug covering the stony ribs of the hill, a rug of bizarre
+colouring, strangely patterned in crimson and amber, in emerald and
+ivory. Birch-trees of slim, silvery beauty arose in it, and aided us as
+we climbed.</p>
+
+<p>So we came at last, after a weary journey, to a bleak, boulder-studded
+plateau. It was above timber-line, and carpeted with moss of great depth
+and gaudy hue. Suddenly we saw two vast pillars of stone upstanding on
+the aching barren. I think they must have been two hundred feet high,
+and, like monstrous sentinels in their lonely isolation, they
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_445" id="page_445" title="445"></a>overlooked that vast tundra. They startled us. We wondered by what
+strange freak of nature they were stationed there.</p>
+
+<p>Then we dropped down into a vast, hush-filled valley, a valley that
+looked as if it had been undisturbed since the beginning of time. Like a
+spirit-haunted place it was, so strange and still. It was loneliness
+made visible. It was stillness written in wood and stone. I would have
+been afraid to enter it alone, and even as we sank in its death-haunted
+dusk I shuddered with a horror of the place.</p>
+
+<p>The Indians feared and shunned this valley. They said, of old, strange
+things had happened there; it had been full of noise and fire and steam;
+the earth had opened up, belching forth great dragons that destroyed the
+people. And indeed it was all like the vast crater of an extinct
+volcano, for hot springs bubbled forth and a grey ash cropped up through
+the shallow soil.</p>
+
+<p>There was no game in the valley. In its centre was a solitary lake,
+black and bottomless, and haunted by a giant white water-snake,
+sluggish, blind and very old. Stray prospectors swore they had seen it,
+just at dusk, and its sightless, staring eyes were too terrible ever to
+forget.</p>
+
+<p>And into this still, cobweb-hued hollow we dropped&mdash;dropped almost
+straight down over the flanks of those lean, lank mountains that fringed
+it so forlornly. Here, ringed all around by desolate heights, we were as
+remote from the world as if we were in some sallow solitude of the moon.
+Sometimes <a class="pagenum" name="page_446" id="page_446" title="446"></a>the valley was like a gaping mouth, and the lips of it were
+livid grey. Sometimes it was like a cup into which the sunset poured a
+golden wine and filled it quivering to the brim. Sometimes it was like a
+grey grave full of silence. And here in this place of shadows, where the
+lichen strangled the trees, and under-foot the moss hushed the tread,
+where we spoke in whispers, and mirth seemed a mockery, where every
+stick and stone seemed eloquent of disenchantment and despair, here in
+this valley of Dead Things we found Jim.</p>
+
+<p>He was sitting by a dying camp-fire, all huddled up, his arms embracing
+his knees, his eyes on the fading embers. As we drew near he did not
+move, did not show any surprise, did not even raise his head. His face
+was very pale and drawn into a pucker of pain. It was the queerest look
+I ever saw on a man's face. It made me creep.</p>
+
+<p>His eyes followed us furtively. Silently we squatted in a ring round his
+camp-fire. For a while we said no word, then at last the Prodigal spoke:</p>
+
+<p>"Jim, you're coming back with us, aren't you?"</p>
+
+<p>Jim looked at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush!" says he, "don't speak so loud. You'll waken all them dead
+fellows."</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Them dead fellows. The woods is full of them, them that can't rest.
+They're all around, ghosts. At night, when I'm a-sittin' over the fire,
+they crawl out of the darkness, an' they get close to me, <a class="pagenum" name="page_447" id="page_447" title="447"></a>closer,
+closer, an' they whisper things. Then I get scared an' I shoo them
+away."</p>
+
+<p>"What do they whisper, Jim?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh say! they tell me all kinds of things, them fellows in the woods.
+They tell me of the times they used to have here in the valley; an' how
+they was a great people, an' had women an' slaves; how they fought an'
+sang an' got drunk, an' how their kingdom was here, right here where
+it's all death an' desolation. An' how they conquered all the other
+folks around an' killed the men an' captured the women. Oh, it was long,
+long ago, long before the flood!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Jim, never mind them. Get your pack ready. We're going home right
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"Goin' home?&mdash;I've no home any more. I'm a fugitive an' a vagabond in
+the earth. The blood of my brother crieth unto me from the ground. From
+the face of the Lord shall I be hid an' every one that findeth me shall
+slay me. I have no home but the wilderness. Unto it I go with prayer an'
+fastin'. I have killed, I have killed!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, Jim; it was an accident."</p>
+
+<p>"Was it? Was it? God only knows; I don't. Only I know the thought of
+murder was black in my heart. It was there for ever an' ever so long.
+How I fought against it! Then, just at that moment, everything seemed to
+come to a head. I don't know that I meant what I did, but I thought it."</p>
+
+<p>"Come home, Jim, and forget it."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_448" id="page_448" title="448"></a>"When the rivers start to run up them mountain peaks I'll forget it.
+No, they won't let me forget it, them ghosts. They whisper to me all the
+time. Hist! don't you hear them? They're whispering to me now. 'You're a
+murderer, Jim, a murderer,' they say. 'The brand of Cain is on you, Jim,
+the brand of Cain.' Then the little leaves of the trees take up the
+whisper, an' the waters murmur it, an' the very stones cry out ag'in me,
+an' I can't shut out the sound. I can't, I can't."</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, Jim!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, the devil's a-hoein' out a place in the embers for me. I can't
+turn no more to the Lord. He's cast me out, an' the light of His
+countenance is darkened to me. Never again; oh, never again!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh come, Jim, for the sake of your old partners, come home."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, boys, I'll come. But it's no good. I'm down an' out."</p>
+
+<p>Wearily we gathered together his few belongings. He had been living on
+bread, and but little remained. Had we not reached him, he would have
+starved. He came like a child, but seemed a prey to acute melancholy.</p>
+
+<p>It was indeed a sad party that trailed down that sad, dead valley. The
+trees were hung with a dreary drapery of grey, and the ashen moss
+muffled our footfalls. I think it was the <i>deadest</i> place I ever saw.
+The very air seemed dead and stale, as if it were eternally still,
+unstirred by any wind. Spiders and strange creeping things possessed the
+trees, and at <a class="pagenum" name="page_449" id="page_449" title="449"></a>every step, like white gauze, a mist of mosquitoes was
+thrown up. And the way seemed endless.</p>
+
+<p>A great weariness weighed upon our spirits. Our feet flagged and our
+shoulders were bowed. As we looked into each other's faces we saw there
+a strange lassitude, a chill, grey despair. Our voices sounded hollow
+and queer, and we seldom spoke. It was as if the place was a vampire
+that was sucking the life and health from our veins.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid the old man's going to play out on us," whispered the
+Prodigal.</p>
+
+<p>Jim lagged forlornly behind, and it was very anxiously we watched him.
+He seemed to know that he was keeping us back. His efforts to keep up
+were pitiful. We feigned an equal weariness, not to distress him, and
+our progress was slow, slow.</p>
+
+<p>"Looks as if we'll have to go on half-rations," said the Halfbreed.
+"It's taking longer to get out of this valley than I figured on."</p>
+
+<p>And indeed it was like a vast prison, and those peaks that brindled in
+the sunset glow were like bars to hold us in. Every day the old man's
+step was growing slower, so that at last we were barely crawling along.
+We were ascending the western slope of the valley, climbing a few miles
+a day, and every step we rose from that sump-hole of the gods was like
+the lifting of a weight. We were tired, tired, and in the wan light that
+filtered through the leaden clouds our faces were white and strained.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess we'll have to go on quarter-rations from now," said the
+Halfbreed, a few days later. He <a class="pagenum" name="page_450" id="page_450" title="450"></a>ranged far and wide, looking for game,
+but never a sign did he see. Once, indeed, we heard a shot. Eagerly we
+waited his return, but all he had got was a great, grey owl, which we
+cooked and ate ravenously.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_451" id="page_451" title="451"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>At last, at last we had climbed over the divide, and left behind us
+forever the vampire valley. Oh, we were glad! But other troubles were
+coming. Soon the day came when the last of our grub ran out. I remember
+how solemnly we ate it. We were already more than three-parts starved,
+and that meal was but a mouthful.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the Halfbreed, "we can't be far from the Yukon now. It must
+be the valley beyond this one. Then, in a few days, we can make a raft
+and float down to Dawson."</p>
+
+<p>This heartened us, so once more we took up our packs and started. Jim
+did not move.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, Jim."</p>
+
+<p>Still no movement.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter, Jim? Come on."</p>
+
+<p>He turned to us a face that was grey and deathlike.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, boys. Don't mind me. My time's up. I'm an old man. I'm only
+keeping you back. Without me you've got a chance; with me you've got
+none. Leave me here with a gun. I can shoot an' rustle grub. You boys
+can come back for me. You'll find old Jim spry an' chipper, awaitin' you
+with a smile on his face. Now go, boys. You'll go, won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go be darned!" said the Prodigal. "You <a class="pagenum" name="page_452" id="page_452" title="452"></a>know we'll never leave you,
+Jim. You know the code of the trail. What d'ye take us for&mdash;skunks? Come
+on, we'll carry you if you can't walk."</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head pitifully, but once more he crawled after us. We
+ourselves were making no great speed. Lack of food was beginning to tell
+on us. Our stomachs were painfully empty and dead.</p>
+
+<p>"How d'ye feel?" asked the Prodigal. His face had an arrestively hollow
+look, but that frozen smile was set on it.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," I said, "only terribly weak. My head aches at times, but
+I've got no pain."</p>
+
+<p>"Neither have I. This starving racket's a cinch. It's dead easy. What
+rot they talk about the gnawing pains of hunger, an' ravenous men
+chewing up their boot-tops. It's easy. There's no pain. I don't even
+feel hungry any more."</p>
+
+<p>None of us did. It was as if our stomachs, in despair at not receiving
+any food, had sunk into apathy. Yet there was no doubt we were terribly
+weak. We only made a few miles a day now, and even that was an effort.
+The distance seemed to be elastic, to stretch out under our feet. Every
+few yards we had to help Jim over a bad place. His body was emaciated
+and he was getting very feeble. A hollow fire burned in his eyes. The
+Halfbreed persisted that beyond those despotic mountains lay the Yukon
+Valley, and at night he would rouse us up:</p>
+
+<p>"Say, boys, I hear the 'toot' of a steamer. Just a few more days and
+we'll get there."</p>
+
+<p>Running through the valley, we found a little <a class="pagenum" name="page_453" id="page_453" title="453"></a>river. It was muddy in
+colour and appeared to contain no fish. We ranged along it eagerly,
+hoping to find a few minnows, but without success. It seemed to me, as I
+foraged here and there for food, it was not hunger that impelled me so
+much as the instinct of self-preservation. I knew that if I did not get
+something into my stomach I would surely die.</p>
+
+<p>Down the river we trailed forlornly. For a week we had eaten nothing.
+Jim had held on bravely, but now he gave up.</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake, leave me, boys! Don't make me feel guilty of your
+death. Haven't I got enough on my soul already? For God's pity, lads,
+save yourselves! Leave me here to die."</p>
+
+<p>He pleaded brokenly. His legs seemed to have become paralysed. Every
+time we stopped he would pitch forward on his face, or while walking he
+would fall asleep and drop. The Prodigal and I supported him, but it was
+truly hard to support ourselves, and sometimes we collapsed, coming down
+all three together in a confused and helpless heap. The Prodigal still
+wore that set grin. His face was nigh fleshless, and, through the
+straggling beard, it sometimes minded me of a grinning skull. Always Jim
+moaned and pleaded:</p>
+
+<p>"Leave me, dear boys, leave me!"</p>
+
+<p>He was like a drunken man, and his every step was agony.</p>
+
+<p>We threw away our packs. We no longer had the strength to bear them. The
+last thing to go was the Halfbreed's rifle. Several times it dropped out
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_454" id="page_454" title="454"></a>of his hand. He picked it up in a dazed way. Again and again it
+dropped, but at last the time came when he no longer picked it up. He
+looked at it for a stupid while, then staggered on without it.</p>
+
+<p>At night we would rest long hours round the camp-fire. Often far into the
+day would we rest. Jim lay like a dead man, moaning continually, while
+we, staring into each other's ghastly faces, talked in jerks. It was an
+effort to hunt food. It was an effort to goad ourselves to continue the
+journey.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure the river empties into the Yukon, boys," said the Halfbreed.
+"'Tain't so far, either. If we can just make a few miles more we'll be
+all right."</p>
+
+<p>At night, in my sleep, I was a prey to the strangest hallucinations.
+People I had known came and talked to me. They were so real that, when I
+awoke, I could scarce believe I had been dreaming. Berna came to me
+often. She came quite close, with great eyes of pity that looked into
+mine. Her lips moved.</p>
+
+<p>"Be brave, my boy. Don't despair," she pleaded. Always in my dreams she
+pleaded like that, and I think that but for her I would have given up.</p>
+
+<p>The Halfbreed was the most resolute of the party. He never lost his
+head. At times we others raved a little, or laughed a little, or cried a
+little, but the Halfbreed remained cool and grim. Ceaselessly he foraged
+for food. Once he found a nest of grouse eggs, and, breaking them open,
+discovered they contained half-formed birds. We ate them just as they
+were, crunched them between our swollen gums. Snails, too, we ate
+sometimes, and grass roots and <a class="pagenum" name="page_455" id="page_455" title="455"></a>moss which we scraped from the trees.
+But our greatest luck was the decayed grouse eggs.</p>
+
+<p>Early one afternoon we were all resting by a camp-fire on which was
+boiling some moss, when suddenly the Halfbreed pointed. There, in a
+glade down by the river's edge, were a cow moose and calf. They were
+drinking. Stupidly we gazed. I saw the Halfbreed's hand go out as if to
+clutch the rifle. Alas! his fingers closed on the empty air. So near
+they were we could have struck them with a stone. Taking his sheath
+knife in his mouth, the Halfbreed started to crawl on his belly towards
+them. He had gone but a few yards when they winded him. One look they
+gave, and in a few moments they were miles away. That was the only time
+I saw the Halfbreed put out. He fell on his face and lay there for a
+long time.</p>
+
+<p>Often we came to sloughs that we could not cross, and we had to go round
+them. We tried to build rafts, but we were too weak to navigate them. We
+were afraid we would roll off into the deep black water and drown
+feebly. So we went round, which in one case meant ten miles. Once, over
+a slough a few yards wide, the Halfbreed built a bridge of willows, and
+we crawled on hands and knees to the other side.</p>
+
+<p>From a certain point our trip seems like a nightmare to me. I can only
+remember parts of it here and there. We reeled like drunken men. We
+sobbed sometimes, and sometimes we prayed. There was no word from Jim
+now, not even a whimper, as we <a class="pagenum" name="page_456" id="page_456" title="456"></a>half dragged, half carried him on. Our
+eyes were large with fever, our hands were like claws. Long sickly
+beards grew on our faces. Our clothes were rags, and vermin overran us.
+We had lost all track of time. Latterly we had been travelling about
+half a mile a day, and we must have been twenty days without proper
+food.</p>
+
+<p>The Halfbreed had crawled ahead a mile or so, and he came back to where
+we lay. In a voice hoarse almost to a whisper he told us a bigger river
+joined ours down there, and on the bar was an old Indian camp. Perhaps
+in that place some one might find us. It seemed on the route of travel.
+So we made a last despairing effort and reached it. Indians had visited
+it quite recently. We foraged around and found some putrid fish bones,
+with which we made soup.</p>
+
+<p>There was a grave set high on stilts, and within it a body covered with
+canvas. The Halfbreed wrenched the canvas from the body, and with it he
+made a boat eight feet in length by six in breadth. It was too rotten to
+hold him up, and he nearly drowned trying to float it, so he left it
+lying on the edge of the bar. I remember this was a terrible
+disappointment to us, and we wept bitterly. I think that about this time
+we were all half-crazy. We lay on that bar like men already dead, with
+no longer hope of deliverance.</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>Then Jim passed in his checks. In the night he called me.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_457" id="page_457" title="457"></a>"Boy," he whispered, "you an' I'se been good pals, ain't we?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, old man."</p>
+
+<p>"Boy, I'm in agony. I'm suffering untold pain. Get the gun, for God's
+sake, an' put me out of my misery."</p>
+
+<p>"There's no gun, Jim; we left it back on the trail."</p>
+
+<p>"Then take your knife."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no."</p>
+
+<p>"Give me your knife."</p>
+
+<p>"Jim, you're crazy. Where's your faith in God?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gone, gone; I've no longer any right to look to Him. I've killed. I've
+taken life He gave. 'Vengeance is mine,' He said, an' I've taken it out
+of His hands. God's curse is on me now. Oh, let me die, let me die!"</p>
+
+<p>I sat by him all night. He moaned in agony, and his passing was hard. It
+was about three in the morning when he spoke again:</p>
+
+<p>"Say, boy, I'm going. I'm a useless old man. I've lived in sin, an' I've
+repented, an' I've backslid. The Lord don't want old Jim any more. Say,
+kid, see that little girl of mine down in Dawson gets what money's
+comin' to me. Tell her to keep straight, an' tell her I loved her. Tell
+her I never let up on lovin' her all these years. You'll remember that,
+boy, won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll remember, Jim."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's all a hoodoo, this Northern gold," he <a class="pagenum" name="page_458" id="page_458" title="458"></a>moaned. "See what it's
+done for all of us. We came to loot the land an' it's a-takin' its
+revenge on us. It's accursed. It's got me at last, but maybe I can help
+you boys to beat it yet. Call the others."</p>
+
+<p>I called them.</p>
+
+<p>"Boys," said Jim, "I'm a-goin'. I've been a long time about it. I've
+been dying by inches, but I guess I'll finish the job pretty slick this
+time. Well, boys, I'm in possession of all my faculties. I want you to
+know that. I was crazy when I started off, but that's passed away. My
+mind's clear. Now, pardners, I've got you into this scrape. I'm
+responsible, an' it seems to me I'd die happier if you'd promise me one
+thing. Livin', I can't help you; dead, I can&mdash;<i>you know how</i>. Well, I
+want you to promise me you'll do it. It's a reasonable proposition.
+Don't hesitate. Don't let sentiment stop you. I wish it. It's my dying
+wish. You're starvin', an' I can help you, can give you strength. Will
+you promise, if it comes to the last pass, you'll do it?"</p>
+
+<p>We were afraid to look each other in the face.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, promise, boys, promise!"</p>
+
+<p>"Promise him anyway," said the Halfbreed. "He'll die easier."</p>
+
+<p>So we nodded our heads as we bent over him, and he turned away his face,
+content.</p>
+
+<p>'Twas but a little after he called me again.</p>
+
+<p>"Boy, give me your hand. Say a prayer for me, won't you? Maybe it'll
+help some, a prayer for a poor old sinner that's backslid. I can never
+pray again."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_459" id="page_459" title="459"></a>"Yes, try to pray, Jim, try. Come on; say it after me: 'Our Father&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>"'Our Father&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>"'Which art in Heaven&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>"'Which art in&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>His head fell forward. "Bless you, my boy. Father, forgive, forgive&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He sank back very quietly.</p>
+
+<p>He was dead.</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>Next morning the Halfbreed caught a minnow. We divided it into three and
+ate it raw. Later on he found some water-lice under a stone. We tried to
+cook them, but they did not help us much. Then, as night fell once more,
+a thought came into our minds and stuck there. It was a hidden thought,
+and yet it grew and grew. As we sat round in a circle we looked into
+each other's faces, and there we read the same revolting thought. Yet
+did it not seem so revolting after all. It was as if the spirit of the
+dead man was urging us to this thing, so insistent did the thought
+become. It was our only hope of life. It meant strength again, strength
+and energy to make a raft and float us down the river. Oh, if only&mdash;but,
+no! We could not do it. Better, a hundred times better, die.</p>
+
+<p>Yet life was sweet, and for twenty-three days we had starved. Here was a
+chance to live, with the dead man whispering in our ears to do it. You
+who have never starved a day in your lives, would you blame us? Life is
+sweet to you, too. What would <a class="pagenum" name="page_460" id="page_460" title="460"></a>you have done? The dead man was urging
+us, and life was sweet.</p>
+
+<p>But we struggled, God knows we struggled. We did not give in without
+agony. In our hopeless, staring eyes there was the anguish of the great
+temptation. We looked in each other's death's-head faces. We clasped
+skeleton hands round our rickety knees, and swayed as we tried to sit
+upright. Vermin crawled over us in our weakness. We were half-crazy, and
+muttered in our beards.</p>
+
+<p>It was the Halfbreed who spoke, and his voice was just a whisper:</p>
+
+<p>"It's our only chance, boys, and we've promised him. God forgive me, but
+I've a wife and children, and I'm a-goin' to do it."</p>
+
+<p>He was too weak to rise, and with his knife in his mouth he crawled to
+the body.</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>It was ready, but we had not eaten. We waited and waited, hoping against
+hope. Then, as we waited, God was merciful to us. He saved us from this
+thing.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, I guess I've got a pipe-dream, but I think I see two men coming
+downstream on a raft."</p>
+
+<p>"No, it's no dream," I said; "two men."</p>
+
+<p>"Shout to them; I can't," said the Prodigal.</p>
+
+<p>I tried to shout, but my voice came as a whisper. The Halfbreed, too,
+tried to shout. There was scarcely any sound to it. The men did not see
+us as we lay on that shingly bar. Faster and faster they came. In
+hopeless, helpless woe we watched <a class="pagenum" name="page_461" id="page_461" title="461"></a>them. We could do nothing. In a few
+moments they would be past. With eyes of terror we followed them, tried
+to make signals to them. O God, help us!</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly they caught sight of that crazy boat of ours made of canvas and
+willows. They poled the raft in close, then one of them saw those three
+strange things writhing impotently on the sand. They were skeletons,
+they were in rags, they were covered with vermin.&mdash;* * * *</p>
+
+<p>We were saved; thank God, we were saved!</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_462" id="page_462" title="462"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Berna, we must get married."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dearest, whenever you wish."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled radiantly; then her face grew very serious.</p>
+
+<p>"What will I wear?" she asked plaintively.</p>
+
+<p>"Wear? Oh, anything. That white dress you've got on&mdash;I never saw you
+looking so sweet. You mind me of a picture I know of Saint Cecilia, the
+same delicacy of feature, the same pure colouring, the same grace of
+expression."</p>
+
+<p>"Foolish one!" she chided; but her voice was deliciously tender, and her
+eyes were love-lit. And indeed, as she stood by the window holding her
+embroidery to the failing light, you scarce could have imagined a girl
+more gracefully sweet. In a fine mood of idealising, my eyes rested on
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, fairy girl, that briar rose you are doing in the centre of your
+little canvas hoop is not more delicate in the tinting than are your
+cheeks; your hands that ply the needle so daintily are whiter than the
+May blossoms on its border; those coils of shining hair that crown your
+head would shame the silk you use for softness."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't," she sighed; "you spoil me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, it's true, true. Sometimes I wish you <a class="pagenum" name="page_463" id="page_463" title="463"></a>were not so lovely. It
+makes me care so much for you that&mdash;it hurts. Sometimes I wish you were
+plain, then I would feel more sure of you. Sometimes I fear, fear some
+one will steal you away from me."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," she cried; "no one ever will. There will never be any one but
+you."</p>
+
+<p>She came over to me, and knelt by my chair, putting her arms around me
+prettily. The pure, sweet face looked up into mine.</p>
+
+<p>"We have been happy here, haven't we, boy?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Exquisitely happy. Yet I have always been afraid."</p>
+
+<p>"Of what, dearest?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. Somehow it seems too good to last."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, to-morrow we'll be married."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we should have done that a year ago. It's all been a mistake. It
+didn't matter at first; nobody noticed, nobody cared. But now it's
+different. I can see it by the way the wives of the men look at us. I
+wonder do women resent the fact that virtue is only its own reward&mdash;they
+are so down on those who stray. Well, we don't care anyway. We'll marry
+and live our lives. But there are other reasons."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Garry talks of coming out. You wouldn't like him to find us living
+like this&mdash;without benefit of the clergy?"</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_464" id="page_464" title="464"></a>"Not for the world!" she cried, in alarm.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he won't. Garry's old-fashioned and terribly conventional, but
+you'll take to him at once. There's a wonderful charm about him. He's so
+good-looking, yet so clever. I think he could win any woman if he tried,
+only he's too upright and sincere."</p>
+
+<p>"What will he think of me, I wonder, poor, ignorant me? I believe I'm
+afraid of him. I wish he'd stay away and leave us alone. Yet for your
+sake, dear, I do wish him to think well of me."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't fear, Berna. He'll be proud of you. But there's a second reason."</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>I drew her up beside me on the great Morris-chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my beloved! perhaps we'll not always be alone as we are now.
+Perhaps, perhaps some day there will be others&mdash;little ones&mdash;for their
+sakes."</p>
+
+<p>She did not speak. I could feel her nestle closer to me. Her cheek was
+pressed to mine; her hair brushed my brow and her lips were like
+rose-petals on my own. So we sat there in the big, deep chair, in the
+glow of the open fire, silent, dreaming, and I saw on her lashes the
+glimmer of a glorious tear.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you cry, beloved?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I'm so happy. I never thought I could be so happy. I want it to
+last forever, I never want to leave this little cabin of ours. It will
+always be home to me. I love it; oh, how I love it!&mdash;every stick and
+stone of it! This dear little room&mdash;there <a class="pagenum" name="page_465" id="page_465" title="465"></a>will never be another like it
+in the world. Some day we may have a fine home, but I think I'll always
+leave some of my heart here in the little cabin."</p>
+
+<p>I kissed away her tears. Foolish tears! I blessed her for them. I held
+her closer to me. I was wondrous happy. No longer did the shadow of the
+past hang over us. Even as children forget, were we forgetting. Outside
+the winter's day was waning fast. The ruddy firelight danced around us.
+It flickered on the walls, the open piano, the glass front of the
+bookcase. It lit up the Indian corner, the lounge with its cushions and
+brass reading-lamp, the rack of music, the pictures, the lace curtains,
+the gleaming little bit of embroidery. Yes, to me, too, these things
+were wistfully precious, for it seemed as if part of her had passed into
+them. It would have been like tearing out my heart-strings to part with
+the smallest of them.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Husband</i>, I'm so happy," she sighed.</p>
+
+<p>"Wife, dear, dear wife, I too."</p>
+
+<p>There was no need for words. Our lips met in passionate kisses, but the
+next moment we started apart. Some one was coming up the garden path&mdash;a
+tall figure of a man. I started as if I had seen a ghost. Could it
+be?&mdash;then I rushed to the door.</p>
+
+<p>There on the porch stood Garry.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_466" id="page_466" title="466"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>As he stood before me once again it seemed as if the years had rolled
+away, and we were boys together. A spate of tender memories came over
+me, memories of the days of dreams and high resolves, when life rang
+true, when men were brave and women pure. Once more I stood upon that
+rock-envisaged coast, while below me the yeasty sea charged with a roar
+the echoing caves. The gulls were glinting in the sunshine, and by their
+little brown-thatched homes the fishermen were spreading out their nets.
+High on the hillside in her garden I could see my mother idling among
+her flowers. It all came back to me, that sunny shore, the whitewashed
+cottages, the old grey house among the birches, the lift of
+sheep-starred pasture, and above it the glooming dark of the heather
+hills.</p>
+
+<p>And it was but three years ago. How life had changed! A thousand things
+had happened. Fortune had come to me, love had come to me. I had lived,
+I had learned. I was no longer a callow, uncouth lad. Yet, alas! I no
+longer looked futurewards with joy; the savour of life was no more
+sweet. It was another "me" I saw in my mirror that day, a "me" with a
+face sorely lined, with hair grey-flecked, with eyes sad and bitter.
+Little wonder Garry, as he stood there, stared at me so sorrowfully.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_467" id="page_467" title="467"></a>"How you've changed, lad!" said he at last.</p>
+
+<p>"Have I, Garry? You're just about the same."</p>
+
+<p>But indeed he, too, had changed, had grown finer than my fondest
+thoughts of him. He seemed to bring into the room the clean, sweet
+breath of Glengyle, and I looked at him with admiration in my eyes.
+Coming out of the cold, his colour was dazzling as that of a woman; his
+deep blue eyes sparkled; his fair silky hair, from the pressure of his
+cap, was moulded to the shape of his fine head. Oh, he was handsome,
+this brother of mine, and I was proud, proud of him!</p>
+
+<p>"By all that's wonderful, what brought you here?"</p>
+
+<p>His teeth flashed in that clever, confident smile.</p>
+
+<p>"The stage. I just arrived a few minutes ago, and hurried here at once.
+Aren't you glad to see me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Glad? Yes, indeed! I can't tell you how glad. But it's a shock to me
+your coming so suddenly. You might have let me know."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it was a sudden resolve; I should have wired you. However, I
+thought I would give you a surprise. How are you, old man?"</p>
+
+<p>"Me&mdash;oh, I'm all right, thanks."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what's the matter with you, lad? You look ten years older. You
+look older than your big brother now."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I daresay. It's the life, it's the land. A hard life and a hard
+land."</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you go out?"</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_468" id="page_468" title="468"></a>"I don't know, I don't know. I keep on planning to go out and then
+something turns up, and I put it off a little longer. I suppose I ought
+to go, but I'm tied up with mining interests. My partner is away in the
+East, and I promised to stay in and look after things. I'm making money,
+you see."</p>
+
+<p>"Not sacrificing your youth and health for that, are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, I don't know."</p>
+
+<p>There was a puzzled look in his frank face, and for my part I was
+strangely ill at ease. With all my joy at his coming, there was a sense
+of anxiety, even of fear. I had not wanted him to come just then, to see
+me there. I was not ready for him. I had planned otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>He was fixing me with a clear, penetrating look. For a moment his eyes
+seemed to bore into me, then like a flash the charm came back into his
+face. He laughed that ringing laugh of his.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I was tired of roaming round the old place. Things are in good
+order now. I've saved a little money and I thought I could afford to
+travel a little, so I came up to see my wandering brother, and his
+wonderful North."</p>
+
+<p>His gaze roved round the room. Suddenly it fell on the piece of
+embroidery. He started slightly and I saw his eyes narrow, his mouth
+set. His glance shifted to the piano with its litter of music. He looked
+at me again, in an odd, bewildered way. He went on speaking, but there
+was a queer constraint in his manner.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_469" id="page_469" title="469"></a>"I'm going to stay here for a month, and then I want you to come back
+with me. Come back home and get some of the old colour into your cheeks.
+The country doesn't agree with you, but we'll have you all right pretty
+soon. We'll have you flogging the trout pools and tramping over the
+heather with a gun. You remember how&mdash;whir-r-r&mdash;the black-cock used to
+rise up right at one's very feet. They've been very plentiful the last
+two years. Oh, we'll have the good old times over again! You'll see,
+we'll soon put you right."</p>
+
+<p>"It's good of you, Garry, to think so much of me; but I'm afraid, I'm
+afraid I can't come just yet. I've got so much to do. I've got thirty
+men working for me. I've just got to stay."</p>
+
+<p>He sighed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if you stay I'll stay, too. I don't like the way you're looking.
+You're working too hard. Perhaps I can help you."</p>
+
+<p>"All right; I'm afraid you'll find it rather awful, though. No one lives
+up here in winter if they possibly can avoid it. But for a time it will
+interest you."</p>
+
+<p>"I think it will." And again his eyes stared fixedly at that piece of
+embroidery on its little hoop.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm terribly, glad to see you anyway, Garry. There's no use talking,
+words can't express things like that between us two. You know what I
+mean. I'm glad to see you, and I'll do my best to make your visit a
+happy one."</p>
+
+<p>Between the curtains that hung over the bedroom <a class="pagenum" name="page_470" id="page_470" title="470"></a>door I could see Berna
+standing motionless. I wondered if he could see her too. His eyes
+followed mine. They rested on the curtains and the strong, stern look
+came into his face. Yet again he banished it with a sunny smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother's one regret was that you were not with her when she died. Do
+you know, old man, I think she was always fonder of you than of me? You
+were the sentimental one of the family, and Mother was always a gentle
+dreamer. I took more after Dad; dry and practical, you know. Well,
+Mother used to worry a good deal about you. She missed you dreadfully,
+and before she died she made me promise I'd always stand by you, and
+look after you if anything happened."</p>
+
+<p>"There's not much need of that, Garry. But thanks all the same, old man.
+I've seen a lot in the past few years. I know something of the world
+now. I've changed. I'm sort of disillusioned. I seem to have lost my
+zest for things&mdash;but I know how to handle men, how to fight and how to
+win."</p>
+
+<p>"It's not that, lad. You know that to win is often to lose. You were
+never made for the fight, my brother. It's all been a mistake. You're
+too sensitive, too high-strung for a fighting-man. You have too much
+sentiment in you. Your spirit urged you to fields of conquest and
+romance, yet by nature you were designed for the gentler life. If you
+could have curbed your impulse and only dreamed your adventures, you
+would have been the happier. Imagination's been a curse to you, boy.
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_471" id="page_471" title="471"></a>You've tortured yourself all these years, and now you're paying the
+penalty."</p>
+
+<p>"What penalty?"</p>
+
+<p>"You've lost your splendid capacity for happiness; your health's
+undermined; your faith in mankind is destroyed. Is it worth while?
+You've plunged into the fight and you've won. What does your victory
+mean? Can it compare with what you've lost? Here, I haven't a third of
+what you have, and yet I'm magnificently happy. I don't envy you. I am
+going to enjoy every moment of my life. Oh, my brother, you've been
+making a sad mistake, but it's not too late! You're young, young. It's
+not too late."</p>
+
+<p>Then I saw that his words were true. I saw that I had never been meant
+for the fierce battle of existence. Like those high-strung horses that
+were the first to break their hearts on the trail, I was unsuited for it
+all. Far better would I have been living the sweet, simple life of my
+forefathers. My spirit had upheld me, but now I knew there was a poison
+in my veins, that I was a sick man, that I had played the game and
+won&mdash;at too great a cost. I was like a sprinter that breasts the tape,
+only to be carried fainting from the field. Alas! I had gained success
+only to find it was another name for failure.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said Garry, "you must come home. Back there on the countryside we
+can find you a sweet girl to marry. You will love her, have children and
+forget all this. Come."</p>
+
+<p>I rose. I could no longer put it off.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_472" id="page_472" title="472"></a>"Excuse me one moment," I said. I parted the curtains and entered the
+bedroom.</p>
+
+<p>She was standing there, white to the lips and trembling. She looked at
+me piteously.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid," she faltered.</p>
+
+<p>"Be brave, little girl," I whispered, leading her forward. Then I threw
+aside the curtain.</p>
+
+<p>"Garry," I said, "this is&mdash;this is Berna."</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_473" id="page_473" title="473"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Garry, Berna&mdash;there they stood, face to face at last. Long ago I had
+visioned this meeting, planned for, yet dreaded it, and now with utter
+suddenness it had come.</p>
+
+<p>The girl had recovered her calm, and I must say she bore herself well.
+In her clinging dress of simple white her figure was as slimly graceful
+as that of a wood-nymph, her head poised as sweetly as a lily on its
+stem. The fair hair rippled away in graceful lines from the fine brow,
+and as she gazed at my brother there was a proud, high look in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>And Garry&mdash;his smile had vanished. His face was cold and stern. There
+was a stormy antagonism in his bearing. No doubt he saw in her a
+creature who was preying on me, an influence for evil, an overwhelming
+indictment against me of sin and guilt. All this I read in his eyes;
+then Berna advanced to him with outstretched hand.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you do? I've heard so much about you I feel as if I'd known you
+long ago."</p>
+
+<p>She was so winning, I could see he was quite taken aback. He took the
+little white hand and looked down from his splendid height to the sweet
+eyes that gazed into his. He bowed with icy politeness.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_474" id="page_474" title="474"></a>"I feel flattered, I assure you, that my brother should have mentioned
+me to you."</p>
+
+<p>Here he shot a dark look at me.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down again, Garry," I said. "Berna and I want to talk to you."</p>
+
+<p>He complied, but with an ill grace. We all three sat down and a grave
+constraint was upon us. Berna broke the silence.</p>
+
+<p>"What sort of a trip have you had?"</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her keenly. He saw a simple girl, shy and sweet, gazing at
+him with a flattering interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, not so bad. Travelling sixty miles a day on a jolting stage gets
+monotonous, though. The road-houses were pretty decent as a rule, but
+some were vile. However, it's all new and interesting to me."</p>
+
+<p>"You will stay with us for a time, won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>He favoured me with another grim look.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that all depends&mdash;I haven't quite decided yet. I want to take
+Athol here home with me."</p>
+
+<p>"Home&mdash;&mdash;" There was a pathetic catch in her voice. Her eyes went round
+the little room that meant "home" to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that will be nice," she faltered. Then, with a brave effort, she
+broke into a lively conversation about the North. As she talked an
+inspiration seemed to come to her. A light beaconed in her eyes. Her
+face, fine as a cameo, became eager, rapt. <a class="pagenum" name="page_475" id="page_475" title="475"></a>She was telling him of the
+magical summers, of the midnight sunsets, of the glorious largess of the
+flowers, of the things that meant so much to her. She was wonderfully
+animated. As I watched her I thought what a perfect little lady she was;
+and I felt proud of her.</p>
+
+<p>He was listening carefully, with evident interest. Gradually his look of
+stern antagonism had given way to one of attention. Yet I could see he
+was not listening so much to her as he was studying her. His intent gaze
+never moved from her face.</p>
+
+<p>Then I talked a while. The darkness had descended upon us, but the
+embers in the open fireplace lighted the room with a rosy glow. I could
+not see his eyes now, but I knew he was still watching us keenly. He
+merely answered "yes" and "no" to our questions, and his voice was very
+grave. Then, after a little, he rose to go.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll return to the hotel with you," I said.</p>
+
+<p>Berna gave us a pathetically anxious little look. There was a red spot
+on each cheek and her eyes were bright. I could see she wanted to cry.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll be back in half an hour, dear," I said, while Garry gravely shook
+hands with her.</p>
+
+<p>We did not speak on the way to his room. When we reached it he switched
+on the light and turned to me.</p>
+
+<p>"Brother, who's this girl?"</p>
+
+<p>"She's&mdash;she's my housekeeper. That's all I can say at present, Garry."</p>
+
+<p>"Married?"</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_476" id="page_476" title="476"></a>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!"</p>
+
+<p>Stormily he paced the floor, while I watched him with a great calm. At
+last he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me about her."</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down, Garry; light a cigar. We may as well talk this thing over
+quietly."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. Who is she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Berna," I said, lighting my cigar, "is a Jewess. She was born of an
+unwed mother, and reared in the midst of misery and corruption."</p>
+
+<p>He stared at me. His mouth hardened; his brow contracted.</p>
+
+<p>"But," I went on, "I want to say this. You remember, Garry, Mother used
+to tell us of our sister who died when she was a baby. I often used to
+dream of my dead sister, and in my old, imaginative days I used to think
+she had never died at all, but she had grown up and was with us. How we
+would have loved her, would we not, Garry? Well, I tell you this&mdash;if our
+sister had grown up she could have been no sweeter, purer, gentler than
+this girl of mine, this Berna."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled ironically.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," he said, "if she is so wonderful, why, in the name of Heaven,
+haven't you married her?"</p>
+
+<p>His manner towards her in the early part of the interview had hurt me,
+had roused in me a certain perversity. I determined to stand by my guns.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style='width:400px'>
+<a name="illus-003" id="illus-003"></a>
+<img src="images/illus-476.jpg" alt="&#34;Garry,&#34; I said, &#34;this is&mdash;this is Berna&#34;" title=""  /><br />
+<span class="caption">&#34;Garry,&#34; I said, &#34;this is&mdash;this is Berna&#34;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_477" id="page_477" title="477"></a>"Marriage," said I, "isn't everything; often isn't anything. Love is,
+and always will be, the great reality. It existed long before marriage
+was ever thought of. Marriage is a good thing. It protects the wife and
+the children. As a rule, it enforces constancy. But there's a higher
+ideal of human companionship that is based on love alone, love so
+perfect, so absolute that legal bondage insults it; love that is its own
+justification. Such a love is ours."</p>
+
+<p>The ironical look deepened to a sneer.</p>
+
+<p>"And look you here, Garry," I went on; "I am living in Dawson in what
+you would call 'shame.' Well, let me tell you, there's not ninety-nine
+in a hundred legally married couples that have formed such a sweet,
+love-sanctified union as we have. That girl is purest gold, a pearl of
+untold price. There has never been a jar in the harmony of our lives. We
+love each other absolutely. We trust and believe in each other. We would
+make any sacrifice for each other. And, I say it again, our marriage is
+tenfold holier than ninety-nine out of a hundred of those performed with
+all the pomp of surplice and sacristy."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, man! man!" he said crushingly, "what's got into you? What nonsense,
+what clap-trap is this? I tell you that the old way, the way that has
+stood for generations, is the best, and it's a sorry day I find a
+brother of mine talking such nonsense. I'm almost glad Mother's dead. It
+would surely have broken her heart to know that her son was living in
+sin and shame, living with a&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_478" id="page_478" title="478"></a>"Easy now, Garry," I cautioned him. We faced each other with the table
+between us.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to have my say out. I've come all this way to say it, and
+you've got to hear me. You're my brother. God knows I love you. I
+promised I'd look after you, and now I'm going to save you if I can."</p>
+
+<p>"Garry," I broke in, "I'm younger than you, and I respect you; but in
+the last few years I've grown to see things different from the way we
+were taught; broader, clearer, saner, somehow. We can't always follow in
+the narrow path of our forefathers. We must think and act for ourselves
+in these days. I see no sin and shame in what I'm doing. We love each
+other&mdash;that is our vindication. It's a pure, white light that dims all
+else. If you had seen and striven and suffered as I have done, you might
+think as I do. But you've got your smug old-fashioned notions. You gaze
+at the trees so hard you can't see the forest. Yours is an ideal, too;
+but mine is a purer, more exalted one."</p>
+
+<p>"Balderdash!" he cried. "Oh, you anger me! Look here, Athol, I came all
+this way to see you about this matter. It's a long way to come, but I
+knew my brother was needing me and I'd have gone round the world for
+you. You never told me anything of this girl in your letters. You were
+ashamed."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew I could never make you understand."</p>
+
+<p>"You might have tried. I'm not so dense in the understanding. No, you
+would not tell me, and I've had letters, warning letters. It was left to
+other <a class="pagenum" name="page_479" id="page_479" title="479"></a>people to tell me how you drank and gambled and squandered your
+money; how you were like to a madman. They told me you had settled down
+to live with one of the creatures, a woman who had made her living in
+the dance-halls, and every one knows no woman ever did that and remained
+straight. They warned me of the character of this girl, of your
+infatuation, of your callousness to public opinion. They told me how
+barefaced, how shameless you were. They begged me to try and save you. I
+would not believe it, but now I've come to see for myself, and it's all
+true, it's all true."</p>
+
+<p>He bowed his head in emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, she's good!" I cried. "If you knew her you would think so, too.
+You, too, would love her."</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven forbid! Boy, I must save you. I must, for the honour of the old
+name that's never been tarnished. I must make you come home with me."</p>
+
+<p>He put both hands on my shoulders, looking commandingly into my face.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," I said, "I'll never leave her."</p>
+
+<p>"It will be all right. We can pay her. It can be arranged. Think of the
+honour of the old name, lad."</p>
+
+<p>I shook him off. "Pay!"&mdash;I laughed ironically. "Pay" in connection with
+the name of Berna&mdash;again I laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"She's good," I said once again. "Wait a little till you know her. Don't
+judge her yet. Wait a little."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_480" id="page_480" title="480"></a>He saw it was of no use to waste further words on me. He sighed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well," he said, "have it your own way. I think she's ruining you.
+She's dragging you down, sapping your moral principles, lowering your
+standard of pure living. She must be bad, bad, or she wouldn't live with
+you like that. But have it your own way, boy; I'll wait and see."</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_481" id="page_481" title="481"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the crystalline days that followed I did much to bring about a
+friendship between Garry and Berna. At first I had difficulty in
+dragging him to the house, but in a little while he came quite
+willingly. The girl, too, aided me greatly. In her sweet, shy way she
+did her best to win his regard, so that as the winter advanced a great
+change came over him. He threw off that stern manner of his as an actor
+throws off a part, and once again he was the dear old Garry I knew and
+loved.</p>
+
+<p>His sunny charm returned, and with it his brilliant smile, his warm,
+endearing frankness. He was now twenty-eight, and if there was a
+handsomer man in the Northland I had yet to see him. I often envied him
+for his fine figure and his clean, vivid colour. It was a wonderfully
+expressive face that looked at you, firm and manly, and, above all,
+clever. You found a pleasure in the resonant sweetness of his voice. You
+were drawn irresistibly to the man, even as you would have been drawn to
+a beautiful woman. He was winning, lovable, yet back of all his charm
+there was that great quality of strength, of austere purpose.</p>
+
+<p>He made a hit with every one, and I verily believe that half the women
+in the town were in love with him. However, he was quite unconscious of
+it, and he stalked through the streets with the gait of <a class="pagenum" name="page_482" id="page_482" title="482"></a>a young god. I
+knew there were some who for a smile would have followed him to the ends
+of the earth, but Garry was always a man's man. Never do I remember the
+time when he took an interest in a woman. I often thought, if women
+could have the man of their choice, a few handsome ones like Garry would
+monopolise them, while we common mortals would go wifeless. Sometimes it
+has seemed to me that love is but a second-hand article, and that our
+matings are at best only makeshifts.</p>
+
+<p>I must say I tried very hard to reconcile those two. I threw them
+together on every opportunity, for I wanted him to understand and to
+love her. I felt he had but to know her to appreciate her at her true
+value, and, although he spoke no word to me, I was soon conscious of a
+vast change in him. Short of brotherly regard, he was everything that
+could be desired to her&mdash;cordial, friendly, charming. Once I asked Berna
+what she thought of him.</p>
+
+<p>"I think he's splendid," she said quietly. "He's the handsomest man I've
+ever seen, and he's as nice as he's good-looking. In many ways you
+remind me of him&mdash;and yet there's a difference."</p>
+
+<p>"I remind you of him&mdash;no, girl. I'm not worthy to be his valet. He's as
+much above me as I am above&mdash;say a siwash. He has all the virtues; I,
+all the faults. Sometimes I look at him and I see in him my ideal self.
+He is all strength, all nobility, while I am but a commonplace mortal,
+full of human weaknesses. He is the self I should have been if the worst
+had been the best."</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_483" id="page_483" title="483"></a>"Hush! you are my sweetheart," she assured me with a caress, "and the
+dearest in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"By the way, Berna," I said, "you remember something we talked about
+before he came? Don't you think that now&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Now&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"All right." She flashed a glad, tender look at me and left the room.
+That night she was strangely elated.</p>
+
+<p>Every evening Garry would drop in and talk to us. Berna would look at
+him as he talked and her eyes would brighten and her cheeks flush. On
+both of us he had a strangely buoyant effect. How happy we could be,
+just we three. It was splendid having near me the two I loved best on
+earth.</p>
+
+<p>That was a memorable winter, mild and bright and buoyant. At last Spring
+came with gracious days of sunshine. The sleighing was glorious, but I
+was busy, very busy, so that I was glad to send Garry and Berna off
+together in a smart cutter, and see them come home with their cheeks
+like roses, their eyes sparkling and laughter in their voices. I never
+saw Berna looking so well and happy.</p>
+
+<p>I was head over ears in work. In a mail just arrived I had a letter from
+the Prodigal, and a certain paragraph in it set me pondering. Here it
+was:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"You must look out for Locasto. He was in New York a week ago. He's
+down and out. Blood-poisoning set in in his foot after he got
+outside, and eventually he had to have <a class="pagenum" name="page_484" id="page_484" title="484"></a>it taken off. He's got a
+false mit for the one Mac sawed off. But you should see him. He's
+all shot to pieces with the 'hooch.' It's a fright the pace he's
+gone. I had an interview with him, and he raved and blasphemed
+horribly. Seemed to have a terrible pick at you. Seems you have
+copped out his best girl, the only one he ever cared a red cent
+for. Said he would get even with you if he swung for it. I think
+he's dangerous, even a madman. He is leaving for the North now, so
+be on your guard."</p></div>
+
+<p>Locasto coming! I had almost forgotten his existence. Well, I no longer
+cared for him. I could afford to despise him. Surely he would never dare
+to molest us. If he did&mdash;he was a broken, discredited blackguard. I
+could crush him.</p>
+
+<p>Coming here! He must even now be on the way. I had a vision of him
+speeding along that desolate trail, sitting in the sleigh wrapped in
+furs, and brooding, brooding. As day after day the spell of the great
+and gloomy land grew on his spirit, I could see the sombre eyes darken
+and deepen. I could see him in the road-house at night, gaunt and
+haggard, drinking at the bar, a desperate, degraded cripple. I could see
+him growing more reckless every day, every hour. He was coming back to
+the scene of his ruined fortunes, and God knows with what wild schemes
+of vengeance his heart was full. Decidedly I must beware.</p>
+
+<p>As I sat there dreaming, a ring came to the 'phone. It was the foreman
+at Gold Hill.</p>
+
+<p>"The hoisting machine has broken down," he told me. "Can you come out
+and see what is required?"</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_485" id="page_485" title="485"></a>"All right," I replied. "I'll leave at once."</p>
+
+<p>"Berna," I said, "I'll have to go out to the Forks to-night. I'll be
+back early to-morrow. Get me a bite to eat, dear, while I go round and
+order the horse."</p>
+
+<p>On my way I met Garry and told him I would be gone over night. "Won't
+you come?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No, thanks, old man, I don't feel like a night drive."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>So I hurried off, and soon after, with a jingle of bells, I drove up to
+my door. Berna had made supper. She seemed excited. Her eyes were starry
+bright, her cheeks burned.</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you well, sweetheart?" I asked. "You look feverish."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dear, I'm well. But I don't want you to go to-night. Something
+tells me you shouldn't. Please don't go, dear. Please, for my sake."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nonsense, Berna! You know I've been away before. Get one of the
+neighbour's wives to sleep with you. Get in Mrs. Brooks."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't go, don't go, I beg you, dear. I don't want you to. I'm
+afraid, I'm afraid. Won't some one else do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, girl. You mustn't be so foolish. It's only for a few hours.
+Here, I'll ring up Mrs. Brooks and you can ask her."</p>
+
+<p>She sighed. "No, never mind. I'll ring her up after you've gone."</p>
+
+<p>She clung to me tightly, so that I wondered what <a class="pagenum" name="page_486" id="page_486" title="486"></a>had got into the girl.
+Then gently I kissed her, disengaged her hands, and bade her good-night.</p>
+
+<p>As I was rattling off through the darkness, a boy handed me a note. I
+put it in my pocket, thinking I would read it when I reached Ogilvie
+Bridge. Then I whipped up the horse.</p>
+
+<p>The night was crisp and exhilarating. I had one of the best trotters in
+the country, and the sleighing was superb. As I sped along, with a
+jingle of bells, my spirits rose. Things were looking splendid. The mine
+was turning out far better than we had expected. Surely we could sell
+out soon, and I would have all the money I wanted. Even then the
+Prodigal was putting through a deal in New York that would realise our
+fortunes. My life-struggle was nearly over.</p>
+
+<p>Then again, I had reconciled Garry to Berna. When I told him of a
+certain secret I was hugging to my breast he would capitulate entirely.
+How happy we would all be! I would buy a small estate near home, and we
+would settle down. But first we would spend a few years in travel. We
+would see the whole world. What good times we would have, Berna and I!
+Bless her! It had all worked out beautifully.</p>
+
+<p>Why was she so frightened, so loath to let me go? I wondered vaguely and
+flicked up the horse so that it plunged sharply forward. The vast
+blue-black sky was like an inverted gold-pan and the stars were flake
+colours adhering to it. The cold snapped at me till my cheeks tingled,
+and my eyes felt as if they could spark. Oh, life was sweet!</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_487" id="page_487" title="487"></a>Bother! In my elation I had forgotten to get off at the Old Inn and
+read my note. Never mind, I would keep it till I reached the Forks.</p>
+
+<p>As I spun along, I thought of how changed it all was from the Bonanza I
+first knew. How I remembered tramping along that hillside slope, packing
+a sack of flour over a muddy trail, a poor miner in muddy overalls! Now
+I was driving a smart horse on a fine road. I was an operator of a
+first-class mine. I was a man of business, of experience. Higher and
+higher my spirits rose.</p>
+
+<p>How fast the horse flew! I would be at the Forks in no time. I flashed
+past cabin windows. I saw the solitary oil-lamp and the miner reading
+his book or filling his pipe. Never was there a finer, more intelligent
+man; but his day was passing. The whole country was falling into the
+hands of companies. Soon, thought I, one or two big combines would
+control the whole wealth of that land. Already they had their eyes on
+it. The gold-ships would float and roar where the old-time miner toiled
+with pick and pan. Change! Change!</p>
+
+<p>I almost fancied I could see the monster dredges ploughing up the
+valley, where now men panted at the windlass. I could see vast heaps of
+tailings filling the creek-bed; I could hear the crash of the steel
+grizzlies; I could see the buckets scooping up the pay-dirt. I felt
+strangely prophetic. My imagination ran riot in all kinds of wonders,
+great power plants, quartz discoveries. Change! Change!</p>
+
+<p>Yes, the stamp-mill would add its thunder to the <a class="pagenum" name="page_488" id="page_488" title="488"></a>other voices; the
+country would be netted with wires, and clamorous for far and wide. Man
+had sought out this land where Silence had reigned so long. He had
+awakened the echoes with the shot of his rifle and the ring of his axe.
+Silence had raised a startled head and poised there, listening. Then,
+with crack of pick and boom of blast, man had hurled her back. Further
+and further had he driven her. With his advancing horde, mad in their
+lust for the loot of the valley, he had banished her. His engines had
+frightened her with their canorous roar. His crashing giants had driven
+her cowering to the inviolate fastnesses of her hills. And there she
+broods and waits.</p>
+
+<p>But Silence will return. To her was given the land that she might rule
+and have dominion over it forever. And in a few years the clamour will
+cease, the din will die away. In a few years the treasure will be
+exhausted, and the looters will depart. The engines will lie in rust and
+ruin; the wind will sweep through the empty homes; the tailing-piles lie
+pallid in the moon. Then the last man will strike the last blow, and
+Silence will come again into her own.</p>
+
+<p>Yea, Silence will come home once more. Again will she rule despotic over
+peak and plain. She is only waiting, brooding in the impregnable
+desolation of her hills. To her has been given empery of the land, and
+hand in hand with Darkness will she return.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_489" id="page_489" title="489"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Ha! here I had reached the Forks at last. As I drew up at the hotel, the
+clerk came out to meet me.</p>
+
+<p>"Gent wants to speak to you at the 'phone, sir."</p>
+
+<p>It was Murray of Dawson, an old-timer, and rather a friend of mine.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hello! Say, Meldrum, this is Murray speaking. Say, just wanted to let
+you know there's a stage due some time before morning. Locasto's on
+board, and they say he's heeled for you. Thought I'd better tell you
+so's you can get fixed up for him."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," I answered. "Thank you. I'll turn and come right back."</p>
+
+<p>So I switched round the horse, and once more I drove over the glistening
+road. No longer did I plan and exult. Indeed a grim fear was gripping
+me. Of a sudden the shadow of Locasto loomed up sinister and menacing.
+Even now he was speeding Dawsonward with a great hatred of me in his
+heart. Well, I would get back and prepare for him.</p>
+
+<p>There came to my mind a comic perception of the awkwardness of returning
+to one's own home unexpectedly, in the dead of night. At first I decided
+I would go to a hotel, then on second thoughts I determined to try the
+house, for I had a desire to be near Berna.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_490" id="page_490" title="490"></a>I knocked gently, then a little louder, then at last quite loudly.
+Within all was still, dark as a sepulchre. Curious! she was such a light
+sleeper, too. Why did she not hear me?</p>
+
+<p>Once more I decided to go to the hotel; once more that vague, indefinite
+fear assailed me and again I knocked. And now my fear was becoming a
+panic. I had my latch-key in my pocket, so very quietly I opened the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>I was in the front room, and it was dark, very dark and quiet. I could
+not even hear her breathe.</p>
+
+<p>"Berna," I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>No reply.</p>
+
+<p>That dim, nameless dread was clutching at my heart, and I groped
+overhead in the darkness for the drop-light. How hard it was to find! A
+dozen times my hand circled in the air before I knocked my knuckles
+against it. I switched it on.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly the cabin was flooded with light. In the dining-room I could
+see the remains of our supper lying untidily. That was not like her. She
+had a horror of dirty dishes. I passed into the bedroom&mdash;Ah! the bed had
+never been slept on.</p>
+
+<p>What a fool I was! It flashed on me she had gone over to Mrs. Brooks' to
+sleep. She was afraid of being alone. Poor little girl! How surprised
+she would be to see me in the morning!</p>
+
+<p>Well, I would go to bed. As I was pulling off my coat, I found the note
+that had been given to me. Blaming myself for my carelessness, I pulled
+it out of my pocket and opened it. As I unfolded <a class="pagenum" name="page_491" id="page_491" title="491"></a>the sheet, I noticed
+it was written in what looked like a disguised hand. Strange! I thought.
+The writing was small and faint. I rubbed my eyes and held it up to the
+light.</p>
+
+<p>Merciful God! What was this? Oh no, it could not be! My eyes were
+deceiving me. It was some illusion. Feverishly I read again. Yes, they
+were the same words. What could they mean? Surely, surely&mdash;Oh, horror on
+horrors! They could not mean <span class="smcap">that</span>. Again I read them. Yes, there they
+were:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"If you are fool enough to believe that Berna is faithful to you
+visit your brother's room to-night.</p>
+
+<p style='text-align:right'>
+"<span class="smcap">A Wellwisher</span>."
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Berna! Garry!&mdash;the two I loved. Oh, it could not be! It was monstrous!
+It was too horrible! I would not believe it; I would not. Curse the vile
+wretch that wrote such words! I would kill him. Berna! my Berna! she was
+as good as gold, as true as steel. Garry! I would lay my life on his
+honour. Oh, vile calumny! what devil had put so foul a thing in words?
+God! it hurt me so, it hurt me so!</p>
+
+<p>Dazedly I sat down. A sudden rush of heat was followed by a sweat that
+pricked out of me and left me cold. I trembled. I saw a ghastly vision
+of myself in a mirror. I felt sick, sick. Going to the decanter on the
+bureau, I poured myself a stiff jolt of whisky.</p>
+
+<p>Again I sat down. The paper lay on the hearthrug, <a class="pagenum" name="page_492" id="page_492" title="492"></a>and I stared at it
+hatefully. It was unspeakably loathsome, yet I was fascinated by it. I
+longed to take it up, to read it again. Somehow I did not dare. I was
+becoming a coward.</p>
+
+<p>Well, it was a lie, a black devil's lie. She was with one of the
+neighbours. I trusted her. I would trust her with my life. I would go to
+bed. In the morning she would return, and then I would unearth the
+wretch who had dared to write such things. I began to undress.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly I unfastened my collar&mdash;that cursed paper; there it lay. Again it
+fascinated me. I stood glaring at it. Oh, fool! fool! go to bed.</p>
+
+<p>Wearily I took off my clothes&mdash;Oh, that devilish note! It was burning
+into my brain&mdash;it would drive me mad. In a frenzy of rage, I took it up
+as if it were some leprous thing, and dropped it in the fire.</p>
+
+<p>There I lay in bed with the darkness enfolding me, and I closed my eyes
+to make a double darkness. Ha! right in the centre of my eyes, burned
+the fatal paper with its atrocious suggestion. I sprang up. It was of no
+use. I must settle this thing once and for all. I turned on the light
+and deliberately dressed again.</p>
+
+<p>I was going to the hotel where Garry had his room. I would tell him I
+had come back unexpectedly and ask to share his room. I was not acting
+on the note! I did not suspect her. Heaven forbid! But the thing had
+unnerved me. I could not stay in this place.</p>
+
+<p>The hotel was quiet. A sleepy night-clerk stared <a class="pagenum" name="page_493" id="page_493" title="493"></a>at me, and I pushed
+past him. Garry's rooms were on the third floor. As I climbed the long
+stairway, my heart was beating painfully, and when I reached his door I
+was sadly out of breath. Through the transom I could see his light was
+burning.</p>
+
+<p>I knocked faintly.</p>
+
+<p>There was a sudden stir.</p>
+
+<p>Again I knocked.</p>
+
+<p>Did my ears deceive me or did I hear a woman's startled cry? There was
+something familiar about it&mdash;Oh, my God!</p>
+
+<p>I reeled. I almost fell. I clutched at the doorframe. I leaned sickly
+against the door for support. Heaven help me!</p>
+
+<p>"I'm coming," I heard him say.</p>
+
+<p>The door was unlocked, and there he stood. He was fully dressed. He
+looked at me with an expression on his face I could not define, but he
+was very calm.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in," he said.</p>
+
+<p>I went into his sitting-room. Everything was in order. I would have
+sworn I heard a woman scream, and yet no one was in sight. The bedroom
+door was slightly ajar. I eyed it in a fascinated way.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry to disturb you, Garry," I said, and I was conscious how
+strained and queer my voice sounded. "I got back suddenly, and there's
+no one at home. I want to stay here with you, if you don't mind."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, old man; only too glad to have you."</p>
+
+<p>His voice was steady. I sat down on the edge of <a class="pagenum" name="page_494" id="page_494" title="494"></a>a chair. My eyes were
+riveted on that bedroom door.</p>
+
+<p>"Had a good drive?" he went on genially. "You must be cold. Let me give
+you some whisky."</p>
+
+<p>My teeth were chattering. I clutched the chair. Oh, that door! My eyes
+were fastened on it. I was convinced I heard some one in there. He rose
+to get the whisky.</p>
+
+<p>"Say when?"</p>
+
+<p>I held the glass with a shaking hand:</p>
+
+<p>"When."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter, old man? You're ill."</p>
+
+<p>I clutched him by the arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Garry, there's some one in that room."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! there's no one there."</p>
+
+<p>"There is, I tell you. Listen! Don't you hear them breathing?"</p>
+
+<p>He was quiet. Distinctly I could hear the panting of human breath. I was
+going mad, mad. I could stand it no longer.</p>
+
+<p>"Garry," I gasped, "I'm going to see, I'm going to see."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I must, I say. Let me go. I'll drag them out."</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Leave go, man! I'm going, I say. You won't hold me. Let go, I tell you,
+let go&mdash;Now come out, come out, whoever you are&mdash;Ah!"</p>
+
+<p>It was a woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha!" I cried, "I told you so, brother; a woman. <a class="pagenum" name="page_495" id="page_495" title="495"></a>I think I know her,
+too. Here, let me see&mdash;I thought so."</p>
+
+<p>I had clutched her, pulled her to the light. It was Berna.</p>
+
+<p>Her face was white as chalk, her eyes dilated with terror. She trembled.
+She seemed near fainting.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so."</p>
+
+<p>Now that it seemed the worst was betrayed to me, I was strangely calm.</p>
+
+<p>"Berna, you're faint. Let me lead you to a chair."</p>
+
+<p>I made her sit down. She said no word, but looked at me with a wild
+pleading in her eyes. No one spoke.</p>
+
+<p>There we were, the three of us: Berna faint with fear, ghastly, pitiful;
+I calm, yet calm with a strange, unnatural calmness, and Garry&mdash;he
+surprised me. He had seated himself, and with the greatest <i>sang-froid</i>
+he was lighting a cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>A long tense silence. At last I broke it.</p>
+
+<p>"What have you got to say for yourself, Garry?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>It was wonderful how calm he was.</p>
+
+<p>"Looks pretty bad, doesn't it, brother?" he said gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it couldn't look worse."</p>
+
+<p>"Looks as if I was a pretty base, despicable specimen of a man, doesn't
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, about as base as a man could be."</p>
+
+<p>"That's so." He rose and turned up the light of a large reading-lamp,
+then coming to me he looked <a class="pagenum" name="page_496" id="page_496" title="496"></a>me square in the face. Abruptly his casual
+manner dropped. He grew sharp, forceful; his voice rang clear.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen to me."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm listening."</p>
+
+<p>"I came out here to save you, and I'm going to save you. You wanted me
+to believe that this girl was good. You believed it. You were bewitched,
+befooled, blinded. I could see it, but I had to make you see it. I had
+to make you realise how worthless she was, how her love for you was a
+sham, a pretence to prey on you. How could I prove it? You would not
+listen to reason: I had to take other means. Now, hear me."</p>
+
+<p>"I hear."</p>
+
+<p>"I laid my plans. For three months I've tried to conquer her, to win her
+love, to take her from you. She was truer to you than I had bargained
+for; I must give her credit for that. She made a good fight, but I think
+I have triumphed. To-night she came to my room at my invitation."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well. You got a note. <i>Now, I wrote that note.</i> I planned this scene,
+this discovery. I planned it so that your eyes would be opened, so that
+you would see what she was, so that you would cast her from
+you&mdash;unfaithful, a wanton, a&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on there," I broke in; "brother of mine or no, I won't hear you
+call her those names; no, not if she were ten times as unfaithful. You
+won't, I say. I'll choke the words in your throat. I'll kill <a class="pagenum" name="page_497" id="page_497" title="497"></a>you, if
+you utter a word against her. Oh, what have you done?"</p>
+
+<p>"What have I done! Try to be calm, man. What have I done? Well, this is
+what I've done, and it's the lucky day for you I've done it. I've saved
+you from shame; I've freed you from sin; I've shown you the baseness of
+this girl."</p>
+
+<p>He rose to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my brother, I've stolen from you your mistress; that's what I've
+done."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, you haven't," I groaned. "God forgive you, Garry; God forgive
+you! She's not my&mdash;not what you think. She's my <i>wife</i>!"</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_498" id="page_498" title="498"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>I thought that he would faint. His face went white as paper and he
+shrank back. He gazed at me with wild, straining eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"God forgive me! Oh, why didn't you tell me, boy? Why didn't you tell
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>In his voice there was a note more poignant than a sob.</p>
+
+<p>"You should have trusted me," he went on. "You should have told me. When
+were you married?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just a month ago. I was keeping it as a surprise for you. I was waiting
+till you said you liked and thought well of her. Oh, I thought you would
+be pleased and glad, and I was treasuring it up to tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"This is terrible, terrible!"</p>
+
+<p>His voice was choked with agony. On her chair, Berna drooped wearily.
+Her wide, staring eyes were fixed on the floor in pitiful perplexity.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it's terrible enough. We were so happy. We lived so joyously
+together. Everything was perfect, a heaven for us both. And then you
+came, you with your charm that would lure an angel from high heaven. You
+tried your power on my poor little girl, the girl that never loved but
+me. And I trusted you, I tried to make you and her friends. I <a class="pagenum" name="page_499" id="page_499" title="499"></a>left you
+together. In my blind innocence I aided you in every way&mdash;a simple,
+loving fool. Oh, now I see!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, I know. Your words stab me. It's all true, true."</p>
+
+<p>"You came like a serpent, a foul, crawling thing, to steal her from me,
+to wrong me. She was loving, faithful, pure. You would have dragged her
+in the mire. You&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Stop, brother, stop, for Heaven's sake! You wrong me."</p>
+
+<p>He held out his hand commandingly. A wonderful change had come over him.
+His face had regained its calm. It was proud, stern.</p>
+
+<p>"You must not think I would have been guilty of that," he said quietly.
+"I've played a part I never thought to play; I've done a thing I never
+thought to have dirtied my hands in the doing, and I'm sorry and ashamed
+for it. But I tell you, Athol&mdash;that's all. As God's my witness, I've
+done you no wrong. Surely you don't think me as low as that? Surely you
+don't believe that of me? I did what I did for my very love for you, for
+your honour's sake. I asked her here that you might see what she
+was&mdash;but that's all, I swear it. She's been as safe as if in a cage of
+steel."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it," I said; "I know it. You don't need to tell me that. You
+brought her here to expose her, to show me what a fool I was. It didn't
+matter how much it hurt me, the more the better, anything to save the
+name. You would have broken <a class="pagenum" name="page_500" id="page_500" title="500"></a>my heart, sacrificed me on the altar of
+your accursed pride. Oh, I can see plainly now! There's a thousand years
+of prejudice and bigotry concentrated in you. Thank God, I have a human
+heart!"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I was acting for the best!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>I laughed scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I know it&mdash;according to your lights. You asked her here that I might
+see what she was. You tell me you have gained her love; you say she came
+here at your bidding; you swear she would have been unfaithful to me.
+Well, I tell you, brother of mine, in your teeth I tell you&mdash;<i>I don't
+believe you!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the little, drooping figure on the chair had raised itself; the
+white, woe-begone face with the wide, staring eyes was turned towards
+me; the pitiful look had gone, and in its stead was one of wild,
+unspeakable joy.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right, Berna," I said; "I don't believe him, and if a million
+others were to say the same, if they were to thunder it in my ears down
+all eternity, I would tell them they lied, they lied!"</p>
+
+<p>A heaven-lit radiance was in the grey eyes. She made as if to come to
+me, but she swayed, and I caught her in my arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be frightened, little girl. Give me your hand. See! I'll kiss it,
+dear. Now, don't cry; don't, honey."</p>
+
+<p>Her arms were around me. She clung to me ever so tightly.</p>
+
+<p>"Garry," I said, "this is my wife. When I have <a class="pagenum" name="page_501" id="page_501" title="501"></a>lost my belief in all
+else, I will believe in her. You have made us both suffer. As for what
+you've said&mdash;you're mistaken. She's a good, good girl. I will not
+believe that by thought, word or deed she has been untrue to me. She
+will explain everything. Now, good-bye. Come, Berna."</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly she stopped me. Her hand was on my arm, and she turned towards
+Garry. She held herself as proudly as a queen.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to explain now," she said, "before you both."</p>
+
+<p>She pulled from her bosom a little crumpled note, and handed it to me.
+Then, as I read it, a great light burst on me. Here it was:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Berna</span>:</p>
+
+<p>"For heaven's sake be on your guard. Jack Locasto is on his way
+north again. I think he's crazy. I know he'll stick at nothing, and
+I don't want to see blood spilt. He says he means to wipe out all
+old scores. For your sake, and for the sake of one dear to you, be
+warned.</p>
+
+<p style='text-align:right'>
+"In haste,<span style='letter-spacing:8em'>&nbsp;</span><br />
+"<span class="smcap">Viola Lennoir</span>."
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>"I got it two days ago," she said. "Oh, I've been distracted with fear.
+I did not like to show it to you. I've brought you nothing but trouble,
+and I've never spoken of him, never once. You understand, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, little girl, I understand."</p>
+
+<p>"I wanted to save you, no matter at what cost. <a class="pagenum" name="page_502" id="page_502" title="502"></a>To-night I tried to
+prevent you going out there, for I feared you might meet him. I knew he
+was very near. Then, when you had gone, my fear grew and grew. There I
+sat, thinking over everything. Oh, if I only had a friend, I thought;
+some one to help me. Then, as I sat, dazed, distracted, the 'phone rang.
+It was your brother."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, go on, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"He told me he wanted to see me; he begged me to come at once. I thought
+of you, of your danger, of some terrible mishap. I was terrified. I
+went."</p>
+
+<p>She paused a moment, as if the recital was infinitely painful to her,
+then she went on.</p>
+
+<p>"I found my way to his room. My mind was full of you, of that man, of
+how to save you. I did not think of myself, of my position. At first I
+was too agitated to speak. He bade me sit down, compose myself. His
+manner was quiet, grave. Again I feared for you. He asked me to excuse
+him for a moment, and left the room. He seemed to be gone an age, while
+I sat there, trying to fight down my terror. The suspense was killing
+me. Then he came back. He closed and locked the door. All at once I
+heard a step outside, a knock. 'Hush! go in there,' he said. He opened
+the door. I heard him speaking to some one. I waited, then you burst in
+on me. You know the rest."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes."</p>
+
+<p>"As for your brother, I've tried, oh, so hard, to be nice to him for
+your sake. I liked him; I wanted <a class="pagenum" name="page_503" id="page_503" title="503"></a>to be to him as a sister, but never an
+unfaithful thought has entered my head, never a wrong feeling sullied my
+heart. I've been true to you. You told me once of a love that gives all
+and asks for nothing; a love that would turn its back on friends and
+kindred for the sake of its beloved. You said: 'His smile will be your
+rapture, his frown your anguish. For him will you dare all, bear all. To
+him will you cling in sorrow, suffering and poverty. Living, you would
+follow him round the world; dying, you would desire but him.'&mdash;Well, I
+think I love you like that."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my dear, my dear!"</p>
+
+<p>"I want to bring you happiness, but I only bring you trouble, sorrow.
+Sometimes, for your sake, I wish we had never met."</p>
+
+<p>She turned to Garry.</p>
+
+<p>"As for you, you've done me a great wrong. I can never forget it. Will
+you go now, and leave us in peace?"</p>
+
+<p>His head was bent, so that I could not see his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you not forgive?" he groaned.</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head sadly. "No, I am afraid I can never forgive."</p>
+
+<p>"Can I do nothing to atone?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm afraid your punishment must be&mdash;that you can do nothing."</p>
+
+<p>He said never a word. She turned to me:</p>
+
+<p>"Come, my husband, we will go."</p>
+
+<p>I was opening the door to leave him forever. Suddenly <a class="pagenum" name="page_504" id="page_504" title="504"></a>I heard a step
+coming up the stairs, a heavy, hurried tread. I looked down a moment,
+then I pushed her back into the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Be prepared, Berna," I said quietly; "here comes Locasto."</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_505" id="page_505" title="505"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>There we waited, Garry and I, and between us Berna. We heard that heavy
+tread come up, up the creaking stairway, stumble a moment, then pause on
+the landing. There was something ominous, something pregnant in that
+pause. The steps halted, wavered a little, then, inflexible as doom, on
+they came towards us. The next instant the door was thrown open, and
+Locasto stood in the entrance.</p>
+
+<p>Even in that brief moment I was struck by the change in him. He seemed
+to have aged by twenty years. He was gaunt and lank as a starved timber
+wolf; his face was hollow almost as a death's head; his hair was long
+and matted, and his eyes burned with a strange, unnatural fire. In that
+dark, aquiline face the Indian was never more strongly revealed. He
+limped, and I noticed his left hand was gloved.</p>
+
+<p>From under his bristling brows he glared at us. As he swayed there he
+minded me of an evil beast, a savage creature, a mad, desperate thing.
+He reeled in the doorway, and to steady himself put out his gloved hand.
+Then with a malignant laugh, the fleering laugh of a fiend, he stepped
+into the room.</p>
+
+<p>"So! Seems as if I'd lighted on a pretty nest of love-birds. Ho! ho! my
+sweet! You're not satisfied with one lover, you must have two. Well, you
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_506" id="page_506" title="506"></a>are going to be satisfied with one from now on, and that's Jack
+Locasto. I've stood enough from you, you white-faced jade. You've
+haunted me, you've put some kind of a spell on me. You've lured me back
+to this land, and now I'm going to have you or die! You've played with
+me long enough. The jig's up. Stand out from between those two. Stand
+out, I say! March out of that door."</p>
+
+<p>She only shrank back the farther.</p>
+
+<p>"You won't come, curse you; you won't come, you milk-faced witch, with
+your great eyes that bore holes in me, that turn my heart to fire, that
+make me mad. You won't come. Stand back there, you two, and let the girl
+come."</p>
+
+<p>We shielded her.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! that's it&mdash;you defy me. You won't let me get her. Well, it'll be
+all the worse for her. I'll make her life a hell. I'll beat her. You
+won't stand back. You, the dark one&mdash;don't I know you; haven't I hated
+you more than the devil hates a saint; hated you worse than bitter
+poison? These three black years you've balked me, you've kept her from
+me. Oh, I've itched to kill you times without number, and I've spared
+you. But now it's my call. Stand back there, stand back I say. Your
+time's come. Here's where I shoot."</p>
+
+<p>His hand leapt up and I saw it gripped a revolver. He had me covered.
+His face was contorted with devilish triumph, and I knew he meant to
+kill. At last, at last my time had come. I saw his fingers twitching on
+the trigger, I gazed into <a class="pagenum" name="page_507" id="page_507" title="507"></a>the hollow horror of that barrel. My heart
+turned to ice. I could not breathe. Oh, for a respite, a moment&mdash;Ugh!...
+he pulled the trigger, and, <i>at the same instant, Garry sprang at him</i>!</p>
+
+<p>What had happened? The shot rang in my ears. I was still standing there.
+I felt no wound. I felt no pain. Then, as I stared at my enemy, I heard
+a heavy fall. Oh, God! there at my feet lay Garry, lay in a huddled,
+quivering heap, lay on his face, and in his fair hair I saw a dark stain
+start and spread. Then, in a moment, I realised what my brother had
+done.</p>
+
+<p>I fell on my knees beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"Garry, Garry!" I moaned. I heard Berna scream, and I saw that Locasto
+was coming for me. He was a man no longer. He had killed. He was a
+brute, a fury, a devil, mad with the lust of slaughter. With a snarl he
+dashed at me. Again I thought he was going to shoot, but no! He raised
+the heavy revolver and brought it crashing down on my head. I felt the
+blow fall, and with it my strength seemed to shoot out of me. My legs
+were paralysed. I could not move. And, as I lay there in a misty daze,
+he advanced on Berna.</p>
+
+<p>There she stood at bay, a horror-stricken thing, weak, panting,
+desperate. I saw him corner her. His hands were stretched out to clutch
+her; a moment more and he would have her in his arms, a moment&mdash;ah! With
+a suddenness that was like a flash she had raised the heavy reading-lamp
+and dashed it in his face.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_508" id="page_508" title="508"></a>I heard his shriek of fear; I saw him fall as the thing crashed between
+his eyes; I saw the flames spurt and leap. High in the air he rose,
+awful in his agony. He was in a shroud of fire; he was in a pool of
+flame. He howled like a dog and fell over on the bed.</p>
+
+<p>Then suddenly the oil-soaked bedding caught. The curtains seemed to leap
+and change into flame. As he rolled and roared in his agony, the blaze
+ran up the walls, and caught the roof. Help, help! the room was afire,
+was burning up. Fire! Fire!</p>
+
+<p>Out in the corridor I heard a great running about, shouting of men,
+screaming of women. The whole place seemed to be alive, panic-stricken,
+frenzied with fear. Everything was in flames now, burning fiercely,
+madly, and there was no stopping them. The hotel was burning, and I,
+too, must burn. What a horrible end! Oh, if I could only do something!
+But I could not move. From the waist down I was like a dead man. Where
+was Berna? Pray God she was safe. I could not cry for aid. The room was
+reeling round and round. I was faint, dizzy, helpless.</p>
+
+<p>The hotel was ablaze. In the streets below crowds were gathering. People
+were running up and down the stairway, fighting to get free, mad with
+terror, leaping from the windows. Oh, it was awful, to burn, to burn! I
+seemed to be caged in flames that were darting at me savagely,
+spitefully. Would nobody save me?</p>
+
+<p>Yes, some one was trying to save me, was dragging <a class="pagenum" name="page_509" id="page_509" title="509"></a>my body across the
+floor. Consciousness left me, and it seemed for ages I lay in a stupor.
+When I opened my eyes again some one was still tugging at me. We were
+going down the stairway, and on all sides of us were sheets of flapping
+flame. I was wrapped in a blanket. How had it got there? Who was that
+dark figure pulling at me so desperately, trying to lift me, staggering
+a few paces with me, stumbling blindly on? Brave one, noble one, whoever
+you be! Foolhardy one, reckless one, whoever you be! Save yourself while
+yet there is time. Leave me to my fate. But, oh, the agony of it to
+burn, to burn ...!</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>Another desperate effort and we are almost at the door. Flames are
+darting at us like serpents, leaping kitten-like at our heels. Above us
+is a billowy canopy of fire soaring upward with a vast crackling roar.
+Fiery splinters shoot around us, while before us is a black pit of
+smoke. Smooth walls of fire uprear about us. We are in a cavern of fire,
+and in another moment it will engulf us. Oh, my rescuer, a last frenzied
+effort! We are almost at the door. Then I am lifted up and we both
+tumble out into the street. Not a second too soon, for, like a savage
+beast foiled of its prey, a blast of flame shoots after us, and the
+doorway is a gulf of blazing wrath.</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>I am lying in the snow, lying on a blanket, and some one holds my head.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="page_510" id="page_510" title="510"></a>"Berna, is that you?"</p>
+
+<p>She nods. She does not speak. I shudder as I look at her. Her face is
+like a great burn, a black mask in which her eyes and teeth gleam
+whitely....</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Berna, Berna, and it was you that dragged me out...!"</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>My eyes go to the fiery hell in front. As I look the roof crashes in and
+we are showered by falling sparks. I see a fireman run back. He is
+swathed in flame. Madly he rolls in the snow. The hotel is like a
+cascade of flame; it spouts outward like water, beautiful golden water.
+In its centre is a wonderful whirlpool. I see the line of a black girder
+leap out, and hanging over it a limp, charred shape. A moment it hangs
+uncertainly, then plunges downward into the roasting heart of the pit.
+And I know it for Locasto.</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>Oh, Berna, Berna! I can't bear to look at her. Why did she do it? It's
+pitiful, pitiful....</p>
+
+<p>The fire is spreading. Right and left it swings and leaps in giant
+strides. Sudden flames shoot out, curl over and roll like golden velvet
+down the black faces of the buildings. The fire leaps the street. All is
+pandemonium now. Mad with fear and excitement, men and women rave and
+curse and pray. Water! water! is the cry; but no water comes. Suddenly a
+mob of terror-goaded men comes surging down the street. They bring the
+long hose line that connects with the pump-station on the river. Hurrah!
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_511" id="page_511" title="511"></a>now they will soon have the flames under control. Water, water is
+coming.</p>
+
+<p>The line is laid and a cry goes up to turn on the water. Hurry there!
+But no water comes. What can be the matter? Then the dread whisper goes
+round that the man in charge of the pumping-station has neglected his
+duty, and the engine fires are cold. A howl of fury and despair goes up
+to the lurid heavens. Women wring their hands and moan; men stand by in
+a stupor of hopeless agony. And the fire, as if it knew of its victory,
+leaps up in a roaring ecstasy of triumph.</p>
+
+<p>There we watched, Berna and I, lying in the snow that melts all around
+us in the fierce, scorching glare. Through the lurid rift of smoke I can
+see the friendly stars. Against that curtain of blaze, strangely
+beautiful in its sinuous strength, I watch the black silhouettes of men
+running hither and thither like rats, gutting the houses, looting the
+stores, tearing the hearts out of the homes. The fire seems a great
+bird, and from its nest of furnace heat it spreads its flapping wings
+over the city.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, there is no hope. The gold-born city is doomed. From where I lie
+the scene is one long vista of blazing gables, ribs and rafters hugged
+by tawny arms of fire. Squat cabins swirling in mad eddies of flame;
+hotels, dance-halls, brothels swathed and smothered in flame-rent
+blankets of swirling smoke. There is no hope. The fire is a vast
+avenger, and before its wrath the iniquity of the tenderloin is swept
+away. That flimsy hive of <a class="pagenum" name="page_512" id="page_512" title="512"></a>humanity, with its sins and secrets and
+sorrows, goes up in smoke and ashes to the silent stars.</p>
+
+<p>The gold-born city is doomed. Yet, as I lay there, it seemed to me like
+a judgment, and that from its ruins would arise a new city, clean,
+upright, incorruptible. Yes, the gold-camp would find itself. Even as
+the gold, must it pass through the furnace to be made clean. And from
+the site where in the olden days the men who toiled for the gold were
+robbed by every device of human guile, a new city would come to be&mdash;a
+great city, proud and prosperous, beloved of homing hearts, and blessed
+in its purity and peace.</p>
+
+<p>"Beloved," I sighed through a gathering mist of consciousness. I felt
+some hot tears falling on my face. I felt a kiss seal my lips. I felt a
+breathing in my ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my dear, my dear!" she said. "I've only brought you sorrow and
+pain, but you've brought me love, that love that is a dazzling light,
+beside which the sunshine is as darkness."</p>
+
+<p>"Berna!" I raised myself; I put out my arms to clasp her. They clasped
+the empty air. Wildly, wildly I looked around. She was gone!</p>
+
+<p>"Berna!" Again I cried, but there was no reply. I was alone, alone. Then
+a great weakness came over me....</p>
+
+<p>I never saw her again.</p>
+
+<div>
+<hr class='major' />
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_513" id="page_513" title="513"></a>
+<h2><a name="THE_LASaT" id="THE_LASaT"></a>THE LAST</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is finished. I have written here the story of my life, or of that
+portion of it which means everything to me, for the rest means nothing.
+Now that it is done, I too have done, so I sit me down and wait. For
+what am I waiting? A divine miracle perhaps.</p>
+
+<p>Somehow I feel I will see her again, somehow, somewhere. Surely God
+would not reveal to us the shining light of the Great Reality only to
+plunge us again into outer darkness? Love cannot be in vain. I will not
+believe it. Somehow, somewhere!</p>
+
+<p>So in the glow of the great peat fire I sit me down and wait, and the
+faith grows in me that she will come to me again; that I will feel the
+soft caress of her hand upon my pillow, that I will hear her voice all
+tuned to tenderness, that I will see through my tear-blinded eyes her
+sweet compassionate face. Somehow, somewhere!</p>
+
+<p>With the aid of my crutch I unlatch one of the long windows and step out
+onto the terrace. I peer through the darkness and once more I have a
+sense of that land of imperious vastitudes so unfathomably lonely. With
+an unspeakable longing in my heart, I try to pierce the shadows that
+surround me. From the cavernous dark the snowflakes sting my face, but
+the great night seems good to me, and I <a class="pagenum" name="page_514" id="page_514" title="514"></a>sink into a garden seat. Oh, I
+am tired, tired....</p>
+
+<p>I am waiting, waiting. I close my eyes and wait. I know she will come.
+The snow is covering me. White as a statue, I sit and wait.</p>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p>Ah, Berna, my dear, my dear! I knew you would return; I knew, I knew.
+Come to me, little one. I'm tired, so tired. Put your arms around me,
+girl; kiss me, kiss me. I'm weak and ill, but now you've come I'll soon
+be well again. You won't leave me any more; will you, honey? Oh, it's
+good to have you once again! It seems like a dream. Kiss me once more,
+sweetheart. It's all so cold and dark. Put your arms around me....</p>
+
+<p><i>Oh, Berna, Berna, light of my life, I knew all would come right at
+last&mdash;beyond the mists, beyond the dreaming; at last, dear love, at
+last!...</i></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Trail of '98, by Robert W. Service,
+Illustrated by Maynard Dixon
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Trail of '98
+       A Northland Romance
+
+
+Author: Robert W. Service
+
+
+
+Release Date: July 13, 2007  [eBook #22063]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRAIL OF '98***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
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+      See 22063-h.htm or 22063-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/0/6/22063/22063-h/22063-h.htm)
+      or
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+
+
+
+
+
+THE TRAIL OF '98
+
+A Northland Romance
+
+by
+
+ROBERT W. SERVICE
+
+Author of
+"The Spell of the Yukon" and "Ballads of a Cheechako"
+
+With illustrations by Maynard Dixon
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: We were in a caldron of fire. The roar of doom was in our
+ears (page 143)]
+
+
+New York
+Dodd, Mead and Company
+1911
+
+Copyright, 1910, by
+Dodd, Mead and Company
+
+Entered at Stationers' Hall
+
+The Quinn & Boden Co. Press
+Rahway, N. J.
