Then her visitor spoke again: “They had other things. Wonderful things. A huge copper kettle and,” her voice dropped to a whisper, “seven golden candlesticks. Leastwise, I always thought they was gold. She always had ’em up there above the fireplace, and how they did shine! Gold! I’m sure of it.
“They might have took them. Maybe they did, the candlesticks, I mean. But that huge copper kettle. They never took that, not in a satchel.
“I don’t mind admitting,” Mrs. Swenson’s tone became confidential, “that those of us who’ve lived around here ever since have done a lot of snoopin’ about this old place, lookin’ for that copper kettle and—and other things.
“There are those who say they hid gold, lots of Russian, or maybe German gold, around here somewhere. But, of course, you can’t believe all you hear. And no one has ever found anything, not even the big copper kettle. So,” she settled back in her chair, “perhaps there’s nothing to it after all. Mighty nice cabin, though,” her tone changed. “Make you a snug home in winter. Not like these cabins the other settlers are building out of green logs. Them logs are goin’ to warp something terrible when they dry. Then,” she threw back her head and laughed, “then the children will be crawlin’ through the cracks, and with the temperature at thirty below—think what that will be like!”
Florence did think. She shuddered at the very mention of it, and whispered a silent prayer of thanksgiving to the good God who had guided them to their snug cabin at the edge of the clearing beside that gem of a lake.
At thought of it all, she gave herself an imaginary hug. From without came the steady pop-pop-pop of a gasoline motor. Mark was driving a small tractor, plowing their clearing. They were to have a crop this first year, for it was still June. Few settlers would have crops. They were lucky.
She looked at her torn and blistered hand, then heaved a sigh of content. Those small trees had been stubborn, some had been thorny. It had been a heartbreaking job, but now all that was over. The tractor chugging merrily outside was music to her weary soul.
The tractor? That, too, had been a streak of luck. Or was it luck? Mark had always loved fine machinery. Because of this he had made it his business for years to learn all about trucks, tractors, mine hoists, motor-boats, and all else that came within his narrow horizon. When he had asked down at Palmer about the use of a tractor the man in charge had said: “Over yonder they are. Not assembled yet. Put one up and you can use it.”
“Sure. I’ll do that,” Mark grinned. And he did.
Then they had wanted him to stay and set up others. He had turned his back on this promising position with good pay. He had come to this land to make a home for his family, and he was determined not to turn back. So here was the clearing, ten acres nearly plowed. A short task the harrowing would be. And then what should they plant?
“I’ll ask Mrs. Swenson about that after a while,” Florence promised herself. Mrs. Swenson had come a long way and was to stay for dinner. Florence had raised biscuits and a large salmon baking in the oven of the stove they had brought up from Palmer. They were to have one more royal feast. Three other guests were to arrive soon.
She smiled as she opened the oven door, releasing a wave of heat and delightful odors of cooking things.
“Mr. McQueen’s an old dear,” she thought. “He’ll be the godfather of our little settlement. I’m sure of that.”
Yes, the newly arrived settler whose land joined theirs at the back was an interesting old man. Gray haired and sixty, he stood straight as a ramrod, six feet four in his stockings. Strong, brave, wise with the wisdom that comes only with years, he would indeed prove a grand counsellor.
And there was Dave, his son, just turned twenty. “Slow, silent, steady going, hard working, dependable,” had been Florence’s instant snap-shot of his character; nor was she likely to be wrong.
Then, there was Bill Vale, whose land joined them on the west. How different was Bill! A dreamer, at twenty-two he was more a boy, less a man, than Dave. And Bill’s mother, who adored him, agreed with him in every detail. The girl’s brow wrinkled as she thought of Bill and his mother. How were such people to get on in a hard, new land? But then, what was the good of shouldering the problems of others? They had problems of their own. What were they to plant? That was their immediate problem and a large one.
The meal was over and they were all seated before the broad, screened door, looking away at the lake, blue as the sky, when Florence asked a question:
“Mrs. Swenson, what shall we plant?”
Mrs. Swenson did not reply at once. The dinner they had eaten was a rich and jolly one, just such a dinner as Florence could prepare. The day was warm. Mrs. Swenson was fat and chubby. Perhaps she had all but fallen asleep.