+
+
+
+
+PRELUDE
+
+The north wind is keening overhead. It minds me of the howl of a
+wolf-dog under the Arctic stars. Sitting alone by the glow of the
+great peat fire I can hear it high up in the braeside firs. It is
+the voice, inexorably scornful, of the Great White Land.
+
+Oh, I hate it, I hate it! Why cannot a man be allowed to forget? It is
+near ten years since I joined the Eager Army. I have travelled: I have
+been a pilgrim to the shrines of beauty; I have pursued the phantom of
+happiness even to the ends of the earth. Still it is always the same--I
+cannot forget.
+
+Why should a man be ever shadowed by the vampire wing of his past? Have
+I not a right to be happy? Money, estate, name, are mine, all that means
+an open sesame to the magic door. Others go in, but I beat against its
+flinty portals with hands that bleed. No! I have no right to be happy.
+The ways of the world are open; the banquet of life is spread; the
+wonder-workers plan their pageants of beauty and joy, and yet there is
+no praise in my heart. I have seen, I have tasted, I have tried. Ashes
+and dust and bitterness are all my gain. I will try no more. It is the
+shadow of the vampire wing.
+
+So I sit in the glow of the great peat fire, tired and sad beyond
+belief. Thank God! at least I am home. Everything is so little changed.
+The fire lights the oak-panelled hall; the crossed claymores gleam; the
+eyes in the mounted deer-heads shine glassily; rugs of fur cover the
+polished floor; all is comfort, home and the haunting atmosphere of my
+boyhood. Sometimes I fancy it has been a dream, the Great White Silence,
+the lure of the gold-spell, the delirium of the struggle; a dream, and I
+will awake to hear Garry calling me to shoot over the moor, to see dear
+little Mother with her meek, sensitive mouth, and her cheeks as
+delicately tinted as the leaves of a briar rose. But no! The hall is
+silent. Mother has gone to her long rest. Garry sleeps under the snow.
+Silence everywhere; I am alone, alone.
+
+So I sit in the big, oak-carved chair of my forefathers, before the
+great peat fire, a peak-faced drooping figure of a man with hair
+untimely grey. My crutch lies on the floor by my side. My old nurse
+comes up quietly to look at the fire. Her rosy, wrinkled face smiles
+cheerfully, but I can see the anxiety in her blue eyes. She is afraid
+for me. Maybe the doctor has told her--_something_.
+
+No doubt my days are numbered, so I am minded to tell of it all: of the
+Big Stampede, of the Treasure Trail, of the Gold-born City; of those who
+followed the gold-lure into the Great White Land, of the evil that
+befell them, of Garry and of Berna. Perhaps it will comfort me to tell
+of these things. To-morrow I will begin; to-night, leave me to my
+memories.
+
+Berna! I spoke of her last. She rises before me now with her spirit-pale
+face and her great troubleful grey eyes, a little tragic figure,
+ineffably pitiful. Where are you now, little one? I have searched the
+world for you. I have scanned a million faces. Day and night have I
+sought, always hoping, always baffled, for, God help me, dear, I love
+you. Among that mad, lusting horde you were so weak, so helpless, yet so
+hungry for love.
+
+With the aid of my crutch I unlatch one of the long windows, and step
+out onto the terrace. From the cavernous dark the snowflakes sting my
+face. Yet as I stand there, once more I have a sense of another land, of
+imperious vastitudes, of a silent empire, unfathomably lonely.
+
+Ghosts! They are all around me. The darkness teems with them, Garry, my
+brother, among them. Then they all fade and give way to one face....
+
+_Berna, I love you always. Out of the night I cry to you, Berna, the cry
+of a broken heart. Is it your little, pitiful ghost that comes down to
+me? Oh, I am waiting, waiting! Here will I wait, Berna, till we meet
+once more. For meet we will, beyond the mists, beyond the dreaming, at
+last, dear love, at last._
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+BOOK I
+The Road to Anywhere      1
+
+BOOK II
+The Trail                49
+
+BOOK III
+The Camp                169
+
+BOOK IV
+The Vortex              321
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+We were in a caldron of fire. The roar of doom was
+in our ears (p. 143)                                   Frontispiece
+
+                                                             FACING
+                                                               PAGE
+
+"No," she said firmly, "you can't see the girl"                 116
+
+Then, as I hung half in, half out of the window,
+he clutched me by the throat                                    316
+
+"Garry," I said, "this is--this is Berna"                       476
+
+
+
+This is the law of the Yukon, and ever she makes it plain:
+"Send not your foolish and feeble; send me your strong and your sane.
+Strong for the red rage of battle; sane, for I harry them sore;
+Send me men girt for the combat, men who are grit to the core;
+Swift as the panther in triumph, fierce as the bear in defeat,
+Sired of a bulldog parent, steeled in the furnace heat.
+Send me the best of your breeding, lend me your chosen ones;
+Them will I take to my bosom, them will I call my sons;
+Them will I gild with my treasure, them will I glut with my meat;
+But the others--the misfits, the failures--I trample under my feet."
+
+                                           --"Songs of a Sourdough."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+THE ROAD TO ANYWHERE
+
+
+Can you recall, dear comrade, when we tramped God's land together,
+    And we sang the old, old Earth-Song, for our youth was very sweet;
+When we drank and fought and lusted, as we mocked at tie and tether,
+    Along the road to Anywhere, the wide world at our feet.
+
+Along the road to Anywhere, when each day had its story;
+    When time was yet our vassal, and life's jest was still unstale;
+When peace unfathomed filled our hearts as, bathed in amber glory,
+    Along the road to Anywhere we watched the sunsets pale.
+
+Alas! the road to Anywhere is pitfalled with disaster;
+    There's hunger, want, and weariness, yet O we loved it so!
+As on we tramped exultantly, and no man was our master,
+    And no man guessed what dreams were ours, as swinging heel and toe,
+We tramped the road to Anywhere, the magic road to Anywhere,
+    The tragic road to Anywhere such dear, dim years ago.
+
+--"Songs of a Sourdough."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+As far back as I can remember I have faithfully followed the banner of
+Romance. It has given colour to my life, made me a dreamer of dreams, a
+player of parts. As a boy, roaming alone the wild heather hills, I have
+heard the glad shouts of the football players on the green, yet never
+ettled to join them. Mine was the richer, rarer joy. Still can I see
+myself in those days, a little shy-mannered lad in kilts, bareheaded to
+the hill breezes, with health-bright cheeks, and a soul happed up in
+dreams.
+
+And, indeed, I lived in an enchanted land, a land of griffins and
+kelpies, of princesses and gleaming knights. From each black tarn I
+looked to see a scaly reptile rise, from every fearsome cave a corby
+emerge. There were green spaces among the heather where the fairies
+danced, and every scaur and linn had its own familiar spirit. I peopled
+the good green wood with the wild creatures of my thought, nymph and
+faun, naiad and dryad, and would have been in nowise surprised to meet
+in the leafy coolness the great god Pan himself.
+
+It was at night, however, that my dreams were most compelling. I strove
+against the tyranny of sleep. Lying in my small bed, I revelled in
+delectable imaginings. Night after night I fought battles, devised
+pageants, partitioned empires. I gloried in details. My rugged
+war-lords were very real to me, and my adventures sounded many periods
+of history. I was a solitary caveman with an axe of stone; I was a Roman
+soldier of fortune; I was a Highland outlaw of the Rebellion. Always I
+fought for a lost cause, and always my sympathies were with the rebel. I
+feasted with Robin Hood on the King's venison; I fared forth with Dick
+Turpin on the gibbet-haunted heath; I followed Morgan, the Buccaneer,
+into strange and exotic lands of trial and treasure. It was a wonderful
+gift of visioning that was mine in those days. It was the bird-like
+flight of the pure child-mind to whom the unreal is yet the real.
+
+Then, suddenly, I arrived at a second phase of my mental growth in which
+fancy usurped the place of imagination. The modern equivalents of
+Romance attracted me, and, with my increasing grasp of reality, my gift
+of vision faded. As I had hitherto dreamed of knight-errants, of
+corsairs and of outlaws, I now dreamed of cowboys, of gold-seekers, of
+beach-combers. Fancy painted scenes in which I, too, should play a
+rousing part. I read avidly all I could find dealing with the Far West,
+and ever my wistful gaze roved over the grey sea. The spirit of Romance
+beaconed to me. I, too, would adventure in the stranger lands, and face
+their perils and brave their dangers. The joy of the thought exulted in
+my veins, and scarce could I bide the day when the roads of chance and
+change would be open to my feet.
+
+It is strange that in all these years I confided in no one. Garry, who
+was my brother and my dearest friend, would have laughed at me in that
+affectionate way of his. You would never have taken us for brothers. We
+were so different in temperament and appearance that we were almost the
+reverse of each other. He was the handsomest boy I have ever seen,
+frank, fair-skinned and winning, while I was dark, dour and none too
+well favoured. He was the best runner and swimmer in the parish, and the
+idol of the village lads. I cared nothing for games, and would be found
+somewhere among the heather hills, always by my lone self, and nearly
+always with a story book in my pocket. He was clever, practical and
+ambitious, excelling in all his studies; whereas, except in those which
+appealed to my imagination, I was a dullard and a dreamer.
+
+Yet we loved each others as few brothers do. Oh, how I admired him! He
+was my ideal, and too often the hero of my romances. Garry would have
+laughed at my hero-worship; he was so matter-of-fact, effective and
+practical. Yet he understood me, my Celtic ideality, and that shy
+reserve which is the armour of a sensitive soul. Garry in his fine
+clever way knew me and shielded me and cheered me. He was so buoyant and
+charming he heartened you like Spring sunshine, and braced you like a
+morning wind on the mountain top. Yes, not excepting Mother, Garry knew
+me better than any one has ever done, and I loved him for it. It seems
+overfond to say this, but he did not have a fault: tenderness, humour,
+enthusiasm, sympathy and the beauty of a young god--all that was
+manfully endearing was expressed in this brother of mine.
+
+So we grew to manhood there in that West Highland country, and surely
+our lives were pure and simple and sweet. I had never been further from
+home than the little market town where we sold our sheep. Mother managed
+the estate till Garry was old enough, when he took hold with a vigour
+and grasp that delighted every one. I think our little Mother stood
+rather in awe of my keen, capable, energetic brother. There was in her a
+certain dreamy, wistful idealism that made her beautiful in my eyes, and
+to look on she was as fair as any picture. Specially do I remember the
+delicate colouring of her face and her eyes, blue like deep
+corn-flowers. She was not overstrong, and took much comfort from
+religion. Her lips, which were fine and sensitive, had a particularly
+sweet expression, and I wish to record of her that never once did I see
+her cross, always sweet, gentle, smiling.
+
+Thus our home was an ideal one; Garry, tall, fair and winsome; myself,
+dark, dreamy, reticent; and between us, linking all three in a perfect
+bond of love and sympathy, our gentle, delicate Mother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+So in serenity and sunshine the days of my youth went past. I still
+maintained my character as a drone and a dreamer. I used my time
+tramping the moorland with a gun, whipping the foamy pools of the burn
+for trout, or reading voraciously in the library. Mostly I read books of
+travel, and especially did I relish the literature of Vagabondia. I had
+come under the spell of Stevenson. His name spelled Romance to me, and
+my fancy etched him in his lonely exile. Forthright I determined I too
+would seek these ultimate islands, and from that moment I was a changed
+being. I nursed the thought with joyous enthusiasm. I would be a
+frontiersman, a trail-breaker, a treasure-seeker. The virgin prairies
+called to me; the susurrus of the giant pines echoed in my heart; but
+most of all, I felt the spell of those gentle islands where care is a
+stranger, and all is sunshine, song and the glowing bloom of eternal
+summer.
+
+About this time Mother must have worried a good deal over my future.
+Garry was now the young Laird, and I was but an idler, a burden on the
+estate. At last I told her I wanted to go abroad, and then it seemed as
+if a great difficulty was solved. We remembered of a cousin who was
+sheep-ranching in the Saskatchewan valley and had done well. It was
+arranged that I should join him as a pupil, then, when I had learned
+enough, buy a place of my own. It may be imagined that while I
+apparently acquiesced in this arrangement, I had already determined that
+as soon as I reached the new land I would take my destiny into my own
+hands.
+
+I will never forget the damp journey to Glasgow and the misty landscape
+viewed through the streaming window pane of a railway carriage. I was in
+a wondrous state of elation. When we reached the great smoky city I was
+lost in amazement not unmixed with fear. Never had I imagined such
+crowds, such houses, such hurry. The three of us, Mother, Garry and I,
+wandered and wondered for three days. Folks gazed at us curiously,
+sometimes admiringly, for our cheeks were bright with Highland health,
+and our eyes candid as the June skies. Garry in particular, tall, fair
+and handsome, seemed to call forth glances of interest wherever he went.
+Then as the hour of my departure drew near a shadow fell on us.
+
+I will not dwell on our leave-taking. If I broke down in unmanly grief,
+it must be remembered I had never before been from home. I was but a
+lad, and these two were all in all to me. Mother gave up trying to be
+brave, and mingled her tears with mine. Garry alone contrived to make
+some show of cheerfulness. Alas! all my elation had gone. In its place
+was a sense of guilt, of desertion, of unconquerable gloom. I had an
+inkling then of the tragedy of motherhood, the tender love that would
+hold yet cannot, the world-call and the ruthless, estranging years, all
+the memories of clinging love given only to be taken away.
+
+"Don't cry, sweetheart Mother," I said; "I'll be back again in three
+years."
+
+"Mind you do, my boy, mind you do."
+
+She looked at me woefully sad, and I had a queer, heartrending prevision
+I would never see her more. Garry was supporting her, and she seemed to
+have suddenly grown very frail. He was pale and quiet, but I could see
+he was vastly moved.
+
+"Athol," said he, "if ever you need me just send for me. I'll come, no
+matter how long or how hard the way."
+
+I can see them to this day standing there in the drenching rain, Garry
+fine and manly, Mother small and drooping. I can see her with her
+delicate rose colour, her eyes like wood violets drowned in tears, her
+tender, sensitive lips quivering with emotion.
+
+"Good-bye, laddie, good-bye."
+
+I forced myself away, and stumbled on board. When I looked back again
+they were gone, but through the grey shadows there seemed to come back
+to me a cry of heartache and irremediable loss.
+
+"Good-bye, good-bye."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+It was on a day of early Autumn when I stood knee-deep in the heather of
+Glengyle, and looked wistfully over the grey sea. 'Twas but a month
+later when, homeless and friendless, I stood on the beach by the Cliff
+House of San Francisco, and gazed over the fretful waters of another
+ocean. Such is the romance of destiny.
+
+Consigned, so to speak, to my cousin the sheep-raiser of the
+Saskatchewan, I found myself setting foot on the strange land with but
+little heart for my new vocation. My mind, cramful of book notions,
+craved for the larger life. I was valiantly mad for adventure; to fare
+forth haphazardly; to come upon naked danger; to feel the bludgeonings
+of mischance; to tramp, to starve, to sleep under the stars. It was the
+callow boy-idea perpetuated in the man, and it was to lead me a sorry
+dance. But I could not overbear it. Strong in me was the spirit of the
+gypsy. The joy of youth and health was brawling in my veins. A few
+thistledown years, said I, would not matter. And there was Stevenson and
+his glamorous islands winning me on.
+
+So it came about I stood solitary on the beach by the seal rocks, with a
+thousand memories confusing in my head. There was the long train ride
+with its strange pictures: the crude farms, the glooming forests, the
+gleaming lakes that would drown my whole country, the aching plains,
+the mountains that rip-sawed the sky, the fear-made-eternal of the
+desert. Lastly, a sudden, sunlit paradise, California.
+
+I had lived through a week of wizardry such as I had never dreamed of,
+and here was I at the very throne of Western empire. And what a place it
+was, and what a people--with the imperious mood of the West softened by
+the spell of the Orient and mellowed by the glamour of Old Spain. San
+Francisco! A score of tongues clamoured in her streets and in her
+byways a score of races lurked austerely. She suckled at her breast the
+children of the old grey nations and gave them of her spirit, that swift
+purposeful spirit so proud of past achievement and so convinced of
+glorious destiny.
+
+I marvelled at the rush of affairs and the zest of amusement. Every one
+seemed to be making money easily and spending it eagerly. Every one was
+happy, sanguine, strenuous. At night Market Street was a dazzling alley
+of light, where stalwart men and handsome women jostled in and out of
+the glittering restaurants. Yet amid this eager, passionate life I felt
+a dreary sense of outsideness. At times my heart fairly ached with
+loneliness, and I wandered the pathways of the park, or sat forlornly in
+Portsmouth Square as remote from it all as a gazer on his mountain top
+beneath the stars.
+
+I became a dreamer of the water front, for the notion of the South Seas
+was ever in my head. I loafed in the sunshine, sitting on the pier-edge,
+with eyes fixed on the lazy shipping. These were care-free,
+irresponsible days, and not, I am now convinced, entirely misspent. I
+came to know the worthies of the wharfside, and plunged into an
+under-world of fascinating repellency. Crimpdom eyed and tempted me, but
+it was always with whales or seals, and never with pearls or copra. I
+rubbed shoulders with eager necessity, scrambled for free lunches in
+frowsy bar-rooms, and amid the scum and debris of the waterside found
+much food for sober thought. Yet at times I blamed myself for thus
+misusing my days, and memories of Glengyle and Mother and Garry loomed
+up with reproachful vividness.
+
+I was, too, a seeker of curious experience, and this was to prove my
+undoing. The night-side of the city was unveiled to me. With the
+assurance of innocence I wandered everywhere. I penetrated the warrens
+of underground Chinatown, wondering why white women lived there, and why
+they hid at sight of me. Alone I poked my way into the opium joints and
+the gambling dens. Vice, amazingly unabashed, flaunted itself in my
+face. I wondered what my grim, Covenanting ancestors would have made of
+it all. I never thought to have seen the like, and in my inexperience it
+was like a shock to me.
+
+My nocturnal explorations came to a sudden end. One foggy midnight,
+coming up Pacific Street with its glut of saloons, I was clouted
+shrewdly from behind and dropped most neatly in the gutter. When I came
+to, very sick and dizzy in a side alley, I found I had been robbed of my
+pocketbook with nearly all my money therein. Fortunately I had left my
+watch in the hotel safe, and by selling it was not entirely destitute;
+but the situation forced me from my citadel of pleasant dreams, and
+confronted me with the grimmer realities of life.
+
+I became a habitue of the ten-cent restaurant. I was amazed to find how
+excellent a meal I could have for ten cents. Oh for the uncaptious
+appetite of these haphazard days! With some thirty-odd dollars standing
+between me and starvation, it was obvious I must become a hewer of wood
+and a drawer of water, and to this end I haunted the employment offices.
+They were bare, sordid rooms, crowded by men who chewed, swapped
+stories, yawned and studied the blackboards where the day's wants were
+set forth. Only driven to labour by dire necessity, their lives, I
+found, held three phases--looking for work, working, spending the
+proceeds. They were the Great Unskilled, face to face with the necessary
+evil of toil.
+
+One morning, on seeking my favourite labour bureau, I found an unusual
+flutter among the bench-warmers. A big contractor wanted fifty men
+immediately. No experience was required, and the wages were to be two
+dollars a day. With a number of others I pressed forward, was
+interviewed and accepted. The same day we were marched in a body to the
+railway depot and herded into a fourth-class car.
+
+Where we were going I knew not; of what we were going to do I had no
+inkling. I only knew we were southbound, and at long last I might fairly
+consider myself to be the shuttlecock of fortune.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+I left San Francisco blanketed in grey fog and besomed by a roaring
+wind; when I opened my eyes I was in a land of spacious sky and broad,
+clean sunshine. Orange groves rushed to welcome us; orchards of almond
+and olive twinkled joyfully in the limpid air; tall, gaunt and ragged,
+the scaly eucalyptus fluttered at us a morning greeting, while snowy
+houses, wallowing in greenery, flashed a smile as we rumbled past. It
+seemed like a land of promise, of song and sunshine, and silent and
+apart I sat to admire and to enjoy.
+
+"Looks pretty swell, don't it?"
+
+I will call him the Prodigal. He was about my own age, thin, but
+sun-browned and healthy. His hair was darkly red and silky, his teeth
+white and even as young corn. His eyes twinkled with a humorsome light,
+but his face was shrewd, alert and aggressive.
+
+"Yes," I said soberly, for I have always been backward with strangers.
+
+"Pretty good line. The banana belt. Old Sol working overtime. Blossom
+and fruit cavorting on the same tree. Eternal summer. Land of the
+_manana_, the festive frijole, the never-chilly chili. Ever been here
+before?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Neither have I. Glad I came, even if it's to do the horny-handed son
+of toil stunt. Got the makings?"
+
+"No, I'm sorry; I don't smoke."
+
+"All right, guess I got enough."
+
+He pulled forth a limp sack of powdery tobacco, and spilled some grains
+into a brown cigarette paper, twisting it deftly and bending over the
+ends. Then he smoked with such enjoyment that I envied him.
+
+"Where are we going, have you any idea?" I asked.
+
+"Search me," he said, inhaling deeply; "the guy in charge isn't exactly
+a free information bureau. When it comes to peddling the bull con he's
+there, but when you try to pry off a few slabs of cold hard fact it's
+his Sunday off."
+
+"But," I persisted, "have you no idea?"
+
+"Well, one thing you can bank on, they'll work the Judas out of us. The
+gentle grafter nestles in our midst. This here's a cinch game and we are
+the fall guys. The contractors are a bum outfit. They'll squeeze us at
+every turn. There was two plunks to the employment man; they got half.
+Twenty for railway fare; they come in on that. Stop at certain hotels: a
+rake-off there. Stage fare: more graft. Five dollars a week for board:
+costs them two-fifty, and they will be stomach robbers at that. Then
+they'll ring in twice as many men as they need, and lay us off half the
+time, so that we just about even up on our board bill. Oh, I'm onto
+their curves all right."
+
+"Then," I said, "if you know so much why did you come with us?"
+
+"Well, if I know so much you just bet I know some more. I'll go one
+better. You watch my smoke."
+
+He talked on with a wonderful vivid manner and an outpouring knowledge
+of life, so that I was hugely interested. Yet ever and anon an allusion
+of taste would betray him, and at no time did I fail to see that his
+roughness was only a veneer. As it turned out he was better educated by
+far than I, a Yale boy taking a post-graduate course in the University
+of Hard Luck.
+
+My reserve once thawed, I told him much of my simple life. He listened,
+intently sympathetic.
+
+"Say," said he earnestly when I had finished, "I'm rough-and-ready in my
+ways. Life to me's a game, sort of masquerade, and I'm the worst
+masquerader in the bunch. But I know how to handle myself, and I can
+jolly my way along pretty well. Now, you're green, if you'll excuse me
+saying it, and maybe I can help you some. Likewise you're the only one
+in all the gang of hoboes that's my kind. Come on, let's be partners."
+
+I felt greatly drawn to him and agreed gladly.
+
+"Now," said he, "I must go and jolly along the other boys. Aren't they a
+fierce bunch? Coloured gentlemen, Slavonians, Polaks, Dagoes,
+Swedes--well, I'll go prospecting, and see what I can strike."
+
+He went among them with a jabber of strange terms, a bright smile and
+ready banter, and I could see that he was to be a quick favourite. I
+envied him for his ease of manner, a thing I could never compass.
+Presently he returned to me.
+
+"Say, partner, got any money?"
+
+There was something frank and compelling in his manner, so that I
+produced the few dollars I had left, and spread them before him.
+
+"That's all my wealth," I said smilingly.
+
+He divided it into two equal portions and returned one to me. He took a
+note of the other, saying:
+
+"All right, I'll settle up with you later on."
+
+He went off with my money. He seemed to take it for granted I would not
+object, and on my part I cared little, being only too eager to show I
+trusted him. A few minutes later behold him seated at a card-table with
+three rough-necked, hard-bitten-looking men. They were playing poker,
+and, thinks I: "Here's good-bye to my money." It minded me of wolves and
+a lamb. I felt sorry for my new friend, and I was only glad he had so
+little to lose.
+
+We were drawing in to Los Angeles when he rejoined me. To my surprise he
+emptied his pockets of wrinkled notes and winking silver to the tune of
+twenty dollars, and dividing it equally, handed half to me.
+
+"Here," says he, "plant that in your dip."
+
+"No," I said, "just give me back what you borrowed; that's all I want."
+
+"Oh, forget it! You staked me, and it's well won. These guinneys took me
+for a jay. Thought I was easy, but I've forgotten more than they ever
+knew, and I haven't forgotten so much either."
+
+"No, you keep it, please. I don't want it."
+
+"Oh, come! put your Scotch scruples in your pocket. Take the money."
+
+"No," I said obstinately.
+
+"Look here, this partnership of ours is based on financial equality. If
+you don't like my gate, you don't need to swing on it."
+
+"All right," said I tartly, "I don't want to."
+
+Then I turned on my heel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+On either side of us were swift hills mottled with green and gold, ahead
+a curdle of snow-capped mountains, above a sky of robin's-egg blue. The
+morning was lyric and set our hearts piping as we climbed the canyon. We
+breathed deeply of the heady air, exclaimed at sight of a big bee ranch,
+shouted as a mule team with jingling bells came swinging down the trail.
+With cries of delight we forded the little crystal stream wherever the
+trail plunged knee-deep through it. Higher and higher we climbed, mile
+after mile, our packs on our shoulders, our hearts very merry. I was as
+happy as a holiday schoolboy, willing this should go on for ever,
+dreading to think of the grim-visaged toil that awaited us.
+
+About midday we reached the end. Gangs of men were everywhere, ripping
+and tearing at the mountain side. There was a roar of blasting, and
+rocks hurtled down on us. Bunkhouses of raw lumber sweated in the sun.
+Everywhere was the feverish activity of a construction camp.
+
+We were assigned to a particular bunkhouse, and there was a great rush
+for places. It was floorless, doorless and in part roofless. Above the
+medley of voices I heard that of the Prodigal:
+
+"Say, fellows, let's find the softest side of this board! Strikes me the
+Company's mighty considerate. All kinds of ventilation. Good chance to
+study astronomy. Wonder if I couldn't borrow a mattress somewhere? Ha!
+Good eye! Watch me, fellows!"
+
+We saw him make for a tent nearby where horses were stabled. He
+reconnoitred carefully, then darted inside to come out in a twinkling,
+staggering under a bale of hay.
+
+"How's that for rustling? I guess I'm slow--hey, what? Guess this is
+poor!"
+
+He was wadding his bunk with the hay, while the others looked on rather
+enviously. Then, as a bell rang, he left off.
+
+"Hash is ready, boys; last call to the dining-car. Come on and see the
+pigs get their heads in the trough."
+
+We hurried to the cookhouse, where a tin plate, a tin cup, a tin spoon
+and a cast-iron knife was laid for each of us at a table of unplaned
+boards. A great mess of hash was ready, and excepting myself every one
+ate voraciously. I found something more to my taste, a can of honey and
+some soda crackers, on which I supped gratefully.
+
+When I returned to the bunkhouse I found my bunk had been stuffed with
+nice soft hay, and my blankets spread on top. I looked over to the
+Prodigal. He was reading, a limp cigarette between his yellow-stained
+fingers. I went up to him.
+
+"It's very good of you to do this," I said.
+
+"Oh no! Not at all. Don't mention it," he answered with much
+politeness, never raising his eyes from the book.
+
+"Well," I said, "I've just got to thank you. And look here, let's make
+it up. Don't let the business of that wretched money come between us.
+Can't we be friends anyway?"
+
+He sprang up and gripped my hand.
+
+"Sure! nothing I want more. I'm sorry. Another time I'll make allowance
+for that shorter-catechism conscience of yours. Now let's go over to
+that big fire they've made and chew the rag."
+
+So we sat by the crackling blaze of mesquite, sagebrush and live-oak
+limbs, while over us twinkled the friendly stars, and he told me many a
+strange story of his roving life.
+
+"You know, the old man's all broke up at me playing the fool like this.
+He's got a glue factory back in Massachusetts. Guess he stacks up about
+a million or so. Wanted me to go into the glue factory, begin at the
+bottom, stay with it. 'Stick to glue, my boy,' he says; 'become the Glue
+King,' and so on. But not with little Willie. Life's too interesting a
+proposition to be turned down like that. I'm not repentant. I know the
+fatted calf's waiting for me, getting fatter every day. One of these
+days I'll go back and sample it."
+
+It was he I first heard talk of the Great White Land, and it stirred me
+strangely.
+
+"Every one's crazy about it. They're rushing now in thousands, to get
+there before the winter begins. Next spring there will be the biggest
+stampede the world has ever seen. Say, Scotty, I've the greatest notion
+to try it. Let's go, you and I. I had a partner once, who'd been up
+there. It's a big, dark, grim land, but there's the gold, shining,
+shining, and it's calling us to go. Somehow it haunts me, that soft,
+gleamy, virgin gold there in the solitary rivers with not a soul to pick
+it up. I don't care one rip for the value of it. I can make all I want
+out of glue. But the adventure, the excitement, it's that that makes me
+fit for the foolish house."
+
+He was silent a long time while my imagination conjured up terrible,
+fascinating pictures of the vast, unawakened land, and a longing came
+over me to dare its shadows.
+
+As we said good-night, his last words were:
+
+"Remember, Scotty, we're both going to join the Big Stampede, you and
+I."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+I slept but fitfully, for the night air was nipping, and the bunkhouse
+nigh as open as a cage. A bonny morning it was, and the sun warmed me
+nicely, so that over breakfast I was in a cheerful humour. Afterwards I
+watched the gang labouring, and showed such an injudicious interest that
+that afternoon I too was put to work.
+
+It was very simple. Running into the mountain there was a tunnel, which
+they were lining with concrete, and it was the task of I and another to
+push cars of the stuff from the outlet to the scene of operations. My
+partner was a Swede who had toiled from boyhood, while I had never done
+a day's work in my life. It was as much as I could do to lift the loaded
+boxes into the car. Then we left the sunshine behind us, and for a
+quarter of a mile of darkness we strained in an uphill effort.
+
+From the roof, which we stooped to avoid, sheets of water descended.
+Every now and then the heavy cars would run off the rails, which were of
+scantling, worn and frayed by friction. Then my Swede would storm in
+Berserker rage, and we would lift till the veins throbbed in my head.
+Never had time seemed so long. A convict working in the salt mines of
+Siberia did not revolt more against his task than I. The sweat blinded
+me; a bright steel pain throbbed in my head; my heart seemed to hammer.
+Never so thankful was I as when we had made our last trip, and sick and
+dizzy I put on my coat to go home.
+
+It was dark. There was a cable line running from the tunnel to the camp,
+and down this we shot in buckets two at a clip. The descent gave me a
+creepy sensation, but it saved a ten minutes' climb down the mountain
+side, and I was grateful.
+
+Tired, wet and dirty, how I envied the Prodigal lying warm and cosy on
+his fragrant hay. He was reading a novel. But the thought that I had
+earned a dollar comforted me. After supper he, with Ginger and Dutchy,
+played solo till near midnight, while I tossed on my bunk too weary and
+sore to sleep.
+
+Next day was a repetition of the first, only worse. I ached as if I had
+been beaten. Stiff and sore I dragged myself to the tunnel again. I
+lifted, strained, tugged and shoved with a set and tragic face. Five
+hours of hell passed. It was noon. I nursed my strength for the after
+effort. Angrily I talked to myself, and once more I pulled through.
+Weary and slimy with wet mud, I shot down the cable line. Snugly settled
+in his bunk, the Prodigal had read another two hundred pages of "Les
+Miserables." Yet--I reflected somewhat sadly--I had made two dollars.
+
+On the third day sheer obstinacy forced me to the tunnel. My
+self-respect goaded me on. I would not give in. I must hold this job
+down, I _must_, I MUST. Then at the noon hour I fainted.
+
+No one saw me, so I gritted my teeth and once more threw my weight
+against the cars. Once more night found me waiting to descend in the
+bucket. Then as I stood there was a crash and shouts from below. The
+cable had snapped. My Swede and another lay among the rocks with sorely
+broken bones. Poor beggars! how they must have suffered jolting down
+that boulder-strewn trail to the hospital.
+
+Somehow that destroyed my nerve. I blamed myself indeed. I flogged
+myself with reproaches, but it was of no avail. I would sooner beg my
+bread than face that tunnel once again. The world seemed to be divided
+into two parts, the rest of it and that tunnel. Thank God, I didn't
+_have_ to go into it again. I was exultantly happy that I didn't. The
+Prodigal had finished his book, and was starting another. That night he
+borrowed some of my money to play solo with.
+
+Next day I saw the foreman. I said:
+
+"I want to go. The work up there's too hard for me."
+
+He looked at me kindly.
+
+"All right, sonny," says he, "don't quit. I'll put you in the gravel
+pit."
+
+So next day I found a more congenial task. There were four of us. We
+threw the gravel against a screen where the finer stuff that sifted
+through was used in making concrete.
+
+The work was heart-breaking in its monotony. In the biting cold of the
+morning we made a start, long before the sun peeped above the wall of
+mountain.
+
+We watched it crawl, snail-like, over the virgin sky. We panted in its
+heat. We saw it drop again behind the mountain wall, leaving the sky
+gorgeously barred with colour from a tawny orange glow to an ice-pale
+green--a regular _pousse cafe_ of a sunset. Then when the cold and the
+dark surged back, by the light of the evening star we straightened our
+weary spines, and throwing aside pick and shovel hurried to supper.
+
+Heigh-ho! what a life it was. Resting, eating, sleeping; negative
+pleasures became positive ones. Life's great principle of compensation
+worked on our behalf, and to lie at ease, reading an old paper, seemed
+an exquisite enjoyment.
+
+I was much troubled about the Prodigal. He complained of muscular
+rheumatism, and except to crawl to meals was unable to leave his bunk.
+Every day came the foreman to inquire anxiously if he was fit to go to
+work, but steadily he grew worse. Yet he bore his suffering with great
+spirit, and, among that nondescript crew, he was a thing of joy and
+brightness, a link with that other world which was mine own. They
+nicknamed him "Happy," his cheerfulness was so invincible. He played
+cards on every chance, and he must have been unlucky, for he borrowed
+the last of my small hoard.
+
+One morning I woke about six, and found, pinned to my blanket, a note
+from my friend.
+
+     "Dear Scotty:
+
+     "I grieve to leave you thus, but the cruel foreman insists on me
+     working off my ten days' board. Racked with pain as I am, there
+     appears to be no alternative but flight. Accordingly I fade away
+     once more into the unknown. Will write you general delivery, Los
+     Angeles. Good luck and good-bye. Yours to a cinder,
+
+                                                             "Happy."
+
+There was a hue and cry after him, but he was gone, and a sudden disgust
+for the place came over me. For two more days I worked, crushed by a
+gloom that momently intensified. Clamant and imperative in me was the
+voice of change. I could not become toil-broken, so I saw the foreman.
+
+"Why do you want to go?" he asked reproachfully.
+
+"Well, sir, the work's too monotonous."
+
+"Monotonous! Well, that's the rummest reason I ever heard a man give for
+quitting. But every man knows his own business best. I'll give you a
+time-cheque."
+
+While he was making it out I wondered if, indeed, I did know my own
+business best; but if it had been the greatest folly in the world, I was
+bound to get out of that canyon.
+
+Treasuring the slip of paper representing my labour, I sought one of the
+bosses, a sour, stiff man of dyspeptic tendencies. With a smile of
+malicious sweetness he returned it to me.
+
+"All right, take it to our Oakland office, and you'll get the cash."
+
+Expectantly I had been standing there, thinking to receive my money, the
+first I had ever earned (and to me so distressfully earned, at that).
+Now I gazed at him very sick at heart: for was not Oakland several
+hundred miles away, and I was penniless.
+
+"Couldn't you cash it here?" I faltered at last.
+
+"No!" (very sourly).
+
+"Couldn't you discount it, then?"
+
+"No!" (still more tartly).
+
+I turned away, crestfallen and smarting. When I told the other boys they
+were indignant, and a good deal alarmed on their own account. I made my
+case against the Company as damning as I could, then, slinging my
+blankets on my back, set off once more down the canyon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+I was gaining in experience, and as I hurried down the canyon and the
+morning burgeoned like a rose, my spirits mounted invincibly. It was the
+joy of the open road and the care-free heart. Like some hideous
+nightmare was the memory of the tunnel and the gravel pit. The bright
+blood in me rejoiced; my muscles tensed with pride in their toughness; I
+gazed insolently at the world.
+
+So, as I made speed to get the sooner to the orange groves, I almost set
+heel on a large blue envelope which lay face up on the trail. I examined
+it and, finding it contained plans and specifications of the work we had
+been at, I put it in my pocket.
+
+Presently came a rider, who reined up by me.
+
+"Say, young man, you haven't seen a blue envelope, have you?"
+
+Something in the man's manner aroused in me instant resentment. I was
+the toiler in mud-stiffened overalls, he arrogant and supercilious in
+broadcloth and linen.
+
+"No," I said sourly, and, going on my way, heard him clattering up the
+canyon.
+
+It was about evening when I came onto a fine large plain. Behind me was
+the canyon, gloomy like the lair of some evil beast, while before me the
+sun was setting, and made the valley like a sea of golden glaze. I
+stood, knight-errant-wise, on the verge of one of those enchanted lands
+of precious memory, seeking the princess of my dreams; but all I saw was
+a man coming up the trail. He was reeling homeward, with under one arm a
+live turkey, and swinging from the other a demijohn of claret.
+
+He would have me drink. He represented the Christmas spirit, and his
+accent was Scotch, so I up-tilted his demijohn gladly enough. Then, for
+he was very merry, he would have it that we sing "Auld Lang Syne." So
+there, on the heath, in the golden dance of the light, we linked our
+hands and lifted our voices like two daft folk. Yet, for that it was
+Christmas Eve, it seemed not to be so mad after all.
+
+There was my first orange grove. I ran to it eagerly, and pulled four of
+the largest fruit I could see. They were green-like of rind and bitter
+sour, but I heeded not, eating the last before I was satisfied. Then I
+went on my way.
+
+As I entered the town my spirits fell. I remembered I was quite without
+money and had not yet learned to be gracefully penniless. However, I
+bethought me of the time-cheque, and entering a saloon asked the
+proprietor if he would cash it. He was a German of jovial face that
+seemed to say: "Welcome, my friend," and cold, beady eyes that queried:
+"How much can I get of your wad?" It was his eyes I noticed.
+
+"No, I don'd touch dot. I haf before been schvindled. Himmel, no! You
+take him avay."
+
+I sank into a chair. Catching a glimpse of my face in a bar mirror, I
+wondered if that hollow-cheeked, weary-looking lad was I. The place was
+crowded with revellers of the Christmastide, and geese were being diced
+for. There were three that pattered over the floor, while in the corner
+the stage-driver and a red-haired man were playing freeze-out for one of
+them.
+
+I drowsed quietly. Wafts of bar-front conversation came to me. "Envelope
+... lost plans ... great delay." Suddenly I sat up, remembering the
+package I had found.
+
+"Were you looking for some lost plans?" I asked.
+
+"Yes," said one man eagerly, "did you find them?"
+
+"I didn't say I did, but if I could get them for you, would you cash
+this time-cheque for me?"
+
+"Sure," he says, "one good turn deserves another. Deliver the goods and
+I'll cash your time-cheque."
+
+His face was frank and jovial. I drew out the envelope and handed it
+over. He hurriedly ran through the contents and saw that all were there.
+
+"Ha! That saves a trip to 'Frisco," he said, gay with relief.
+
+He turned to the bar and ordered a round of drinks. They all had a drink
+on him, while he seemed to forget about me. I waited a little, then
+pressed forward with my time-cheque.
+
+"Oh that," said he, "I won't cash that. I was only joshing."
+
+A feeling of bitter anger welled up within me. I trembled like a leaf.
+
+"You won't go back on your word?" I said.
+
+He became flustered.
+
+"Well, I can't do it anyway. I've got no loose cash."
+
+What I would have said or done I know not, for I was nigh desperate; but
+at this moment the stage-driver, flushed with his victory at freeze-out,
+snatched the paper from my hand.
+
+"Here, I'll discount that for you. I'll only give you five dollars for
+it, though."
+
+It called for fourteen, but by this time I was so discouraged I gladly
+accepted the five-dollar goldpiece he held out to tempt me.
+
+Thus were my fortunes restored. It was near midnight and I asked the
+German for a room. He replied that he was full up, but as I had my
+blankets there was a nice dry shed at the back. Alas! it was also used
+by his chickens. They roosted just over my head, and I lay on the filthy
+floor at the mercy of innumerable fleas. To complete my misery the green
+oranges I had eaten gave me agonizing cramps. Glad, indeed, was I when
+day dawned, and once more I got afoot, with my face turned towards Los
+Angeles.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Los Angeles will always be written in golden letters in the archives of
+my memory. Crawling, sore and sullen, from the clutch of toil, I
+revelled in a lotus life of ease and idleness. There was infinite
+sunshine, and the quiet of a public library through whose open windows
+came the fragrance of magnolias. Living was incredibly cheap. For
+seventy-five cents a week I had a little sunlit attic, and for ten cents
+I could dine abundantly. There was soup, fish, meat, vegetables, salad,
+pudding and a bottle of wine. So reading, dreaming and roaming the
+streets, I spent my days in a state of beatitude.
+
+But even five dollars will not last for ever, and the time came when
+once more the grim face of toil confronted me. I must own that I had now
+little stomach for hard labour, yet I made several efforts to obtain it.
+However, I had a bad manner, being both proud and shy, and one rebuff in
+a day always was enough. I lacked that self-confidence that readily
+finds employment, and again I found myself mixing with the spineless
+residuum of the employment bureau.
+
+At last the morning came when twenty-five cents was all that remained to
+me in the world. I had just been seeking a position as a dish-washer,
+and had been rather sourly rejected. Sitting solitary on the bench in
+that dreary place, I soliloquized:
+
+"And so it has come to this, that I, Athol Meldrum, of gentle birth and
+Highland breeding, must sue in vain to understudy a scullion in a
+third-rate hash joint. I am, indeed, fallen. What mad folly is this that
+sets me lower than a menial? Here I might be snug in the Northwest
+raising my own fat sheep. A letter home would bring me instant help. Yet
+what would it mean? To own defeat; to lose my self-esteem; to call
+myself a failure. No, I won't. Come what may, I will play the game."
+
+At that moment the clerk wrote:--
+
+                  "Man Wanted to Carry Banner."
+
+"How much do you want for that job?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, two bits will hold you," he said carelessly.
+
+"Any experience required?" I asked again.
+
+"No, I guess even you'll do for that," he answered cuttingly.
+
+So I parted with my last quarter and was sent to a Sheeny store in
+Broadway. Here I was given a vociferous banner announcing:
+
+"Great retiring sale," and so forth.
+
+With this hoisted I sallied forth, at first very conscious and not a
+little ashamed. Yet by and by this feeling wore off, and I wandered up
+and down with no sense of my employment, which, after all, was one
+adapted to philosophic thought. I might have gone through the day in
+this blissful coma of indifference had not a casual glance at my banner
+thrilled me with horror. There it was in hideous, naked letters of red:
+
+                         "Retireing Sale."
+
+I reeled under the shock. I did not mind packing a banner, but a
+misspelt one....
+
+I hurried back to the store, resolved to throw up my position. Luckily
+the day was well advanced, and as I had served my purpose I was given a
+silver dollar.
+
+On this dollar I lived for a month. Not every one has done that, yet it
+is easy to do. This is how I managed.
+
+In the first place I told the old lady who rented me my room that I
+could not pay her until I got work, and I gave her my blankets as
+security. There remained only the problem of food. This I solved by
+buying every day or so five cents' worth of stale bread, which I ate in
+my room, washing it down with pure spring water. A little imagination
+and lo! my bread was beef, my water wine. Thus breakfast and dinner. For
+supper there was the Pacific Gospel Hall, where we gathered nightly one
+hundred strong, bawled hymns, listened to sundry good people and
+presently were given mugs of coffee and chunks of bread. How good the
+fragrant coffee tasted and how sweet the fresh bread!
+
+At the end of the third week I got work as an orange-picker. It was a
+matter of swinging long ladders into fruit-flaunting trees, of sunshiny
+days and fluttering leaves, of golden branches plundered, and boxes
+filled from sagging sacks. There is no more ideal occupation. I revelled
+in it. The others were Mexicans; I was "El Gringo." But on an average I
+only made fifty cents a day. On one day, when the fruit was unusually
+large, I made seventy cents.
+
+Possibly I would have gone on, contentedly enough, perched on a ladder,
+high up in the sunlit sway of treetops, had not the work come to an end.
+I had been something of a financier on a picayune scale, and when I
+counted my savings and found that I had four hundred and ninety-five
+cents, such a feeling of affluence came over me that I resolved to
+gratify my taste for travel. Accordingly I purchased a ticket for San
+Diego, and once more found myself southward bound.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+A few days in San Diego reduced my small capital to the vanishing point,
+yet it was with a light heart I turned north again and took the All-Tie
+route for Los Angeles. If one of the alluring conditions of a walking
+tour is not to be overburdened with cash surely I fulfilled it, for I
+was absolutely penniless. The Lord looks after his children, said I, and
+when I became too inexorably hungry I asked for bread, emphasising my
+willingness to do a stunt on the woodpile. Perhaps it was because I was
+young and notably a novice in vagrancy, but people were very good to me.
+
+The railway track skirts the ocean side for many a sonorous league. The
+mile-long waves roll in majestically, as straight as if drawn with a
+ruler, and crash in thunder on the sandy beach. There were glorious
+sunsets and weird storms, with underhanded lightning stabs at the sky. I
+built little huts of discarded railway ties, and lit camp-fires, for I
+was fearful of the crawling things I saw by day. The coyote called from
+the hills. Uneasy rustlings came from the sagebrush. My teeth,
+a-chatter with cold, kept me awake, till I cinched a handkerchief around
+my chin. Yet, drenched with night-dews, half-starved and travel-worn, I
+seemed to grow every day stronger and more fit. Between bondage and
+vagabondage I did not hesitate to choose.
+
+Leaving the sea, I came to a country of grass and she-oaks very pretty
+to see, like an English park. I passed horrible tule swamps, and reached
+a cattle land with corrals and solitary cowboys. There was a quaint old
+Spanish Mission that lingers in my memory, then once again I came into
+the land of the orange-groves and the irrigating ditch. Here I fell in
+with two of the hobo fraternity, and we walked many miles together. One
+night we slept in a refrigerator car, where I felt as if icicles were
+forming on my spine. But walking was not much in their line, so next
+morning they jumped a train and we separated. I was very thankful, as
+they did not look over-clean, and I had a wholesome horror of
+"seam-squirrels."
+
+On arriving in Los Angeles I went to the Post Office. There was a letter
+from the Prodigal dated New York, and inclosing fourteen dollars, the
+amount he owed me. He said:
+
+     "I returned to the paternal roof, weary of my role. The fatted calf
+     awaited me. Nevertheless, I am sick again for the unhallowed
+     swine-husks. Meet me in 'Frisco about the end of February, and I
+     will a glorious proposition unfold. Don't fail. I must have a
+     partner and I want you. Look for a letter in the General Delivery."
+
+There was no time to lose, as February was nearly over. I took a
+steerage passage to San Francisco, resolving that I would mend my
+fortunes. It is so easy to drift. I was already in the social slough, a
+hobo and an outcast. I saw that as long as I remained friendless and
+unknown nothing but degraded toil was open to me. Surely I could climb
+up, but was it worth while? A snug farm in the Northwest awaited me. I
+would work my way back there, and arrive decently clad. Then none would
+know of my humiliation. I had been wayward and foolish, but I had
+learned something.
+
+The men who toiled, endured and suffered were kind and helpful, their
+masters mean and rapacious. Everywhere was the same sordid grasping for
+the dollar. With my ideals and training nothing but discouragement and
+defeat would be my portion. Oh, it is so easy to drift!
+
+I was sick of the whole business.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+What with steamer fare and a few small debts to settle, I found when I
+landed in San Francisco that once more I was flatly broke. I was
+arrestively seedy, literally on my uppers, for owing to my long tramp my
+boots were barely holding together. There was no letter for me, and
+perhaps it was on account of my disappointment, perhaps on account of my
+extreme shabbiness, but I found I had quite lost heart. Looking as I
+did, I would not ask any one for work. So I tightened my belt and sat in
+Portsmouth Square, cursing myself for the many nickels I had squandered
+in riotous living.
+
+Two days later I was still drawing in my belt. All I had eaten was one
+meal, which I had earned by peeling half a sack of potatoes for a
+restaurant. I slept beneath the floor of an empty house out the Presidio
+way.
+
+On this day I was drowsing on my bench when some one addressed me.
+
+"Say, young fellow, you look pretty well used up."
+
+I saw an elderly, grey-haired man.
+
+"Oh no!" I said, "I'm not. That's just my acting. I'm a millionaire in
+disguise, studying sociology."
+
+He came and sat by me.
+
+"Come, buck up, kid, you're pretty near down and out. I've been
+studyin' you them two days."
+
+"Two days," I echoed drearily. "It seems like two years." Then, with
+sudden fierceness:
+
+"Sir, I am a stranger to you. Never in my life before have I tried to
+borrow money. It is asking a great deal of you to trust me, but it will
+be a most Christian act. I am starving. If you have ten cents that isn't
+working lend it to me for the love of God. I'll pay you back if it takes
+me ten years."
+
+"All right, son," he said cheerfully; "let's go and feed."
+
+He took me to a restaurant where he ordered a dinner that made my head
+swim. I felt near to fainting, but after I had had some brandy, I was
+able to go on with the business of eating. By the time I got to the
+coffee I was as much excited by the food as if I had been drinking wine.
+I now took an opportunity to regard my benefactor.
+
+He was rather under medium height, but so square and solid you felt he
+was a man to be reckoned with. His skin was as brown as an Indian's, his
+eyes light-blue and brightly cheerful, as from some inner light. His
+mouth was firm and his chin resolute. Altogether his face was a curious
+blend of benevolence and ruthless determination.
+
+Now he was regarding me in a manner entirely benevolent.
+
+"Feel better, son? Well, go ahead an' tell me as much of your story as
+you want to."
+
+I gave an account of all that had happened to me since I had set foot
+on the new land.
+
+"Huh!" he ejaculated when I had finished. "That's the worst of your
+old-country boys. You haven't got the get-up an' nerve to rustle a job.
+You go to a boss an' tell him: 'You've no experience, but you'll do your
+best.' An American boy says: 'I can do anything. Give me the job an'
+I'll just show you.' Who's goin' to be hired? Well, I think I can get
+you a job helpin' a gardener out Alameda way."
+
+I expressed my gratitude.
+
+"That's all right," he said; "I'm glad by the grace of God I've been the
+means of givin' you a hand-up. Better come to my room an' stop with me
+till somethin' turns up. I'm goin' North in three days."
+
+I asked if he was going to the Yukon.
+
+"Yes, I'm goin' to join this crazy rush to the Klondike. I've been
+minin' for twenty years, Arizona, Colorado, all over, an' now I am
+a-goin' to see if the North hasn't got a stake for me."
+
+Up in his room he told me of his life.
+
+"I'm saved by the grace of God, but I've been a Bad Man. I've been
+everything from a city marshal to boss gambler. I have gone heeled for
+two years, thinking to get my pass to Hell at any moment."
+
+"Ever killed any one?" I queried.
+
+He was beginning to pace up and down the room.
+
+"Glory to God, I haven't, but I've shot.... There was a time when I
+could draw a gun an' drive a nail in the wall. I was quick, but there
+was lots that could give me cards and spades. Quiet men, too, you would
+never think it of 'em. The quiet ones was the worst. Meek, friendly,
+decent men, to see them drinkin' at a bar, but they didn't know Fear,
+an' every one of 'em had a dozen notches on his gun. I know lots of
+them, chummed with them, an' princes they were, the finest in the land,
+would give the shirts off their backs for a friend. You'd like them--but
+Lord be praised, I'm a saved man."
+
+I was deeply interested.
+
+"I know I'm talking as I shouldn't. It's all over now, an' I've seen the
+evil of my ways, but I've got to talk once in a while. I'm Jim Hubbard,
+known as 'Salvation Jim,' an' I know minin' from Genesis to Revelation.
+Once I used to gamble an' drink the limit. One morning I got up from the
+card-table after sitting there thirty-six hours. I'd lost five thousand
+dollars. I knew they'd handed me out 'cold turkey,' but I took my
+medicine.
+
+"Right then I said I'd be a crook too. I learned to play with marked
+cards. I could tell every card in the deck. I ran a stud-poker game,
+with a Jap an' a Chinaman for partners. They were quicker than white
+men, an' less likely to lose their nerve. It was easy money, like taking
+candy from a kid. Often I would play on the square. No man can bluff
+strong without showing it. Maybe it's just a quiver of the eyelash,
+maybe a shuffle of the foot. I've studied a man for a month till I found
+the sign that gave him away. Then I've raised an' raised him till the
+sweat pricked through his brow. He was my meat. I went after the men
+that robbed me, an' I went one better. Here, shuffle this deck."
+
+He produced a pack of cards from a drawer.
+
+"I'll never go back to the old trade. I'm saved. I trust in God, but
+just for diversion I keep my hand in."
+
+Talking to me, he shuffled the pack a few times.
+
+"Here, I'm dealing; what do you want? Three kings?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+He dealt four hands. In mine there were three kings.
+
+Taking up another he showed me three aces.
+
+"I'm out of practice," he said apologetically. "My hands are calloused.
+I used to keep them as soft as velvet."
+
+He showed me some false shuffles, dealing from under the deck, and other
+tricks.
+
+"Yes, I got even with the ones that got my money. It was eat or be
+eaten. I went after the suckers. There was never a man did me dirt but I
+paid him with interest. Of course, it's different now. The Good Book
+says: 'Do good unto them that harm you.' I guess I would, but I wouldn't
+recommend no one to try and harm me. I might forget."
+
+The heavy, aggressive jaw shot forward; the eyes gleamed with a fearless
+ferocity, and for a moment the man took on an air that was almost
+tigerish. I could scarce believe my sight; yet the next instant it was
+the same cheerful, benevolent face, and I thought my eyes must have
+played me some trick.
+
+Perhaps it was that sedate Puritan strain in me that appealed to him,
+but we became great friends. We talked of many things, and most of all I
+loved to get him to tell of his early life. It was just like a story:
+thrown on the world while yet a child; a shoeblack in New York, fighting
+for his stand; a lumber-jack in the woods of Michigan; lastly a miner in
+Arizona. He told me of long months on the desert with only his pipe for
+company, talking to himself over the fire at night, and trying not to go
+crazy. He told me of the girl he married and worshipped, and of the man
+who broke up his home. Once more I saw that flitting tiger-look appear
+on his face and vanish immediately. He told me of his wild days.
+
+"I was always a fighter, an' I never knew what fear meant. I never saw
+the man that could beat me in a rough-an'-tumble scrap. I was uncommon
+husky an' as quick as a cat, but it was my fierceness that won out for
+me. Get a man down an' give him the leather. I've kicked a man's face to
+a jelly. It was kick, bite an' gouge in them days--anything went.
+
+"Yes, I never knew fear. I've gone up unarmed to a man I knew was heeled
+to shoot me on sight, an' I've dared him to do it. Just by the power of
+the eye I've made him take water. He thought I had a gun an' could draw
+quicker'n him. Then, as the drink got hold of me, I got worse and worse.
+Time was when I would have robbed a bank an' shot the man that tried to
+stop me. Glory to God! I've seen the evil of my ways."
+
+"Are you sure you'll never backslide?" I asked.
+
+"Never! I'm born again. I don't smoke, drink or gamble, an' I'm as happy
+as the day's long. There was the drink. I would go on the water-wagon
+for three months at a stretch, but day and night, wherever I went, the
+glass of whisky was there right between my eyes. Sooner or later it got
+the better of me. Then one night I went half-sober into a Gospel Hall.
+The glass was there, an' I was in agony tryin' to resist it. The speaker
+was callin' sinners to come forward. I thought I'd try the thing anyway,
+so I went to the penitents' bench. When I got up the glass was gone. Of
+course it came back, but I got rid of it again in the same way. Well, I
+had many a struggle an' many a defeat, but in the end I won. It's a
+divine miracle."
+
+I wish I could paint or act the man for you. Words cannot express his
+curious character. I came to have a great fondness for him, and
+certainly owed him a huge debt of gratitude.
+
+One day I was paying my usual visit to the Post Office, when some one
+gripped me by the arm.
+
+"Hullo, Scotty! By all that's wonderful. I was just going to mail you a
+letter."
+
+It was the Prodigal, very well dressed and spruce-looking.
+
+"Say, I'm so tickled I got you; we're going to start in two days."
+
+"Start! Where?" I asked.
+
+"Why, for the Golden North, for the land of the Midnight Sun, for the
+treasure-troves of the Klondike Valley."
+
+"You maybe," I said soberly; "but I can't."
+
+"Yes you can, and you are, old sport. I fixed all that. Come on, I want
+to talk to you. I went home and did the returned prodigal stunt. The old
+man was mighty decent when I told him it was no good, I couldn't go into
+the glue factory yet awhile. Told him I had the gold-bug awful bad and
+nothing but a trip up there would cure me. He was rather tickled with
+the idea. Staked me handsomely, and gave me a year to make good. So here
+I am, and you're in with me. I'm going to grubstake you. Mind, it's a
+business proposition. I've got to have some one, and when you make the
+big strike you've got to divvy up."
+
+I said something about having secured employment as an under-gardener.
+
+"Pshaw! you'll soon be digging gold-nuggets instead of potatoes. Why,
+man, it's the chance of a lifetime, and anybody else would jump at it.
+Of course, if you're afraid of the hardships and so on----"
+
+"No," I said quickly, "I'll go."
+
+"Ha!" he laughed, "you're too much of a coward to be afraid. Well, we're
+going to be blighted Argonauts, but we've got to get busy over our
+outfits. We haven't got any too much time."
+
+So we hustled around. It seemed as if half of San Francisco was
+Klondike-crazy. On every hand was there speculation and excitement. All
+the merchants had their outfitting departments, and wild and vague were
+their notions as to what was required. We did not do so badly, though
+like every one else we bought much that was worthless and foolish.
+Suddenly I bethought me of Salvation Jim, and I told the Prodigal of my
+new friend.
+
+"He's an awfully good sort," I said; "white all through; all kinds of
+experience, and he's going alone."
+
+"Why," said the Prodigal, "that's just the man we want. We'll ask him to
+join us."
+
+I brought the two together, and it was arranged. So it came about that
+we three left San Francisco on the fourth day of March to seek our
+fortunes in the Frozen North.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+THE TRAIL
+
+
+Gold! We leaped from our benches. Gold! We sprang from our stools.
+Gold! We wheeled in the furrow, fired with the faith of fools.
+Fearless, unfound, unfitted, far from the night and the cold,
+Heard we the clarion summons, followed the master-lure--Gold!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+"Say! you're looking mighty blue. Cheer up, darn you! What's the
+matter?" said the Prodigal affectionately.
+
+And indeed there was matter enough, for had I not just received letters
+from home, one from Garry and one from Mother? Garry's was gravely
+censorious, almost remonstrant. Mother, he said, was poorly, and greatly
+put out over my escapade. He pointed out that I was in a fair way of
+being a rolling stone, and hoped that I would at once give up my mad
+notion of the South Seas and soberly proceed to the Northwest.
+
+Mother's letter was reproachful, in parts almost distressful. She was
+failing, she said, and she begged me to be a good son, give up my
+wanderings and join my cousin at once. Also she enclosed post-office
+orders for forty pounds. Her letter, written in a fine faltering hand
+and so full of gentle affection, brought the tears to my eyes; so that
+it was very bleakly I leaned against the ship's rail and watched the
+bustle of departure. Poor Mother! Dear old Garry! With what tender
+longing I thought of those two in far-away Glengyle, the Scotch mist
+silvering the heather and the wind blowing caller from the sea. Oh, for
+the clean, keen breath of it! Yet alas, every day was the memory
+fading, and every day was I fitting more snugly into the new life.
+
+"I've just heard from the folks," I said, "and I feel like going back on
+you."
+
+"Oh, beat it," he cried; "you can't renig now. You've got to see the
+thing through. Mothers are all like that when you cut loose from their
+apron-strings. Ma's scared stiff about me, thinks the devil's got an
+option on my future sure. They get wised up pretty soon. What you want
+to do is to get busy and make yourself acquainted. Here I've been
+snooping round for the last two hours, and got a line on nearly every
+one on board. Say! Of all the locoed outfits this here aggregation has
+got everything else skinned to a hard-boiled finish. Most of them are
+indoor men, ink-slingers and calico snippers; haven't done a day's hard
+work in their lives, and don't know a pick from a mattock. They've got a
+notion they've just got to get up there and pick big nuggets out of the
+water like cherries out of a cocktail. It's the limit."
+
+"Tell me about them," I said.
+
+"Well, see that young fellow standing near us?"
+
+I looked. He was slim, with gentle, refined features and an unnaturally
+fresh complexion.
+
+"That fellow was a pen-pusher in a mazuma emporium--I mean a bank clerk.
+Pinklove's his name. He wanted to get hitched to some girl, but the
+directors wouldn't stand for it. Now he's chucked his job and staked his
+savings on this trip. There's his girl in the crowd."
+
+Bedded in that mosaic of human faces I saw one that was all sweetness,
+yet shamelessly tear-stained.
+
+"Lucky beggar," I said, "to have some one who cares so much about his
+going."
+
+"Unlucky, you mean, lad. You don't want to have any strings on you when
+you play this game."
+
+He pointed to a long-haired young man in a flowing-end tie.
+
+"See that pale-faced, artistic-looking guy alongside him. That's his
+partner. Ineffectual, moony sort of a mut. He's a wood-carver; they call
+him Globstock; told me his knowledge of wood-carving would come in handy
+when we came to make boats at Lake Bennett. Then there's a third. See
+that little fellow shooting off his face?"
+
+I saw a weazened, narrow-chested mannikin, with an aggressive certainty
+of feature.
+
+"He's a professor, plumb-full of book dope on the Yukon. He's Mister
+Wise Mike. He knows it all. Hear his monologue on 'How It Should Be
+Done.' He's going to live on deck to inure himself to the rigours of the
+Arctic climate. Works with a pair of spring dumb-bells to get up his
+muscle so's he can shovel out the nuggets."
+
+Our eyes roved round from group to group, picking out characteristic
+figures.
+
+"See that big bleached-blond Englishman? Came over with me on the
+Pullman from New York. 'Awfully bored, don't you know.' When we got to
+'Frisco, he says to me: 'Thank God, old chappie, the worst part of the
+journey's over.' Then there's Romulus and Remus, the twins, strapping
+young fellows. Only way I know them apart is one laces his boots tight,
+the other slack. They think the world of each other."
+
+He swung around to where Salvation Jim was talking to two men.
+
+"There's a pair of winners. I put my money on them. Nothing on earth can
+stop those fellows, native-born Americans, all grit and get-up. See that
+tall one smoking a cigar and looking at the women? He's an athlete.
+Name's Mervin; all whipcord and whalebone; springy as a bent bow. He's a
+type of the Swift. He's bound to get there. See the other. Hewson's his
+name; solid as a tower; muscled like a bear; built from the ground up.
+He represents the Strong. Look at the grim, determined face of him. You
+can't down a man like that."
+
+He indicated another group.
+
+"Now there's three birds of prey. Bullhammer, Marks and Mosher. The big,
+pig-eyed heavy-jowled one is Bullhammer. He's in the saloon business.
+The middle-sized one in the plug hat is Marks. See his oily, yellow face
+dotted with pimples. He's a phoney piece of work; calls himself a mining
+broker. The third's Jake Mosher. He's an out-and-out gambler, a
+sure-thing man, once was a parson."
+
+I looked again. Mosher had just taken off his hat. His high-domed head
+was of monumental baldness, his eyes close-set and crafty, his nose
+negligible. The rest of his face was mostly beard. It grew black as the
+Pit to near the bulge of his stomach, and seemed to have drained his
+scalp in its rank luxuriance. Across the deck came the rich, oily tones
+of his voice.
+
+"A bad-looking bunch," I said.
+
+"Yes, there's heaps like them on board. There's a crowd of dance-hall
+girls going up, and the usual following of parasites. Look at that
+Halfbreed. There's a man for the country now, part Scotch, part Indian;
+the quietest man on the boat; light, but tough as wire nails."
+
+I saw a lean, bright-eyed brown man with flat features, smoking a
+cigarette.
+
+"Say! Just get next to those two Jews, Mike and Rebecca Winklestein.
+They're going to open up a sporty restaurant."
+
+The man was a small bandy-legged creature, with eyes that squinted, a
+complexion like ham fat and waxed moustaches. But it was the woman who
+seized my attention. Never did I see such a strapping Amazon, six foot
+if an inch, and massive in proportion. She was handsome too, in a
+swarthy way, though near at hand her face was sensuous and bold. Yet she
+had a suave, flattering manner and a coarse wit that captured the crowd.
+Dangerous, unscrupulous and cruel, I thought; a man-woman, a shrew, a
+termagant!
+
+But I was growing weary of the crowd and longed to go below. I was no
+longer interested, yet the voice of the Prodigal droned in my ear.
+
+"There's an old man and his granddaughter, relatives of the
+Winklesteins, I believe. I think the old fellow's got a screw loose.
+Handsome old boy, though; looks like a Hebrew prophet out of a job.
+Comes from Poland. Speaks Yiddish or some such jargon; Only English he
+knows is 'Klondike, Klondike.' The girl looks heartbroken, poor little
+beggar."
+
+"Poor little beggar!" I heard the words indeed, but my mind was far
+away. To the devil with Polish Jews and their granddaughters. I wished
+the Prodigal would leave me to my own thoughts, thoughts of my Highland
+home and my dear ones. But no! he persisted:
+
+"You're not listening to what I'm saying. Look, why don't you!"
+
+So, to please him, I turned full round and looked. An old man,
+patriarchal in aspect, crouched on the deck. Erect by his side, with her
+hand on his shoulder, stood a slim figure in black, the figure of a
+girl. Indifferently my eyes travelled from her feet to her face. There
+they rested. I drew a deep breath. I forgot everything else. Then for
+the first time I saw--Berna.
+
+I will not try to depict the girl. Pen descriptions are so futile. I
+will only say that her face was very pale, and that she had large
+pathetic grey eyes. For the rest, her cheeks were woefully pinched and
+her lips drooped wistfully. 'Twas the face, I thought, of a virgin
+martyr with a fear-haunted look hard to forget. All this I saw, but most
+of all I saw those great, grey eyes gazing unseeingly over the crowd,
+ever so sadly fixed on that far-away East of her dreams and memories.
+
+"Poor little beggar!"
+
+Then I cursed myself for a sentimental impressionist and I went below.
+Stateroom forty-seven was mine. We three had been separated in the
+shuffle, and I knew not who was to be my room-mate. Feeling very
+downhearted, I stretched myself on the upper berth, and yielded to a
+mood of penitential sadness. I heard the last gang-plank thrown off, the
+great crowd cheer, the measured throb of the engines, yet still I
+sounded the depths of reverie. There was a bustle outside and growing
+darkness. Then, as I lay, there came voices to my door, guttural tones
+blended with liquid ones; lastly a timid knock. Quickly I answered it.
+
+"Is this room number forty-seven?" a soft voice asked.
+
+Even ere she spoke I divined it was the Jewish girl of the grey eyes,
+and now I saw her hair was like a fair cloud, and her face fragile as a
+flower.
+
+"Yes," I answered her.
+
+She led forward the old man.
+
+"This is my grandfather. The Steward told us this was his room."
+
+"Oh, all right; he'd better take the lower berth."
+
+"Thank you, indeed; he's an old man and not very strong."
+
+Her voice was clear and sweet, and there was an infinite tenderness in
+the tone.
+
+"You must come in," I said. "I'll leave you with him for a while so
+that you can make him comfortable."
+
+"Thank you again," she responded gratefully.
+
+So I withdrew, and when I returned she was gone; but the old man slept
+peacefully.
+
+It was late before I turned in. I went on deck for a time. We were
+cleaving through blue-black night, and on our right I could dimly
+discern the coast festooned by twinkling lights. Every one had gone
+below, I thought, and the loneliness pleased me. I was very quiet,
+thinking how good it all was, the balmy wind, the velvet vault of the
+night frescoed with wistful stars, the freedom-song of the sea; how
+restful, how sane, how loving!
+
+Suddenly I heard a sound of sobbing, the merciless sobbing of a woman's
+breast. Distinct above the hollow breathing of the sea it assailed me,
+poignant and insistent. Wonderingly I looked around. Then, in a shadow
+of the upper deck, I made out a slight girl-figure, crouching all alone.
+It was Grey Eyes, crying fit to break her heart.
+
+"Poor little beggar!" I muttered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+"Gr-r-r--you little brat! If you open your face to him I'll kill you,
+kill you, see!"
+
+The voice was Madam Winklestein's, and the words, hissed in a whisper of
+incredible malignity, arrested me as if I had been struck by a live
+wire. I listened. Behind the stateroom door there followed a silence,
+grimly intense; then a dull pounding; then the same savage undertone.
+
+"See here, Berna, we're next to you two--we're onto your curves. We know
+the old man's got the stuff in his gold-belt, two thousand in bills.
+Now, my dear, my sweet little angel what thinks she's too good to mix
+with the likes o' us, we need the mon, see!" (Knock, knock.) "And we're
+goin' to have it, see!" (Knock, knock.) "That's where you come in,
+honey, you're goin' to get it for us. Ain't you now, darlin'!" (Knock,
+knock, knock.)
+
+Faintly, very faintly, I heard a voice:
+
+"No."
+
+If it be possible to scream in a whisper, the woman did it.
+
+"You will! you will! Oh! oh! oh! There's the cursed mule spirit of your
+mother in you. She'd never tell us the name of the man that was the ruin
+of 'er, blast 'er."
+
+"Don't speak of my mother, you vile woman!"
+
+The voice of the virago contracted to an intensity of venom I have
+never heard the equal of.
+
+"Vile woman! Vile woman! You, you to call _me_ a vile woman, me that's
+been three times jined in holy wedlock.... Oh, you bastard brat! You
+whelp of sin! You misbegotten scum! Oh, I'll fix you for that, if I've
+got to swing for it."
+
+Her scalding words were capped with an oath too foul to repeat, and once
+more came the horrible pounding, like a head striking the woodwork.
+Unable to bear it any longer, I rapped sharply on the door.
+
+Silence, a long, panting silence; then the sound of a falling body; then
+the door opened a little and the twitching face of Madam appeared.
+
+"Is there somebody sick?" I asked. "I'm sorry to trouble you, but I was
+thinking I heard groans and--I might be able to do something."
+
+Piercingly she looked at me. Her eyes narrowed to slits and stabbed me
+with their spite. Her dark face grew turgid with impotent anger. As I
+stood there she was like to have killed me. Then like a flash her
+expression changed. With a dirty bejewelled hand she smoothed her
+tousled hair. Her coarse white teeth gleamed in a gold-capped smile.
+There was honey in her tone.
+
+"Why, no! my niece in here's got a toothache, but I guess we can fix it
+between us. We don't need no help, thanks, young feller."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," I said. "If you should, you know, I'll be
+nearby."
+
+Then I moved away, conscious that her eyes followed me malevolently.
+
+The business worried me sorely. The poor girl was being woefully abused,
+that was plain. I felt indignant, angry and, last of all, anxious.
+Mingled with my feelings was a sense of irritation that I should have
+been elected to overhear the affair. I had no desire just then to
+champion distressed damsels, least of all to get mixed up in the family
+brawls of unknown Jewesses. Confound her, anyway! I almost hated her.
+Yet I felt constrained to watch and wait, and even at the cost of my own
+ease and comfort to prevent further violence.
+
+For that matter there were all kinds of strange doings on board,
+drinking, gambling, nightly orgies and hourly brawls. It seemed as if we
+had shipped all the human dregs of the San Francisco deadline. Never, I
+believe, in those times when almost daily the Argonaut-laden boats were
+sailing for the Golden North, was there one in which the sporting
+element was so dominant. The social hall reeked with patchouli and stale
+whiskey. From the staterooms came shrill outbursts of popular melody,
+punctuated with the popping of champagne corks. Dance-hall girls,
+babbling incoherently, reeled in the passageways, danced on the cabin
+table, and were only held back from licentiousness by the restraint of
+their bullies. The day was one long round of revelry, and the night was
+pregnant with sinister sound.
+
+Already among the better element a moral secession was apparent.
+Convention they had left behind with their boiled shirts and their
+store clothes, and crazed with the idea of speedy fortune, they were
+even now straining at the leash of decency. It was a howling mob,
+elately riotous, and already infected by the virus of the goldophobia.
+
+Oh, it was good to get on deck of a night, away from this saturnalia, to
+watch the beacon stars strewn vastly in the skyey uplift, to listen to
+the ancient threnody of the outcast sea. Blue and silver the nights
+were, and crystal clear, with a keen wind that painted the cheek and
+kindled the eye. And as I sat in silent thought there came to me
+Salvation Jim. His face was grim, his eyes brooding. From the
+brilliantly lit social hall came a blare of music-hall melody.
+
+"I don't like the way of things a bit," he said; "I don't like it. Look
+here now, lad, I've lived round mining camps for twenty years, I've
+followed the roughest callings on earth, I've tramped the States all
+over, yet never have I seen the beat of this. Mind you, I ain't
+prejudiced, though I've seen the error of my ways, glory to God! I can
+make allowance once in a while for the boys gettin' on a jamboree, but
+by Christmas! Say! There's enough evil on this boat to stake a
+sub-section in Hell. There's men should be at home with their dinky
+little mothers an' their lovin' wives an' children, down there right now
+in that cabin buyin' wine for them painted Jezebels.
+
+"There's doctors an' lawyers an' deacons in the church back in old Ohio,
+that never made a bad break in their lives, an' now they're rowin' like
+barroom bullies for the kisses of a baggage. In the bay-window of their
+souls the devil lolls an' grins an' God is freezin' in the attic. You
+mark my words, boy; there's a curse on this northern gold. The Yukon's
+a-goin' to take its toll. You mark my words."
+
+"Oh, Jim," I said, "you're superstitious."
+
+"No, I ain't. I've just got a hunch. Here we are a bit of floatin'
+iniquity glidin' through the mystery of them strange seas, an' the very
+officers on dooty sashed to the neck an' reekin' from the arms of the
+scented hussies below. It'll be God's mercy if we don't crash on a rock,
+an' go down good an' all to the bitter bottom. But it don't matter.
+Sooner or later there's goin' to be a reckonin'. There's many a one
+shoutin' an' singin' to-night'll leave his bones to bleach up in that
+bleak wild land."
+
+"No, Jim," I protested, "they will be all right once they get ashore."
+
+"Right nothin'! They're a pack of fools. They think they've got a bulge
+on fortune. Hear them a-howlin' now. They're all millionaires in their
+minds. There's no doubt with them. It's a cinch. They're spendin' it
+right now. You mark my words, young feller, for I'll never live to see
+them fulfilled--there's ninety in a hundred of all them fellers that's
+goin' to this here Klondike will never make good, an' of the other ten,
+nine won't _do_ no good."
+
+"One per cent. that will keep their stakes--that's absurd, Jim."
+
+"Well, you'll see. An' as for me, I feel as sure as God's above us
+guidin' us through the mazes of the night, I'll never live to make the
+trip back. I've got a hunch. Old Jim's on his last stampede."
+
+He sighed, then said sharply:
+
+"Did you see that feller that passed us?"
+
+It was Mosher, the gambler and ex-preacher.
+
+"That man's a skunk, a renegade sky-pilot. I'm keepin' tabs on that man.
+Maybe him an' me's got a score to settle one of them days. Maybe."
+
+He went off abruptly, leaving me to ponder long over his gloomy words.
+
+We were now three days out. The weather was fine, and nearly every one
+was on deck in the sunshine. Even Bullhammer, Marks and Mosher had
+deserted the card-room for a time. The Bank clerk and the Wood-carver
+talked earnestly, planned and dreamed. The Professor was busy expounding
+a theory of the gold origin to a party of young men from Minnesota.
+Silent and watchful the athletic Mervin smoked his big cigar, while,
+patient and imperturbable, the iron Hewson chewed stolidly. The twins
+were playing checkers. The Winklesteins were making themselves solid
+with the music-hall clique. In and out among the different groups darted
+the Prodigal, as volatile as a society reporter at a church bazaar. And
+besides these, always alone, austerely aloof as if framed in a picture
+by themselves, a picture of dignity and sweetness, were the Jewish maid
+and her aged grandfather.
+
+Although he was my room-mate I had seen but little of him. He was abed
+before I retired and I was up and out ere he awoke. For the rest I
+avoided the two because of their obvious connection with the
+Winklesteins. Surely, thought I, she cannot be mixed up with those two
+and be everything that's all right. Yet there was something in the
+girl's clear eyes, and in the old man's fine face, that reproached me
+for my doubt.
+
+It was while I was thus debating, and covertly studying the pair, that
+something occurred.
+
+Bullhammer and Marks were standing by me, and across the deck came the
+acridly nasal tones of the dance-hall girls. I saw the libertine eyes of
+Bullhammer rove incontinently from one unlovely demirep to another, till
+at last they rested on the slender girl standing by the side of her
+white-haired grandfather. Appreciatively he licked his lips.
+
+"Say, Monkey, who's the kid with old Whiskers there?"
+
+"Search me, Pete," said Marks; "want a knockdown?"
+
+"Betcher! Seems kind-a standoffish, though, don't she?"
+
+"Standoffish be darned! Never yet saw the little bit of all right that
+could stand off Sam Marks. I'm a winner, I am, an' don' you forget it.
+Just watch my splash."
+
+I must say the man was expensively dressed in a flashy way. His oily,
+pimple-garnished face wreathed itself in a smirk of patronising
+familiarity, and with the bow of a dancing master he advanced. I saw her
+give a quick start, bite her lip and shrink back. "Good for you, little
+girl," I thought. But the man was in no way put out.
+
+"Say, Sis, it's all right. Just want to interdooce you to a gentleman
+fren' o' mine."
+
+The girl gazed at him, and her dilated eyes were eloquent of fear and
+distrust. It minded me of the panic of a fawn run down by the hunter, so
+that I found myself trembling in sympathy. A startled moment she gazed;
+then swiftly she turned her back.
+
+This was too much for Marks. He flushed angrily.
+
+"Say! what's the matter with you? Come off the perch there. Ain't we
+good enough to associate with you? Who the devil are you, anyhow?"
+
+His face was growing red and aggressive. He closed in on her. He laid a
+rough hand on her shoulder. Thinking the thing had gone far enough I
+stepped forward to interfere, when the unexpected happened.
+
+Suddenly the old man had risen to his feet, and it was a surprise to me
+how tall he was. Into his face there had come the ghost of ancient power
+and command. His eyes blazed with wrath, and his clenched fist was
+raised high in anathema. Then it came swiftly down on the head of Marks,
+crushing his stiff hat tightly over his eyes.
+
+The climax was ludicrous in a way. There was a roar of laughter, and
+hearing it Marks spluttered as he freed himself. With a curse of rage he
+would have rushed the old man, but a great hand seized him by the
+shoulder. It was the grim, taciturn Hewson, and judging by the way his
+captive squirmed, his grip must have been peculiarly vise-like. The old
+man was pale as death, the girl crying, the passengers crowding round.
+Every one was gabbling and curious, so feeling I could do no good, I
+went below.
+
+What was there about this slip of a girl that interested me so? Ever and
+anon I found myself thinking of her. Was it the conversation I had
+overheard? Was it the mystery that seemed to surround her? Was it the
+irrepressible instinct of my heart for the romance of life? With the old
+man, despite our stateroom propinquity, I had made no advances. With the
+girl I had passed no further words.
+
+But the Gods of destiny act in whimsical ways. Doubtless the voyage
+would have finished without the betterment of our acquaintance;
+doubtless our paths would have parted, nevermore to cross; doubtless our
+lives would have been lived out to their fulness and this story never
+have been told--had it not been for the luckless fatality of the Box of
+Grapes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Puget Sound was behind us and we had entered on that great sea that
+stretched northward to the Arctic barrens. Misty and wet was the wind,
+and cold with the kiss of many icebergs. Under a grey sky, glooming to
+purple, the gelid water writhed nakedly. Spectral islands elbowed each
+other, to peer at us as we flitted past. Still more wraithlike the
+mainland, fringed to the sea foam with saturnine pine, faded away into
+fastnesses of impregnable desolation. There was a sense of deathlike
+passivity in the land, of overwhelming vastitude, of unconquerable
+loneliness. It was as if I had felt for the first time the Spirit of the
+Wild; the Wild where God broods amid His silence; the Wild, His infinite
+solace and His sanctuary.
+
+As we forged through the vague sea lanes, we were like a glittering
+trinket on the bosom of the night. Our mad merriment scarce ever abated.
+We were a blare of revelry and a blaze of light. Excitement mounted to
+fever heat. In the midst of it the women with the enamelled cheeks
+reaped a bountiful harvest. I marvel now that, with all the besotted
+recklessness of those that were our pilots, we met with no serious
+mishap.
+
+"Don't mind you much of a Sunday-school picnic, does it?" commented the
+Prodigal. "It's fierce the way the girls are prying some of these crazy
+jays loose from their wads. They're all plumb batty. I'm tired trying to
+wise them up. 'Go and chase yourself,' they say; 'we're all right. Don't
+matter if we do loosen up a bit now, there's all kinds of easy money
+waiting for us up there.' Then they talk of what they're going to do
+when they've got the dough. One gazebo wants to buy a castle in the old
+country; another wants a racing stable; another a steam yacht. Oh,
+they're a hot bunch of sports. They're all planning to have a purple
+time in the sweet by-and-bye. I don't hear any of them speak of endowing
+a home for decrepit wash-ladies or pensioning off their aged
+grandmothers. They make me sick. There's a cold juicy awakening coming."
+
+He was right. In their visionary leaps to affluence they soared to giddy
+heights. They strutted and bragged as if the millions were already
+theirs. To hear them, you would think they had an exclusive option on
+the treasure-troves of the Klondike. Yet, before and behind us, were
+dozens of similar vessels, bearing just as eager a mob of
+fortune-hunters, all drawn irresistibly northward by the Golden Magnet.
+
+Nevertheless, it was hard not to be affected by the prevailing spirit of
+optimism. For myself the gold had but little attraction, but the
+adventure was very dear to my heart. Once more the clarion call of
+Romance rang in my ears, and I leapt to its summons. And indeed, I
+reflected, it was a wonderful kaleidoscope of a world, wherein I, but a
+half-year back cooling my heels in a highland burn, should be now part
+and parcel of this great Argonaut army. Already my native uncouthness
+was a thing of the past, and the quaint mannerisms of my Scots tongue
+were yielding to the racy slang of the frontier. More to the purpose,
+too, I was growing in strength and wiry endurance. As I looked around me
+I realised that there were many less fitted for the trail than I, and
+there was none with such a store of glowing health. You may picture me
+at this time, a tallish young man, with a fine colour in my cheeks,
+black hair that curled crisply, and dark eyes that were either alight
+with eagerness or agloom with dreams.
+
+I have said that we were all more or less in a ferment of excitement,
+but to this I must make a reservation. One there was who, amid all our
+unrest, remained cold, distant and alien--the Jewish girl, Berna. Even
+in the old man the gold fever betrayed itself in a visionary eye and a
+tremor of the lips; but the girl was a statue of patient resignation, a
+living reproof to our febrile and purblind imaginings.
+
+The more I studied her, the more out of place she seemed in my picture,
+and, almost unconsciously, I found myself weaving about her a fabric of
+romance. I endowed her with a mystery that piqued and fascinated me, yet
+without it I have no doubt I would have been attracted to her. I longed
+to know her uncommon well, to win her regard, to do something for her
+that should make her eyes rest very kindly on me. In short, as is the
+way of young men, I was beginning to grope blindly for that affection
+and sympathy which are the forerunners of passion and love.
+
+The land was wintry and the wind shrilled so that the attendant gulls
+flapped their wings hard in the face of it. The wolf-pack of the sea
+were snarling whitely as they ran. The decks were deserted, and so many
+of the brawlers were sick and lay like dead folk that it almost seemed
+as if a Sabbath quiet lay on the ship. That day I had missed the old
+man, and on going below, found him lying as one sore stricken. A
+withered hand lay on his brow, and from his lips, which were almost
+purple, thin moans issued.
+
+"Poor old beggar," I thought; "I wonder if I cannot do anything for
+him." And while I was thus debating, a timid knock came to the door. I
+opened it, and there was the girl, Berna.
+
+There was a nervous anxiety in her manner, and a mute interrogation in
+her grey eyes.
+
+"I'm afraid he's a little sick to-day," I said gently; "but come in,
+won't you, and see him?"
+
+"Thank you." Pity, tenderness and love seemed to struggle in her face as
+she softly brushed past me. With some words of endearment, she fell on
+her knees beside him, and her small white hand sought his thin gnarled
+one. As if galvanised into life, the old man turned gratefully to her.
+
+"Maybe he would care for some coffee," I said. "I think I could rustle
+him some."
+
+She gave me a queer, sad look of thanks.
+
+"If you could," she answered.
+
+When I returned she had the old man propped up with pillows. She took
+the coffee from me, and held the cup to his lips; but after a few sips
+he turned away wearily.
+
+"I'm afraid he doesn't care for that," I said.
+
+"No, I'm afraid he won't take it."
+
+She was like an anxious nurse hovering over a patient. She thought a
+while.
+
+"Oh, if I only had some fruit!"
+
+Then it was I bethought me of the box of grapes. I had bought them just
+before leaving, thinking they would be a grateful surprise to my
+companions. Obviously I had been inspired, and now I produced them in
+triumph, big, plump, glossy fellows, buried in the fragrant cedar dust.
+I shook clear a large bunch, and once more we tried the old man. It
+seemed as if we had hit on the one thing needful, for he ate eagerly.
+She watched him for a while with a growing sense of relief, and when he
+had finished and was resting quietly, she turned to me.
+
+"I don't know how I can thank you, sir, for your kindness."
+
+"Very easily," I said quickly; "if you will yourself accept some of the
+fruit, I shall be more than repaid."
+
+She gave me a dubious look; then such a bright, merry light flashed into
+her eyes that she was radiant in my sight. It was as if half a dozen
+years had fallen from her, revealing a heart capable of infinite joy and
+happiness.
+
+"If you will share them with me," she said simply.
+
+So, for the lack of chairs, we squatted on the narrow stateroom floor,
+under the old man's kindly eye. The fruit minded us of sunlit vines, and
+the careless rapture of the South. To me the situation was one of rare
+charm. She ate daintily, and as we talked, I studied her face as if I
+would etch it on my memory forever.
+
+In particular I noticed the wistful contour of her cheek, her sensitive
+mouth, and the fine modelling of her chin. She had clear, candid eyes
+and sweeping lashes, too. Her ears were shell-like, and her hair soft,
+wavy and warm. These things I marked minutely, thinking she was more
+than beautiful--she was even pretty. I was in a state of extraordinary
+elation, like a man that has found a jewel in the mire.
+
+It must be remembered, lest I appear to be taking a too eager interest
+in the girl, that up till now the world of woman had been _terra
+incognita_ to me; that I had lived a singularly cloistered life, and
+that first and last I was an idealist. This girl had distinction,
+mystery and charm, and it is not to be wondered at that I found a joy in
+her presence. I proved myself a perfect artesian well of conversation,
+talking freely of the ship, of our fellow-passengers and of the chances
+of the venture. I found her wonderfully quick in the uptake. Her mind
+seemed nimbly to outrun mine, and she divined my words ere I had them
+uttered. Yet she never spoke of herself, and when I left them together I
+was full of uneasy questioning.
+
+Next day the old man was still abed, and again the girl came to visit
+him. This time I noticed that much of her timid manner was gone, and in
+its stead was a shy friendliness. Once more the box of grapes proved a
+mediator between us, and once more I found in her a reticent but
+sympathetic audience--so much so that I was frank in telling her of
+myself, my home and my kinsfolk. I thought that maybe my talk would
+weary her, but she listened with a bright-eyed regard, nodding her head
+eagerly at times. Yet she spoke no word of her own affairs, so that when
+again I left them together I was as much in the dark as ever.
+
+It was on the third day I found the old man up and dressed, and Berna
+with him. She looked brighter and happier than I had yet seen her, and
+she greeted me with a smiling face. Then, after a little, she said:
+
+"My grandfather plays the violin. Would you mind if he played over some
+of our old-country songs? It would comfort him."
+
+"No, go ahead," I said; "I wish he would."
+
+So she got an ancient violin, and the old man cuddled it lovingly and
+played soft, weird melodies, songs of the Czech race, that made me think
+of Romance, of love and hate, and passion and despair. Piece after
+piece he played, as if pouring out the sadness and heart-hunger of a
+burdened people, until my own heart ached in sympathy.
+
+The wild music throbbed with passionate sweetness and despair.
+Unobserved, the pale twilight stole into the little cabin. The ruggedly
+fine face of the old man was like one inspired, and with clasped hands,
+the girl sat, very white-faced and motionless. Then I saw a gleam on her
+cheek, the soft falling of tears. Somehow, at that moment, I felt drawn
+very near to those two, the music, the tears, the fervent sadness of
+their faces. I felt as if I had been allowed to share with them a few
+moments consecrated to their sorrow, and that they knew I understood.
+
+That day as I was leaving, I said to her:
+
+"Berna, this is our last night on board."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"To-morrow our trails divide, maybe never again to cross. Will you come
+up on deck for a little while to-night? I want to talk to you."
+
+"Talk to me?"
+
+She looked startled, incredulous. She hesitated.
+
+"Please, Berna, it's the last time."
+
+"All right," she answered in a low tone.
+
+Then she looked at me curiously.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+She came to meet me, lily-white and sweet. She was but thinly wrapped,
+and shivered so that I put my coat around her. We ventured forward,
+climbing over a huge anchor to the very bow of the boat, and crouching
+down in its peak, were sheltered from the cold breeze.
+
+We were cutting through smooth water, and crowding in on us were haggard
+mountains, with now and then the greenish horror of a glacier. Overhead,
+in the desolate sky, the new moon nursed the old moon in her arms.
+
+"Berna!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You're not happy, Berna. You're in sore trouble, little girl. I don't
+know why you come up to this God-forsaken country or why you are with
+those people. I don't want to know; but if there's anything I can do for
+you, any way I can prove myself a true friend, tell me, won't you?"
+
+My voice betrayed emotion. I could feel her slim form, very close to me,
+all a-tremble. In the filtered silver of the crescent moon, I could see
+her face, wan and faintly sweet. Gently I prisoned one of her hands in
+mine.
+
+She did not speak at once. Indeed, she was quiet for a long time, so
+that it seemed as if she must be stricken dumb, or as if some feelings
+were conflicting within her. Then at last, very gently, very quietly,
+very sweetly, as if weighing her words, she spoke.
+
+"No, there's nothing you can do. You've been too kind all along. You're
+the only one on the boat that's been kind. Most of the others have
+looked at me--well, you know how men look at a poor, unprotected girl.
+But you, you're different; you're good, you're honourable, you're
+sincere. I could see it in your face, in your eyes. I knew I could trust
+you. You've been kindness itself to grandfather and I, and I never can
+thank you enough."
+
+"Nonsense! Don't talk of thanks, Berna. You don't know what a happiness
+it's been to help you. I'm sorry I've done so little. Oh, I'm going to
+be sincere and frank with you. The few hours I've had with you have made
+me long for others. I'm a lonely beggar. I never had a sister, never a
+girl friend. You're the first, and it's been like sudden sunshine to me.
+Now, can't I be really and truly your friend, Berna; your friend that
+would do much for you? Let me do something, anything, to show how
+earnestly I mean it?"
+
+"Yes, I know. Well, then, you are my dear, true friend--there, now."
+
+"Yes,--but, Berna! To-morrow you'll go and we'll likely never see each
+other again. What's the good of it all?"
+
+"Well, what do you want? We will both have a memory, a very sweet, nice
+memory, won't we? Believe me, it's better so. You don't want to have
+anything to do with a girl like me. You don't know anything about me,
+and you see the kind of people I'm going with. Perhaps I am just as bad
+as they."
+
+"Don't say that, Berna," I interposed sternly; "you're all that's good
+and pure and sweet."
+
+"No, I'm not, either. We're all of us pretty mixed. But I'm not so bad,
+and it's nice of you to think those things.... Oh! if I had never come
+on this terrible trip! I don't even know where we are going, and I'm
+afraid, afraid."
+
+"No, little girl."
+
+"Yes, I can't tell you how afraid I am. The country's so savage and
+lonely; the men are so like brute beasts; the women--well, they're
+worse. And here are we in the midst of it. I don't know what's going to
+become of us."
+
+"Well, Berna, if it's like that, why don't you and your grandfather turn
+back? Why go on?"
+
+"He will never turn back. He'll go on till he dies. He only knows one
+word of English and that's Klondike, Klondike. He mutters it a thousand
+times a day. He has visions of gold, glittering heaps of it, and he'll
+stagger and struggle on till he finds it."
+
+"But can't you reason with him?"
+
+"Oh, it's all no use. He's had a dream. He's like a man that's crazy. He
+thinks he has been chosen, and that to him will a great treasure be
+revealed. You might as well reason with a stone. All I can do is to
+follow him, is to take care of him."
+
+"What about the Winklesteins, Berna?"
+
+"Oh, they're at the bottom of it all. It is they who have inflamed his
+mind. He has a little money, the savings of a lifetime, about two
+thousand dollars; and ever since he came to this country, they've been
+trying to get it. They ran a little restaurant in New York. They tried
+to get him to put his little store in that. Now they are using the gold
+as a bait, and luring him up here. They'll rob and kill him in the end,
+and the cruel part is--he's not greedy, he doesn't want it for
+himself--but for me. That's what breaks my heart."
+
+"Surely you're mistaken, Berna; they can't be so bad as that."
+
+"Bad! I tell you they're _vile_. The man's a worm, and the woman, she's
+a devil incarnate. She's so strong and so violent in her tempers that
+when she gets drinking--well, it's just awful. I should know it, I lived
+with them for three years."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"In New York. I came from the old country to them. They worked me in the
+restaurant at first. Then, after a bit, I got employment in a
+shirt-waist factory. I was quick and handy, and I worked early and late.
+I attended a night school. I read till my eyes ached. They said I was
+clever. The teacher wanted me to train and be a teacher too. But what
+was the good of thinking of it? I had my living to get, so I stayed at
+the factory and worked and worked. Then when I had saved a few dollars,
+I sent for grandfather, and he came and we lived in the tenement and
+were very happy for a while. But the Winklesteins never gave us any
+peace. They knew he had a little money laid away, and they itched to get
+their hands on it. The man was always telling us of get-rich-quick
+schemes, and she threatened me in horrible ways. But I wasn't afraid in
+New York. Up here it's different. It's all so shadowy and sinister."
+
+I could feel her shudder.
+
+"Oh, Berna," I said, "can't I help you?"
+
+She shook her head sadly.
+
+"No, you can't; you have enough trouble of your own. Besides it doesn't
+matter about me. I didn't mean to tell you all this, but now, if you
+want to be a true friend, just go away and forget me. You don't want to
+have anything to do with me. Wait! I'll tell you something more. I'm
+called Berna Wilovich. That's my grandfather's name. My mother ran away
+from home. Two years later she came back--with me. Soon after she died
+of consumption. She would never tell my father's name, but said he was a
+Christian, and of good family. My grandfather tried to find out. He
+would have killed the man. So, you see, I am nameless, a child of shame
+and sorrow. And you are a gentleman, and proud of your family. Now, see
+the kind of friend you've made. You don't want to make friends with such
+as I."
+
+"I want to make friends with such as need my friendship. What is going
+to happen to you, Berna?"
+
+"Happen! God knows! It doesn't matter. Oh, I've always been in trouble.
+I'm used to it. I never had a really happy day in my life. I never
+expect to. I'll just go on to the end, enduring patiently, and getting
+what comfort I can out of things. It's what I was made for, I suppose."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders and shivered a little.
+
+"Let me go now, my friend. It's cold up here; I'm chilled. Don't look so
+terribly downcast. I expect I'll come out all right. Something may
+happen. Cheer up! Maybe you'll see me a Klondike queen yet."
+
+I could see that her sudden brightness but hid a black abyss of
+bitterness and apprehension. What she had told me had somehow stricken
+me dumb. There seemed a stark sordidness in the situation that repelled
+me. She had arisen and was about to step over the fluke of the great
+anchor, when I aroused myself.
+
+"Berna," I said, "what you have told me wrings my heart. I can't tell
+you how terribly sorry I feel. Is there nothing I can do for you,
+nothing to show I am not a mere friend of words and phrases? Oh, I hate
+to let you go like this."
+
+The moon had gone behind a cloud. We were in a great shadow. She halted,
+so that, as we stood, we were touching each other. Her voice was full of
+pathetic resignation.
+
+"What can you do? If we were going in together it might be different.
+When I met you at first I hoped, oh, I hoped--well, it doesn't matter
+what I hoped. But, believe me, I'll be all right. You won't forget me,
+will you?"
+
+"Forget you! No, Berna, I'll never forget you. It cuts me to the heart I
+can do nothing now, but we'll meet up there. We can't be divided for
+long. And you'll be all right, believe me too, little girl. Be good and
+sweet and true and every one will love and help you. Ah, you must go.
+Well, well--God bless you, Berna."
+
+"And I wish you happiness and success, dear friend of mine."
+
+Her voice trembled. Something seemed to choke her. She stood a moment as
+if reluctant to go.
+
+Suddenly a great impulse of tenderness and pity came over me, and before
+I knew it, my arms were around her. She struggled faintly, but her face
+was uplifted, her eyes starlike. Then, for a moment of bewildering
+ecstasy, her lips lay on mine, and I felt them faintly answer.
+
+Poor yielding lips! They were cold as ice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Never shall I forget the last I saw of her, a forlorn, pathetic figure
+in black, waving a farewell to me as I stood on the wharf. She wore, I
+remember, a low collar, and well do I mind the way it showed off the
+slim whiteness of her throat; well do I mind the high poise of her head,
+and the silken gloss of her hair. The grey eyes were clear and steady as
+she bade good-bye to me, and from where we stood apart, her face had all
+the pathetic sweetness of a Madonna.
+
+Well, she was going, and sad enough her going seemed to me. They were
+all for Dyea, and the grim old Chilcoot, with its blizzard-beaten
+steeps, while we had chosen the less precipitous, but more drawn-out,
+Skagway trail. Among them I saw the inseparable twins; the grim Hewson,
+the silent Mervin, each quiet and watchful, as if storing up power for a
+tremendous effort. There was the large unwholesomeness of Madam
+Winklestein, all jewellery, smiles and coarse badinage, and near her,
+her perfumed husband, squinting and smirking abominably. There was the
+old man, with his face of a Hebrew Seer, his visionary eye now aglow
+with fanatical enthusiasm, his lips ever muttering: "Klondike,
+Klondike"; and lastly, by his side, with a little wry smile on her lips,
+there was the white-faced girl.
+
+How my heart ached for her! But the time for sentiment was at an end.
+The clarion call to action rang out. Inflexibly the trail was mustering
+us. The hour was come for every one to give of the best that was in him,
+even as he had never given it before. The reign of peace was over; the
+fight was on.
+
+On all sides were indescribable bustle, confusion and excitement; men
+shouting, swearing, rushing hither, thither; wrangling, anxious-eyed and
+distracted over their outfits. A mood of unsparing energy dominated
+them. Their only thought was to get away on the gold-trail. A frantic
+eagerness impelled them; insistent, imperative; the trail called to
+them, and the light of the gold-lust smouldered and flamed in their
+uneasy eyes. Already the spirit of the gold-trail was awakening.
+
+Hundreds of scattered tents; a few frame buildings, mostly saloons,
+dance-halls and gambling joints; an eager, excited mob crowding on the
+loose sidewalks, floundering knee-deep in the mire of the streets,
+struggling and squabbling and cursing over their outfits--that is all I
+remember of Skagway. The mountains, stark and bare to the bluff, seemed
+to overwhelm the flimsy town, and between them, like a giant funnel, a
+great wind was roaring.
+
+Lawlessness was rampant, but it did not touch us. The thugs lay in wait
+for the men with pokes from the "inside." To the great Cheechako army,
+they gave little heed. They were captained by one Smith, known as
+"Soapy," whom I had the fortune to meet. He was a pleasant-appearing,
+sociable man, and no one would have taken him for a desperado, a killer
+of men.
+
+One picture of Skagway is still vivid in my memory. The scene is a
+saloon, and along with the Prodigal, I am having a glass of beer. In a
+corner sits a befuddled old man, half asleep. He is long and lank, with
+a leathery face and a rusty goatee beard--as ragged, disreputable an old
+sinner as ever bellied up to a bar. Suddenly there is a sound of
+shooting. We rush out and there are two toughs blazing away at each
+other from the sheltering corners of an opposite building.
+
+"Hey, Dad! There's some shootin' goin' on," says the barkeeper.
+
+The old man rouses and cocks up a bleary, benevolent eye.
+
+"Shooting', did ye say? Pshaw! Them fellers don't know how to shoot. Old
+Dad'll show 'em how to shoot."
+
+He comes to the door, and lugging out a big rusty revolver, blazes away
+at one of the combatants. The man, with a howl of surprise and pain,
+limps away. The old man turns to the other fellow. Bang! We see
+splinters fly, and a man running for dear life.
+
+"Told you I'd show 'em how to shoot," remarks old Dad to us. "Thanks,
+I'll have a gin-fizz for mine."
+
+The Prodigal developed a wonderful executive ability about this time; he
+was a marvel of activity, seemed to think of everything and to glory in
+his responsibility as a leader. Always cheerful, always thoughtful, he
+was the brains of our party. He never abated in his efforts a moment,
+and was an example and a stimulus to us all. I say "all," for we had
+added the "Jam-wagon"[A] to our number. It was the Prodigal who
+discovered him. He was a tall, dissolute Englishman, gaunt, ragged and
+verminous, but with the earmarks of a gentleman. He seemed indifferent
+to everything but whiskey and only anxious to hide himself from his
+friends. I discovered he had once been an officer in a Hussar regiment,
+but he was obviously reluctant to speak of his past. A lost soul in
+every sense of the word, the North was to him a refuge and an
+unrestricted stamping-ground. So, partly in pity, partly in hope of
+winning back his manhood, we allowed him to join the party.
+
+Pack animals were in vast demand, for it was considered a pound of grub
+was the equal of a pound of gold. Old horses, fit but for the knacker's
+yard, and burdened till they could barely stand, were being goaded
+forward through the mud. Any kind of a dog was a prize, quickly stolen
+if left unwatched. Sheep being taken in for the butcher were driven
+forward with packs on their backs. Even was there an effort to make pack
+animals out of pigs, but they grunted, squealed and rolled their
+precious burdens in the mire. What crazy excitement, what urging and
+shouting, what desperate device to make a start!
+
+We were lucky in buying a yoke of oxen from a packer for four hundred
+dollars. On the first day we hauled half of our outfit to Canyon City,
+and on the second we transferred the balance. This was our plan all
+through, though in bad places we had to make many relays. It was simple
+enough, yet, oh, the travail of it! Here is an extract from my diary of
+these days.
+
+     "Turn out at 4 A.M. Breakfasted on flapjacks and coffee. Find one
+     of our oxen dying. Dies at seven o'clock. Harness remaining ox and
+     start to remove goods up Canyon. Find trail in awful condition, yet
+     thousands are struggling to get through. Horses often fall in pools
+     of water ten to fifteen feet deep, trying to haul loads over the
+     boulders that render trail almost impassable. Drive with sleigh
+     over places that at other times one would be afraid to walk over
+     without any load. Two feet of snow fell during the night, but it is
+     now raining. Rains and snows alternately. At night bitterly cold.
+     Hauled five loads up Canyon to-day. Finished last trip near
+     midnight and turned in, cold, wet and played out."
+
+The above is a fairly representative day and of such days we were to
+have many ere we reached the water. Slowly, with infinite effort, with
+stress and strain to every step of the way, we moved our bulky outfit
+forward from camp to camp. All days were hard, all exasperating, all
+crammed with discomfort; yet, bit by bit, we forged ahead. The army
+before us and the army behind never faltered. Like a stream of black
+ants they were, between mountains that reared up swiftly to
+storm-smitten palisades of ice. In the darkness of night the army
+rested uneasily, yet at the first streak of dawn it was in motion. It
+was an endless procession, in which every man was for himself. I can see
+them now, bent under their burdens, straining at their hand-sleighs,
+flogging their horses and oxen, their faces crimped and puckered with
+fatigue, the air acrid with their curses and heavy with their moans. Now
+a horse stumbles and slips into one of the sump-holes by the trail side.
+No one can pass, the army is arrested. Frenzied fingers unhitch the poor
+frozen brute and drag it from the water. Men, frantic with rage, beat
+savagely at their beasts of burden to make up the precious time lost.
+There is no mercy, no humanity, no fellowship. All is blasphemy, fury
+and ruthless determination. It is the spirit of the gold-trail.
+
+At the canyon head was a large camp, and there, very much in evidence,
+the gambling fraternity. Dozens of them with their little green tables
+were doing a roaring business. On one side of the canyon they had
+established a camp. It was evening and we three, the Prodigal, Salvation
+Jim and myself, strolled over to where a three-shell man was holding
+forth.
+
+"Hullo!" says the Prodigal. "It's our old friend Jake. Jake skinned me
+out of a hundred on the boat. Wonder how he's making out?"
+
+It was Mosher, with his bald head, his crafty little eyes, his flat
+nose, his black beard. I saw Jim's face harden. He had always shown a
+bitter hatred of this man, and often I wondered why.
+
+We stood a little way off. The crowd thinned and filtered away until
+but one remained, one of the tall young men from Minnesota. We heard
+Mosher's rich voice.
+
+"Say, pard, bet ten dollars you can't place the bean. See! I put the
+little joker under here, right before your eyes. Now, where is it?"
+
+"Here," said the man, touching one of the shells.
+
+"Right you are, my hearty! Well, here's your ten."
+
+The man from Minnesota took the money and was going away.
+
+"Hold on," said Mosher; "how do I know you had the money to cover that
+bet?"
+
+The man laughed and took from his pocket a wad of bills an inch thick.
+
+"Guess that's enough, ain't it?"
+
+Quick as lightning Mosher had snatched the bills from him, and the man
+from Minnesota found himself gazing into the barrel of a six-shooter.
+
+"This here's my money," said Mosher; "now you _git_."
+
+A moment only--a shot rang out. I saw the gun fall from Mosher's hand,
+and the roll of bills drop to the ground. Quickly the man from Minnesota
+recovered them and rushed off to tell his party. Then the men from
+Minnesota got their Winchesters, and the shooting began.
+
+From their camp the gamblers took refuge behind the boulders that
+strewed the sides of the canyon, and blazed away at their opponents. A
+regular battle followed, which lasted till the fall of night. As far as
+I heard, only one casualty resulted. A Swede, about half a mile down the
+trail, received a spent bullet in the cheek. He complained to the Deputy
+Marshal. That worthy, sitting on his horse, looked at him a moment. Then
+he spat comprehensively.
+
+"Can't do anything, Ole. But I'll tell you what. Next time there's
+bullets flying round this section of the country, don't go sticking your
+darned whiskers in the way. See!"
+
+That night I said to Jim:
+
+"How did you do it?"
+
+He laughed and showed me a hole in his coat pocket which a bullet had
+burned.
+
+"You see, having been in the game myself, I knew what was comin' and
+acted accordin'."
+
+"Good job you didn't hit him worse."
+
+"Wait a while, sonny, wait a while. There's something mighty familiar
+about Jake Mosher. He's mighty like a certain Sam Mosely I'm interested
+in. I've just written a letter outside to see, an' if it's him--well,
+I'm saved; I'm a good Christian, but--God help him!"
+
+"And who was Sam Mosely, Jim?"
+
+"Sam Mosely? Sam Mosely was the skunk that busted up my home an' stole
+my wife, blast him!"
+
+[A: A Jam-wagon was the general name given to an Englishman on the
+trail.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Day after day, each man of us poured out on the trail the last heel-tap
+of his strength, and the coming of night found us utterly played out.
+Salvation Jim was full of device and resource, the Prodigal, a dynamo of
+eager energy; but it was the Jam-wagon who proved his mettle in a
+magnificent and relentless way. Whether it was from a sense of
+gratitude, or to offset the cravings that assailed him, I know not, but
+he crammed the days with merciless exertion.
+
+A curious man was the Jam-wagon, Brian Wanless his name, a world tramp,
+a derelict of the Seven Seas. His story, if ever written, would be a
+human document of moving and poignant interest. He must once have been a
+magnificent fellow, and even now, with strength and will-power impaired,
+he was a man among men, full of quick courage and of a haughty temper.
+It was ever a word and a blow with him, and a fight to the desperate
+finish. He was insular, imperious and aggressive, and he was always
+looking for trouble.
+
+Though taciturn and morose with men, the Jam-wagon showed a tireless
+affection for animals. From the first he took charge of our ox; but it
+was for horses his fondness was most expressed, so that on the trail,
+where there was so much cruelty, he was constantly on the verge of
+combat.
+
+"That's a great man," said the Prodigal to me, "a fighter from heel to
+head. There's one he can't fight, though, and that's old man Booze."
+
+But on the trail every man was a fighter. It was fight or fall, for the
+trail would brook no weaklings. Good or bad, a man must be a man in the
+primal sense, dominant, savage and enduring. The trail was implacable.
+From the start it cried for strong men; it weeded out its weaklings. I
+had seen these fellows on the ship feed their vanity with foolish
+fancies; kindled to ardours of hope, I had seen debauch regnant among
+them; now I was to see them crushed, cowed, overwhelmed, realising each,
+according to his kind, the menace and antagonism of the way. I was to
+see the weak falter and fall by the trail side; I was to see the
+fainthearted quail and turn back; but I was to see the strong, the
+brave, grow grim, grow elemental in their desperate strength, and
+tightening up their belts, go forward unflinchingly to the bitter end.
+Thus it was the trail chose her own. Thus it was, from passion, despair
+and defeat, the spirit of the trail was born.
+
+The spirit of the Gold Trail, how shall I describe it? It was based on
+that primal instinct of self-preservation that underlies our thin veneer
+of humanity. It was rebellion, anarchy; it was ruthless, aggressive,
+primitive; it was the man of the stone age in modern garb waging his
+fierce, incessant warfare with the forces of nature. Spurred on by the
+fever of the gold-lust, goaded by the fear of losing in the race;
+maddened by the difficulties and obstacles of the way, men became
+demons of cruelty and aggression, ruthlessly thrusting aside and
+trampling down the weaker ones who thwarted their progress. Of pity,
+humanity, love, there was none, only the gold-lust, triumphant and
+repellent. It was the survival of the fittest, the most tenacious, the
+most brutal. Yet there was something grandly terrible about it all. It
+was a barbaric invasion, an army, each man fighting for his own hand
+under the banner of gold. It was conquest. Every day, as I watched that
+human torrent, I realised how vast, how irresistible it was. It was
+Epic, it was Historical.
+
+Many pitiful things I saw--men with haggard, hopeless faces, throwing
+their outfits into the snow and turning back broken-hearted; men
+staggering blindly on, exhausted to despair, then dropping wearily by
+the trail side in the bitter cold and sinister gloom; weaklings, every
+one. Many terrible things I saw--men cursing each other, cursing the
+trail, cursing their God, and in the echo of their curses, grinding
+their teeth and stumbling on. Then they would vent their fury and spite
+on the poor dumb animals. Oh, what cruelty there was! The life of the
+brute was as nothing; it was the tribute of the trail; it was a
+sacrifice on the altar of human greed.
+
+Long before dawn the trail awakened and the air was full of breakfast
+smells, chiefly that of burnt porridge: for pots were seldom scraped,
+neither were dishes washed. Soon the long-drawn-out army was on the
+march, jaded animals straining at their loads, their drivers reviling
+and beating them. All the men were bearded, and many of them wore
+parkas. As many of the women had discarded petticoats, it was often
+difficult at a short distance to tell the sex of a person. There were
+tents built on sleighs, with faces of women and children peering out
+from behind. It was a wonderful procession, all classes, all
+nationalities, greybeards and striplings, parsons and prostitutes, rich
+and poor, filing past in their thousands, drawn desperately on by the
+golden magnet.
+
+One day we were making a trip with a load of our stuff when, just ahead,
+there was a check in the march, so I and the Jam-wagon went forward to
+investigate. It was our old friend Bullhammer in difficulties. He had
+rather a fine horse, and in passing a sump-hole, his sled had skidded
+and slipped downhill into the water. Now he was belabouring the animal
+unmercifully, acting like a crazy man, shouting in a frenzy of rage.
+
+The horse was making the most gallant efforts I ever saw, but, with
+every fresh attempt, its strength weakened. Time and again it came down
+on its knees, which were raw and bleeding. It was shining with sweat so
+that there was not a dry hair on its body, and if ever a dumb brute's
+eyes spoke of agony and fear, that horse's did. But Bullhammer grew
+every moment more infuriated, wrenching its mouth and beating it over
+the head with a club. It was a sickening sight and, used as I was to the
+inhumanity of the trail, I would have interfered had not the Jam-wagon
+jumped in. He was deadly pale and his eyes burned.
+
+"You infernal brute! If you strike that horse another blow, I'll break
+your club over your shoulders."
+
+Bullhammer turned on him. Surprise paralysed the man, rage choked him.
+They were both big husky fellows, and they drew up face to face. Then
+Bullhammer spoke.
+
+"Curse you, anyway. Don't interfere with me. I'll beat bloody hell out
+of the horse if I like, an' you won't say one word, see?"
+
+With that he struck the horse another vicious blow on the head. There
+was a quick scuffle. The club was wrenched from Bullhammer's hand. I saw
+it come down twice. The man sprawled on his back, while over him stood
+the Jam-wagon, looking very grim. The horse slipped quietly back into
+the water.
+
+"You ugly blackguard! I've a good mind to beat you within an ace of your
+life. But you're not worth it. Ah, you cur!"
+
+He gave Bullhammer a kick. The man got on his feet. He was a coward, but
+his pig eyes squinted in impotent rage. He looked at his horse lying
+shivering in the icy water.
+
+"Get the horse out yourself, then, curse you. Do what you please with
+him. But, mark you--I'll get even with you for this--I'll--get--even."
+
+He shook his fist and, with an ugly oath, went away. The block in the
+traffic was relieved. The trail was again in motion. When we got abreast
+of the submerged horse, we hitched on the ox and hastily pulled it out,
+and (the Jam-wagon proving to have no little veterinary skill) in a few
+days it was fit to work again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Another week had gone and we were still on the trail, between the head
+of the canyon and the summit of the Pass. Day after day was the same
+round of unflinching effort, under conditions that would daunt any but
+the stoutest hearts. The trail was in a terrible condition, sometimes
+well-nigh impassable, and many a time, but for the invincible spirit of
+the Prodigal, would I have turned back. He had a way of laughing at
+misfortune and heartening one when things seemed to have passed the
+limit of all endurance.
+
+Here is another day selected from my diary:
+
+     "Rose at 4:30 A.M. and started for summit with load. Trail all
+     filled in with snow, and had dreadful time shovelling it out. Load
+     upsets number of times. Got to summit at three o'clock. Ox almost
+     played out. Snowing and blowing fearfully on summit. Ox tired;
+     tries to lie down every few yards. Bitterly cold and have hard time
+     trying to keep hands and feet from freezing. Keep on going to make
+     Balsam City. Arrived there about ten o'clock at night. Clothing
+     frozen stiff. Snow from seven to one hundred feet deep. No wood
+     within a quarter mile and then only soft balsam. Had to go for
+     wood. Almost impossible to start fire. Was near midnight when I had
+     fire going well and supper cooked. Eighteen hours on the trail
+     without a square meal. The way of the Klondike is hard, hard."
+
+And yet I believe, compared with others, we were getting along finely.
+Every day, as the difficulties of the trail increased, I saw more and
+more instances of suffering and privation, and to many the name of the
+White Pass was the death-knell of hope. I could see their faces blanch
+as they gazed upward at that white immensity; I could see them tighten
+their pack-straps, clench their teeth and begin the ascent; could see
+them straining every muscle as they climbed, the grim lines harden round
+their mouths, their eyes full of hopeless misery and despair; I could
+see them panting at every step, ghastly with fatigue, lurching and
+stumbling on under their heavy packs. These were the weaker ones, who,
+sooner or later, gave up the struggle.
+
+Then there were the strong, ruthless ones, who had left humanity at
+home, who flogged their staggering skin-and-bone pack animals till they
+dropped, then, with a curse, left them to die.
+
+Far, far above us the monster mountains nuzzled among the clouds till
+cloud and mountain were hard to tell apart. These were giant heights
+heaved up to the stars, where blizzards were cradled and the storm-winds
+born, stupendous horrific familiars of the tempest and the thunder. I
+was conscious of their absolute sublimity. It was like height piled on
+height as one would pile up sacks of flour. As Jim remarked: "Say,
+wouldn't it give you crick in the neck just gazin' at them there
+mountains?"
+
+How ant-like seemed the black army crawling up the icy pass, clinging to
+its slippery face in the blinding buffet of snow and rain! Men dropped
+from its ranks uncared for and unpitied. Heedless of those that fell,
+the gap closed up, the march went on. The great army crawled up and over
+the summit. Far behind could we see them, hundreds, thousands, a
+countless host, all with "Klondike" on their lips and the lust of the
+gold-lure in their hearts. It was the Great Stampede.
+
+"Klondike or bust," was the slogan. It was ever on the lips of those
+bearded men. "Klondike or bust"--the strong man, with infinite patience,
+righted his overturned sleigh, and in the face of the blinding blizzard,
+pushed on through the clogging snow. "Klondike or bust"--the weary,
+trail-worn one raised himself from the hole where he had fallen, and
+stiff, cold, racked with pain, gritted his teeth doggedly and staggered
+on a few feet more. "Klondike or bust"--the fanatic of the trail, crazed
+with the gold-lust, performed mad feats of endurance, till nature
+rebelled, and raving and howling, he was carried away to die.
+
+"'Member Joe?" some one would say, as a pack-horse came down the trail
+with, strapped on it, a dead, rigid shape. "Joe used to be plumb-full of
+fun; always joshin' or takin' some guy off; well--that's Joe."
+
+Two weary, woe-begone men were pulling a hand-sleigh down from the
+summit. On it was lashed a man. He was in a high fever, raving,
+delirious. Half-crazed with suffering themselves, his partners plodded
+on unheedingly. I recognised in them the Bank clerk and the Professor,
+and I hailed them. From black hollows their eyes stared at me
+unrememberingly, and I saw how emaciated were their faces.
+
+"Spinal meningitis," they said laconically, and they were taking him
+down to the hospital. I took a look and saw in that mask of terror and
+agony the familiar face of the Wood-carver.
+
+He gazed at me eagerly, wildly: "I'm rich," he cried, "rich. I've found
+it--the gold--in millions, millions. Now I'm going outside to spend it.
+No more cold and suffering and poverty. I'm going down there to _live_,
+thank God, to live."
+
+Poor Globstock! He died down there. He was buried in a nameless grave.
+To this day I fancy his old mother waits for his return. He was her sole
+support, the one thing she lived for, a good, gentle son, a man of sweet
+simplicity and loving kindness. Yet he lies under the shadow of those
+hard-visaged mountains in a nameless grave.
+
+The trail must have its tribute.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+It was at Balsam City, and things were going badly. Marks and Bullhammer
+had formed a partnership with the Halfbreed, the Professor and the Bank
+clerk, and the arrangement was proving a regrettable one for the latter
+two. It was all due to Marks. At the best of times, he was a
+cross-grained, domineering bully, and on the trail, which would have
+worn to a wire edge the temper of an angel, his yellow streak became an
+eyesore. He developed a chronic grouch, and it was not long before he
+had the two weaker men toeing the mark. He had a way of speaking of
+those who had gone up against him in the past and were "running yet," of
+shooting scrapes and deadly knife-work in which he had displayed a
+spirit of cold-blooded ferocity. Both the Professor and the Bank clerk
+were men of peace and very impressionable. Consequently, they conceived
+for Marks a shuddering respect, not unmixed with fear, and were ready to
+stand on their heads at his bidding.
+
+On the Halfbreed, however, his intimidation did not work. While the
+other two trembled at his frown, and waited on him hand and foot, the
+man of Indian blood ignored him, and his face was expressionless.
+Whereby he incurred the intense dislike of Marks.
+
+Things were going from bad to worse. The man's aggressions were daily
+becoming more unbearable. He treated the others like Dagoes and on every
+occasion he tried to pick a quarrel with the Halfbreed, but the latter,
+entrenching himself behind his Indian phlegm, regarded him stolidly.
+Marks mistook this for cowardice and took to calling the Halfbreed nasty
+names, particularly reflecting on the good character of his mother.
+Still the Halfbreed took no notice, yet there was a contempt in his
+manner that stung more than words. This was the state of affairs when
+one evening the Prodigal and I paid them a visit.
+
+Marks had been drinking all day, and had made life a little hell for the
+others. When we arrived he was rotten-ripe for a quarrel. Then the
+Prodigal suggested a game of poker, so four of them, himself, Marks,
+Bullhammer and the Halfbreed, sat in.
+
+At first they made a ten-cent limit, which soon they raised to
+twenty-five; then, at last, there was no limit but the roof. A bottle
+passed from mouth to mouth and several big jack-pots were made.
+Bullhammer and the Prodigal were about breaking even, Marks was losing
+heavily, while steadily the Halfbreed was adding to his pile of chips.
+
+Through one of those freaks of chance the two men seemed to buck one
+another continually. Time after time they would raise and raise each
+other, till at last Marks would call, and always his opponent had the
+cards. It was exasperating, maddening, especially as several times Marks
+himself was called on a bluff. The very fiend of ill-luck seemed to have
+gotten into him, and as the game proceeded, Marks grew more flushed and
+excited. He cursed audibly. He always had good cards, but always somehow
+the other just managed to beat him. He became explosively angry and
+abusive. The Halfbreed offered to retire from the game, but Marks would
+not hear of it.
+
+"Come on, you nigger!" he shouted. "Don't sneak away. Give me a chance
+to get my money back."
+
+So they sat down once more, and a hand was dealt. The Halfbreed called
+for cards, but Marks did not draw. Then the betting began. After the
+second round the others dropped out, and Marks and the Halfbreed were
+left. The Halfbreed was inimitably cool, his face was a perfect mask.
+Marks, too, had suddenly grown very calm. They started to boost each
+other.
+
+Both seemed to have plenty of money and at first they raised in tens and
+twenties, then at last fifty dollars at a clip. It was getting exciting.
+You could hear a pin drop. Bullhammer and the Prodigal watched very
+quietly. Sweat stood on Marks's forehead, though the Halfbreed was
+utterly calm. The jack-pot held about three hundred dollars. Then Marks
+could stand it no longer.
+
+"I'll bet a hundred," he cried, "and see you."
+
+He triumphantly threw down a straight.
+
+"There, now," he snarled, "beat that, you stinking Malamute."
+
+There was a perceptible pause. I felt sorry for the Halfbreed. He could
+not afford to lose all that money, but his face showed no shade of
+emotion. He threw down his cards and there arose from us all a roar of
+incredulous surprise.
+
+For the Halfbreed had thrown down a royal flush in diamonds. Marks rose.
+He was now livid with passion.
+
+"You cheating swine," he cried; "you crooked devil!"
+
+Quickly he struck the other on the face, a blow that drew blood. I
+thought for a moment the Halfbreed would return the blow. Into his eyes
+there came a look of cold and deadly fury. But, no! quickly bending
+down, he scooped up the money and left the tent.
+
+We stared at each other.
+
+"Marvellous luck!" said the Prodigal.
+
+"Marvellous hell!" shouted Marks. "Don't tell me it's luck. He's a
+sharper, a dirty thief. But I'll get even. He's got to fight now. He'll
+fight with guns and I'll kill the son of a dog."
+
+He was drinking from the bottle in big gulps, fanning himself into an
+ungovernable fury with fiery objurgations. At last he went out, and
+again swearing he would kill the Halfbreed, he made for another tent,
+from which a sound of revelry was coming.
+
+Vaguely fearing trouble, the Prodigal and I did not go to bed, but sat
+talking. Suddenly I saw him listen intently.
+
+"Hist! Did you hear that?"
+
+I seemed to hear a sound like the fierce yelling of a wild animal.
+
+We hurried out. It was Marks running towards us. He was crazy with
+liquor, and in one hand he flourished a gun. There was foam on his lips
+and he screamed as he ran. Then we saw him stop before the tent occupied
+by the Halfbreed, and throw open the flap.
+
+"Come out, you dirty tin-horn, you crook, you Indian bastard; come out
+and fight."
+
+He rushed in and came out again, dragging the Halfbreed at arm's length.
+They were tussling together, and we flung ourselves on them and
+separated them.
+
+I was holding Marks, when suddenly he hurled me off, and flourishing a
+revolver, fired one chamber, crying:
+
+"Stand back, all of you; stand back! Let me shoot at him. He's my meat."
+
+We stepped back pretty briskly, for Marks had cut loose. In fact, we
+ducked for shelter, all but the Halfbreed, who stood straight and still.
+
+Marks took aim at the man waiting there so coolly. He fired, and a tide
+of red stained the other man's shirt, near the shoulder. Then something
+happened. The Halfbreed's arm rose quickly. A six-shooter spat twice.
+
+He turned to us. "I didn't want to do it, boys, but you see he druv' me
+to it. I'm sorry. He druv' me to it."
+
+Marks lay in a huddled, quivering heap. He was shot through the heart
+and quite dead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+We were camping in Paradise Valley. Before us and behind us the great
+Cheechako army laboured along with infinite travail. We had suffered,
+but the trail of the land was near its end. And what an end! With every
+mile the misery and difficulty of the way seemed to increase. Then we
+came to the trail of Rotting Horses.
+
+Dead animals we had seen all along the trail in great numbers, but the
+sight as we came on this particular place beggared description. There
+were thousands of them. One night we dragged away six of them before we
+could find room to put up the tent. There they lay, sprawling horribly,
+their ribs protruding through their hides, their eyes putrid in the
+sunshine. It was like a battlefield, hauntingly hideous.
+
+And every day was adding to their numbers. The trail ran over great
+boulders covered with icy slush, through which the weary brutes sank to
+their bellies. Struggling desperately, down they would come between two
+boulders. Then their legs would snap like pipe-stems, and there usually
+they were left to die.
+
+One would see, jammed in the cleft of a rock, the stump of a hoof, or
+sticking up sharply, the jagged splinter of a leg; while far down the
+bluff lay the animal to which it belonged. One would see the poor dead
+brutes lying head and tail for an hundred yards at a stretch. One would
+see them deserted and desperate, wandering round foraging for food. They
+would come to the camp at night whinnying pitifully, and with a look of
+terrible entreaty on their starved faces. Then one would take pity on
+them--and shoot them.
+
+I remember stumbling across a big, heavy horse one night in the gloom.
+It was swaying from side to side, and as I drew near I saw its throat
+was hideously cut. It looked at me with such agony in its eyes that I
+put my handkerchief over its face, and, with the blow of an axe, ended
+its misery. The most spirited of the horses were the first to fall. They
+broke their hearts in gallant effort. Goaded to desperation, sometimes
+they would destroy themselves, throw themselves frantically over the
+bluff. Oh, it was horrible! horrible!
+
+Our own horse proved a ready victim. To tell the truth, no one but the
+Jam-wagon was particularly sorry. If there was a sump-hole in sight,
+that horse was sure to flounder into it. Sometimes twice in one day we
+had to unhitch the ox and pull him out. There was a place dug out of the
+snow alongside the trail, which was being used as a knacker's yard, and
+here we took him with a broken leg and put a bullet in his brain. While
+we waited there were six others brought in to be shot.
+
+It was a Sunday and we were in the tent, indescribably glad of a day's
+rest. The Jam-wagon was mending a bit of harness; the Prodigal was
+playing solitaire. Salvation Jim had just returned from a trip to
+Skagway, where he had hoped to find a letter from the outside regarding
+one Jake Mosher. His usually hale and kindly face was drawn and
+troubled. Wearily he removed his snow-sodden clothes.
+
+"I always did say there was God's curse on this Klondike gold," he said;
+"now I'm sure of it. There's a hoodoo on it. What it's a-goin' to cost,
+what hearts it's goin' to break, what homes it's goin' to wreck no
+man'll ever know. God only knows what it's cost already. But this last
+is the worst yet."
+
+"What's the matter, Jim?" I said; "what last?"
+
+"Why, haven't you heard? Well, there's just been a snow-slide on the
+Chilcoot an' several hundred people buried."
+
+I stared aghast. Living as we did in daily danger of snow-slides, this
+disaster struck us with terror.
+
+"You don't say!" said the Prodigal. "Where?"
+
+"Oh, somewhere's near Lindeman. Hundreds of poor sinners cut off without
+a chance to repent."
+
+He was going to improve on the occasion when the Prodigal cut in.
+
+"Poor devils! I guess we must know some of them too." He turned to me.
+"I wonder if your little Polak friend's all right?"
+
+Indeed my thoughts had just flown to Berna. Among the exigencies of the
+trail (when we had to fix our minds on the trouble of the moment and
+every moment had its trouble) there was little time for reflection.
+Nevertheless, I had found at all times visions of her flitting before
+me, thoughts of her coming to me when I least expected them. Pity,
+tenderness and a good deal of anxiety were in my mind. Often I wondered
+if ever I would see her again. A feeling of joy and a great longing
+would sweep over me in the hope. At these words then of the Prodigal, it
+seemed as if all my scattered sentiments crystallised into one, and a
+vast desire that was almost pain came over me. I suppose I was silent,
+grave, and it must have been some intuition of my thoughts that made the
+Prodigal say to me:
+
+"Say, old man, if you would like to take a run over the Dyea trail, I
+guess I can spare you for a day or so."
+
+"Yes, indeed, I'd like to see the trail."
+
+"Oh, yes, we've observed your enthusiastic interest in trails. Why don't
+you marry the girl? Well, cut along, old chap. Don't be gone too long."
+
+So next morning, travelling as lightly as possible, I started for
+Bennett. How good it seemed to get off unimpeded by an outfit, and I
+sped past the weary mob, struggling along on the last lap of their
+journey. I had been in some expectation of the trail bettering itself,
+but indeed it appeared at every step to grow more hopelessly terrible.
+It was knee-deep in snowy slush, and below that seemed to be literally
+paved with dead horses.
+
+I only waited long enough at Bennett to have breakfast. A pie nailed to
+a tent-pole indicated a restaurant, and there, for a dollar, I had a
+good meal of beans and bacon, coffee and flapjacks. It was yet early
+morning when I started for Linderman.
+
+The air was clear and cold, ideal mushing weather, and already parties
+were beginning to struggle into Bennett, looking very weary and jaded.
+On the trail a man did a day's work by nine in the morning, another by
+four in the afternoon, and a third by nightfall. You were lucky to get
+off at that.
+
+I was jogging along past the advance guard of the oncoming army, when
+who should I see but Mervin and Hewson. They looked thoroughly seasoned,
+and had made record time with a large outfit. In contrast to the worn,
+weary-eyed men with faces pinched and puckered, they looked insolently
+fit and full of fight. They had heard of the snow-slide but could give
+me no particulars. I inquired for Berna and the old man. They were
+somewhere behind, between Chilcoot and Lindeman. "Yes, they were
+probably buried under the slide. Good-bye."
+
+I hurried forward, full of apprehension. A black stream of Cheechakos
+were surging across Lindeman; then I realised the greatness of the other
+advancing army, and the vastness of the impulse that was urging these
+indomitable atoms to the North. It was blowing quite hard and many had
+put up sails on their sleds with good effect. I saw a Jew driving an ox,
+to which he had four small sleds harnessed. On each of these he had
+hoisted a small sail. Suddenly the ox looked round and saw the sails.
+Here was something that did not come within the scope of his
+experience. With a bellow of fear, he stampeded, pursued by a yelling
+Hebrew, while from the chain of sleds articles scattered in all
+directions. When last I saw them in the far distance, Jew and ox were
+still going.
+
+Why was I so anxious about Berna? I did not know, but with every mile my
+anxiety increased. A dim unreasoning fear possessed me. I imagined that
+if anything happened to her I would forever blame myself. I saw her
+lying white and cold as the snow itself, her face peaceful in death. Why
+had I not thought more of her? I had not appreciated her enough, her
+precious sweetness and her tenderness. If only she was spared, I would
+show her what a good friend I could be. I would protect her and be near
+her in case of need. But then how foolish to think anything could have
+happened to her. The chances were one in a hundred. Nevertheless, I
+hurried forward.
+
+I met the Twins. They had just escaped the slide, they told me, and had
+not yet recovered from the shock. A little way back on the trail it was.
+I would see men digging out the bodies. They had dug out seventeen that
+morning. Some were crushed as flat as pancakes.
+
+Again, with a pain at my heart, I asked after Berna and her grandfather.
+Twin number one said they were both buried under the slide. I gasped and
+was seized with sudden faintness. "No," said twin number two, "the old
+man is missing, but the girl has escaped and is nearly crazy with
+grief. Good-bye."
+
+Once more I hurried on. Gangs of men were shovelling for the dead. Every
+now and then a shovel would strike a hand or a skull. Then a shout would
+be raised and the poor misshapen body turned out.
+
+Again I put my inquiries. A busy digger paused in his work. He was a
+sottish-looking fellow, and there was something of the glare of a ghoul
+in his eyes.
+
+"Yes, that must have been the old guy with the whiskers they dug out
+early on from the lower end of the slide. Relative, name of Winklestein,
+took charge of him. Took him to the tent yonder. Won't let any one go
+near."
+
+He pointed to a tent on the hillside, and it was with a heavy heart I
+went forward. The poor old man, so gentle, so dignified, with his dream
+of a golden treasure that might bring happiness to others. It was cruel,
+cruel....
+
+"Say, what d'ye want here? Get to hell outa this."
+
+The words came with a snarl. I looked up in surprise.
+
+There at the door of the tent, all a-bristle like a gutter-bred cur, was
+Winklestein.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+I stared at the man a moment, for little had I expected so gracious a
+reception.
+
+"Mush on, there," he repeated truculently; "you're not wanted 'round
+here. Mush! Pretty darned smart."
+
+I felt myself grow suddenly, savagely angry. I measured the man for a
+moment and determined I could handle him.
+
+"I want," I said soberly, "to see the body of my old friend."
+
+"You do, do you? Well, you darned well won't. Besides, there ain't no
+body here."
+
+"You're a liar!" I observed. "But it's no use wasting words on you. I'm
+going on anyhow."
+
+With that I gripped him suddenly and threw him sideways with some force.
+One of the tent ropes took away his feet violently, and there on the
+snow he sprawled, glowering at me with evil eyes.
+
+"Now," said I, "I've got a gun, and if you try any monkey business, I'll
+fix you so quick you won't know what's happened."
+
+The bluff worked. He gathered himself up and followed me into the tent,
+looking the picture of malevolent impotence. On the ground lay a longish
+object covered with a blanket. With a strange feeling of reluctant
+horror I lifted the covering. Beneath it lay the body of the old man.
+
+He was lying on his back, and had not been squeezed out of all human
+semblance like so many of the others. Nevertheless, he was ghastly
+enough, with his bluish face and wide bulging eyes. What had worn his
+fingers to the bone so? He must have made a desperate struggle with his
+bare hands to dig himself out. I will never forget those torn, nailless
+fingers. I felt around his waist. Ha! the money belt was gone!
+
+"Winklestein," I said, turning suddenly on the little Jew, "this man had
+two thousand dollars on him. What have you done with it?"
+
+He started violently. A look of fear came into his eyes. It died away,
+and his face was convulsed with rage.
+
+"He did not," he screamed; "he didn't have a red cent. He's no more than
+an old pauper I was taking in to play the fiddle. He owes _me_, curse
+him! And who are you anyways, you blasted meddler, that accuses a decent
+man of being a body robber?"
+
+"I was this dead man's friend. I'm still his granddaughter's friend. I'm
+going to see justice done. This man had two thousand dollars in a gold
+belt round his waist. It belongs to the girl now. You've got to give it
+up, Winklestein, or by----"
+
+"Prove it, prove it!" he spluttered. "You're a liar; she's a liar;
+you're all a pack of liars, trying to blackmail a decent man. He had no
+money, I say! He had no money, and if ever he said so, he's a liar."
+
+"Oh, you vile wretch!" I cried. "It's you that's lying. I've a mind to
+choke your dirty throat. But I'll hound you till I make you cough up
+that money. Where's Berna?"
+
+Suddenly he had become quietly malicious.
+
+"Find her," he jibed; "find her for yourself. And take yourself out of
+my sight as quickly as you please."
+
+I saw he had me over a barrel, so, with a parting threat, I left him. A
+tent nearby was being run as a restaurant, and there I had a cup of
+coffee. Of the man who kept it, a fat, humorous cockney, I made
+enquiries regarding the girl. Yes, he knew her. She was living in yonder
+tent with Madam Winklestein.
+
+"They sy she's tykin' on horful baht th' old man, pore kid!"
+
+I thanked him, gulped down my coffee, and made for the tent. The flap
+was down, but I rapped on the canvas, and presently the dark face of
+Madam appeared. When she saw me, it grew darker.
+
+"What d'you want?" she demanded.
+
+"I want to see Berna," I said.
+
+"Then you can't. Can't you hear her? Isn't that enough?"
+
+Surely I could hear a very low, pitiful sound coming from the tent,
+something between a sob and a moan, like the wailing of an Indian woman
+over her dead, only infinitely subdued and anguished. I was shocked,
+awed, immeasurably grieved.
+
+"Thank you," I said; "I'm sorry. I don't want to intrude on her in her
+hour of affliction. I'll come again."
+
+"All right," she laughed tauntingly; "come again."
+
+I had failed. I thought of turning back, then I thought I might as well
+see what I could of the far-famed Chikoot, so once more I struck out.
+
+The faces of the hundreds I met were the same faces I had passed by the
+thousand, stamped with the seal of the trail, seamed with lines of
+suffering, wan with fatigue, blank with despair. There was the same
+desperate hurry, the same indifference to calamity, the same grim
+stoical endurance.
+
+A snowstorm was raging on the summit of the Chikoot and the snow was
+drifting, covering the thousands of caches to the depth of ten and
+fifteen feet. I stood on the summit of that nearly perpendicular ascent
+they call the "Scales." Steps had been cut in the icy steep, and up
+these men were straining, each with a huge pack on his back. They could
+only go in single file. It was the famous "Human Chain." At regular
+distances, platforms had been cut beside the trail, where the exhausted
+ones might leave the ranks and rest; but if a worn-out climber reeled
+and crawled into one of the shelters, quickly the line closed up and
+none gave him a glance.
+
+The men wore ice-creepers, so that their feet would clutch the slippery
+surface. Many of them had staffs, and all were bent nigh double under
+their burdens. They did not speak, their lips were grimly sealed, their
+eyes fixed and stern. They bowed their heads to thwart the buffetings of
+the storm-wind, but every way they turned it seemed to meet them. The
+snow lay thick on their shoulders and covered their breasts. On their
+beards the spiked icicles glistened. As they moved up step by step, it
+seemed as if their feet were made of lead, so heavily did they lift
+them. And the resting-places by the trail were never empty.
+
+You saw them in the canyon at the trail top, staggering in the wind that
+seemed to blow every way at once. You saw them blindly groping for the
+caches they had made but yesterday and now fathoms deep under the
+snowdrift. You saw them descending swiftly, dizzily, leaning back on
+their staffs, for the down trail was like a slide. In a moment they were
+lost to sight, but to-morrow they would come again, and to-morrow and
+to-morrow, the men of the Chilcoot.
+
+The Trail of Travail--surely it was all epitomised in the tribulations
+of that stark ascent. From my eyrie on its blizzard-beaten crest I could
+see the Human Chain drag upward link by link, and every link a man. And
+as he climbed that pitiless treadmill, on each man's face there could be
+deciphered the palimpsest of his soul.
+
+Oh, what a drama it was, and what a stage! The Trail of '98--high
+courage, frenzied fear, despotic greed, unflinching sacrifice. But over
+all--its hunger and its hope, its passion and its pain--triumphed the
+dauntless spirit of the Pathfinder--the mighty Pioneer.
+
+[Illustration: "No," she said firmly, "you can't see the girl"]
+
+Then I knew, I knew. These silent, patient, toiling ones were the
+Conquerors of the Great White Land; the Men of the High North, the
+Brotherhood of the Arctic Wild. No saga will ever glorify their deeds,
+no epic make them immortal. Their names will be written in the snows
+that melt and vanish at the smile of Spring; but in their works will
+they live, and their indomitable spirit will be as a beacon-light,
+shining down the dim corridors of Eternity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I slept at a bunkhouse that night, and next morning I again made a call
+at the tent within which lay Berna. Again Madam, in a gaudy wrapper,
+answered my call, but this time, to my surprise, she was quite pleasant.
+
+"No," she said firmly, "you can't see the girl. She's all prostrated.
+We've given her a sleeping powder and she's asleep now. But she's mighty
+sick. We've sent for a doctor."
+
+There was indeed nothing to be done. With a heavy heart I thanked her,
+expressed my regrets and went away. What had got into me, I wondered,
+that I was so distressed about the girl. I thought of her continually,
+with tenderness and longing. I had seen so little of her, yet that
+little had meant so much. I took a sad pleasure in recalling her to mind
+in varying aspects; always she appeared different to me somehow. I could
+get no definite idea of her; ever was there something baffling,
+mysterious, half revealed.
+
+To me there was in her, beauty, charm, every ideal quality. Yet must my
+eyes have been anointed, for others passed her by without a second
+glance. Oh, I was young and foolish, maybe; but I had never before known
+a girl that appealed to me, and it was very, very sweet.
+
+So I went back to the restaurant and gave the fat cockney a note which
+he promised to deliver into her own hands. I wrote:
+
+     "Dear Berna: I cannot tell you how deeply grieved I am over your
+     grandfather's death, and how I sympathise with you in your sorrow.
+     I came over from the other trail to see you, but you were too ill.
+     Now I must go back at once. If I could only have said a word to
+     comfort you! I feel terribly about it.
+
+     "Oh, Berna, dear, go back, go back. This is no country for you. If
+     I can help you, Berna, let me know. If you come on to Bennett, then
+     I will see you.
+
+     "Believe me again, dear, my heart aches for you.
+
+     "Be brave.
+
+                             "Always affectionately yours,
+
+                                                        "Athol Meldrum."
+
+Then once more I struck out for Bennett.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Our last load was safely landed in Bennett and the trail of the land was
+over. We had packed an outfit of four thousand pounds over a
+thirty-seven-mile trail and it had taken us nearly a month. For an
+average of fifteen hours a day we had worked for all that was in us;
+yet, looking back, it seems to have been more a matter of dogged
+persistence and patience than desperate endeavour and endurance.
+
+There is no doubt that to the great majority, the trail spelt privation,
+misery and suffering; but they were of the poor, deluded multitude that
+never should have left their ploughs, their desks and their benches.
+Then there were others like ourselves to whom it meant hardship, more or
+less extreme, but who managed to struggle along fairly well. Lastly,
+there was a minority to whom it was little more than discomfort. They
+were the seasoned veterans of the trail to whom its trials were all in
+the day's work. It was as if the Great White Land was putting us to the
+test, was weeding out the fit from the unfit, was proving itself a land
+of the Strong, a land for men.
+
+And indeed our party was well qualified to pass the test of the trail.
+The Prodigal was full of irrepressible enthusiasm, and always loaded to
+the muzzle with ideas. Salvation Jim was a mine of foresight and
+resource, while the Jam-wagon proved himself an insatiable glutton for
+work. Altogether we fared better than the average party.
+
+We were camped on the narrow neck of water between Lindeman and Bennett,
+and as hay was two hundred and fifty dollars a ton, the first thing we
+did was to butcher the ox. The next was to see about building a boat. We
+thought of whipsawing our own boards, but the timber near us was poor or
+thinned out, so that in the end we bought lumber, paying for it twenty
+cents a foot. We were all very unexpert carpenters; however, by watching
+others, we managed to make a decent-looking boat.
+
+These were the busy days. At Bennett the two great Cheechako armies
+converged, and there must have been thirty thousand people camped round
+the lake. The night was ablaze with countless camp-fires, the day a buzz
+of busy toil. Everywhere you heard the racket of hammer and saw, beheld
+men in feverish haste over their boat-building. There were many fine
+boats, but the crude makeshift effort of the amateur predominated. Some
+of them, indeed, had no more shape than a packing-case, and not a few
+resembled a coffin. Anything that would float and keep out the water was
+a "boat."
+
+Oh, it was good to think that from thenceforward, the swift, clear
+current would bear us to our goal. No more icy slush to the knee, no
+more putrid horse-flesh under foot, no more blinding blizzards and
+heart-breaking drift of snows. But the blue sky would canopy us, the
+gentle breezes fan us, the warm sun lock us in her arms. No more bitter
+freezings and sinister dawns and weary travail of mind and body. The
+hills would busk themselves in emerald green, the wild crocus come to
+gladden our eyes, the long nights glow with sunsets of theatric
+splendour. No wonder, in the glory of reaction, we exulted and laboured
+on our boat with brimming hearts. And always before us gleamed the
+Golden Magnet, making us chafe and rage against the stubborn ice that
+stayed our progress.
+
+The days were full of breezy sunshine and at all times the Eager Army
+watched the rotting ice with anxious eyes. In places it was fairly
+honeycombed now, in others corroded and splintered into silver spears.
+Here and there it heaved up and cracked across in gaping chasms; again
+it sagged down suddenly. There were sheets of surface water and
+stretches of greenish slush that froze faintly overnight. In large,
+flaming letters of red, the lake was dangerous, near to a break-up, a
+death trap; yet every day the reckless ones were going over it to be
+that much nearer the golden goal.
+
+In this game of taking desperate chances, many a wild player lost, many
+a foolhardy one never reached the shore. No one will ever know the
+number of victims claimed by these black unfathomable waters.
+
+It was the Professor who opened our eyes to the danger of crossing the
+lake. He and the Bank clerk quarrelled over the wisdom of delay. The
+Professor was positive it was quite safe. The ice was four feet thick.
+Go fast over the weak spots and you would be all right. He argued, fumed
+and ranted. They were losing precious time, time which might mean all
+the difference between failure and success. It was expedient to get
+ahead of the rabble. He, for one, was no craven; he had staked his all
+on this trip. He had studied the records of Arctic explorers. He thought
+he was no man's fool. If others were cowardly enough to hold back, he
+would go alone.
+
+The upshot of it was that one grey morning he took his share of the
+outfit and started off by himself.
+
+Said the Bank clerk, half crying:
+
+"Poor old Pondersby! In spite of the words we had, we parted the best of
+friends. We shook hands and I wished him all good-speed. I saw him
+twisting and wriggling among the patches of black and white ice. For a
+long time I watched him with a heavy heart. Yet he seemed to be getting
+along nicely, and I was beginning to think he was right and to call
+myself a fool. He was getting quite small in the distance, when suddenly
+he seemed to disappear. I got the glasses. There was a big hole in the
+ice, no sleigh, no Pondersby. Poor old fellow!"
+
+There were many such cases of separation on the shores of Lake Bennett.
+Parties who had started out on that trail as devoted chums, finished it
+as lifelong enemies. Tempers were ground to a razor-edge; words dropped
+crudely; anger flamed to meet anger. You could scarcely blame them. They
+did not realise that the trail demanded all that was in a man of
+gentleness, patience and forbearance. Poor human nature was strained and
+tested inexorably, and the most loving friends became the most deadly
+foes forevermore.
+
+One instance of this was the twins.
+
+"Say," said the Prodigal, "you ought to see Romulus and Remus. They're
+scrapping like cat and dog. Seems they've had a bunch of trouble right
+along the line--you know how the trail brings out the yellow streak in a
+man. Well, they're both fiery as Hades, so after a particularly warm
+evening they swore that as soon as they got to Bennett, they'd divvy up
+the stuff and each go off by his lonesome. Somehow, they patched it up
+when they reached here and got busy on their boat. Now it seems they've
+quarrelled worse than ever. Romulus is telling Remus his real name and
+_vice-versa_. They're raking up old grievances of their childhood days,
+and the end of it is they've once more decided to halve tip the outfit.
+They're mad enough to kill each other. They've even decided to cut their
+boat in two."
+
+It was truly so. We went and watched them. Each had a bitter
+determination on his face. They were sawing the boat through the middle.
+Afterwards, I believe, they patched up their ends and made a successful
+trip to Dawson.
+
+The ice was going fast. Strangers were still coming in over the trail
+with awful tales of its horrors. Bennett was all excitement and seething
+life. Thousands of ungainly boats, rafts and scows were waiting to be
+launched. Already craft were beginning to come through from Lindeman,
+rushing down the fierce torrent between the two lakes. From where we
+were camped we saw them pass. There were ugly rapids and a fang-like
+rock, against which many a luckless craft was piled up.
+
+It was the most fascinating thing in the world to watch these daring
+Argonauts rush the rapids, to speculate whether or not they would get
+through. The stroke of an oar, a few feet to right or left, meant
+unspeakable calamity. Poor souls! Their faces of utter despair as they
+landed dripping from the water and saw their precious goods disappearing
+in the angry foam would have moved a heart of stone. As one man said, in
+the bitterness of his heart:
+
+"Oh, boys, what a funny God we've got!"
+
+There was a man who came sailing through the passage with a fine boat
+and a rich outfit. He had lugged it over the trail at the cost of
+infinite toil and weariness. Now his heart was full of hope. Suddenly he
+was in the whirl of the current, then all at once loomed up the cruel
+rock. His face blanched with horror. Frantically he tried to avoid it.
+No use. Crash! and his frail boat splintered like matchwood.
+
+But this man was a fighter. He set his jaw. Once more he went back over
+that deadly trail. He bought, at great expense, a new outfit and had
+packers hustle it over the trail. He procured a new boat. Once more he
+sailed through the narrow canyon. His face was set and grim.
+
+Suddenly, like some iron Nemesis, once more loomed up the fatal rock. He
+struggled gallantly, but again the current seemed to grip him and throw
+him on that deadly fang. With another sickening crash he saw his goods
+sink in the seething waters.
+
+Did he give up? No! A third time he struggled, weary, heartbroken, over
+that trail. He had little left now, and with that little he bought his
+third outfit, a poor, pathetic shadow of the former ones, but enough for
+a desperate man.
+
+Once more he packed it over the trail, now a perfect Avernus of horror.
+He reached the river, and in a third poor little boat, again he sailed
+down the passage. There was the swift-leaping current, the ugly tusk of
+rock staked with wreckage. A moment, a few feet, a turn of the
+oar-blade, and he would have been past. But, no! The rock seemed to
+fascinate him as the eyes of a snake fascinate a bird. He stared at it
+fearfully, a look of terror and despair. Then for the third time, with a
+hideous crash, his frail boat was piled up in a pitiful ruin.
+
+He was beaten now.
+
+He climbed on the bank, and there, with a last look at the ugly snarl of
+waters, and the jagged up-thrust of that evil rock, he put a bullet
+smashing through his brain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The ice was loose and broken. We were all ready to start in a few days.
+The mighty camp was in a ferment of excitement. Every one seemed elated
+beyond words. On, once more, to Eldorado!
+
+It was near midnight, but the sky, where the sun had dipped below the
+mountain rim, was a sea of translucent green, weirdly and wildly
+harmonious with the desolation of the land. On the bleak lake one could
+hear the lap of waves, while the high, rocky shore to the left was a
+black wall of shadow. I stood by the beach near our boat, all alone in
+the wan light, and tried to think calmly of the strange things that had
+happened to me.
+
+Surely there was something of Romance left in this old world yet if one
+would only go to seek it. Here I was, sun-browned, strong, healthy,
+having come through many trials and still on the edge of adventure, when
+I might, but for my own headstrong perversity, have yet been vegetating
+on the hills of Glengyle. A great exultation welled up in me, the voice
+of youth and ambition, the lust to conquer. I would succeed, I would
+wrest from the vast, lonely, mysterious North some of its treasure. I
+would be a conqueror.
+
+Silent and abstracted, I looked into the brooding disk of sheeny sky, my
+eyes dream-troubled.
+
+Then I felt a ghostly hand touch my arm, and with a great start of
+surprise, I turned.
+
+"Berna!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+The girl was wearing a thin black shawl around her shoulders, but in the
+icy wind blowing from the lake, she trembled like a wand. Her face was
+pale, waxen, almost spiritual in its expression, and she looked at me
+with just the most pitiably sweet smile in the world.
+
+"I'm sorry I startled you; but I wanted to thank you for your letter and
+for your sympathy."
+
+It was the same clear voice, with the throb of tender feeling in it.
+
+"You see, I'm all alone now." The voice faltered, but went on bravely.
+"I've got no one that cares about me any more, and I've been sick, so
+sick I wonder I lived. I knew you'd forgotten me, and I don't blame you.
+But I've never forgotten you, and I wanted to see you just once more."
+
+She was speaking quite calmly and unemotionally.
+
+"Berna!" I cried; "don't say that. Your reproach hurts me so. Indeed I
+did try to find you, but it's such a vast camp. There are so many
+thousands of people here. Time and again I inquired, but no one seemed
+to know. Then I thought you must surely have gone back, and it's been
+such a busy time, building our boat and getting ready. No, Berna, I
+didn't forget. Many's and many's a night I've lain awake thinking of
+you, wondering, longing to see you again--but haven't you forgotten a
+little?"
+
+I saw the sensitive lips smile almost bitterly.
+
+"No! not even a little."
+
+"Oh! I'm sorry, Berna. I'm sorry I've looked after you so badly. I'll
+never forgive myself. You've been terribly sick, too. What a little
+white whisp you are! You look as if a breeze would blow you away. You
+shouldn't be out this night, girl. Put my coat around you, come now."
+
+I wrapped her in it and saw with gladness her shivering cease. As I
+buttoned it at her throat I marvelled at the thinness of her, and at the
+delicacy of her face. In the opal light of the luminous sky her great
+grey eyes were lustrous.
+
+"Berna," I said again, "why did you come in here, why? You should have
+gone back."
+
+"Gone back," she repeated; "indeed I would have, oh, so gladly. But you
+don't understand--they wouldn't let me. After they had got all his
+money--and they _did_ get it, though they swear he had nothing--they
+made me come on with them. They said I owed them for his burial, and for
+the care and attention they gave me when I was sick. They said I must
+come on with them and work for them. I protested, I struggled. But
+what's the use? I can't do anything against them any more. I'm weak, and
+I'm terribly afraid of her."
+
+She shuddered, then a look of fear came into her eyes. I put my hand on
+her arm and drew her close to me.
+
+"I just slipped away to-night. She thinks I'm asleep in the tent. She
+watches me like a cat, and will scarce let me speak to any one. She's so
+big and strong, and I'm so slight and weak. She would kill me in one of
+her rages. Then she tells every one I'm no good, an ingrate, everything
+that's bad. Once when I threatened to run away, she said she would
+accuse me of stealing and have me put in gaol. That's the kind of woman
+she is."
+
+"This is terrible, Berna. What have you been doing all the time?"
+
+"Oh, I've been working, working for them. They've been running a little
+restaurant and I've waited on table. I saw you several times, but you
+were always too busy or too far away in dreams to see me, and I couldn't
+get a chance to speak. But we're going down the lake to-morrow, so I
+thought I would just slip away and say good-bye."
+
+"Not good-bye," I faltered; "not good-bye."
+
+Her tone was measured, her eyes closed almost.
+
+"Yes, I'm afraid I must say it. When we get down there, it's good-bye,
+good-bye. The less you have to do with me, the better."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Well, I mean this. These people are not decent. They're vile. I must go
+with them; I cannot get away. Already, though I'm as pure as your sister
+would be, already my being with them has smirched me in everybody's
+eyes. I can see it by the way the men look at me. No, go your way and
+leave me to whatever fate is in store for me."
+
+"Never!" I said harshly. "What do you take me for, Berna?"
+
+"My friend ... you know, after his death, when I was so sick, I wanted
+to die. Then I got your letter, and I felt I must see you again for--I
+thought a lot of you. No man's ever been so kind to me as you have.
+They've all been--the other sort. I used to think of you a good deal,
+and I wanted to do some little thing to show you I was really grateful.
+On the boat I used to notice you because you were so quiet and
+abstracted. Then you were grandfather's room-mate and gentle and kind to
+him. You looked different from the others, too; your eyes were good----"
+
+"Oh, come, Berna, never mind that."
+
+"Yes, I mean it. I just wanted to tell you the things a poor girl
+thought of you. But now it's all nearly over. We've neither of us got to
+think of each other any more ... and I just wanted to give you this--to
+remind you sometimes of Berna."
+
+It was a poor little locket and it contained a lock of her silken hair.
+
+"It's worth nothing, I know, but just keep it for me."
+
+"Indeed I will, Berna, keep it always, and wear it for you. But I can't
+let you go like this. See here, girl, is there nothing I can do?
+Nothing? Surely there must be some way. Berna, Berna, look at me, listen
+to me! Is there? What can I do? Tell me, tell me, my girl."
+
+She seemed to sway to me gently. Indeed I did not intend it, but
+somehow she was in my arms. She felt so slight and frail a thing, I
+feared to hurt her.
+
+Then I felt her bosom heaving greatly, and I knew she was crying. For a
+little I let her cry, but presently I lifted up the white face that lay
+on my shoulder. It was wet with tears. Again and again I kissed her. She
+lay passively in my arms. Never did she try to escape nor hide her face,
+but seemed to give herself up to me. Her tears were salt upon my lips,
+yet her own lips were cold, and she did not answer to my kisses.
+
+At last she spoke. Her voice was like a little sigh.
+
+"Oh, if it could only be!"
+
+"What, Berna? Tell me what?"
+
+"If you could only take me away from them, protect me, care for me. Oh,
+if you could only _marry_ me, make me your wife. I would be the best
+wife in the world to you; I would work my fingers to the bone for you; I
+would starve and suffer for you, and walk the world barefoot for your
+sake. Oh, my dear, my dear, pity me!"
+
+It seemed as if a sudden light had flashed upon my brain, stunning me,
+bewildering me. I thought of the princess of my dreams. I thought of
+Garry and of Mother. Could I take her to them?
+
+"Berna," I said sternly, "look at me."
+
+She obeyed.
+
+"Berna, tell me, by all you regard as pure and holy, do you love me?"
+
+She was silent and averted her eyes.
+
+"No, Berna," I said, "you don't; you're afraid. It's not the sort of
+love you've dreamed of. It's not your ideal. It would be gratitude and
+affection, love of a kind, but never that great dazzling light, that
+passion that would raise to heaven or drag to hell."
+
+"How do I know? Perhaps that would come in time. I care a great deal for
+you. I think of you always. I would be a true, devoted wife----"
+
+"Yes, I know, Berna; but you don't love me, love me; see, dear. It's so
+different. You might care and care till doomsday, but it wouldn't be the
+other thing; it wouldn't be love as I have conceived of it, dreamed of
+it. Listen, Berna! Here's where our difference in race comes in. You
+would rush blindly into this. You would not consider, test and prove
+yourself. It's the most serious matter in life to me, something to be
+looked at from every side, to be weighed and balanced."
+
+As I said this, my conscience was whispering fiercely: "Oh, fool!
+Coward! Paltering, despicable coward! This girl throws herself on you,
+on your honour, chivalry, manhood, and you screen yourself behind a
+barrier of convention."
+
+However, I went on.
+
+"You might come to love me in time, but we must wait a while, little
+girl. Surely that is reasonable? I care for you a great, great deal, but
+I don't know if I love you in the great way people should love. Can't we
+wait a little, Berna? I'll look after you, dear; won't that do?"
+
+She disengaged herself from me, sighing woefully.
+
+"Yes, I suppose that'll do. Oh, I'll never forgive myself for saying
+that to you. I shouldn't, but I was so desperate. You don't know what it
+meant to me. Please forget it, won't you?"
+
+"No, Berna, I'll never forget it, and I'll always bless you for having
+said it. Believe me, dear, it will all come right. Things aren't so bad.
+You're just scared, little one. I'll watch no one harms you, and love
+will come to both of us in good time, that love that means life and
+death, hate and adoration, rapture and pain, the greatest thing in the
+world. Oh, my dear, my dear, trust me! We have known each other such a
+brief space. Let us wait a little longer, just a little longer."
+
+"Yes, that's right, a little longer."
+
+Her voice was faint and toneless. She disengaged herself.
+
+"Now, good-night; they may have missed me."
+
+Almost before I could realise it she had disappeared amid the tents,
+leaving me there in the gloom with my heart full of doubt, self-reproach
+and pain.
+
+Oh, despicable, paltering coward!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Spring in the Yukon! Majestic mountains crowned with immemorial snow!
+The mad midnight melodies of birds! From the kindly stars to the leaves
+of grass that glimmer in the wind, a world pregnant with joy, a land
+jewel-bright and virgin-sweet!
+
+After the obsession of the long, long night, Spring leaps into being
+with a sudden sun-thrilled joy, a radiant uplift. The shy emerald
+mantles the valleys and fledges the heights; the pussy-willows tremble
+by lake and stream; the wild crocus brims the hollows with a haze of
+violet; trailing his last ragged pennants of snow on the hills, winter
+makes his sullen retreat.
+
+Perhaps I am over-sensitive, but I have ecstasied moments when to me it
+seems the grass is greener, the sky bluer than they are to most; I
+surrender my heart to wonder and joy; I am in tune with the triumphant
+cadence of Things; I am an atom of praise; I live, therefore I exult.
+
+Only in hyperbole could I express that golden Spring, as we set sail on
+the sunlit waters of Lake Bennett. Never had I felt so glad. And indeed
+it was a vastly merry mob that sailed with us, straining their eyes once
+more to the Eldorado of their dreams. Bottled-up spirits effervesced
+wildly; hearts beat bravely; hopes were high. The bitter landtrail was
+forgotten. The clear, bright water leaped laughingly at the bow; the
+gallant breeze was blowing behind. The strong men bared their breasts
+and drank of it deeply.
+
+Yes, they were the strong, the fit, suffered by the North to survive,
+stiffened and braced and seasoned, the Chosen of the Test, the Proven of
+the Trail. Songs of jubilation rang in the night air; men, eager-eyed
+and watchful, roared snatches of melody as they toiled at sweep and oar;
+banjos, mandolins, fiddles, flutes, mingled in maddest confusion. Once
+more the great invading army of the Cheechakos moved forward
+tumultuously, but now with mirth and rejoicing.
+
+The great calm night was never dark, the great deep lakes infinitely
+serene, the great mountains majestically solemn. In the lighted sky the
+pale ghost-moon seemed ever apologising for itself. The world was a
+grand harmonious symphony that even the advancing tide of the Argonauts
+could not mar.
+
+Yet, under all the mirth and gaiety, you could feel, tense, ruthless and
+dominant, the spirit of the trail. In that invincible onrush of human
+effort, as the oars bent with their strokes of might, as the sail
+bellied before the breeze, as the eager wave leapt at the bow, you could
+feel the passion that quickened their hearts and steeled their arms.
+Klondike or bust! Once more the slogan rang on bearded lips; once more
+the gold-lust smouldered in their eyes. The old primal lust resurged: to
+win at any cost, to thrust down those in the way, to fight fiercely,
+brutally, even as wolf-dogs fight, this was the code, the terrible code
+of the Gold-trail. The basic passions up-leapt, envy and hate and fear
+triumphed, and with ever increasing excitement the great fleet of the
+gold-hunters strained onward to the valley of the treasure.
+
+Of all who had started out with us but a few had got this far. Of these
+Mervin and Hewson were far in front, victors of the trail, qualified to
+rank with the Men of the High North, the Sourdoughs of the Yukon Valley.
+Somewhere in the fleet were the Bank clerk, the Halfbreed and
+Bullhammer, while three days' start ahead were the Winklesteins.
+
+"These Jews have the only system," commented the Prodigal; "they ran the
+'Elight' Restaurant in Bennett and got action on their beans and flour
+and bacon. The Madam cooked, the old man did the chores and the girl
+waited on table. They've roped in a bunch of money, and now they've lit
+out for Dawson in a nice, tight little scow with their outfits turned
+into wads of the long green."
+
+I kept a keen lookout for them and every day I hoped we would overtake
+their scow, for constantly I thought of Berna. Her little face, so
+wistfully tender, haunted me, and over and over in my mind I kept
+recalling our last meeting.
+
+At times I blamed myself for letting her go so easily, and then again I
+was thankful that I had not allowed my heart to run away with my head.
+For I was beginning to wonder if I had not given her my heart, given it
+easily, willingly and without reserve. And in truth at the idea I felt
+a strange thrill of joy. The girl seemed to me all that was fair,
+lovable and sweet.
+
+We were now skimming over Tagish Lake. With grey head bared to the
+breeze and a hymn stave on his lips, Salvation Jim steered in the strong
+sunlight. His face was full of cheer, his eyes alight with kindly hope.
+Leaning over the side, the Prodigal was dragging a spoon-bait to catch
+the monster trout that lived in those depths. The Jam-wagon, as if
+disgusted at our enforced idleness, slumbered at the bow. As he slept I
+noticed his fine nostrils, his thin, bitter lips, his bare brawny arms,
+tattooed with strange devices. How clean he kept his teeth and nails!
+There was the stamp of the thoroughbred all over him. In what strange
+parts of the world had he run amuck? What fair, gracious women mourned
+for him in far-away England?
+
+Ah, those enchanted days, the sky spaces abrim with light, the
+gargantuan mountains, the eager army of adventurers, undismayed at the
+gloomy vastness!
+
+We came to Windy Arm, rugged, desolate and despairful. Down it, with
+menace and terror on its wings, rushes the furious wind, driving boats
+and scows crashing on an iron shore. In the night we heard shouts; we
+saw wreckage piled up on the beach, but we pulled away. For twelve weary
+hours we pulled at the oars, and in the end our danger was past.
+
+We came to Lake Tagish; a dead calm, a blazing sun, a seething mist of
+mosquitoes. We sweltered in the heat; we strained, with blistered
+hands, at the oars; we cursed and toiled like a thousand others of that
+grotesque fleet. There were boats of every shape, square, oblong,
+circular, three-cornered, flat, round--anything that would float. They
+were made mostly of boards, laboriously hand-sawn in the woods, and from
+a half-inch to four inches thick. Black pitch smeared the seams of the
+raw lumber. They travelled sideways as well as in any other fashion. And
+in such crazy craft were thousands of amateur boatmen, sailing serenely
+along, taking danger with sang-froid, and at night, over their
+camp-fires, hilariously telling of their hairbreadth escapes.
+
+We entered the Fifty-mile River; we were in a giant valley; tier after
+tier of benchland rose to sentinel mountains of austerest grandeur.
+There at the bottom the little river twisted like a silver wire, and
+down it rowed the eager army. They shattered the silence into wildest
+echo, they roused the bears out of their frozen sleep; the forest flamed
+from their careless fires.
+
+The river was our beast of burden now, a tireless, gentle beast.
+Serenely and smoothly it bore us onward, yet there was a note of menace
+in its song. They had told us of the canyon and of the rapids, and as we
+pulled at the oars and battled with the mosquitoes, we wondered when the
+danger was coming, how we would fare through it when it came.
+
+Then one evening as we were sweeping down the placid river, the current
+suddenly quickened. The banks were sliding past at a strange speed.
+Swiftly we whirled around a bend, and there we were right on top of the
+dreadful canyon. Straight ahead was what seemed to be a solid wall of
+rock. The river looked to have no outlet; but as we drew nearer we saw
+that there was a narrow chasm in the stony face, and at this the water
+was rearing and charging with an angry roar.
+
+The current was gripping us angrily now; there was no chance to draw
+back. At his post stood the Jam-wagon with the keen, alert look of the
+man who loves danger. A thrill of excitement ran through us all. With
+set faces we prepared for the fight.
+
+I was in the bow. All at once I saw directly in front a scow struggling
+to make the shore. In her there were three people, two women and a man.
+I saw the man jump out with a rope and try to snub the scow to a tree.
+Three times he failed, running along the bank and shouting frantically.
+I saw one of the women jump for the shore. Then at the same instant the
+rope parted, and the scow, with the remaining woman, went swirling on
+into the canyon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+All this I saw, and so fascinated was I that I forgot our own peril. I
+heard a shrill scream of fear; I saw the solitary woman crouch down in
+the bottom of the scow, burying her face in her hands; I saw the scow
+rise, hover, and then plunge downward into the angry maw of the canyon.
+
+The river hurried us on helplessly. We were in the canyon now. The air
+grew dark. On each side, so close it seemed we could almost touch them
+with our oars, were black, ancient walls, towering up dizzily. The river
+seemed to leap and buck, its middle arching four feet higher than its
+sides, a veritable hog-back of water. It bounded on in great billows,
+green, hillocky and terribly swift, like a liquid toboggan slide. We
+plunged forward, heaved aloft, and the black, moss-stained walls
+brindled past us.
+
+About midway in the canyon is a huge basin, like the old crater of a
+volcano, sloping upwards to the pine-fringed skyline. Here was a giant
+eddy, and here, circling round and round, was the runaway scow. The
+forsaken woman was still crouching on it. The light was quite wan, and
+we were half blinded by the flying spray, but I clung to my place at the
+bow and watched intently.
+
+"Keep clear of that scow," I heard some one shout. "Avoid the eddy."
+
+It was almost too late. The ill-fated scow spun round and swooped down
+on us. In a moment we would have been struck and overturned, but I saw
+Jim and the Jam-wagon give a desperate strain at the oars. I saw the
+scow swirling past, just two feet from us. I looked again--then with a
+wild panic of horror I saw that the crouching figure was that of Berna.
+
+I remember jumping--it must have been five feet--and I landed half in,
+half out of the water. I remember clinging a moment, then pulling myself
+aboard. I heard shouts from the others as the current swept them into
+the canyon. I remember looking round and cursing because both sweeps had
+been lost overboard, and lastly I remember bending over Berna and
+shouting in her ear:
+
+"All right, I'm with you!"
+
+If an angel had dropped from high heaven to her rescue I don't believe
+the girl could have been more impressed. For a moment she stared at me
+unbelievingly. I was kneeling by her and she put her hands on my
+shoulders as if to prove to herself that I was real. Then, with a
+half-sob, half-cry of joy, she clasped her arms tightly around me.
+Something in her look, something in the touch of her slender, clinging
+form made my heart exult. Once again I shouted in her ear.
+
+"It's all right, don't be frightened. We'll pull through, all right."
+
+Once more we had whirled off into the main current; once more we were in
+that roaring torrent, with its fearsome dips and rises, its columned
+walls corroded with age and filled with the gloom of eternal twilight.
+The water smashed and battered us, whirled us along relentlessly, lashed
+us in heavy sprays; yet with closed eyes and thudding hearts we waited.
+Then suddenly the light grew strong again. The primaeval walls were gone.
+We were sweeping along smoothly, and on either side of us the valley
+sloped in green plateaus up to the smiling sky.
+
+I unlocked my arms and peered down to where her face lay half hidden on
+my breast.
+
+"Thank God, I was able to reach you!"
+
+"Yes, thank God!" she answered faintly. "Oh, I thought it was all over.
+I nearly died with fear. It was terrible. Thank God for you!"
+
+But she had scarce spoken when I realised, with a vast shock, that the
+danger was far from over. We were hurrying along helplessly in that
+fierce current, and already I heard the roar of the Squaw Rapids. Ahead,
+I could see them dancing, boiling, foaming, blood-red in the sunset
+glow.
+
+"Be brave, Berna," I had to shout again; "we'll be all right. Trust me,
+dear!"
+
+She, too, was staring ahead with dilated eyes of fear. Yet at my words
+she became wonderfully calm, and in her face there was a great, glad
+look that made my heart rejoice. She nestled to my side. Once more she
+waited.
+
+We took the rapids broadside on, but the scow was light and very strong.
+Like a cork in a mill-stream we tossed and spun around. The vicious,
+mauling wolf-pack of the river heaved us into the air, and worried us
+as we fell. Drenched, deafened, stunned with fierce, nerve-shattering
+blows, every moment we thought to go under. We were in a caldron of
+fire. The roar of doom was in our ears. Giant hands with claws of foam
+were clutching, buffeting us. Shrieks of fury assailed us, as demon
+tossed us to demon. Was there no end to it? Thud, crash, roar, sickening
+us to our hearts; lurching, leaping, beaten, battered ... then all at
+once came a calm; we must be past; we opened our eyes.
+
+We were again sweeping round a bend in the river in the shadow of a high
+bluff. If we could only make the bank--but, no! The current hurled us
+along once more. I saw it sweep under a rocky face of the hillside, and
+then I knew that the worst was coming. For there, about two hundred
+yards away, were the dreaded Whitehorse Rapids.
+
+"Close your eyes, Berna!" I cried. "Lie down on the bottom. Pray as you
+never prayed before."
+
+We were on them now. The rocky banks close in till they nearly meet.
+They form a narrow gateway of rock, and through those close-set jaws the
+raging river has to pass. Leaping, crashing over its boulder-strewn bed,
+gaining in terrible impetus at every leap, it gathers speed for its last
+desperate burst for freedom. Then with a great roar it charges the gap.
+
+But there, right in the way, is a giant boulder. Water meets rock in a
+crash of terrific onset. The river is beaten, broken, thrown back on
+itself, and with a baffled roar rises high in the air in a raging hell
+of spume and tempest. For a moment the chasm is a battleground of the
+elements, a fierce, titanic struggle. Then the river, wrenching free,
+falls into the basin below.