“Mrs. Swenson,” Florence repeated, louder this time, “what shall we plant?”
“What’s that?” the good lady started. “Plant? Why, almost anything. Peas, beans, carrots, beets, some oats and barley for your cow. May not get ripe, but you cut it for fodder. Soy beans are good, too. And potatoes! You should have seen our potatoes last year, four hundred bushels on an acre!”
“Four hundred on an acre!” Florence stared. “That would be four thousand on our ten acres if we planted it all to potatoes. Four thousand at how much a bushel, Mrs. Swenson?”
“Why, dear, at nothing at all!” Mrs. Swenson exclaimed. “You can’t sell ’em. We haven’t a market. A few go to Fairbanks. Those are all sold long ago.”
No market. There it was again. Florence’s heart sank.
“Potatoes and tomatoes,” Mark gave a sudden start. His face lighted as the earth lights when the sun slips from behind a cloud.
“No,” said Mrs. Swenson, quite emphatically. “Not tomatoes. You’ll get huge vines and blossoms, beautiful blossoms, that’s all.”
“Tomatoes,” Mark repeated with a slow, dreamy smile. “Bushels and bushels of tomatoes.”
Mrs. Swenson stared at him in hurt surprise. “No tomatoes,” she said again.
Florence favored Mark with a sidewise glance. She had seen that look on his face before two or three times and always something had come of it, something worth while. Like a song at sunrise, it warmed her heart.
Then, quite suddenly, the subject was changed. “I don’t see what’s the good of a market. Not just now,” Bill Vale drawled. “The government’s willing to provide us everything we need to eat or wear, and a lot of things besides. Mother and I are getting a gasoline motor to run the washing machine and a buzz-saw. No freezing at twenty below sawing wood for me.”
“Nor me,” laughed Dave McQueen. “I aim to work too fast on our old cross-cut saw to have time to freeze.”
“Fact is, Bill,” Mark put in, “in the end we’ve got to pay for all these things.”
“Yes,” Bill laughed lightly. “Got thirty years to pay, start in five years.”
“Well,” the older McQueen drawled. “Five years have rolled round a dozen times in my lifetime. They all seemed strangely short. And when the payments start, they’ll be coming round with ominous regularity. Mark and Florence here have the right idea—keep debts down and get proceeds rolling in at the earliest possible moment.”
“Tomatoes,” Mark said dreamily. “Bushels and bush—”
At that they all started to their feet. From somewhere just out of their view had come the loud heehaw, heehaw of a donkey.
“What?” Florence sprang out the door. Then her lips parted in a smile, for there before her stood one more odd character from this strange new world: the oddest, she thought, of them all.
Tall, slim, white-haired, an old man sat astride a burro. And behind him came two other burros heavily laden with packs. From one pack protruded the handles of a pick and a shovel.
“A forty-niner,” Florence thought.
“A real old sourdough Alaskan prospector!” Bill exclaimed, wild with enthusiasm.
“Whoa! Hello!” the old man shouted in one breath. “People livin’ here! That’s bad for me. I’ve been camping here as I came and went for a long spell.”
“The latch-string is still on the outside,” Florence laughed a welcome. “We’ve got hot raised biscuits,” she encouraged. “Hot raised biscuits, sweet, home-churned butter and plenty of coffee.”
“Hot raised biscuits.” The man passed a hand before his eyes. “And sweet butter. Haven’t heard those words in twenty years. Came to Alaska during the rush in ’97. Just out of college then. Been prospecting for gold ever since. Found it twice. It’s all gone now. But there’s gold in them hills.” His face lighted as he looked away at the snowy peaks. “Gold,” he repeated softly. “Sure,” his voice changed, the light in his eyes faded. “Sure. Hot biscuits and sweet butter. Sure, I’ll stop and rest awhile.”
“Well, folks,” Mark stood looking away at his partly plowed field. “I’ve got to get back to work. Season’s short. Must get in our seed.”
“Bill,” he slapped the tall boy on the back, “you’ve got an acre or two that’s nearly clear. You get busy and root out the brush. Then I’ll plow it for you.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Bill scarcely heard. His eyes were on the prospector’s pack.
“How about offering the same to us?” Dave asked.
“Sure,” Mark exclaimed. “But you got a hard forty to clear, all timber, looks like.”
“We’ve picked a spot,” Dave drawled. “We’ve got strong backs and weak minds, Dad and I have,” he laughed a roaring laugh. “We’ll have a garden spot ready in two days. You’ll see.”
Florence flashed Dave an approving smile.
“Mr. McQueen,” she said quietly, turning to Dave’s father, “we’re having some of the folks in for a sing Sunday afternoon. Mary will play our reed organ, you know. Per—perhaps you’d like to say a few words to the folks.”
“Why, yes, I—” the old man hesitated. “I—I’m no orator, but I might say a word or two. Good, old-fashioned time we’ll have.”
“Sure will!” Mark agreed.
While the others returned to their work, Bill lingered behind to talk with the prospector. After laying out a generous supply of food, Florence retired to the kitchen and the dinner dishes. Through the door there drifted scraps of Bill’s talk with the old man.
“Ever really find gold?”... “Lots of times.”... “Boy! That must have been great! I’m getting me a pick and shovel right now.”... “Take your time about that, son,” the old man counselled. “But there’s gold. Plenty of it. I’ll find it this time. Sure to.” His voice rose.
“Any bears up there?” Bill asked.
“Plenty of ’em. But I don’t bother ’em and they don’t bother me.”
“I’d bother them,” Bill cried.
“Yes,” Florence thought. “Bill would bother them.” She remembered the high-powered rifle that decorated Bill’s tent.
“Temptation,” she thought, “does not belong to great cities alone. Here boys are tempted to go after big game, to search for gold, to chase rainbows.” Already Bill’s young brain was on fire.
To her consternation, she suddenly realized that her blood too was racing. Had she caught the gleam of gold on the horizon? Would she listen to the call of wild adventure until it led her away into those snow-capped mountains?
“No,” she whispered fiercely. She had come to this valley to help those she loved, Mary, Mark, and their mother, to assist them in securing for themselves a home. She would cling to that purpose. Shewould! She stamped her foot so hard the dishes rattled and Bill in the other room gave a sudden start.
“Probably thought I was a bear,” she laughed low.
Then a thought struck her with the force of a blow. “He said he’d been in Alaska since ’97. That old man said that,” she whispered. “Perhaps—” She sprang to the door.
“Mister—er,” she hesitated.
“Name’s Dale—Malcomb Dale,” the old man rose and bowed.
“Oh, Mr. Dale,” Florence caught her breath. “You said you had been in Alaska a long time. Did you ever know a man named Tom Kennedy?”
“Tom Kennedy! Sure! A fine man, but like the rest of us.” He smiled oddly. “A little touched in the head, you might say, always looking for gold.”
“And did—did he ever find it?”
“Yes, once, I’m told. Let’s see. That was, well, never mind what year. They found gold, he and his partner, found it way back of the beyond, you might say, and—”
“And—” Florence prompted.
“And they lost it.”
“Lost—lost it?” Florence stared.
“His partner, Dan Nolan, became ill. Tom Kennedy dragged him all the way to Nome on a small sled. No dogs. Stormed all that time. No trail, nothing. Got lost, nearly froze, but he came through. Powerful man, Tom Kennedy. Good man, too, best ever. True a man as ever lived.”
“Oh, I—I’m glad.” Unbidden the words slipped out.
The prospector stared at her. “I said they lost the mine, never found it again. Nolan died.”
“And Tom Kennedy, he—”
“He’s alive, far as I know. He’s always hunting that mine. Never found it yet. But then,” the old man sighed, “there’s plenty of us like that up here where the sun forgets to set in summer. Gets in your blood.
“Well,” he put out a hand, “I’ll get my burros started. I—I’ll be goin’,” his voice was rich and mellow with years. “I shall not forget you. And when I strike it rich—” he hesitated, then smiled a smile that was like the sunset, “I’ll trade you gold and diamonds for raised biscuits and sweet butter.” He stared for a moment, as if seeing a vision of the past, then bowed himself out. He was gone. Bill went with him. How far he would go the girl could only guess.