+
+"Lie down, Berna, and hold on to me!"
+
+We both dropped down in the bottom of the scow, and she clasped me so
+tightly I marvelled at the strength of her. I felt her wet cheek pressed
+to mine, her lips clinging to my lips.
+
+"Now, dear, just a moment and it will all be over."
+
+Once again the angry thunder of the waters. The scow took them nose on,
+riding gallantly. Again we were tossed like a feather in a whirlwind,
+pitchforked from wrath to wrath. Once more, swinging, swerving,
+straining, we pelted on. On pinnacles of terror our hearts poised
+nakedly. The waters danced a fiery saraband; each wave was a demon
+lashing at us as we passed; or again they were like fear-maddened horses
+with whipping manes of flame. We clutched each other convulsively. Would
+it never, never end ... then ... then ...
+
+It seemed the last had come. Up, up we went. We seemed to hover
+uncertainly, tilted, hair-poised over a yawning gulf. Were we going to
+upset? Mental agony screamed in me. But, no! We righted. Dizzily we
+dipped over; steeply we plunged down. Oh! it was terrible! We were in a
+hornets' nest of angry waters and they were stinging us to death; we
+were in a hollow cavern roofed over with slabs of seething foam; the
+fiery horses were trampling us under their myriad hoofs. I gave up all
+hope. I felt the girl faint in my arms. How long it seemed! I wished for
+the end. _The flying hammers of hell were pounding us, pounding us--Oh,
+God! Oh, God!..._
+
+Then, swamped from bow to stern, half turned over, wrecked and broken,
+we swept into the peaceful basin of the river below.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+On the flats around the Whitehorse Rapids was a great largess of wild
+flowers. The shooting stars gladdened the glade with gold; the bluebells
+brimmed the woodland hollow with amethyst; the fire-weed splashed the
+hills with the pink of coral. Daintily swinging, like clustered pearls,
+were the petals of the orchid. In glorious profusion were begonias,
+violets, and Iceland poppies, and all was in a setting of the keenest
+emerald. But over the others dominated the wild rose, dancing everywhere
+and flinging its perfume to the joyful breeze.
+
+Boats and scows were lined up for miles along the river shore. On the
+banks water-soaked outfits lay drying in the sun. We, too, had shipped
+much water in our passage, and a few days would be needed to dry out
+again. So it was that I found some hours of idleness and was able to see
+a good deal of Berna.
+
+Madam Winklestein I found surprisingly gracious. She smiled on me, and
+in her teeth, like white quartz, the creviced gold gleamed. She had a
+smooth, flattering way with her that disarmed enmity. Winklestein, too,
+had conveniently forgotten our last interview, and extended to me the
+paw of spurious friendship. I was free to see Berna as much as I chose.
+
+Thus it came about that we rambled among the woods and hills, picking
+wild flowers and glad almost with the joy of children. In these few days
+I noted a vast change in the girl. Her cheeks, pale as the petals of the
+wild orchid, seemed to steal the tints of the briar-rose, and her eyes
+beaconed with the radiance of sun-waked skies. It was as if in the poor
+child a long stifled capacity for joy was glowing into being.
+
+One golden day, with her cheeks softly flushed, her eyes shining, she
+turned to me.
+
+"Oh, I could be so happy if I only had a chance, if I only had the
+chance other girls have. It would take so little to make me the happiest
+girl in the world--just to have a home, a plain, simple home where all
+was sunshine and peace; just to have the commonest comforts, to be
+care-free, to love and be loved. That would be enough." She sighed and
+went on:
+
+"Then if I might have books, a little music, flowers--oh, it seems like
+a dream of heaven; as well might I sigh for a palace."
+
+"No palace could be too fair for you, Berna, no prince too noble. Some
+day, your prince will come, and you will give him that great love I told
+you of once."
+
+Swiftly a shadow came into the bright eyes, the sweet mouth curved
+pathetically.
+
+"Not even a beggar will seek me, a poor nameless girl travelling in the
+train of dishonour ... and again, I will never love."
+
+"Yes, you will indeed, girl--infinitely, supremely. I know you, Berna;
+you'll love as few women do. Your dearest will be all your world, his
+smile your heaven, his frown your death. Love was at the fashioning of
+you, dear, and kissed your lips and sent you forth, saying, 'There goeth
+my handmaiden.'"
+
+I thought for a while ere I went on.
+
+"You cared for your grandfather; you gave him your whole heart, a love
+full of self-sacrifice, of renunciation. Now he is gone, you will love
+again, but the next will be to the last as wine is to water. And the day
+will come when you will love grandly. Yours will be a great, consuming
+passion that knows no limit, no assuagement. It will be your glory and
+your shame. For him will your friends be foes, your light darkness. You
+will go through fire and water for your beloved's sake; your parched
+lips will call his name, your frail hands cling to him in the shadow of
+death. Oh, I know, I know. Love has set you apart. You will immolate
+yourself on his altars. You will dare, defy and die for him. I'm sorry
+for you, Berna."
+
+Her face hung down, her lips quivered. As for me, I was surprised at my
+words and scarce knew what I was saying.
+
+At last she spoke.
+
+"If ever I loved like that, the man I loved must be a king among men, a
+hero, almost a god."
+
+"Perhaps, Berna, perhaps; but not needfully. He may be a grim man with a
+face of power and passion, a virile, dominant brute, but--well, I think
+he will be more of a god. Let's change the subject."
+
+I found she had all the sad sophistication of the lowly-born, yet with
+it an invincible sense of purity, a delicate horror of the physical
+phases of love. She was a finely motived creature with impossible
+ideals, but out of her stark knowledge of life she was naively
+outspoken.
+
+Once I asked of her:
+
+"Berna, if you had to choose between death and dishonour, which would
+you prefer?"
+
+"Death, of course," she answered promptly.
+
+"Death's a pretty hard proposition," I commented.
+
+"No, it's easy; physical death, compared with the other, compared with
+moral death."
+
+She was very emphatic and angry with me for my hazarded demur. In an
+atmosphere of disillusionment and moral miasma she clung undauntedly to
+her ideals. Never was such a brave spirit, so determined in goodness, so
+upright in purity, and I blessed her for her unfaltering words. "May
+such sentiments as yours," I prayed, "be ever mine. In doubt, despair,
+defeat, oh Life, take not away from me my faith in the pure heart of
+woman!"
+
+Often I watched her thoughtfully, her slim, well-poised figure, her grey
+eyes that were fuller of soul than any eyes I have ever seen, her brown
+hair wherein the sunshine loved to pick out threads of gold, her
+delicate features with their fine patrician quality. We were dreamers
+twain, but while my outlook was gay with hope, hers was dark with
+despair. Since the episode of the scow I had never ventured to kiss her,
+but had treated her with a curious reserve, respect and courtesy.
+
+Indeed, I was diagnosing my case, wondering if I loved her, affirming,
+doubting on a very see-saw of indetermination. When with her I felt for
+her an intense fondness and at times an almost irresponsible tenderness.
+My eyes rested longingly on her, noting with tremulous joy the curves
+and shading of her face, and finding in its very defects, beauties.
+
+When I was away from her--oh, the easeless longing that was almost pain,
+the fanciful elaboration of our last talk, the hint of her graces in
+bird and flower and tree! I wanted her wildly, and the thought of a
+world empty of her was monstrous. I wondered how in the past we had both
+existed and how I had lived, carelessly, happy and serenely indifferent.
+I tried to think of a time when she should no longer have power to make
+my heart quicken with joy or contract with fear--and the thought of such
+a state was insufferable pain. Was I in love? Poor, fatuous fool! I
+wanted her more than everything else in all the world, yet I hesitated
+and asked myself the question.
+
+Hundreds of boats and scows were running the rapids, and we watched them
+with an untiring fascination. That was the most exciting spectacle in
+the whole world. The issue was life or death, ruin or salvation, and
+from dawn till dark, and with every few minutes of the day, was the
+breathless climax repeated. The faces of the actors were sick with
+dread and anxiety. It was curious to study the various expressions of
+the human countenance unmasked and confronted with gibbering fear. Yes,
+it was a vivid drama, a drama of cheers and tears, always thrilling and
+often tragic. Every day were bodies dragged ashore. The rapids demanded
+their tribute. The men of the trail must pay the toll. Sullen and
+bloated the river disgorged its prey, and the dead, without prayer or
+pause, were thrown into nameless graves.
+
+On our first day at the rapids we met the Halfbreed. He was on the point
+of starting downstream. Where was the Bank clerk? Oh, yes; they had
+upset coming through; when last he had seen little Pinklove he was
+struggling in the water. However, they expected to get the body every
+hour. He had paid two men to find and bury it. He had no time to wait.
+
+We did not blame him. In those wild days of headstrong hurry and
+gold-delirium human life meant little. "Another floater," one would say,
+and carelessly turn away. A callousness to death that was almost
+mediaeval was in the air, and the friends of the dead hurried on, the
+richer by a partner's outfit. It was all new, strange, sinister to me,
+this unveiling of life's naked selfishness and lust.
+
+Next morning they found the body, a poor, shapeless, sodden thing with
+such a crumpled skull. My thoughts went back to the sweet-faced girl who
+had wept so bitterly at his going. Even then, maybe, she was thinking
+of him, fondly dreaming of his return, seeing the glow of triumph in his
+boyish eyes. She would wait and hope; then she would wait and despair;
+then there would be another white-faced woman saying, "He went to the
+Klondike, and never came back. We don't know what became of him."
+
+Verily, the way of the gold-trail was cruel.
+
+Berna was with me when they buried him.
+
+"Poor boy, poor boy!" she repeated.
+
+"Yes, poor little beggar! He was so quiet and gentle. He was no man for
+the trail. It's a funny world."
+
+The coffin was a box of unplaned boards loosely nailed together, and the
+men were for putting him into a grave on top of another coffin. I
+protested, so sullenly they proceeded to dig a new grave. Berna looked
+very unhappy, and when she saw that crude, shapeless pine coffin she
+broke down and cried bitterly.
+
+At last she dried her tears and with a happier look in her eyes bade me
+wait a little until she returned. Soon again she came back, carrying
+some folds of black sateen over her arm. As she ripped at this with a
+pair of scissors, I noticed there was a deep frilling to it. Also a
+bright blush came into her cheek at the curious glance I gave to the
+somewhat skimpy lines of her skirt. But the next instant she was busy
+stretching and tacking the black material over the coffin.
+
+The men had completed the new grave. It was only three feet deep, but
+the water coming in had prevented them from digging further. As we laid
+the coffin in the hole it looked quite decent now in its black covering.
+It floated on the water, but after some clods had been thrown down, it
+sank with many gurglings. It was as if the dead man protested against
+his bitter burial. We watched the grave-diggers throw a few more
+shovelsful of earth over the place, then go off whistling. Poor little
+Berna! she cried steadily. At last she said:
+
+"Let's get some flowers."
+
+So out of briar-roses she fashioned a cross and a wreath, and we laid
+them reverently on the muddy heap that marked the Bank clerk's grave.
+
+Oh, the pitiful mockery of it!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Soon I knew that Berna and I must part, and but two nights later it
+came. It was near midnight, yet in no ways dark, and everywhere the camp
+was astir. We were sitting by the river, I remember, a little way from
+the boats. Where the sun had set, the sky was a luminous veil of
+ravishing green, and in the elusive light her face seemed wanly sweet
+and dreamlike.
+
+A sad spirit rustled amid the shivering willows and a great sadness had
+come over the girl. All the happiness of the past few days seemed to
+have ebbed away from her and left her empty of hope. As she sat there,
+silent and with hands clasped, it was as if the shadows that for a
+little had lifted, now enshrouded her with a greater gloom.
+
+"Tell me your trouble, Berna."
+
+She shook her head, her eyes wide as if trying to read the future.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+Her voice was almost a whisper.
+
+"Yes, there is, I know. Tell me, won't you?"
+
+Again she shook her head.
+
+"What's the matter, little chum?"
+
+"It's nothing; it's only my foolishness. If I tell you, it wouldn't help
+me any. And then--it doesn't matter. You wouldn't care. Why should you
+care?"
+
+She turned away from me and seemed absorbed in bitter thought.
+
+"Care! why, yes, I would care; I do care. You know I would do anything
+in the world to help you. You know I would be unhappy if you were
+unhappy. You know----"
+
+"Then it would only worry you."
+
+She was regarding me anxiously.
+
+"Now you must tell me, Berna. It will worry me indeed if you don't."
+
+Once more she refused. I pleaded with her gently. I coaxed, I entreated.
+She was very reluctant, yet at last she yielded.
+
+"Well, if I must," she said; "but it's all so sordid, so mean, I hate
+myself; I despise myself that I should have to tell it."
+
+She kneaded a tiny handkerchief nervously in her fingers.
+
+"You know how nice Madam Winklestein's been to me lately--bought me new
+clothes, given me trinkets. Well, there's a reason--she's got her eye on
+a man for me."
+
+I gave an exclamation of surprise.
+
+"Yes; you know she's let us go together--it's all to draw him on. Oh,
+couldn't you see it? Didn't you suspect something? You don't know how
+bitterly they hate you."
+
+I bit my lip.
+
+"Who's the man?"
+
+"Jack Locasto."
+
+I started.
+
+"Have you heard of him?" she asked. "He's got a million-dollar claim on
+Bonanza."
+
+Had I heard of him! Who had not heard of Black Jack, his spectacular
+poker plays, his meteoric rise, his theatric display?
+
+"Of course he's married," she went on, "but that doesn't matter up here.
+There's such a thing as a Klondike marriage, and they say he behaves
+well to his discarded mis----"
+
+"Berna!" angry and aghast, I had stopped her. "Never let me hear you
+utter that word. Even to say it seems pollution."
+
+She laughed harshly, bitterly.
+
+"What's this whole life but pollution?... Well, anyway, he wants me."
+
+"But you wouldn't, surely you wouldn't?"
+
+She turned on me fiercely.
+
+"What do you take me for? Surely you know me better than that. Oh, you
+almost make me hate you."
+
+Suddenly she pressed the little handkerchief to her eyes. She fell to
+sobbing convulsively. Vainly I tried to soothe her, whispering:
+
+"Oh, my dear, tell me all about it. I'm sorry, girl, I'm sorry."
+
+She ceased crying. She went on in her fierce, excited way.
+
+"He came to the restaurant in Bennett. He used to watch me a lot. His
+eyes were always following me. I was afraid. I trembled when I served
+him. He liked to see me tremble, it gave him a feeling of power. Then he
+took to giving me presents, a diamond ring, a heart-shaped locket,
+costly gifts. I wanted to return them, but she wouldn't let me, took
+them from me, put them away. Then he and she had long talks. I know it
+was all about me. That was why I came to you that night and begged you
+to marry me--to save me from him. Now it's gone from bad to worse. The
+net's closing round me in spite of my flutterings."
+
+"But he can't get you against your will," I cried.
+
+"No! no! but he'll never give up. He'll try so long as I resist him. I'm
+nice to him just to humour him and gain time. I can't tell you how much
+I fear him. They say he always gets his way with women. He's masterly
+and relentless. There's a cold, sneering command in his smile. You hate
+him but you obey him."
+
+"He's an immoral monster, Berna. He spares neither time nor money to
+gratify his whims where a woman is concerned. And he has no pity."
+
+"I know, I know."
+
+"He's intensely masculine, handsome in a vivid, gipsy sort of way; big,
+strong and compelling, but a callous libertine."
+
+"Yes, he's all that. And can you wonder then my heart is full of fear,
+that I am distracted, that I asked you what I did? He is relentless and
+of all women he wants me. He would break me on the wheel of dishonour.
+Oh, God!"
+
+Her face grew almost tragic in its despair.
+
+"And everything's against me; they're all helping him. I haven't a
+single friend, not one to stand by me, to aid me. Once I thought of you,
+and you failed me. Can you wonder I'm nearly crazy with the terror of
+it? Can you wonder I was desperate enough to ask you to save me? I'm all
+alone, friendless, a poor, weak girl. No, I'm wrong. I've one
+friend--death; and I'll die, I'll die, I swear it, before I let him get
+me."
+
+Her words came forth in a torrent, half choked by sobs. It was hard to
+get her calmed. Never had I thought her capable of such force, such
+passion. I was terribly distressed and at a loss how to comfort her.
+
+"Hush, Berna," I pleaded, "please don't say such things. Remember you
+have a friend in me, one that would do anything in his power to help
+you."
+
+She looked at me a moment.
+
+"How can you help me?"
+
+I held both of her hands firmly, looking into her eyes.
+
+"By marrying you. Will you marry me, dear? Will you be my wife?"
+
+"No!"
+
+I started. "Berna!"
+
+"No! I wouldn't marry you if you were the last man left in the world,"
+she cried vehemently.
+
+"Why?" I tried to be calm.
+
+"Why! why, you don't love me; you don't care for me."
+
+"Yes, I do, Berna. I do indeed, girl. Care for you! Well, I care so much
+that--I beg you to marry me."
+
+"Yes, yes, but you don't love me right, not in your great, grand way.
+Not in the way you told me of. Oh, I know; it's part pity, part
+friendship. It would be different if I cared in the same way, if--if I
+didn't care so very much more."
+
+"You do, Berna; you love me like that?"
+
+"How do I know? How can I tell? How can any of us tell?"
+
+"No, dear," I said, "love has no limits, no bounds, it is always holding
+something in reserve. There are yet heights beyond the heights, that
+mock our climbing, never perfection; no great love but might have been
+eclipsed by a greater. There's a master key to every heart, and we poor
+fools delude ourselves with the idea we are opening all the doors. We
+are on sufferance, we are only understudies in the love drama, but
+fortunately the star seldom appears on the scene. However, this I
+know----"
+
+I rose to my feet.
+
+"Since the moment I set eyes on you, I loved you. Long before I ever met
+you, I loved you. I was just waiting for you, waiting. At first I could
+not understand, I did not know what it meant, but now I do, beyond the
+peradventure of a doubt; there never was any but you, never will be any
+but you. Since the beginning of time it was all planned that I should
+love you. And you, how do you care?"
+
+She stood up to hear my words. She would not let me touch her, but there
+was a great light in her eyes. Then she spoke and her voice was vibrant
+with passion, all indifference gone from it.
+
+"Oh, you blind! you coward! Couldn't you see? Couldn't you feel? That
+day on the scow it came to me--Love. It was such as I had never dreamed
+of, rapture, ecstasy, anguish. Do you know what I wished as we went
+through the rapids? I wished that it might be the end, that in such a
+supreme moment we might go down clinging together, and that in death I
+might hold you in my arms. Oh, if you'd only been like that afterwards,
+met love open-armed with love. But, no! you slipped back to friendship.
+I feel as if there were a barrier of ice between us now. I will try
+never to care for you any more. Now leave me, leave me, for I never want
+to see you again."
+
+"Yes, you will, you must, you must, Berna. I'd sell my immortal soul to
+win that love from you, my dearest, my dearest; I'd crawl around the
+world to kiss your shadow. If you called to me I would come from the
+ends of the earth, through storm and darkness, to your side. I love you
+so, I love you so."
+
+I crushed her to me, I kissed her madly, yet she was cold.
+
+"Have you nothing more to say than fine words?" she asked.
+
+"Marry me, marry me," I repeated.
+
+"Now?"
+
+Now! I hesitated again. The suddenness of it was like a cold douche. God
+knows, I burned for the girl, yet somehow convention clamped me.
+
+"Now if you wish," I faltered; "but better when we get to Dawson. Better
+when I've made good up there. Give me one year, Berna, one year and
+then----"
+
+"One year!"
+
+The sudden gleam of hope vanished from her eyes. For the third time I
+was failing her, yet my cursed prudence overrode me.
+
+"Oh, it will pass swiftly, dear. You will be quite safe. I will be near
+you and watch over you."
+
+I reassured her, anxiously explaining how much better it would be if we
+waited a little.
+
+"One year!" she repeated, and it seemed to me her voice was toneless.
+Then she turned to me in a sudden spate of passion, her face pleading,
+furrowed, wretchedly sad.
+
+"Oh, my dear, my dear, I love you better than the whole world, but I
+hoped you would care enough for me to marry me now. It would have been
+best, believe me. I thought you would rise to the occasion, but you've
+failed me. Well, be it so, we'll wait one year."
+
+"Yes, believe me, trust me, dear; it will be all right. I'll work for
+you, slave for you, think only of you, and in twelve short months--I'll
+give my whole life to make you happy."
+
+"Will you, dear? Well, it doesn't matter now.... I've loved you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All that night I wrestled with myself. I felt I ought to marry her at
+once to shield her from the dangers that encompassed her. She was like a
+lamb among a pack of wolves. I juggled with my conscience. I was young
+and marriage to me seemed such a terribly all-important step.
+
+Yet in the end my better nature triumphed, and ere the camp was astir I
+arose. I was going to marry Berna that day. A feeling of relief came
+over me. How had it ever seemed possible to delay? I was elated beyond
+measure.
+
+I hurried to tell her, I pictured her joy. I was almost breathless. Love
+words trembled on my tongue tip. It seemed to me I could not bear to
+wait a moment.
+
+Then as I reached the place where they had rested I gazed unbelievingly.
+A sickening sense of loss and failure crushed me.
+
+For the scow was gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+It was three days before we made a start again, and to me each day was
+like a year. I chafed bitterly at the delay. Would those sacks of flour
+never dry? Longingly I gazed down the big, blue Yukon and cursed the
+current that was every moment carrying her farther from me. Why her
+sudden departure? I had no doubt it was enforced. I dreaded danger. Then
+in a while I grew calmer. I was foolish to worry. She was safe enough.
+We would meet in Dawson.
+
+At last we were under way. Once more we sped down that devious river,
+now swirling under the shadow of a steep bank, now steering around a
+sandspit. The scenery was hideous to me, bluffs of clay with pines
+peeping over their rims, willow-fringed flats, swamps of niggerhead,
+ugly drab hills in endless monotony.
+
+How full of kinks and hooks was the river! How vicious with snags! How
+treacherous with eddies! It was beginning to bulk in my thoughts almost
+like an obsession. Then one day Lake Labarge burst on my delighted eyes.
+The trail was nearing its end.
+
+Once more with swelling sail we drove before the wind. Once more we were
+in a fleet of Argonaut boats, and now, with the goal in sight, each man
+redoubled his efforts. Perhaps the rich ground would all be gone ere we
+reached the valley. Maddening thought after what we had endured! We must
+get on.
+
+There was not a man in all that fleet but imagined that fortune awaited
+him with open arms. They talked exultantly. Their eyes shone with the
+gold-lust. They strained at sweep and oar. To be beaten at the last! Oh,
+it was inconceivable! A tigerish eagerness filled them; a panic of fear
+and cupidity spurred them on.
+
+Labarge was a dream lake, mirroring noble mountains in its depths (for
+soon after we made it, a dead calm fell). But we had no eyes for its
+beauty. The golden magnet was drawing us too strongly now. We cursed
+that exquisite serenity that made us sweat at the oars; we cursed the
+wind that never would arise; the currents that always were against us.
+In that breathless tranquillity myriads of mosquitoes assailed us,
+blinded us, covered our food as we ate, made our lives a perfect hell of
+misery. Yet the trail was nearing its finish.
+
+What a relief it was when a sudden storm came up! White-caps tossed
+around us, and the wind drove us on a precipitous shore, so that we
+nearly came to a sorry end. But it was over at last, and we swept on
+into the Thirty-mile River.
+
+A furious, hurling stream was this, that matched our mad, impatient
+mood; but it was staked with hidden dangers. We gripped our weary oars.
+Keenly alert we had to be, steering and watching for rocks that would
+have ripped us from bow to stern. There was a famously terrible one, on
+which scows smashed like egg-shells under a hammer, and we missed it by
+a bare hand's-breadth. I felt sick to think of our bitterness had we
+piled up on it. That was an evil, ugly river, full of capricious turns
+and eddies, and the bluffs were high and steep.
+
+Hootalinqua, Big Salmon, Little Salmon, these are names to me now. All I
+can remember is long days of toil at the oar, fighting the growing
+obsession of mosquitoes, ever pressing on to the golden valley. The
+ceaseless strain was beginning to tell on us. We suffered from
+rheumatism, we barked with cold. Oh, we were weary, weary, yet the trail
+was nearing its end.
+
+One sunlit Sabbath evening I remember well. We were drifting along and
+we came on a lovely glade where a creek joined the river. It was a
+green, velvety, sparkling place, and by the creek were two men
+whipsawing lumber. We hailed them jauntily and asked them if they had
+found prospects. Were they getting out lumber for sluice-boxes?
+
+One of the men came forward. He was very tired, very quiet, very solemn.
+"No," he said, "we are sawing out a coffin for our dead."
+
+Then we saw a limp shape in their boat and we hurried on, awed and
+abashed.
+
+The river was mud colour now, swirling in great eddies or convulsed from
+below with sudden upheavals. Drifting on that oily current one seemed to
+be quite motionless, and only the gliding banks assured us of progress.
+The country seemed terrible to me, sinister, guilty, God-forsaken. At
+the horizon, jagged mountains stabbed viciously at the sky.
+
+The river overwhelmed me. Sometimes it was a stream of blood, running
+into the eye of the setting sun, beautiful, yet weird and menacing. It
+broadened, deepened, and every day countless streams swelled its volume.
+Islands waded in it greenly. Always we heard it _singing_, a seething,
+hissing noise supposed to be the pebbles shuffling on the bottom.
+
+The days were insufferably hot and mosquito-curst; the nights chilly,
+damp and mosquito-haunted. I suffered agonies from neuralgia. Never
+mind, it would soon be over. We were on our last lap. The trail was near
+its end.
+
+Yes, it was indeed the homestretch. Suddenly sweeping round a bend we
+raised a shout of joy. There was that great livid scar on the mountain
+face--the "Slide," and clustered below it like shells on the seashore,
+an army of tents. It was the gold-born city.
+
+Trembling with eagerness we pulled ashore. Our troubles were over. At
+last we had gained our Eldorado, thank God, thank God!
+
+A number of loafers were coming to meet us. They were strangely calm.
+
+"How about the gold?" said the Prodigal; "lots of ground left to stake?"
+
+One of them looked at us contemptuously. He chewed a moment ere he
+spoke.
+
+"You Cheechakers better git right home. There ain't a foot of ground to
+stake. Everything in sight was staked last Fall. The rest is all mud.
+There's nothing doin' an' there's ten men for every job! The whole
+thing's a fake. You Cheechakers better git right home."
+
+Yes, after all our travail, all our torment, we had better go right
+home. Already many were preparing to do so. Yet what of that great
+oncoming horde of which we were but the vanguard? What of the eager
+army, the host of the Cheechakos? For hundreds of miles were lake and
+river white with their grotesque boats. Beyond them again were thousands
+and thousands of others struggling on through mosquito-curst morasses,
+bent under their inexorable burdens. Reckless, indomitable,
+hope-inspired, they climbed the passes and shot the rapids; they drowned
+in the rivers, they rotted in the swamps. Nothing could stay them. The
+golden magnet was drawing them on; the spell of the gold-lust was in
+their hearts.
+
+And this was the end. For this they had mortgaged homes and broken
+hearts. For this they had faced danger and borne suffering: to be told
+to return.
+
+The land was choosing its own. All along it had weeded out the
+weaklings. Now let the fainthearted go back. This land was only for the
+Strong.
+
+Yet it was sad, so much weariness, and at the end disenchantment and
+failure.
+
+Verily the ways of the gold-trail were cruel.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+THE CAMP
+
+
+For once you've panned the speckled sand and seen the bonny dust,
+  Its peerless brightness blinds you like a spell;
+It's little else you care about; you go because you must,
+  And you feel that you could follow it to hell.
+You'd follow it in hunger, and you'd follow it in cold;
+  You'd follow it in solitude and pain;
+And when you're stiff and battened down let some one whisper "Gold,"
+  You're lief to rise and follow it again.
+
+--"The Prospector."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+I will always remember my first day in the gold-camp. We were well in
+front of the Argonaut army, but already thousands were in advance of us.
+The flat at the mouth of Bonanza was a congestion of cabins; shacks and
+tents clustered the hillside, scattered on the heights and massed again
+on the slope sweeping down to the Klondike. An intense vitality charged
+the air. The camp was alive, ahum, vibrant with fierce, dynamic energy.
+
+In effect the town was but one street stretching alongside the water
+front. It was amazingly packed with men from side to side, from end to
+end. They lounged in the doorways of oddly assorted buildings, and
+jostled each other on the dislocated sidewalks. Stores of all kinds,
+saloons, gambling joints flourished without number, and in one block
+alone there were half a dozen dance-halls. Yet all seemed plethorically
+prosperous.
+
+Many of the business houses were installed in tents. That huge canvas
+erection was a mining exchange; that great log barn a dance-hall.
+Dwarfish log cabins impudently nestled up to pretentious three-story
+hotels. The effect was oddly staccato. All was grotesque, makeshift,
+haphazard. Back of the main street lay the red-light quarter, and behind
+it again a swamp of niggerheads, the breeding-place of fever and
+mosquito.
+
+The crowd that vitalised the street was strikingly cosmopolitan. Mostly
+big, bearded fellows they were, with here the full-blooded face of the
+saloon man, and there the quick, pallid mask of the gambler. Women too I
+saw in plenty, bold, free, predacious creatures, a rustle of silk and a
+reek of perfume. Till midnight I wandered up and down the long street;
+but there was no darkness, no lull in its clamorous life.
+
+I was looking for Berna. My heart hungered for her; my eyes ached for
+her; my mind was so full of her there seemed no room for another single
+thought. But it was like looking for a needle in a strawstack to find
+her in that seething multitude. I knew no one, and it seemed futile to
+inquire regarding her. These keen-eyed men with eager talk of claims and
+pay-dirt could not help me. There seemed to be nothing for it but to
+wait. So with spirits steadily sinking zerowards I waited.
+
+We found, indeed, that there was little ground left to stake. The mining
+laws were in some confusion, and were often changing. Several creeks
+were closed to location, but always new strikes were being made and
+stampedes started. So, after a session of debate, we decided to reserve
+our rights to stake till a good chance offered. It was a bitter
+awakening. Like all the rest we had expected to get ground that was gold
+from the grass-roots down. But there was work to be had, and we would
+not let ourselves be disheartened.
+
+The Jam-wagon had already deserted us. He was off up on Eldorado
+somewhere, shovelling dirt into a sluice-box for ten dollars a day. I
+made up my mind I would follow him. Jim also would get to work, while
+the Prodigal, we agreed, would look after all our interests, and stake
+or buy a good claim.
+
+Thus we planned, sitting in our little tent near the beach. We were in a
+congeries of tents. The beach was fast whitening with them. If one was
+in a hurry it was hard to avoid tripping over ropes and pegs. As each
+succeeding party arrived they had to go further afield to find
+camping-ground. And they were arriving in thousands daily. The shore for
+a mile was lined five deep with boats. Scows had been hauled high and
+dry on the gravel, and there the owners were living. A thousand stoves
+were eloquent of beans and bacon. I met a man taking home a prize, a
+porterhouse steak. He was carrying it over his arm like a towel, paper
+was so scarce. The camp was a hive of energy, a hum of occupation.
+
+But how many, after they had paraded that mile-long street with its mud,
+its seething foam of life, its blare of gramophones and its blaze of
+dance-halls, ached for their southland homes again! You could read the
+disappointment in their sun-tanned faces. Yet they were the eager
+navigators of the lakes, the reckless amateurs of the rivers. This was a
+something different from the trail. It was as if, after all their
+efforts, they had butted up against a stone wall. There was "nothing
+doing," no ground left, and only hard work, the hardest on earth.
+
+Moreover, the country was at the mercy of a gang of corrupt officials
+who were using the public offices for their own enrichment. Franchises
+were being given to the favourites of those in power, concessions sold,
+liquor permits granted, and abuses of every kind practised on the free
+miner. All was venality, injustice and exaction.
+
+"Go home," said the Man in the Street; "the mining laws are rotten. All
+kinds of ground is tied up. Even if you get hold of something good, them
+dam-robber government sharks will flim-flam you out of it. There's no
+square deal here. They tax you to mine; they tax you to cut a tree; they
+tax you to sell a fish; pretty soon they'll be taxing you to breathe. Go
+home!"
+
+And many went, many of the trail's most indomitable. They could face
+hardship and danger, the blizzards, the rapids, nature savage and
+ravening; but when it came to craft, graft and the duplicity of their
+fellow men they were discouraged, discomfited.
+
+"Say, boys, I guess I've done a slick piece of work," said the Prodigal
+with some satisfaction, as he entered the tent. "I've bought three whole
+outfits on the beach. Got them for twenty-five per cent. less than the
+cost price in Seattle. I'll pull out a hundred per cent. on the deal.
+Now's the time to get in and buy from the quitters. They so soured at
+the whole frame-up they're ready to pull their freights at any moment.
+All they want's to get away. They want to put a few thousand miles
+between them and this garbage dump of creation. They never want to hear
+the name of Yukon again except as a cuss-word. I'm going to keep on
+buying outfits. You boys see if I don't clean up a bunch of money."
+
+"It's too bad to take advantage of them," I suggested.
+
+"Too bad nothing! That's business; your necessity, my opportunity. Oh,
+you'd never make a money-getter, my boy, this side of the
+millennium--and you Scotch too."
+
+"That's nothing," said Jim; "wait till I tell you of the deal I made
+to-day. You recollect I packed a flat-iron among my stuff, an' you boys
+joshed me about it, said I was bughouse. But I figured out: there's
+camp-meetin's an' socials up there, an' a nice, dinky, white shirt once
+in a way goes pretty good. Anyway, thinks I, if there ain't no one else
+to dress for in that wilderness, I'll dress for the Almighty. So I
+sticks to my old flat-iron."
+
+He looked at us with a twinkle in his eye and then went on.
+
+"Well, it seems there's only three more flat-irons in camp, an' all the
+hot sports wantin' boiled shirts done up, an' all the painted Jezebels
+hollerin' to have their lingery fixed, an' the wash-ladies just goin'
+round crazy for flat-irons. Well, I didn't want to sell mine, but the
+old coloured lady that runs the Bong Tong Laundry (an' a sister in the
+Lord) came to me with tears in her eyes, an' at last I was prevailed on
+to separate from it."
+
+"How much, Jim?"
+
+"Well, I didn't want to be too hard on the old girl, so I let her down
+easy."
+
+"How much?"
+
+"Well, you see there's only three or four of them flat-irons in camp, so
+I asked a hundred an' fifty dollars, an' quick's a flash, she took me
+into a store an' paid me in gold-dust."
+
+He flourished a little poke of dust in our laughing faces.
+
+"That's pretty good," I said; "everything seems topsy-turvy up here.
+Why, to-day I saw a man come in with a box of apples which the crowd
+begged him to open. He was selling those apples at a dollar apiece, and
+the folks were just fighting to get them."
+
+It was so with everything. Extraordinary prices ruled. Eggs and candles
+had been sold for a dollar each, and potatoes for a dollar a pound;
+while on the trail in '97 horse-shoe nails were selling at _a dollar a
+nail_.
+
+Once more I roamed the long street with that awful restless agony in my
+heart. Where was she, my girl, so precious now it seemed I had lost her?
+Why does love mean so much to some, so little to others? Perhaps I am
+the victim of an intensity of temperament, but I craved for her; I
+visioned evils befalling her; I pierced my heart with dagger-thrusts of
+fear for her. Oh, if I only knew she was safe and well! Every slim woman
+I saw in the distance looked to be her, and made my heart leap with
+emotion. Yet always I chewed on the rind of disappointment. There was
+never a sign of Berna.
+
+In the agitation and unrest of my mind I climbed the hill that
+overshadows the gold-born city. The Dome they call it, and the face of
+it is vastly scarred, blanched as by a cosmic blow. There on its topmost
+height by a cairn of stone I stood at gaze, greatly awestruck.
+
+The view was a spacious one, and of an overwhelming grandeur. Below me
+lay the mighty Yukon, here like a silken ribbon, there broadening out to
+a pool of quicksilver. It seemed motionless, dead, like a piece of
+tinfoil lying on a sable shroud.
+
+The great valley was preternaturally still, and pall-like as if steeped
+in the colours of the long, long night. The land so vast, so silent, so
+lifeless, was round in its contours, full of fat creases and bold
+curves. The mountains were like sleeping giants; here was the swell of a
+woman's breast, there the sweep of a man's thigh. And beyond that huddle
+of sprawling Titans, far, far beyond, as if it were an enclosing
+stockade, was the jagged outline of the Rockies.
+
+Quite suddenly they seemed to stand up against the blazing sky,
+monstrous, horrific, smiting the senses like a blow. Their primordial
+faces were hacked and hewed fantastically, and there they posed in their
+immemorial isolation, virgin peaks, inviolate valleys, impregnably
+desolate and savagely sublime.
+
+And beyond their stormy crests, surely a world was consuming in the
+kilns of chaos. Was ever anything so insufferably bright as the
+incandescent glow that brimmed those jagged clefts? That fierce
+crimson, was it not the hue of a cooling crucible, that deep vermillion
+the rich glory of a rose's heart? Did not that tawny orange mind you of
+ripe wheat-fields and the exquisite intrusion of poppies? That pure,
+clear gold, was it not a bank of primroses new washed in April rain?
+What was that luminous opal but a lagoon, a pearly lagoon, with floating
+in it islands of amber, their beaches crisped with ruby foam? And, over
+all the riot of colour, that shimmering chrysoprase so tenderly
+luminous--might it not fitly veil the splendours of paradise?
+
+I looked to where gulped the mouth of Bonanza, cavernously wide and
+filled with the purple smoke of many fires. There was the golden valley,
+silent for centuries, now strident with human cries, vehement with human
+strife. There was the timbered basin of the Klondike bleakly rising to
+mountains eloquent of death. It was dominating, appalling, this vastness
+without end, this unappeasable loneliness. Glad was I to turn again to
+where, like white pebbles on a beach, gleamed the tents of the gold-born
+city.
+
+Somewhere amid that confusion of canvas, that muddle of cabins, was
+Berna, maybe lying in some wide-eyed vigil of fear, maybe staining with
+hopeless tears her restless pillow. Somewhere down there--Oh, I must
+find her!
+
+I returned to the town. I was tramping its long street once more, that
+street with its hundreds of canvas signs. It was a city of signs. Every
+place of business seemed to have its fluttering banner, and beneath
+these banners moved the ever restless throng. There were men from the
+mines in their flannel shirts and corduroys, their Stetsons and high
+boots. There were men from the trail in sweaters and mackinaws, German
+socks and caps with ear-flaps. But all were bronzed and bearded,
+fleshless and clean-limbed. I marvelled at the seriousness of their
+faces, till I remembered that here was no problem of a languorous
+sunland, but one of grim emergency. It was a man's game up here in the
+North, a man's game in a man's land, where the sunlight of the long,
+long day is ever haunted by the shadow of the long, long night.
+
+Oh, if I could only find her! The land was a great symphony; she the
+haunting theme of it.
+
+I bought a copy of the "Nugget" and went into the Sourdough Restaurant
+to read it. As I lingered there sipping my coffee and perusing the paper
+indifferently, a paragraph caught my eye and made my heart glow with
+sudden hope.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Here was the item:
+
+                       Jack Locasto loses $19,000.
+
+     "One of the largest gambling plays that ever occurred in Dawson
+     came off last night in the Malamute Saloon. Jack Locasto of
+     Eldorado, well known as one of the Klondike's wealthiest
+     claim-owners, Claude Terry and Charlie Haw were the chief actors in
+     the game, which cost the first-named the sum of $19,000.
+
+     "Locasto came to Dawson from his claim yesterday. It is said that
+     before leaving the Forks he lost a sum ranging in the neighbourhood
+     of $5,000. Last night he began playing in the Malamute with Haw and
+     Terry in an effort, it is supposed, to recoup his losses at the
+     Forks. The play continued nearly all night, and at the wind-up,
+     Locasto, as stated above, was loser to the amount of $19,000. This
+     is probably the largest individual loss ever sustained at one
+     sitting in the history of Klondike poker playing."
+
+Jack Locasto! Why had I not thought of him before? Surely if any one
+knew of the girl's whereabouts, it would be he. I determined I would ask
+him at once.
+
+So I hastily finished my coffee and inquired of the emasculated-looking
+waiter where I might find the Klondike King.
+
+"Oh, Black Jack," he said: "well, at the Green Bay Tree, or the Tivoli,
+or the Monte Carlo. But there's a big poker game on and he's liable to
+be in it."
+
+Once more I paraded the seething street. It was long after midnight, but
+the wondrous glow, still burning in the Northern sky, filled the land
+with strange enchantment. In spite of the hour the town seemed to be
+more alive than ever. Parties with pack-laden mules were starting off
+for the creeks, travelling at night to avoid the heat and mosquitoes.
+Men with lean brown faces trudged sturdily along carrying extraordinary
+loads on their stalwart shoulders. A stove, blankets, cooking utensils,
+axe and shovel usually formed but a part of their varied accoutrement.
+
+Constables of the Mounted Police were patrolling the streets. In the
+drab confusion their scarlet tunics were a piercing note of colour. They
+walked very stiffly, with grim mouths and eyes sternly vigilant under
+the brims of their Stetsons. Women were everywhere, smoking cigarettes,
+laughing, chaffing, strolling in and out of the wide-open saloons. Their
+cheeks were rouged, their eye-lashes painted, their eyes bright with
+wine. They gazed at the men like sleek animals, with looks that were
+wanton and alluring. A libertine spirit was in the air, a madcap
+freedom, an effluence of disdainful sin.
+
+I found myself by the stockade that surrounded the Police reservation.
+On every hand I saw traces of a recent overflow of the river that had
+transformed the street into a navigable canal. Now in places there were
+mudholes in which horses would flounder to their bellies. One of the
+Police constables, a tall, slim Englishman with a refined manner, proved
+to me a friend in need.
+
+"Yes," he said, in answer to my query, "I think I can find your man.
+He's downtown somewhere with some of the big sporting guns. Come on,
+we'll run him to earth."
+
+As we walked along we compared notes, and he talked of himself in a
+frank, friendly way.
+
+"You're not long out from the old country? Thought not. Left there
+myself about four years ago--I joined the Force in Regina. It's
+altogether different 'outside,' patrol work, a free life on the open
+prairie. Here they keep one choring round barracks most of the time.
+I've been for six months now on the town station. I'm not sorry, though.
+It's all devilish interesting. Wouldn't have missed it for a farm. When
+I write the people at home about it they think I'm yarning--stringing
+them, as they say here. The governor's a clergyman. Sent me to Harrow,
+and wanted to make a Bishop out of me. But I'm restless; never could
+study; don't seem to fit in, don't you know."
+
+I recognised his type, the clean, frank, breezy Englishman that has
+helped to make an Empire. He went on:
+
+"Yes, how the old dad would stare if I could only have him in Dawson for
+a day. He'd never be able to get things just in focus any more. He would
+be knocked clean off the pivot on which he's revolved these thirty
+years. Seems to me every one's travelling on a pivot in the old country.
+It's no use trying to hammer it into their heads there are more points
+of view than one. If you don't just see things as they see them, you're
+troubled with astigmatism. Come, let's go in here."
+
+He pushed his way through a crowded doorway and I followed. It was the
+ordinary type of combined saloon and gambling-joint. In one corner was a
+very ornate bar, and all around the capacious room were gambling devices
+of every kind. There were crap-tables, wheel of fortune, the Klondike
+game, Keno, stud poker, roulette and faro outfits. The place was
+chock-a-block with rough-looking men, either looking on or playing the
+games. The men who were running the tables wore shades of green over
+their eyes, and their strident cries of "Come on, boys," pierced the
+smoky air.
+
+In a corner, presiding over a stud-poker game, I was surprised to see
+our old friend Mosher. He was dealing with one hand, holding the pack
+delicately and sending the cards with a dexterous flip to each player.
+Miners were buying chips from a man at the bar, who with a pair of gold
+scales was weighing out dust in payment.
+
+My companion pointed to an inner room with a closed door.
+
+"The Klondike Kings are in there, hard at it. They've been playing now
+for twenty-four hours, and goodness knows when they'll let up."
+
+At that moment a peremptory bell rang from the room and a waiter
+hurried up.
+
+"There they are," said my friend, as the door opened. "There's Black
+Jack and Stillwater Willie and Claude Terry and Charlie Haw."
+
+Eagerly I looked in. The men were wearied, their faces haggard and
+ghastly pale. Quickly and coolly they fingered the cards, but in their
+hollow eyes burned the fever of the game, a game where golden eagles
+were the chips and thousand-dollar jack-pots were unremarkable. No doubt
+they had lost and won greatly, but they gave no sign. What did it
+matter? In the dumps waiting to be cleaned up were hundreds of thousands
+more; while in the ground were millions, millions.
+
+All but Locasto were medium-sized men. Stillwater Willie was in
+evening-dress. He wore a red tie in which glittered a huge diamond pin,
+and yellow tan boots covered with mud.
+
+"How did he get his name?" I asked.
+
+"Well, you see, they say he was the only one that funked the Whitehorse
+Rapids. He's a high flier, all right."
+
+The other two were less striking. Haw was a sandy-haired man with
+shifty, uneasy eyes; Terry of a bulldog type, stocky and powerful. But
+it was Locasto who gripped and riveted my attention.
+
+He was a massive man, heavy of limb and brutal in strength. There was a
+great spread to his shoulders and a conscious power in his every
+movement. He had a square, heavy chin, a grim, sneering mouth, a falcon
+nose, black eyes that were as cold as the water in a deserted shaft. His
+hair was raven dark, and his skin betrayed the Mexican strain in his
+blood. Above the others he towered, strikingly masterful, and I felt
+somehow the power that emanated from the man, the brute force, the
+remorseless purpose.
+
+Then the waiter returned with a tray of drinks and the door was closed.
+
+"Well, you've seen him now," said Chester of the Police. "Your only
+plan, if you want to speak to him, is to wait till the game breaks up.
+When poker interferes with your business, to the devil with your
+business. They won't be interrupted. Well, old man, if you can't be
+good, be careful; and if you want me any time, ring up the town station.
+Bye, bye."
+
+He sauntered off. For a time I strolled from game to game, watching the
+expressions on the faces of the players, and trying to take an interest
+in the play. Yet my mind was ever on the closed door and my ear strained
+to hear the click of chips. I heard the hoarse murmurs of their voices,
+an occasional oath or a yawn of fatigue. How I wished they would come
+out! Women went to the door, peered in cautiously, and beat a hasty
+retreat to the tune of reverberated curses. The big guns were busy; even
+the ladies must await their pleasure.
+
+Oh, the weariness of that waiting! In my longing for Berna I had worked
+myself up into a state that bordered on distraction. It seemed as if a
+cloud was in my brain, obsessing me at all times. I felt I must
+question this man, though it raised my gorge even to speak of her in his
+presence. In that atmosphere of corruption the thought of the girl was
+intolerably sweet, as of a ray of sunshine penetrating a noisome
+dungeon.
+
+It was in the young morn when the game broke up. The outside air was
+clear as washed gold; within it was foul and fetid as a drunkard's
+breath. Men with pinched and pallid faces came out and inhaled the
+breeze, which was buoyant as champagne. Beneath the perfect blue of the
+spring sky the river seemed a shimmer of violet, and the banks dipped
+down with the green of chrysoprase.
+
+Already a boy was sweeping up the dirty, nicotine-frescoed sawdust from
+the floor. (It was his perquisite, and from the gold he panned out he
+ultimately made enough to put him through college.) Then the inner door
+opened and Black Jack appeared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+He was wan and weary. Around his sombre eyes were chocolate-coloured
+hollows. His thick raven hair was disordered. He had lost heavily, and,
+bidding a curt good-bye to the others, he strode off. In a moment I had
+followed and overtaken him.
+
+"Mr. Locasto."
+
+He turned and gave me a stare from his brooding eyes. They were vacant
+as those of a dope-fiend, vacant with fatigue.
+
+"Jack Locasto's my name," he answered carelessly.
+
+I walked alongside him.
+
+"Well, sir," I said, "my name's Meldrum, Athol Meldrum."
+
+"Oh, I don't care what the devil your name is," he broke in petulantly.
+"Don't bother me just now. I'm tired."
+
+"So am I," I said, "infernally tired; but it won't hurt you to listen to
+my name."
+
+"Well, Mr. Athol Meldrum, good-day."
+
+His voice was cold, his manner galling in its indifference, and a sudden
+anger glowed in me.
+
+"Hold on," I said; "just a moment. You can very easily do me an immense
+favour. Listen to me."
+
+"Well, what do you want," he demanded roughly; "work?"
+
+"No," I said, "I just want a scrap of information. I came into the
+country with some Jews the name of Winklestein. I've lost track of them
+and I think you may be able to tell me where they are."
+
+He was all attention now. He turned half round and scrutinised me with
+deliberate intensity. Then, like a flash, his rough manner changed. He
+was the polished gentleman, the San Francisco club-lounger, the man of
+the world.
+
+He rasped the stubble on his chin; his eyes were bland, his voice smooth
+as cream.
+
+"Winklestein," he echoed reflectively, "Winklestein; seems to me I do
+remember the name, but for the life of me I can't recall where."
+
+He was watching me like a cat, and pretending to think hard.
+
+"Was there a girl with them?"
+
+"Yes," I said eagerly, "a young girl."
+
+"A young girl, ah!" He seemed to reflect hard again. "Well, my friend,
+I'm afraid I can't help you. I remember noticing the party on the way
+in, but what became of them I can't think. I don't usually bother about
+that kind of people. Well, good-night, or good-morning rather. This is
+my hotel."
+
+He had half entered when he paused and turned to me. His face was
+urbane, his voice suave to sweetness; but it seemed to me there was a
+subtle mockery in his tone.
+
+"I say, if I should hear anything of them, I'll let you know. Your
+name? Athol Meldrum--all right, I'll let you know. Good-bye."
+
+He was gone and I had failed. I cursed myself for a fool. The man had
+baffled me. Nay, even I had hurt myself by giving him an inkling of my
+search. Berna seemed further away from me than ever. Home I went,
+discouraged and despairful.
+
+Then I began to argue with myself. He must know where they were, and if
+he really had designs on the girl and was keeping her in hiding my
+interview with him would alarm him. He would take the first opportunity
+of warning the Winklesteins. When would he do it? That very night in all
+likelihood. So I reasoned; and I resolved to watch.
+
+I stationed myself in a saloon from where I could command a view of his
+hotel, and there I waited. I think I must have watched the place for
+three hours, but I know it was a weariful business, and I was heartsick
+of it. Doggedly I stuck to my post. I was beginning to think he must
+have evaded me, when suddenly coming forth alone from the hotel I saw my
+man.
+
+It was about midnight, neither light nor dark, but rather an absence of
+either quality, and the Northern sky was wan and ominous. In the crowded
+street I saw Locasto's hat overtopping all others, so that I had no
+difficulty in shadowing him. Once he stopped to speak to a woman, once
+to light a cigar; then he suddenly turned up a side street that ran
+through the red-light district.
+
+He was walking swiftly and he took a path that skirted the swamp behind
+the town. I had no doubt of his mission. My heart began to beat with
+excitement. The little path led up the hill, clothed with fresh foliage
+and dotted with cabins. Once I saw him pause and look round. I had
+barely time to dodge behind some bushes, and feared for a moment he had
+seen me. But no! on he went again faster than ever.
+
+I knew now I had divined his errand. He was at too great pains to cover
+his tracks. The trail had plunged among a maze of slender cotton-woods,
+and twisted so that I was sore troubled to keep him in view. Always he
+increased his gait and I followed breathlessly. There were few cabins
+hereabouts; it was a lonely place to be so near to town, very quiet and
+thickly screened from sight. Suddenly he seemed to disappear, and,
+fearing my pursuit was going to be futile, I rushed forward.
+
+I came to a dead stop. There was no one to be seen. He had vanished
+completely. The trail climbed steeply up, twisty as a corkscrew. These
+cursed poplars, how densely they grew! Blindly I blundered forward. Then
+I came to a place where the trail forked. Panting for breath I hesitated
+which way to take, and it was in that moment of hesitation that a heavy
+hand was laid on my shoulder.
+
+"Where away, my young friend?" It was Locasto. His face was
+Mephistophelian, his voice edged with irony. I was startled I admit, but
+I tried to put a good face on it.
+
+"Hello," I said; "I'm just taking a stroll."
+
+His black eyes pierced me, his black brows met savagely. The heavy jaw
+shot forward, and for a moment the man, menacing and terrible, seemed to
+tower above me.
+
+"You lie!" like explosive steam came the words, and wolf-like his lips
+parted, showing his powerful teeth. "You lie!" he reiterated. "You
+followed me. Didn't I see you from the hotel? Didn't I determine to
+decoy you away? Oh, you fool! you fool! who are you that would pit your
+weakness against my strength, your simplicity against my cunning? You
+would try to cross me, would you? You would champion damsels in
+distress? You pretty fool, you simpleton, you meddler----"
+
+Suddenly, without warning, he struck me square on the face, a blinding,
+staggering blow that brought me to my knees as falls a pole-axed steer.
+I was stunned, swaying weakly, trying vainly to get on my feet. I
+stretched out my clenched hands to him. Then he struck me again, a
+bitter, felling blow.
+
+I was completely at his mercy now and he showed me none. He was like a
+fiend. Rage seemed to rend him. Time and again he kicked me, brutally,
+relentlessly, on the ribs, on the chest, on the head. Was the man going
+to do me to death? I shielded my head. I moaned in agony. Would he never
+stop? Then I became unconscious, knowing that he was still kicking me,
+and wondering if I would ever open my eyes again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+"Long live the cold-feet tribe! Long live the soreheads!"
+
+It was the Prodigal who spoke. "This outfit buying's got gold-mining
+beaten to a standstill. Here I've been three weeks in the burg and got
+over ten thousand dollars' worth of grub cached away. Every pound of it
+will net me a hundred per cent. profit. I'm beginning to look on myself
+as a second John D. Rockefeller."
+
+"You're a confounded robber," I said. "You're working a cinch-game.
+What's your first name? Isaac?"
+
+He turned the bacon he was frying and smiled gayly.
+
+"Snort away all you like, old sport. So long as I get the mon you can
+call me any old name you please."
+
+He was very sprightly and elate, but I was in no sort of mood to share
+in his buoyancy. Physically I had fully recovered from my terrible
+manhandling, but in spirit I still writhed at the outrage of it. And the
+worst was I could do nothing. The law could not help me, for there were
+no witnesses to the assault. I could never cope with this man in bodily
+strength. Why was I not a stalwart? If I had been as tall and strong as
+Garry, for instance. True, I might shoot; but there the Police would
+take a hand in the game, and I would lose out badly. There seemed to be
+nothing for it but to wait and pray for some means of retaliation.
+
+Yet how bitterly I brooded over the business. At times there was even
+black murder in my heart. I planned schemes of revenge, grinding my
+teeth in impotent rage the while; and my feelings were complicated by
+that awful gnawing hunger for Berna that never left me. It was a perfect
+agony of heart, a panic-fear, a craving so intense that at times I felt
+I would go distracted with the pain of it.
+
+Perhaps I am a poor sort of being. I have often wondered. I either feel
+intensely, or I am quite indifferent. I am a prey to my emotions, a
+martyr to my moods. Apart from my great love for Berna it seemed to me
+as if nothing mattered. All through these stormy years it was like
+that--nothing else mattered. And now that I am nearing the end of my
+life I can see that nothing else has ever mattered. Everything that
+happened appealed to me in its relation to her. It seemed to me as if I
+saw all the world through the medium of my love for her, and that all
+beauty, all truth, all good was but a setting for this girl of mine.
+
+"Come on," said Jim; "let's go for a walk in the town."
+
+The "Modern Gomorrah" he called it, and he was never tired of
+expatiating on its iniquity.
+
+"See that man there?" he said, pointing to a grey-haired pedestrian, who
+was talking to an emphatic blonde. "That man's a lawyer. He's got a
+lovely home in Los Angeles, an' three of the sweetest girls you ever
+saw. A young fellow needed to have his credentials O. K.'d by the Purity
+Committee before he came butting round that man's home. Now he's off to
+buy wine for Daisy of the Deadline."
+
+The grey-haired man had turned into a saloon with his companion.
+
+"Yes, that's Dawson for you. We're so far from home. The good old
+moralities don't apply here. The hoary old Yukon won't tell on us. We've
+been a Sunday School Superintendent for ten years. For fifty more we've
+passed up the forbidden fruit. Every one else is helping themselves.
+Wonder what it tastes like? Wine is flowing like water. Money's the
+cheapest thing in sight. Cut loose, drink up. The orchestra's a-goin'.
+Get your partners for a nice juicy two-step. Come on, boys!"
+
+He was particularly bitter, and it really seemed in that general lesion
+of the moral fibre that civilisation was only a makeshift, a veneer of
+hypocrisy.
+
+"Why should we marvel," I said, "at man's brutality, when but an aeon ago
+we all were apes?"
+
+Just then we met the Jam-wagon. He had mushed in from the creeks that
+very day. Physically he looked supreme. He was berry-brown, lean,
+muscular and as full of suppressed energy as an unsprung bear-trap.
+Financially he was well ballasted. Mentally and morally he was in the
+state of a volcano before an eruption.
+
+You could see in the quick breathing, in the restlessness of this man,
+a pent-up energy that clamoured to exhaust itself in violence and
+debauch. His fierce blue eyes were wild and roving, his lips twitched
+nervously. He was an atavism; of the race of those white-bodied,
+ferocious sea-kings that drank deep and died in the din of battle. He
+must live in the white light of excitement, or sink in the gloom of
+despair. I could see his fine nostrils quiver like those of a charger
+that scents the smoke of battle, and I realised that he should have been
+a soldier still, a leader of forlorn hopes, a partner of desperate
+hazards.
+
+As we walked along, Jim did most of the talking in his favourite
+morality vein. The Jam-wagon puffed silently at his briar pipe, while I,
+very listless and downhearted, thought largely of my own troubles. Then,
+in the middle of the block, where most of the music-halls were situated,
+suddenly we met Locasto.
+
+When I saw him my heart gave a painful leap, and I think my face must
+have gone as white as paper. I had thought much over this meeting, and
+had dreaded it. There are things which no man can overlook, and, if it
+meant death to me, I must again try conclusions with the brute.
+
+He was accompanied by a little bald-headed Jew named Spitzstein, and we
+were almost abreast of them when I stepped forward and arrested them. My
+teeth were clenched; I was all a-quiver with passion; my heart beat
+violently. For a moment I stood there, confronting him in speechless
+excitement.
+
+He was dressed in that miner's costume in which he always looked so
+striking. From his big Stetson to his high boots he was typically the
+big, strong man of Alaska, the Conqueror of the Wild. But his mouth was
+grim as granite, and his black eyes hard and repellent as those of a
+toad.
+
+"Oh, you coward!" I cried. "You vile, filthy coward!"
+
+He was looking down on me from his imperious height, very coolly, very
+cynically.
+
+"Who are you?" he drawled; "I don't know you."
+
+"Liar as well as coward," I panted. "Liar to your teeth. Brute, coward,
+liar----"
+
+"Here, get out of my way," he snarled; "I've got to teach you a lesson."
+
+Once more before I could guard he landed on me with that terrible
+right-arm swing, and down I went as if a sledgehammer had struck me.
+But instantly I was on my feet, a thing of blind passion, of desperate
+fight. I made one rush to throw myself on this human tower of brawn and
+muscle, when some one pinioned me from behind. It was Jim.
+
+"Easy, boy," he was saying; "you can't fight this big fellow."
+
+Spitzstein was looking on curiously. With wonderful quickness a crowd
+had collected, all avidly eager for a fight. Above them towered the
+fierce, domineering figure of Locasto. There was a breathless pause,
+then, at the psychological moment, the Jam-wagon intervened.
+
+The smouldering fire in his eye had brightened into a fierce joy; his
+twitching mouth was now grim and stern as a prison door. For days he had
+been fighting a dim intangible foe. Here at last was something human and
+definite. He advanced to Locasto.
+
+"Why don't you strike some one nearer your own size?" he demanded. His
+voice was tense, yet ever so quiet.
+
+Locasto flashed at him a look of surprise, measuring him from head to
+foot.
+
+"You're a brute," went on the Jam-wagon evenly; "a cowardly brute."
+
+Black Jack's face grew dark and terrible. His eyes glinted sparks of
+fire.
+
+"See here, Englishman," he said, "this isn't your scrap. What are you
+butting in about?"
+
+"It isn't," said the Jam-wagon, and I could see the flame of fight
+brighten joyously in him. "It isn't, but I'll soon make it mine. There!"
+
+Quick as a flash he dealt the other a blow on the cheek, an open-handed
+blow that stung like a whiplash.
+
+"Now, fight me, you coward."
+
+There and then Locasto seemed about to spring on his challenger. With
+hands clenched and teeth bared, he half bent as if for a charge. Then,
+suddenly, he straightened up.
+
+"All right," he said softly; "Spitzstein, can we have the Opera House?"
+
+"Yes, I guess so. We can clear away the benches."
+
+"Then tell the crowd to come along; we'll give them a free show."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I think there must have been five hundred men around that ring. A big
+Australian pugilist was umpire. Some one suggested gloves, but Locasto
+would not hear of it.
+
+"No," he said, "I want to mark the son of a dog so his mother will never
+know him again."
+
+He had become frankly brutal, and prepared for the fray exultantly. Both
+men fought in their underclothing.
+
+Stripped down, the Jam-wagon was seen to be much the smaller man, not
+only in height, but in breadth and weight. Yet he was a beautiful figure
+of a fighter, clean, well-poised, firm-limbed, with a body that seemed
+to taper from the shoulders down. His fair hair glistened; his eyes were
+wary and cool, his lips set tightly. In the person of this living
+adversary he was fighting an unseen one vastly more dread and terrific.
+
+Locasto looked almost too massive. His muscles bulged out. The veins in
+his forearms were cord-like. His great chest seemed as broad as a door.
+His legs were statuesque in their size and strength. In that camp of
+strong men probably he was the most powerful.
+
+And nowhere in the world could a fight have been awaited with greater
+zest. These men, miners, gamblers, adventurers of all kinds, pushed and
+struggled for a place. A great joy surged through them at the thought
+of the approaching combat. Keen-eyed, hard-breathing, a-thrill with
+expectation, the crowd packed closer and closer. Outside, people were
+clamouring for admission. They climbed on the stage, and into the boxes.
+They hung over the galleries. All told, there must have been a thousand
+of them.
+
+As the two men stood up it was like the lithe Greek athlete compared
+with the brawny Roman gladiator. "Three to one on Locasto," some one
+shouted. Then a great hush came over the house, so that it might have
+been empty and deserted. Time was called. The fight began.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+With one tiger-rush Locasto threw himself on his man. There was no
+preliminary fiddling here; they were out for blood, and the sooner they
+wallowed in it the better. Right and left he struck with mighty swings
+that would have felled an ox, but the Jam-wagon was too quick for him.
+Twice he ducked in time to avoid a furious blow, and, before Locasto
+could recover, he had hopped out of reach. The big man's fist swished
+through the empty air. He almost overbalanced with the force of his
+effort, but he swung round quickly, and there was the Jam-wagon, cool
+and watchful, awaiting his next attack.
+
+Locasto's face grew fiendish in its sinister wrath; he shot forth a foul
+imprecation, and once more he hurled himself resistlessly on his foe.
+This time I thought my champion must go down, but no! With a dexterity
+that seemed marvellous, he dodged, ducked and side-stepped; and once
+more Locasto's blows went wide and short. Jeers began to go up from the
+throng. "Even money on the little fellow," sang out a voice with the
+flat twang of a banjo.
+
+Locasto glared round on the crowd. He was accustomed to lord it over
+these men, and the jeers goaded him like banderilleros goad a bull.
+Again and again he repeated his tremendous rushes, only to find his
+powerful arms winnowing the empty air, only to see his agile antagonist
+smiling at him in mockery from the centre of the ring. Not one of his
+sledgehammer smashes reached their mark, and the round closed without a
+blow having landed.
+
+From the mob of onlookers a chorus of derisive cheers went up. The
+little man with the banjo voice was holding up a poke of dust. "Even
+money on the little one." A hum of eager conversation broke forth.
+
+I was at the ring-side. At the beginning I had been in an agony of fear
+for the Jam-wagon. Looking at the two men, it seemed as if he could
+hardly hope to escape terrible punishment at the hands of one so
+massively powerful, and every blow inflicted on him would have been like
+one inflicted on myself. But now I took heart and looked forward with
+less anxiety.
+
+Again time was called, and Locasto sprang up, seemingly quite refreshed
+by his rest. Once more he plunged after his man, but now I could see his
+rushes were more under control, his smashing blows better timed, his
+fierce jabs more shrewdly delivered. Again I began to quake for the
+Jam-wagon, but he showed a wonderful quickness in his footwork, darting
+in and out, his hands swinging at his sides, a smile of mockery on his
+lips. He was deft as a dancing-master; he twinkled like a gleam of
+light, and amid that savage thresh of blows he was as cool as if he were
+boxing in the school gymnasium.
+
+"Who is he?" those at the ring-side began to whisper. Time and again it
+seemed as if he were cornered, but in a marvellous way he wormed
+himself free. I held my breath as he evaded blow after blow, some of
+which seemed to miss him by a mere hair's breadth. He was taking
+chances, I thought, so narrowly did he permit the blows to miss him. I
+was all keyed up, on edge with excitement, eager for my man to strike,
+to show he was not a mere ring-tactician. But the Jam-wagon bided his
+time.
+
+And so the round ended, and it was evident that the crowd was of the
+same opinion as myself. "Why don't he mix up a little?" said one. "Give
+him time," said another. "He's all right: there's some class to that
+work."
+
+Locasto came up for the third round looking sobered, subdued, grimly
+determined. Evidently he had made up his mind to force his opponent out
+of his evasive tactics. He was wary as a cat. He went cautiously. Yet
+again he assumed the aggressive, gradually working the Jam-wagon into a
+corner. A collision was inevitable; there was no means of escape for my
+friend; that huge bulk, with its swinging, flail-like arms, menaced him
+hopelessly.
+
+Suddenly Locasto closed in. He swooped down on the Jam-wagon. He had
+him. He shortened his right arm for a jab like the crash of a
+pile-driver. The arm shot out, but once again the Jam-wagon was not
+there. He ducked quickly, and Locasto's great fist brushed his hair.
+
+Then, like lightning, the two came to a clinch. Now, thought I, it's all
+off with the Jam-wagon. I saw Locasto's eyes dilate with ferocious joy.
+He had the other in his giant arms; he could crush him in a mighty hug,
+the hug of a grizzly, crush him like an egg-shell. But, quick as the
+snap of a trap, the Jam-wagon had pinioned his arms at the elbow, so
+that he was helpless. For a moment he held him, then, suddenly releasing
+his arms, he caught him round the body, shook him with a mighty
+side-heave, gave him the cross-buttock, and, before he could strike a
+single blow, threw him in the air and dashed him to the ground.
+
+"Time!" called the umpire. It was all done so quickly it was hard for
+the eye to follow, but a mighty cheer went up from the house. "Two to
+one on the little fellow," called the banjo-voice. Suddenly Locasto rose
+to his feet. He was shamed, angered beyond all expression. Heaving and
+panting, he lurched to his corner, and in his eyes there was a look that
+boded ill for his adversary.
+
+Time again. With the lightness of a panther the Jam-wagon sprang into
+the centre of the ring. More than halfway he met Locasto, and now his
+intention seemed to be to draw his man on rather than to avoid him. I
+watched his every movement with a sense of thrilling fascination. He had
+resumed his serpentine movements, advancing and retreating with
+shadow-like quickness, feinting, side-stepping, pawing the air till he
+had his man baffled and bewildered. Yet he never struck a blow.
+
+All this seemed to be getting on Locasto's nerves. He was going steadily
+enough, trying by every means in his power to get the other man to "mix
+it up." He shouted the foulest abuse at him. "Stand up like a man, you
+son of a dog, and fight." The smile left the Jam-wagon's lips, and he
+settled down to business.
+
+I saw him edging up to Locasto. He feinted wildly, then, stepping in
+closely, he swung a right and left to Black Jack's face. A moment later
+he was six feet away, with a bitter smile on his lips.
+
+With a fierce bellow of rage Locasto, forgetting all his caution,
+charged him. He smashed his heavy right with all its might for the
+other's face, but, quick as the quiver of a bow-string, the Jam-wagon
+side-stepped and the blow missed. Then the Jam-wagon shifted and brought
+his left, full-weight, crash on Locasto's mouth.
+
+At that fierce triumphant blow there was the first dazzling blood-gleam,
+and the crowd screeched with excitement. In a wild whirlwind of fury
+Locasto hurled himself on the Jam-wagon, his arms going like windmills.
+Any one of these blows, delivered in a vital spot, would have meant
+death, but his opponent was equal to this blind assault. Dodging,
+ducking, side-stepping, blocking, he foiled the other at every turn,
+and, just before the round ended, drove his left into the pit of the big
+man's stomach, with a thwack that resounded throughout the building.
+
+Once more time was called. The Jam-wagon was bleeding about the
+knuckles. Several of Locasto's teeth had been loosened, and he spat
+blood frequently. Otherwise he looked as fit as ever. He pursued his
+man with savage determination, and seemed resolved to get in a deadly
+body-blow that would end the fight.
+
+It was pretty to see the Jam-wagon work. He was sprightly as a ballet
+dancer, as, weaving in and out, he dodged the other's blows. His arms
+swung at his sides, and he threw his head about in a manner insufferably
+mocking and tantalising. Then he took to landing light body-blows, that
+grew more frequent till he seemed to be beating a regular tattoo on
+Locasto's ribs. He was springy as a panther, elusive as an eel. As for
+Locasto, his face was sober now, strained, anxious, and he seemed to be
+waiting with menacing eyes to get in that vital smash that meant the
+end.
+
+The Jam-wagon began to put more force into his arms. He drove in a
+short-arm left to the stomach, then brought his right up to the other's
+chin. Locasto swung a deadly knock-out blow at the Jam-wagon, which just
+grazed his jaw, and the Jam-wagon retaliated with two lightning rights
+and a nervous left, all on the big man's face.
+
+Then he sprang back, for he was excited now. In and out he wove. Once
+more he landed a hard left on Locasto's heaving stomach, and then,
+rushing in, he rained blow after blow on his antagonist. It was a
+furious mix-up, a whirling storm of blows, brutal, savage and murderous.
+No two men could keep up such a gait. They came into a clinch, but this
+time the Jam-wagon broke away, giving the deadly kidney blow as they
+parted. When time was called both men were panting hard, bruised and
+covered with blood.
+
+How the house howled with delight! All the primordial brute in these men
+was glowing in their hearts. Nothing but blood could appease it. Their
+throats were parched, their eyes wild.
+
+Round six. Locasto sprang into the centre of the ring. His face was
+hideously disfigured. Only in that battered, blood-stained mask could I
+recognise the black eyes gleaming deadly hatred. Rushing for the
+Jam-wagon, he hurled him across the ring. Again charging, he overbore
+him to the floor, but failed to hold him.
+
+Then in the Jam-wagon there awoke the ancient spirit of the Berserker.
+He cared no more for punishment. He was insensible to pain. He was the
+sea-pirate again, mad with the lust of battle. Like a fiend he tore
+himself loose, and went after his man, rushing him with a swift,
+battering hail of blows around the ring. Like a tiger he was, and the
+violent lunges of Locasto only infuriated him the more.
+
+Now they were in a furious mix-up, and suddenly Locasto, seizing him
+savagely, tried to whip him smashing to the floor. Then the wonderful
+agility of the Englishman was displayed. In a distance of less than a
+two-foot drop he turned completely like a cat. Leaping up, he was free,
+and, getting a waist-hold with a Cornish heave, he bore Locasto to the
+floor. Quickly he changed to a crotch-lock, and, lastly, holding
+Locasto's legs, he brought him to a bridge and worked his weight up on
+his body.
+
+Black Jack, with a mighty heave, broke away and again regained his
+feet. This seemed to enrage the Jam-wagon the more, for he tore after
+his man like a maddened bull. Getting a hold with incredible strength,
+he lifted him straight up in the air and hurled him to the ground with
+sickening force.
+
+Locasto lay there. His eyes were closed. He did not move. Several men
+rushed forward. "He's all right," said a medical-looking individual;
+"just stunned. I guess you can call the fight over."
+
+The Jam-wagon slowly put on his clothes. Once more, in the person of
+Locasto, he had successfully grappled with "Old Man Booze." He was badly
+bruised about the body, but not seriously hurt in any way. Shudderingly
+I looked down at Locasto's face, beaten to a pulp, his body livid from
+head to foot. And then, as they bore him off to the hospital, I realised
+I was revenged.
+
+"Did you know that man Spitzstein was charging a dollar for admission?"
+queried the Prodigal.
+
+"No!"
+
+"That's right. That darned little Jew netted nearly a thousand dollars."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+"Let me introduce you," said the Prodigal, "to my friend the 'Pote.'"
+
+"Glad to meet you," said the Pote cheerfully, extending a damp hand.
+"Just been having a dishwashing bee. Excuse my dishybeel."
+
+He wore a pale-blue undershirt, white flannel trousers girt round the
+waist with a red silk handkerchief, very gaudy moccasins, and a rakish
+Panama hat with a band of chocolate and gold.
+
+"Take a seat, won't you?" Through his gold-rimmed spectacles his eyes
+shone benevolently as he indicated an easy-looking chair. I took it. It
+promptly collapsed under me.
+
+"Ah, excuse me," he said; "you're not onto the combination of that
+chair. I'll fix it."
+
+He performed some operation on it which made it less unstable, and I sat
+down gingerly.
+
+I was in a little log-cabin on the hill overlooking the town. Through
+the bottle window the light came dimly. The walls showed the bark of
+logs and tufts of intersecting moss. In the corner was a bunk over which
+lay a bearskin robe, and on the little oblong stove a pot of beans was
+simmering.
+
+The Pote finished his dishwashing and joined us, pulling on an old
+Tuxedo jacket.
+
+"Whew! Glad that job's over. You know, I guess I'm fastidious, but I
+can't bear to use a plate for more than three meals without passing a
+wet rag over it. That's the worst of having refined ideas, they make
+life so complex. However, I mustn't complain. There's a monastic
+simplicity about this joint that endears it to me. And now, having
+immolated myself on the altar of cleanliness, I will solace my soul with
+a little music."
+
+He took down a banjo from the wall and, striking a few chords, began to
+sing. His songs seemed to be original, even improvisations, and he sang
+them with a certain quaintness and point that made them very piquant. I
+remember one of the choruses. It went like this:
+
+    "In the land of pale blue snow
+    Where it's ninety-nine below,
+    And the polar bears are dancing on the plain,
+    In the shadow of the pole,
+    Oh, my Heart, my Life, my Soul,
+    I will meet thee when the ice-worms nest again."
+
+Every now and then he would pause to make some lively comment.
+
+"You've never heard of the blue snow, Cheechako? The rabbits have blue
+fur, and the ptarmigans' feathers are a bright azure. You've never had
+an ice-worm cocktail? We must remedy that. Great dope. Nothing like
+ice-worm oil for salads. Oh, I forgot, didn't give you my card."
+
+I took it. It was engraved thus:
+
+                        OLLIE GABOODLER.
+
+                         Poetic Expert.
+
+Turning it over, I read:
+
+             Graduate of the University of Hard Knocks.
+        All kinds of verse made to order with efficiency and
+                            dispatch.
+               Satisfaction guaranteed or money returned.
+                        A trial solicited.
+                  In Memoriam Odes a specialty.
+           Ballads, Rondeaux and Sonnets at modest prices.
+                    Try our lines of Love Lyrics.
+                  Leave orders at the Comet Saloon.
+
+
+I stared at him curiously. He was smoking a cigarette and watching me
+with shrewd, observant eyes. He was a blond, blue-eyed, cherubic youth,
+with a whimsical mouth that seemed to alternate between seriousness and
+fun.
+
+He laughed merrily at my look of dismay.
+
+"Oh, you think it's a josh, but it's not. I've been a 'ghost' ever since
+I could push a pen. You know Will Wilderbush, the famous novelist? Well,
+Bill died six years ago from over-assiduous cultivation of John
+Barleycorn, and they hushed it up. But every year there's a new novel
+comes from his pen. It's 'ghosts.' I was Bill number three. Isn't it
+rummy?"
+
+I expressed my surprise.
+
+"Yes, it's a great joke this book-faking. Wouldn't Thackeray have
+lambasted the best sellers? A fancy picture of a girl on the cover,
+something doing all the time, and a happy ending--that's the recipe. Or
+else be as voluptuous as velvet. Wait till my novel, 'Three Minutes,'
+comes out. Order in advance."
+
+"Indeed I will," I said.
+
+He suddenly became grave.
+
+"If I only could take the literary game seriously I might make good. But
+I'm too much of a 'farceur.' Well, one day we'll see. Maybe the North
+will inspire me. Maybe I'll yet become the Spokesman of the Frozen
+Silence, the Avatar of the Great White Land."
+
+He strutted up and down, inflating his chest.
+
+"Have you framed up any dope lately?" asked the Prodigal.
+
+"Why, yes; only this morning, while I was eating my beans and bacon, I
+dashed off a few lines. I always write best when I'm eating. Want to
+hear them?"
+
+He drew from his pocket an old envelope.
+
+"They were written to the order of Stillwater Willie. He wants to
+present them to one of the Labelle Sisters. You know--that fat lymphatic
+blonde, Birdie Labelle. It is short and sweet. He wants to have it
+engraved on a gold-backed hand-mirror he's giving her.
+
+    "I see within my true love's eyes
+    The wide blue spaces of the skies;
+    I see within my true love's face
+    The rose and lily vie in grace;
+    I hear within my true love's voice
+    The songsters of the Spring rejoice.
+    Oh, why need I seek Nature's charms--
+    I hold my true love in my arms.
+
+"How'll that hit her? There's such a lot of natural beauty about
+Birdie."
+
+"Do you get much work?" I asked.
+
+"No, it's dull. Poetry's rather a drug on the market up here. It's just
+a side-line. For a living I clean shoes at the 'Elight' Barbershop--I,
+who have lingered on the sunny slopes of Parnassus, and quenched my
+soul-thirst at the Heliconian spring--gents' tans a specialty."
+
+"Did you ever publish a book?" I asked.
+
+"Sure! Did you never read my 'Rhymes of a Rustler'? One reviewer would
+say I was the clear dope, the genuine eighteen-carat, jewelled-movement
+article; the next would aver I was the rankest dub that ever came down
+the pike. They said I'd imitated people, people I'd never read, people
+I'd never heard of, people I never dreamt existed. I was accused of
+imitating over twenty different writers. Then the pedants got after me,
+said I didn't conform to academic formulas, advised me to steep myself
+in tradition. They talked about form, about classic style and so on. As
+if it matters so long as you get down the thing itself so that folks can
+see it, and feel it go right home to their hearts. I can write in all
+the artificial verse forms, but they're mouldy with age, back numbers.
+Forget them. Quit studying that old Greek dope: study life, modern life,
+palpitating with colour, crying for expression. Life! Life! The sunshine
+of it was in my heart, and I just naturally tried to be its singer."
+
+"I say," said the Prodigal from the bunk where he was lounging, in a
+haze of cigarette smoke, "read us that thing you did the other day, 'The
+Last Supper.'"
+
+The Pote's eyes twinkled with pleasure.
+
+"All right," he said. Then, in a clear voice, he repeated the following
+lines:
+
+           "THE LAST SUPPER.
+
+    Marie Vaux of the Painted Lips,
+    And the mouth so mocking gay;
+    A wanton you to the finger tips,
+    That break men's hearts in play;
+    A thing of dust I have striven for,
+    Honour and Manhood given for,
+    Headlong for ruin driven for--
+    And this is the last, you say:
+
+      Drinking your wine with dainty sips,
+      Marie Vaux of the Painted Lips.
+
+    Marie Vaux of the Painted Lips,
+    Long have you held your sway;
+    I have laughed at your merry quips,
+    Now is my time to pay.
+    What we sow we must reap again;
+    When we laugh we must weep again;
+    So to-night we will sleep again,
+    Nor wake till the Judgment Day.
+
+      'Tis a prison wine that your palate sips,
+      Marie Vaux of the Painted Lips.
+
+    Marie Vaux of the Painted Lips,
+    Down on your knees and pray;
+    Pray your last ere the moment slips,
+    Pray ere the dark and the terror grips,
+    And the bright world fades away:
+    Pray for the good unguessed of us,
+    Pray for the peace and rest of us.
+    Here comes the Shape in quest of us,
+    Now must we go away--
+
+      You and I in the grave's eclipse,
+      Marie Vaux of the Painted Lips."
+
+Just as he finished there came a knock at the door, and a young man
+entered. He had the broad smiling face of a comedian, and the bulgy
+forehead of a Baptist Missionary. The Pote introduced him to me.
+
+"The Yukon Yorick."
+
+"Hello," chuckled the newcomer, "how's the bunch? Don't let me stampede
+you. How d'ye do, Horace! Glad to meet you." (He called everybody
+Horace.) "Just come away from a meeting of my creditors. What's that?
+Have a slab of booze? Hardly that, old fellow, hardly that. Don't tempt
+me, Horace, don't tempt me. Remember I'm only a poor working-girl."
+
+He seemed brimming over with jovial acceptance of life in all its
+phases. He lit a cigar.
+
+"Say, boys, you know old Dingbats the lawyer. Ha, yes. Well, met him on
+Front Street just now. Says I: 'Horace, that was a pretty nifty spiel
+you gave us last night at the Zero Club.' He looked at me all tickled up
+the spine. Ha, yes. He was pleased as Punch. 'Say, Horace,' I says, 'I'm
+on, but I won't give you away. I've got a book in my room with every
+word of that speech in it.' He looked flabbergasted. So I have--ha, yes,
+the dictionary."
+
+He rolled his cigar unctuously in his mouth, with many chuckles and a
+histrionic eye.
+
+"No, don't tempt me, Horace. Remember, I'm only a poor working-girl.
+Thanks, I'll just sit down on this soap-box. Knew a man once, Jobcroft
+was his name, Charles Alfred Jobcroft, sat down on a custard pie at a
+pink tea; was so embarrassed he wouldn't get up. Just sat on till every
+one else was gone. Every one was wondering why he wouldn't budge: just
+sat tight."
+
+"I guess he _cussed hard_," ventured the Prodigal.
+
+"Oh, Horace, spare me that! Remember I'm only a poor working-girl.
+Hardly that, old fellow. Say, hit me with a slab of booze quick. Make
+things sparkle, boys, make things sparkle."
+
+He drank urbanely of the diluted alcohol that passed for whisky.
+
+"Hit me easy, boys, hit me easy," he said, as they refilled his glass.
+"I can't hold my hootch so well as I could a few summers ago--and many
+hard Falls. Talking about holding your 'hooch,' the best I ever saw was
+a man called Podstreak, Arthur Frederick Podstreak. You couldn't get
+that man going. The way he could lap up the booze was a caution. He
+would drink one bunch of boys under the table, then leave them and go on
+to another. He would start in early in the morning and keep on going
+till the last thing at night. And he never got hilarious even; it didn't
+seem to phase him; he was as sober after the twentieth drink as when he
+started. Gee! but he was a wonder."
+
+The others nodded their heads appreciatively.
+
+"He was a fine, healthy-looking chap, too; the booze didn't seem to hurt
+him. Never saw such a constitution. I often watched him, for I suspected
+him of 'sluffing,' but no! He always had a bigger drink than every one
+else, always drank whisky, always drank it neat, and always had a chaser
+of water after. I said to myself: 'What's your system?' and I got to
+studying him hard. Then, one day, I found him out."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"Well, one day I noticed something. I noticed he always held his glass
+in a particular way when he drank, and at the same time he pressed his
+stomach in the region of the 'solar plexus.' So that night I took him
+aside.
+
+"'Look here, Podstreak,' I said, 'I'm next to you.' I really wasn't, but
+the bluff worked. He grew white.
+
+"'For Heaven's sake, don't give me away,' he cried; 'the boys'll lynch
+me.'
+
+"'All right,' I said; 'if you'll promise to quit.'
+
+"Then he made a full confession, and showed me how he did it. He had an
+elastic rubber bag under his shirt, and a tube going up his arm and down
+his sleeve, ending in a white nozzle inside his cuff. When he went to
+empty his glass of whisky he simply pressed some air out of the rubber
+bag, put the nozzle in the glass, and let it suck up all the whisky. At
+night he used to empty all the liquor out of the bag and sell it to a
+saloon-keeper. Oh, he was a phoney piece of work.
+
+"'I've been a total abstainer (in private) for seven years,' he told me.
+'Yes,' I said, 'and you'll become one in public for another seven.' And
+he did."
+
+Several men had dropped in to swell this Bohemian circle. Some had
+brought bottles. There was a painter who had been "hung," a Mus Bac., an
+ex-champion amateur pugilist, a silver-tongued orator, a man who had
+"suped" for Mansfield, and half a dozen others. The little cabin was
+crowded, the air hazy with smoke, the conversation animated. But mostly
+it was a monologue by the inimitable Yorick.
+
+Suddenly the conversation turned to the immorality of the town.
+
+"Now, I have a theory," said the Pote, "that the regeneration of Dawson
+is at hand. You know Good is the daughter of Evil, Virtue the offspring
+of Vice. You know how virtuous a man feels after a jag. You've got to
+sin to feel really good. Consequently, Sin must be good to be the means
+of good, to be the raw material of good, to be virtue in the making,
+mustn't it? The dance-halls are a good foil to the gospel-halls. If we
+were all virtuous, there would be no virtue in virtue, and if we were
+all bad no one would be bad. And because there's so much bad in this old
+burg of ours, it makes the good seem unnaturally good."
+
+The Pote had the floor.
+
+"A friend of mine had a beautiful pond of water-lilies. They painted the
+water exultantly and were a triumphant challenge to the soul. Folks came
+from far and near to see them. Then, one winter, my friend thought he
+would clean out his pond, so he had all the nasty, slimy mud scraped
+away till you could see the silver gravel glimmering on the bottom. But
+the lilies, with all their haunting loveliness, never came back."
+
+"Well, what are you driving at, you old dreamer?"
+
+"Oh, just this: in the nasty mud and slime of Dawson I saw a lily-girl.
+She lives in a cabin by the Slide along with a Jewish couple. I only
+caught a glimpse of her twice. They are unspeakable, but she is fair
+and sweet and pure. I would stake my life on her goodness. She looks
+like a young Madonna----"
+
+He was interrupted by a shout of cynical laughter.
+
+"Oh, get off your foot! A Madonna in Dawson--Ra! Ra!"
+
+He shut up abashed, but I had my clue. I waited until the last noisy
+roisterer had gone.
+
+"In the cabin by the Slide?" I asked.
+
+He started, looked at me searchingly: "You know her?"
+
+"She means a good deal to me."
+
+"Oh, I understand. Yes, that long, queer cabin highest up the hill."
+
+"Thanks, old chap."
+
+"All right, good luck." He accompanied me to the door, staring at the
+marvel of the glamorous Northern midnight.
+
+"Oh, for a medium to express it all! Your pedantic poetry isn't big
+enough; prose isn't big enough. What we want is something between the
+two, something that will interpret life, and stir the great heart of the
+people. Good-night."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Very softly I approached the cabin, for a fear of encountering her
+guardians was in my heart. It was in rather a lonely place, perched at
+the base of that vast mountain abrasion they call the Slide, a long, low
+cabin, quiet and dark, and surrounded by rugged boulders. Carefully I
+reconnoitered, and soon, to my infinite joy, I saw the Jewish couple
+come forth and make their way townward. The girl was alone.
+
+How madly beat my heart! It was a glooming kind of a night, and the
+cabin looked woefully bleak and solitary. No light came through the
+windows, no sound through the moss-chinked walls. I drew near.
+
+Why this wild commotion of my being? What was it? Anxiety, joy, dread? I
+was poised on the pinnacle of hope that overhangs the abyss of despair.
+Fearfully I paused. I was racked with suspense, conscious of a longing
+so poignant that the thought of disappointment became insufferable pain.
+So violent was my emotion that a feeling almost of nausea overcame me.
+
+I knew now that I cared for this girl more than I had ever thought to
+care for woman. I knew that she was dearer to me than all the world
+else; I knew that my love for her would live as long as life is long.
+
+I knocked at the door. No answer.
+
+"Berna," I cried in a faltering whisper.
+
+Came the reply: "Who is there?"
+
+"Love, love, dear; love is waiting."
+
+Then, at my words, the door was opened, and the girl was before me. I
+think she had been lying down, for her soft hair was a little ruffled,
+but her eyes were far too bright for sleep. She stood gazing at me, and
+a little fluttering hand went up to her heart as if to still its
+beating.
+
+"Oh, my dear, I knew you were coming."
+
+A great radiance of joy seemed to descend on her.
+
+"You knew?"
+
+"I knew, yes, I knew. Something told me you were come at last. And I've
+waited--how I've waited! I've dreamed, but it's not a dream now, is it,
+dear; it's you?"
+
+"Yes, it's me. I've tried so hard to find you. Oh, my dear, my dear!"
+
+I seized the sweet, soft hand and covered it with kisses. At that moment
+I could have kissed the shadow of that little hand; I could have fallen
+before her in speechless adoration; I could have made my heart a
+footstool for her feet; I could have given her, O, so gladly, my paltry
+life to save her from a moment's sorrow--I loved her so, I loved her so!
+
+"High and low I've sought you, beloved. Morning, noon and night you've
+been in my brain, my heart, my soul. I've loved you every moment of my
+life. It's been desire feeding despair, and, O, the agony of it! Thank
+God, I've found you, dear! thank God! thank God!"
+
+O Love, look down on us and choir your harmonies! Transported was I,
+speaking with whirling words of sweetest madness, tremulous, uplifted
+with rapture, scarce conscious of my wild, impassioned metaphors. It was
+she, most precious of all creation; she, my beloved. And there, in the
+doorway, she poised, white as a lily, lustrous-eyed, and with hair soft
+as sunlit foam. O Divinity of Love, look down on us thy children; fold
+us in thy dove-soft wings; illumine us in thy white radiance; touch us
+with thy celestial hands. Bless us, Love!
+
+How vastly alight were the grey eyes! How ineffably tender the sweet
+lips! A faint glow had come into her cheeks.
+
+"O, it's you, really, really you at last," she cried again, and there
+was a tremor, the surface ripple of a sob in that clear voice. She
+fetched a deep sigh: "And I thought I'd lost you forever. Wait a moment.
+I'll come out."
+
+Endlessly long the moment seemed, yet wondrously irradiate. The shadow
+had lifted from the world; the skies were alight with gladness; my heart
+was heaven-aspiring in its ecstasy. Then, at last, she came.
+
+She had thrown a shawl around her shoulders, and coaxed her hair into
+charming waves and ripples.
+
+"Come, let us go up the trail a little distance. They won't be back for
+nearly an hour."
+
+She led the way along that narrow path, looking over her shoulder with a
+glorious smile, sometimes extending her hand back to me as one would
+with a child.
+
+Along the brow of the bluff the way wound dizzily, while far below the
+river swept in a giant eddy. For a long time we spoke no word. 'Twas as
+if our hearts were too full for utterance, our happiness too vast for
+expression. Yet, O, the sweetness of that silence! The darkling gloom
+had silvered into lustrous light, the birds were beginning again their
+mad midnight melodies. Then, suddenly turning a bend in the narrow
+trail, a blaze of glory leapt upon our sight.
+
+"Look, Berna," I cried.
+
+The swelling river was a lake of saffron fire; the hills a throne of
+rosy garnet; the sky a dazzling panoply of rubies, girdled with flames
+of gold. We almost cringed, so gorgeous was its glow, so fierce its
+splendour.
+
+Then, when we had seated ourselves on the hillside, facing the
+conflagration, she turned to me.
+
+"And so you found me, dear. I knew you would, somehow. In my heart I
+knew you would not fail me. So I waited and waited. The time seemed
+pitilessly long. I only thought of you once, and that was always. It was
+cruel we left so suddenly, not even time to say good-bye. I can't tell
+you how bad I felt about it, but I could not help myself. They dragged
+me away. They began to be afraid of you, and he bade them leave at once.
+So in the early morning we started."
+
+"I see, I see." I looked into the pools of her eyes; I sheathed her
+white hands in my brown ones, thrilling greatly at the contact of them.
+
+"Tell me about it, child. Has he bothered you?"
+
+"Oh, not so much. He thinks he has me safe enough, trapped, awaiting his
+pleasure. But he's taken up with some woman of the town just now.
+By-and-bye he'll turn his attention to me."
+
+"Terrible! Terrible! Berna, you wring my heart. How can you talk of such
+things in that matter-of-fact way--it maddens me."
+
+An odd, hard look ridged the corners of her mouth.
+
+"I don't know. Sometimes I'm surprised at myself how philosophical I'm
+getting."
+
+"But, Berna, surely nothing in this world would ever make you yield? O,
+it's horrible! horrible!"
+
+She leaned to me tenderly. She put my arms around her neck; she looked
+at me till I saw my face mirrored in her eyes.
+
+"Nothing in the world, dear, so long as I have you to love me and help
+me. If ever you fail me, well, then it wouldn't matter much what became
+of me."
+
+"Even then," I said, "it would be too awful for words. I would rather
+drag your body from that river than see you yield to him. He's a
+monster. His very touch is profanation. He could not look on a woman
+without cynical lust in his heart."
+
+"I know, my boy, I know. Believe me and trust me. I would rather throw
+myself from the bluff here than let him put a hand on me. And so long as
+I have your love, dear, I'm safe enough. Don't fear. O, it's been
+terrible not seeing you! I've craved for you ceaselessly. I've never
+been out since we came here. They wouldn't let me. They kept in
+themselves. He bade them. He has them both under his thumb. But now, for
+some reason, he has relaxed. They're going to open a restaurant
+downtown, and I'm to wait on table."
+
+"No, you're not!" I cried, "not if I have anything to say in the matter.
+Berna, I can't bear to think of you in that garbage-heap of corruption
+down there. You must marry me--now."
+
+"Now," she echoed, her eyes wide with surprise.
+
+"Yes, right away, dear. There's nothing to prevent us. Berna, I love
+you, I want you, I need you. I'm just distracted, dear. I never know a
+moment's peace. I cannot take an interest in anything. When I speak to
+others I'm thinking of you, you all the time. O, I can't bear it,
+dearest; have pity on me: marry me now."
+
+In an agony of suspense I waited for her answer. For a long time she sat
+there, thoughtful and quiet, her eyes cast down. At last she raised them
+to me.
+
+"You said one year."
+
+"Yes, but I was sorry afterwards. I want you now. I can't wait."
+
+She looked at me gravely. Her voice was very soft, very tender.
+
+"I think it better we should wait, dear. This is a blind, sudden desire
+on your part. I mustn't take advantage of it. You pity me, fear for me,
+and you have known so few other girls. It's generosity, chivalry, not
+love for poor little me. O, we mustn't, we mustn't. And then--you might
+change."
+
+"Change! I'll never, never change," I pleaded. "I'll always be yours,
+absolutely, wholly yours, little girl; body and soul, to make or to mar,
+for ever and ever and ever."
+
+"Well, it seems so sudden, so burning, so intense, your love, dear. I'm
+afraid, I'm afraid. Maybe it's not the kind that lasts. Maybe you'll
+tire. I'm not worth it, indeed I'm not. I'm only a poor ignorant girl.
+If there were others near, you would never think of me."
+
+"Berna," I said, "if you were among a thousand, and they were the most
+adorable in all the world, I would pass over them all and turn with joy
+and gratitude to you. Then, if I were an Emperor on a throne, and you
+the humblest in all that throng, I would raise you up beside me and call
+you 'Queen.'"
+
+"Ah, no," she said sadly, "you were wise once. I saw it afterwards.
+Better wait one year."
+
+"Oh, my dearest," I reproached her, "once you offered yourself to me
+under any conditions. Why have you changed?"
+
+"I don't know. I'm bitterly ashamed of that. Never speak of it again."
+
+She went on very quietly, full of gentle patience.
+
+"You know, I've been thinking a great deal since then. In the long, long
+days and longer nights, when I waited here in misery, hoping always you
+would come to me, I had time to reflect, to weight your words. I
+remember them all: 'love that means life and death, that great dazzling
+light, that passion that would raise to heaven or drag to hell.' You
+have awakened the woman in me; I must have a love like that."
+
+"You have, my precious; you have, indeed."
+
+"Well, then, let me have time to test it. This is June. Next June, if
+you have not made up your mind you were foolish, blind, hasty, I will
+give myself to you with all the love in the world."
+
+"Perhaps _you_ will change."
+
+She smiled a peculiar little smile.
+
+"Never, never fear that. I will be waiting for you, longing for you,
+loving you more and more every day."
+
+I was bitterly cast down, crestfallen, numbed with the blow of her
+refusal.
+
+"Just now," she said, "I would only be a drag on you. I believe in you.
+I have faith in you. I want to see you go out and mix in the battle of
+life. I know you will win. For my sake, dear, win. I would handicap you
+just now. There are all kinds of chances. Let us wait, boy, just a
+year."
+
+I saw the pathetic wisdom of her words.
+
+"I know you fear something will happen to me. No! I think I will be
+quite safe. I can withstand him. After a while he will leave me alone.
+And if it should come to the worst I can call on you. You mustn't go too
+far away. I will die rather than let him lay a hand on me. Till next
+June, dear, not a day longer. We will both be the better for the wait."
+
+I bowed my head. "Very well," I said huskily; "and what will I do in the
+meantime?"
+
+"Do! Do what you would have done otherwise. Do not let a woman divert
+the current of your life; let her swim with it. Go out on the creeks!
+Work! It will be better for you to go away. It will make it easier for
+me. Here we will both torture each other. I, too, will work and live
+quietly, and long for you. The time will pass quickly. You will come and
+see me sometimes?"
+
+"Yes," I answered. My voice choked with emotion.
+
+"Now we must go home," she said; "I'm afraid they will be back."
+
+She rose, and I followed her down the narrow trail. Once or twice she
+turned and gave me a bright, tender look. I worshipped her more than
+ever. Was there ever maid more sweet, more gentle, more quick with
+anxious love? "Bless her, O bless her," I sighed. "Whatever comes, may
+she be happy." I adored her, but a great sadness filled my heart, and
+never a word I spoke.
+
+We reached the cabin, and on the threshold she paused. The others had
+not yet returned. She held out both hands to me, and her eyes were
+glittering with tears.
+
+"Be brave, my dearest; it's all for my sake--if you love me."
+
+"I love you, my darling; anything for your sake. I'll go to-morrow."
+
+"We're betrothed now, aren't we, dearest?"
+
+"We're betrothed, my love."
+
+She swayed to me and seemed to fit into my arms as a sword fits into its
+sheath. My lips lay on hers, and I kissed her with a passionate joy. She
+took my face between her hands and gazed at me long and earnestly.
+
+"I love you, I love you," she murmured; "next June, my darling, next
+June."
+
+Then she gently slipped away from me, and I was gazing blankly at the
+closed door.
+
+"Next June," I heard a voice echo; and there, looking at me with a
+smile, was Locasto.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+It comes like a violent jar to be awakened so rudely from a trance of
+love, to turn suddenly from the one you care for most in all the world,
+and behold the one you have best reason to hate. Nevertheless, it is not
+in human nature to descend rocket-wise from the ethereal heights of
+love. I was still in an exalted state of mind when I turned and
+confronted Locasto. Hate was far from my heart, and when I saw the man
+himself was regarding me with no particular unfriendliness, I was
+disposed to put aside for the moment all feelings of enmity. The
+generosity of the victor glowed within me.
+
+As he advanced to me his manner was almost urbane in its geniality.
+
+"You must forgive me," he said, not without dignity, "for overhearing
+you; but by chance I was passing and dropped upon you before I realised
+it."
+
+He extended his hand frankly.
+
+"I trust my congratulations on your good luck will not be entirely
+obnoxious. I know that my conduct in this affair cannot have impressed
+you in a very favourable light; but I am a badly beaten man. Can't you
+be generous and let by-gones be by-gones? Won't you?"
+
+I had not yet come down to earth. I was still soaring in the rarefied
+heights of love, and inclined to a general amnesty towards my enemies.
+
+As he stood there, quiet and compelling, there was an assumption of
+frankness and honesty about this man that it was hard to withstand. For
+the nonce I was persuaded of his sincerity, and weakly I surrendered my
+hand. His grip made me wince.
+
+"Yes, again I congratulate you. I know and admire her. They don't make
+them any better. She's pure gold. She's a little queen, and the man she
+cares for ought to be proud and happy. Now, I'm a man of the world, I'm
+cynical about woman as a rule. I respect my mother and my
+sisters--beyond that----" He shrugged his shoulders expressively.
+
+"But this girl's different. I always felt in her presence as I used to
+feel twenty-five years ago when I was a youth, with all my ideals
+untarnished, my heart pure, and woman holy in my sight."
+
+He sighed.
+
+"You know, young man, I've never told it to a soul before, but I'd give
+all I'm worth--a clear million--to have those days back. I've never been
+happy since."
+
+He drew away quickly from the verge of sentiment.
+
+"Well, you mustn't mind me taking an interest in your sweetheart. I'm
+old enough to be her father, you know, and she touches me strangely.
+Now, don't distrust me. I want to be a friend to you both. I want to
+help you to be happy. Jack Locasto's not such a bad lot, as you'll find
+when you know him. Is there anything I can do for you? What are you
+going to do in this country?"
+
+"I don't quite know yet," I said. "I hope to stake a good claim when the
+chance comes. Meantime I'm going to get work on the creeks."
+
+"You are?" he said thoughtfully; "do you know any one?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you what: I've got laymen working on my Eldorado claim;
+I'll give you a note to them if you like."
+
+I thanked him.
+
+"Oh, that's all right," he said. "I'm sorry I played such a mean part in
+the past, and I'll do anything in my power to straighten things out.
+Believe me, I mean it. Your English friend gave me the worst drubbing of
+my life, but three days after I went round and shook hands with him.
+Fine fellow that. We opened a case of wine to celebrate the victory. Oh,
+we're good friends now. I always own up when I'm beaten, and I never
+bear ill-will. If I can help you in any way, and hasten your marriage to
+that little girl there, well, you can just bank on Jack Locasto: that's
+all."
+
+I must say the man could be most conciliating when he chose. There was a
+gravity in his manner, a suave courtesy in his tone, the heritage of his
+Spanish forefathers, that convinced me almost in spite of my better
+judgment. No doubt he was magnetic, dominating, a master of men. I
+thought: there are two Locastos, the primordial one, the Indian, who had
+assaulted me; and the dignified genial one, the Spaniard, who was
+willing to own defeat and make amends. Why should I not take him as I
+found him?
+
+So, as he talked entertainingly to me, my fears were dissipated, my
+suspicions lulled. And when we parted we shook hands cordially.
+
+"Don't forget," he said; "if you want help bank on me. I mean it now, I
+mean it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+'Twas early in the bright and cool of the morning when we started for
+Eldorado, Jim and I. I had a letter from Locasto to Ribwood and Hoofman,
+the laymen, and I showed it to Jim. He frowned.
+
+"You don't mean to say you've palled up with that devil," he said.
+
+"Oh, he's not so bad," I expostulated. "He came to me like a man and
+offered me his hand in friendship. Said he was ashamed of himself. What
+could I do? I've no reason to doubt his sincerity."
+
+"Sincerity be danged. He's about as sincere as a tame rattlesnake. Put
+his letter in the creek."
+
+But no! I refused to listen to the old man.
+
+"Well, go your own gait," he said; "but don't say that I didn't warn
+you."
+
+We had crossed over the Klondike to its left limit, and were on a
+hillside trail beaten down by the feet of miners and packers. Cabins
+clustered on the flat, and from them plumes of violet smoke mounted into
+the golden air. Already the camp was astir. Men were chopping their
+wood, carrying their water. The long, long day was beginning.
+
+Following the trail, we struck up Bonanza, a small muddy stream in a
+narrow valley. Down in the creek-bed we could see ever-increasing signs
+of an intense mining activity. On every claim were dozens of cabins, and
+many high cones of greyish muck. We saw men standing on raised platforms
+turning windlasses. We saw buckets come up filled with the same dark
+grey dirt, to be dumped over the edge of the platform. Sometimes, where
+the dump had gradually arisen around man and windlass, the platform in
+the centre of that dark-greyish cone was twenty feet high.
+
+Every mile the dumps grew more numerous, till some claims seemed covered
+with them. Looking down from the trail, they were like innumerable
+anthills blocking up the narrow channel, and around them swarmed the
+little ant-men in never-resting activity. The golden valley opened out
+to us in a vista of green curves, and the cleft of it was packed with
+tents, cabins, dumps and tailing piles, all bedded in a blue haze of
+wood fires.
+
+"Look at that great centipede striding across the valley," I said.
+
+"Yes," said Jim, "it's a long line of sluice-boxes. See the water
+a-shinin' in the sun. Looks like some big golden-backed caterpillar."
+
+The little ants were shovelling into it from one of their heaps, and
+from that point it swirled on into the stream, a current of mud and
+stone.
+
+"Seems to me that stream would wash away all the gold," I said. "I know
+it's all caught in the riffles, but I think if that dump was mine I
+would want sluice-boxes a mile long and about sixteen hundred riffles.
+But I guess they know what they are doing."
+
+About noon we descended into the creek-bed and came to the Forks. It was
+a little town, a Dawson in miniature, with all its sordid aspects
+infinitely accentuated. It had dance-halls, gambling dens and many
+saloons: every convenience to ease the miner of the plethoric poke.
+There in the din and daze and dirt we tarried awhile; then, after eating
+heartily, we struck up Eldorado.
+
+Here was the same feverish activity of gold-getting. Every claim was
+valued at millions, and men who had rarely owned enough to buy a decent
+coat were crying in the saloons because life was not long enough to
+allow them to spend their sudden wealth. Nevertheless, they were making
+a good stab at it. At the Forks I enquired regarding Ribwood and
+Hoofman: "Goin' to work for them, are you? Well, they've got a blamed
+hard name. If you get a job elsewhere, don't turn it down."
+
+Jim left me; he would work on no claim of Locasto's, he said. He had a
+friend, a layman, who was a good man, belonged to the Army. He would try
+him. So we parted.
+
+Ribwood was a tall, gaunt Cornishman, with a narrow, jutting face and a
+gloomy air; Hoofman, a burly, beet-coloured Australian with a bulging
+stomach.
+
+"Yes, we'll put you to work," said Hoofman, reading the letter. "Get
+your coat off and shovel in."
+
+So, right away, I found myself in the dump-pile, jamming a shovel into
+the pay-dirt and swinging it into a sluice-box five feet higher than my
+head. Keeping at this hour after hour was no fun, and if ever a man
+desisted for a moment the hard eyes of Hoofman were upon him, and the
+gloomy Ribwood had snatched up a shovel and was throwing in the muck
+furiously.
+
+"Come on, boys," he would shout; "make the dirt fly. 'Taint every part
+of the world you fellers can make your ten bucks a day."
+
+And it can be said that never labourer proved himself more worthy of his
+hire than the pick-and-shovel man of those early days. Few could stand
+it long without resting. They were lean as wolves those men of the dump
+and drift, and their faces were gouged and grooved with relentless toil.
+
+Well, for three days I made the dirt fly; but towards quitting time, I
+must say, its flight was a very uncertain one. Again I suffered all the
+tortures of becoming toil-broken, the old aches and pains of the tunnel
+and the gravel-pit. Towards evening every shovelful of dirt seemed to
+weigh as much as if it was solid gold; indeed, the stuff seemed to get
+richer and richer as the day advanced, and during the last half-hour I
+judged it must be nearly all nuggets. The constant hoisting into the
+overhead sluice-box somehow worked muscles that had never gone into
+action before, and I ached elaborately.
+
+In the morning the pains were fiercest. How I groaned until the muscles
+became limber. I found myself using very rough language, groaning,
+gritting my teeth viciously. But I stayed with the work and held up my
+end, while the laymen watched us sedulously, and seemed to grudge us
+even a moment to wipe the sweat out of our blinded eyes.
+
+I was glad, indeed, when, on the evening of the third day, Ribwood came
+to me and said:
+
+"I guess you'd better work up at the shaft to-morrow. We want a man to
+wheel muck."
+
+They had a shaft sunk on the hillside. They were down some forty feet
+and were drifting in, wheeling the pay-dirt down a series of planks
+placed on trestles to the dump. I gripped the handles of a wheelbarrow
+loaded to overspilling, and steered it down that long, unsteady gangway
+full of uneven joins and sudden angles. Time and again I ran off the
+track, but after the first day I became quite an expert at the business.
+My spirits rose. I was on the way of becoming a miner.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Turning the windlass over the shaft was a little, tough mud-rat, who
+excited in me the liveliest sense of aversion. Pat Doogan was his name,
+but I will call him the "Worm."
+
+The Worm was the foulest-mouthed specimen I have yet met. He had the
+lowest forehead I have ever seen in a white man, and such a sharp,
+ferrety little face. His reddish hair had the prison clip, and his
+little reddish eyes were alive with craft and cruelty. I noticed he
+always regarded me with a peculiarly evil grin, that wrinkled up his
+cheeks and revealed his hideously blackened teeth. From the first he
+gave me a creepy feeling, a disgust as if I were near some slimy
+reptile.
+
+Yet the Worm tried to make up to me. He would tell me stories blended of
+the horrible and the grotesque. One in particular I remember.
+
+"Youse wanta know how I lost me last job. I'll tell youse. You see, it
+was like dis. Dere was two Blackmoor guys dat got into de country dis
+Spring; came by St. Michaels; Hindoos dey was. One of dem 'Sicks' (an'
+dey looked sick, dey was so loose an' weary in der style) got a job from
+old man Gustafson down de shaft muckin' up and fillin' de buckets.
+
+"Well, dere was dat Blackmoor down in de deep hole one day when I comes
+along, an' strikes old Gus for a job. So, seein' as de man on de
+windlass wanted to quit, he passed it up to me, an' I took right hold
+an' started in.
+
+"Say, I was feelin' powerful mean. I'd just finished up a two weeks'
+drunk, an' you tink de booze wasn't workin' in me some. I was seein' all
+kinds of funny t'ings. Why, as I was a-turnin' away at dat ol' windlass
+dere was red spiders crawlin' up me legs. But I was wise. I wouldn't
+look at dem, give dem de go-by. Den a yeller rat got gay wid me an' did
+some stunts on me windlass. But still I wouldn't let on. Den dere was
+some green snakes dat wriggled over de platform like shiny streaks on de
+water. Sure, I didn't like dat one bit, but I says, 'Dere ain't no
+snakes in de darned country, Pat, and you knows it. It's just a touch of
+de horrors, dat's all. Just pass 'em up, boy; don't take no notice of
+dem.'
+
+"Well, dis went on till I begins to get all shaky an' jumpy, an' I was
+mighty glad when de time came to quit, an' de boys down below gives me
+de holler to pull dem up.
+
+"So I started hoistin' wid dose snakes an' spiders an' rats jus'
+cavortin' round me like mad, when all to once who should I hoist outa de
+bowels of de earth but de very devil himself.
+
+"His face was black. I could see de whites of his eyes, an' he had a big
+dirty towel tied round his head. Well, say, it was de limit. At de sight
+of dat ferocious monster comin' after old Pat I gives one yell, drops
+de crank-handle of de windlass, an' makes a flyin' leap down de dump. I
+hears an awful shriek, an' de bucket an' de devil goes down smash to de
+bottom of de shaft, t'irty-five feet. But I kep' on runnin'. I was so
+scared.
+
+"Well, how was I to know dey had a Blackmoor down dere? He was a stiff
+when dey got him up, but how was I to know? So I lost me job."
+
+On another occasion he told me:
+
+"Say, kid, youse didn't know as I was liable to fits, did youse? Dat's
+so; eppylepsy de doctor tells me. Dat's what I am scared of. You see,
+it's like dis: if one of dem fits should hit me when I'm hoistin' de
+boys outer de shaft, den it would be a pity. I would sure lose me job
+like de oder time."
+
+He was the most degraded type of man I had yet met on my travels, a
+typical degenerate, dirty, drunken, diseased. He had three suits of
+underclothing, which he never washed. He would wear through all three in
+succession, and when the last got too dirty for words he would throw it
+under his trunk and sorrowfully go back to the first, keeping up this
+rotation, till all were worn out.
+
+One day Hoofman told me he wanted me to go down the shaft and work in
+the drift. Accordingly, next morning I and a huge Slav, by name Dooley
+Rileyvich, were lowered down into the darkness.
+
+The Slav initiated me. Every foot of dirt had to be thawed out by means
+of wood fires. We built a fire at the far end of the drift every night,
+covering the face we were working. First we would lay kindling, then
+dry spruce lying lengthways, then a bank of green wood standing on end
+to keep in the heat and shed the dirt that sloughed down from the roof.
+In the morning our fire would be burned out, and enough pay-dirt thawed
+to keep us picking all day.
+
+Down there I found it the hardest work of all. We had to be careful that
+the smoke had cleared from the drift before we ventured in, for
+frequently miners were asphyxiated. Indeed, the bad air never went
+entirely away. It made my eyes sore, my head ache. Yet, curiously
+enough, so long as you were below it did not affect you so much. It was
+when you stepped out of the bucket and struck the pure outer air that
+you reeled and became dizzy. It was blinding, too. Often at supper have
+my eyes been so blurred and sore I had to grope around uncertainly for
+the sugar bowl and the tin of cream.
+
+In the drift it was always cool. The dirt kept sloughing down on us, and
+we had really gone in too far for our own safety, but the laymen cared
+little for that. At the end of the drift the roof was so low we were
+bent almost double, picking at the face in all kinds of cramped
+positions, and dragging after us the heavy bucket. To the big Slav it
+was all in the day's work, but to me it was hard, hard.
+
+The shaft was almost forty feet deep. For the first ten feet a ladder
+ran down it, then stopped suddenly as if the excavators had decided to
+abandon it. I often looked at this useless bit of ladder and wondered
+why it had been left unfinished.
+
+Every morning the Worm hoisted us down into the darkness, and at night
+drew us up. Once he said to me:
+
+"Say, wouldn't it be de tough luck if I was to take a fit when I was
+hoistin' youse up? Such a nice bit of a boy, too, an' I guess I'd lose
+my job over de head of it."
+
+I said: "Cut that out, or you'll have me so scared I won't go down."
+
+He grinned unpleasantly and said nothing more. Yet somehow he was
+getting on my nerves terribly.
+
+It was one evening we had banked our fires and were ready to be hoisted
+up. Dooley Rileyvich went first, and I watched him blot out the bit of
+blue for a while. Then, slowly, down came the bucket for me.
+
+I got in. I was feeling uneasy all of a sudden, and devoutly wished I
+were anywhere else but in that hideous hole. I felt myself leave the
+ground and rise steadily. The walls of the shaft glided past me. Up, up
+I went. The bit of blue sky grew bigger, bigger. There was a star
+shining there. I watched it. I heard the creak, creak of the windlass
+crank. Somehow it seemed to have a sinister sound. It seemed to say:
+"Have a care, have a care, have a care." I was now ten feet from the
+top. The bucket was rocking a little, so I put out my hand and grasped
+the lowest rung of the ladder to steady myself.
+
+Then, at that instant, it seemed the weight of the bucket pressing up
+against my feet was suddenly removed, and my arm was nigh jerked out of
+its socket. There I was hanging desperately on the lowest rung of the
+ladder, while, with a crash that made my heart sick, the bucket dashed
+to the bottom. At last, I realised, the Worm had had his fit.
+
+Quickly I gripped with both hands. With a great effort I raised myself
+rung by rung on the ladder. I was panic-stricken, faint with fear; but
+some instinct had made me hold on desperately. Dizzily I hung all
+a-shudder, half-sobbing. A minute seemed like a year.
+
+Ah! there was the face of Dooley looking down on me. He saw me clinging
+there. He was anxiously shouting to me to come up. Mastering an
+overpowering nausea I raised myself. At last I felt his strong arm
+around me, and here I swear it on a stack of Bibles that brutish Slav
+seemed to me like one of God's own angels.
+
+I was on firm ground once more. The Worm was lying stiff and rigid.
+Without a word the stalwart Slav took him on his brawny shoulder. The
+creek was downhill but fifty yards. Ere we reached it the Worm had
+begun to show signs of reviving consciousness. When we got to the edge
+of the icy water he was beginning to groan and open his eyes in a dazed
+way.
+
+"Leave me alone," he says to Rileyvich; "you Slavonian swine, lemme go."
+
+Not so the Slav. Holding the wriggling, writhing little man in his
+powerful arms he plunged him heels over head in the muddy current of the
+creek.
+
+"I guess I cure dose fits anyway," he said grimly.
+
+Struggling, spluttering, blaspheming, the little man freed himself at
+last and staggered ashore. He cursed Rileyvich most comprehensively. He
+had not yet seen me, and I heard him wailing:
+
+"Sure de boy's a stiff. Just me luck; I've lost me job."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+"You'd better quit," said the Prodigal.
+
+It was the evening of my mishap, and he had arrived unexpectedly from
+town.
+
+"Yes, I mean to," I answered. "I wouldn't go down there again for a
+farm. I feel as weak as a sick baby. I couldn't stay another day."
+
+"Well, that goes," said he. "It just fits in with my plans. I'm getting
+Jim to come in, too. I've realised on that stuff I bought, made over
+three thousand clear profit, and with it I've made a dicker for a
+property on the bench above Bonanza, Gold Hill they call it. I've a
+notion it's all right. Anyway, we'll tunnel in and see. You and Jim will
+have a quarter share each for your work, while I'll have an extra
+quarter for the capital I've put in. Is it a go?"
+
+I said it was.
+
+"Thought it would be. I've had the papers made out; you can sign right
+now."
+
+So I signed, and next day found us all three surveying our claim. We put
+up a tent, but the first thing to do was to build a cabin. Right away we
+began to level off the ground. The work was pleasant, and conducted in
+such friendship that the time passed most happily. Indeed, my only worry
+was about Berna. She had never ceased to be at the forefront of my mind.
+I schooled myself into the belief that she was all right, but, thank
+God, every moment was bringing her nearer to me.
+
+One morning, when we were out in the woods cutting timber for the cabin,
+I said to Jim:
+
+"Did you ever hear anything more about that man Mosely?"
+
+He stopped chopping, and lowered the axe he had poised aloft.
+
+"No, boy; I've had no mail at all. Wait awhile."
+
+He swung his axe with viciously forceful strokes. His cheery face had
+become so downcast that I bitterly blamed myself for my want of tact.
+However, the cloud soon passed.
+
+About two days after that the Prodigal said to me:
+
+"I saw your little guttersnipe friend to-day."
+
+"Indeed, where?" I asked; for I had often thought of the Worm, thought
+of him with fear and loathing.
+
+"Well, sir, he was just getting the grandest dressing-down I ever saw a
+man get. And do you know who was handing it to him--Locasto, no less."
+
+He lit a cigarette and inhaled the smoke.
+
+"I was just coming along the trail from the Forks when I suddenly heard
+voices in the bush. The big man was saying:
+
+"'Lookee here, Pat, you know if I just liked to say half a dozen words I
+could land you in the penitentiary for the rest of your days.'
+
+"Then the little man's wheedling voice:
+
+"'Well, I did me best, Jack. I know I bungled the job, but youse don't
+want to cast dem t'ings up to me. Dere's more dan me orter be in de
+pen. Dere's no good in de pot callin' de kettle black, is dere?'
+
+"Then Black Jack flew off the handle. You know he's got a system of
+manhandling that's near the record in these parts. Well, he just landed
+on the little man. He got him down and started to lambast the Judas out
+of him. He gave him the 'leather,' and then some. I guess he'd have done
+him to a finish hadn't I been Johnnie on the spot. At sight of me he
+gives a curse, jumps on his horse and goes off at a canter. Well, I
+propped the little man against a tree, and then some fellows came along,
+and we got him some brandy. But he was badly done up. He kept saying:
+'Oh, de devil, de big devil, sure I'll give him his before I get
+t'rough.' Funny, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes, it's strange;" and for some time I pondered over the remarkable
+strangeness of it.
+
+"That reminds me," said Jim; "has any one seen the Jam-wagon?"
+
+"Oh yes," answered the Prodigal; "poor beggar! he's down and out. After
+the fight he went to pieces, every one treating him, and so on. You
+remember Bullhammer?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, the last I saw of the Jam-wagon--he was cleaning cuspidors in
+Bullhammer's saloon."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We had hauled the logs for the cabin, and the foundation was laid. Now
+we were building up the walls, placing between every log a thick
+wadding of moss. Every day saw our future home nearer completion.
+
+One evening I spied the saturnine Ribwood climbing the hill to our tent.
+He hailed me:
+
+"Say, you're just the man I want."
+
+"What for?" I asked; "not to go down that shaft again?"
+
+"No. Say! we want a night watchman up at the claim to go on four hours a
+night at a dollar an hour. You see, there's been a lot of sluice-box
+robberies lately, and we're scared for our clean-up. We're running two
+ten-hour shifts now and cleaning up every three days; but there's four
+hours every night the place is deserted, and Hoofman proposed we should
+get you to keep watch."
+
+"Yes," I said; "I'll run up every evening if the others don't object."
+
+They did not; so the next night, and for about a dozen after that, I
+spent the darkest hours watching on the claim where previously I had
+worked.
+
+There was never any real darkness down there in that narrow valley, but
+there was dusk of a kind that made everything grey and uncertain. It was
+a vague, nebulous atmosphere in which objects merged into each other
+confusedly. Bushes came down to within a few feet of where we were
+working, dense-growing alder and birch that would have concealed a whole
+regiment of sluice-robbers.
+
+It was the dimmest and most uncertain hour of the four, and I was
+sitting at my post of guard. As the night was chilly I had brought
+along an old grey blanket, similar in colour to the mound of the
+pay-dirt. There had been quite a cavity dug in the dump during the day,
+and into this I crawled and wrapped myself in my blanket. From my
+position I could see the string of boxes containing the riffles. Over me
+brooded the vast silence of the night. By my side lay a loaded shot-gun.
+
+"If the swine comes," said Ribwood, "let him have a clean-up of lead
+instead of gold."
+
+Lying there, I got to thinking of the robberies. They were remarkable.
+All had been done by an expert. In some cases the riffles had been
+extracted and the gold scooped out; in others a quantity of mercury had
+been poured in at the upper end of the boxes, and, as it passed down,
+the "quick" had gathered up the dust. Each time the robbers had cleaned
+up from two to three thousand dollars, and all within the past month.
+There was some mysterious master-crook in our midst, one who operated
+swiftly and surely, and left absolutely no clue of his identity.
+
+It was strange, I thought. What nerve, what cunning, what skill must
+this midnight thief be possessed of! What desperate chances was he
+taking! For, in the miners' eyes, cache-stealing and sluice-box robbing
+were in the same category, and the punishment was--well, a rope and the
+nearest tree of size. Among those strong, grim men justice would be
+stern and swift.
+
+I was very quiet for a while, watching dreamily the dark shadows of the
+dusk.
+
+Hist! What was that? Surely the bushes were moving over there by the
+hillside. I strained my eyes. I was right: they were.
+
+I was all nerves and excitement now, my heart beating wildly, my eyes
+boring through the gloom. Very softly I put out my hand and grasped the
+shot-gun.
+
+I watched and waited. A man was parting the bushes. Stealthily, very
+stealthily, he peered around. He hesitated, paused, peered again,
+crouched on all-fours, crept forward a little. Everything was quiet as a
+grave. Down in the cabins the tired men slept peacefully; stillness and
+solitude.
+
+Cautiously the man, crawling like a snake, worked his way to the
+sluice-boxes. None but a keen watcher could have seen him. Again and
+again he paused, peered around, listened intently. Very carefully, with
+my eyes fixed on him, I lifted the gun.
+
+Now he had gained the shadow of the nearest sluice-box. He clung to the
+trestle-work, clung so closely you could scarce tell him apart from it.
+He was like a rat, dark, furtive, sinister. Slowly I lifted the gun to
+my shoulder. I had him covered.
+
+I waited. Somehow I was loath to shoot. My nerves were a-quiver. Proof,
+more proof, I said. I saw him working busily, lying flat alongside the
+boxes. How crafty, how skilful he was! He was disconnecting the boxes.
+He would let the water run to the ground; then, there in the exposed
+riffles, would be his harvest. Would I shoot ... now ... now....
+
+Then, in the midnight hush, my gun blazed forth. With one scream the man
+tumbled down, carrying along with him the disconnected box. The water
+rushed over the ground in a deluge. I must capture him. There he lay in
+that pouring stream.... Now I had him.
+
+In that torrent of icy water I grappled with my man. Over and over we
+rolled. He tried to gouge me. He was small, but oh, how strong! He held
+down his face. Fiercely I wrenched it up to the light. Heavens! it was
+the Worm.
+
+I gave a cry of surprise, and my clutch on him must have weakened, for
+at that moment he gave a violent wrench, a cat-like twist, and tore
+himself free. Men were coming, were shouting, were running in from all
+directions.
+
+"Catch him!" I cried. "Yonder he goes."
+
+But the little man was shooting forward like a deer. He was in the
+bushes now, bursting through everything, dodging and twisting up the
+hill. Right and left ran his pursuers, mistaking each other for the
+robber in the semi-gloom, yelling frantically, mad with the excitement
+of a man-hunt. And in the midst of it all I lay in a pool of mud and
+water, with a sprained wrist and a bite on my leg.
+
+"Why didn't you hold him?" shouted Ribwood.
+
+"I couldn't," I answered. "I saved your clean-up, and he got some of the
+lead. Besides, I know who he is."
+
+"You don't! Who is he?"
+
+"Pat Doogan."
+
+"You don't say. Well, I'm darned. You're sure?"
+
+"Dead sure."
+
+"Swear it in Court?"
+
+"I will."
+
+"Well, that's all right. We'll get him. I'll go into town first thing in
+the morning and get out a warrant for him."
+
+He went, but the next evening back he returned, looking very surly and
+disgruntled.
+
+"Well, what about the warrant?" said Hoofman.
+
+"Didn't get it."
+
+"Didn't get----"
+
+"No, didn't get it," snapped Ribwood. "Look here, Hoofman, I met
+Locasto. Black Jack says Pat was cached away, dead to all the world, in
+the backroom of the Omega Saloon all night. There's two loafers and the
+barkeeper to back him up. What can we do in the face of that? Say, young
+feller, I guess you mistook your man."
+
+"I guess I did not," I protested stoutly.
+
+They both looked at me for a moment and shrugged their shoulders.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Time went on and the cabin was quietly nearing completion. The roof of
+poles was in place. It only remained to cover it with moss and
+thawed-out earth to make it our future home. I think these were the
+happiest days I spent in the North. We were such a united trio. Each was
+eager to do more than the other, and we vied in little acts of mutual
+consideration.
+
+Once again I congratulated myself on my partners. Jim, though sometimes
+bellicosely evangelical, was the soul of kindly goodness, cheerfulness
+and patience. It was refreshing to know among so many sin-calloused men
+one who always rang true, true as the gold in the pan. As for the
+Prodigal, he was a Prince. I often thought that God at the birth of him
+must have reached out to the sunshine and crammed a mighty handful of it
+into the boy. Surely it is better than all the riches in the world to
+have a temperament of eternal cheer.
+
+As for me, I have ever been at the mercy of my moods, easily elated,
+quickly cast down. I have always been abnormally sensitive, affected by
+sunshine and by shadows, vacillating, intense in my feelings. I was
+truly happy in those days, finding time in the long evenings to think of
+the scenes of stress and sorrow I had witnessed, reconstructing the
+past, and having importune me again and again the many characters in my
+life drama.
+
+Always and always I saw the Girl, elusively sweet, almost unreal, a
+thing to enshrine in that ideal alcove of our hearts we keep for our
+saints. (And God help us always to keep shining there a great light.)
+
+Many others importuned me: Pinklove, Globstock, Pondersby, Marks, old
+Wilovich, all dead; Bullhammer, the Jam-wagon, Mosher, the Winklesteins,
+plunged in the vortex of the gold-born city; and lastly, looming over
+all, dark and ominous, the handsome, bold, sinister face of Locasto.
+Well, maybe I would never see any of them again.
+
+Yet more and more my dream hours were jealously consecrated to Berna.
+How ineffably sweet were they! How full of delicious imaginings! How
+pregnant of high hope! O, I was born to love, I think, and I never loved
+but one. This story of my life is the story of Berna. It is a thing of
+words and words and words, yet every word is Berna, Berna. Feel the
+heartache behind it all. Read between the lines, Berna, Berna.
+
+Often in the evenings we went to the Forks, which was a lively place
+indeed. Here was all the recklessness and revel of Dawson on a smaller
+scale, and infinitely more gross. Here were the dance-hall girls, not
+the dazzling creatures in diamonds and Paris gowns, the belles of the
+Monte Carlo and the Tivoli, but drabs self-convicted by their coarse,
+puffy faces. Here the men, fresh from their day's work, the mud of the
+claim hardly dry on their boot-tops, were buying wine with nuggets they
+had filched from sluice-box, dump and drift.
+
+There was wholesale robbery going on in the gold-camp. On many claims
+where the owners were known to be unsuspicious, men would work for small
+wages because of the gold they were able to filch. On the other hand,
+many of the operators were paying their men in trade-dust valued at
+sixteen dollars an ounce, yet so adulterated with black sand as to be
+really worth about fourteen. All these things contributed to the low
+morale of the camp. Easy come, easy go with money, a wild intoxication
+of success in the air; gold gouged in glittering heaps from the ground
+during the day, and at night squandered in a carnival of lust and sin.
+
+The Prodigal was always "snooping" around and gleaning information from
+most mysterious sources. One evening he came to us.
+
+"Boys, get ready, quick. There's a rumour of a stampede for a new creek,
+Ophir Creek they call it, away on the other side of the divide
+somewhere. A prospector went down ten feet and got fifty-cent dirt.
+We've got to get in on this. There's a mob coming from Dawson, but we'll
+get there before the rush."
+
+Quickly we got together blankets and a little grub, and, keeping out of
+sight, we crawled up the hill under cover of the brush. Soon we came to
+a place from which we could command a full view of the valley. Here we
+lay down, awaiting developments.
+
+It was at the hour of dusk. Scarfs of smoke wavered over the cabins down
+in the valley. On the far slope of Eldorado I saw a hawk soar upwards.
+Surely a man was moving amid the brush, two men, a dozen men, moving in
+single file very stealthily. I pointed them out.
+
+"It's the stampede," whispered Jim. "We've got to get on to the trail of
+that crowd. Travel like blazes. We can cut them off at the head of the
+valley."
+
+So we struck into the stampede gait, a wild, jolting, desperate pace,
+that made the wind pant in our lungs like bellows, and jarred our bones
+in their sockets. Through brush and scrub timber we burst. Thorny vines
+tore at us detainingly, swampy niggerheads impeded us; but the
+excitement of the stampede was in our blood, and we plunged down
+gulches, floundered over marshes, climbed steep ridges and crashed
+through dense masses of underwood.
+
+"Throw away your blankets, boys," said the Prodigal. "Just keep a little
+grub. Eldorado was staked on a stampede. Maybe we're in on another
+Eldorado. We must connect with that bunch if we break our necks."
+
+It was hours after when we overtook them, about a dozen men, all in the
+maddest hurry, and casting behind them glances of furtive apprehension.
+When they saw us they were hugely surprised. Ribwood was one of the
+party.
+
+"Hello," he says roughly; "any more coming after you boys?"
+
+"Don't see them," said the Prodigal breathlessly. "We spied you and
+cottoned on to what was up, so we made a fierce hike to get in on it.
+Gee, I'm all tuckered out."
+
+"All right, get in line. I guess there's lots for us all. You're in on a
+good thing, all right. Come along."
+
+So off we started again. The leader was going like one possessed. We
+blundered on behind. We were on the other side of the divide looking
+into another vast valley. What a magnificent country it was! What a
+great manoeuvring-ground it would make for an army! What splendid
+open spaces, and round smooth hills, and dimly blue valleys, and silvery
+winding creeks! It was veritably a park of the Gods, and enclosing it
+was the monstrous, corrugated palisade of the Rockies.
+
+But there was small time to look around. On we went in the same mad,
+heart-breaking hurry, mile after mile, hour after hour.
+
+"This is going to be a banner creek, boys," the whisper ran down the
+line. "We're in luck. We'll all be Klondike Kings yet."
+
+Cheering, wasn't it? So on we went, hotter than ever, content to follow
+the man of iron who was guiding us to the virgin treasure.
+
+We had been pounding along all night, up hill and down dale. The sun
+rose, the dawn blossomed, the dew dried on the blueberry; it was
+morning. Still we kept up our fierce gait. Would our leader never come
+to his destination? By what roundabout route was he guiding us? The sun
+climbed up in the blue sky, the heat quivered; it was noon. We panted as
+we pelted on, parched and weary, faint and footsore. The excitement of
+the stampede had sustained us, and we scarcely had noted the flight of
+time. We had been walking for fourteen hours, yet not a man faltered. I
+was ready to drop with fatigue; my feet were a mass of blisters, and
+every step was intolerable pain to me. But still our leader kept on.
+
+"I guess we'll fool those trying to follow us," snapped Ribwood grimly.
+
+Suddenly the Prodigal said to me: "Say, you boys will have to go on
+without me. I'm all in. Go ahead, I'll follow after I'm rested up."
+
+He dropped in a limp heap on the ground and instantly fell asleep.
+Several of the others had dropped out too. They fell asleep where they
+gave up, utterly exhausted. We had now been going sixteen hours, and
+still our leader kept on.
+
+"You're pretty tough for a youngster," growled one of them to me. "Keep
+it up, we're almost there."
+
+So I hobbled along painfully, though the desire to throw myself down was
+becoming imperative. Just ahead was Jim, sturdily holding his own. The
+others were reduced to a bare half-dozen.
+
+It was about four in the afternoon when we reached the creek. Up it our
+leader plunged, till he came to a place where a rude shaft had been dug.
+We gathered around him. He was a typical prospector, a child of hope,
+lean, swarthy, clear-eyed.
+
+"Here it is, boys," he said. "Here's my discovery stake. Now you fellows
+go up or down, anywhere you've a notion to, and put in your stakes. You
+all know what a lottery it is. Maybe you'll stake a million-dollar
+claim, maybe a blank. Mining's all a gamble. But go ahead, boys. I wish
+you luck."
+
+So we strung out, and, coming in rotation, Jim and I staked seven and
+eight below discovery.
+
+"Seven's a lucky number for me," said Jim; "I've a notion this claim's a
+good one."
+
+"I don't care," I said, "for all the gold in the world. What I want is
+sleep, sleep, rest and sleep."
+
+So I threw myself down on a bit of moss, and, covering my head with my
+coat to ward off the mosquitoes, in a few minutes I was dead to the
+world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+I was awakened by the Prodigal.
+
+"Rouse up," he was saying; "you've slept right round the clock. We've
+got to get back to town and record those claims. Jim's gone three hours
+ago."
+
+It was five o'clock of a crystal Yukon morning, with the world clear-cut
+and fresh as at the dawn of Things. I was sleep-stupid, sore, stiff in
+every joint. Racking pains made me groan at every movement, and the
+chill night air had brought on twinges of rheumatism. I looked at my
+location stake, beside which I had fallen.
+
+"I can't do it," I said; "my feet are out of business."
+
+"You must," he insisted. "Come, buck up, old man. Bathe your feet in the
+creek, and then you'll feel as fit as a fighting-cock. We've got to get
+into town hot-foot. They've got a bunch of crooks at the gold office,
+and we're liable to lose our claims if we are late."
+
+"Have you staked, too?"
+
+"You bet. I've got thirteen below. Hurry up. There's a wild bunch coming
+from town."
+
+I groaned grievously, yet felt mighty refreshed by a dip in the creek.
+Then we started off once more. Every few moments we would meet parties
+coming post-haste from town. They looked worn and jaded, but spread
+eagerly up and down. There must have been several hundred of them, all
+sustained by the mad excitement of the stampede.
+
+We did not take the circuitous route of the day before, but one that
+shortened the distance by some ten miles. We travelled a wild country,
+crossing unknown creeks that have since proved gold-bearing, and
+climbing again the high ridge of the divide. Then once more we dropped
+down into the Bonanza basin, and by nightfall we had reached our own
+cabin.
+
+We lay down for a few hours. It seemed my weary head had just touched
+the pillow when once more the inexorable Prodigal awakened me.
+
+"Come on, kid, we've got to get to Dawson when the recording office
+opens." So once more we pelted down Bonanza. Fast as we had come, we
+found many of those who had followed us were ahead. The North is the
+land of the musher. In that pure, buoyant air a man can walk away from
+himself. Any one of us thought nothing of a fifty-mile tramp, and one of
+eighty was scarcely considered notable.
+
+It was about nine in the morning when we got to the gold office. Already
+a crowd of stampeders were waiting. Foremost in the crowd I saw Jim. The
+Prodigal looked thoughtful.
+
+"Look here," he said, "I guess it's all right to push in with that
+bunch, but there's a slicker way of doing it for those that are 'next.'
+Of course, it's not according to Hoyle. There's a little side-door where
+you can get in ahead of the gang. See that fellow, Ten-Dollar Jim they
+call him; well, they say he can work the oracle for us."
+
+"No," I said, "you can pay him ten dollars if you like. I'll take my
+chance in the regulation way."
+
+So the Prodigal slipped away from me, and presently I saw him admitted
+at the side entrance. Surely, thought I, there must be some mistake. The
+public would not "stand for" such things.
+
+There was quite a number ahead of me, and I knew I was in for a long
+wait. I will never forget it. For three days, with the exception of two
+brief sleep-spells, I had been in a fierce helter-skelter of excitement,
+and I had eaten no very satisfying food. As I stood in that sullen crowd
+I swayed with weariness, and my legs were doubling under me. Invisible
+hands were dragging me down, throwing dust in my eyes, hypnotising me
+with soporific gestures. I staggered forward and straightened up
+suddenly. On the outskirts of the crowd I saw the Prodigal trying to
+locate me. When he saw me he waved a paper.
+
+"Come on, you goat," he shouted; "have a little sense. I'm all fixed
+up."
+
+I shook my head. An odd sense of fair play in me made me want to win the
+game squarely. I would wait my turn. Noon came. I saw Jim coming out,
+tired but triumphant.
+
+"All right," he megaphoned to me; "I'm through. Now I'll go and sleep my
+head off."
+
+How I envied him. I felt I, too, had a "big bunch" of sleep coming to
+me. I was moving forward slowly. Bit by bit I was wedging nearer the
+door. I watched man after man push past the coveted threshold. They
+were all miners, brawny, stubble-chinned fellows with grim, determined
+faces. I was certainly the youngest there.
+
+"What have you got?" asked a thick-set man on my right.
+
+"Eight below," I answered.
+
+"Gee! you're lucky."
+
+"What'll you take for it?" asked a tall, keen-looking fellow on my left.
+
+"Five thousand."
+
+"Give you two."
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, come round and see me to-morrow at the Dominion, and we'll talk
+it over. My name's Gunson. Bring your papers."
+
+"All right."
+
+Something like dizziness seized me. Five thousand! The crowd seemed to
+be composed of angels and the sunshine to have a new and brilliant
+quality of light and warmth. Five thousand! Would I take it? If the
+claim was worth a cent it ought to be worth fifty thousand. I soared on
+rosy wings of optimism. I revelled in dreams. My claim! Mine! Eight
+below! Other men had bounded into affluence. Why not I?
+
+No longer did I notice the flight of time. I was ready to wait till
+doomsday. A new lease of strength came to me. I was near the wicket now.
+Only two were ahead of me. A clerk was recording their claims. One had
+thirty-four above, the other fifty-two below. The clerk looked
+flustered, fatigued. His dull eyes were pursy with midnight debauches;
+his flesh sagged. In contrast with the clean, hard, hawk-eyed miners, he
+looked blotched and unwholesome.
+
+Crossly he snatched from the other two their miner's certificates, made
+the entries in his book, and gave them their receipts. It was my turn
+now. I dashed forward eagerly. Then I stopped, for the man with the
+bleary eyes had shut the wicket in my face.
+
+"Three o'clock," he snapped.
+
+"Couldn't you take mine?" I faltered; "I've been waiting now these
+seven hours."
+
+"Closing time," he ripped out still more tartly; "come again to-morrow."
+
+There was a growling thunder from the crowd behind, and the weary,
+disappointed stampeders slouched away.
+
+Body and soul of me craved for sleep. Beyond an overwhelming desire for
+rest, I was conscious of nothing else. My eyelids were weighted with
+lead. I lagged along dejectedly. At the hotel I saw the Prodigal.
+
+"Get fixed up?"
+
+"No, too late."
+
+"You'd better take advantage of the general corruption and the services
+of Ten-Dollar Jim."
+
+I was disheartened, disgusted, desperate.
+
+"I will," I said. Then, throwing myself on the bed, I launched on a
+dreamless sea of sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Next morning bright and early found me at the side-door, and the tall man
+admitted me. I slipped a ten-dollar gold piece into his palm, and
+presently found myself waiting at the yet unopened wicket. Outside I
+could see the big crowd gathering for their weary wait. I felt a
+sneaking sense of meanness, but I did not have long to enjoy my
+despicable sensations.
+
+The recording clerk came to the wicket. He was very red-faced and
+watery-eyed. Involuntarily I turned my head away at the reek of his
+breath.
+
+"I want to record eight below on Ophir," I said.
+
+He looked at me curiously. He hesitated.
+
+"What name?" he asked.
+
+I gave it. He turned up his book.
+
+"Eight below, you say. Why, that's already recorded."
+
+"Can't be," I retorted. "I just got down from there yesterday after
+planting my stakes."
+
+"Can't help it. It's recorded by some one else, recorded early
+yesterday."
+
+"Look here," I exclaimed; "what kind of a game are you putting up on me?
+I tell you I was the first on the ground. I alone staked the claim."
+
+"That's strange," he said. "There must be some mistake. Anyway, you'll
+have to move on and let the others get up to the wicket. You're
+blocking the way. All I can do is to look into the matter for you, and
+I've got no time now. Come back to-morrow. Next, please."
+
+The next man pushed me aside, and there I stood, gaping and gasping. A
+man in the waiting line looked at me pityingly.
+
+"It's no use, young fellow; you'd better make up your mind to lose that
+claim. They'll flim-flam you out of it somehow. They've sent some one
+out now to stake over you. If you kick, they'll say you didn't stake
+proper."
+
+"But I have witnesses."
+
+"It don't matter if you call the Angel Gabriel to witness, they're going
+to grab your claim. Them government officials is the crookedest bunch
+that ever made fuel for hell-fire. You won't get a square deal; they're
+going to get the fat anyhow. They've got the best claims spotted, an'
+men posted to jump them at the first chance. Oh, they're feathering
+their nests all right. They're like a lot of greedy pike just waiting to
+gobble down all they can. A man can't buy wine at twenty dollars per,
+and make dance-hall Flossies presents of diamond tararas on a government
+salary. That's what a lot of them are doing. Wine and women, and their
+wives an' daughters outside thinkin' they're little tin gods. Somehow
+they've got to foot the bill. Oh, it's a great country."
+
+I was stunned with disappointment.
+
+"What you want," he continued, "is to get a pull with some of the
+officials. Why, there's friends of mine don't need to go out of town to
+stake a claim. Only the other day a certain party known to me, went
+to--well, I mustn't mention names, anyway, he's high up in the
+government, and a friend of Quebec Suzanne's,--and says to him,'I want
+you to get number so and so on Hunker recorded for me. Of course I
+haven't been able to get out there, but--'
+
+"The government bug puts his hands to his ears. 'Don't give me any
+unnecessary information,' he says; 'you want so and so recorded, Sam.
+Well, that's all right. I'll fix it.'
+
+"That was all there was to it, and when next day a man comes in
+post-haste claiming to have staked it, it was there recorded in Sam's
+name. Get a stand-in, young fellow."
+
+"But surely," I said, "somehow, somewhere there must be justice. Surely
+if these facts were represented at Ottawa and proof forthcoming----"
+
+"Ottawa!" He gave a sniffing laugh. "Ottawa! Why, it's some of the big
+guns at Ottawa that's gettin' the cream of it all. The little fellows
+are just lapping up the drips. Look at them big concessions they're
+selling for a song, good placer ground that would mean pie to the poor
+miner, closed tight and everlastingly tied up. How is it done? Why,
+there's some politician at the bottom of the whole business. Look at the
+liquor permits--crude alcohol sent into the country by the thousand
+gallons, diluted to six times its bulk, and sold to the poor prospector
+for whisky at a dollar a drink. An' you can't pour your own drinks at
+that."
+
+"Well," I said, "I'm not going to be cheated out of my claim. If I've
+got to move Heaven and earth----"
+
+"You'll do nothing of the kind. If you get sassy there's the police to
+put the lid on you. You can talk till you're purple round the gills. It
+won't cut no figure. They've got us all cinched. We've just got to take
+our medicine. It's no use goin' round bellyaching. You'd better go away
+and sit down."
+
+And I did.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+I had to see Berna at once. Already I had paid a visit to the Paragon
+Restaurant, that new and glittering place of resort run by the
+Winklesteins, but she was not on duty. I saw Madam, resplendent in her
+false jewellery, with her beetle-black hair elaborately coiffured, and
+her large, bold face handsomely enamelled. She looked the picture of
+fleshy prosperity, a big handsome Jewess, hawk-eyed and rapacious. In
+the background hovered Winklestein, his little, squeezed-up, tallowy
+face beaded with perspiration. But he was dressed quite superbly, and
+his moustache was more wondrously waxed than ever.
+
+I mingled with the crowd of miners, and in my rough garb, swarthy and
+bearded as I was, the Jewish couple did not know me. As I paid her,
+Madam gave me a sharp glance. But there was no recognisant gleam in her
+eyes.
+
+In the evening I returned. I took a seat in one of the curtained boxes.
+At the long lunch-counter rough-necked fellows perched on tripod stools
+were guzzling food. The place was brilliantly lit up, many-mirrored and
+flashily ornate in gilt and white. The bill of fare was elaborate, the
+prices exalted. In the box before me a white-haired lawyer was
+entertaining a lady of easy virtue; in the box behind, a larrikin
+quartette from the Pavilion Theatre were holding high revelry. There
+was no mistaking the character of the place. In the heart of the city's
+tenderloin it was a haunt of human riff-raff, a palace of gilt and
+guilt, a first scene in the nightly comedy of "The Lobster."
+
+I was feeling profoundly depressed, miserable, disgusted with
+everything. For the first time I began to regret ever leaving home. Out
+on the creeks I was happy. Here in the town the glaring corruption of
+things jarred on my nerves.
+
+And it was in this place Berna worked. She waited on these wantons; she
+served those swine. She heard their loose talk, their careless oaths.
+She saw them foully drunk, staggering off to their shameful
+assignations. She knew everything. O, it was pitiful; it sickened me to
+the soul. I sat down and buried my face in my hands.
+
+"Order, please."
+
+I knew that sweet voice. It thrilled me, and I looked up suddenly. There
+was Berna standing before me.
+
+She gave a quick start, then recovered herself. A look of delight came
+into her eyes, eager, vivid delight.
+
+"My, how you frightened me, I wasn't expecting you. Oh, I am so glad to
+see you again."
+
+I looked at her. I was conscious of a change in her, and the
+consciousness came with a sense of shearing pain.
+
+"Berna," I said, "what are you doing with that paint on your face?"
+
+"Oh, I'm sorry." She was rubbing distressfully at a dab of rouge on her
+cheek. "I knew you would be cross, but I had to; they made me. They said
+I looked like a spectre at the feast with my chalk face; I frightened
+away the customers. It's just a little pink,--all the women do it. It
+makes me look happier, and it doesn't hurt me any."
+
+"What I want is to see in your cheeks, dear, the glow of health, not the
+flush of a cosmetic. However, never mind. How are you?"
+
+"Pretty well----" hesitatingly.
+
+"Berna," boomed the rough, contumacious voice of Madam, "attend to the
+customers."
+
+"All right," I said; "get me anything. I just wanted to see you."
+
+She hurried away. I saw her go behind the curtains of one of the closed
+boxes carrying a tray of dishes. I heard coarse voices chaffing her. I
+saw her come out, her cheeks flushed, yet not with rouge. A miner had
+tried to detain her. Somehow it all made me writhe, agitated me so that
+I could hardly keep my seat.
+
+Presently she came hurrying round, bringing me some food.
+
+"When can I see you, girl?" I asked.
+
+"To-night. See me home. I'm off at midnight."
+
+"All right. I'll be waiting."
+
+She was kept very busy, and, though once or twice a tipsy roysterer
+ventured on some rough pleasantry, I noticed with returning satisfaction
+that most of the big, bearded miners treated her with chivalrous
+respect. She was quite friendly with them. They called her by name, and
+seemed to have a genuine affection for her. There was a protective
+manliness in the manner of these men that reassured me. So I swallowed
+my meal and left the place.
+
+"That's a good little girl," said a grizzled old fellow to me, as he
+stood picking his teeth energetically outside the restaurant. "Straight
+as a string, and there ain't many up here you can say that of. If any
+one was to try any monkey business with that little girl, sir, there's a
+dozen of the boys would make him a first-rate case for the hospital
+ward. Yes, siree, that's a jim-dandy little girl. I just wish she was my
+darter."
+
+In my heart I blessed him for his words, and pressed on him a fifty-cent
+cigar.
+
+Again I wandered up and down the now familiar street, but the keen edge
+of my impression had been blunted. I no longer took the same interest in
+its sights. More populous it was, noisier, livelier than ever. In the
+gambling-annex of the Paystreak Saloon was Mr. Mosher shuffling and
+dealing methodically. Everywhere I saw flushed and excited miners, each
+with his substantial poke of dust. It was usually as big as a
+pork-sausage, yet it was only his spending-poke. Safely in the bank he
+had cached half a dozen of them ten times as big.
+
+These were the halcyon days. Success was in the air. Men were drunk with
+it; carried off their feet, delirious. Money! It had lost its value.
+Every one you met was "lousy" with it; threw it away with both hands,
+and fast as they emptied one pocket it filled up the others. Little
+wonder a mad elation, a semi-frenzy of prodigality prevailed, for every
+day the golden valley was pouring into the city a seemingly exhaustless
+stream of treasure.
+
+I saw big Alec, one of the leading operators, coming down the street
+with his men. He carried a Winchester, and he had a pack-train of
+burros, each laden down with gold. At the bank flushed and eager mobs
+were clamouring to have their pokes weighed. In buckets, coal-oil cans,
+every kind of receptacle, lay the precious dust. Sweating clerks were
+handling it as carelessly as a grocer handles sugar. Goldsmiths were
+making it into wonders of barbaric jewellery. There seemed no limit to
+the camp's wealth. Every one was mad, and the demi-mondaine was queen of
+all.
+
+I saw Hewson and Mervin. They had struck it rich on a property they had
+bought on Hunker. Fortune was theirs.
+
+"Come and have a drink," said Hewson. Already he had had many. His face
+was relaxed, flushed, already showing signs of a flabby degeneration. In
+this man of iron sudden success was insidiously at work, enervating his
+powers.
+
+Mervin, too. I caught a glimpse of him, in the doorway of the Green Bay
+Tree. The Maccaroni Kid had him in tow, and he was buying wine.
+
+I looked in vain for Locasto. He was on a big debauch, they told me.
+Viola Lennoir had "got him going."
+
+At midnight, at the door of the Paragon, I was waiting in a fever of
+impatience when Berna came out.
+
+"I'm living up at the cabin," she said; "you can walk with me as far as
+that. That is, if you want to," she added coquettishly.
+
+She was very bright and did most of the talking. She showed a vast joy
+at seeing me.
+
+"Tell me what you've been doing, dear--everything. Have you made a
+stake? So many have. I have prayed you would, too. Then we'll go away
+somewhere and forget all this. We'll go to Italy, where it's always
+beautiful. We'll just live for each other. Won't we, honey?"
+
+She nestled up to me. She seemed to have lost much of her shyness. I
+don't know why, but I preferred my timid, shrinking Berna.
+
+"It will take a whole lot to make me forget this," I said grimly.
+
+"Yes, I know. Isn't it frightful? Somehow I don't seem to mind so much
+now. I'm getting used to it, I suppose. But at first--O, it was
+terrible! I thought I never could stand it. It's wonderful how we get
+accustomed to things, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes," I answered bitterly.
+
+"You know, those rough miners are good to me. I'm a queen among them,
+because they know I'm--all right. I've had several offers of marriage,
+too, really, really good ones from wealthy claim-owners."
+
+"Yes," still more bitterly.
+
+"Yes, young man; so you want to make a strike and take me away to
+Italy. Oh, how I plan and plan for us two. I don't care, my dearest, if
+you haven't got a cent in the world, I'm yours, always yours."
+
+"That's all right, Berna," I said. "I'm going to make good. I've just
+lost a fifty-thousand dollar claim, but there's more coming up. By the
+first of June next I'll come to you with a bank account of six figures.
+You'll see, my little girl. I'm going to make this thing stick."
+
+"You foolish boy," she said; "it doesn't matter if you come to me a
+beggar in rags. Come to me anyway. Come, and do not fail."
+
+"What about Locasto?" I asked.
+
+"I've scarcely seen anything of him. He leaves me alone. I think he's
+interested elsewhere."
+
+"And are you sure you're all right, dear, down there?"
+
+"Quite sure. These men would risk their lives for me. The other kind
+know enough to leave me alone. Besides, I know better now how to take
+care of myself. You remember the frightened cry-baby I used to be--well,
+I've learned to hold my own."
+
+She was extraordinarily affectionate, full of unexpected little ways of
+endearment, and clung to me when we parted, making me promise to return
+very soon. Yes, she was my girl, devoted to me, attached to me by every
+tendril of her being. Every look, every word, every act of her expressed
+a bright, fine, radiant love. I was satisfied, yet unsatisfied, and once
+again I entreated her.
+
+"Berna, are you sure, quite sure, you're all right in that place among
+all that folly and drunkenness and vice? Let me take you away, dear."
+
+"Oh, no," she said very tenderly; "I'm all right. I would tell you at
+once, my boy, if I had any fear. That's just what a poor girl has to put
+up with all the time; that's what I've had to put up with all my life.
+Believe me, boy, I'm wonderfully blind and deaf at times. I don't think
+I'm very bad, am I?"
+
+"You're as good as gold."
+
+"For your sake I'll always try to be," she answered.
+
+As we were kissing good-bye she asked timidly:
+
+"What about the rouge, dear? Shall I cease to use it?"
+
+"Poor little girl! Oh no, I don't suppose it matters. I've got very
+old-fashioned ideas. Good-bye, darling."
+
+"Good-bye, beloved."
+
+I went away treading on sunshine, trembling with joy, thrilled with love
+for her, blessing her anew.
+
+Yet still the rouge stuck in my crop as if it were the symbol of some
+insidious decadence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+It was about two months later when I returned from a flying visit to
+Dawson.
+
+"Lots of mail for you two," I cried, exultantly bursting into the cabin.
+
+"Mail? Hooray!"
+
+Jim and the Prodigal, who were lying on their bunks, leapt up eagerly.
+No one longs for his letters like your Northern exile, and for two whole
+months we had not heard from the outside.
+
+"Yes, I got over fifty letters between us three. Drew about a dozen
+myself, there's half a dozen for you, Jim, and the balance for you, old
+sport."
+
+I handed the Prodigal about two dozen letters.
+
+"Ha! now we'll have the whole evening just to browse on them. My, what a
+stack! How was it you had a time getting them?"
+
+"Well, you see, when I got into town the mail had just been sorted, and
+there was a string of over three hundred men waiting at the general
+delivery wicket. I took my place at the tail-end of the line, and every
+newcomer fell in behind me. My! but it was such weary waiting, moving up
+step by step; but I'd just about got there when closing-time came. They
+wouldn't give out any more mail--after my three hours' wait, too."
+
+"What did you do?"
+
+"Well, it seems every one gives way to the womenfolk. So I happened to
+see a girl friend of mine, and she said she would go round first thing
+in the morning and enquire if there were any letters for us. She brought
+me this bunch."
+
+I indicated the pile of letters.
+
+"I'm told lots of women in town make a business of getting letters for
+men, and charge a dollar a letter. It's awful how hard it is to get
+mail. Half of the clerks seem scarcely able to read the addresses on the
+envelopes. It's positively sad to watch the faces of the poor wretches
+who get nothing, knowing, too, that the chances are there is really
+something for them sorted away in a wrong box."
+
+"That's pretty tough."
+
+"Yes, you should have seen them; men just ravenous to hear from their
+families; a clerk carelessly shuffling through a pile of letters.
+'Beachwood, did you say? Nope, nothing for you.' 'Hold on there! what's
+that in your hand? Surely I know my wife's writing.' 'Beachwood--yep,
+that's right. Looked like Peachwood to me. All right. Next there.' Then
+the man would go off with his letter, looking half-wrathful,
+half-radiant. Well, I enjoyed my trip, but I'm glad I'm home."
+
+I threw myself on my bunk voluptuously, and began re-reading my letters.
+There were some from Garry and some from Mother. While still
+unreconciled to the life I was leading, they were greatly interested in
+my wildly cheerful accounts of the country. They were disposed to be
+less censorious, and I for my part was only too glad Mother was well
+enough to write, even if she did scold me sometimes. So I was able to
+open my mail without misgivings.
+
+But I was still aglow with memories of the last few hours. Once more I
+had seen Berna, spent moments with her of perfect bliss, left her with
+my mind full of exaltation and bewildered gratitude. She was the perfect
+answer to my heart's call, a mirror that seemed to flash back the
+challenge of my joy. I saw the love mists gather in her eyes, I felt her
+sweet lips mould themselves to mine, I thrilled with the sheathing
+ardour of her arms. Never in my fondest imaginings had I conceived that
+such a wealth of affection would ever be for me. Buoyant she was, brave,
+inspiring, and always with her buoyancy so wondrous tender I felt that
+willingly would I die for her.
+
+Once again I told her of my fear, my anxiety for her safety among those
+rough men in that cesspool of iniquity. Very earnestly she strove to
+reassure me.
+
+"Oh, my dear, it is in those rough men, the uncouth, big-hearted miners,
+that I place my trust. They know I'm a good girl. They wouldn't say a
+coarse thing before me for the world. You've no idea the chivalrous
+respect they show for me, and the rougher they are the finer their
+instincts seem to be. It's the others, the so-called gentlemen, who
+would like to take advantage of me if they could."
+
+She looked at me with bright, clear eyes, fearless in their scorn of
+sham and pretence.
+
+"Then there are the women. It's strange, but no matter how degraded
+they are they try to shield and protect me. Only last week Kimona Kate
+made a fearful scene with her escort because he said something bad
+before me. I'm getting tolerant. Oh, you've no idea until you know them
+what good qualities some of these women have. Often their hearts are as
+big as all outdoors; they would nurse you devotedly if you were sick;
+they would give you their last dollar if you were in want. Many of them
+have old mothers and little children they're supporting outside, and
+they would rather die than that their dear ones should know the life
+they are living. It's the men, the men that are to blame."
+
+I shook my head sadly.
+
+"I don't like it, Berna, I don't like it at all. I hate you to know the
+like of such people, such things. I just want you to be again the dear,
+sweet little girl I first knew, all maidenly modesty and shuddering
+aversion of evil."
+
+"I'm afraid, dear, I shall never be that again," she said sorrowfully;
+"but am I any the worse for knowing? Why should you men want to keep all
+such knowledge to yourselves? Is our innocence simply to be another name
+for ignorance?"
+
+She put her arms round my neck and kissed me fervently.
+
+"Oh, no, my dear, my dear. I have seen the vileness of things, and it
+only makes me more in love with love and beauty. We'll go, you and I, to
+Italy very soon, and forget, forget. Even if we have to toil like
+peasants in the vineyards we'll go, far, far away."
+
+So I felt strengthened, stimulated, gladdened, and, as I lay on my bunk
+listening to the merry crackle of the wood fire, I was in a purring
+lethargy of content. Then I remembered something.
+
+"Oh, say, boys, I forgot to tell you. I met McCrimmon down the creek.
+You remember him on the trail, the Halfbreed. He was asking after you
+both; then all at once he said he wanted to see us on important
+business. He has a proposal to make, he says, that would be greatly to
+our advantage. He's coming along this evening.--What's the matter, Jim?"
+
+Jim was staring blankly at one of the letters he had received. His face
+was a picture of distress, misery, despair. Without replying, he went
+and knelt down by his bed. He sighed deeply. Slowly his face grew calm
+again; then I saw that he was praying. We were silent in respectful
+sympathy, but when, in a little, he got up and went out, I followed him.
+
+"Had bad news, old man?"
+
+"I've had a letter that's upset me. I'm in a terrible position. If ever
+I wanted strength and guidance, I want it now."
+
+"Heard about that man?"
+
+"Yes, it's him, all right; it's Mosher. I suspicioned it all along.
+Here's a letter from my brother. He says there's no doubt that Mosher is
+Moseley."
+
+His eyes were stormy, his face tragic in its bitterness.
+
+"Oh, you don't know how I worshipped that woman, trusted her, would have
+banked my life on her; and when I was away making money for her she ups
+and goes away with that slimy reptile. In the old days I would have torn
+him to pieces, but now----"
+
+He sighed distractedly.
+
+"What am I to do? What am I to do? The Good Book says forgive your
+enemies, but how can I forgive a wrong like that? And my poor girl--he
+deserted her, drove her to the streets. Ugh! if I could kill him by slow
+torture, gloat over his agony--but I can't, can I?"
+
+"No, Jim, you can't do anything. Vengeance is the Lord's."
+
+"Yes, I know, I know. But it's hard, it's hard. O my girl, my girl!"
+
+Tears overran his cheeks. He sat down on a log, burying his face in his
+hands.
+
+"O God, help and sustain me in this my hour of need."
+
+I was at a loss how to comfort him, and it was while I was waiting there
+that suddenly we saw the Halfbreed coming up the trail.
+
+"Better come in, Jim," I said, "and hear what he's got to say."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+We made McCrimmon comfortable. We kept no whisky in the cabin, but we
+gave him some hot coffee, which he drank with great satisfaction. Then
+he twisted a cigarette, lit it, and looked at us keenly. On his brown,
+flattish face were remarkable the impassivity of the Indian and the
+astuteness of the Scot. We were regarding him curiously. Jim had
+regained his calm, and was quietly watchful. The Prodigal seemed to have
+his ears cocked to listen. There was a feeling amongst us as if we had
+reached a crisis in our fortunes.
+
+The Halfbreed lost no time in coming to the point.
+
+"I like you boys. You're square and above-board. You're workers, and you
+don't drink--that's the main thing.
+
+"Well, to get right down to cases. I'm a bit of a mining man. I've mined
+at Cassiar and Caribou, and I know something of the business. Now I've
+got next to a good thing.--I don't know how good yet, but I'll swear to
+you it's a tidy bit. There may be only ten thousand in it, and there may
+be one hundred and ten. It's a gambling proposition, and I want
+pardners, pardners that'll work like blazes and keep their faces shut.
+Are you on?"
+
+"That's got us kodaked," said the Prodigal. "We're that sort, and if the
+proposition looks good to us we're with you. Anyway, we're clams at
+keeping our food-traps tight."
+
+"All right; listen. You know the Arctic Transportation Co. have claims
+on upper Bonanza--well, a month back I was working for them. We were
+down about twenty feet and were drifting in. They set me to work in the
+drift. The roof kept sloughing in on me, and it was mighty dangerous. So
+far we hadn't got pay-dirt, but their mining manager wanted us to drift
+in a little further. If we didn't strike good pay in a few more feet we
+were to quit.
+
+"Well, one morning I went down and cleaned away the ash of my fire. The
+first stroke of my pick on the thawed face made me jump, stare, stand
+stock-still, thinking hard. For there, right in the hole I had made, was
+the richest pocket I ever seen."
+
+"You don't say! Are you sure?"
+
+"Why, boys, as I'm alive there was nuggets in it as thick as raisins in
+a Christmas plum-duff. I could see the yellow gleam where the pick had
+grazed them, and the longer I looked the more could I see."
+
+"Good Lord! What did you do?"
+
+"What did I do! I just stepped back and picked at the roof for all I was
+worth. A big bunch of muck came down, covering up the face. Then, like a
+crazy man, I picked wherever the dirt seemed loose all the way down the
+drift. Great heaps of dirt caved in on me. I was stunned, nearly buried,
+but I did the trick. There were tons of dirt between me and my find."
+
+We gasped with amazement.
+
+"The rest was easy. I went up the shaft groaning and cursing. I
+pretended to faint. I told them the roof of the drift had fallen in on
+me. It was rotten stuff, anyway, and they knew it. They didn't mind me
+risking my life. I cursed them, said I would sue the Company, and went
+off looking too sore for words. The Manager was disgusted, he went down
+and took a look at things; declared he would throw up the work at that
+place; the ground was no good. He made that report to the Company."
+
+The Halfbreed looked round triumphantly.
+
+"Now, here's the point. We can get a lay on that ground. One of you boys
+must apply for it. They mustn't know I'm in with you, or they would
+suspect right away. They're none too scrupulous themselves in their
+dealings."
+
+He paused impressively.
+
+"You cinch that lay agreement. Get it signed right away. We'll go in and
+work like Old Nick. We'll make a big clean-up by Spring. I'll take you
+right to the gold. There's thousands and thousands lying snug in the
+ground just waiting for us. It's right in our mit. Oh, it's a cinch, a
+cinch!"
+
+The Halfbreed almost grew excited. Bending forward, he eyed us keenly.
+In a breathless silence we stared at each other.
+
+"Well," I objected, "seems to be putting up rather a job on the
+Company."
+
+Jim was silent, but the Prodigal cut in sharply:
+
+"Job nothing--it's a square proposition. We don't know for certain that
+gold's there. Maybe it's only a piffling pocket, and we'll get souped
+for our pains. No, it seems to me it's a fair gambling proposition.
+We're taking all kinds of chances. It means awful hard work; it means
+privation and, maybe, bitter disappointment. It's a gamble, I tell you,
+and are we going to be such poor sports as turn it down? I for one am
+strongly in favour of it. What do you say? A big sporting chance--are
+you there, boys, are you there?"
+
+He almost shouted in his excitement.
+
+"Hush! Some one might hear you," warned the Halfbreed.
+
+"Yes, that's right. Well, it looks mighty good to me, and if you boys
+are willing we'll just draw up papers and sign an agreement right away.
+Is it a go?"
+
+We nodded, so he got ink and paper and drew up a form of partnership.
+
+"Now," said he, his eyes dancing, "now, to secure that lay before any
+one else cuts in on us. Gee! but it's getting dark and cold outdoors
+these days. Snow falling; well, I must mush to Dawson to-night."
+
+He hurried on some warm, yet light, clothing, all the time talking
+excitedly of the chance that fortune had thrown in our way, and gleeful
+as a schoolboy.
+
+"Now, boys," he says, "hope I'll have good luck. Jim, put in a prayer
+for me. Well, see you all to-morrow. Good-bye."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was late next night when he returned. We were sitting in the cabin,
+anxious and expectant, when he threw open the door. He was tired, wet,
+dirty, but irrepressibly jubilant.
+
+"Hurrah, boys!" he cried. "I've cinched it. I saw Mister Manager of the
+big Company. He was very busy, very important, very patronising. I was
+the poor miner seeking a lay. I played the part well. He began by
+telling me he didn't want to give any lays at present; just wanted to
+stand me off, you know; make me more keen. I spoke about some of their
+ground on Hunker. He didn't seem enthusiastic. Then, at last, as if in
+despair, I mentioned this bit on Bonanza. I could see he was itching to
+let me have it, but he was too foxy to show it. He actually told me it
+was an extra rich piece of ground, when all the time he knew his own
+mining engineer had condemned it."
+
+The Prodigal's eyes danced delightedly.
+
+"Well, we sparred round a bit like two fake fighters. My! but he was
+wily, that old Jew. Finally he agreed to let me have it on a
+fifty-per-cent. basis. Don't faint, boys. Fifty per cent., I said. I'm
+sorry. It was the best I could do, and you know I'm not slow. That means
+they get half of all we take out. Oh, the old shark! the robber! I tried
+to beat him down, but he stood pat; wouldn't budge. So I gave in, and we
+signed the lay agreement, and now everything's in shape. Gee whiz!
+didn't I give a sigh of relief when I got outside! He thinks I'm the
+fall guy, and went off chuckling."
+
+He raised his voice triumphantly.
+
+"And now, boys, we've got the ground cinched, so get action on
+yourselves. Here's where we make our first real stab at fortune. Here's
+where we even up on the hard jabs she's handed us in the past; here's
+where we score a bull's-eye, or I miss my guess. The gold's there, boys,
+you can bank on that; and the harder we work the more we're going to get
+of it. Now, we're going to work hard. We're going to make ordinary hard
+work look like a Summer vacation. We're going to work for all we're
+worth--and then some. Are you there, boys, are you there?"
+
+"We are," we shouted with one accord.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+There was no time to lose. Every hour for us meant so much more of that
+precious pay-dirt that lay under the frozen surface. The Winter leapt on
+us with a swoop, a harsh, unconciliating Winter, that made out-door work
+an unmitigated hardship. But there was the hope of fortune nerving and
+bracing us, till we lost in it all thought of self. Nothing short of
+desperate sickness, death even, would drive us from our posts. It was
+with this dauntless spirit we entered on the task before us.
+
+And, indeed, it was one that called for all in a man of energy and
+self-sacrifice. There was wood to get for the thawing of the ground;
+there was a cabin to be built on the claim; and, lastly, there was a
+vast dump to be taken out of the ground for the spring sluicing. We
+planned things so that no man would be idle for a moment, and so that
+every ounce of strength expended would show its result.
+
+The Halfbreed took charge, and we, recognising it as his show, obeyed
+him implicitly. He decided to put down two holes to bed-rock, and, after
+much deliberation, selected the places. This was a matter for the
+greatest judgment and experience, and we were satisfied that he had
+both.
+
+We ran up a little cabin and banked it nearly to the low eaves with
+snow. By-and-bye more fell on the roof to the depth of three feet, so
+that the place seemed like a huge white hummock. Only in front could you
+recognise it as a cabin by the low doorway, where we had always to stoop
+on entering. Within were our bunks, a tiny stove, a few boxes to sit on,
+a few dishes, our grub; that was all. Often we regretted our big cabin
+on the hill, with its calico-lined "den" and its separate kitchen. But
+in this little box of a home we were to put in many weary months.
+
+Not that the time seemed long to us; we were too busy for that. Indeed,
+often we wished it were twice as long. Snow had fallen in September, and
+by December we were in an Arctic world of uncompromising harshness. Day
+after day the glass stood between forty and fifty below zero. It was
+hatefully, dangerously cold. It seemed as if the frost-fiend had a cruel
+grudge against us. It made us grim--and careful. We didn't talk much in
+those days. We just worked, worked, worked, and when we did talk it was
+of our work, our ceaseless work.
+
+Would we strike it rich? It was all a gamble, the most exciting gamble
+in the world. It thrilled our day hours with excitement; it haunted our
+sleep; it lent strength to the pick-stroke and vigour to the
+windlass-crank. It made us forget the bitter cold, till some one would
+exclaim, and gently knead the fresh snow on our faces. The cold burned
+our cheeks a fierce brick-red, and a frostbite showed on them like a
+patch of white putty. The old scars, never healing, were like blotches
+of lamp-black.
+
+But neither cold nor fatigue could keep us away from the shaft and the
+drift. We had gone down to bed-rock, and were tunnelling in to meet the
+hole the Halfbreed had covered up. So far we had found nothing. Every
+day we panned samples of the dirt, always getting colours, sometimes a
+fifty-cent pan, but never what we dreamed of, hoped for.
+
+"Wait, boys, till we get a two-hundred-dollar pan, then we'll begin to
+whoop it up some."
+
+Once the Company Manager came down on a dog-team. He looked over our
+shaft. He wore a coon coat, with a cap of beaver, and huge fur mits hung
+by a cord around his neck. He was massive and impassive. Spiky icicles
+bristled around his mouth.
+
+"What luck, boys?" His breath came like steam.
+
+"None, so far," we told him, wearily, and off he went into the frozen
+gloom, saying he hoped we would strike it before long.
+
+"Wait a while."
+
+We were working two men to a shaft, burning our ground over night. The
+Prodigal and I manned the windlasses, while the old miners went down the
+drifts. It was a cold, cold job standing there on that rugged platform
+turning the windlass-crank. Long before it was fairly light we got to
+our posts, and lowered our men into the hole. The air was warmer down
+there; but the work was harder, more difficult, more dangerous.
+
+At noon there was no sunshine, only a wan, ashen light that suffused the
+sky. A deathlike stillness lay on the valley, not a quiver or movement
+in leaf or blade. The snow was a shroud, smooth save where the funereal
+pines pricked through. In that intensity of cold, that shivering agony
+of desolation, it seemed as if nature was laughing at us--the Cosmic
+Laugh.
+
+Our meals were hurriedly cooked and bolted. We grudged every moment of
+our respite from toil. At night we often were far too weary to undress.
+We lost our regard for cleanliness; we neglected ourselves. Always we
+talked of the result of the day's panning and the chances of to-morrow.
+Surely we would strike it soon.
+
+"Wait awhile."
+
+Colder it grew and colder. Our kerosene flowed like mush. The water
+froze solid in our kettle. Our bread was full of icy particles.
+Everything had to be thawed out continually. It was tiresome,
+exasperating, when we were in such a devil of a hurry. It kept us back;
+it angered us, this pest of a cold. Our tempers began to suffer. We were
+short, taciturn. The strain was beginning to tell on us.
+
+"Wait awhile."