Left alone with her thoughts, Florence found herself wondering about many things. Was there truly no market for the things they raised? As the months and years rolled on, would there still be no market? Fairbanks, a small city to the north of them, was in need of many kinds of food. Could they not supply some of these needs?
Then, of a sudden, she recalled Mark’s words, “Tomatoes. Bushels and bushels of tomatoes.” Why had he insisted, why repeated this word, even after Mrs. Swenson had said, “no tomatoes”? Mark had something in mind. What was it? She could not guess, but dared hope.
She recalled Mrs. Swenson’s words about the mysterious pair that had, with so much labor, erected this cabin, cleared this land, then left it all. “I wonder why they left?”
Then, “Seven golden candlesticks,” she murmured, “and a great copper kettle. We could use that kettle.” After that, in spite of her desire to be practical, she found herself searching the place from foundation to the loft. All she found was an ancient Dutch oven, rusted beyond reclaiming.
“All the same,” she thought, “itisstrange what became of that copper kettle and—“ She did not allow the thought to finish itself. She had been about to think “gold.” She knew that in this land one must not dream—at least, not too much.
There was one thing about their little farm that, from the first time she saw it, had seemed strange to Florence. Back of the house stood the stump of a forest giant. Fully three feet across it stood there, roots embedded deep, while all about it were pigmies of the tree world. There was not a tree on the farm that measured more than thirty feet tall. Why? Perhaps a fire had destroyed the primeval forest. Yet here was this great stump.
She tried to picture the tree towering above its fellows. She found herself wishing that it had not been felled by some woodsman’s axe. Why had they cut it down? That they might build its logs into the house was a natural answer, yet the house contained no such logs. Well, here was a riddle.
On top of the stump the original dwellers in the cabin had placed a massive flower-box. Somehow, they had secured wild morning-glory seeds and planted them there. These must, from year to year, have replanted themselves, for, even in June, the vines were beginning to droop over the edge of the box. By autumn the great stump would be a mass of flowers. However others might regard wild morning-glories, Florence knew she would adore them.
She was standing staring at the stump and thinking of it with renewed wonder when Mark came in from his plowing.
“There! That’s done,” he exclaimed as he dropped down upon a bench. “Now for the planting.” Then, to his cousin’s renewed astonishment, he said. “Bushels and bushels of tomatoes.”
“Mark!” exclaimed Florence. “Why do you keep on insisting that we can raise tomatoes here when Mrs. Swenson, who has lived here so long, says we can’t?”
“Because we can,” Mark grinned broadly.
“How?”
“Sit down and stop staring at that stump as if it hid some strange secret and I’ll tell you.”
Florence sat down.
“You know the way I have of poking about in all sorts of odd corners wherever I am,” Mark began. “Well, while we were in Anchorage I got to prowling round and stumbled upon a small greenhouse set way back on a side street where very few people would see it.
“Well, you know you’ll always find something interesting in a greenhouse. Some new vegetable or flower, a strange form of moss or fungus, or even a new species of plant pest. So I went in.”
“And you—”
“I found tomato plants all in blossom, dozens and dozens of them in pots.”
“But why—”
“That’s what I asked the man—why? He said he’d raised them for some gardener in a town down south, half way to Seattle. Something had gone wrong with the man or his garden. He couldn’t use them so—”
“There they were.”
“Yes,” Mark agreed with uncommon enthusiasm. “There they were, and there, I am quite sure, they are still. They can be bought cheap, probably four hundred plants in pots. Must be tomatoes big as marbles on them by now.”
“And you know,” he went on excitedly, “when you set out potted plants the blossoms and small tomatoes do not drop off, they just keep on growing. And here, where the sun will be shining almost twenty-four hours a day, they should just boom along. Have ripe tomatoes in six weeks. Then how those well-to-do people in Anchorage, Seward and Fairbanks will go after them! Tomatoes!” he exclaimed, spreading his arms wide. “Bushels and bushels of tomatoes; ripe, red gold!”