+
+Then, one afternoon, the Something happened. It was Jim who was the
+chosen one. About three o'clock he signalled to be hoisted up, and when
+he appeared he was carrying a pan of dirt. "Call the others," he said.
+
+All together in the little cabin we stood round, while Jim washed out
+the pan in snow-water melt over our stove. I will never forget how
+eagerly we watched the gravel, and the whirling, dexterous movements of
+the old man. We could see gleams of yellow in the muddy water. Thrills
+of joy and hope went through us. We had got the thing, the big thing, at
+last.
+
+"Hurry, Jim," I said, "or I'll die of suspense."
+
+Patiently he went on. There it was at last in the bottom of the
+pan--sweeter to our eyes than to a woman the sight of her first-born.
+There it lay, glittering, gleaming gold, fine gold, coarse gold, nuggety
+gold.
+
+"Now, boys, you can whoop it up," said Jim quietly; "for there's many
+and many a pan like it down there in the drift."
+
+But never a whoop. What was the matter with us? When the fortune we had
+longed for so eagerly came at last, we did not greet it even with a
+cheer. Oh, we were painfully silent.
+
+Solemnly we shook hands all round.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+"Now to weigh it," said the Prodigal.
+
+On the tiny pair of scales we turned it out--ninety-five dollars' worth.
+
+Well, it was a good start, and we were all possessed with a frantic
+eagerness to go down in the drift. I crawled along the tunnel. There, in
+the face of it, I could see the gold shining, and the longer I looked
+the more I seemed to see. It was rich, rich. I picked out and burnished
+a nugget as large as a filbert. There were lots of others like it. It
+was a strike. The question was: how much was there of it? The Halfbreed
+soon settled our doubts on that score.
+
+"It stands to reason the pay runs between where I first found it and
+where we've struck it now. That alone means a tidy stake for each of us.
+Say, boys, if you were to cover all that distance with twenty-dollar
+gold pieces six feet wide, and packed edge to edge, I wouldn't take them
+for our interest in that bit of ground. I see a fine big ranch in
+Manitoba for my share; ay, and hired help to run it. The only thing that
+sticks in my gullet is that fifty per cent. to the Company."
+
+"Well, we can't kick," I said; "we'd never have got the lay if they'd
+had a hunch. My! won't they be sore?"
+
+Sure enough, in a few days the news leaked out, and the Manager came
+post-haste.
+
+"Hear you've struck it rich, boys."
+
+"So rich that I guess we'll have to pack down gravel from the benches to
+mix in before we can sluice it," said the Prodigal.
+
+"You don't say. Well, I'll have to have a man on the ground to look
+after our interests."
+
+"All right. It means a good thing for you."
+
+"Yes, but it would have meant a better if we had worked it ourselves.
+However, you boys deserve your luck. Hello, the devil----"
+
+He turned round and saw the Halfbreed. He gave a long whistle and went
+away, looking pensive.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was the night of the discovery when the Prodigal made us an address.
+
+"Look here, boys; do you know what this means? It means victory; it
+means freedom, happiness, the things we want, the life we love. To me it
+means travel, New York, Paris, evening dress, the opera. To McCrimmon
+here it means his farm. To each according to his notion, it means the
+'Things That Matter.'
+
+"Now, we've just begun. The hardest part is to come, is to get out the
+fortune that's right under our feet. We're going to get every cent of
+it, boys. There's a little over three months to do it in, leaving about
+a month to make sluice-boxes and clean up the dirt. We've got to work
+like men at a burning barn. We've worked hard, but we've got to go some
+yet. For my part, I'm willing to do stunts that will make my previous
+record look like a plugged dime. I guess you boys all feel the same
+way."
+
+"You bet we do."
+
+"Well, nuf sed; let's get busy."
+
+So, once more, with redoubled energy, we resumed our tense, unremitting
+round of toil. Now, however, it was vastly different. Every bucket of
+dirt meant money in our pockets, every stroke of the pick a dollar. Not
+that it was all like the first rich pocket we had struck. It proved a
+most erratic and puzzling paystreak--one day rich beyond our dreams,
+another too poor to pay for the panning. We swung on a pendulum of hope
+and despair. Perhaps this made it all the more exciting, and stimulated
+us unnaturally, and always we cursed that primitive method of mining
+that made every bucket of dirt the net result of infinite labor.
+
+Every day our two dumps increased in size (for we had struck pay on the
+other shaft), and every day our assurance and elation increased
+correspondingly. It was bruited around that we had one of the richest
+bits of ground in the country, and many came to gaze at us. It used to
+lighten my labours at the windlass to see their looks of envy and to
+hear their awe-stricken remarks.
+
+"That's one of them," they would say; "one of the lucky four, the lucky
+laymen."
+
+So, as the facts, grossly exaggerated, got noised abroad, they came to
+call us the "Lucky Laymen."
+
+Looking back, there will always seem to me something weird and
+incomprehensible in those twilight days, an unreality, a vagueness like
+some dreary, feverish dream. For three months I did not see my face in a
+mirror. Not that I wanted to, but I mention this just to show how little
+we thought of ourselves.
+
+In like manner, never did I have a moment's time to regard my inner self
+in the mirror of consciousness. No mental analysis now; no long hours of
+retrospection, no tete-a-tete interviews with my soul. At times I felt
+as if I had lost my identity. I was a slave of the genie Gold, releasing
+it from its prison in the frozen bowels of the earth. I was an automaton
+turning a crank in the frozen stillness of the long, long night.
+
+It was a life despotically objective, and now, as I look back, it seems
+as if I had never lived it at all. I seem to look down a long, dark
+funnel and see a little machine-man bearing my semblance, patiently,
+steadily, wearily turning the handle of a windlass in the clear,
+lancinating cold of those sombre, silent days.
+
+I say "bearing my outward semblance," and yet I sometimes wonder if that
+rough-bearded figure in heavy woollen clothes looked the least like me.
+I wore heavy sweaters, mackinaw trousers, thick German socks and
+moccasins. From frequent freezing my cheeks were corroded. I was
+miserably thin, and my eyes had a wild, staring expression through the
+pupils dilating in the long darkness. Yes, mentally and physically I was
+no more like myself than a convict enduring out his life in the soulless
+routine of a prison.
+
+The days were lengthening marvellously. We noted the fact with dull
+joy. It meant more light, more time, more dirt in the dump. So it came
+about that, from ten hours of toil, we went to twelve, to fourteen;
+then, latterly, to sixteen, and the tension of it was wearing us down to
+skin and bone.
+
+We were all feeling wretched, overstrained, ill-nourished, and it was
+only voicing the general sentiment when, one day, the Prodigal remarked:
+
+"I guess I'll have to let up for a couple of days. My teeth are all on
+the bum. I'm going to town to see a dentist."
+
+"Let me look at them," said the Halfbreed.
+
+He looked. The gums were sullen, unwholesome-looking.
+
+"Why, it's a touch of scurvy, lad; a little while, and you'd be spitting
+out your teeth like orange pips; your legs would turn black, and when
+you squeezed your fingers into the flesh the hole would stay. You'd get
+rotten, then you'd mortify and die. But it's the easiest thing in the
+world to cure. Nothing responds to treatment so readily."
+
+He made a huge brew of green-spruce tea, of which we all partook, and in
+a few days the Prodigal was fit again.
+
+It was mid-March when we finished working out our ground. We had done
+well, not so well, perhaps, as we had hoped for, but still magnificently
+well. Never had men worked harder, never fought more desperately for
+success. There were our two dumps, pyramids of gold-permeated dirt at
+whose value we could only guess. We had wrested our treasure from the
+icy grip of the eternal frost. Now it remained--and O, the sweetness of
+it--to glean the harvest of our toil.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+"The water's beginning to run, boys," said the Halfbreed. "A few more
+days and we'll be able to start sluicing."
+
+The news was like a flood of sunshine to us. For days we had been fixing
+up the boxes and getting everything in readiness. The sun beat strongly
+on the snow, which almost visibly seemed to retreat before it. The
+dazzlingly white surface was crisp and flaky, and around the tree boles
+curving hollows had formed. Here and there brown earth peered nakedly
+through. Every day the hillside runnels grew in strength.
+
+We were working at the mouth of a creek down which ran a copious little
+stream all through the Springtime. We tapped it some distance above us,
+and ran part of it along our line of sluice-boxes. These boxes went
+between our two dumps, so that it was easy to shovel in from both sides.
+Nothing could have been more convenient.
+
+At last, after a day of hot sunshine, we found quite a freshet of water
+coming down the boxes, leaping and dancing in the morning light. I
+remember how I threw in the first shovelful of dirt, and how good it was
+to see the bright stream discolour as our friend the water began his
+magic work. For three days we shovelled in, and on the fourth we made a
+clean-up.
+
+"I guess it's time," said Jim, "or those riffles will be gettin' choked
+up."
+
+And, sure enough, when we ran off the water there were some of them
+almost full of the yellow metal, wet and shiny, gloriously agleam in the
+morning light.
+
+"There's ten thousand dollars if there's an ounce," said the Company's
+man, and the weigh-up proved he was right. So the gold was packed in two
+long buckskin pokes and sent into town to be deposited in the bank.
+
+Day after day we went on shovelling in, and about twice a week we made a
+clean-up. The month of May was half over when we had only a third of our
+dirt run through the boxes. We were terribly afraid of the water failing
+us, and worked harder than ever. Indeed, it was difficult to tell when
+to leave off. The nights were never dark now; the daylight was over
+twenty hours in duration. The sun described an ellipse, rising a little
+east of north and setting a little west of north. We shovelled in till
+we were too exhausted to lift another ounce. Then we lay down in our
+clothes and slept as soon as we touched the pillow.
+
+"There's eighty thousand to our credit in the bank, and only a third of
+our dump's gone. Hooray, boys!" said the Prodigal.
+
+About one o'clock in the morning the birds began to sing, and the sunset
+glow had not faded from the sky ere the sunrise quickened it with life
+once more. Who that has lived in the North will ever forget the charm,
+the witchery of those midnight skies, where the fires of the sun are
+banked and never cold? Surely, long after all else is forgotten, will
+linger the memory of those mystic nights with all their haunting spell
+of weird, disconsolate solitude.
+
+One afternoon I was working on the dump, intent on shovelling in as much
+dirt as possible before supper, when, on looking up, who should greet me
+but Locasto. Since our last interview in town I had not seen him, and,
+somehow, this sudden sight of him came as a kind of a shock. Yet the
+manner of the man as he approached me was hearty in the extreme. He held
+out his great hand to me, and, as I had no desire to antagonise him, I
+gave him my own.
+
+He was riding. His big, handsome face was bronzed, his black eyes clear
+and sparkling, his white teeth gleamed like mammoth ivory. He certainly
+was a dashing, dominant figure of a man, and, in spite of myself, I
+admired him.
+
+His manner in his salutation was cordial, even winning.
+
+"I've just been visiting some of my creek properties," he said. "I heard
+you fellows had made a good strike, and I thought I'd come down and
+congratulate you. It is pretty good, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes," I said; "not quite so good as we expected, but we'll all have a
+tidy sum."
+
+"I'm glad. Well, I suppose you'll go outside this Fall."
+
+"No, I think I'll stay in. You see, we've the Gold Hill property, which
+looks promising; and then we have two claims on Ophir."
+
+"Oh, Ophir! I don't think you'll ever take a fortune out of Ophir. I
+bought a claim there the other day. The man pestered me, so I gave him
+five thousand for it, just to get rid of him. It's eight below."
+
+"Why," I said, "that's the claim I staked and got beaten out of."
+
+"You don't say so. Well, now, that's too bad. I bought it from a man
+named Spankiller; his brother's a clerk in the gold office. Tell you
+what I'll do. I'll let you have it for the five thousand I gave for it."
+
+"No," I answered, "I don't think I want it now."
+
+"All right; think it over, anyway. If you should change your mind, let
+me know. Well, I must go. I've got to get into town to-night. That's my
+mule-train back there on the trail. I've got pretty nearly ten thousand
+ounces over there."
+
+I looked and saw the mules with the gold-packs slung over their backs.
+There were four men to guard them, and it seemed to me that in one of
+these men I recognised the little wizened figure of the Worm.
+
+I shivered.
+
+"Yes, I've done pretty well," he continued; "but it don't make any
+difference. I spend it as fast as I get it. A month ago I didn't have
+enough ready cash to pay my cigar bill, yet I could have gone to the
+bank and borrowed a hundred thousand. It was there in the dump. Oh, it's
+a rum business this mining. Well, good-bye."
+
+He was turning to go when, suddenly, he stopped.
+
+"Oh, by the way, I saw a friend of yours before I left. No need to
+mention names, you lucky dog. When's the big thing coming off? Well, I
+must congratulate you again. She looks sweeter than ever. Bye-bye."
+
+He was off, leaving a very sinister impression on my mind. In his
+parting smile there was a trace of mockery that gravely disquieted me. I
+had thought much of Berna during the past few months, but as the gold
+fever took hold of me I put her more and more from my mind. I told
+myself that all this struggle was for her. In the thought that she was
+safe I calmed all anxious fear. Sometimes by not thinking so much of
+dear ones, one can be more thoughtful of them. So it was with me. I knew
+that all my concentration of effort was for her sake, and would bring
+her nearer to me. Yet at Locasto's words all my old longing and
+heartache vehemently resurged.
+
+In spite of myself, I was the prey of a growing uneasiness. Things
+seemed vastly different, now success had come to me. I could not bear to
+think of her working in that ambiguous restaurant, rubbing shoulders
+with its unspeakable habitues. I wondered how I had ever deceived myself
+into thinking it was all right. I began to worry, so that I knew only a
+trip into Dawson would satisfy me. Accordingly, I hired a big Swede to
+take my place at the shovel, and set out once more on the hillside trail
+for town.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+I found the town more animated than ever, the streets more populous, the
+gaiety more unrestrained. Everywhere were flaunting signs of a plethoric
+wealth. The anxious Cheechako had vanished from the scene, and the
+victorious miner masqueraded in his place. He swaggered along in the
+glow of the Spring sunshine, a picture of perfect manhood, bronzed and
+lean and muscular. He was brimming over with the exuberance of health.
+He had come into town to "live" things, to transmute this yellow dust
+into happiness, to taste the wine of life, to know the lips of flame.
+
+It was the day of the Man with the Poke. He was King. The sheer
+animalism of him overflowed in midnight roysterings, in bacchanalian
+revels, in debauches among the human debris of the tenderloin.
+
+Every one was waiting for him, to fleece him, rob him, strip him. It was
+also the day of the man behind the bar, of the gambler, of the harpy.
+
+My strange, formless fears for Berna were soon set at rest. She was
+awaiting me. She looked better than I had ever seen her, and she
+welcomed me with an eager delight that kindled me to rapture.
+
+"Just think of it," she said, "only two weeks, and we'll be together for
+always. It seems too good to be true. Oh, my dear, how can I ever love
+you enough? How happy we are going to be, aren't we?"
+
+"We're going to be happier than any two people ever were before," I
+assured her.
+
+We crossed the Yukon to the green glades of North Dawson, and there, on
+a little rise, we sat down, side by side. How I wish I could put into
+words the joy that filled my heart! Never was lad so happy as I. I spoke
+but little, for love's silences are sweeter than all words. Well, well I
+mind me how she looked: just like a picture, her hands clasped on her
+lap, her eyes star-bright, angel-sweet, mother-tender. From time to time
+she would give me a glance so full of trust and love that my heart would
+leap to her, and wave on wave of passionate tenderness come sweeping
+over me.
+
+It may be there was something humble in my stintless adoration; it may
+be I was like a child for the pleasure of her nearness; it may be my
+eyes told all too well of the fire that burned within me, but O, the
+girl was kind, gentler than forgiveness, sweeter than all heaven.
+Caressingly she touched my hair. I kissed her fingers, kissed them again
+and again; and then she lifted my hand to her lips, and I felt her kiss
+fall upon it. How wondrously I tingled at the touch. My hand seemed mine
+no longer--a consecrated thing. Proud, happy me!
+
+"Yes," she went on, "doesn't it seem as if we were dreaming? You know, I
+always thought it was a dream, and now it's coming true. You'll take me
+away from this place, won't you, boy?--far, far away. I'll tell you
+now, dear, I've borne it all for your sake, but I don't think I could
+bear it any longer. I would rather die than sink in the mire, and yet
+you can't imagine how this life affects one. It's sad, sad, but I don't
+get shocked at things in the way I used to. You know, I sometimes think
+a girl, no matter how good, sweet, modest to begin with, placed in such
+surroundings could fall gradually."
+
+I agreed with her. Too well I knew I was becoming calloused to the evils
+around me. Such was the insidious corruption of the gold-camp, I now
+regarded with indifference things that a year ago I would have shrunk
+from with disgust.
+
+"Well, it will be all over very soon, won't it, dear? I don't know what
+I'd have done if it hadn't been for the rough miners. They've been so
+kind to me. When they saw I was straight and honest they couldn't be
+good enough. They shielded me in every way, and kept back the other kind
+of men. Even the women have been my friends and helped me."
+
+She looked at me archly.
+
+"And, you know, I've had ever so many offers of marriage, too, from
+honest, rough, kindly men--and I've refused them ever so gracefully."
+
+"Has Locasto ever made any more overtures?"
+
+Her face grew grave.
+
+"Yes, about a month ago he besieged me, gave me no rest, made all kinds
+of proposals and promises. He wanted to divorce his 'outside' wife and
+marry me. He wanted to settle a hundred thousand dollars on me. He tried
+everything in his power to force me to his will. Then, when he saw it
+was no use, he turned round and begged me to let him be my friend. He
+spoke so nicely of you. He said he would help us in any way he could.
+He's everything that's kind to me now. He can't do enough for me. Yet,
+somehow, I don't trust him."
+
+"Well, my precious," I assured her, "all danger, doubt, despair, will
+soon be over. Locasto and the rest of them will be as shadows, never to
+haunt my little girl again. The Great, Black North will fade away, will
+dissolve into the land of sunshine and flowers and song. You will forget
+it."
+
+"The Great Black North.--I will never forget it, and I will always bless
+it. It has given me my love, the best love in all the world."
+
+"O my darling, my Life, I'll take you away from it all soon, soon. We'll
+go to my home, to Garry, to Mother. They will love you as I love you."
+
+"I'm sure I will love them. What you have told me of them makes them
+seem very real to me. Will you not be ashamed of me?"
+
+"I will be proud, proud of you, my girl."
+
+Ah, would I not! I looked at that flower-like face the sunshine
+glorified so, the pretty, bright hair falling away from her low brow in
+little waves, the lily throat, the delicately patrician features, the
+proud poise of her head. Who would not have been proud of her? She awoke
+all that was divine in me. I looked as one might look on a vision,
+scarce able to believe it real.
+
+Suddenly she pointed excitedly.
+
+"Look, dear, look at the rainbow. Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it
+beautiful?"
+
+I gazed in rapt admiration. Across the river a shower had fallen, and
+the clouds, clearing away abruptly, had left there a twin rainbow of
+matchless perfection. Its double arch was poised as accurately over the
+town as if it had been painted there. Each hoop was flawless in form,
+lovely in hue, tenderly luminous, exquisite in purity. Never had I seen
+the double iris so immaculate in colouring, and, with its bases resting
+on the river, it curved over the gold-born city like a frame of ethereal
+beauty.
+
+"Does it not seem, dear, like an answer to our prayer, an omen of good
+hope, a promise for the future?"
+
+"Yes, beloved, our future, yours and mine. The clouds are rolling away.
+All is bright with sunshine once again, and God sends His rainbow to
+cheer and comfort us. It will not be long now. On the first day of June,
+beloved, I will come to you, and we will be made man and wife. You will
+be waiting for me, will you not?"
+
+"Yes, yes, waiting ever so eagerly, my lover, counting every hour, every
+minute."
+
+I kissed her passionately, and we held each other tightly for a moment.
+I saw come into her eyes that look which comes but once into the eyes of
+a maid, that look of ineffable self-surrender, of passionate
+abandonment. Life is niggard of such moments, yet can our lives be
+summed up in them.
+
+She rested her head on my shoulder; her lips lay on mine, and they
+moved faintly.
+
+"Yes, lover, yes, the first of June. Don't fail me, honey, don't fail
+me."
+
+We parted, buoyant with hope, in an ecstasy of joy. She was for me, this
+beautiful, tender girl, for me. And the time was nigh when she should be
+mine, mine to adore until the end. Always would she be by my side; daily
+could I plot and plan to give her pleasure; every hour by word and look
+and act could I lavish on her the exhaustless measure of my love. Ah!
+life would be too short for me. Could aught in this petty purblind
+existence of ours redeem it and exalt it so: her love, this pure sweet
+girl's, and mine. Let nations grapple, let Mammon triumph, let
+pestilence o'erwhelm; what matter, we love, we love. O proud, happy me!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I got back to the claim. Everything was going merrily, but I felt little
+desire to resume my toil. I was strangely wearied, worn out somehow. Yet
+I took up my shovel again with a body that rebelled in every tissue.
+Never had I felt like this before. Something was wrong with me. I was
+weak. At night I sweated greatly. I cared not to eat.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well," said the Prodigal, "it's all over but the shouting. From my
+calculations we've cleaned up two hundred and six thousand dollars.
+That's a hundred and three between us four. It's cost us about three to
+get out the stuff; so there will be, roughly speaking, about
+twenty-five thousand for each of us."
+
+How jubilant every one was looking--every one but me. Somehow I felt as
+if money didn't matter just then, for I was sick, sick.
+
+"Why, what's the matter?" said the Prodigal, staring at me curiously.
+"You look like a ghost."
+
+"I feel like one, too," I answered. "I'm afraid I'm in for a bad spell.
+I want to lie down awhile, boys ... I'm tired.... The first of June,
+I've got a date on the first of June. I must keep it, I must.... Don't
+let me sleep too long, boys. I mustn't fail. It's a matter of life and
+death. The first of June...."
+
+Alas, on the first of June I lay in the hospital, raving and tossing in
+the clutches of typhoid fever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+I was lying in bed, and a heavy weight was pressing on me, so that, in
+spite of my struggles, I could not move. I was hot, insufferably hot.
+The blood ran boiling through my veins. My flesh was burning up. My
+brain would not work. It was all cobwebs, murky and stale as a
+charnel-house. Yet at times were strange illuminations, full of terror
+and despair. Blood-red lights and purple shadows alternated in my
+vision. Then came the dreams.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was always Berna. Through a mass of grimacing, greed-contorted
+faces gradually there formed and lingered her sweet and pensive one. We
+were in a strange costume, she and I. It seemed like that of the early
+Georges. We were running away, fleeing from some one. For her sake a
+great fear and anxiety possessed me. We were eloping, I fancied.
+
+There was a marsh to cross, a hideous quagmire, and our pursuers were
+close. We started over the quaking ground, then, suddenly, I saw her
+sink. I rushed to aid her, and I, too, sank. We were to our necks in the
+soft ooze, and there on the bank, watching us, was the foremost of our
+hunters. He laughed at our struggles; he mocked us; he rejoiced to see
+us drown. And in my dream the face of the man seemed strangely like
+Locasto.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We were in a bower of roses, she and I. It was still further back in
+history. We seemed to be in the garden of a palace. I was in doublet and
+hose, and she wore a long, flowing kirtle. The air was full of fragrance
+and sunshine. Birds were singing. A fountain scattered a shower of
+glittering diamonds on the breeze. She was sitting on the grass, while I
+reclined by her side, my head lying on her lap. Above me I could see her
+face like a lily bending over me. With dainty fingers she crumpled a
+rose and let the petals snow down on me.
+
+Then, suddenly, I was seized, torn away from her by men in black, who
+roughly choked her screams. I was dragged off, thrown into a foul cell,
+left many days. Then, one night, I was dragged forth and brought before
+a grim tribunal in a hall of gloom and horror. They pronounced my
+doom--Death. The chief Inquisitor raised his mask, and in those gloating
+features I recognised--Locasto.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Again it seemed as if I were still further back in history, in some city
+under the Roman rule. I was returning from the Temple with my bride. How
+fair and fresh and beautiful she was, garlanded with flowers and
+radiantly happy. Again it was Berna.
+
+Suddenly there are shouts, the beating of drums, the clash of cymbals.
+The great Governor of the Province is coming. He passes with his
+retinue. Suddenly he catches sight of her whom I have but newly wed. He
+stops. He asks who is the maid. They tell him. He looks at me with
+haughty contempt. He gives a sign. His servants seize her and drag her
+screaming away. I try to follow, to kill him. I, too, am seized,
+overpowered. They bind me, put out my eyes. The Roman sees them do it.
+He laughs as the red-hot iron kisses my eye-balls. He mocks me, telling
+me what a dainty feast awaits him in my bride. Again I see Locasto.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then came another phase of my delirium, in which I struggled to get to
+her. She was waiting for me, wanting me, breaking her heart at my delay.
+O, Berna, my soul, my life, since the beginning of things we were fated.
+'Tis no flesh love, but something deeper, something that has its source
+at the very core of being. It is not for your sweet face, your gentle
+spirit, my own, that you are dearer to me than all else: it is
+because--you are you. If all the world were to turn against you, flout
+you, stone you, then would I rush to your side, shield you, die with
+you. If you were attainted with leprosy, I would enter the lazar-house
+for your sake.
+
+"O Berna, I must see you, I must, I must. Let me go to her ... now ...
+dear! She's calling me. She's in trouble. Oh, for the love of God, let
+me go ... let me go, I say.... Curse you, I will. She's in trouble. You
+can't hold me. I'm stronger than you all when she calls.... Let me ...
+let me.... Oh, oh, oh ... you're hurting me so. I'm weak, yes, weak as
+a baby.... Berna, my child, my poor little girl, I can do nothing.
+There's a mountain weighing me down. There's a slab of gold on my chest.
+They're burning me up. My veins are on fire. I can't come.... I can't,
+dear.... I'm tired...."
+
+Then the fever, the ravings, the wild threshing of my pillow, all passed
+away, and I was left limp, weak, helpless, resigned to my fate.
+
+I was on the sunny slope of convalescence. The Prodigal had remained
+with me as long as I was in danger, but now that I had turned the
+corner, he had gone back to the creeks, so that I was left with only my
+thoughts for company. As I turned and twisted on my narrow cot it seemed
+as if the time would never pass. All I wanted was to get better fast,
+and to get out again. Then, I thought, I would marry Berna and go
+"outside." I was sick of the country, of everything.
+
+I was lying thinking over these things, when I became aware that the man
+in the cot to the right was trying to attract my attention. He had been
+brought in that very morning, said to have been kicked by a horse. One
+of his ribs was broken, and his face badly smashed. He was in great
+pain, but quite conscious, and he was making stealthy motions to me.
+
+"Say, mate," he said, "I piped you off soon's I set me lamps on you.
+Don't youse know me?"
+
+I looked at the bandaged face wonderingly.
+
+"Don't you spot de man dat near let youse down de shaft?"
+
+Then, with a great start, I saw it was the Worm.
+
+"'Taint no horse done me up," he said in a hoarse whisper; "'twas a man.
+You know de man, de worst devil in all Alaska, Black Jack. Bad luck to
+him! He knocked me down and give me de leather. But I'm goin' to get
+even some day. I'm just laying for him. I wouldn't be in his shoes for
+de richest claim in de Klondike."
+
+The man's eyes glittered vengefully between the white bandages.
+
+"'Twas all on account of de little girl he done it. You know de girl I
+mean. Black Jack's dead stuck on her, an' de furder she stands him off
+de more set he is to get her. Youse don't know dat man. He's never had
+de cold mit yet."
+
+"Tell me what's the matter, for Heaven's sake."
+
+"Well, when youse didn't come, de little girl she got worried. I used to
+be doin' chores round de restaurant, an' she asks me to take a note up
+to you. So I said I would. But I got on a drunk dat day, an' for a week
+after I didn't draw a sober breath. When I gets around again I told her
+I'd seen you an' given you de note an' you was comin' in right away."
+
+"Heaven forgive you for that."
+
+[Illustration: Then, as I hung half in, half out of the window, he
+clutched me by the throat]
+
+"Yep, dat's what I say now. But it's all too late. Well, a week went on
+an' you never showed up, an' meantime Locasto was pesterin' her cruel.
+She got mighty peaked like, pale as a ghost, an' I could see she cried
+most all her nights. Den she gives me anudder note. She gives me a
+hundred dollars to take dat note to you. I said she could lay on me dis
+time. I was de hurry-up kid, an' I starts off. But Black Jack must have
+cottoned on, for he meets me back of de town an' taxes me wid takin' a
+message. Den he sets on me like a wild beast an' does me up good and
+proper. But I'll fix him yet."
+
+"Where are the notes?" I cried.
+
+"In de pocket of me coat. Tell de nurse to fetch in me clothes, an' I'll
+give dem to youse."
+
+The nurse brought the clothes, but the little man was too sore to move.
+
+"Feel in de inside pocket."
+
+There were the notes, folded very small, and written in pencil. There
+was a strange faintness at my heart, and my fingers trembled as I opened
+them. Fear, fear was clutching me, compressing me in an agonising grip.
+
+Here was the first.
+
+     "My Darling Boy: Why didn't you come? I was all ready for you. O,
+     it was such a terrible disappointment. I've cried myself to sleep
+     every night since. Has anything happened to you, dear? For Heaven's
+     sake write or send a message. I can't bear the suspense.
+
+                                        "Your loving
+
+                                                        "Berna."
+
+Blankly, dully, almost mechanically, I read the second.
+
+     "O, come, my dear, at once. I'm in serious danger. He's grown
+     desperate. Swears if he can't get me by fair means he'll have me by
+     foul. I'm terribly afraid. Why ar'n't you here to protect me? Why
+     have you failed me? O, my darling, have pity on your poor little
+     girl. Come quickly before it is too late."
+
+It was unsigned.
+
+Heavens! I must go to her at once. I was well enough. I was all right
+again. Why would they not let me go to her? I would crawl on my hands
+and knees if need be. I was strong, so strong now.
+
+Ha! there were the Worm's clothes. It was after midnight. The nurse had
+just finished her rounds. All was quiet in the ward.
+
+Dizzily I rose and slipped into the frayed and greasy garments. There
+were the hospital slippers. I must wear them. Never mind a hat.
+
+I was out in the street. I shuffled along, and people stared at me, but
+no one delayed me. I was at the restaurant now. She wasn't there. Ah!
+the cabin on the hill.
+
+I was weaker than I had thought. Once or twice in a half-fainting
+condition I stopped and steadied myself by holding a sapling tree. Then
+the awful intuition of her danger possessed me, and gave me fresh
+strength. Many times I stumbled, cutting myself on the sharp boulders.
+Once I lay for a long time, half-unconscious, wondering if I would ever
+be able to rise. I reeled like a drunken man. The way seemed endless,
+yet stumbling, staggering on, there was the cabin at last.
+
+A light was burning in the front room. Some one was at home at all
+events. Only a few steps more, yet once again I fell. I remember
+striking my face against a sharp rock. Then, on my hands and knees, I
+crawled to the door.
+
+I raised myself and hammered with clenched fists. There was silence
+within, then an agitated movement. I knocked again. Was the door ever
+going to be opened? At last it swung inward, with a suddenness that
+precipitated me inside the room.
+
+The Madam was standing over me where I had fallen. At sight of me she
+screamed. Surprise, fear, rage, struggled for mastery on her face. "It's
+him," she cried, "_him_." Peering over her shoulder, with ashy,
+horrified face, I saw her trembling husband.
+
+"Berna," I gasped hoarsely. "Where is she? I want Berna. What are you
+doing to her, you devils? Give her to me. She's mine, my promised bride.
+Let me go to her, I say."
+
+The woman barred the way.
+
+All at once I realised that the air was heavy with a strange odour, the
+odour of _chloroform_. Frenzied with fear, I rushed forward.
+
+Then the Amazon roused herself. With a cry of rage she struck me.
+Savagely both of them came for me. I struggled, I fought; but, weak as I
+was, they carried me before them and threw me from the door. I heard the
+lock shoot; I was outside; I was impotent. Yet behind those log
+walls.... Oh, it was horrible! horrible! Could such things be in God's
+world? And I could do nothing.
+
+I was strong once more. I ran round to the back of the cabin. She was in
+there, I knew. I rushed at the window and threw myself against it. The
+storm frame had not been taken off. Crash! I burst through both sheets
+of glass. I was cruelly cut, bleeding in a dozen places, yet I was half
+into the room. There, in the dirty, drab light, I saw a face, the
+fiendish, rage-distorted face of my dream. It was Locasto.
+
+He turned at the crash. With a curse he came at me. Then, as I hung half
+in, half out of the window, he clutched me by the throat. Using all his
+strength, he raised me further into the room, then he hurled me
+ruthlessly out onto the rocks outside.
+
+I rose, reeling, covered with blood, blind, sick, speechless. Weakly I
+staggered to the window. My strength was leaving me. "O God, sustain me!
+Help me to save her."
+
+Then I felt the world go blank. I swayed; I clutched at the walls; I
+fell.
+
+There I lay in a ghastly, unconscious heap.
+
+I had lost!
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV
+
+THE VORTEX
+
+
+He burned a hole in the frozen muck;
+He scratched the icy mould;
+And there in six-foot dirt he struck
+A sack or so of gold.
+
+  He burned a hole in the Decalogue,
+  And then it came about--
+  For Fortune's only a lousy rogue--
+  His "pocket" petered out.
+
+And lo! it was but a year all told,
+When there in the shadow grim,
+But six feet deep in the icy mould,
+They burned a hole for him.
+
+--"The Yukoner."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+"No, no, I'm all right. Really I am. Please leave me alone. You want me
+to laugh? Ha! Ha! There! Is that all right now?"
+
+"No, it isn't all right. It's very far from all right, my boy; and this
+is where you and your little uncle here are going to have a real heart
+to heart talk."
+
+It was in the big cabin on Gold Hill, and the Prodigal was addressing
+me. He went on:
+
+"Now, look here, kid, when it comes to expressing my feelings I'm in the
+kindergarten class; when it comes to handing out the high-toned dope I
+drop my cue every time; but when I'm needed to do the solid pardner
+stunt then you don't need to holler for me--I'm there. Well, I'm giving
+you a straight line of talk. Ever since the start I've taken a strong
+notion to you. You've always been ace-high with me, and there never will
+come the day when you can't eat on my meal-ticket. We tackled the Trail
+of Trouble together. You were always wanting to lift the heavy end of
+the log, and when the God of Cussedness was doing his best to rasp a man
+down to his yellow streak, you showed up white all through. Say, kid,
+we've been in tight places together; we've been stacked up against hard
+times together: and now I'll be gol-darned if I'm going to stand by and
+see you go downhill, while the devil oils the bearings."
+
+"Oh, I'm all right," I protested.
+
+"Yes, you're all right," he echoed grimly. "In an impersonation of an
+'all-right' man it's the hook for yours. I've seen 'all-right' men like
+you hitting the hurry trail for the boneyard before now. You're 'all
+right'! Why, for the last two hours you've been sitting with that
+'just-break-the-news-to mother' expression of yours, and paying no more
+heed to my cheerful brand of conversation than if I had been a measly
+four-flusher. You don't eat more than a sick sparrow, and often you
+don't bat an eye all night. You're looking worse than the devil in a
+gale of wind. You've lost your grip, my boy. You don't care whether
+school keeps or not. In fact, if it wasn't for your folks, you'd as lief
+take a short cut across the Great Divide."
+
+"You're going it a little strong, old man."
+
+"Oh no, I'm not. You know you're sick of everything. Feel as if life's a
+sort of penitentiary, and you've just got to do time. You don't expect
+to get any more fun out of it. Look at me. Every day's my sunshine day.
+If the sky's blue I like it; if it's grey I like it just as well. I
+never worry. What's the use? Yesterday's a dead one; to-morrow's always
+to-morrow. All we've got's the 'now,' and it's up to us to live it for
+all we're worth. You can use up more human steam to the square inch in
+worrying than you can to the square yard in hard work. Eliminate worry
+and you've got the only system."
+
+"It's all very well for you to preach," I said, "you forget I've been a
+pretty sick man."
+
+"That's no nursemaid's dream. You almost cashed in. Typhoid's a serious
+proposition at the best; but when you take a crazy streak on top of it,
+make a midnight getaway from the sick-ward and land up on the Slide
+looking as if you'd been run through a threshing machine, well, you're
+sure letting death get a short option on you. And you gave up. You
+didn't want to fight. You shirked, but your youth and constitution
+fought for you. They healed your wounds, they soothed your ravings, they
+cooled your fever. They were a great team, and they pulled you through.
+Seems as if they'd pulled you through a knot-hole, but they were on to
+their job. And you weren't one bit grateful--seemed to think they had no
+business to butt in."
+
+"My hurts are more than physical."
+
+"Yes, I know; there was that girl. You seemed to have a notion that that
+was the only girl on God's green brush-pile. As I camped there by your
+bedside listening to your ravings, and getting a strangle-hold on you
+when you took it into your head to get funny, you blabbed out the whole
+yarn. Oh, sonny, why didn't you tell your uncle? Why didn't you put me
+wise? I could have given you the right steer. Have you ever known me
+handle a job I couldn't make good at? I'm a whole matrimonial bureau
+rolled into one. I'd have had you prancing to the tune of the wedding
+march before now. But you kept mum as a mummy. Wouldn't even tell your
+old pard. Now you've lost her."
+
+"Yes, I've lost her."
+
+"Did you ever see her after you came out of the hospital?"
+
+"Once, once only. It was the first day. I was as thin as a rail, as
+white as the pillow from which I had just raised my head. Death's
+reprieve was written all over me. I dragged along wearily, leaning on a
+stick. I was thinking of her, thinking, thinking always. As I scanned
+the faces of the crowds that thronged the streets, I thought only of her
+face. Then suddenly she was before me. She looked like a ghost, poor
+little thing; and for a fluttering moment we stared at each other, she
+and I, two wan, weariful ghosts."
+
+"Yes, what did she say?"
+
+"Say! she said nothing. She just looked at me. Her face was cold as ice.
+She looked at me as if she wanted to _pity_ me. Then into her eyes there
+came a shadow of bitterness, of bitterness and despair such as might
+gloom the eyes of a lost soul. It unnerved me. It seemed as if she was
+regarding me almost with horror, as if I were a sort of a leper. As I
+stood there, I thought she was going to faint. She seemed to sway a
+moment. Then she drew a great, gasping breath, and turning on her heel
+she was gone."
+
+"She cut you?"
+
+"Yes, cut me dead, old fellow. And my only thought was of love for her,
+eternal love. But I'll never forget the look on her face as she turned
+away. It was as if I had lashed her with a whip. My God!"
+
+"And you've never seen her since?"
+
+"No, never. That was enough, wasn't it? She didn't want to speak to me
+any more, never wanted to set eyes on me any more. I went back to the
+ward; then, in a little, I came on here. My body was living, but my
+heart was dead. It will never live again."
+
+"Oh, rot! You mustn't let the thing down you like that. It's going to
+kill you in the end. Buck up! Be a man! If you don't care to live for
+yourself, live for others. Anyway, it's likely all for the best. Maybe
+love had you locoed. Maybe she wasn't really good. See now how she lives
+openly with Locasto. They call her the Madonna; they say she looks more
+like a virgin-martyr than the mistress of a dissolute man."
+
+I rose and looked at him, conscious that my face was all twisted with
+the pain of the thought.
+
+"Look here," I said, "never did God put the breath of life into a better
+girl. There's been foul play. I know that girl better than any one in
+the world, and if every living being were to tell me she wasn't good I
+would tell them they lied, they lied. I would burn at the stake
+upholding that girl."
+
+"Then why did she turn you down so cruelly?"
+
+"I don't know; I can't understand it. I know so little about women. I
+have not wavered a moment. To-day in my loneliness and heartbreak I
+care and hunger for her more than ever. She's always here, right here in
+my head, and no power can drive her out. Let them say of her what they
+will, I would marry her to-morrow. It's killing me. I've aged ten years
+in the last few months. Oh, if I only could forget."
+
+He looked at me thoughtfully.
+
+"I say, old man, do you ever hear from your old lady?"
+
+"Every mail."
+
+"You've often told me of your home. Say! just give us a mental frame-up
+of it."
+
+"Glengyle? Yes. I can see the old place now, as plainly as a picture:
+the green, dimpling hills all speckled with sheep; the grey house
+nestling snugly in a grove of birch; the wild water of the burn leaping
+from black pool to pool, just mad with the joy of life; the midges
+dancing over the water in the still sunshine, and the trout jumping for
+them--oh, it's the bonny, bonny place. You would think so too. You would
+like it, tramping knee-deep in the heather, to see the moorcock rise
+whirring at your feet; you would like to set sail with the fisher folk
+after the silver herring. It would make you feel good to see the calm
+faces of the shepherds, the peace in the eyes of the women. Ay, that was
+the best of it all, the Rest of it, the calm of it. I was pretty happy
+in those days."
+
+"You were happy--then why not go back? That's your proper play; go back
+to your Mother. She wants you. You're pretty well heeled now. A little
+money goes a long way over there. You can count on thirty thousand.
+You'll be comfortable; you'll devote yourself to the old lady; you'll be
+happy again. Time's a regular steam-roller when it comes to smoothing
+out the rough spots in the past. You'll forget it all, this place, this
+girl. It'll all seem like the after effects of a midnight Welsh rabbit.
+You've got mental indigestion. I hate to see you go. I'm really sorry to
+lose you; but it's your only salvation, so go, go!"
+
+Never had I thought of it before. Home! how sweet the word seemed.
+Mother! yes, Mother would comfort me as no one else could. She would
+understand. Mother and Garry! A sudden craving came over me to see them
+again. Maybe with them I could find relief from this awful agony of
+heart, this thing that I could scarce bear to think of, yet never ceased
+to think of. Home! that was the solution of it all. Ah me! I would go
+home.
+
+"Yes," I said, "I can't go too soon; I'll start to-morrow."
+
+So I rose and proceeded to gather together my few belongings. In the
+early morning I would start out. No use prolonging the business of my
+going. I would say good-bye to those two partners of mine, with a grip
+of the hand, a tear in the eye, a husky: "Take care of yourself." That
+would be all. Likely I would never see them again.
+
+Jim came in and sat down quietly. The old man had been very silent of
+late. Putting on his spectacles, he took out his well-worn Bible and
+opened it. Back in Dawson there was a man whom he hated with the hate
+that only death can end, but for the peace of his soul he strove to
+conquer it. The hate slumbered, yet at times it stirred, and into the
+old man's eyes there came the tiger-look that had once made him a force
+and a fear. Woe betide his enemy if that tiger ever woke.
+
+"I've been a-thinkin' out a scheme," said Jim suddenly, "an' I'm a-goin'
+to put all of that twenty-five thousand of mine back into the ground.
+You know us old miners are gamblers to the end. It's not the gold, but
+the gettin' of it. It's the excitement, the hope, the anticipation of
+one's luck that counts. We're fighters, an' we've just got to keep on
+fightin'. We can't quit. There's the ground, and there's the precious
+metals it's a-tryin' to hold back on us. It's up to us to get them out.
+It's for the good of humanity. The miner an' the farmer rob no one. They
+just get down to that old ground an' coax it an' beat it an' bully it
+till it gives up. They're working for the good of humanity--the farmer
+an' the miner." The old man paused sententiously.
+
+"Well, I can't quit this minin' business. I've just got to go on so
+long's I've got health an' strength; an' I'm a-goin' to shove all I've
+got once more into the muck. I stand to make a big pile, or lose my
+wad."
+
+"What's your scheme, Jim?"
+
+"It's just this: I'm goin' to install a hydraulic plant on my Ophir
+Creek claim, I've got a great notion of that claim. It's an
+out-of-sight proposition for workin' with water. There's a little stream
+runs down the hill, an' the hill's steep right there. There's one
+hundred feet of fall, an' in Spring a mighty powerful bunch of water
+comes a-tumblin' down. Well, I'm goin' to dam it up above, bring it down
+a flume, hitch on a little giant, an' turn it loose to rip an' tear at
+that there ground. I'm goin' to begin a new era in Klondike minin'."
+
+"Bully for you, Jim."
+
+"The values are there in the ground, an' I'm sick of the old slow way of
+gettin' them out. This looks mighty good to me. Anyway, I'm a-goin' to
+give it a trial. It's just the start of things; you'll see others will
+follow suit. The individual miner's got to go; it's only a matter of
+time. Some day you'll see this whole country worked over by them big
+power dredges they've got down in Californy. You mark my words, boys;
+the old-fashioned miner's got to go."
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+"Well, I've written out for piping an' a monitor, an' next Spring I hope
+I'll have the plant in workin' order. The stuff's on the way now. Hullo!
+Come in!"
+
+The visitors were Mervin and Hewson on their way to Dawson. These two
+men had been successful beyond their dreams. It was just like finding
+money the way fortune had pushed it in front of their noses. They were
+offensively prosperous; they reeked of success.
+
+In both of them a great change had taken place, a change only too
+typical of the gold-camp. They seemed to have thawed out; they were
+irrepressibly genial; yet instead of that restraint that had formerly
+distinguished them, there was a grafted quality of weakness, of
+flaccidity, of surrender to the enervating vices of the town.
+
+Mervin was remarkably thin. Dark hollows circled his eyes, and a curious
+nervousness twisted his mouth. He was "a terror for the women," they
+said. He lavished his money on them faster than he made it. He was
+vastly more companionable than formerly, but somehow you felt his
+virility, his fighting force had gone.
+
+In Hewson the change was even more marked. Those iron muscles had
+couched themselves in easy flesh; his cheeks sagged; his eyes were
+bloodshot and untidy. Nevertheless he was more of a good fellow, talked
+rather vauntingly of his wealth, and affected a patronising manner. He
+was worth probably two hundred thousand, and he drank a bottle of brandy
+a day.
+
+In the case of these two men, as in the case of a thousand others in the
+gold-camp, it seemed as if easy, unhoped-for affluence was to prove
+their undoing. On the trail they had been supreme; in fen or forest, on
+peak or plain, they were men among men, fighting with nature savagely,
+exultantly. But when the fight was over their arms rested, their muscles
+relaxed, they yielded to sensuous pleasures. It seemed as if to them
+victory really meant defeat.
+
+As I went on with my packing I paid but little heed to their talk. What
+mattered it to me now, this babble of dumps and dust, of claims and
+clean-ups? I was going to thrust it all behind me, blot it clean out of
+my memory, begin my life anew. It would be a larger, more luminous life.
+I would live for others. Home! Mother! again how exquisitely my heart
+glowed at the thought of them.
+
+Then all at once I pricked up my ears. They were talking of the town, of
+the men and women who were making it famous (or rather infamous), when
+suddenly they spoke the name of Locasto.
+
+"He's gone off," Mervin was saying; "gone off on a big stampede. He got
+pretty thick with some of the Peel River Indians, and found they knew of
+a ledge of high-grade, free-milling quartz somewhere out there in the
+Land Back of Beyond. He had a sample of it, and you could just see the
+gold shining all through it. It was great stuff. Jack Locasto's the last
+man to turn down a chance like that. He's the worst gambler in the
+Northland, and no amount of wealth will ever satisfy him. So he's off
+with an Indian and one companion, that little Irish satellite of his,
+Pat Doogan. They have six months' grub. They'll be away all winter."
+
+"What's become of that girl of his?" asked Hewson, "the last one he's
+been living with? You remember she came in on the boat with us. Poor
+little kid! Blast that man anyway. He's not content with women of his
+own kind, he's got to get his clutches on the best of them. That was a
+good little girl before he got after her. If she was a friend of mine
+I'd put a bullet in his ugly heart."
+
+Hewson growled like a wrathful bear, but Mervin smiled his cynical
+smile.
+
+"Oh, you mean the Madonna," he said; "why, she's gone on the
+dance-halls."
+
+They continued to talk of other things, but I did not hear them any
+more. I was in a trance, and I only aroused when they rose to go.
+
+"Better say good-bye to the kid here," said the Prodigal; "he's going to
+the old country to-morrow."
+
+"No, I'm not," I answered sullenly; "I'm just going as far as Dawson."
+
+He stared and expostulated, but my mind was made up. I would fight,
+fight to the last.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Berna on the dance-halls--words cannot convey all that this simple
+phrase meant to me. For two months I had been living in a dull apathy of
+pain, but this news galvanised me into immediate action.
+
+For although there were many degrees of dance-hall depravity, at the
+best it meant a brand of ineffaceable shame. She had lived with Locasto,
+had been recognised as his mistress--that was bad enough; but the
+other--to be at the mercy of all, to be classed with the harpies that
+preyed on the Man with the Poke, the vampires of the gold-camp.
+Berna-- Oh, it was unspeakable! The thought maddened me. The
+needle-point of suffering that for weeks had been boring into my brain
+seemed to have pierced its core at last.
+
+When the Prodigal expostulated with me I laughed--a bitter, mirthless
+laugh.
+
+"I'm going to Dawson," I said, "and if it was hell itself, I'd go there
+for that girl. I don't care what any one thinks. Home, society, honour
+itself, let them all go; they don't matter now. I was a fool to think I
+could ever give her up, a fool. Now I know that as long as there's life
+and strength in my body, I'll fight for her. Oh, I'm not the
+sentimentalist I was six months ago. I've lived since then. I can hold
+my own now. I can meet men on their own level. I can fight, I can win.
+I don't care any more, after what I've gone through. I don't set any
+particular value on my life. I'll throw it away as recklessly as the
+best of them. I'm going to have a fierce fight for that girl, and if I
+lose there'll be no more 'me' left to fight. Don't try to reason with
+me. Reason be damned! I'm going to Dawson, and a hundred men couldn't
+hold me."
+
+"You seem to have some new stunts in your repertoire," he said, looking
+at me curiously; "you've got me guessing. Sometimes I think you're a
+candidate for the dippy-house, then again I think you're on to yourself.
+There's a grim set to your mouth and a hard look in your eyes that I
+didn't use to see. Maybe you can hold up your end. Well, anyway, if you
+will go I wish you good luck."
+
+So, bidding good-bye to the big cabin, with my two partners looking
+ruefully after me, I struck off down Bonanza. It was mid-October. A
+bitter wind chilled me to the marrow. Once more the land lay stark
+beneath its coverlet of snow, and the sky was wan and ominous. I
+travelled fast, for a painful anxiety gripped me, so that I scarce took
+notice of the improved trail, of the increased activity, of the heaps of
+tailings built up with brush till they looked like walls of a
+fortification. All I thought of was Dawson and Berna.
+
+How curious it was, this strange new strength, this indifference to
+self, to physical suffering, to danger, to public opinion! I thought
+only of the girl. I would make her marry me. I cared nothing for what
+had happened to her. I might be a pariah, an outcast for the rest of my
+days; at least I would save her, shield her, cherish her. The thought
+uplifted me, exalted me. I had suffered beyond expression. I had
+rearranged my set of ideas; my concept of life, of human nature, had
+broadened and deepened. What did it matter if physically they had
+wronged her? Was not the pure, virgin soul of her beyond their reach?
+
+I was just in time to see the last boat go out. Already the river was
+"throwing ice," and every day the jagged edges of it crept further
+towards midstream. An immense and melancholy mob stood on the wharf as
+the little steamer backed off into the channel. There were uproarious
+souls on board, and many women of the town screaming farewells to their
+friends. On the boat all was excited, extravagant joy; on the wharf, a
+sorry attempt at resignation.
+
+The last boat! they watched her as her stern paddle churned the freezing
+water; they watched her forge her slow way through the ever-thickening
+ice-flakes; they watched her in the far distance battling with the
+Klondike current; then, sad and despondent, they turned away to their
+lonely cabins. Never had their exile seemed so bitter. A few more days
+and the river would close tight as a drum. The long, long night would
+fall on them, and for nigh on eight weary months they would be cut off
+from the outside world.
+
+Yet soon, very soon, a mood of reconciliation would set in. They would
+begin to make the best of things. To feed that great Octopus, the town,
+the miners would flock in from the creeks with treasure hoarded up in
+baking-powder tins; the dance-halls and gambling-places would absorb
+them; the gaiety would go on full swing, and there would seem but little
+change in the glittering abandon of the gold-camp. As I paced its
+sidewalks once more I marvelled at its growth. New streets had been
+made; the stores boasted expensive fittings and gloried in costly goods;
+in the bar-rooms were splendid mirrors and ornate woodwork; the
+restaurants offered European delicacies; all was on a new scale of
+extravagance, of garish display, of insolent wealth.
+
+Everywhere the man with the fat "poke" was in evidence. He came into
+town unshorn, wild-looking, often raggedly clad, yet always with the
+same wistful hunger in his eyes. You saw that look, and it took you back
+to the dark and dirt and drudgery of the claim, the mirthless months of
+toil, the crude cabin with its sugar barrel of ice behind the door, its
+grease light dimly burning, its rancid smell of stale food. You saw him
+lying smoking his strong pipe, looking at that can of nuggets on the
+rough shelf, and dreaming of what it would mean to him--out there where
+the lights glittered and the gramophones blared. Surely, if patience,
+endurance, if grim, unswerving purpose, if sullen, desperate toil
+deserved a reward, this man had a peckful of pleasure for his due.
+
+And always that hungry, wistful look. The women with the painted cheeks
+knew that look; the black-jack boosters knew it; the barkeeper with his
+knock-out drops knew it. They waited for him; he was their "meat."
+
+Yet in a few days your wild and woolly man is transformed, and no longer
+does your sympathy go out towards him. Shaven and shorn, clad in silken
+underwear, with patent leather shoes, and a suit in New York style, you
+absolutely fail to recognise him as your friend of the moccasins and
+mackinaw coat. He is smoking a dollar Laranago, he has half a dozen
+whiskies "under his belt," and later on he has a "date" with a lady
+singer of the Pavilion Theatre. He is having a "whale" of a good time,
+he tells you; you wonder how long he will last.
+
+Not for long. Sharp and short and sweet it is. He is brought up with a
+jerk, and the Dago Queen, for whom he has bought so much wine at twenty
+dollars a bottle, has no recognition for him in her flashing eyes. He
+has been "taken down the line," "trimmed to a finish" by an artist in
+the business. Ruefully he turns his poke inside out--not a "colour." He
+cannot even command the price of a penitential three-fingers of rye.
+Such is one of the commonest phases of life in the gold-camp.
+
+As I strolled the streets I saw many a familiar face. Mosher I saw. He
+had grown very fat, and was talking to a diminutive woman with heavy
+blond hair (she must have weighed about ninety-five pounds, I think).
+They went off together.
+
+A knife-edged wind was sweeping down from the north, and men in bulging
+coonskin coats filled up the sidewalks. At the Aurora corner I came
+across the Jam-wagon. He was wearing a jacket of summer flannels, and,
+as if to suggest extra warmth, he had turned up its narrow collar. In
+his trembling fingers he held an emaciated cigarette, which he inhaled
+avidly. He looked wretched, pinched with hunger, peaked with cold, but
+he straightened up when he saw me into a semblance of well-being. Then,
+in a little, he sagged forward, and his eyes went dull and abject. It
+was a business of the utmost delicacy to induce him to accept a small
+loan. I knew it would only plunge him more deeply into the mire; but I
+could not bear to see him suffer.
+
+I went into the Parisian Restaurant. It was more glittering, more
+raffish, more clamant of the tenderloin than ever. There were men
+waiters in the conventional garb of waiterdom, and there was Madam,
+harder looking and more vulturish. You wondered if such a woman could
+have a soul, and what was the end and aim of her being. There she sat, a
+creature of rapacity and sordid lust. I marched up to her and asked
+abruptly:
+
+"Where's Berna?"
+
+She gave a violent start. There was a quality of fear in her bold eyes.
+Then she laughed, a hard, jarring laugh.
+
+"In the Tivoli," she said.
+
+Strange again! Now that the worst had come to pass, and I had suffered
+all that it was in my power to suffer, this new sense of strength and
+mastery had come to me. It seemed as if some of the iron spirit of the
+land had gotten into my blood, a grim, insolent spirit that made me
+fearless; at times a cold cynical spirit, a spirit of rebellion, of
+anarchy, of aggression. The greatest evil had befallen me. Life could do
+no more to harm me. I had everything to gain and nothing to lose. I
+cared for no man. I despised them, and, to back me in my bitterness, I
+had twenty-five thousand dollars in the bank.
+
+I was still weak from my illness and my long mush had wearied me, so I
+went into a saloon and called for drinks. I felt the raw whisky burn my
+throat. I tingled from head to foot with a strange, pleasing warmth.
+Suddenly the bar, with its protecting rod of brass, seemed to me a very
+desirable place, bright, warm, suggestive of comfort and
+good-fellowship. How agreeably every one was smiling! Indeed, some were
+laughing for sheer joy. A big, merry-hearted miner called for another
+round, and I joined in.
+
+Where was that bitter feeling now? Where that morbid pain at my heart?
+As I drank it all seemed to pass away. Magical change! What a fool I
+was! What was there to make such a fuss about? Take life easy. Laugh
+alike at the good and bad of it. It was all a farce anyway. What would
+it matter a hundred years from now? Why were we put into this world to
+be tortured? I, for one, would protest. I would writhe no more in the
+strait-jacket of existence. Here was escape, heartsease, happiness--here
+in this bottled impishness. Again I drank.
+
+What a rotten world it all was! But I had no hand in the making of it,
+and it wasn't my task to improve it. I was going to get the best I could
+out of it. Eat, drink and be merry, that was the last word of
+philosophy. Others seemed to be able to extract all kinds of happiness
+from things as they are, so why not I? In any case, here was the
+solution of my troubles. Better to die happily drunk than miserably
+sober. I was not drinking from weakness. Oh no! I was drinking with
+deliberate intent to kill pain.
+
+How wonderfully strong I felt! I smashed my clenched fist against the
+bar. My knuckles were bruised and bleeding, but I felt no pain. I was so
+light of foot, I imagined I could jump over the counter. I ached to
+fight some one. Then all at once came the thought of Berna. It came with
+tragical suddenness, with poignant force. Intensely it smote me as never
+before. I could have burst into maudlin tears.
+
+"What's the matter, Slim?" asked a mouldy mannikin, affectionately
+hanging on to my arm.
+
+Disgustedly I looked at him.
+
+"Take your filthy paws off me," I said.
+
+His jaw dropped and he stared at me. Then, before he could draw on his
+fund of profanity, I burst through the throng and made for the door.
+
+I was drunk, deplorably drunk, and I was bound for the Tivoli.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+I wish it to be understood that I make no excuses for myself at this
+particular stage of my chronicle. I am only conscious of a desire to
+tell the truth. Many of the stronger-minded will no doubt condemn me;
+many of those inclined to a rigid system of morality will be disgusted
+with me; but, however it may be, I will write plainly and without
+reserve.
+
+When I reeled out of the Grubstake Saloon I was in a peculiar state of
+exaltation. No longer was I conscious of the rasping cold, and it seemed
+to me I could have couched me in the deep snow as cosily as in a bed of
+down. Surpassingly brilliant were the lights. They seemed to convey to
+me a portentous wink. They twinkled with jovial cheer. What a desirable
+place the world was, after all!
+
+With an ebullient sense of eloquence, of extravagant oratory, I longed
+for a sympathetic ear. An altruistic emotion pervaded me. Who would
+suspect, thought I, as I walked a little too circumspectly amid the
+throng, that my heart was aglow, that I was tensing my muscles in the
+pride of their fitness, that my brain was a bewildering kaleidoscope of
+thoughts and images?
+
+Gramophones were braying in every conceivable key. Brazen women were
+leering at me. Potbellied men regarded me furtively. Alluringly the
+gambling-dens and dancing-dives invited me. The town was a giant spider
+drawing in its prey, and I was the prey, it seemed. Others there were in
+plenty, men with the eager, wistful eyes; but who was there so eager and
+wistful as I? And I didn't care any more. Strike up the music! On with
+the dance! Only one life have we to live. Ah! there was the Tivoli.
+
+To the right as I entered was a palatial bar set off with burnished
+brass, bevelled mirrors and glittering, vari-coloured pyramids of costly
+liqueurs. Up to the bar men were bellying, and the bartenders in white
+jackets were mixing drinks with masterly dexterity. It was a motley
+crowd. There were men in broadcloth and fine linen, men in blue shirts
+and mud-stiffened overalls, grey-bearded elders and beardless boys. It
+was a noisy crowd, laughing, brawling, shouting, singing. Here was the
+foam of life, with never a hint of the muddy sediment underneath.
+
+To the left I had a view of the gambling-room, a glimpse of green
+tables, of spinning balls, of cool men, with shades over their eyes,
+impassively dealing. There were huge wheels of fortune, keno tables,
+crap outfits, faro layouts, and, above all, the dainty, fascinating
+roulette. Everything was in full swing. Miners with flushed faces and a
+wild excitement in their eyes were plunging recklessly; others, calm,
+alert, anxious, were playing cautiously. Here and there were the fevered
+faces of women. Gold coin was stacked on the tables, while a man with a
+pair of scales was weighing dust from the tendered pokes.
+
+In front of me was a double swing-door painted in white and gold, and,
+pushing through this, for the first time I found myself in a Dawson
+dance-hall.
+
+I remember being struck by the gorgeousness of it, its glitter and its
+glow. Who would have expected, up in this bleak-visaged North, to find
+such a fairyland of a place? It was painted in white and gold, and set
+off by clusters of bunched lights. There was much elaborate scroll-work
+and ornate decoration. Down each side, raised about ten feet from the
+floor, and supported on gilt pillars, were little private boxes hung
+with curtains of heliotrope silk. At the further end of the hall was a
+stage, and here a vaudeville performance was going on.
+
+I sat down on a seat at the very back of the audience. Before me were
+row after row of heads, mostly rough, rugged and unwashed. Their faces
+were eager, rapt as those of children. They were enjoying, with the deep
+satisfaction of men who for many a weary month had been breathing the
+free, unbranded air of the Wild. The sensuous odour of patchouli was
+strangely pleasant to them; the sight of a woman was thrillingly sweet;
+the sound of a song was ravishing. Looking at many of those toil-grooved
+faces one could see that there was no harm in their hearts. They were
+honest, uncouth, simple; they were just like children, the children of
+the Wild.
+
+A woman of generous physique was singing in a shrill, nasal voice a
+pathetic ballad. She sang without expression, bringing her hands with
+monotonous gestures alternately to her breast. Her squat, matronly
+figure, beef from the heels up, looked singularly absurd in her short
+skirt. Her face was excessively over-painted, her mouth good-naturedly
+large, and her eyes out of their slit-like lids leered at the audience.
+
+"Ain't she great?" said a tall bean-pole of a man on my right, as she
+finished off with a round of applause. "There's some class to her work."
+
+He looked at me in a confidential way, and his pale-blue eyes were full
+of rapturous appreciation. Then he did something that surprised me. He
+tugged open his poke and, dipping into it, he produced a big nugget.
+Twisting this in a scrap of paper, he rose up, long, lean and awkward,
+and with careful aim he threw it on the stage.
+
+"Here ye are, Lulu," he piped in his shrill voice. The woman, turning in
+her exit, picked up the offering, gave her admirer a wide, gold-toothed
+smile, and threw him an emphatic kiss. As the man sat down I could see
+his mouth twisting with excitement, and his watery blue eyes snapped
+with pleasure.
+
+"By heck," he said, "she's great, ain't she? Many's the bottle of wine
+I've opened for that there girl. Guess she'll be glad when she hears old
+Henry's in town again. Henry's my name, Hard-pan Henry they call me, an'
+I've got a claim on Hunker. Many's the wallopin' poke have I toted into
+town an' blowed in on that there girl. An' I just guess this one'll go
+the same gait. Well, says I, what's the odds? I'm havin' a good time
+for my money. When it's gone there's lots more in the ground. It ain't
+got no legs. It can't run away."
+
+He chuckled and hefted his poke in a horny hand. There was a flutter of
+the heliotrope curtains, and the face of Lulu, peeping over the plush
+edge of a box, smiled bewitchingly upon him. With another delighted
+chuckle the old man went to join her.
+
+"Darned old fool," said a young man on my left. He looked as if his
+veins were chuckful of health; his skin was as clear as a girl's, his
+eye honest and fearless. He was dressed in mackinaw, and wore a fur cap
+with drooping ear-flaps.
+
+"He's the greatest mark in the country," the Youth went on. "He's got no
+more brains than God gave geese. All the girls are on to him. Before he
+can turn round that old bat up there will have him trimmed to a finish.
+He'll be doing flip-flaps, and singing ''Way Down on the Suwanee River'
+standing on his head. Then the girl will pry him loose from his poke,
+and to-morrow he'll start off up the creek, teetering and swearing he's
+had a dooce of a good time. He's the easiest thing on earth."
+
+The Youth paused to look on a new singer. She was a soubrette, trim,
+dainty and confident. She wore a blond wig, and her eyes in their pits
+of black were alluringly bright. Paint was lavished on her face in
+violent dabs of rose and white, and the inevitable gold teeth gleamed in
+her smile. She wore a black dress trimmed with sequins, stockings of
+black, a black velvet band around her slim neck. She was greeted with
+much applause, and she began to sing in a fairly sweet voice.
+
+"That's Nellie Lestrange," said the Youth. "She's a great
+rustler--Touch-the-button-Nell, they call her. They say that when she
+gets a jay into a box it's all day with him. She's such a nifty
+wine-winner the end of her thumb's calloused pressing the button for
+fresh bottles."
+
+Touch-the-button-Nell was singing a comic ditty of a convivial order.
+She put into it much vivacity, appealing to the audience to join in the
+chorus with a pleading, "Now all together, boys." She had tripping steps
+and dainty kicks that went well with the melody. When she went off half
+a dozen men rose in their places, and aimed nuggets at her. She captured
+them, then, with a final saucy flounce of her skirt, made her smiling
+exit.
+
+"By Gosh!" said the Youth, "I wonder these fellows haven't got more
+savvy. You wouldn't catch _me_ chucking away an ounce on one of those
+fairies. No, sir! Nothing doing! I've got a five-thousand-dollar poke in
+the bank, and to-morrow I'll be on my way outside with a draft for every
+cent of it. A certain little farm 'way back in Vermont looks pretty good
+to me, and a little girl that don't know the use of face powder, bless
+her. She's waiting for me."
+
+The excitement of the liquor had died away in me, and what with the heat
+and smoke of the place, I was becoming very drowsy. I was almost dozing
+off to sleep when some one touched me on the arm. It was a negro waiter
+I had seen dodging in and out of the boxes, and known as the Black
+Prince.
+
+"Dey's a lady up'n de box wants to speak with yuh, sah," he said
+politely.
+
+"Who is it?" I asked in surprise.
+
+"Miss Labelle, sah, Miss Birdie Labelle."
+
+I started. Who in the Klondike had not heard of Birdie Labelle, the
+eldest of the three sisters, who married Stillwater Willie? A thought
+flashed through me that she could tell me something of Berna.
+
+"All right," I said; "I'll come."
+
+I followed him upstairs, and in a moment I was ushered into the presence
+of the famous soubrette.
+
+"Hullo, kid!" she exclaimed, "sit down. I saw you in the audience and
+kind-a took a notion to your face. How d'ye do?"
+
+She extended a heavily bejewelled hand. She was plump, pleasant-looking,
+with a piquant smile and flaxen hair. I ordered the waiter to bring her
+a bottle of wine.
+
+"I've heard a lot about you," I said tentatively.
+
+"Yes, I guess so," she answered. "Most folks have up here. It's a sort
+of reflected glory. I guess if it hadn't been for Bill I'd never have
+got into the limelight at all."
+
+She sipped her champagne thoughtfully.
+
+"I came in here in '97, and it was then I met Bill. He was there with
+the coin all right. We got hitched up pretty quick, but he was such a
+mut I soon got sick of him. Then I got skating round with another guy.
+Well, an egg famine came along. There was only nine hundred samples of
+hen fruit in town, and one store had a corner on them. I went down to
+buy some. Lord! how I wanted them eggs. I kept thinking how I'd have
+them done, shipwrecked, two on a raft or sunny side up, when who should
+come along but Bill. He sees what I want, and quick as a flash what does
+he do but buy up the whole bunch at a dollar apiece! 'Now,' says he to
+me, 'if you want eggs for breakfast just come home where you belong.'
+
+"Well, say, I was just dying for them eggs, so I comes to my milk like a
+lady. I goes home with Bill."
+
+She shook her head sadly, and once more I filled up her glass.
+
+She prattled on with many a gracious smile, and I ordered another bottle
+of wine. In the next box I could hear the squeaky laugh of Hard-pan
+Henry and the teasing tones of his inamorata. The visits of the Black
+Prince to this box with fresh bottles had been fast and furious, and at
+last I heard the woman cry in a querulous voice: "Say, that black man
+coming in so often gives me a pain. Why don't you order a case?"
+
+Then the man broke in with his senile laugh:
+
+"All right, Lulu, whatever you say goes. Say, Prince, tote along a case,
+will you?"
+
+Surely, thought I, there's no fool like an old fool.
+
+A little girl was singing, a little, winsome girl with a sweet childish
+voice and an innocent face. How terribly out of place she looked in that
+palace of sin. She sang a simple, old-world song full of homely pathos
+and gentle feeling. As she sang she looked down on those furrowed faces,
+and I saw that many eyes were dimmed with tears. The rough men listened
+in rapt silence as the childish treble rang out:
+
+    "Darling, I am growing old;
+    Silver threads among the gold
+    Shine upon my brow to-day;
+    Life is fading fast away."
+
+Then from behind the scenes a pure alto joined in and the two voices,
+blending in exquisite harmony, went on:
+
+    "But, my darling, you will be, will be,
+    Always young and fair to me.
+    Yes, my darling, you will be
+    Always young and fair to me."
+
+As the last echo died away the audience rose as one man, and a shower of
+nuggets pelted on the stage. Here was something that touched their
+hearts, stirred in them strange memories of tenderness, brought before
+them half-forgotten scenes of fireside happiness.
+
+"It's a shame to let that kid work in the halls," said Miss Labelle.
+There were tears in her eyes, too, and she hurriedly blinked them away.
+
+Then the curtain fell. Men were clearing the floor for the dance, so,
+bidding the lady adieu, I went downstairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+I found the Youth awaiting me.
+
+"Say, pardner," said he, "I was just getting a bit anxious about you. I
+thought sure that fairy had you in tow for a sucker. I'm going to stay
+right with you, and you're not going to shake me. See!"
+
+"All right," I said; "come on and we'll watch the dance."
+
+So we got in the front row of spectators, while behind us the crowd
+packed as closely as matches in a box. The champagne I had taken had
+again aroused in me that vivid sense of joy and strength and colour.
+Again the lights were effulgent, the music witching, the women divine.
+As I swayed a little I clutched unsteadily at the Youth. He looked at me
+curiously.
+
+"Brace up, old man," he said. "Guess you're not often in town. You're
+not much used to the dance-hall racket."
+
+"No," I assured him.
+
+"Well," he continued, "it's the rottenest game ever. I've seen more poor
+beggars put plumb out of business by the dance-halls than by all the
+saloons and gambling-joints put together. It's the game of catching the
+sucker brought to the point of perfection, and there's very few cases
+where it fails."
+
+He perceived I was listening earnestly, and he warmed up to his
+subject.
+
+"You see, the boys get in after they've been out on the claim for six
+months at a stretch, and town looks mighty good to them. The music
+sounds awful nice, and the women, well, they look just like angels. The
+boys are all right, but they've got that mad craving for the sight of a
+woman a man gets after he's been off out in the Wild, and these women
+have got the captivation of men down to a fine art. Once one of them
+gets to looking at you with eyes that eat right into you, and soft white
+hands, and pretty coaxing ways, well, it's mighty hard to hold back. A
+man's a fool to come near these places if he's got a poke--'cept, like
+me, he knows the ropes and he's right onto himself."
+
+The Youth said this with quite a complacent air. He went on:
+
+"These girls work on a percentage basis. You'll notice every time you
+buy them a drink the waiter gives them a check. That means that when the
+night's over they cash in and get twenty-five per cent, of the money
+you've spent on them. That's how they're so keen on ordering fresh
+bottles. Sometimes they'll say a bottle's gone flat before it's empty,
+and have you order another. Or else they'll pour half of it into the
+cuspidor when you're not looking. Then, when you get too full to notice
+the difference, they'll run in ginger ale on you. Or else they'll get
+you ordering by the case, and have half a dozen dummy bottles in it. Oh,
+there's all kinds of schemes these box rustlers are on to. When you pay
+for a drink you toss over your poke, and they take the price out. Do you
+think they're particular to a quarter ounce or so? No, sir! and you
+always get the short end of it. It's a bad game to go up against."
+
+The Youth looked at me as though proud of his superior sophistication.
+
+The floor was cleared. Girls were now coming from behind the stage,
+preening themselves and chaffing with the crowd. The orchestra struck up
+some jubilant ragtime that set the heart dancing and the heels tapping
+in tune. Brighter than ever seemed the lights; more dazzling the white
+and gilt of the walls. Some of the girls were balancing lightly to a
+waltz rhythm. There was a witching grace in their movements, and the
+Youth watched them intently. He looked down at his feet clad in old
+moccasins.
+
+"Gee, I'd like just to have one spin," he said; "just one before I leave
+the darned old country for good. I was always crazy about dancing. I'd
+ride thirty miles to attend a dance back home."
+
+His eyes grew very wistful. Suddenly the music stopped and the
+floor-master came forward. He was a tall, dark man with a rich and
+vibrant baritone voice.
+
+"That's the best spieler in the Yukon," said the Youth.
+
+"Come on, boys," boomed the spieler. "Look alive there. Don't keep the
+ladies waiting. Take your hands out of your pockets and get in the game.
+Just going to begin, a dreamy waltz or a nice juicy two-step, whichever
+you prefer. Hey, professor, strike up that waltz!"
+
+Once more the music swelled out.
+
+"How's that, boys? Doesn't that make your feet like feathers? Come on,
+boys! Here you are for the nice, glossy floor and the nice, flossy
+girls. Here you are! Here you are! That's right, select your partners!
+Swing your honeys! Hurry up there! Just a-goin' to begin. What's the
+matter with you fellows? Wake up! a dance won't break you. Come on!
+don't be a cheap skate. The girls are fine, fit and fairy-like, the
+music's swell and the floor's elegant. Come on, boys!"
+
+There was a compelling power in his voice, and already a number of
+couples were waltzing round. The women were exquisite in their grace and
+springy lightness. They talked as they danced, gazing with languishing
+eyes and siren smiles at the man of the moment.
+
+Some of them, who had not got partners, were picking out individuals
+from the crowd and coaxing them to come forward. A drunken fellow
+staggered onto the floor and grabbed a girl. She was young, dainty and
+pretty, but she showed no repugnance for him. Round and round he
+cavorted, singing and whooping, a wild, weird object; when, suddenly, he
+tripped and fell, bringing her down with him. The crowd roared; but the
+girl good-naturedly picked him up, and led him off to the bar.
+
+A man in a greasy canvas suit with mucklucks on his feet had gone onto
+the floor. His hair was long and matted, his beard wild and rank. He
+was dancing vehemently, and there was the glitter of wild excitement in
+his eyes. He looked as if he had not bathed for years, but again I could
+see no repulsion in the face of the handsome brunette with whom he was
+waltzing. Dance after dance they had together, locked in each other's
+arms.
+
+"That's a 'live one,'" said the Youth. "He's just come in from Dominion
+with a hundred ounces, and it won't last him over the night. Amber,
+there, will get it all. She won't let the other girls go near. He's her
+game."
+
+Between dances the men promenaded to the bar and treated their
+companions to a drink. In the same free, trusting way they threw over
+their pokes to the bartender and had the price weighed out. The dances
+were very short, and the drinks very frequent.
+
+Madder and madder grew the merriment. The air was hot; the odour of
+patchouli mingled with the stench of stale garments and the reek of
+alcohol. Men dripping with sweat whirled round in wild gyrations. Some
+of them danced beautifully; some merely shuffled over the floor. It did
+not make any difference to the girls. They were superbly muscular and
+used to the dragging efforts of novices. After a visit to the bar back
+they came once more, licking their lips, and fell to with fresh energy.
+
+There was no need to beg the crowd now. A wave of excitement seemed to
+have swept over them. They clamoured to get a dance. The "live one"
+whooped and pranced on his wild career, while Amber steered him calmly
+through the mazes of the waltz. Touch-the-button-Nell was talking to a
+tall fair-moustached man whom I recognised as a black-jack booster.
+Suddenly she left him and came over to us. She went up to the Youth.
+
+She had discarded her blond wig, and her pretty brown hair parted in the
+middle and rippled behind her ears. Her large violet-blue eyes had a
+devouring look that would stir the pulse of a saint. She accosted the
+Youth with a smile of particular witchery.
+
+"Say, kid, won't you come and have a two-step with me? I've been looking
+at you for the last half-hour and wishing you'd ask me."
+
+The Youth had advised me: "If any of them asks you, tell them to go to
+the devil;" but now he looked at her and his boyish face flushed.
+
+"Nothing doing," he said stoutly.
+
+"Oh, come now," she pleaded; "honest to goodness, kid, I've turned down
+the other fellow for you. You won't refuse me, will you? Come on; just
+one, sweetheart."
+
+She was holding the lapels of his coat and dragging him gently forward.
+I could see him biting his lip in embarrassment.
+
+"No, thanks, I'm sorry," he stammered. "I don't know how to dance.
+Besides, I've got no money."
+
+She grew more coaxing.
+
+"Never mind about the coin, honey. Come on, have one on me. Don't turn
+me down, I've taken such a notion to you. Come on now; just one turn."
+
+I watched his face. His eyes clouded with emotion, and I knew the
+psychology of it. He was thinking:
+
+"Just one--surely it wouldn't hurt. Surely I'm man enough to trust
+myself, to know when to quit. Oh, lordy, wouldn't it be sweet just to
+get my arm round a woman's waist once more! The sight of them's honey to
+me; surely it wouldn't matter. One round and I'll shake her and go
+home."
+
+The hesitation was fatal. By an irresistible magnetism the Youth was
+drawn to this woman whose business it ever was to lure and beguile. By
+her siren strength she conquered him as she had conquered many another,
+and as she led him off there was a look of triumph on her face. Poor
+Youth! At the end of the dance he did not go home, nor did he "shake"
+her. He had another and another and another. The excitement began to
+paint his cheeks, the drink to stoke wild fires in his eyes. As I stood
+deserted I tried to attract him, to get him back; but he no longer
+heeded me.
+
+"I don't see the Madonna to-night," said a little, dark individual in
+spectacles. Somehow he looked to me like a newspaper man "chasing" copy.
+
+"No," said one of the girls; "she ain't workin'. She's sick; she don't
+take very kindly to the business, somehow. Don't seem to get broke in
+easy. She's funny, poor kid."
+
+Carelessly they went on to talk of other things, while I stood there
+gasping, staring, sick at heart. All my vinous joy was gone, leaving me
+a haggard, weary wretch of a man, disenchanted and miserable to the
+verge of--what? I shuddered. The lights seemed to have gone blurred and
+dim. The hall was tawdry, cheap and vulgar. The women, who but a moment
+before had seemed creatures of grace and charm, were now nothing more
+than painted, posturing harridans, their seductive smiles the leers of
+shameless sin.
+
+And this was a Dawson dance-hall, the trump card in the nightly game of
+despoliation. Dance-halls, saloons, gambling-dens, brothels, the heart
+of the town was a cancer, a hive of iniquity. Here had flocked the most
+rapacious of gamblers, the most beautiful and unscrupulous women on the
+Pacific slope. Here in the gold-born city they waited for their prey,
+the Man with the Poke. Back there in the silent Wild, with pain and
+bloody sweat, he toiled for them. Sooner or later must he come within
+reach of their talons to be fleeced, flouted and despoiled. It was an
+organised system of sharpers, thugs, harpies, and birds of prey of every
+kind. It was a blot on the map. It was a great whirlpool, and the eddy
+of it encircled the furthest outpost of the golden valley. It was a
+vortex of destruction, of ruin and shame. And here was I, hovering on
+its brink, likely to be soon sucked down into its depths.
+
+I pressed my way to the door, and stood there staring and swaying, but
+whether with wine or weakness I knew not. In the vociferous and
+flamboyant street I could hear the raucous voices of the spielers, the
+jigging tunes of the orchestras, the click of ivory balls, the popping
+of corks, the hoarse, animal laughter of men, the shrill, inane giggles
+of women. Day and night the game went on without abatement, the game of
+despoliation.
+
+And I was on the verge of the vortex. Memories of Glengyle, the laughing
+of the silver-scaled sea, the tawny fisher-lads with their honest eyes,
+the herring glittering like jewels in the brown nets, the women with
+their round health-hued cheeks and motherly eyes. Oh, Home, with your
+peace and rest and content, can you not save me from this?
+
+And as I stood there wretchedly a timid little hand touched my arm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+It is odd how people who have been parted a weary while, yet who have
+thought of each other constantly, will often meet with as little show of
+feeling as if they had but yesterday bid good-bye. I looked at her and
+she at me, and I don't think either of us betrayed any emotion. Yet must
+we both have been infinitely moved.
+
+She was changed, desperately, pitifully changed. All the old sweetness
+was there, that pathetic sweetness which had made the miners call her
+the Madonna; but alas, forever gone from her was the fragrant flower of
+girlhood. Her pallor was excessive, and the softness had vanished out of
+her face, leaving there only lines of suffering. Sorrow had kindled in
+her grey eyes a spiritual lustre, a shining, tearless brightness. Ah me,
+sad, sad, indeed, was the change in her!
+
+So she looked at me, a long and level look in which I could see neither
+love nor hate. The bright, grey eyes were clear and steady, and the
+pinched and pitiful lips did not quiver. And as I gazed on her I felt
+that nothing ever would be the same again. Love could no more be the
+radiant spirit of old, the prompter of impassioned words, the painter of
+bewitching scenes. Never again could we feel the world recede from us as
+we poised on bright wings of fancy; never again compare our joy with
+that of the heaven-born; never again welcome that pure ideal that comes
+to youth alone, and that pitifully dies in the disenchantment of graver
+days. We could sacrifice all things for each other; joy and grieve for
+each other; live and die for each other,--but the Hope, the Dream, the
+exaltation of love's dawn, the peerless white glory of it--had gone from
+us forever and forever.
+
+Her lips moved:
+
+"How you have changed!"
+
+"Yes, Berna, I have been ill. But you, you too have changed."
+
+"Yes," she said very slowly. "I have been--dead."
+
+There was no faltering in her voice, never a throb of pathos. It was
+like the voice of one who has given up all hope, the voice of one who
+has arisen from the grave. In that cold mask of a face I could see no
+glimmer of the old-time joy, the joy of the season when wild roses were
+aglow. We both were silent, two pitifully cold beings, while about us
+the howling bedlam of pleasure-plotters surged and seethed.
+
+"Come upstairs where we can talk," said she. So we sat down in one of
+the boxes, while a great freezing shadow seemed to fall and wrap us
+around. It was so strange, this silence between us. We were like two
+pale ghosts meeting in the misty gulfs beyond the grave.
+
+"And why did you not come?" she asked.
+
+"Come--I tried to come."
+
+"But you did not." Her tone was measured, her face averted.
+
+"I would have sold my soul to come. I was ill, desperately ill, nigh to
+death. I was in the hospital. For two weeks I was delirious, raving of
+you, trying to get to you, making myself a hundred times worse because
+of you. But what could I do? No man could have been more helpless. I was
+out of my mind, weak as a child, fighting for my life. That was why I
+did not come."
+
+When I began to speak she started. As I went on she drew a quick,
+choking breath. Then she listened ever so intently, and when I had
+finished a great change came over her. Her eyes stared glassily, her
+head dropped, her hands clutched at the chair, she seemed nigh to
+fainting. When she spoke her voice was like a whisper.
+
+"And they lied to me. They told me you were too eager gold-getting to
+think of me; that you were in love with some other woman out there; that
+you cared no more for me. They lied to me. Well, it's too late now."
+
+She laughed, and the once tuneful voice was harsh and grating. Still
+were her eyes blank with misery. Again and again she murmured: "Too
+late, too late."
+
+Quietly I sat and watched her, yet in my heart was a vast storm of
+agony. I longed to comfort her, to kiss that face so white and worn and
+weariful, to bring tears to those hopeless eyes. There seemed to grow
+in me a greater hunger for the girl than ever before, a longing to bring
+joy to her again, to make her forget. What did it all matter? She was
+still my love. I yearned for her. We both had suffered, both been
+through the furnace. Surely from it would come the love that passeth
+understanding. We would rear no lily walls, but out of our pain would we
+build an abiding place that would outlast the tomb.
+
+"Berna," I said, "it is not too late."
+
+There was a desperate bitterness in her face. "Yes, yes, it is. You do
+not understand. You--it's all right for you, you are blameless; but
+I----"
+
+"You too are blameless, dear. We have both been miserably duped. Never
+mind, Berna, we will forget all. I love you, Oh how much I never can
+tell you, girl! Come, let us forget and go away and be happy."
+
+It seemed as if my every word was like a stab to her. The sweet face was
+tragically wretched.
+
+"Oh no," she answered, "it can never be. You think it can, but it can't.
+You could not forget. I could not forget. We would both be thinking;
+always, always torturing each other. To you the thought would be like a
+knife thrust, and the more you loved me the deeper would pierce its
+blade. And I, too, can you not realise how fearfully I would look at
+you, always knowing you were thinking of THAT, and what an agony it
+would be to me to watch your agony? Our home would be a haunted one, a
+place of ghosts. Never again can there be joy between you and me. It's
+too late, too late!"
+
+She was choking back the sobs now, but still the tears did not come.
+
+"Berna," I said gently, "I think I could forget. Please give me a chance
+to prove it. Other men have forgotten. I know it was not your fault. I
+know that spiritually you are the same pure girl you were before. You
+are an angel, dear; my angel."
+
+"No, I was not to blame. When you failed to come I grew desperate. When
+I wrote you and still you failed to come I was almost distracted. Night
+and day he was persecuting me. The others gave me no peace. If ever a
+poor girl was hounded to dishonour I was. Yet I had made up my mind to
+die rather than yield. Oh, it's too horrible."
+
+She shuddered.
+
+"Never mind, dear, don't tell me about it."
+
+"When I awoke to life sick, sick for many days, I wanted to die, but I
+could not. There seemed to be nothing for it but to stay on there. I was
+so weak, so ill, so indifferent to everything that it did not seem to
+matter. That was where I made my mistake. I should have killed myself.
+Oh, there's something in us all that makes us cling to life in spite of
+shame! But I would never let him come near me again. You believe me,
+don't you?"
+
+"I believe you."
+
+"And though, when he went away, I've gone into this life, there's never
+been any one else. I've danced with them, laughed with them, but that's
+all. You believe me?"
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"Thank God for that! And now we must say good-bye."
+
+"_Good-bye?_"
+
+"I said--good-bye. I would not spoil your life. You know how proud I am,
+how sensitive. I would not give you such as I. Once I would have given
+myself to you gladly, but now--please go away."
+
+"Impossible."
+
+"No, the other is impossible. You don't know what these things mean to a
+woman. Leave me, please."
+
+"Leave you--to what?"
+
+"To death, ruin--I don't know what. If I'm strong enough I will die. If
+I am weak I will sink in the mire. Oh, and I am only a girl too, a young
+girl!"