“But if there is a frost?”
“Yes,” Mark said with a drop in his voice. “A June frost. That happens sometimes. It’s a chance we’ll have to take. I’m going to Anchorage for those plants tomorrow.
“You know,” his voice dropped, “I can’t see all this going in debt for the things you eat and wear, to say nothing of tools, machinery, and all that. It’s got to be paid sometime and it’s going to come hard.
“It’s all right if you have to do it, better than getting no start at all. I’m not criticising anyone else. But, as for the Hughes family, we’re going to pay as we go if we can, and who knows but those tomatoes will pay for our winter’s supply of flour, sugar, and all the rest?”
“Who knows?” Florence echoed enthusiastically.
Six weeks had passed when once again Florence sat beside the lake. There was a moon tonight. It hung like a magic lantern above the snow-capped mountain. The lake reflected both mountains and moon so perfectly that for one who looked too long, it became not a lake at all, but mountains and moon.
Florence had looked too long. She was dreaming of wandering among those jagged peaks in an exciting search. A search for gold. And why not? Had not the aged prospector appeared once more at their door? Had she not feasted him on hot-cakes and wild honey? Had he not repaid her with fresh tales of her grandfather’s doings in the very far north?
“I shall go in search of him,” she told herself now. “A search for a grandfather,” she laughed. Well, why not? He had lost a rich gold mine. She was strong as a man, was Florence. No man, she was sure, could follow a dog team farther nor faster than she. She would find Tom Kennedy and together they would find that mine.
“But first this!” she sighed as on other occasions, flinging her arms wide to take in the claim, the lake, and the cabin.
“First what?” a voice close at hand said.
Startled, she sprang to her feet. “Oh! It’s you, Mark.” She made a place for him beside her on a broad flat rock.
“First your little farm,” she said soberly. “Tomatoes and potatoes and all the rest. A shelter for old Boss, everything that will go to make this a home for you and Mary and your mother.”
“And you,” Mark’s voice was low.
“No. Not for me, Mark. For you this is life. I understand that. I admire you for it. To have a home, and a small farm, to add to that year after year, to change the log cabin for a fine home, to have cattle and sheep and broad pasture and—” she hesitated, then went on, “and children, boys and girls, happy in their home. All this is your life and will be years on end. But for me, it is only—what should I say—an episode, one adventure among many, a grand and glorious experience.”
“Yes,” Mark said, and there was kindness in his voice. “Yes, I suppose that is it. Awfully good of you to share the hardest year with us.”
“What do you mean hardest?” Florence demanded. “It’s been glorious. And we are succeeding so well. Already the tomatoes are up to my shoulders. What a crop they will be!”
“Yes,” Mark’s voice was husky. “We’ve been lucky.”
For a time there was silence. Then Mark spoke again. “There was a time, and not so long ago, when I thought to myself, ‘Life’s stream must grow darker and deeper as we go along.’ But now—well—” he did not finish.
“Now,” Florence laughed from sheer joy of living. “Now you must know that it grows lighter and brighter.”
“Lighter and brighter,” Mark laughed softly. “Those are fine words, mighty fine.”
“They’re grand words,” the girl cried. “True words, too. It—why, life is like a summer morning! Only day before yesterday I went out to find old Boss before dawn. It was more than half dark. Clouds along the horizon were all black. They looked ominous, threatening. Soon, some power behind them began to set them on fire. Redder and redder they shone, then they began to fade. Salmon colored, deep pink, pale pink, they faded and faded until like a ghost’s winding sheet they vanished. Lighter and brighter. Oh, Mark! how grand and beautiful life can be!” Leaping to her feet she did a wild dance, learned in some gypsy camp with her good friend, Petite Jeanne; then, dropping to her place beside the boy, she looked away into the night. For her, darkness held no terror, for well she knew there should be a brighter dawn.
Of a sudden, as they sat there, each busy with thoughts of days that were to come, they were startled by a sudden loud splash.
“Oh!” Florence jumped.
“Only some big old land-locked salmon,” Mark chuckled.
“I didn’t know—”
“That they were here? Oh, sure! I’ve heard them before.”