+
+"Berna, will you marry me?"
+
+"No! No! No!"
+
+"Berna, I will never leave you. Here I tell you frankly, plainly, I
+don't know whether or not you still love me--you haven't said a word to
+show it--but I know I love you, and I will love you as long as life
+lasts. I will never leave you. Listen to me, dear: let us go away, far,
+far away. You will forget, I will forget. It will never be the same, but
+perhaps it will be better, greater than before. Come with me, O my love!
+Have pity on me, Berna, have pity. Marry me. Be my wife."
+
+She merely shook her head, sitting there cold as a stone.
+
+"Then," I said, "if you call yourself dishonoured, I too will become
+dishonoured. If you choose to sink in the mire, I too will sink. We will
+go down together, you and I. Oh, I would rather sink with you, dear,
+than rise with the angels. You have chosen--well, I too have chosen. We
+stand on the edge of the vortex, now will we plunge down. You will see
+me steep myself in shame, then when I am a hundred shades blacker than
+you can ever hope to be, my angel, you will stoop and pity me. Oh, I
+don't care any more. I've played the fool too long; now I'll play the
+devil, and you'll stand by and watch me. Sometimes it's nice to make
+those we love suffer, isn't it? I would break my arm to make you feel
+sorry for me. But now you'll see me in the vortex. We'll go down
+together, dear. Hand in hand hell-ward we'll go down, we'll go down."
+
+She was looking at me in a frightened way. A madness seemed to have
+gotten into me.
+
+"Berna, you're on the dance-halls. You're at the mercy of the vilest
+wretch that's got an ounce of gold in his filthy poke. They can buy you
+as they buy white flesh everywhere on earth. You must dance with them,
+drink with them, go away with them. Berna, I can buy you. Come, dance
+with me, drink with me. We'll live, live. We'll eat, drink and be merry.
+On with the dance! Oh, for the joy of life! Since you'll not be my love
+you'll be my light-of-love. Come, Berna, come!"
+
+I paused. With her head lying on the cushioned edge of the box she was
+crying. The plush was streaky with her tears.
+
+"Will you come?" I asked again.
+
+She did not move.
+
+"Then," said I, "there are others, and I have money, lots of it. I can
+buy them. I am going down into the vortex. Look on and watch me."
+
+I left her crying.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+It is with shame I write the following pages. Would I could blot them
+out of my life. To this day there must be many who remember my meteoric
+career in the firmament of fast life. It did not last long, but in less
+than a week I managed to squander a small fortune.
+
+Those were the days when Dawson might fitly have been called the
+dissolute. It was the regime of the dance-hall girl, and the taint of
+the tenderloin was over the town. So far there were few decent women to
+be seen on the streets. Respectable homes were being established, but
+even there social evils were discussed with an astonishing frankness and
+indifference. In the best society men were welcomed who were known to be
+living in open infamy. A general callousness to social corruption
+prevailed.
+
+For Dawson was at this time the Mecca of the gambler and the courtesan.
+Of its population probably two-thirds began their day when most people
+finished it. It was only towards nightfall that the town completely
+roused up, that the fever of pleasure providing began. Nearly every one
+seemed to be affected by the spirit of degeneracy. On the faces of many
+of the business men could be seen the stamp of the pace they were going.
+Cases in Court had to be adjourned because of the debauches of lawyers.
+Bank tellers stepped into their cages sleepless from all-night orgies.
+Government officials lived openly with wanton women. High and low were
+attainted by the corruption. In those days of headstrong excitement, of
+sudden fortune, of money to be had almost for the picking up, when the
+gold-camp was a reservoir into which poured by a thousand channels the
+treasure of the valley, few were those among the men who kept a steady
+head, whose private records were pure and blameless.
+
+No town of its size has ever broken up more homes. Men in the
+intoxication of fast-won wealth in that far-away land gave way to
+excesses of every kind. Fathers of families paraded the streets arm in
+arm with demi-mondaines. To be seen talking to a loose woman was
+unworthy of comment, not to have a mistress was not to be in the swim.
+Words cannot express the infinite and general degradation. It is
+scarcely possible to exaggerate it. That teeming town at the mouth of
+the Klondike set a pace in libertinism that has never been equalled.
+
+I would divide its population into three classes: the sporting
+fraternity, whose business it was to despoil and betray; the business
+men, drawn more or less into the vortex of dissipation; the miners from
+the creeks, the Man with the Poke, here to-day, gone, to-morrow, and of
+them all the most worthy of respect. He was the prop and mainstay of the
+town. It was like a vast trap set to catch him. He would "blow in"
+brimming with health and high spirits; for a time he would "get into the
+game;" sooner or later he would cut loose and "hit the high places";
+then, at last, beggared and broken, he would crawl back in shame and
+sorrow to the claim. O, that grey city! could it ever tell its woes and
+sorrows the great, white stars above would melt into compassionate
+tears.
+
+Ah well, to the devil with all moralising! A short life and a merry one.
+Switch on the lights! Ring up the curtain! On with the play!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the casino a crowd is gathering round the roulette wheel. Three-deep
+they stand. A woman rushes out from the dance-hall and pushes her way
+through the throng. She is very young, very fair and redundant of life.
+A man jostles her. From frank blue eyes she flashes a look at him, and
+from lips sweet as those of a child there comes the remonstrance: "Curse
+you; take care."
+
+The men make way for her, and she throws a poke of dust on the red. "A
+hundred dollars out of that," she says. The coupier nods; the wheel
+spins round; she loses.
+
+"Give me another two hundred in chips," she cries eagerly. The dealer
+hands them to her, and puts her poke in a drawer. Again and again she
+plays, placing chips here and there round the table. Sometimes she wins,
+sometimes she loses. At last she has quite a pile of chips before her.
+She laughs gleefully. "I guess I'll cash in now," she says. "That's good
+enough for to-night."
+
+The man hands her back her poke, writes out a cheque for her winnings,
+and off she goes like a happy child.
+
+"Who's that?" I ask.
+
+"That? that's Blossom. She's a 'bute,' she is. Want a knockdown? Come on
+round to the dance-hall."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Once more I see the Youth. He is nearing the end of his tether. He
+borrows a few hundred dollars from me. "One more night," he says with a
+bitter grin, "and the hog goes back to wallow in the mire. They've got
+you going too-- Oh, Lord, it's a great game! Ha! ha!"
+
+He goes off unsteadily; then from out of the luminous mists there
+appears the Jam-wagon. In a pained way he looks at me. "Here, chuck it,
+old man," he says; "come home to my cabin and straighten up."
+
+"All right," I answer; "just one drink more."
+
+One more means still one more. Poor old Jam-wagon! It's the blind
+leading the blind.
+
+Mosher haunts me with his gleaming bald head and his rat-like eyes. He
+is living with the little ninety-five-pound woman, the one with the mop
+of hair.
+
+Oh, it is a hades of a life I am steeped in! I drink and I drink. It
+seems to me I am always drinking. Rarely do I eat. I am one of half a
+dozen spectacular "live ones." All the camp is talking of us, but it
+seems to me I lead the bunch in the race to ruin. I wonder what Berna
+thinks of it all. Was there ever such a sensitive creature? Where did
+she get that obstinate pride? Child of misfortune! She minded me of a
+delicate china cup that gets mixed in with the coarse crockery of a hash
+joint.
+
+Remonstrantly the Prodigal speeds to town.
+
+"Are you crazy?" he cries. "I don't mind you making an ass of yourself,
+but lushing around all that coin the way you're doing--it's wicked; it
+makes me sick. Come home at once."
+
+"I won't," I say. "What if I am crazy? Isn't it my money? I've never
+sown my wild oats yet. I'm trying to catch up, that's all. When the
+money's done I'll quit. I'm having the time of my life. Don't come
+spoiling it with your precepts. What a lot of fun I've missed by being
+good. Come along; 'listen to the last word of human philosophy--have a
+drink.'"
+
+He goes away shaking his head. There's no fear of him ever breaking
+loose. He, with his smile of sunshine, would make misfortune pay. He is
+a rolling stone that gathers no moss, but manages to glue itself to
+greenbacks at every turn.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I am in a box at the Palace Grand. The place is packed with rowdy men
+and ribald women. I am at the zenith of my shame. Right and left I am
+buying wine. Like vultures at a feast they bunch into the box. Like
+carrion flies they buzz around me. That is what I feel myself to
+be--carrion.
+
+How I loathe myself! but I think of Berna, and the thought goads me to
+fresh excesses. I will go on till flesh and blood can stand it no
+longer, till I drop in my tracks. I realise that somehow I must make
+her pity me, must awake in her that guardian angel which exists in every
+woman. Only in that way can I break down the barrier of her pride and
+arouse the love latent in her heart.
+
+There are half a dozen girls in the box, a bevy of beauties, and I buy a
+case of wine for each, over a thousand dollars' worth. Screaming with
+laughter they toss it in bottles down to their friends in the audience.
+It is a scene of riotous excitement. The audience roars, the girls
+shriek, the orchestra tries to make itself heard. Madder and madder
+grows the merriment. The fierce fever of it scorches in my veins. I am
+mad to spend, to throw away money, to outdo all others in bitter,
+reckless prodigality. I fling twenty-dollar gold pieces to the singers.
+I open bottle after bottle of wine. The girls are spraying the crowd
+with it, the floor of the box swims with it. I drop my pencil signing a
+tab, and when I look down it is floating in a pool of champagne.
+
+Then comes the last. The dance has begun. Men in fur caps, mackinaw
+coats and mucklucks are waltzing with women clad in Paris gowns and
+sparkling with jewels. The floor is thronged. I have a large,
+hundred-ounce poke of dust, and I unloose the thong. Suddenly with a mad
+shout I scatter its contents round the hall. Like a shower of golden
+rain it falls on men and women alike. See how they grovel for it, the
+brutes, the vampires! How they fight and grab and sprawl over it! How
+they shriek and howl and curse! It is like an arena of wild beasts; it
+is pandemonium. Oh, how I despise them! My gorge rises, but--to the end,
+to the end. I must play my part.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Always amid that lurid carnival of sin floats the figure of Blossom,
+Blossom with her child-face of dazzling fairness, her china-blue eyes,
+her round, smooth cheeks. How different from the pinched pallid face of
+Berna! Poor, poor Berna! I never see her, but amid all the saturnalia
+she haunts me. The thought of her is agony, agony. I cannot bear to
+think of her. I know she watches me. If she would only stoop and save me
+now! Or have I not fallen low enough? What a faith I have in that deep
+mother-love of hers that will redeem me in the end. I must go deeper
+yet. Faster and faster must I swirl into the vortex.
+
+Oh, these women, how in my heart I loathe them! I laugh with them, I
+quaff with them, I let them rob me; but that's all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In all that fierce madness of debauch, thank God, I retained my honour.
+They beguiled me, they tried to lure me into their rooms; but at the
+moment I went to enter I recoiled. It was as if an invisible arm
+stretched across the doorway and barred me out.
+
+And Blossom, she, too, tried so hard to lure me, and because I resisted
+it inflamed her. Half angel, half devil was Blossom, a girl in years,
+but woefully wise, a soft siren when pleased, a she-devil when roused.
+She made me her special quarry. She fought for me. She drove off all
+the other girls. We talked together, we drank together, we "played the
+tables" together, but nothing more. She would coax me with the
+prettiest gestures, and cajole me with the sweetest endearments; then,
+when I steadfastly resisted her, she would fly into a fury and flout me
+with the foulness of the stews. She was beautiful, but born to be bad.
+No power on heaven or earth could have saved her. Yet in her badness she
+was frank, natural and untroubled as a child.
+
+It was in one of the corridors of the dance-hall in the early hours of
+the morning. The place was deserted, strewed with debris of the night's
+debauch. The air was fetid, and from the gambling-hall down below arose
+the shouts of the players. We were up there, Blossom and I. I was in a
+strange state of mind, a state bordering on frenzy. Not much longer, I
+felt, could I keep up this pace. Something had to happen, and that soon.
+
+She put her arms around me. I could feel her cheek pressed to mine. I
+could see her bosom rise and fall.
+
+"Come," she said.
+
+She led me towards her room. No longer was I able to resist. My foot was
+on the threshold and I was almost over when----
+
+"Telegram, sir."
+
+It was a messenger. Confusedly I took the flimsy envelope and tore it
+open. Blankly I stared at the line of type. I stared like a man in a
+dream. I was sober enough now.
+
+"Ain't you coming?" said Blossom, putting her arms round me.
+
+"No," I said hoarsely, "leave me, please leave me. Oh, my God!"
+
+Her face changed, became vindictive, the face of a fury.
+
+"Curse you!" she hissed, gnashing her teeth. "Oh, I knew. It's that
+other, that white-faced doll you care for. Look at me! Am I not better
+than her? And you scorn me. Oh, I hate you. I'll get even with you and
+her. Curse you, curse you----"
+
+She snatched up an empty wine bottle. Swinging it by the neck she struck
+me square on the forehead. I felt a stunning blow, a warm rush of blood.
+Then I fell limply forward, and all the lights seemed to go out.
+
+There I lay in a heap, and the blood spurting from my wound soaked the
+little piece of paper. On it was written:
+
+                  "Mother died this morning. Garry."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+"Where am I?"
+
+"Here, with me."
+
+Low and sweet and tender was the voice. I was in bed and my head was
+heavily bandaged, so that the cloths weighed upon my eyelids. It was
+difficult to see, and I was too weak to raise myself, but I seemed to be
+in semi-darkness. A lamp burning on a small table nearby was turned low.
+By my bedside some one was sitting, and a soft, gentle hand was holding
+mine.
+
+"Where is _here_?" I asked faintly.
+
+"Here--my cabin. Rest, dear."
+
+"Is that you, Berna?"
+
+"Yes, please don't talk."
+
+I thrilled with a sudden sweetness of joy. A flood of sunshine bathed
+me. It was all over, then, the turmoil, the storm, the shipwreck. I was
+drifting on a tranquil ocean of content. Blissfully I closed my eyes.
+Oh, I was happy, happy!
+
+In her cabin, with her, and she was nursing me--what had happened? What
+new turn of events had brought about this wonderful thing? As I lay
+there in the quiet, trying to recall the something that went before, my
+poor sick brain groped but feebly amid a murk of sinister shadows.
+
+"Berna," I said, "I've had a bad dream."
+
+"Yes, dear, you've been sick, very sick. You've had an attack of fever,
+brain fever. But don't try to think, just rest quietly."
+
+So for a while longer I lay there, thrilled with a strange new joy,
+steeped in the ineffable comfort of her presence, and growing better,
+stronger with every breath. Memories came thronging back, memories that
+made me cringe and wince, and shudder with the shame of them. Yet ever
+the thought that she was with me was like a holy blessing. Surely it was
+all good since it had ended in this.
+
+Yet there was something else, some memory darker than the others, some
+shadow of shadows that baffled me. Then as I battled with a growing
+terror and suspense, it all came back to me, the telegram, the news, my
+collapse. A great grief welled up in me, and in my agony I spoke to the
+girl.
+
+"Berna, tell me, is it true? Is my Mother dead?"
+
+"Yes, it's true, dear. You must try to bear it bravely."
+
+I could feel her bending over me, could feel her hand holding mine,
+could feel her hair brush my cheek, yet I forgot even her just then. I
+thought only of Mother, of her devotion and of how little I had done to
+deserve it. So this was the end: a narrow grave, a rending grief and the
+haunting spectre of reproach.
+
+I saw my Mother sitting at that window that faced the west, her hands
+meekly folded on her lap, her eyes wistfully gazing over the grey sea. I
+knew there was never a day of her life when she did not sit thus and
+think of me. I could guess at the heartache that gentle face would not
+betray, the longing those tender lips would not speak, the grief those
+sweet eyes studied to conceal. As, sitting there in the strange clouded
+sunset of my native land, she let her knitting drop on her lap, I knew
+she prayed for me. Oh, Mother! Mother!
+
+My sobs were choking me, and Berna was holding my hand very tightly. Yet
+in a little I grew calmer.
+
+"Berna," I said, "I've only got you now, only you, little girl. So you
+must love me, you mustn't leave me."
+
+"I'll never leave you--if you want me to stay."
+
+"God bless you, dear. I can't tell you the comfort you are to me. I'll
+try to be quiet now."
+
+I will always remember those days as I grew slowly well again. The cot
+in which I lay stood in the sitting-room of the cabin, and from the
+window I could overlook the city. Snow had fallen, the days were diamond
+bright, and the smoke ascended sharply in the glittering air. The little
+room was papered with a design of wild roses that minded me of the
+Whitehorse Rapids. On the walls were some little framed pictures; the
+floor was carpeted in dull brown, and a little heater gave out a
+pleasant warmth. Through a doorway draped with a curtain I could see her
+busy in her little kitchen.
+
+She left me much alone, alone with my thoughts. Often when all was quiet
+I knew she was sitting there beyond the curtain, sitting thinking, just
+as I was thinking. Quiet was the keynote of our life, quiet and
+sunshine. That little cabin might have been a hundred miles from the
+gold-born city, it was so quiet. Here drifted no echo of its abandoned
+gaiety, its glory of demoralisation. How sweet she looked in her
+spotless home attire, her neat waist, her white apron with bib and
+sleeves, her general air of a little housewife. And never was there so
+devoted a nurse.
+
+Sometimes she would read to me from one of the few books I had taken
+everywhere on my travels, a page or two from my beloved Stevenson, a
+poem from my great-hearted Henley, a luminous passage from my Thoreau.
+How those readings brought back the time when, tired of flicking the
+tawny pools, I would sit on the edge of the boisterous little burn and
+read till the grey shadows sifted down! I was so happy then, and I did
+not know it. Now everything seemed changed. Life had lost its zest. Its
+savour was no longer sweet. Its very success was more bitter than
+failure. Would I ever get back that old-time rapture, that youthful joy,
+that satisfaction with all the world?
+
+It was sweet prolonging my convalescence, yet the time came when I could
+no longer let her wait upon me. What was going to happen to us? I
+thought of that at all times, and she knew I thought of it. Sometimes I
+could see a vivid colour in her cheeks, an eager brightness in her eye.
+Was ever a stranger situation? She slept in the little kitchen, and
+between us there was but that curtain. The faintest draught stirred it.
+There I lay through the long, long night in that quiet cabin. I heard
+her breathing. Sometimes even I heard her murmur in her sleep. I knew
+she was there, within a few yards of me. I thought of her always. I
+loved her beyond all else on earth. I was gaining daily in health and
+strength, yet not for the wealth of the world would I have passed that
+little curtain. She was as safe there as if she were guarded with
+swords. And she knew it.
+
+Once when I was in agony I called to her in the night, and she came to
+me. She came with a mother's tenderness, with exquisite endearments,
+with the great love shining in her eyes. She leaned over me, she kissed
+me. As she bent over my bed I put my arm round her. There in the
+darkness were we, she and I, her kisses warm upon my lips, her hair
+brushing my brow, and a great love devouring us. Oh, it was hard, but I
+released her, put her from me, told her to go away.
+
+"I'll play the game fair," I said to myself. I must be very, very
+careful. Our position was full of danger. So I forced myself to be cold
+to her, and she looked both surprised and pained at the change in me.
+Then she seemed to put forth special efforts to please me. She changed
+the fashion of her hair, she wore pretty bows of ribbon. She talked
+brightly and lightly in a febrile way. She showed little coquettish
+tricks of manner that were charming to my mind. Ever she looked at me
+with wistful concern. Her heart was innocent, and she could not
+understand my sudden coldness. Yet that night had given me a lightning
+glimpse of my nature that frightened me. The girl was winsome beyond
+words, and I knew I had but to say it and she would come to me. Yet I
+checked myself. I retreated behind a barrier of reserve. "Play the
+game," I said; "play the game."
+
+So as I grew better and stronger she seemed to lose her cheerfulness.
+Always she had that anxious, wistful look. Once came a sound from the
+kitchen like stifled sobbing, and again in the night I heard her cry.
+Then the time came when I was well enough to get up, to go away.
+
+I dressed, looking like the cadaverous ghost I felt myself to be. She
+was there in the kitchen, sitting quietly, waiting.
+
+"Berna," I called.
+
+She came, with a smile lighting up her face.
+
+"I'm going."
+
+The smile vanished, and left her with that high proud look, yet behind
+it was a lurking fear.
+
+"You're going?" she faltered.
+
+"Yes," I said roughly, "I'm going."
+
+She did not speak.
+
+"Are you ready?" I went on.
+
+"Ready?"
+
+"Yes, you're going, too."
+
+"Where?"
+
+I took her suddenly in my arms.
+
+"Why, you dear little angel, to get married, of course. Come on, Berna,
+we'll find the nearest parson. We won't lose any more precious time."
+
+Then a great rush of tears came into her eyes. But still she hung back.
+She shook her head.
+
+"Why, Berna, what's the matter? Won't you come?"
+
+"I think not."
+
+"In Heaven's name, what is wrong, dear? Don't you love me?"
+
+"Yes, I love you. It's because I love you I won't come."
+
+"Won't you marry me?"
+
+"No, no, I can't. You know what I said before. I haven't changed any.
+I'm still the same--dishonoured girl. You could never give me your
+name."
+
+"You're as pure as the driven snow, little one."
+
+"No one thinks so but you, and it's that that makes all the difference.
+Everybody knows. No, I could never marry you, never take your name,
+never bind you to me."
+
+"Well, what's to be done?"
+
+"You must go away, or--stay."
+
+"Stay?"
+
+"Yes. You've been living alone with me for a month. I picked you up that
+night in the dance-hall. I had you brought here. I nursed you. Do you
+think people don't give us credit for the worst? We are as innocent as
+children, yet do you think I have a shred of reputation left? Already I
+am supposed to be your mistress. Everybody knows; nobody cares. There
+are so many living that way here. If you told them we were innocent they
+would scoff at us. If you go they will say you have discarded me."
+
+"What shall I do?"
+
+"Just stay. Oh, why can't we go on as we've been doing? It's been so
+like home. Don't leave me, dear. I don't want to bind you. I just want
+to be of some use to you, to help you, to be with you always. Love me
+for a little, anyway. Then when you're tired of me you can go, but don't
+go now."
+
+I was dazed, but she went on.
+
+"What does the ceremony matter? We love each other. Isn't that the real
+marriage? It's more; it's an ideal. We'll both be free to go if we wish.
+There will be no bonds but those of love. Is not that beautiful, two
+people cleaving together for love's sake, living for each other,
+sacrificing for each other, yet with no man-made law to tell them: 'This
+must ye do'? Oh, stay, stay!"
+
+Her arms were round my neck. The grey eyes were full of pleading. The
+sweet lips had the old, pathetic droop. I yielded to the empery of love.
+
+"Well," I said, "we will go on awhile, on one condition--that by-and-bye
+you marry me."
+
+"Yes, I will, I will; I promise. If you don't tire of me; if you are
+sure beyond all doubt you will never regret it, then I will marry you
+with the greatest joy in the world."
+
+So it came about that I stayed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+In this infernal irony of an existence why do the good things of life
+always come when we no longer have the same appetite to enjoy them? The
+year following, in which Berna and I kept house, was not altogether a
+happy one. Somehow we had both just missed something. We had suffered
+too much to recover our poise very easily. We were sick, not in body,
+but in mind. The thought of her terrible experience haunted her. She was
+as sensitive as the petal of a delicate flower, and often would I see
+her lips quiver and a look of pain come into her eyes. Then I knew of
+what she was thinking. I knew, and I, too, suffered.
+
+I tried to make her forget, yet I could not succeed; and even in my most
+happy moments there was always a shadow, the shadow of Locasto; there
+was always a fear, the fear of his return. Yes, it seemed at times as if
+we were two unfortunates, as if our happiness had come too late, as if
+our lives were irretrievably shipwrecked.
+
+Locasto! where was he? For near a year had he been gone, somewhere in
+that wild country at the Back of Beyond. Somewhere amid the wilder peaks
+and valleys of the Rockies he fought his desperate battle with the Wild.
+There had been sinister rumours of two lone prospectors who had perished
+up in that savage country, of two bodies that lay rotting and half
+buried by a landslide. I had a sudden, wild hope that one of them might
+be my enemy; for I hated him and I would have joyed at his death. When I
+loved Berna most exquisitely, when I gazed with tender joy upon her
+sweetness, when, with glad, thankful eyes, I blessed her for the
+sympathy and sunshine of her presence, then between us would come a
+shadow, dark, menacing and mordant. So the joy-light would vanish from
+my eyes and a great sadness fall upon me.
+
+What would I do if he returned? I wondered. Perhaps if he left us alone
+I might let by-gones be by-gones; but if he ever came near her
+again--well, I oiled the chambers of my Colt and heard its joyous click
+as it revolved. "That's for him," I said, "that's for him, if by look,
+by word, or by act he ever molests her again." And I meant it, too.
+Suffering had hardened me, made me dangerous. I would have killed him.
+
+Then, as the months went past and the suspicion of his fate deepened
+almost to a certainty, I began to breathe more freely. I noticed, too, a
+world of difference in Berna. She grew light-hearted. She sang and
+laughed a good deal. The sunshine came back to her eyes, and the shadow
+seldom lingered there. Sometimes the thought that we were not legally
+married troubled me, but on all sides were men living with their
+Klondike wives, either openly or secretly, and where this domestic
+menage was conducted in quietness there was little comment on it. We
+lived to ourselves, and for ourselves. We left our neighbours alone. We
+made few friends, and in the ferment of social life we were almost
+unnoticed.
+
+Of course, the Prodigal expostulated with me in severe terms. I did not
+attempt to argue with him. He would not have understood my point of
+view. There are heights and depths in life to which he with his
+practical mind could never attain. Yet he became very fond of Berna, and
+often visited us.
+
+"Why don't you go and get churched decently, if you love her?" he
+demanded.
+
+"So I will," I answered calmly; "give me a little time. Wait till we get
+more settled."
+
+And, indeed, we were up to our necks in business these days. Our Gold
+Hill property had turned out well. We had a gang of men employed there,
+and I made frequent trips out to Bonanza. We had given the Halfbreed a
+small interest, and installed him as manager. The Jam-wagon, too, we had
+employed as a sort of assistant foreman. Jim was busy installing his
+hydraulic plant on Ophir Creek, and altogether we had enough to think
+about. I had set my heart on making a hundred thousand dollars, and as
+things were looking it seemed as if two more years would bring me to
+that mark.
+
+"Then," said I to Berna, "we'll go and travel all over the world, and do
+it in style."
+
+"Will we, dear?" she answered tenderly. "But I don't want money much
+now, and I don't know that I care so much about travel either. What I
+would like would be to go to your home, and settle down and live
+quietly. What I want is a nice flower garden, and a pony to drive into
+town, and a home to fuss about. I would embroider, and read, and play a
+little, and cook things, and--just be with you."
+
+She was greatly interested in my description of Glengyle. She never
+tired of questioning me about it. Particularly was she interested in my
+accounts of Garry, and rather scoffed at my enthusiastic description of
+him.
+
+"Oh, that wonderful brother of yours! One would think he was a small
+god, to hear you talk. I declare I'm half afraid of him. Do you think he
+would like me?"
+
+"He would love you, little girl; any one would."
+
+"Don't be foolish," she chided me. And then she drew my head down and
+kissed me.
+
+I think we had the prettiest little cabin in all Dawson. The big logs
+were peeled smooth, and the ends squarely cut. The chinks were filled in
+with mortar. The whole was painted a deep rich crimson. The roof was
+covered with sheet-iron, and it, too, was painted crimson. There was a
+deep porch to it. It was the snuggest, neatest little home in the world.
+
+Windows hung with dainty lace curtains peeped through its clustering
+greenery of vines, but the glory of it all was the flower garden. There
+was a bewildering variety of flowers, but mostly I remember stocks and
+pinks, Iceland poppies, marguerites, asters, marigolds, verbenas,
+hollyhocks, pansies and petunias, growing in glorious profusion. Even
+the roughest miner would stand and stare at them as he tramped past on
+the board sidewalk.
+
+They were a mosaic of glowing colour, yet the crowning triumph was the
+poppies and sweet peas. Set in the centre of the lawn was a circle that
+was a leaping glow of poppies. Of every shade were they, from starry
+pink to luminous gold, from snowy white to passionate crimson. Like
+vari-coloured lamps they swung, and wakened you to wonder and joy with
+the exultant challenge of their beauty. And the sweet peas! All up the
+south side of the cabin they grew, overtopping the eaves in their
+riotous perfection. They rivalled the poppies in the radiant confusion
+of their colour, and they were so lavish of blossom we could not pick
+them fast enough. I think ours was the pioneer garden of the gold-born
+city, and awakened many to the growth-giving magic of the long, long
+day.
+
+And it was the joy and pride of Berna's heart. I would sit on the porch
+of a summer's evening when down the mighty Yukon a sunset of vast and
+violent beauty flamed and languished, and I would watch her as she
+worked among her flowers. I can see her flitting figure in a dress of
+dainty white as she hovered over a beautiful blossom. I can hear her
+calling me, her voice like the music of a flute, calling me to come and
+see some triumph of her skill. I have a picture of her coming towards me
+with her arms full of flowers, burying her face lovingly among the
+velvet petals, and raising it again, the sweetest flower of all. How
+radiantly outshone her eyes, and her face, delicate as a cameo, seemed
+to have stolen the fairest tints of the lily and the rose.
+
+Starry vines screened the porch, and everywhere were swinging baskets of
+silver birch, brimming over with the delicate green of smilax or clouded
+in an amethystine mist of lobelias. I can still see the little
+sitting-room with its piano, its plenitude of cushions, its book-rack,
+its Indian corner, its tasteful paper, its pictures, and always and
+everywhere flowers, flowers. The air was heavy with the fragrance of
+them. They glorified the crudest corner, and made our home like a nook
+in fairyland.
+
+I remember one night as I sat reading she came to me. Never did I see
+her look so happy. She was almost childlike in her joy. She sat down by
+my chair and looked up at me. Then she put her arms around me.
+
+"Oh, I'm so happy," she said with a sigh.
+
+"Are you, dearest?" I caressed the soft floss of her hair.
+
+"Yes, I just wish we could live like this forever;" and she nestled up
+to me ever so fondly.
+
+Aye, she was happy, and I will always bless the memory of those days,
+and thank God I was the means of bringing a little gladness into her
+marred life. She was happy, and yet we were living in what society would
+call sin. Conventionally we were not man and wife, yet never were man
+and wife more devoted, more self-respecting. Never were man and wife
+endowed with purer ideals, with a more exalted conception of the
+sanctity of love. Yet there were many in the town not half so delicate,
+so refined, so spiritual, who would have passed my little lady like a
+pariah. But what cared we?
+
+And perhaps it was the very greatness of my love for her that sometimes
+made me fear; so that often in the ecstasy of a moment I would catch my
+breath and wonder if it all could last. And when the poplars turned to
+gold, and up the valley stole a shuddering breath of desolation, my fear
+grew apace. The sky was all resplendent with the winter stars, and keen
+and hard their facets sparkled. And I knew that somewhere underneath
+those stars there slept Locasto. But was it the sleep of the living or
+of the dead? Would he return?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Two men were crawling over the winter-locked plain. In the aching circle
+of its immensity they were like little black ants. One, the leader, was
+of great bulk and of a vast strength; while the other was small and
+wiry, of the breed that clings like a louse to life while better men
+perish.
+
+On all sides of the frozen lake over which they were travelling were
+hills covered with harsh pine, that pricked funereally up to the
+boulder-broken snows. Above that was a stormy and fantastic sea of
+mountains baring many a fierce peak-fang to the hollow heavens. The sky
+was a waxen grey, cold as a corpse-light. The snow was an immaculate
+shroud, unmarked by track of bird or beast. Death-sealed the land lay in
+its silent vastitude, in its despairful desolation.
+
+The small man was breaking trail. Down almost to his knees in the soft
+snow, he sank at every step; yet ever he dragged a foot painfully
+upward, and made another forward plunge. The snowshoe thong, jagged with
+ice, chafed him cruelly. The muscles of his legs ached as insistently as
+if clamped in a vice. He lurched forward with fatigue, so that he seemed
+to be ever stumbling, yet recovering himself.
+
+"Come on there, you darned little shrimp; get a move on you," growled
+the big man from within the frost-fringed hood of his parka.
+
+The little man started as if galvanised into sudden life. His breath
+steamed and almost hissed as it struck the icy air. At each raw intake
+of it his chest heaved. He beat his mittened hands on his breast to keep
+them from freezing. Under the hood of his parka great icicles had
+formed, hanging to the hairs of his beard, walrus-like, and his eyes,
+thickly wadded with frost, glared out with the furtive fear of a hunted
+beast.
+
+"Curse him, curse him," he whimpered; but once more he lifted those
+leaden snowshoes and staggered on.
+
+The big man lashed fiercely at the dogs, and as they screamed at his
+blows he laughed cruelly. They were straining forward in the harness,
+their bellies almost level with the ground, their muscles standing out
+like whalebone. Great, gaunt brutes they were, with ribs like
+barrel-staves, and hip-bones sharp as stakes. Their woolly coats were
+white with frost, their sly, slit-eyed faces ice-sheathed, their feet
+torn so that they left a bloody track on the snow at every step.
+
+"Mush on there, you curs, or I'll cut you in two," stormed the big man,
+and once again the heavy whip fell on the yelling pack. They were
+pulling for all they were worth, their heads down, their shoulders
+squared. Their breath came pantingly, their tongues gleamed redly, their
+white teeth shone. They were fighting, fighting for life, fighting to
+placate a cruel master in a world where all was cruelty and oppression.
+
+For there in the Winter Wild pity was not even a name. It was the
+struggle for life, desperate and never-ending. The Wild abhorred life,
+abhorred most of all these atoms of heat and hurry in the midst of her
+triumphant stillness. The Wild would crush those defiant pigmies that
+disputed the majesty of her invincible calm.
+
+A dog was hanging back in the harness. It whined; then as the husky
+following snapped at it savagely, it gave a lurch and fell. The big man
+shot forward with a sudden fury in his eyes. Swinging the heavy-thonged
+whip, again and again he brought it down on the writhing brute. Then he
+twisted the thong around his hand and belaboured its hollow ribs with
+the butt. It screamed for a while, but soon it ceased to scream; it only
+moaned a little. With glistening fangs and ears up-pricked the other
+dogs looked at their fallen comrade. They longed to leap on it, to rend
+its gaunt limbs apart, to tear its quivering flesh; but there was the
+big man with his murderous whip, and they cowered before him.
+
+The big man kicked the fallen dog repeatedly. The little man paused in
+his painful progress to look on apathetically.
+
+"You'll stave in its ribs," he remarked presently; "and then we'll never
+make timber by nightfall."
+
+The big man had failed in his efforts to rouse the dog. There in that
+lancinating cold, in an ecstasy of rage, despairfully he poised over it.
+
+"Who told you to put in your lip?" he snarled. "Who's running this
+show, you or I? I'll stave in its ribs if I choose, and I'll hitch you
+to the sled and make you pull your guts out, too."
+
+The little man said no more. Then, the dog still refusing to rise, the
+big man leapt over the harness and came down on the animal with both
+feet. There was a scream of pitiful agony, and the snap of breaking
+bones. But the big man slipped and fell. Down he came, and like a flash
+the whole pack piled onto him.
+
+For a moment there was a confused muddle of dogs and master. This was
+the time for which they had waited, these savage semi-wolves. This man
+had beaten them, had starved them, had been a devil to them, and now he
+was down and at their mercy. Ferociously they sprang on him, and their
+white fangs snapped like traps in his face. They fought to get at his
+throat. They tore at his parka. Oh, if they could only make their teeth
+meet in his warm flesh! But no; they were all tangled up in the harness,
+and the man was fighting like a giant. He had the leader by the throat
+and was using her as a shield against the others. His right hand swung
+the whip with flail-like blows. Foiled and confused the dogs fell to
+fighting among themselves, and triumphantly the man leapt to his feet.
+
+He was like a fiend now. Fiercely he raged among the snarling pack,
+kicking, clubbing, cursing, till one and all he had them beaten into
+cowering subjection.
+
+He was still panting from his struggle. His face was deathly pale, and
+his eyes were glittering. He strode up to the little man, who had
+watched the performance stolidly.
+
+"Why didn't you help me, you dirty little whelp?" he hissed. "You wanted
+to see them chew me up; you know you did. You'd like to have them rip me
+to ribbons. You wouldn't move a finger to save me. Oh, I know, I know.
+I've had enough of you this trip to last me a lifetime. You've bucked me
+right along. Now, blast your dirty little soul, I hate you, and for the
+rest of the way I'm going to make your life hell. See! Now I'll begin."
+
+The little man was afraid. He seemed to grow smaller, while over him
+towered the other, dark, fierce and malignant. The little man was
+desperate. Defensively he crouched, yet the next instant he was
+overthrown. Then, as he lay sprawling in the snow, the big man fell to
+lashing him with the whip. Time after time he struck, till the screams
+of his victim became one long, drawn-out wail of agony. Then he
+desisted. Jerking the other on his feet once more, he bade him go on
+breaking trail.
+
+Again they struggled on. The light was beginning to fail, and there was
+no thought in their minds but to reach that dark belt of timber before
+darkness came. There was no sound but the crunch of their snowshoes, the
+panting of the dogs, the rasping of the sleigh. When they paused the
+silence seemed to fall on them like a blanket. There was something awful
+in the quality of this deathly silence. It was as if something material,
+something tangible, hovered over them, closed in on them, choked them,
+throttled them. It was almost like a Presence.
+
+Weary and worn were men and dogs as they struggled onwards in the
+growing gloom, but because of the feeling in his heart the little man no
+longer was conscious of bodily pain. It was black murder that raged
+there.
+
+With straining sinews and bones that cracked, the dogs bent to a heavy
+pull, while at the least sign of shirking down swished the relentless
+whip. And the big man, as if proud of his strength, gazed insolently
+round on the Wild. He was at home in this land, this stark wolf-land, so
+callous, so cruel. Was he not cruel, too? Surely this land cowered
+before him. Its hardships could not daunt him, nor its terrors dismay.
+As he urged on his bloody-footed dogs, he exulted greatly. Of all Men of
+the High North was he not king?
+
+At last they reached the forest fringe, and after a few harsh directions
+he had the little man making camp. The little man worked with a strange
+willingness. All his taciturnity had gone. As he gathered the firewood
+and filled the Yukon stove, he hummed a merry air. He had the water
+boiling and soon there was the fragrance of tea in the little tent. He
+produced sourdough bread (which he fried in bacon fat), and some dried
+moose-meat.
+
+To men of the trail this was a treat. They ate ravenously, but they did
+not speak. Yet the little man was oddly cheerful. Time and again the big
+man looked at him suspiciously. Outside it was a steely night, with an
+icicle of a moon. The cold leapt on one savagely. To step from the tent
+was like plunging into icy water, yet within those canvas walls the men
+were warm and snug. The stove crackled its cheer. A grease-light
+sputtered, and by its rays the little man was mending his ice-stiffened
+moccasins. He hummed an Irish air, and he seemed to be tickled with some
+thought he had.
+
+"Stop that tune," growled the other. "If you don't know anything else,
+cut it out. I'm sick of it."
+
+The little man shut up meekly. Again there was silence, broken by a
+whining and a scratching outside. It was the five dogs crying for their
+supper, crying for the frozen fish they had earned so well. They
+wondered why it was not forthcoming. When they received it they would
+lie on it, to warm it with the heat of their bodies, and then gnaw off
+the thawed portions. They were very wise, these dogs. But to-night there
+was no fish, and they whined for it.
+
+"Dog feed all gone?"
+
+"Yep," said the small man.
+
+"Hell! I'll silence these brutes anyway."
+
+He went to the door and laid onto them so that they slunk away into the
+shadows. But they did not bury themselves in the snow and sleep. They
+continued to prowl round the tent, hunger-mad and desperate.
+
+"We've only got enough grub left for ourselves now," said the big man;
+"and none too much at that. I guess I'll put you on half-rations."
+
+He laughed as if it was the hugest joke. Then rolling himself in a
+robe, he lay down and slept.
+
+The little man did not sleep. He was still turning over the thought that
+had come to him. Outside in the atrocious cold the whining malamutes
+crept nearer and nearer. Savage were they, Indian raised and sired by a
+wolf. And now, in the agonies of hunger, they cried for fish, and there
+was none for them, only kicks and curses. Oh, it was a world of ghastly
+cruelty! They howled their woes to the weary moon.
+
+"Short rations, indeed," mumbled the little man. He crawled into his
+sleeping bag, but he did not close his eyes. He was watching.
+
+About dawn he rose. An evil dawn it was, sallow, sinister and askew.
+
+The little man selected the heavy-handled whip for the job. Carefully he
+felt its butt, then he struck. It was a shrewd blow and a neatly
+delivered, for the little man had been in the business before. It fell
+on the big man's head, and he crumpled up. Then the little man took some
+rawhide thongs and trussed up his victim. There lay the big man, bound
+and helpless, with a clotted blood-hole in his black hair.
+
+Then the little man gathered up the rest of the provisions. He looked
+around carefully, as if fearful of leaving anything behind. He made a
+pack of the food and lashed it on his back. Now he was ready to start.
+He knew that within fifty miles, travelling to the south, he would
+strike a settlement. He was safe.
+
+He turned to where lay the unconscious body of his partner. Again and
+again he kicked it; he cursed it; he spat on it. Then, after a final
+look of gloating hate, he went off and left the big man to his fate.
+
+At last, at long last, the Worm had turned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+The dogs! The dogs were closing in. Nearer and nearer they drew, headed
+by a fierce Mackenzie River bitch. They wondered why their master did
+not wake; they wondered why the little tent was so still; why no plume
+of smoke rose from the slim stovepipe. All was oddly quiet and lifeless.
+No curses greeted them; no whiplash cut into them; no strong arm jerked
+them over the harness. Perhaps it was a primordial instinct that drew
+them on, that made them strangely bold. Perhaps it was only the despair
+of their hunger, the ache of empty bellies. Closer and closer they crept
+to the silent tent.
+
+Locasto opened his eyes. Within a foot of his face were the fangs of a
+malamute. At his slight movement it drew back with a snarl, and
+retreated to the door. Locasto could see the other dogs crouching and
+eyeing him fixedly. What could be the matter? What had gotten into the
+brutes? Where was the Worm? Where were the provisions? Why was the tent
+flap open and the stove stone-cold? Then with a dawning comprehension
+that he had been deserted, Locasto uttered a curse and tried to rise.
+
+At first he thought he was stiff with cold, but a downward glance showed
+him his condition. He was helpless. He grew sick at the pit of his
+stomach, and glared at the dogs. They were drawing in on him. They
+seemed to bulk suddenly, to grow huge and menacing. Their gleaming teeth
+snapped in his face. He could fancy these teeth stripping the flesh from
+his body, gnawing at his bones with drooling jaws. Violently he
+shuddered. He must try to free himself, so that at least he could fight.
+
+Grimly the Worm had done his work, but he had hardly reckoned on the
+strength of this man. With a vast throe of fear Locasto tried to free
+himself. Tenser, tenser grew the thongs; they strained, they bit into
+his flesh, but they would not break. Yet as he relaxed it seemed to him
+they were less tight. Then he rested for another effort.
+
+Once again the gaunt, grey bitch was crawling up. He remembered how
+often he had starved it, clubbed it until it could barely stand. Now it
+was going to get even. It would snap at his throat, rip out his
+windpipe, bury its fangs in his bleeding flesh. He cursed it in the old
+way. With a spring it backed out again and stood with the others. He
+made another giant effort. Once again he felt the thongs strain and
+strain; then, when he ceased, he imagined they were still looser.
+
+The dogs seemed to have lost all fear. They stood in a circle within a
+few feet of him, regarding him intently. They smelled the blood on his
+head, and a slaver ran from their jaws. Again he cursed them, but this
+time they did not move. They seemed to realise he could not harm them.
+With their evilly-slanted eyes they watched his struggles. Strange,
+wise, uncanny brutes, they were biding their time, waiting to rush in on
+him, to rend him.
+
+Again he tried to get free. Now he fancied he could move his arm a
+little. He must hurry, for every instant the malamutes were growing
+bolder. Another strain and a wrench. Ha! he was able to squeeze his
+right arm from under the rawhide.
+
+He felt the foul breath of the dogs on his face, and quickly he struck
+at them. They jumped back, then, as if at a signal, they sprang in
+again. There was no time to lose. They were attacking him in earnest.
+Quickly he wrenched out his other arm. He was just in time, for the dogs
+were upon him.
+
+He struggled to his knees and shielded his head with his arms. Wildly he
+swung at the nearest dog. Full on the face he struck it, and it shot
+back as if hit by a bullet. But the others were on him. They had him
+down, snarling and ripping, a mad ferment of fury. Two of them were
+making for his face. As he lay on his back he gripped each by the
+throat. His hands were torn and bleeding, but he had them fast. In his
+grip of steel they struggled to free themselves in vain. They backed,
+they writhed, they twisted in a bow. With his huge hands he was choking
+them, choking them to death, using them as a shield against the other
+three. Then slowly he worked himself into a sitting position. He hurled
+one of the dogs to the tent door. He swung bludgeon blows at the others.
+They fled yelping and howling. He still held the Mackenzie River bitch.
+Getting his knee on her body, he bent her almost into a circle, bent
+her till her back broke with a snap.
+
+Then he rose and freed himself from the remaining thongs. He was torn
+and cut and bleeding, but he had triumphed.
+
+"Oh, the devil!" he growled, grinding his teeth. "He would have me
+chewed to rags by malamutes."
+
+He stared around.
+
+"He's taken everything, the scum! left me to starve. Ha! one thing he's
+forgotten--the matches. At least I can keep warm."
+
+He picked up the canister of matches and relit the stove.
+
+"I'll kill him for this," he muttered. "Night and day I'll follow him.
+I'll camp on his trail till I find him. Then--I'll torture him; I'll
+strip him and leave him naked in the snow."
+
+He slipped into his snowshoes, gave a last look around to see that no
+food had been left, and with a final growl of fury he started in
+pursuit.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ahead of him, ploughing their way through the virgin snow, he could see
+the dragging track of the long snowshoes. He examined it, and noted that
+it was sharp and crisp at the edges.
+
+"He's got a good five hours' start of me! Travelling fast, too, by the
+length of the track."
+
+He had a thought of capturing the dogs and hitching them up; but,
+thoroughly terrified, they had retreated into the woods. To overtake
+this man, to glut his lust for revenge, he must depend on his own
+strength and endurance.
+
+"Now, Jack Locasto," he told himself grimly, "you've got a fight on your
+hands, such a fight as you never had before. Get right down to it."
+
+So, with head bowed and shoulders sloping forward, he darted on the
+track of the Worm.
+
+"He's got to break trail, the viper! and that's where I score. I can
+make twice the time. Oh, just wait, you little devil! just wait!"
+
+He ground his teeth vindictively, and put an inch more onto his stride.
+He was descending a long, open valley that seemed from its trackless
+snows to have been immemorially life-shunned and accursed. Black,
+witch-like pines sentinelled its flanks, and accentuated its desolation.
+And over all there was the silence of the Wild, that double-strong
+solution of silence from which all other silences are distilled, and
+spread out. Yet, as he gazed around him in this everlasting solitude,
+there was no fear in his heart.
+
+"I can fight this accursed land and beat it out every time," he exulted.
+"It can't get any the better of me."
+
+It was cold, so cold that it was difficult to imagine it could ever be
+warm again. To expose flesh was to feel instantly the sharp sting that
+heralds frostbite. As he ran, the sharp intake of icy air made his lungs
+seem to contract. His eyes smarted and tingled. The lashes froze
+closely. Ice formed in his nostrils and his nose began to bleed. He
+pulled up a moment.
+
+"Curse this infernal country!"
+
+He had not eaten and the icy air begot a ravenous hunger. He dreamed of
+food, but chiefly of bacon, fat, greasy bacon. How glorious it would be
+just to eat of it, raw, tallow bacon! He had nothing to eat. He would
+have nothing till he had overtaken the Worm. On! On!
+
+He came to where the Worm had made a camp. There were the ashes of a
+fire.
+
+"Curse him; he's got some matches after all," he said with bitter
+chagrin. Eagerly he searched all around in the snow to see if he could
+not find even a crumb of food. There was nothing. He pushed on. Night
+fell and he was forced to make camp.
+
+Oh, he was hungry! The night was vastly resplendent, a spendthrift night
+scattering everywhere its largess of stars. The cold had a crystalline
+quality and the trees detonated strangely in the silence. He built a
+huge fire: that at least he could have, and through eighteen hours of
+darkness he crouched by it, afraid to sleep for fear of freezing.
+
+"If I only had a tin to boil water in," he muttered; "there's lots of
+reindeer moss, and I could stew some of my mucklucks. Ah! I'll try and
+roast a bit of them."
+
+He cut a strip from the Indian boots he was wearing, and held it over
+the fire. The hair singed away and the corners crisped and charred. He
+put it in his mouth. It was pleasantly warm, but even his strong teeth
+refused to meet in it. However, he tore it into smaller pieces, and
+bolted them.
+
+At last the dawn came, that evil, sneaking, corpse-like dawn, and
+Locasto flung himself once more on the trail. He was not feeling so fit
+now. Hunger and loss of blood had weakened him so that his stride
+insensibly shortened, and his step had lost its spring. However, he
+plodded on doggedly, an incarnation of vengeance and hate. Again he
+examined the snowshoe trail ever stretching in front, and noticed how
+crisped and hard was its edge. He was not making the time he had
+reckoned on. The Worm must be a long way ahead.
+
+Still he did not despair. The little man might rest a day, or oversleep,
+or strain a sinew, then-- Locasto pictured with gloating joy the
+terror of the Worm as he awoke to find himself overtaken. Oh, the snake!
+the vermin! On! On!
+
+Beyond a doubt he was growing weaker. Once or twice he stumbled, and the
+last time he lay a few moments before rising. He wanted to rest badly.
+The cold was keener than ever; it was merciless; it was excruciating. He
+no longer had the vitality to withstand it. It stabbed and stung him
+whenever he exposed bare flesh. He pulled the parka hood very close, so
+that only his eyes peered out. So he moved through the desolation of the
+Arctic Wild, a dark, muffled figure, a demon of vengeance, fierce and
+menacing.
+
+He stood on a vast, still plateau. The sky was like a great grotto of
+ice. The land lay in a wan apathy of suffering, dumb, hopeless, drear.
+Icy land and icy sky met in a trap, a trap that held him fast; and over
+all, vast, titanic, terrible, the Spirit of the Wild seemed to brood. It
+laughed at him, a laugh of derision, of mockery, of callous gloating
+triumph. Locasto shuddered. Then night came and he built another giant
+fire.
+
+Again he bolted down some roasted muckluck. Overhead the stars glittered
+vindictively. They were green and blue and red, and they had spiny rays
+like starfish on which they danced. This night he had to make tremendous
+efforts to keep from sleeping. Several times he drowsed forward, and
+almost fell into the fire. As he crouched there his beard was singeing
+and his face scorched, but his back seemed as if it was cased in ice.
+Often he would turn and warm it at the fire, but not for long. He hated
+to face the terror of the silence and the dark, the shadow where waited
+Death. Better the crackling cheer of the spruce flame.
+
+At dawn the sky was leaden and the cold less despotic. Stretching
+interminably ahead was that lonely snowshoe trail. Locasto was puzzled.
+
+"Where in creation is the little devil going to, anyway?" he said,
+knitting his brows. "I figured he'd make direct for Dawson, but he's
+either changed his mind or got a wrong steer. By Heavens, that's it--the
+little varmint's lost his way."
+
+Locasto had an Indian's unerring sense of location.
+
+"I guess I can't afford to follow him any more," he reflected. "I've
+gone too far already. I'm all petered out. I'll have to let him go in
+the meantime. It's save yourself, Jack Locasto, while there's yet time.
+Me for Dawson."
+
+He struck off almost at right angles to the trail he had been following,
+over a low range of hills. It was evil going, and as he broke through
+the snow-crust mile after wearing mile, he felt himself grow weaker and
+weaker. "Buck up, old man," he adjured himself fiercely. "You've got to
+fight, fight."
+
+There was a strange stillness in the air, not the natural stillness of
+the Wild, but an unhealthy one, as of a suspension of something, of a
+vacuum, of bated breath. It was curiously full of terror. More and more
+he felt like a trapped animal, caught in a vast cage. The sky to the
+north was glooming ominously. Every second the horizon grew blacker,
+more bodeful, and Locasto stared at it, with a sudden quake at his
+heart.
+
+"Blizzard, by thunder!" he gasped.
+
+Was that a breath of wind that stung his cheek? Was it a snowflake that
+drifted along with it? Denser and denser grew the gloom, and now there
+was a roaring as of a great wind. King Blizzard was come.
+
+"I guess I'm done for," he hissed through clenched teeth. "But I'll
+fight to the finish. I'll die game."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+It was on him now with a swoop and a roar. He was in the thick of a
+mud-grey darkness, a bitter, blank darkness full of whirling wind-eddies
+and vast flurries of snow. He could not see more than a few feet before
+him. The stinging flakes blinded him; the coal-black night engulfed him.
+In that seething turmoil of the elements he was as helpless as a child.
+
+"I guess you're on your last trail, Jack Locasto," he muttered grimly.
+
+Nevertheless he lowered his head and butted desperately into the heart
+of the storm. He was very faint from lack of food, but despair had given
+him a new strength, and he plunged through drift and flurry with the
+fury of a goaded bull.
+
+The night had fallen black as the pit. He was in an immensity of
+darkness, a darkness that packed close up to him, and hugged him, and
+enfolded him like a blanket. And in the black void winds were raging
+with an insane fury, whirling aloft mountains of snow and hurling them
+along plain and valley. The forests shrieked in fear; the creatures of
+the Wild cowered in their lairs, but the solitary man stumbled on and
+on. As if by magic barriers of snow piled up before him, and almost to
+his shoulders he floundered through them. The wind had a hatchet edge
+that pierced his clothes and hacked him viciously. He knew his only
+plan was to keep moving, to stumble, stagger on. It was a fight for
+life.
+
+He had forgotten his hunger. Those wild visions of gluttony had gone
+from him. He had forgotten his thirst for revenge, forgotten everything
+but his own dire peril.
+
+"Keep moving, keep moving for God's sake," he urged himself hoarsely.
+"You'll freeze if you let up a moment. Don't let up, don't!"
+
+But oh, how hard it was not to rest! Every muscle in his body seemed to
+beg and pray for rest, yet the spirit in him drove them to work anew. He
+was making a certain mad headway, travelling, always travelling. He
+doubted not he was doomed, but instinct made him fight on as long as an
+atom of strength remained.
+
+He floundered to his armpits in a snowdrift. He struggled out and
+staggered on once more. In the mad buffoonery of that cutting wind he
+scarce could stand upright. His parka was frozen stiff as a board. He
+could feel his hands grow numb in his mits. From his fingers the icy
+cold crept up and up. Long since he had lost all sensation in his feet.
+From the ankles down they were like wooden clogs. He had an idea they
+were frozen. He lifted them, and watched them sink and disappear in the
+clinging snow. He beat his numb hands against his breast. It was of no
+use--he could not get back the feeling in them. A craving to lie down in
+the snow assailed him.
+
+Life was so sweet. He had visions of cities, of banquets, of theatres,
+of glittering triumphs, of glorious excitements, of women he had loved,
+conquered and thrown aside. Never again would he see that world. He
+would die here, and they would find him rigid and brittle, frozen so
+hard they would have to thaw him out before they buried him. He fancied
+he saw himself frozen in a grotesque position. There would be
+ice-crystals in the very centre of his heart, that heart that had glowed
+so fiercely with the lust of life. Yes, life was sweet. A vast self-pity
+surged over him. Well, he had done his best; he could struggle no more.
+
+But struggle he did, another hour, two hours, three hours. Where was he
+going? Maybe round in a circle. He was like an automaton now. He did not
+think any more, he just kept moving. His feet clumped up and down. He
+lifted himself out of snowpits; he staggered a few steps, fell, crawled
+on all fours in the darkness, then in a lull of the furious wind rose
+once more to his feet. The night was abysmal; closer and closer it
+hugged him. The wind was charging him from all points, baffling him like
+a merry monster, beating him down. The snow whirled around him in a
+narrow eddy, and he tried to grope out of it and failed. Oh, he was
+tired, tired!
+
+He must give up. It was too bad. He was so strong, and capable of so
+much for good or bad. Alas! it had been all for bad. Oh, if he had but
+another chance he might make his life tell a different tale! Well, he
+wasn't going to whine or cower. He would die game.
+
+His feet were frozen; his arms were frozen. Here he would lie down
+and--quit. It would soon be over, and it was a pleasant death, they
+said. One more look he gave through the writhing horror of the darkness;
+one more look before he closed his eyes to the horror of the Greater
+Darkness....
+
+Ha! what was that? He fancied he saw a dim glow just ahead. It could not
+be. It was one of those cheating dreams that came to a dying man, an
+illusion, a mockery. He closed his eyes. Then he opened them again--the
+glow was still there.
+
+Surely it must be real! It was steady. As he fell forward it seemed to
+grow more bright. On hands and knees he crawled to it. Brighter and
+brighter it grew. It was but a few feet away. Oh, God! could it be?
+
+Then there was a lull in the storm, and with a final plunge Locasto fell
+forward, fell towards a lamp lighted in a window, fell against the
+closed door of a little cabin.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Worm suffered acutely from the intense cold. He cursed it in his
+prolific and exhaustive way. He cursed the leaden weight of his
+snowshoes, and the thongs that chafed his feet. He cursed the pack he
+carried on his back, which momently grew heavier. He cursed the country;
+then, after a general debauch of obscenity, he decided it was time to
+feed.
+
+He gathered some dry twigs and built a fire on the snow. He hurried, for
+the freezing process was going on in his carcase, and he was afraid. It
+was all ready. Now to light it--the matches.
+
+Where in hell were the matches? Surely he could not have left them at
+the camp. With feverish haste he overturned his pack. No, they were not
+there. Could he have dropped them on the trail? He had a wild idea of
+going back. Then he thought of Locasto lying in the tent. He could never
+face that. But he must have a fire. He was freezing to death--right now.
+Already his fingers were tingling and stiffening.
+
+Huh! maybe he had some matches in his pockets. No--yes, he had--one,
+two, three, four, five, that was all. Five slim sulphur matches, part of
+a block, and jammed in a corner of his waistcoat pocket. Eagerly he lit
+one. The twigs caught. The flame leapt up. Oh it was good! He had a
+fire, a fire.
+
+He made tea, and ate some bread and meat. Then he felt his strength and
+courage return. He had four matches left. Four matches meant four fires.
+That would mean four more days' travel. By that time he would have
+reached the Dawson country.
+
+That night he made a huge blaze, chopping down several trees and setting
+them alight. There, lying in his sleeping-bag, he rested well. In the
+early dawn he was afoot once more.
+
+Was there ever such an atrocious soul-freezing cold! He cursed it with
+every breath he drew. At noon he felt a vast temptation to make another
+fire, but he refrained. Then that night he had bad luck, for one of his
+precious matches proved little more than a sliver tipped with the shadow
+of pink. In spite of his efforts it was abortive, and he was compelled
+to use another. He was down to his last match.
+
+Well, he must travel extra hard. So next day in a panic of fear he
+covered a vast stretch of country. He must be getting near to one of the
+gold creeks. As he surmounted the crest of every ridge he expected to
+see the blue smoke of cabin fires, yet always was there the same empty
+desolation. Then night came and he prepared to camp.
+
+Once more he chopped down some trees and piled them in a heap. He was
+very hungry, very cold, very tired. What a glorious blaze he would soon
+have! How gallantly the flames would leap and soar! He collected some
+dry moss and twigs. Never had he felt the cold so bitter. It was growing
+dusk. Above him the sky had a corpse-like glimmer, and on the snow
+strange bale-fires glinted. It was a weird, sardonic light that waited,
+keeping tryst with darkness.
+
+He shuddered and his fingers trembled. Then ever so carefully he drew
+forth that most precious of things, the last match.
+
+He must hurry; his fingers were tingling, freezing, stiffening fast. He
+would lie down on the snow, and strike it quickly.... "O God!"
+
+From his numb fingers the slim little match had dropped. There it lay on
+the snow. Gingerly he picked it up, with a wild hope that it would be
+all right. He struck it, but it doubled up. Again he struck it: the head
+came off--he was lost.
+
+He fell forward on his face. His hands were numb, dead. He lay supported
+by his elbows, his eyes gazing blankly at the unlit fire. Five minutes
+passed; he did not rise. He seemed dazed, stupid, terror-stricken. Five
+more minutes passed. He did not move. He seemed to stiffen, to grow
+rigid, and the darkness gathered around him.
+
+A thought came to his mind that he would straighten out, so that when
+they found him he would be in good shape to fit in a coffin. He did not
+want them to break his legs and arms. Yes, he would straighten out. He
+tried--but he could not, so he let it go at that.
+
+Over him the Wild seemed to laugh, a laugh of scorn, of mockery, of
+exquisite malice.
+
+And there in fifteen minutes the cold slew him. When they found him he
+lay resting on his elbows and gazing with blank eyes of horror at his
+unlit fire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+"It's a beast of a night," said the Halfbreed.
+
+He and I were paying a visit to Jim in the cabin he had built on Ophir.
+Jim was busy making ready for his hydraulic work of the coming Spring,
+and once in a while we took a run up to see him. I was much worried
+about the old man. He was no longer the cheerful, optimistic Jim of the
+trail. He had taken to living alone. He had become grim and taciturn. He
+cared only for his work, and, while he read his Bible more than ever, it
+was with a growing fondness for the stern old prophets. There was no
+doubt the North was affecting him strangely.
+
+"Lord! don't it blow? Seems as if the wind had a spite against us,
+wanted to put us out of business. It minds me of the blizzards we have
+in the Northwest, only it seems ten times worse."
+
+The Halfbreed went on to tell us of snowstorms he had known, while
+huddled round the stove we listened to the monstrous uproar of the gale.
+
+"Why don't you chink your cabin better, Jim?" I asked; "the snow's
+sifting through in spots."
+
+He shoved more wood into the stove, till it glowed to a dull red,
+starred with little sparks that came and went.
+
+"Snow with that wind would sift through a concrete wall," he said. "It's
+part an' parcel of the awful land. I tell you there's a curse on this
+country. Long, long ago godless people have lived in it, lived an'
+sinned an' perished. An' for its wickedness in the past the Lord has put
+His everlasting curse on it."
+
+Sharply I looked at him. His eyes were staring. His face was drawn into
+a knot of despair. He sat down and fell into a mood of gloomy silence.
+
+How the storm was howling! The Half breed smoked his cigarette stolidly,
+while I listened and shuddered, mightily thankful that I was so safe and
+warm.
+
+"Say, I wonder if there's any one out in this bedlam of a night?"
+
+"If there is, God help him," said the Halfbreed. "He'll last about as
+long as a snowball in hell."
+
+"Yes, fancy wandering round out there, dazed and desperate; fancy the
+wind knocking you down and heaping the snow on you; fancy going on and
+on in the darkness till you freeze stiff. Ugh!"
+
+Again I shuddered. Then, as the other two sat in silence, my mind
+strayed to other things. Chiefly I thought of Berna, all alone in
+Dawson. I longed to be back with her again. I thought of Locasto. Where
+in his wild wanderings had he got to? I thought of Glengyle and Garry.
+How had he fared after Mother died? Why did he not marry? Once a week I
+got a letter from him, full of affection and always urging me to come
+home. In my letters I had never mentioned Berna. There was time enough
+for that.
+
+Lord! a terrific gust of wind shook the cabin. It howled and screamed
+insanely through the heaving night. Then there came a lull, a strange,
+deep lull, deathlike after the mighty blast. And in the sudden quiet it
+seemed to me I heard a hollow cry.
+
+"Hist! What was that?" whispered the Halfbreed.
+
+Jim, too, was listening intently.
+
+"Seems to me I heard a moan."
+
+"Sounded like the cry of an outcast soul. Maybe it's the spirit of some
+poor devil that's lost away out in the night. I hate to open the door
+for nothing. It will make the place like an ice-house."
+
+Once more we listened intently, holding our breath. There it was again,
+a low, faint moan.
+
+"It's some one outside," gasped the Halfbreed. Horror-stricken, we
+stared at each other, then he rushed to the door. A great gust of wind
+came in on us.
+
+"Hurry up, you fellows," he cried; "lend a hand. I think it's a man."
+
+Frantically we pulled it in, an unconscious form that struck a strange
+chill to our hearts. Anxiously we bent over it.
+
+"He's not dead," said the Halfbreed, "only badly frozen, hands and feet
+and face. Don't take him near the fire."
+
+He had been peering inside the parka hood and suddenly he turned to me.
+
+"Well, I'm darned--it's Locasto."
+
+Locasto! I shrank back and stood there staring blankly. Locasto! all
+the old hate resurged into my heart. Many a time had I wished him dead;
+and even dying, never could I have forgiven him. As I would have shrank
+from a reptile, I drew back.
+
+"No, no," I said hoarsely, "I won't touch him. Curse him! Curse him! He
+can die."
+
+"Come on there," said Jim fiercely. "You wouldn't let a man die, would
+you? There's the brand of a dog on you if you do. You'll be little
+better than a murderer. It don't matter what wrong he's done you, it's
+your duty as a man to help him. He's only a human soul, an' he's like to
+die anyway. Come on. Get these mits off his hands."
+
+Mechanically I obeyed him. I was dazed. It was as if I was impelled by a
+stronger will than my own. I began pulling off the mits. The man's hands
+were white as putty. I slit the sleeves and saw that the awful whiteness
+went clear up the arm. It was horrible.
+
+Jim and the Halfbreed had cut open his mucklucks and taken off his
+socks, and there stretched out were two naked limbs, clay-white almost
+to the knees. Never did I see anything so ghastly. Tearing off his
+clothing we laid him on the bed, and forced some brandy between his
+lips.
+
+At last heat was beginning to come back to the frozen frame. He moaned,
+and opened his eyes in a wild gaze. He did not know us. He was still
+fighting the blizzard. He raised himself up.
+
+"Keep a-going, keep a-going," he panted.
+
+"Keep that bucket a-going," said the Halfbreed. "Thank God, we've got
+plenty of ice-water. We've got to thaw him out."
+
+Then for this man began a night of agony, such as few have endured. We
+lifted him onto a chair and put one of those clay-cold feet into the
+water. At the contact he screamed, and I could see ice crystallise on
+the edge of the bucket. I had forgotten my hatred of the man. I only
+thought of those frozen hands and feet, and how to get life into them
+once more. Our struggle began.
+
+"The blood's beginning to circulate back," said the Halfbreed. "I guess
+that water feels scalding hot to him right now. We'll have to hold him
+down presently. Ugh--hold on, boys, for all you're worth."
+
+He had not warned us any too soon. In a terrible spasm of agony Locasto
+threw us off quickly. We grasped him again. Now we were struggling with
+him. He fought like a demon. He was cursing us, praying us to leave him
+alone, raving, shrieking. Grimly we held on, yet, all three, it was as
+much as we could do to keep him down.
+
+"One would think we were murdering him," said the Halfbreed. "Keep his
+foot in the bucket there. I wish we'd some kind of dope to give him.
+There's boiling lead running through his veins right now. Keep him down,
+boys; keep him down."
+
+It was hard, but keep him down we did; though his cries of anguish
+deafened us through that awful night, and our muscles knotted as we
+gripped. Hour after hour we held him, plunging now a hand, now a foot
+in the ice-water, and holding it there. How long he fought! How strong
+he was! But the time came when he could fight no more. He was like a
+child in our hands.
+
+There, at last it was done. We wrapped the tender flesh in pieces of
+blanket. We laid him moaning on the bed. Then, tired out with our long
+struggle, we threw ourselves down and slept like logs.
+
+Next morning he was still unconscious. He suffered intense pain, so that
+Jim or the Halfbreed had to be ever by him. I, for my part, refused to
+go near. Indeed, I watched with a growing hatred his slow recovery. I
+was sorry, sorry. I wished he had died.
+
+At last he opened his eyes, and feebly he asked where he was. After the
+Halfbreed had told him, he lay silent awhile.
+
+"I've had a close call," he groaned. Then he went on triumphantly: "I
+guess the Wild hasn't got the bulge on me yet. I can give it another
+round."
+
+He began to pick up rapidly, and there in that narrow cabin I sat within
+a few feet of him, and beheld him grow strong again. I suppose my face
+must have showed my bitter hate, for often I saw him watching me through
+half-closed eyes, as if he realised my feelings. Then a sneering smile
+would curve his lips, a smile of satanic mockery. Again and again I
+thought of Berna. Fear and loathing convulsed me, and at times a great
+rage burned in me so that I was like to kill him.
+
+"Seems to me everything's healing up but that hand," said the
+Halfbreed. "I guess it's too far gone. Gangrene's setting in. Say,
+Locasto, looks like you'll have to lose it."
+
+Locasto had been favouring me with a particularly sardonic look, but at
+these words the sneer was wiped out, and horror crowded into his eyes.
+
+"Lose my hand--don't tell me that! Kill me at once! I don't want to be
+maimed. Lose my hand! Oh, that's terrible! terrible!"
+
+He gazed at the discoloured flesh. Already the stench of him was making
+us sick, but this hand with its putrid tissues was disgusting to a
+degree.
+
+"Yes," said the Halfbreed, "there's the line of the gangrene, and it's
+spreading. Soon mortification will extend all up your arm, then you'll
+die of blood poison. Locasto, better let me take off that hand. I've
+done jobs like that before. I'm a handy man, I am. Come, let me take it
+off."
+
+"Heavens! you're a cold-blooded butcher. You're going to kill me,
+between you all. You're in a plot leagued against me, and that
+long-faced fool over there's at the bottom of it. Damn you, then, go on
+and do what you want."
+
+"You're not very grateful," said the Halfbreed. "All right, lie there
+and rot."
+
+At his words Locasto changed his tune. He became alarmed to the point of
+terror. He knew the hand was doomed. He lay staring at it, staring,
+staring. Then he sighed, and thrust its loathsomeness into our faces.
+
+"Come on," he growled. "Do something for me, you devils, or I'll do it
+myself."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The hour of the operation was at hand. The Halfbreed got his jack-knife
+ready. He had filed the edge till it was like a rough saw. He cut the
+skin of the wrist just above the gangrene line, and raised it up an inch
+or so. It was here Locasto showed wonderful nerve. He took a large bite
+of tobacco and chewed steadily, while his keen black eyes watched every
+move of the knife.
+
+"Hurry up and get the cursed thing off," he snarled.
+
+The Halfbreed nicked the flesh down to the bone, then with the ragged
+jack-knife he began to saw. I could not bear to look. It made me deathly
+sick. I heard the grit, grit of the jagged blade. I will remember the
+sound to my dying day. How long it seemed to take! No man could stand
+such torture. A groan burst from Locasto's lips. He fell back on the
+bed. His jaws no longer worked, and a thin stream of brown saliva
+trickled down his chin. He had fainted.
+
+Quickly the Halfbreed finished his work. The hand dropped on the floor.
+He pulled down the flaps of skin and sewed them together.
+
+"How's that for home-made surgery?" he chuckled. He was vastly proud of
+his achievement. He took the severed hand upon a shovel and, going to
+the door, he threw it far out into the darkness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+"WHY don't you go outside?" I asked of the Jam-wagon.
+
+I had rescued him from one of his periodical plunges into the cesspool
+of debauch, and he was peaked, pallid, penitent. Listlessly he stared at
+me a long moment, the dull, hollow-eyed stare of the recently
+regenerate.
+
+"Well," he said at last, "I think I stay for the same reason many
+another man stays--pride. I feel that the Yukon owes me one of two
+things, a stake or a grave--and she's going to pay."
+
+"Seems to me, the way you're shaping you're more liable to get the
+latter."
+
+"Yes--well, that'll be all right."
+
+"Look here," I remonstrated, "don't be a rotter. You're a man, a
+splendid one. You might do anything, be anything. For Heaven's sake stop
+slipping cogs, and get into the game."
+
+His thin, handsome face hardened bitterly.
+
+"I don't know. Sometimes I think I'm not fit to play the game; sometimes
+I wonder if it's all worth while; sometimes I'm half inclined to end
+it."
+
+"Oh, don't talk nonsense."
+
+"I'm not; I mean it, every word. I don't often speak of myself. It
+doesn't matter who I am, or what I've been. I've gone through a
+lot--more than most men. For years I've been a sort of a human
+derelict, drifting from port to port of the seven seas. I've sprawled in
+their mire; I've eaten of their filth; I've wallowed in their moist,
+barbaric slime. Time and time again I've gone to the mat, but somehow I
+would never take the count. Something's always saved me at the last."
+
+"Your guardian angel."
+
+"Maybe. Somehow I wouldn't be utterly downed. I'm a bit of a fighter,
+and every day's been a battle with me. Oh, you don't know, you can't
+believe how I suffer! Often I pray, and my prayer always is: 'O dear
+God, don't allow me to _think_. Lash me with Thy wrath; heap burdens on
+me, but don't let me _think_.' They say there's a hell hereafter. They
+lie: it's here, now."
+
+I was astonished at his vehemence. His face was wrenched with pain, and
+his eyes full of remorseful misery.
+
+"What about your friends?"
+
+"Oh, them--I died long ago, died in the early '80's. In a little French
+graveyard there's a tombstone that bears my name, my real name, the name
+of the 'me' that was. Heart, soul and body, I died. My sisters mourned
+me, my friends muttered, 'Poor devil.' A few women cried, and a
+girl--well, I mustn't speak of that. It's all over long ago; but I must
+eternally do something, fight, drink, work like the devil--anything but
+think. I mustn't _think_."
+
+"What about your guardian angel?"
+
+"Yes, sometimes I think he's going to give me another chance. This is
+no life for a man like me, slaving in the drift, burning myself up in
+the dissipation of the town. A great, glad fight with a good sweet woman
+to fight for--that would save me. Oh, to get away from it all, get a
+clean start!"
+
+"Well, I believe in you. I'm sure you'll be all right. Let me lend you
+the money."
+
+"Thank you, a thousand thanks; but I cannot take it. There it is
+again--my pride. Maybe I'm all wrong. Maybe I'm a lost soul, and my
+goal's the potter's field. No; thanks! In a day or two I'll be
+fighting-fit again. I wouldn't have bored you with this talk, but I'm
+weak, and my nerve's gone."
+
+"How much money have you got?" I asked.
+
+He pulled a poor piece of silver from his pocket.
+
+"Enough to do me till I join the pick-and-shovel gang."
+
+"What are those tickets in your hand?"
+
+He laughed carelessly.
+
+"Chances in the ice pools. Funny thing, I don't remember buying them.
+Must have been drunk."
+
+"Yes, and you seem to have had a 'hunch.' You've got the same time on
+all three: seven seconds, seven minutes past one, on the ninth--that's
+to-day. It's noon now. That old ice will have to hurry up if you're
+going to win. Fancy, if you did! You'd clean up over three thousand
+dollars. There would be your new start."
+
+"Yes, fancy," he echoed mockingly. "Over five thousand betting, and the
+guesses as close as peas in a pod."
+
+"Well, the ice may go out any moment. It's awful rotten."
+
+With a curious fascination, we gazed down at the mighty river. Around us
+was a glow of spring sunshine, above us the renaissance of blue skies.
+Rags of snow still glimmered on the hills, and the brown earth, as if
+ashamed of its nakedness, was bursting greenly forth. On the slope
+overlooking the Klondike, girls in white dresses were gathering the wild
+crocus. All was warmth, colour, awakening life.
+
+Surely the river ice could not hold much longer. It was patchy, netted
+with cracks, heaved up in ridges, mottled with slushy pools, corroded to
+the bottom. Decidedly it was rotten, rotten. Still it held stubbornly.
+The Klondike hammered it with mighty bergs, black and heavy as a house.
+Down the swift current they sped, crashing, grinding, roaring, to batter
+into the unbroken armour of the Yukon. And along its banks, watching
+even as we watched, were thousands of others. On every lip was the
+question--"The ice--when will it go out?" For to these exiles of the
+North, after eight months of isolation, the sight of open water would be
+like Heaven. It would mean boats, freedom, friendly faces, and a step
+nearer to that "outside" of their dreams.
+
+Towards the centre of the vast mass of ice that belted in the city was a
+post, and on this lonely post thousands of eyes were constantly turning.
+For an electric wire connected it with the town, so that when it moved
+down a certain distance a clock would register the exact moment. Thus,
+thousands gazing at that solitary post thought of the bets they had
+made, and wondered if this year they would be the lucky ones. It is a
+unique incident in Dawson life, this gambling on the ice. There are
+dozens of pools, large and small, and both men and women take part in
+the betting, with an eagerness and excitement that is almost childish.
+
+I sat on a bench on the N. C. trail overlooking the town, and watched
+the Jam-wagon crawl down the hill to his cabin. Poor fellow! How drawn
+and white was his face, and his long, clean frame--how gaunt and weary!
+I felt sorry for him. What would become of him? He was a splendid
+"misfit." If he only had another chance! Somehow I believed in him, and
+fervently I hoped he would have that good clean start again.
+
+Up in the cold remoteness of the North are many of his kind--the black
+sheep, the undesirables, the discards of the pack. Their lips are
+sealed; their eyes are cold as glaciers, and often they drink deep. Oh,
+they are a mighty company, the men you don't enquire about; but it is
+the code of the North to take them as you find them, so they go their
+way unregarded.
+
+How clear the air was! It was like looking through a crystal lens--every
+leaf seemed to stand out vividly. Sounds came up to me with marvellous
+distinctness. Summer was coming, and with it the assurance of a new
+peace. Down there I could see our home, and on its veranda,
+hammock-swung, the white figure of Berna. How precious she was to me!
+How anxiously I watched over her! A look, a word meant more to me than
+volumes. If she was happy I was full of joy; if she was sad the sunshine
+paled, the flowers drooped, there was no gladness in the day. Often as
+she slept I watched her, marvelling at the fine perfection of her face.
+Always was she an object of wonder to me--something to be adored, to
+demand all that was fine and high in me.
+
+Yet sometimes it was the very intensity of my love that made me fear; so
+that in the ecstasy of a moment I would catch my breath and wonder if it
+all could last. And always the memory of Locasto was a sinister shadow.
+He had gone "outside," terribly broken in health, gone cursing me
+hoarsely and vowing he would return. Would he?
+
+Who that knows the North can ever deny its lure? Wherever you be, it
+will call and call to you. In the sluggish South you will hear it, will
+long for the keen tingle of its silver days, the vaster glory of its
+star-strewn nights. In the city's heart it will come to you till you
+hunger for its big, clean spaces, its racing rivers, its purple tundras.
+In the homes of the rich its voice will seek you out, and you will ache
+for your lonely camp-fire, a sunset splendouring to golden death, the
+night where the silence clutches and the heavens vomit forth white fire.
+Yes, you will hear it, and hear it, till a madness comes over you, till
+you leave the crawling men of the sticky pavements to seek it out once
+more, the sapphire of its lustrous lakes, the white yearning of its
+peaks to the myriad stars. Then, as a child comes home, will you come
+home. And I knew that some day to the land wherein he had reigned a
+conqueror, Locasto, too, would return.
+
+As I looked down on the grey town, the wonder of its growth came over
+me. How changed from the muddle of tents and cabins, the boat-lined
+river, the swarming hordes of the Argonauts! Where was the niggerhead
+swamp, the mud, the unrest, the mad fever of '98? I looked for these
+things and saw in their stead fine residences, trim gardens, well-kept
+streets. I almost rubbed my eyes as I realised the magic of the
+transformation.
+
+And great as was the city's outward change, its change of spirit was
+still greater. The day of dance-hall domination was over. Vice walked
+very circumspectly. No longer was it possible on the street to speak to
+a lady of easy virtue without causing comment.
+
+The demireps of the deadline had been banished over the Klondike, where,
+in a colony reached by a crazy rope bridge, their red lights gleamed
+like semaphores of sin. The dance-halls were still running, but the
+picturesque impunity of the old muckluck days was gone forever. You
+looked in vain for the crude scenes where the wilder passions were
+unleashed, and human nature revealed itself in primal nakedness.
+Heroism, brutality, splendid achievement, unbridled license, the North
+seems to bring out all that is best and worst in a man. It breeds an
+exuberant vitality, a madness for action, whether it be for good or
+evil.
+
+In the town, too, life was becoming a thing of more sober hues. Sick of
+slipshod morality, men were sending for their wives and children. The
+old ideals of home and love and social purity were triumphing. With the
+advent of the good woman, the dance-hall girl was doomed. The city was
+finding itself. Society divided into sets. The more pretentious were
+called Ping-pongs, while a majority rejoiced in the name of Rough-necks.
+The post-office abuses were remedied, the grafters ousted from the
+government offices. Rapidly the gold-camp was becoming modernised.
+
+Yes, its spectacular days were over. No more would the "live one"
+disport himself in his wild and woolly glory. The delirium of '98 was
+fast becoming a memory. The leading actors in that fateful drama--where
+were they? Dead: some by their own hands; down and out many, drivelling
+sottishly of by-gone days; poor prospectors a few, dreaming of a new
+gold strike.
+
+And, as I think of it, it comes over me that the thing is vastly tragic.
+Where are they now, these Klondike Kings, these givers of champagne
+baths, these plungers of the gold-camp? How many of those that stood out
+in the limelight of '98 can tell the tale to-day? Ladue is dead, leaving
+little behind. Big Alec MacDonald, after lavishing a dozen fortunes on
+his friends, dies at last, almost friendless and alone. Nigger Jim and
+Stillwater Willie--in what back slough of vicissitude do they languish
+to-day? Dick Low lies in a drunkard's grave. Skookum Jim would fain
+qualify for one. Dawson Charlie, reeling home from a debauch, drowns in
+the river. In impecunious despair, Harry Waugh hangs himself. Charlie
+Anderson, after squandering a fortune on a thankless wife, works for a
+labourer's hire.
+
+So I might go on and on. Their stories would fill volumes. And as I sat
+on the quiet hillside, listening to the drowsy hum of the bees, the
+inner meaning of it all came home to me. Once again the great lone land
+was sifting out and choosing its own. Far-reaching was its vengeance,
+and it worked in divers ways. It fell on them, even as it had fallen on
+their brethren of the trail. In the guise of fortune it dealt their
+ruin. From the austere silence of its snows it was mocking them,
+beguiling them to their doom. Again it was the Land of the Strong.
+Before all it demanded strength, moral and physical strength. I was
+minded of the words of old Jim, "Where one wins ninety and nine will
+fail"; and time had proved him true. The great, grim land was weeding
+out the unfit, was rewarding those who could understand it, the faithful
+brotherhood of the high North.
+
+Full of such thoughts as these, I raised my eyes and looked down the
+river towards the Moosehide Bluffs. Hullo! There, just below the town,
+was a great sheet of water, and even as I watched I saw it spread and
+spread. People were shouting, running from their houses, speeding to the
+beach. I was conscious of a thrill of excitement. Ever widening was the
+water, and now it stretched from bank to bank. It crept forward to the
+solitary post. Now it was almost there. Suddenly the post started to
+move. The vast ice-field was sliding forward. Slowly, serenely it went,
+on, on.
+
+Then, all at once, the steam-whistles shrilled out, the bells pealed,
+and from the black mob of people that lined the banks there went up an
+exultant cheer. "The ice is going out--the ice is going out!"
+
+I looked at my watch. Could I believe my eyes? Seven seconds, seven
+minutes past one--his "hunch" was right; his guardian angel had
+intervened; the Jam-wagon had been given his chance to make a new start.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+The waters were wild with joy. From the mountain snows the sun had set
+them free. Down hill and dale they sparkled, trickling from boulders,
+dripping from mossy crannies, rioting in narrow runlets. Then, leaping
+and laughing in a mad ecstasy of freedom, they dashed into the dam.
+
+Here was something they did not understand, some contrivance of the
+tyrant Man to curb them, to harness them, to make them his slaves. The
+waters were angry. They gloomed fearsomely. As they swelled higher in
+the broad basin their wrath grew apace. They chafed against their prison
+walls, they licked and lapped at the stolid bank. Higher and higher they
+mounted, growing stronger with every leap. More and more bitterly they
+fretted at their durance. Behind them other waters were pressing, just
+as eager to escape as they. They lashed and writhed in savage spite. Not
+much longer could these patient walls withstand their anger. Something
+must happen.
+
+The "something" was a man. He raised the floodgate, and there at last
+was a way of escape. How joyously the eager waters rushed at it! They
+tumbled and tossed in their mad hurry to get out. They surged and swept
+and roared about the narrow opening.
+
+But what was this? They had come on a wooden box that streaked down the
+slope as straight as an arrow from the bow. It was some other scheme of
+the tyrant Man. Nevertheless, they jostled and jammed to get into it. On
+its brink they poised a moment, then down, down they dashed.
+
+Like a cataract they rushed, ever and ever growing faster. Ho! this was
+motion now, this was action, strength, power. As they shot down that
+steep hill they shrieked for very joy. Freedom, freedom at last! No more
+trickling feebly from snowbanks; no more boring devious channels in oozy
+clay, no more stagnating in sullen dams. They were alive, alive, swift,
+intense, terrific. They gloried in their might. They roared the raucous
+song of freedom, and faster and faster they charged. Like a stampede of
+maddened horses they thundered on. What power on earth could stop them?
+"We must be free! We must be free!" they cried.
+
+Suddenly they saw ahead the black hole of a great pipe, a hollow shard
+of steel. Prison-like it looked, again some contrivance of the tyrant
+Man. They would fain have overleapt it, but it was too late. Countless
+other waters were behind them, forcing them forward with irresistible
+power. And, faster and faster still, they crashed into the shard of
+steel.
+
+They were trapped, atrociously trapped, cabined, confined, rammed
+forward by a vast and remorseless pressure. Yet there was escape just
+ahead. It was a tiny point of light, an outlet. They must squeeze
+through it. They were crushed and pinioned in that prison of steel, and
+mightily they tried to burst it. No! there was only that orifice; they
+must pass through it. Then with that great force behind them, tortured,
+maddened, desperate, the waters crashed through the shard of steel, to
+serve the will of Man.
+
+The man stood by his water-gun and from its nozzle, the gleaming terror
+leapt. At first it was only a slim volley of light, compact and solid as
+a shaft of steel. To pierce it would have splintered to pieces the
+sharpest sword. It was a core of water, round, glistening and smooth,
+yet in its mighty power it was a monster of destruction.
+
+The man was directing it here and there on the face of the hill. It flew
+like an arrow from the bow, and wherever he aimed it the hillside seemed
+to reel and shudder at the shock. Great cataracts of gravel shot out,
+avalanches of clay toppled over; vast boulders were hurled into the air
+like heaps of fleecy wool.
+
+Yes, the waters were mad. They were like an angry bull that gored the
+hillside. It seemed to melt and dissolve before them. Nothing could
+withstand that assault. In a few minutes they would reduce the stoutest
+stronghold to a heap of pitiful ruins.
+
+There, where the waters shot forth in their fury, stood their conqueror.
+He was one man, yet he was doing the work of a hundred. As he battered
+at that bank of clay he exulted in his power. A little turn of the wrist
+and a huge mass of gravel crumbled into nothingness. He bored deep holes
+in the frozen muck, he hammered his way down to bed rock, he swept it
+clean as a floor. There, with the solid force of a battering-ram, he
+pounded at the heart of the hill.
+
+The roar deafened him. He heard the crash of falling rock, but he was so
+intent on his work he did not hear another man approach. Suddenly he
+looked up and saw.
+
+He gave a mighty start, then at once he was calm again. This was the
+meeting he had dreaded, longed for, fought against, desired. Primordial
+emotions surged within him, but outwardly he gave no sign. Almost
+savagely, and with a curious blaze in his eyes he redirected the little
+giant.
+
+He waved his hand to the other man.
+
+"Go away!" he shouted.
+
+Mosher refused to budge. The generous living of Dawson had made him
+pursy, almost porcine. His pig eyes glittered, and he took off his hat
+to wipe some beads of sweat from the monumental baldness of his
+forehead. He caressed his coal-black beard with a podgy hand on which a
+large diamond sparkled. His manner was arrogance personified. He seemed
+to say, "I'll make this man dance to my music."
+
+His rich, penetrating voice pierced through the roar of the "giant."
+
+"Here, turn off your water. I want to speak to you. Got a business
+proposition to make."
+
+Still Jim was dumb.
+
+Mosher came close to him and shouted into his ear. The two men were very
+calm.
+
+"Say, your wife's in town. Been there for the last year. Didn't you
+know it?"
+
+Jim shook his head. He was particularly interested in his work just
+then. There was a great saddle of clay, and he scooped it up magically.
+
+"Yes, she's in town--living respectable."
+
+Jim redirected his giant with a savage swish.
+
+"Say, I'm a sort of a philant'ropic guy," went on Mosher, "an' there's
+nothing I like better than doing the erring wife restitootion act. I
+think I could induce that little woman of yours to come back to you."
+
+Jim gave him a swift glance, but the man went on.
+
+"To tell the truth, she's a bit stuck on me. Not my fault, of course.
+Can't help it if a girl gets daffy on me. But say, I think I could get
+her switched on to you if you made it worth my while. It's a business
+proposition."
+
+He was sneering now, frankly villainous. Jim gave no sign.
+
+"What d'ye say? This is a likely bit of ground--give me a half-share in
+this ground, an' I'll guarantee to deliver that little piece of goods to
+you. There's an offer."
+
+Again that smug look of generosity beamed on the man's face. Once more
+Jim motioned him to go, but Mosher did not heed. He thought the gesture
+was a refusal. His face grew threatening. "All right, if you won't," he
+snarled, "look out! I know you love her still. Let me tell you, I own
+that woman, body and soul, and I'll make life hell for her. I'll
+torture you through her. Yes, I've got a cinch. You'd better change your
+mind."
+
+He had stepped back as if to go. Then, whether it was an accident or not
+no one will ever know--but the little giant swung round till it bore on
+him.
+
+It lifted him up in the air. It shot him forward like a stone from a
+catapult. It landed him on the bank fifty feet away with a sickening
+crash. Then, as he lay, it pounded and battered him out of all semblance
+of a man.
+
+The waters were having their revenge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+"There's something the matter with Jim," the Prodigal 'phoned to me from
+the Forks; "he's gone off and left the cabin on Ophir, taken to the
+hills. Some prospectors have just come in and say they met him heading
+for the White Snake Valley. Seemed kind of queer, they say. Wouldn't
+talk much. They thought he was in a fair way to go crazy."
+
+"He's never been right since the accident," I answered; "we'll have to
+go after him."
+
+"All right. Come up at once. I'll get McCrimmon. He's a good man in the
+woods. We'll be ready to start as soon as you arrive."
+
+So the following day found the three of us on the trail to Ophir. We
+travelled lightly, carrying very little food, for we thought to find
+game in the woods. On the evening of the following day we reached the
+cabin.
+
+Jim must have gone very suddenly. There were the remains of a meal on
+the table, and his Bible was gone from its place. There was nothing for
+it but to follow and find him.
+
+"By going to the headwaters of Ophir Creek," said the Halfbreed, "we can
+cross a divide into the valley of the White Snake, and there we'll
+corral him, I guess."
+
+So we left the trail and plunged into the virgin Wild. Oh, but it was
+hard travelling! Often we would keep straight up the creek-bed, plunging
+through pools that were knee-deep, and walking over shingly bars. Then,
+to avoid a big bend of the stream, we would strike off through the bush.
+Every yard seemed to have its obstacle. There were windfalls and tangled
+growths of bush that defied our uttermost efforts to penetrate them.
+There were viscid sloughs, from whose black depths bubbles arose
+wearily, with grey tree-roots like the legs of spiders clutching the
+slimy mud of their banks. There were oozy bottoms, rankly speared with
+rush-grass. There were leprous marshes spotted with unsightly
+niggerheads. Dripping with sweat, we fought our way under the hot sun.
+Thorny boughs tore at us detainingly. Fallen trees delighted to bar our
+way. Without let or cease we toiled, yet at the day's end our progress
+was but a meagre one.
+
+Our greatest bane was the mosquitoes. Night and day they never ceased to
+nag us. We wore veils and had gloves on our hands, so that under our
+armour we were able to grin defiance at them. But on the other side of
+that netting they buzzed in an angry grey cloud. To raise our veils and
+take a drink was to be assaulted ferociously. As we walked we could feel
+them resisting our progress, and it seemed as if we were forcing our way
+through solid banks of them. If we rested, they alighted in such myriads
+that soon we appeared literally sheathed in tiny atoms of insect life,
+vainly trying to pierce the mesh of our clothing. To bare a hand was to
+have it covered with blood in a moment, and the thought of being at
+their mercy was an exquisitely horrible one. Night and day their voices
+blended in a vast drone, so that we ate, drank and slept under our
+veils.
+
+In that rankly growing wilderness we saw no sign of life, not even a
+rabbit. It was all desolate and God-forsaken. By nightfall our packs
+seemed very heavy, our limbs very tired. Three days, four days, five
+days passed. The creek was attenuated and hesitating, so we left it and
+struck off over the mountains. Soon we climbed to where the timber
+growth was less obstructive. The hillside was steep, almost vertical in
+places, and was covered with a strange, deep growth of moss. Down in it
+we sank, in places to our knees, and beneath it we could feel the points
+of sharp boulders. As we climbed we plunged our hands deep into the cool
+cushion of the moss, and half dragged ourselves upward. It was like an
+Oriental rug covering the stony ribs of the hill, a rug of bizarre
+colouring, strangely patterned in crimson and amber, in emerald and
+ivory. Birch-trees of slim, silvery beauty arose in it, and aided us as
+we climbed.
+
+So we came at last, after a weary journey, to a bleak, boulder-studded
+plateau. It was above timber-line, and carpeted with moss of great depth
+and gaudy hue. Suddenly we saw two vast pillars of stone upstanding on
+the aching barren. I think they must have been two hundred feet high,
+and, like monstrous sentinels in their lonely isolation, they
+overlooked that vast tundra. They startled us. We wondered by what
+strange freak of nature they were stationed there.
+
+Then we dropped down into a vast, hush-filled valley, a valley that
+looked as if it had been undisturbed since the beginning of time. Like a
+spirit-haunted place it was, so strange and still. It was loneliness
+made visible. It was stillness written in wood and stone. I would have
+been afraid to enter it alone, and even as we sank in its death-haunted
+dusk I shuddered with a horror of the place.
+
+The Indians feared and shunned this valley. They said, of old, strange
+things had happened there; it had been full of noise and fire and steam;
+the earth had opened up, belching forth great dragons that destroyed the
+people. And indeed it was all like the vast crater of an extinct
+volcano, for hot springs bubbled forth and a grey ash cropped up through
+the shallow soil.
+
+There was no game in the valley. In its centre was a solitary lake,
+black and bottomless, and haunted by a giant white water-snake,
+sluggish, blind and very old. Stray prospectors swore they had seen it,
+just at dusk, and its sightless, staring eyes were too terrible ever to
+forget.
+
+And into this still, cobweb-hued hollow we dropped--dropped almost
+straight down over the flanks of those lean, lank mountains that fringed
+it so forlornly. Here, ringed all around by desolate heights, we were as
+remote from the world as if we were in some sallow solitude of the moon.
+Sometimes the valley was like a gaping mouth, and the lips of it were
+livid grey. Sometimes it was like a cup into which the sunset poured a
+golden wine and filled it quivering to the brim. Sometimes it was like a
+grey grave full of silence. And here in this place of shadows, where the
+lichen strangled the trees, and under-foot the moss hushed the tread,
+where we spoke in whispers, and mirth seemed a mockery, where every
+stick and stone seemed eloquent of disenchantment and despair, here in
+this valley of Dead Things we found Jim.
+
+He was sitting by a dying camp-fire, all huddled up, his arms embracing
+his knees, his eyes on the fading embers. As we drew near he did not
+move, did not show any surprise, did not even raise his head. His face
+was very pale and drawn into a pucker of pain. It was the queerest look
+I ever saw on a man's face. It made me creep.
+
+His eyes followed us furtively. Silently we squatted in a ring round his
+camp-fire. For a while we said no word, then at last the Prodigal spoke:
+
+"Jim, you're coming back with us, aren't you?"
+
+Jim looked at him.
+
+"Hush!" says he, "don't speak so loud. You'll waken all them dead
+fellows."
+
+"What d'ye mean?"
+
+"Them dead fellows. The woods is full of them, them that can't rest.
+They're all around, ghosts. At night, when I'm a-sittin' over the fire,
+they crawl out of the darkness, an' they get close to me, closer,
+closer, an' they whisper things. Then I get scared an' I shoo them
+away."
+
+"What do they whisper, Jim?"
+
+"Oh say! they tell me all kinds of things, them fellows in the woods.
+They tell me of the times they used to have here in the valley; an' how
+they was a great people, an' had women an' slaves; how they fought an'
+sang an' got drunk, an' how their kingdom was here, right here where
+it's all death an' desolation. An' how they conquered all the other
+folks around an' killed the men an' captured the women. Oh, it was long,
+long ago, long before the flood!"
+
+"Well, Jim, never mind them. Get your pack ready. We're going home right
+now."
+
+"Goin' home?--I've no home any more. I'm a fugitive an' a vagabond in
+the earth. The blood of my brother crieth unto me from the ground. From
+the face of the Lord shall I be hid an' every one that findeth me shall
+slay me. I have no home but the wilderness. Unto it I go with prayer an'
+fastin'. I have killed, I have killed!"
+
+"Nonsense, Jim; it was an accident."
+
+"Was it? Was it? God only knows; I don't. Only I know the thought of
+murder was black in my heart. It was there for ever an' ever so long.
+How I fought against it! Then, just at that moment, everything seemed to
+come to a head. I don't know that I meant what I did, but I thought it."
+
+"Come home, Jim, and forget it."
+
+"When the rivers start to run up them mountain peaks I'll forget it.
+No, they won't let me forget it, them ghosts. They whisper to me all the
+time. Hist! don't you hear them? They're whispering to me now. 'You're a
+murderer, Jim, a murderer,' they say. 'The brand of Cain is on you, Jim,
+the brand of Cain.' Then the little leaves of the trees take up the
+whisper, an' the waters murmur it, an' the very stones cry out ag'in me,
+an' I can't shut out the sound. I can't, I can't."
+
+"Hush, Jim!"
+
+"No, no, the devil's a-hoein' out a place in the embers for me. I can't
+turn no more to the Lord. He's cast me out, an' the light of His
+countenance is darkened to me. Never again; oh, never again!"
+
+"Oh come, Jim, for the sake of your old partners, come home."
+
+"Well, boys, I'll come. But it's no good. I'm down an' out."
+
+Wearily we gathered together his few belongings. He had been living on
+bread, and but little remained. Had we not reached him, he would have
+starved. He came like a child, but seemed a prey to acute melancholy.
+
+It was indeed a sad party that trailed down that sad, dead valley. The
+trees were hung with a dreary drapery of grey, and the ashen moss
+muffled our footfalls. I think it was the _deadest_ place I ever saw.
+The very air seemed dead and stale, as if it were eternally still,
+unstirred by any wind. Spiders and strange creeping things possessed the
+trees, and at every step, like white gauze, a mist of mosquitoes was
+thrown up. And the way seemed endless.
+
+A great weariness weighed upon our spirits. Our feet flagged and our
+shoulders were bowed. As we looked into each other's faces we saw there
+a strange lassitude, a chill, grey despair. Our voices sounded hollow
+and queer, and we seldom spoke. It was as if the place was a vampire
+that was sucking the life and health from our veins.
+
+"I'm afraid the old man's going to play out on us," whispered the
+Prodigal.
+
+Jim lagged forlornly behind, and it was very anxiously we watched him.
+He seemed to know that he was keeping us back. His efforts to keep up
+were pitiful. We feigned an equal weariness, not to distress him, and
+our progress was slow, slow.
+
+"Looks as if we'll have to go on half-rations," said the Halfbreed.
+"It's taking longer to get out of this valley than I figured on."
+
+And indeed it was like a vast prison, and those peaks that brindled in
+the sunset glow were like bars to hold us in. Every day the old man's
+step was growing slower, so that at last we were barely crawling along.
+We were ascending the western slope of the valley, climbing a few miles
+a day, and every step we rose from that sump-hole of the gods was like
+the lifting of a weight. We were tired, tired, and in the wan light that
+filtered through the leaden clouds our faces were white and strained.
+
+"I guess we'll have to go on quarter-rations from now," said the
+Halfbreed, a few days later. He ranged far and wide, looking for game,
+but never a sign did he see. Once, indeed, we heard a shot. Eagerly we
+waited his return, but all he had got was a great, grey owl, which we
+cooked and ate ravenously.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+At last, at last we had climbed over the divide, and left behind us
+forever the vampire valley. Oh, we were glad! But other troubles were
+coming. Soon the day came when the last of our grub ran out. I remember
+how solemnly we ate it. We were already more than three-parts starved,
+and that meal was but a mouthful.
+
+"Well," said the Halfbreed, "we can't be far from the Yukon now. It must
+be the valley beyond this one. Then, in a few days, we can make a raft
+and float down to Dawson."
+
+This heartened us, so once more we took up our packs and started. Jim
+did not move.
+
+"Come on, Jim."
+
+Still no movement.
+
+"What's the matter, Jim? Come on."
+
+He turned to us a face that was grey and deathlike.
+
+"Go on, boys. Don't mind me. My time's up. I'm an old man. I'm only
+keeping you back. Without me you've got a chance; with me you've got
+none. Leave me here with a gun. I can shoot an' rustle grub. You boys
+can come back for me. You'll find old Jim spry an' chipper, awaitin' you
+with a smile on his face. Now go, boys. You'll go, won't you?"
+
+"Go be darned!" said the Prodigal. "You know we'll never leave you,
+Jim. You know the code of the trail. What d'ye take us for--skunks? Come
+on, we'll carry you if you can't walk."
+
+He shook his head pitifully, but once more he crawled after us. We
+ourselves were making no great speed. Lack of food was beginning to tell
+on us. Our stomachs were painfully empty and dead.
+
+"How d'ye feel?" asked the Prodigal. His face had an arrestively hollow
+look, but that frozen smile was set on it.
+
+"All right," I said, "only terribly weak. My head aches at times, but
+I've got no pain."
+
+"Neither have I. This starving racket's a cinch. It's dead easy. What
+rot they talk about the gnawing pains of hunger, an' ravenous men
+chewing up their boot-tops. It's easy. There's no pain. I don't even
+feel hungry any more."
+
+None of us did. It was as if our stomachs, in despair at not receiving
+any food, had sunk into apathy. Yet there was no doubt we were terribly
+weak. We only made a few miles a day now, and even that was an effort.
+The distance seemed to be elastic, to stretch out under our feet. Every
+few yards we had to help Jim over a bad place. His body was emaciated
+and he was getting very feeble. A hollow fire burned in his eyes. The
+Halfbreed persisted that beyond those despotic mountains lay the Yukon
+Valley, and at night he would rouse us up:
+
+"Say, boys, I hear the 'toot' of a steamer. Just a few more days and
+we'll get there."
+
+Running through the valley, we found a little river. It was muddy in
+colour and appeared to contain no fish. We ranged along it eagerly,
+hoping to find a few minnows, but without success. It seemed to me, as I
+foraged here and there for food, it was not hunger that impelled me so
+much as the instinct of self-preservation. I knew that if I did not get
+something into my stomach I would surely die.
+
+Down the river we trailed forlornly. For a week we had eaten nothing.
+Jim had held on bravely, but now he gave up.
+
+"For God's sake, leave me, boys! Don't make me feel guilty of your
+death. Haven't I got enough on my soul already? For God's pity, lads,
+save yourselves! Leave me here to die."
+
+He pleaded brokenly. His legs seemed to have become paralysed. Every
+time we stopped he would pitch forward on his face, or while walking he
+would fall asleep and drop. The Prodigal and I supported him, but it was
+truly hard to support ourselves, and sometimes we collapsed, coming down
+all three together in a confused and helpless heap. The Prodigal still
+wore that set grin. His face was nigh fleshless, and, through the
+straggling beard, it sometimes minded me of a grinning skull. Always Jim
+moaned and pleaded:
+
+"Leave me, dear boys, leave me!"
+
+He was like a drunken man, and his every step was agony.
+
+We threw away our packs. We no longer had the strength to bear them. The
+last thing to go was the Halfbreed's rifle. Several times it dropped out
+of his hand. He picked it up in a dazed way. Again and again it
+dropped, but at last the time came when he no longer picked it up. He
+looked at it for a stupid while, then staggered on without it.
+
+At night we would rest long hours round the camp-fire. Often far into the
+day would we rest. Jim lay like a dead man, moaning continually, while
+we, staring into each other's ghastly faces, talked in jerks. It was an
+effort to hunt food. It was an effort to goad ourselves to continue the
+journey.
+
+"Sure the river empties into the Yukon, boys," said the Halfbreed.
+"'Tain't so far, either. If we can just make a few miles more we'll be
+all right."
+
+At night, in my sleep, I was a prey to the strangest hallucinations.
+People I had known came and talked to me. They were so real that, when I
+awoke, I could scarce believe I had been dreaming. Berna came to me
+often. She came quite close, with great eyes of pity that looked into
+mine. Her lips moved.
+
+"Be brave, my boy. Don't despair," she pleaded. Always in my dreams she
+pleaded like that, and I think that but for her I would have given up.
+
+The Halfbreed was the most resolute of the party. He never lost his
+head. At times we others raved a little, or laughed a little, or cried a
+little, but the Halfbreed remained cool and grim. Ceaselessly he foraged
+for food. Once he found a nest of grouse eggs, and, breaking them open,
+discovered they contained half-formed birds. We ate them just as they
+were, crunched them between our swollen gums. Snails, too, we ate
+sometimes, and grass roots and moss which we scraped from the trees.
+But our greatest luck was the decayed grouse eggs.
+
+Early one afternoon we were all resting by a camp-fire on which was
+boiling some moss, when suddenly the Halfbreed pointed. There, in a
+glade down by the river's edge, were a cow moose and calf. They were
+drinking. Stupidly we gazed. I saw the Halfbreed's hand go out as if to
+clutch the rifle. Alas! his fingers closed on the empty air. So near
+they were we could have struck them with a stone. Taking his sheath
+knife in his mouth, the Halfbreed started to crawl on his belly towards
+them. He had gone but a few yards when they winded him. One look they
+gave, and in a few moments they were miles away. That was the only time
+I saw the Halfbreed put out. He fell on his face and lay there for a
+long time.
+
+Often we came to sloughs that we could not cross, and we had to go round
+them. We tried to build rafts, but we were too weak to navigate them. We
+were afraid we would roll off into the deep black water and drown
+feebly. So we went round, which in one case meant ten miles. Once, over
+a slough a few yards wide, the Halfbreed built a bridge of willows, and
+we crawled on hands and knees to the other side.
+
+From a certain point our trip seems like a nightmare to me. I can only
+remember parts of it here and there. We reeled like drunken men. We
+sobbed sometimes, and sometimes we prayed. There was no word from Jim
+now, not even a whimper, as we half dragged, half carried him on. Our
+eyes were large with fever, our hands were like claws. Long sickly
+beards grew on our faces. Our clothes were rags, and vermin overran us.
+We had lost all track of time. Latterly we had been travelling about
+half a mile a day, and we must have been twenty days without proper
+food.
+
+The Halfbreed had crawled ahead a mile or so, and he came back to where
+we lay. In a voice hoarse almost to a whisper he told us a bigger river
+joined ours down there, and on the bar was an old Indian camp. Perhaps
+in that place some one might find us. It seemed on the route of travel.
+So we made a last despairing effort and reached it. Indians had visited
+it quite recently. We foraged around and found some putrid fish bones,
+with which we made soup.
+
+There was a grave set high on stilts, and within it a body covered with
+canvas. The Halfbreed wrenched the canvas from the body, and with it he
+made a boat eight feet in length by six in breadth. It was too rotten to
+hold him up, and he nearly drowned trying to float it, so he left it
+lying on the edge of the bar. I remember this was a terrible
+disappointment to us, and we wept bitterly. I think that about this time
+we were all half-crazy. We lay on that bar like men already dead, with
+no longer hope of deliverance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then Jim passed in his checks. In the night he called me.
+
+"Boy," he whispered, "you an' I'se been good pals, ain't we?"
+
+"Yes, old man."
+
+"Boy, I'm in agony. I'm suffering untold pain. Get the gun, for God's
+sake, an' put me out of my misery."
+
+"There's no gun, Jim; we left it back on the trail."
+
+"Then take your knife."
+
+"No, no."
+
+"Give me your knife."
+
+"Jim, you're crazy. Where's your faith in God?"
+
+"Gone, gone; I've no longer any right to look to Him. I've killed. I've
+taken life He gave. 'Vengeance is mine,' He said, an' I've taken it out
+of His hands. God's curse is on me now. Oh, let me die, let me die!"
+
+I sat by him all night. He moaned in agony, and his passing was hard. It
+was about three in the morning when he spoke again:
+
+"Say, boy, I'm going. I'm a useless old man. I've lived in sin, an' I've
+repented, an' I've backslid. The Lord don't want old Jim any more. Say,
+kid, see that little girl of mine down in Dawson gets what money's
+comin' to me. Tell her to keep straight, an' tell her I loved her. Tell
+her I never let up on lovin' her all these years. You'll remember that,
+boy, won't you?"
+
+"I'll remember, Jim."
+
+"Oh, it's all a hoodoo, this Northern gold," he moaned. "See what it's
+done for all of us. We came to loot the land an' it's a-takin' its
+revenge on us. It's accursed. It's got me at last, but maybe I can help
+you boys to beat it yet. Call the others."
+
+I called them.
+
+"Boys," said Jim, "I'm a-goin'. I've been a long time about it. I've
+been dying by inches, but I guess I'll finish the job pretty slick this
+time. Well, boys, I'm in possession of all my faculties. I want you to
+know that. I was crazy when I started off, but that's passed away. My
+mind's clear. Now, pardners, I've got you into this scrape. I'm
+responsible, an' it seems to me I'd die happier if you'd promise me one
+thing. Livin', I can't help you; dead, I can--_you know how_. Well, I
+want you to promise me you'll do it. It's a reasonable proposition.
+Don't hesitate. Don't let sentiment stop you. I wish it. It's my dying
+wish. You're starvin', an' I can help you, can give you strength. Will
+you promise, if it comes to the last pass, you'll do it?"
+
+We were afraid to look each other in the face.
+
+"Oh, promise, boys, promise!"
+
+"Promise him anyway," said the Halfbreed. "He'll die easier."
+
+So we nodded our heads as we bent over him, and he turned away his face,
+content.
+
+'Twas but a little after he called me again.
+
+"Boy, give me your hand. Say a prayer for me, won't you? Maybe it'll
+help some, a prayer for a poor old sinner that's backslid. I can never
+pray again."
+
+"Yes, try to pray, Jim, try. Come on; say it after me: 'Our Father--'"
+
+"'Our Father--'"
+
+"'Which art in Heaven--'"
+
+"'Which art in--'"
+
+His head fell forward. "Bless you, my boy. Father, forgive, forgive--"
+
+He sank back very quietly.
+
+He was dead.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next morning the Halfbreed caught a minnow. We divided it into three and
+ate it raw. Later on he found some water-lice under a stone. We tried to
+cook them, but they did not help us much. Then, as night fell once more,
+a thought came into our minds and stuck there. It was a hidden thought,
+and yet it grew and grew. As we sat round in a circle we looked into
+each other's faces, and there we read the same revolting thought. Yet
+did it not seem so revolting after all. It was as if the spirit of the
+dead man was urging us to this thing, so insistent did the thought
+become. It was our only hope of life. It meant strength again, strength
+and energy to make a raft and float us down the river. Oh, if only--but,
+no! We could not do it. Better, a hundred times better, die.
+
+Yet life was sweet, and for twenty-three days we had starved. Here was a
+chance to live, with the dead man whispering in our ears to do it. You
+who have never starved a day in your lives, would you blame us? Life is
+sweet to you, too. What would you have done? The dead man was urging
+us, and life was sweet.
+
+But we struggled, God knows we struggled. We did not give in without
+agony. In our hopeless, staring eyes there was the anguish of the great
+temptation. We looked in each other's death's-head faces. We clasped
+skeleton hands round our rickety knees, and swayed as we tried to sit
+upright. Vermin crawled over us in our weakness. We were half-crazy, and
+muttered in our beards.
+
+It was the Halfbreed who spoke, and his voice was just a whisper:
+
+"It's our only chance, boys, and we've promised him. God forgive me, but
+I've a wife and children, and I'm a-goin' to do it."
+
+He was too weak to rise, and with his knife in his mouth he crawled to
+the body.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was ready, but we had not eaten. We waited and waited, hoping against
+hope. Then, as we waited, God was merciful to us. He saved us from this
+thing.
+
+"Say, I guess I've got a pipe-dream, but I think I see two men coming
+downstream on a raft."
+
+"No, it's no dream," I said; "two men."
+
+"Shout to them; I can't," said the Prodigal.
+
+I tried to shout, but my voice came as a whisper. The Halfbreed, too,
+tried to shout. There was scarcely any sound to it. The men did not see
+us as we lay on that shingly bar. Faster and faster they came. In
+hopeless, helpless woe we watched them. We could do nothing. In a few
+moments they would be past. With eyes of terror we followed them, tried
+to make signals to them. O God, help us!
+
+Suddenly they caught sight of that crazy boat of ours made of canvas and
+willows. They poled the raft in close, then one of them saw those three
+strange things writhing impotently on the sand. They were skeletons,
+they were in rags, they were covered with vermin.--  * * *
+
+We were saved; thank God, we were saved!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+"Berna, we must get married."
+
+"Yes, dearest, whenever you wish."
+
+"Well, to-morrow."
+
+She smiled radiantly; then her face grew very serious.
+
+"What will I wear?" she asked plaintively.
+
+"Wear? Oh, anything. That white dress you've got on--I never saw you
+looking so sweet. You mind me of a picture I know of Saint Cecilia, the
+same delicacy of feature, the same pure colouring, the same grace of
+expression."
+
+"Foolish one!" she chided; but her voice was deliciously tender, and her
+eyes were love-lit. And indeed, as she stood by the window holding her
+embroidery to the failing light, you scarce could have imagined a girl
+more gracefully sweet. In a fine mood of idealising, my eyes rested on
+her.
+
+"Yes, fairy girl, that briar rose you are doing in the centre of your
+little canvas hoop is not more delicate in the tinting than are your
+cheeks; your hands that ply the needle so daintily are whiter than the
+May blossoms on its border; those coils of shining hair that crown your
+head would shame the silk you use for softness."
+
+"Don't," she sighed; "you spoil me."
+
+"Oh no, it's true, true. Sometimes I wish you were not so lovely. It
+makes me care so much for you that--it hurts. Sometimes I wish you were
+plain, then I would feel more sure of you. Sometimes I fear, fear some
+one will steal you away from me."
+
+"No, no," she cried; "no one ever will. There will never be any one but
+you."
+
+She came over to me, and knelt by my chair, putting her arms around me
+prettily. The pure, sweet face looked up into mine.
+
+"We have been happy here, haven't we, boy?" she asked.
+
+"Exquisitely happy. Yet I have always been afraid."
+
+"Of what, dearest?"
+
+"I don't know. Somehow it seems too good to last."
+
+"Well, to-morrow we'll be married."
+
+"Yes, we should have done that a year ago. It's all been a mistake. It
+didn't matter at first; nobody noticed, nobody cared. But now it's
+different. I can see it by the way the wives of the men look at us. I
+wonder do women resent the fact that virtue is only its own reward--they
+are so down on those who stray. Well, we don't care anyway. We'll marry
+and live our lives. But there are other reasons."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Yes. Garry talks of coming out. You wouldn't like him to find us living
+like this--without benefit of the clergy?"
+
+"Not for the world!" she cried, in alarm.
+
+"Well, he won't. Garry's old-fashioned and terribly conventional, but
+you'll take to him at once. There's a wonderful charm about him. He's so
+good-looking, yet so clever. I think he could win any woman if he tried,
+only he's too upright and sincere."
+
+"What will he think of me, I wonder, poor, ignorant me? I believe I'm
+afraid of him. I wish he'd stay away and leave us alone. Yet for your
+sake, dear, I do wish him to think well of me."
+
+"Don't fear, Berna. He'll be proud of you. But there's a second reason."
+
+"What?"
+
+I drew her up beside me on the great Morris-chair.
+
+"Oh, my beloved! perhaps we'll not always be alone as we are now.
+Perhaps, perhaps some day there will be others--little ones--for their
+sakes."
+
+She did not speak. I could feel her nestle closer to me. Her cheek was
+pressed to mine; her hair brushed my brow and her lips were like
+rose-petals on my own. So we sat there in the big, deep chair, in the
+glow of the open fire, silent, dreaming, and I saw on her lashes the
+glimmer of a glorious tear.
+
+"Why do you cry, beloved?"
+
+"Because I'm so happy. I never thought I could be so happy. I want it to
+last forever, I never want to leave this little cabin of ours. It will
+always be home to me. I love it; oh, how I love it!--every stick and
+stone of it! This dear little room--there will never be another like it
+in the world. Some day we may have a fine home, but I think I'll always
+leave some of my heart here in the little cabin."
+
+I kissed away her tears. Foolish tears! I blessed her for them. I held
+her closer to me. I was wondrous happy. No longer did the shadow of the
+past hang over us. Even as children forget, were we forgetting. Outside
+the winter's day was waning fast. The ruddy firelight danced around us.
+It flickered on the walls, the open piano, the glass front of the
+bookcase. It lit up the Indian corner, the lounge with its cushions and
+brass reading-lamp, the rack of music, the pictures, the lace curtains,
+the gleaming little bit of embroidery. Yes, to me, too, these things
+were wistfully precious, for it seemed as if part of her had passed into
+them. It would have been like tearing out my heart-strings to part with
+the smallest of them.
+
+"_Husband_, I'm so happy," she sighed.
+
+"Wife, dear, dear wife, I too."
+
+There was no need for words. Our lips met in passionate kisses, but the
+next moment we started apart. Some one was coming up the garden path--a
+tall figure of a man. I started as if I had seen a ghost. Could it
+be?--then I rushed to the door.
+
+There on the porch stood Garry.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+As he stood before me once again it seemed as if the years had rolled
+away, and we were boys together. A spate of tender memories came over
+me, memories of the days of dreams and high resolves, when life rang
+true, when men were brave and women pure. Once more I stood upon that
+rock-envisaged coast, while below me the yeasty sea charged with a roar
+the echoing caves. The gulls were glinting in the sunshine, and by their
+little brown-thatched homes the fishermen were spreading out their nets.
+High on the hillside in her garden I could see my mother idling among
+her flowers. It all came back to me, that sunny shore, the whitewashed
+cottages, the old grey house among the birches, the lift of
+sheep-starred pasture, and above it the glooming dark of the heather
+hills.
+
+And it was but three years ago. How life had changed! A thousand things
+had happened. Fortune had come to me, love had come to me. I had lived,
+I had learned. I was no longer a callow, uncouth lad. Yet, alas! I no
+longer looked futurewards with joy; the savour of life was no more
+sweet. It was another "me" I saw in my mirror that day, a "me" with a
+face sorely lined, with hair grey-flecked, with eyes sad and bitter.
+Little wonder Garry, as he stood there, stared at me so sorrowfully.
+
+"How you've changed, lad!" said he at last.
+
+"Have I, Garry? You're just about the same."
+
+But indeed he, too, had changed, had grown finer than my fondest
+thoughts of him. He seemed to bring into the room the clean, sweet
+breath of Glengyle, and I looked at him with admiration in my eyes.
+Coming out of the cold, his colour was dazzling as that of a woman; his
+deep blue eyes sparkled; his fair silky hair, from the pressure of his
+cap, was moulded to the shape of his fine head. Oh, he was handsome,
+this brother of mine, and I was proud, proud of him!
+
+"By all that's wonderful, what brought you here?"
+
+His teeth flashed in that clever, confident smile.
+
+"The stage. I just arrived a few minutes ago, and hurried here at once.
+Aren't you glad to see me?"
+
+"Glad? Yes, indeed! I can't tell you how glad. But it's a shock to me
+your coming so suddenly. You might have let me know."
+
+"Yes, it was a sudden resolve; I should have wired you. However, I
+thought I would give you a surprise. How are you, old man?"
+
+"Me--oh, I'm all right, thanks."
+
+"Why, what's the matter with you, lad? You look ten years older. You
+look older than your big brother now."
+
+"Yes, I daresay. It's the life, it's the land. A hard life and a hard
+land."
+
+"Why don't you go out?"
+
+"I don't know, I don't know. I keep on planning to go out and then
+something turns up, and I put it off a little longer. I suppose I ought
+to go, but I'm tied up with mining interests. My partner is away in the
+East, and I promised to stay in and look after things. I'm making money,
+you see."
+
+"Not sacrificing your youth and health for that, are you?"
+
+"I don't know, I don't know."
+
+There was a puzzled look in his frank face, and for my part I was
+strangely ill at ease. With all my joy at his coming, there was a sense
+of anxiety, even of fear. I had not wanted him to come just then, to see
+me there. I was not ready for him. I had planned otherwise.
+
+He was fixing me with a clear, penetrating look. For a moment his eyes
+seemed to bore into me, then like a flash the charm came back into his
+face. He laughed that ringing laugh of his.
+
+"Well, I was tired of roaming round the old place. Things are in good
+order now. I've saved a little money and I thought I could afford to
+travel a little, so I came up to see my wandering brother, and his
+wonderful North."
+
+His gaze roved round the room. Suddenly it fell on the piece of
+embroidery. He started slightly and I saw his eyes narrow, his mouth
+set. His glance shifted to the piano with its litter of music. He looked
+at me again, in an odd, bewildered way. He went on speaking, but there
+was a queer constraint in his manner.
+
+"I'm going to stay here for a month, and then I want you to come back
+with me. Come back home and get some of the old colour into your cheeks.
+The country doesn't agree with you, but we'll have you all right pretty
+soon. We'll have you flogging the trout pools and tramping over the
+heather with a gun. You remember how--whir-r-r--the black-cock used to
+rise up right at one's very feet. They've been very plentiful the last
+two years. Oh, we'll have the good old times over again! You'll see,
+we'll soon put you right."
+
+"It's good of you, Garry, to think so much of me; but I'm afraid, I'm
+afraid I can't come just yet. I've got so much to do. I've got thirty
+men working for me. I've just got to stay."
+
+He sighed.
+
+"Well, if you stay I'll stay, too. I don't like the way you're looking.
+You're working too hard. Perhaps I can help you."
+
+"All right; I'm afraid you'll find it rather awful, though. No one lives
+up here in winter if they possibly can avoid it. But for a time it will
+interest you."
+
+"I think it will." And again his eyes stared fixedly at that piece of
+embroidery on its little hoop.
+
+"I'm terribly, glad to see you anyway, Garry. There's no use talking,
+words can't express things like that between us two. You know what I
+mean. I'm glad to see you, and I'll do my best to make your visit a
+happy one."
+
+Between the curtains that hung over the bedroom door I could see Berna
+standing motionless. I wondered if he could see her too. His eyes
+followed mine. They rested on the curtains and the strong, stern look
+came into his face. Yet again he banished it with a sunny smile.
+
+"Mother's one regret was that you were not with her when she died. Do
+you know, old man, I think she was always fonder of you than of me? You
+were the sentimental one of the family, and Mother was always a gentle
+dreamer. I took more after Dad; dry and practical, you know. Well,
+Mother used to worry a good deal about you. She missed you dreadfully,
+and before she died she made me promise I'd always stand by you, and
+look after you if anything happened."
+
+"There's not much need of that, Garry. But thanks all the same, old man.
+I've seen a lot in the past few years. I know something of the world
+now. I've changed. I'm sort of disillusioned. I seem to have lost my
+zest for things--but I know how to handle men, how to fight and how to
+win."
+
+"It's not that, lad. You know that to win is often to lose. You were
+never made for the fight, my brother. It's all been a mistake. You're
+too sensitive, too high-strung for a fighting-man. You have too much
+sentiment in you. Your spirit urged you to fields of conquest and
+romance, yet by nature you were designed for the gentler life. If you
+could have curbed your impulse and only dreamed your adventures, you
+would have been the happier. Imagination's been a curse to you, boy.
+You've tortured yourself all these years, and now you're paying the
+penalty."
+
+"What penalty?"
+
+"You've lost your splendid capacity for happiness; your health's
+undermined; your faith in mankind is destroyed. Is it worth while?
+You've plunged into the fight and you've won. What does your victory
+mean? Can it compare with what you've lost? Here, I haven't a third of
+what you have, and yet I'm magnificently happy. I don't envy you. I am
+going to enjoy every moment of my life. Oh, my brother, you've been
+making a sad mistake, but it's not too late! You're young, young. It's
+not too late."
+
+Then I saw that his words were true. I saw that I had never been meant
+for the fierce battle of existence. Like those high-strung horses that
+were the first to break their hearts on the trail, I was unsuited for it
+all. Far better would I have been living the sweet, simple life of my
+forefathers. My spirit had upheld me, but now I knew there was a poison
+in my veins, that I was a sick man, that I had played the game and
+won--at too great a cost. I was like a sprinter that breasts the tape,
+only to be carried fainting from the field. Alas! I had gained success
+only to find it was another name for failure.
+
+"Now," said Garry, "you must come home. Back there on the countryside we
+can find you a sweet girl to marry. You will love her, have children and
+forget all this. Come."
+
+I rose. I could no longer put it off.
+
+"Excuse me one moment," I said. I parted the curtains and entered the
+bedroom.
+
+She was standing there, white to the lips and trembling. She looked at
+me piteously.
+
+"I'm afraid," she faltered.
+
+"Be brave, little girl," I whispered, leading her forward. Then I threw
+aside the curtain.
+
+"Garry," I said, "this is--this is Berna."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+Garry, Berna--there they stood, face to face at last. Long ago I had
+visioned this meeting, planned for, yet dreaded it, and now with utter
+suddenness it had come.
+
+The girl had recovered her calm, and I must say she bore herself well.
+In her clinging dress of simple white her figure was as slimly graceful
+as that of a wood-nymph, her head poised as sweetly as a lily on its
+stem. The fair hair rippled away in graceful lines from the fine brow,
+and as she gazed at my brother there was a proud, high look in her eyes.
+
+And Garry--his smile had vanished. His face was cold and stern. There
+was a stormy antagonism in his bearing. No doubt he saw in her a
+creature who was preying on me, an influence for evil, an overwhelming
+indictment against me of sin and guilt. All this I read in his eyes;
+then Berna advanced to him with outstretched hand.
+
+"How do you do? I've heard so much about you I feel as if I'd known you
+long ago."
+
+She was so winning, I could see he was quite taken aback. He took the
+little white hand and looked down from his splendid height to the sweet
+eyes that gazed into his. He bowed with icy politeness.
+
+"I feel flattered, I assure you, that my brother should have mentioned
+me to you."
+
+Here he shot a dark look at me.
+
+"Sit down again, Garry," I said. "Berna and I want to talk to you."
+
+He complied, but with an ill grace. We all three sat down and a grave
+constraint was upon us. Berna broke the silence.
+
+"What sort of a trip have you had?"
+
+He looked at her keenly. He saw a simple girl, shy and sweet, gazing at
+him with a flattering interest.
+
+"Oh, not so bad. Travelling sixty miles a day on a jolting stage gets
+monotonous, though. The road-houses were pretty decent as a rule, but
+some were vile. However, it's all new and interesting to me."
+
+"You will stay with us for a time, won't you?"
+
+He favoured me with another grim look.
+
+"Well, that all depends--I haven't quite decided yet. I want to take
+Athol here home with me."
+
+"Home----" There was a pathetic catch in her voice. Her eyes went round
+the little room that meant "home" to her.
+
+"Yes, that will be nice," she faltered. Then, with a brave effort, she
+broke into a lively conversation about the North. As she talked an
+inspiration seemed to come to her. A light beaconed in her eyes. Her
+face, fine as a cameo, became eager, rapt. She was telling him of the
+magical summers, of the midnight sunsets, of the glorious largess of the
+flowers, of the things that meant so much to her. She was wonderfully
+animated. As I watched her I thought what a perfect little lady she was;
+and I felt proud of her.
+
+He was listening carefully, with evident interest. Gradually his look of
+stern antagonism had given way to one of attention. Yet I could see he
+was not listening so much to her as he was studying her. His intent gaze
+never moved from her face.
+
+Then I talked a while. The darkness had descended upon us, but the
+embers in the open fireplace lighted the room with a rosy glow. I could
+not see his eyes now, but I knew he was still watching us keenly. He
+merely answered "yes" and "no" to our questions, and his voice was very
+grave. Then, after a little, he rose to go.
+
+"I'll return to the hotel with you," I said.
+
+Berna gave us a pathetically anxious little look. There was a red spot
+on each cheek and her eyes were bright. I could see she wanted to cry.
+
+"I'll be back in half an hour, dear," I said, while Garry gravely shook
+hands with her.
+
+We did not speak on the way to his room. When we reached it he switched
+on the light and turned to me.
+
+"Brother, who's this girl?"
+
+"She's--she's my housekeeper. That's all I can say at present, Garry."
+
+"Married?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Good God!"
+
+Stormily he paced the floor, while I watched him with a great calm. At
+last he spoke.
+
+"Tell me about her."
+
+"Sit down, Garry; light a cigar. We may as well talk this thing over
+quietly."
+
+"All right. Who is she?"
+
+"Berna," I said, lighting my cigar, "is a Jewess. She was born of an
+unwed mother, and reared in the midst of misery and corruption."
+
+He stared at me. His mouth hardened; his brow contracted.
+
+"But," I went on, "I want to say this. You remember, Garry, Mother used
+to tell us of our sister who died when she was a baby. I often used to
+dream of my dead sister, and in my old, imaginative days I used to think
+she had never died at all, but she had grown up and was with us. How we
+would have loved her, would we not, Garry? Well, I tell you this--if our
+sister had grown up she could have been no sweeter, purer, gentler than
+this girl of mine, this Berna."
+
+He smiled ironically.
+
+"Then," he said, "if she is so wonderful, why, in the name of Heaven,
+haven't you married her?"
+
+His manner towards her in the early part of the interview had hurt me,
+had roused in me a certain perversity. I determined to stand by my guns.
+
+[Illustration: "Garry," I said, "this is--this is Berna"]
+
+"Marriage," said I, "isn't everything; often isn't anything. Love is,
+and always will be, the great reality. It existed long before marriage
+was ever thought of. Marriage is a good thing. It protects the wife and
+the children. As a rule, it enforces constancy. But there's a higher
+ideal of human companionship that is based on love alone, love so
+perfect, so absolute that legal bondage insults it; love that is its own
+justification. Such a love is ours."
+
+The ironical look deepened to a sneer.
+
+"And look you here, Garry," I went on; "I am living in Dawson in what
+you would call 'shame.' Well, let me tell you, there's not ninety-nine
+in a hundred legally married couples that have formed such a sweet,
+love-sanctified union as we have. That girl is purest gold, a pearl of
+untold price. There has never been a jar in the harmony of our lives. We
+love each other absolutely. We trust and believe in each other. We would
+make any sacrifice for each other. And, I say it again, our marriage is
+tenfold holier than ninety-nine out of a hundred of those performed with
+all the pomp of surplice and sacristy."
+
+"Oh, man! man!" he said crushingly, "what's got into you? What nonsense,
+what clap-trap is this? I tell you that the old way, the way that has
+stood for generations, is the best, and it's a sorry day I find a
+brother of mine talking such nonsense. I'm almost glad Mother's dead. It
+would surely have broken her heart to know that her son was living in
+sin and shame, living with a----"
+
+"Easy now, Garry," I cautioned him. We faced each other with the table
+between us.
+
+"I'm going to have my say out. I've come all this way to say it, and
+you've got to hear me. You're my brother. God knows I love you. I
+promised I'd look after you, and now I'm going to save you if I can."
+
+"Garry," I broke in, "I'm younger than you, and I respect you; but in
+the last few years I've grown to see things different from the way we
+were taught; broader, clearer, saner, somehow. We can't always follow in
+the narrow path of our forefathers. We must think and act for ourselves
+in these days. I see no sin and shame in what I'm doing. We love each
+other--that is our vindication. It's a pure, white light that dims all
+else. If you had seen and striven and suffered as I have done, you might
+think as I do. But you've got your smug old-fashioned notions. You gaze
+at the trees so hard you can't see the forest. Yours is an ideal, too;
+but mine is a purer, more exalted one."
+
+"Balderdash!" he cried. "Oh, you anger me! Look here, Athol, I came all
+this way to see you about this matter. It's a long way to come, but I
+knew my brother was needing me and I'd have gone round the world for
+you. You never told me anything of this girl in your letters. You were
+ashamed."
+
+"I knew I could never make you understand."
+
+"You might have tried. I'm not so dense in the understanding. No, you
+would not tell me, and I've had letters, warning letters. It was left to
+other people to tell me how you drank and gambled and squandered your
+money; how you were like to a madman. They told me you had settled down
+to live with one of the creatures, a woman who had made her living in
+the dance-halls, and every one knows no woman ever did that and remained
+straight. They warned me of the character of this girl, of your
+infatuation, of your callousness to public opinion. They told me how
+barefaced, how shameless you were. They begged me to try and save you. I
+would not believe it, but now I've come to see for myself, and it's all
+true, it's all true."
+
+He bowed his head in emotion.
+
+"Oh, she's good!" I cried. "If you knew her you would think so, too.
+You, too, would love her."
+
+"Heaven forbid! Boy, I must save you. I must, for the honour of the old
+name that's never been tarnished. I must make you come home with me."
+
+He put both hands on my shoulders, looking commandingly into my face.
+
+"No, no," I said, "I'll never leave her."
+
+"It will be all right. We can pay her. It can be arranged. Think of the
+honour of the old name, lad."
+
+I shook him off. "Pay!"--I laughed ironically. "Pay" in connection with
+the name of Berna--again I laughed.
+
+"She's good," I said once again. "Wait a little till you know her. Don't
+judge her yet. Wait a little."
+
+He saw it was of no use to waste further words on me. He sighed.
+
+"Well, well," he said, "have it your own way. I think she's ruining you.
+She's dragging you down, sapping your moral principles, lowering your
+standard of pure living. She must be bad, bad, or she wouldn't live with
+you like that. But have it your own way, boy; I'll wait and see."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+In the crystalline days that followed I did much to bring about a
+friendship between Garry and Berna. At first I had difficulty in
+dragging him to the house, but in a little while he came quite
+willingly. The girl, too, aided me greatly. In her sweet, shy way she
+did her best to win his regard, so that as the winter advanced a great
+change came over him. He threw off that stern manner of his as an actor
+throws off a part, and once again he was the dear old Garry I knew and
+loved.
+
+His sunny charm returned, and with it his brilliant smile, his warm,
+endearing frankness. He was now twenty-eight, and if there was a
+handsomer man in the Northland I had yet to see him. I often envied him
+for his fine figure and his clean, vivid colour. It was a wonderfully
+expressive face that looked at you, firm and manly, and, above all,
+clever. You found a pleasure in the resonant sweetness of his voice. You
+were drawn irresistibly to the man, even as you would have been drawn to
+a beautiful woman. He was winning, lovable, yet back of all his charm
+there was that great quality of strength, of austere purpose.
+
+He made a hit with every one, and I verily believe that half the women
+in the town were in love with him. However, he was quite unconscious of
+it, and he stalked through the streets with the gait of a young god. I
+knew there were some who for a smile would have followed him to the ends
+of the earth, but Garry was always a man's man. Never do I remember the
+time when he took an interest in a woman. I often thought, if women
+could have the man of their choice, a few handsome ones like Garry would
+monopolise them, while we common mortals would go wifeless. Sometimes it
+has seemed to me that love is but a second-hand article, and that our
+matings are at best only makeshifts.
+
+I must say I tried very hard to reconcile those two. I threw them
+together on every opportunity, for I wanted him to understand and to
+love her. I felt he had but to know her to appreciate her at her true
+value, and, although he spoke no word to me, I was soon conscious of a
+vast change in him. Short of brotherly regard, he was everything that
+could be desired to her--cordial, friendly, charming. Once I asked Berna
+what she thought of him.
+
+"I think he's splendid," she said quietly. "He's the handsomest man I've
+ever seen, and he's as nice as he's good-looking. In many ways you
+remind me of him--and yet there's a difference."
+
+"I remind you of him--no, girl. I'm not worthy to be his valet. He's as
+much above me as I am above--say a siwash. He has all the virtues; I,
+all the faults. Sometimes I look at him and I see in him my ideal self.
+He is all strength, all nobility, while I am but a commonplace mortal,
+full of human weaknesses. He is the self I should have been if the worst
+had been the best."
+
+"Hush! you are my sweetheart," she assured me with a caress, "and the
+dearest in the world."
+
+"By the way, Berna," I said, "you remember something we talked about
+before he came? Don't you think that now----?"
+
+"Now----?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"All right." She flashed a glad, tender look at me and left the room.
+That night she was strangely elated.
+
+Every evening Garry would drop in and talk to us. Berna would look at
+him as he talked and her eyes would brighten and her cheeks flush. On
+both of us he had a strangely buoyant effect. How happy we could be,
+just we three. It was splendid having near me the two I loved best on
+earth.
+
+That was a memorable winter, mild and bright and buoyant. At last Spring
+came with gracious days of sunshine. The sleighing was glorious, but I
+was busy, very busy, so that I was glad to send Garry and Berna off
+together in a smart cutter, and see them come home with their cheeks
+like roses, their eyes sparkling and laughter in their voices. I never
+saw Berna looking so well and happy.
+
+I was head over ears in work. In a mail just arrived I had a letter from
+the Prodigal, and a certain paragraph in it set me pondering. Here it
+was:
+
+     "You must look out for Locasto. He was in New York a week ago. He's
+     down and out. Blood-poisoning set in in his foot after he got
+     outside, and eventually he had to have it taken off. He's got a
+     false mit for the one Mac sawed off. But you should see him. He's
+     all shot to pieces with the 'hooch.' It's a fright the pace he's
+     gone. I had an interview with him, and he raved and blasphemed
+     horribly. Seemed to have a terrible pick at you. Seems you have
+     copped out his best girl, the only one he ever cared a red cent
+     for. Said he would get even with you if he swung for it. I think
+     he's dangerous, even a madman. He is leaving for the North now, so
+     be on your guard."
+
+Locasto coming! I had almost forgotten his existence. Well, I no longer
+cared for him. I could afford to despise him. Surely he would never dare
+to molest us. If he did--he was a broken, discredited blackguard. I
+could crush him.
+
+Coming here! He must even now be on the way. I had a vision of him
+speeding along that desolate trail, sitting in the sleigh wrapped in
+furs, and brooding, brooding. As day after day the spell of the great
+and gloomy land grew on his spirit, I could see the sombre eyes darken
+and deepen. I could see him in the road-house at night, gaunt and
+haggard, drinking at the bar, a desperate, degraded cripple. I could see
+him growing more reckless every day, every hour. He was coming back to
+the scene of his ruined fortunes, and God knows with what wild schemes
+of vengeance his heart was full. Decidedly I must beware.
+
+As I sat there dreaming, a ring came to the 'phone. It was the foreman
+at Gold Hill.
+
+"The hoisting machine has broken down," he told me. "Can you come out
+and see what is required?"
+
+"All right," I replied. "I'll leave at once."
+
+"Berna," I said, "I'll have to go out to the Forks to-night. I'll be
+back early to-morrow. Get me a bite to eat, dear, while I go round and
+order the horse."
+
+On my way I met Garry and told him I would be gone over night. "Won't
+you come?" I asked.
+
+"No, thanks, old man, I don't feel like a night drive."
+
+"All right. Good-bye."
+
+So I hurried off, and soon after, with a jingle of bells, I drove up to
+my door. Berna had made supper. She seemed excited. Her eyes were starry
+bright, her cheeks burned.
+
+"Aren't you well, sweetheart?" I asked. "You look feverish."
+
+"Yes, dear, I'm well. But I don't want you to go to-night. Something
+tells me you shouldn't. Please don't go, dear. Please, for my sake."
+
+"Oh, nonsense, Berna! You know I've been away before. Get one of the
+neighbour's wives to sleep with you. Get in Mrs. Brooks."
+
+"Oh, don't go, don't go, I beg you, dear. I don't want you to. I'm
+afraid, I'm afraid. Won't some one else do?"
+
+"Nonsense, girl. You mustn't be so foolish. It's only for a few hours.
+Here, I'll ring up Mrs. Brooks and you can ask her."
+
+She sighed. "No, never mind. I'll ring her up after you've gone."
+
+She clung to me tightly, so that I wondered what had got into the girl.
+Then gently I kissed her, disengaged her hands, and bade her good-night.
+
+As I was rattling off through the darkness, a boy handed me a note. I
+put it in my pocket, thinking I would read it when I reached Ogilvie
+Bridge. Then I whipped up the horse.
+
+The night was crisp and exhilarating. I had one of the best trotters in
+the country, and the sleighing was superb. As I sped along, with a
+jingle of bells, my spirits rose. Things were looking splendid. The mine
+was turning out far better than we had expected. Surely we could sell
+out soon, and I would have all the money I wanted. Even then the
+Prodigal was putting through a deal in New York that would realise our
+fortunes. My life-struggle was nearly over.
+
+Then again, I had reconciled Garry to Berna. When I told him of a
+certain secret I was hugging to my breast he would capitulate entirely.
+How happy we would all be! I would buy a small estate near home, and we
+would settle down. But first we would spend a few years in travel. We
+would see the whole world. What good times we would have, Berna and I!
+Bless her! It had all worked out beautifully.
+
+Why was she so frightened, so loath to let me go? I wondered vaguely and
+flicked up the horse so that it plunged sharply forward. The vast
+blue-black sky was like an inverted gold-pan and the stars were flake
+colours adhering to it. The cold snapped at me till my cheeks tingled,
+and my eyes felt as if they could spark. Oh, life was sweet!
+
+Bother! In my elation I had forgotten to get off at the Old Inn and
+read my note. Never mind, I would keep it till I reached the Forks.
+
+As I spun along, I thought of how changed it all was from the Bonanza I
+first knew. How I remembered tramping along that hillside slope, packing
+a sack of flour over a muddy trail, a poor miner in muddy overalls! Now
+I was driving a smart horse on a fine road. I was an operator of a
+first-class mine. I was a man of business, of experience. Higher and
+higher my spirits rose.
+
+How fast the horse flew! I would be at the Forks in no time. I flashed
+past cabin windows. I saw the solitary oil-lamp and the miner reading
+his book or filling his pipe. Never was there a finer, more intelligent
+man; but his day was passing. The whole country was falling into the
+hands of companies. Soon, thought I, one or two big combines would
+control the whole wealth of that land. Already they had their eyes on
+it. The gold-ships would float and roar where the old-time miner toiled
+with pick and pan. Change! Change!
+
+I almost fancied I could see the monster dredges ploughing up the
+valley, where now men panted at the windlass. I could see vast heaps of
+tailings filling the creek-bed; I could hear the crash of the steel
+grizzlies; I could see the buckets scooping up the pay-dirt. I felt
+strangely prophetic. My imagination ran riot in all kinds of wonders,
+great power plants, quartz discoveries. Change! Change!
+
+Yes, the stamp-mill would add its thunder to the other voices; the
+country would be netted with wires, and clamorous for far and wide. Man
+had sought out this land where Silence had reigned so long. He had
+awakened the echoes with the shot of his rifle and the ring of his axe.
+Silence had raised a startled head and poised there, listening. Then,
+with crack of pick and boom of blast, man had hurled her back. Further
+and further had he driven her. With his advancing horde, mad in their
+lust for the loot of the valley, he had banished her. His engines had
+frightened her with their canorous roar. His crashing giants had driven
+her cowering to the inviolate fastnesses of her hills. And there she
+broods and waits.
+
+But Silence will return. To her was given the land that she might rule
+and have dominion over it forever. And in a few years the clamour will
+cease, the din will die away. In a few years the treasure will be
+exhausted, and the looters will depart. The engines will lie in rust and
+ruin; the wind will sweep through the empty homes; the tailing-piles lie
+pallid in the moon. Then the last man will strike the last blow, and
+Silence will come again into her own.
+
+Yea, Silence will come home once more. Again will she rule despotic over
+peak and plain. She is only waiting, brooding in the impregnable
+desolation of her hills. To her has been given empery of the land, and
+hand in hand with Darkness will she return.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Ha! here I had reached the Forks at last. As I drew up at the hotel, the
+clerk came out to meet me.
+
+"Gent wants to speak to you at the 'phone, sir."
+
+It was Murray of Dawson, an old-timer, and rather a friend of mine.
+
+"Hello!"
+
+"Hello! Say, Meldrum, this is Murray speaking. Say, just wanted to let
+you know there's a stage due some time before morning. Locasto's on
+board, and they say he's heeled for you. Thought I'd better tell you
+so's you can get fixed up for him."
+
+"All right," I answered. "Thank you. I'll turn and come right back."
+
+So I switched round the horse, and once more I drove over the glistening
+road. No longer did I plan and exult. Indeed a grim fear was gripping
+me. Of a sudden the shadow of Locasto loomed up sinister and menacing.
+Even now he was speeding Dawsonward with a great hatred of me in his
+heart. Well, I would get back and prepare for him.
+
+There came to my mind a comic perception of the awkwardness of returning
+to one's own home unexpectedly, in the dead of night. At first I decided
+I would go to a hotel, then on second thoughts I determined to try the
+house, for I had a desire to be near Berna.
+
+I knocked gently, then a little louder, then at last quite loudly.
+Within all was still, dark as a sepulchre. Curious! she was such a light
+sleeper, too. Why did she not hear me?
+
+Once more I decided to go to the hotel; once more that vague, indefinite
+fear assailed me and again I knocked. And now my fear was becoming a
+panic. I had my latch-key in my pocket, so very quietly I opened the
+door.
+
+I was in the front room, and it was dark, very dark and quiet. I could
+not even hear her breathe.
+
+"Berna," I whispered.
+
+No reply.
+
+That dim, nameless dread was clutching at my heart, and I groped
+overhead in the darkness for the drop-light. How hard it was to find! A
+dozen times my hand circled in the air before I knocked my knuckles
+against it. I switched it on.
+
+Instantly the cabin was flooded with light. In the dining-room I could
+see the remains of our supper lying untidily. That was not like her. She
+had a horror of dirty dishes. I passed into the bedroom--Ah! the bed had
+never been slept on.
+
+What a fool I was! It flashed on me she had gone over to Mrs. Brooks' to
+sleep. She was afraid of being alone. Poor little girl! How surprised
+she would be to see me in the morning!
+
+Well, I would go to bed. As I was pulling off my coat, I found the note
+that had been given to me. Blaming myself for my carelessness, I pulled
+it out of my pocket and opened it. As I unfolded the sheet, I noticed
+it was written in what looked like a disguised hand. Strange! I thought.
+The writing was small and faint. I rubbed my eyes and held it up to the
+light.
+
+Merciful God! What was this? Oh no, it could not be! My eyes were
+deceiving me. It was some illusion. Feverishly I read again. Yes, they
+were the same words. What could they mean? Surely, surely--Oh, horror on
+horrors! They could not mean THAT. Again I read them. Yes, there they
+were:
+
+     "If you are fool enough to believe that Berna is faithful to you
+     visit your brother's room to-night.
+
+                                                        "A wellwisher."
+
+Berna! Garry!--the two I loved. Oh, it could not be! It was monstrous!
+It was too horrible! I would not believe it; I would not. Curse the vile
+wretch that wrote such words! I would kill him. Berna! my Berna! she was
+as good as gold, as true as steel. Garry! I would lay my life on his
+honour. Oh, vile calumny! what devil had put so foul a thing in words?
+God! it hurt me so, it hurt me so!
+
+Dazedly I sat down. A sudden rush of heat was followed by a sweat that
+pricked out of me and left me cold. I trembled. I saw a ghastly vision
+of myself in a mirror. I felt sick, sick. Going to the decanter on the
+bureau, I poured myself a stiff jolt of whisky.
+
+Again I sat down. The paper lay on the hearthrug, and I stared at it
+hatefully. It was unspeakably loathsome, yet I was fascinated by it. I
+longed to take it up, to read it again. Somehow I did not dare. I was
+becoming a coward.
+
+Well, it was a lie, a black devil's lie. She was with one of the
+neighbours. I trusted her. I would trust her with my life. I would go to
+bed. In the morning she would return, and then I would unearth the
+wretch who had dared to write such things. I began to undress.
+
+Slowly I unfastened my collar--that cursed paper; there it lay. Again it
+fascinated me. I stood glaring at it. Oh, fool! fool! go to bed.
+
+Wearily I took off my clothes--Oh, that devilish note! It was burning
+into my brain--it would drive me mad. In a frenzy of rage, I took it up
+as if it were some leprous thing, and dropped it in the fire.
+
+There I lay in bed with the darkness enfolding me, and I closed my eyes
+to make a double darkness. Ha! right in the centre of my eyes, burned
+the fatal paper with its atrocious suggestion. I sprang up. It was of no
+use. I must settle this thing once and for all. I turned on the light
+and deliberately dressed again.
+
+I was going to the hotel where Garry had his room. I would tell him I
+had come back unexpectedly and ask to share his room. I was not acting
+on the note! I did not suspect her. Heaven forbid! But the thing had
+unnerved me. I could not stay in this place.
+
+The hotel was quiet. A sleepy night-clerk stared at me, and I pushed
+past him. Garry's rooms were on the third floor. As I climbed the long
+stairway, my heart was beating painfully, and when I reached his door I
+was sadly out of breath. Through the transom I could see his light was
+burning.
+
+I knocked faintly.
+
+There was a sudden stir.
+
+Again I knocked.
+
+Did my ears deceive me or did I hear a woman's startled cry? There was
+something familiar about it--Oh, my God!
+
+I reeled. I almost fell. I clutched at the doorframe. I leaned sickly
+against the door for support. Heaven help me!
+
+"I'm coming," I heard him say.
+
+The door was unlocked, and there he stood. He was fully dressed. He
+looked at me with an expression on his face I could not define, but he
+was very calm.
+
+"Come in," he said.
+
+I went into his sitting-room. Everything was in order. I would have
+sworn I heard a woman scream, and yet no one was in sight. The bedroom
+door was slightly ajar. I eyed it in a fascinated way.
+
+"I'm sorry to disturb you, Garry," I said, and I was conscious how
+strained and queer my voice sounded. "I got back suddenly, and there's
+no one at home. I want to stay here with you, if you don't mind."
+
+"Certainly, old man; only too glad to have you."
+
+His voice was steady. I sat down on the edge of a chair. My eyes were
+riveted on that bedroom door.
+
+"Had a good drive?" he went on genially. "You must be cold. Let me give
+you some whisky."
+
+My teeth were chattering. I clutched the chair. Oh, that door! My eyes
+were fastened on it. I was convinced I heard some one in there. He rose
+to get the whisky.
+
+"Say when?"
+
+I held the glass with a shaking hand:
+
+"When."
+
+"What's the matter, old man? You're ill."
+
+I clutched him by the arm.
+
+"Garry, there's some one in that room."
+
+"Nonsense! there's no one there."
+
+"There is, I tell you. Listen! Don't you hear them breathing?"
+
+He was quiet. Distinctly I could hear the panting of human breath. I was
+going mad, mad. I could stand it no longer.
+
+"Garry," I gasped, "I'm going to see, I'm going to see."
+
+"Don't----"
+
+"Yes, I must, I say. Let me go. I'll drag them out."
+
+"Hold on----"
+
+"Leave go, man! I'm going, I say. You won't hold me. Let go, I tell you,
+let go--Now come out, come out, whoever you are--Ah!"
+
+It was a woman.
+
+"Ha!" I cried, "I told you so, brother; a woman. I think I know her,
+too. Here, let me see--I thought so."
+
+I had clutched her, pulled her to the light. It was Berna.
+
+Her face was white as chalk, her eyes dilated with terror. She trembled.
+She seemed near fainting.
+
+"I thought so."
+
+Now that it seemed the worst was betrayed to me, I was strangely calm.
+
+"Berna, you're faint. Let me lead you to a chair."
+
+I made her sit down. She said no word, but looked at me with a wild
+pleading in her eyes. No one spoke.
+
+There we were, the three of us: Berna faint with fear, ghastly, pitiful;
+I calm, yet calm with a strange, unnatural calmness, and Garry--he
+surprised me. He had seated himself, and with the greatest _sang-froid_
+he was lighting a cigarette.
+
+A long tense silence. At last I broke it.
+
+"What have you got to say for yourself, Garry?" I asked.
+
+It was wonderful how calm he was.
+
+"Looks pretty bad, doesn't it, brother?" he said gravely.
+
+"Yes, it couldn't look worse."
+
+"Looks as if I was a pretty base, despicable specimen of a man, doesn't
+it?"
+
+"Yes, about as base as a man could be."
+
+"That's so." He rose and turned up the light of a large reading-lamp,
+then coming to me he looked me square in the face. Abruptly his casual
+manner dropped. He grew sharp, forceful; his voice rang clear.
+
+"Listen to me."
+
+"I'm listening."
+
+"I came out here to save you, and I'm going to save you. You wanted me
+to believe that this girl was good. You believed it. You were bewitched,
+befooled, blinded. I could see it, but I had to make you see it. I had
+to make you realise how worthless she was, how her love for you was a
+sham, a pretence to prey on you. How could I prove it? You would not
+listen to reason: I had to take other means. Now, hear me."
+
+"I hear."
+
+"I laid my plans. For three months I've tried to conquer her, to win her
+love, to take her from you. She was truer to you than I had bargained
+for; I must give her credit for that. She made a good fight, but I think
+I have triumphed. To-night she came to my room at my invitation."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well. You got a note. _Now, I wrote that note._ I planned this scene,
+this discovery. I planned it so that your eyes would be opened, so that
+you would see what she was, so that you would cast her from
+you--unfaithful, a wanton, a----"
+
+"Hold on there," I broke in; "brother of mine or no, I won't hear you
+call her those names; no, not if she were ten times as unfaithful. You
+won't, I say. I'll choke the words in your throat. I'll kill you, if
+you utter a word against her. Oh, what have you done?"
+
+"What have I done! Try to be calm, man. What have I done? Well, this is
+what I've done, and it's the lucky day for you I've done it. I've saved
+you from shame; I've freed you from sin; I've shown you the baseness of
+this girl."
+
+He rose to his feet.
+
+"Oh, my brother, I've stolen from you your mistress; that's what I've
+done."
+
+"Oh, no, you haven't," I groaned. "God forgive you, Garry; God forgive
+you! She's not my--not what you think. She's my _wife_!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+I thought that he would faint. His face went white as paper and he
+shrank back. He gazed at me with wild, straining eyes.
+
+"God forgive me! Oh, why didn't you tell me, boy? Why didn't you tell
+me?"
+
+In his voice there was a note more poignant than a sob.
+
+"You should have trusted me," he went on. "You should have told me. When
+were you married?"
+
+"Just a month ago. I was keeping it as a surprise for you. I was waiting
+till you said you liked and thought well of her. Oh, I thought you would
+be pleased and glad, and I was treasuring it up to tell you."
+
+"This is terrible, terrible!"
+
+His voice was choked with agony. On her chair, Berna drooped wearily.
+Her wide, staring eyes were fixed on the floor in pitiful perplexity.
+
+"Yes, it's terrible enough. We were so happy. We lived so joyously
+together. Everything was perfect, a heaven for us both. And then you
+came, you with your charm that would lure an angel from high heaven. You
+tried your power on my poor little girl, the girl that never loved but
+me. And I trusted you, I tried to make you and her friends. I left you
+together. In my blind innocence I aided you in every way--a simple,
+loving fool. Oh, now I see!"
+
+"Yes, yes, I know. Your words stab me. It's all true, true."
+
+"You came like a serpent, a foul, crawling thing, to steal her from me,
+to wrong me. She was loving, faithful, pure. You would have dragged her
+in the mire. You----"
+
+"Stop, brother, stop, for Heaven's sake! You wrong me."
+
+He held out his hand commandingly. A wonderful change had come over him.
+His face had regained its calm. It was proud, stern.
+
+"You must not think I would have been guilty of that," he said quietly.
+"I've played a part I never thought to play; I've done a thing I never
+thought to have dirtied my hands in the doing, and I'm sorry and ashamed
+for it. But I tell you, Athol--that's all. As God's my witness, I've
+done you no wrong. Surely you don't think me as low as that? Surely you
+don't believe that of me? I did what I did for my very love for you, for
+your honour's sake. I asked her here that you might see what she
+was--but that's all, I swear it. She's been as safe as if in a cage of
+steel."
+
+"I know it," I said; "I know it. You don't need to tell me that. You
+brought her here to expose her, to show me what a fool I was. It didn't
+matter how much it hurt me, the more the better, anything to save the
+name. You would have broken my heart, sacrificed me on the altar of
+your accursed pride. Oh, I can see plainly now! There's a thousand years
+of prejudice and bigotry concentrated in you. Thank God, I have a human
+heart!"
+
+"I thought I was acting for the best!" he cried.
+
+I laughed scornfully.
+
+"I know it--according to your lights. You asked her here that I might
+see what she was. You tell me you have gained her love; you say she came
+here at your bidding; you swear she would have been unfaithful to me.
+Well, I tell you, brother of mine, in your teeth I tell you--_I don't
+believe you!_"
+
+Suddenly the little, drooping figure on the chair had raised itself; the
+white, woe-begone face with the wide, staring eyes was turned towards
+me; the pitiful look had gone, and in its stead was one of wild,
+unspeakable joy.
+
+"It's all right, Berna," I said; "I don't believe him, and if a million
+others were to say the same, if they were to thunder it in my ears down
+all eternity, I would tell them they lied, they lied!"
+
+A heaven-lit radiance was in the grey eyes. She made as if to come to
+me, but she swayed, and I caught her in my arms.
+
+"Don't be frightened, little girl. Give me your hand. See! I'll kiss it,
+dear. Now, don't cry; don't, honey."
+
+Her arms were around me. She clung to me ever so tightly.
+
+"Garry," I said, "this is my wife. When I have lost my belief in all
+else, I will believe in her. You have made us both suffer. As for what
+you've said--you're mistaken. She's a good, good girl. I will not
+believe that by thought, word or deed she has been untrue to me. She
+will explain everything. Now, good-bye. Come, Berna."
+
+Suddenly she stopped me. Her hand was on my arm, and she turned towards
+Garry. She held herself as proudly as a queen.
+
+"I want to explain now," she said, "before you both."
+
+She pulled from her bosom a little crumpled note, and handed it to me.
+Then, as I read it, a great light burst on me. Here it was:
+
+     "Dear Berna:
+
+     "For heaven's sake be on your guard. Jack Locasto is on his way
+     north again. I think he's crazy. I know he'll stick at nothing, and
+     I don't want to see blood spilt. He says he means to wipe out all
+     old scores. For your sake, and for the sake of one dear to you, be
+     warned.
+
+                                                "In haste,
+
+                                                        "Viola Lennoir."
+
+"I got it two days ago," she said. "Oh, I've been distracted with fear.
+I did not like to show it to you. I've brought you nothing but trouble,
+and I've never spoken of him, never once. You understand, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, little girl, I understand."
+
+"I wanted to save you, no matter at what cost. To-night I tried to
+prevent you going out there, for I feared you might meet him. I knew he
+was very near. Then, when you had gone, my fear grew and grew. There I
+sat, thinking over everything. Oh, if I only had a friend, I thought;
+some one to help me. Then, as I sat, dazed, distracted, the 'phone rang.
+It was your brother."
+
+"Yes, go on, dear."
+
+"He told me he wanted to see me; he begged me to come at once. I thought
+of you, of your danger, of some terrible mishap. I was terrified. I
+went."
+
+She paused a moment, as if the recital was infinitely painful to her,
+then she went on.
+
+"I found my way to his room. My mind was full of you, of that man, of
+how to save you. I did not think of myself, of my position. At first I
+was too agitated to speak. He bade me sit down, compose myself. His
+manner was quiet, grave. Again I feared for you. He asked me to excuse
+him for a moment, and left the room. He seemed to be gone an age, while
+I sat there, trying to fight down my terror. The suspense was killing
+me. Then he came back. He closed and locked the door. All at once I
+heard a step outside, a knock. 'Hush! go in there,' he said. He opened
+the door. I heard him speaking to some one. I waited, then you burst in
+on me. You know the rest."
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+"As for your brother, I've tried, oh, so hard, to be nice to him for
+your sake. I liked him; I wanted to be to him as a sister, but never an
+unfaithful thought has entered my head, never a wrong feeling sullied my
+heart. I've been true to you. You told me once of a love that gives all
+and asks for nothing; a love that would turn its back on friends and
+kindred for the sake of its beloved. You said: 'His smile will be your
+rapture, his frown your anguish. For him will you dare all, bear all. To
+him will you cling in sorrow, suffering and poverty. Living, you would
+follow him round the world; dying, you would desire but him.'--Well, I
+think I love you like that."
+
+"Oh, my dear, my dear!"
+
+"I want to bring you happiness, but I only bring you trouble, sorrow.
+Sometimes, for your sake, I wish we had never met."
+
+She turned to Garry.
+
+"As for you, you've done me a great wrong. I can never forget it. Will
+you go now, and leave us in peace?"
+
+His head was bent, so that I could not see his face.
+
+"Can you not forgive?" he groaned.
+
+She shook her head sadly. "No, I am afraid I can never forgive."
+
+"Can I do nothing to atone?"
+
+"No, I'm afraid your punishment must be--that you can do nothing."
+
+He said never a word. She turned to me:
+
+"Come, my husband, we will go."
+
+I was opening the door to leave him forever. Suddenly I heard a step
+coming up the stairs, a heavy, hurried tread. I looked down a moment,
+then I pushed her back into the room.
+
+"Be prepared, Berna," I said quietly; "here comes Locasto."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+There we waited, Garry and I, and between us Berna. We heard that heavy
+tread come up, up the creaking stairway, stumble a moment, then pause on
+the landing. There was something ominous, something pregnant in that
+pause. The steps halted, wavered a little, then, inflexible as doom, on
+they came towards us. The next instant the door was thrown open, and
+Locasto stood in the entrance.
+
+Even in that brief moment I was struck by the change in him. He seemed
+to have aged by twenty years. He was gaunt and lank as a starved timber
+wolf; his face was hollow almost as a death's head; his hair was long
+and matted, and his eyes burned with a strange, unnatural fire. In that
+dark, aquiline face the Indian was never more strongly revealed. He
+limped, and I noticed his left hand was gloved.
+
+From under his bristling brows he glared at us. As he swayed there he
+minded me of an evil beast, a savage creature, a mad, desperate thing.
+He reeled in the doorway, and to steady himself put out his gloved hand.
+Then with a malignant laugh, the fleering laugh of a fiend, he stepped
+into the room.
+
+"So! Seems as if I'd lighted on a pretty nest of love-birds. Ho! ho! my
+sweet! You're not satisfied with one lover, you must have two. Well, you
+are going to be satisfied with one from now on, and that's Jack
+Locasto. I've stood enough from you, you white-faced jade. You've
+haunted me, you've put some kind of a spell on me. You've lured me back
+to this land, and now I'm going to have you or die! You've played with
+me long enough. The jig's up. Stand out from between those two. Stand
+out, I say! March out of that door."
+
+She only shrank back the farther.
+
+"You won't come, curse you; you won't come, you milk-faced witch, with
+your great eyes that bore holes in me, that turn my heart to fire, that
+make me mad. You won't come. Stand back there, you two, and let the girl
+come."
+
+We shielded her.
+
+"Ha! that's it--you defy me. You won't let me get her. Well, it'll be
+all the worse for her. I'll make her life a hell. I'll beat her. You
+won't stand back. You, the dark one--don't I know you; haven't I hated
+you more than the devil hates a saint; hated you worse than bitter
+poison? These three black years you've balked me, you've kept her from
+me. Oh, I've itched to kill you times without number, and I've spared
+you. But now it's my call. Stand back there, stand back I say. Your
+time's come. Here's where I shoot."
+
+His hand leapt up and I saw it gripped a revolver. He had me covered.
+His face was contorted with devilish triumph, and I knew he meant to
+kill. At last, at last my time had come. I saw his fingers twitching on
+the trigger, I gazed into the hollow horror of that barrel. My heart
+turned to ice. I could not breathe. Oh, for a respite, a moment--Ugh!...
+he pulled the trigger, and, _at the same instant, Garry sprang at him_!
+
+What had happened? The shot rang in my ears. I was still standing there.
+I felt no wound. I felt no pain. Then, as I stared at my enemy, I heard
+a heavy fall. Oh, God! there at my feet lay Garry, lay in a huddled,
+quivering heap, lay on his face, and in his fair hair I saw a dark stain
+start and spread. Then, in a moment, I realised what my brother had
+done.
+
+I fell on my knees beside him.
+
+"Garry, Garry!" I moaned. I heard Berna scream, and I saw that Locasto
+was coming for me. He was a man no longer. He had killed. He was a
+brute, a fury, a devil, mad with the lust of slaughter. With a snarl he
+dashed at me. Again I thought he was going to shoot, but no! He raised
+the heavy revolver and brought it crashing down on my head. I felt the
+blow fall, and with it my strength seemed to shoot out of me. My legs
+were paralysed. I could not move. And, as I lay there in a misty daze,
+he advanced on Berna.
+
+There she stood at bay, a horror-stricken thing, weak, panting,
+desperate. I saw him corner her. His hands were stretched out to clutch
+her; a moment more and he would have her in his arms, a moment--ah! With
+a suddenness that was like a flash she had raised the heavy reading-lamp
+and dashed it in his face.
+
+I heard his shriek of fear; I saw him fall as the thing crashed between
+his eyes; I saw the flames spurt and leap. High in the air he rose,
+awful in his agony. He was in a shroud of fire; he was in a pool of
+flame. He howled like a dog and fell over on the bed.
+
+Then suddenly the oil-soaked bedding caught. The curtains seemed to leap
+and change into flame. As he rolled and roared in his agony, the blaze
+ran up the walls, and caught the roof. Help, help! the room was afire,
+was burning up. Fire! Fire!
+
+Out in the corridor I heard a great running about, shouting of men,
+screaming of women. The whole place seemed to be alive, panic-stricken,
+frenzied with fear. Everything was in flames now, burning fiercely,
+madly, and there was no stopping them. The hotel was burning, and I,
+too, must burn. What a horrible end! Oh, if I could only do something!
+But I could not move. From the waist down I was like a dead man. Where
+was Berna? Pray God she was safe. I could not cry for aid. The room was
+reeling round and round. I was faint, dizzy, helpless.
+
+The hotel was ablaze. In the streets below crowds were gathering. People
+were running up and down the stairway, fighting to get free, mad with
+terror, leaping from the windows. Oh, it was awful, to burn, to burn! I
+seemed to be caged in flames that were darting at me savagely,
+spitefully. Would nobody save me?
+
+Yes, some one was trying to save me, was dragging my body across the
+floor. Consciousness left me, and it seemed for ages I lay in a stupor.
+When I opened my eyes again some one was still tugging at me. We were
+going down the stairway, and on all sides of us were sheets of flapping
+flame. I was wrapped in a blanket. How had it got there? Who was that
+dark figure pulling at me so desperately, trying to lift me, staggering
+a few paces with me, stumbling blindly on? Brave one, noble one, whoever
+you be! Foolhardy one, reckless one, whoever you be! Save yourself while
+yet there is time. Leave me to my fate. But, oh, the agony of it to
+burn, to burn ...!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Another desperate effort and we are almost at the door. Flames are
+darting at us like serpents, leaping kitten-like at our heels. Above us
+is a billowy canopy of fire soaring upward with a vast crackling roar.
+Fiery splinters shoot around us, while before us is a black pit of
+smoke. Smooth walls of fire uprear about us. We are in a cavern of fire,
+and in another moment it will engulf us. Oh, my rescuer, a last frenzied
+effort! We are almost at the door. Then I am lifted up and we both
+tumble out into the street. Not a second too soon, for, like a savage
+beast foiled of its prey, a blast of flame shoots after us, and the
+doorway is a gulf of blazing wrath.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I am lying in the snow, lying on a blanket, and some one holds my head.
+
+"Berna, is that you?"
+
+She nods. She does not speak. I shudder as I look at her. Her face is
+like a great burn, a black mask in which her eyes and teeth gleam
+whitely....
+
+"Oh, Berna, Berna, and it was you that dragged me out...!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My eyes go to the fiery hell in front. As I look the roof crashes in and
+we are showered by falling sparks. I see a fireman run back. He is
+swathed in flame. Madly he rolls in the snow. The hotel is like a
+cascade of flame; it spouts outward like water, beautiful golden water.
+In its centre is a wonderful whirlpool. I see the line of a black girder
+leap out, and hanging over it a limp, charred shape. A moment it hangs
+uncertainly, then plunges downward into the roasting heart of the pit.
+And I know it for Locasto.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Oh, Berna, Berna! I can't bear to look at her. Why did she do it? It's
+pitiful, pitiful....
+
+The fire is spreading. Right and left it swings and leaps in giant
+strides. Sudden flames shoot out, curl over and roll like golden velvet
+down the black faces of the buildings. The fire leaps the street. All is
+pandemonium now. Mad with fear and excitement, men and women rave and
+curse and pray. Water! water! is the cry; but no water comes. Suddenly a
+mob of terror-goaded men comes surging down the street. They bring the
+long hose line that connects with the pump-station on the river. Hurrah!
+now they will soon have the flames under control. Water, water is
+coming.
+
+The line is laid and a cry goes up to turn on the water. Hurry there!
+But no water comes. What can be the matter? Then the dread whisper goes
+round that the man in charge of the pumping-station has neglected his
+duty, and the engine fires are cold. A howl of fury and despair goes up
+to the lurid heavens. Women wring their hands and moan; men stand by in
+a stupor of hopeless agony. And the fire, as if it knew of its victory,
+leaps up in a roaring ecstasy of triumph.
+
+There we watched, Berna and I, lying in the snow that melts all around
+us in the fierce, scorching glare. Through the lurid rift of smoke I can
+see the friendly stars. Against that curtain of blaze, strangely
+beautiful in its sinuous strength, I watch the black silhouettes of men
+running hither and thither like rats, gutting the houses, looting the
+stores, tearing the hearts out of the homes. The fire seems a great
+bird, and from its nest of furnace heat it spreads its flapping wings
+over the city.
+
+Yes, there is no hope. The gold-born city is doomed. From where I lie
+the scene is one long vista of blazing gables, ribs and rafters hugged
+by tawny arms of fire. Squat cabins swirling in mad eddies of flame;
+hotels, dance-halls, brothels swathed and smothered in flame-rent
+blankets of swirling smoke. There is no hope. The fire is a vast
+avenger, and before its wrath the iniquity of the tenderloin is swept
+away. That flimsy hive of humanity, with its sins and secrets and
+sorrows, goes up in smoke and ashes to the silent stars.
+
+The gold-born city is doomed. Yet, as I lay there, it seemed to me like
+a judgment, and that from its ruins would arise a new city, clean,
+upright, incorruptible. Yes, the gold-camp would find itself. Even as
+the gold, must it pass through the furnace to be made clean. And from
+the site where in the olden days the men who toiled for the gold were
+robbed by every device of human guile, a new city would come to be--a
+great city, proud and prosperous, beloved of homing hearts, and blessed
+in its purity and peace.
+
+"Beloved," I sighed through a gathering mist of consciousness. I felt
+some hot tears falling on my face. I felt a kiss seal my lips. I felt a
+breathing in my ear.
+
+"Oh, my dear, my dear!" she said. "I've only brought you sorrow and
+pain, but you've brought me love, that love that is a dazzling light,
+beside which the sunshine is as darkness."
+
+"Berna!" I raised myself; I put out my arms to clasp her. They clasped
+the empty air. Wildly, wildly I looked around. She was gone!
+
+"Berna!" Again I cried, but there was no reply. I was alone, alone. Then
+a great weakness came over me....
+
+I never saw her again.
+
+
+
+
+THE LAST
+
+
+It is finished. I have written here the story of my life, or of that
+portion of it which means everything to me, for the rest means nothing.
+Now that it is done, I too have done, so I sit me down and wait. For
+what am I waiting? A divine miracle perhaps.
+
+Somehow I feel I will see her again, somehow, somewhere. Surely God
+would not reveal to us the shining light of the Great Reality only to
+plunge us again into outer darkness? Love cannot be in vain. I will not
+believe it. Somehow, somewhere!
+
+So in the glow of the great peat fire I sit me down and wait, and the
+faith grows in me that she will come to me again; that I will feel the
+soft caress of her hand upon my pillow, that I will hear her voice all
+tuned to tenderness, that I will see through my tear-blinded eyes her
+sweet compassionate face. Somehow, somewhere!
+
+With the aid of my crutch I unlatch one of the long windows and step out
+onto the terrace. I peer through the darkness and once more I have a
+sense of that land of imperious vastitudes so unfathomably lonely. With
+an unspeakable longing in my heart, I try to pierce the shadows that
+surround me. From the cavernous dark the snowflakes sting my face, but
+the great night seems good to me, and I sink into a garden seat. Oh, I
+am tired, tired....
+
+I am waiting, waiting. I close my eyes and wait. I know she will come.
+The snow is covering me. White as a statue, I sit and wait.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ah, Berna, my dear, my dear! I knew you would return; I knew, I knew.
+Come to me, little one. I'm tired, so tired. Put your arms around me,
+girl; kiss me, kiss me. I'm weak and ill, but now you've come I'll soon
+be well again. You won't leave me any more; will you, honey? Oh, it's
+good to have you once again! It seems like a dream. Kiss me once more,
+sweetheart. It's all so cold and dark. Put your arms around me....
+
+Oh, Berna, Berna, light of my life, I knew all would come right at
+last--beyond the mists, beyond the dreaming; at last, dear love, at
+last!...
+
+
+
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