“Mark, I love to fish. Couldn’t we fix up something?”
“Sure. There’s a line or two in the cabin and some three gang hooks. I’ll cut the handle off a silver-plated spoon. It’ll spin all right without the handle. That’ll fool ’em. You’ll see!”
She did see. The very next day she saw what Mark’s inventive skill would do and, seeing, she found fresh adventure that might have ended badly had not some good angel guided one young man to an unusually happy landing.
Dull gray as a slate roof, the lake lay before Florence next morning. There was a threat of rain. From time to time, like scurrying wild things, little ripples ran across the water.
“Just the time for a try at that big old salmon trout,” she exulted.
They had a boat, of a sort. A great hollow log brought down from the hills, with its ends boarded up. It leaked, and it steered like a balky mule, but what of that? She would have a try at trolling.
Dropping on her knees at the back of the boat, she seized the paddle, then went gliding out across the gray, rippling water. Quite deftly she dropped in her silver spoon and played out her line.
After that, for a full quarter hour, she paddled about in ever-widening circles. Once her heart skipped a beat. A strike! No, only a weed. She had come too near the shore. Casting the weed contemptuously away, she struck out for deeper water.
Round and round she circled. Darker grew the surface of the lake. Going to rain, all right. Clouds were closing in, dropping lower and lower. Well, let it rain. Perhaps—
Zing! What was that? Something very like a sledge-hammer hit her line.
“Got him!
“No. Oh, gee! No.” He was gone.
Was he, though? One more wild pull. Then again a slack line. What sort of fish was this?
Line all out. She would take in a little slack. Her hand gripped the line when again there came that mighty tug.
“Got you,” she hissed.
And so she had, but for how long? The line, she knew, was strong enough. But the rod and reel? They were mere playthings. Bought for perch and rock bass, not for thirty-pound salmon. Would they do their part? She was to see.
Dropping her paddle, she settled low in her uncertain craft. A sudden rush of the fish might at any moment send her plunging into the lake. Not that she minded a ducking. She was a powerful swimmer. But could one land a salmon that way? She doubted this. And she did want that fish. What a grand feast! She’d get a picture, too. Send it to her friends—who believed her lost in a hopeless wilderness.
“Yes, I—I’ve got to get you.” She began rolling in. The reel was pitifully small. She had not done a dozen turns when the tiny handle slipped from her grasp.
Zing! sang the reel. Only by dropping the rod between her knees and pressing hard could she halt the salmon’s mad flight.
“Ah,” she breathed, “I got you.”
This time, throwing all the strength of her capable hands into the task, she reeled in until, with a sudden rush the fish broke water.
“Oh! Oh!” she stared. “What a beauty! But look! You’re up, head, tail and all. How’re you hooked, anyway?”
Before she could discover the answer he was down and away. Once again the reel sang. Once more its handle bored a hole in her right knee.
“Dum!” she exclaimed as her boat began to move. “He’s heading for the weeds. He—he’ll snag himself off.”
The boat gained momentum. Reel as she might, the fish gained ground. Deep under the surface were pike-weeds. She knew the spot, twenty yards away, perhaps. Now fifteen. Now—
Wrapping the line about her shoe, she seized the paddle and began paddling frantically.
“Ah! That gets you.” Slowly, reluctantly, the fish gave ground. Then, driven to madness, he broke water a full fifty yards from the boat. This move gave the line a sudden slack. The boat shot sidewise and all but overturned. In a desperate effort to right herself, the girl dropped her paddle. Before the boat had steadied itself the paddle was just out of her reach.
“Oh, you! I’ll get you if I have to swim for it.”
All this time, quite unknown to the girl, something was happening in the air as well as the water. There was the sound of heavy drumming overhead. Now it lost volume, and now picked up, but never did it quite end.
Without a paddle, with her reel serving her badly, the girl was driven to desperation. Seizing the line, she began pulling it in hand over hand. This was a desperate measure; the line might break, the hook might loose its grip. No matter. It was her only chance.
Yard by yard the line coiled up in the bottom of the boat. And now, of a sudden, the thunder of some powerful motor overhead grew louder. Still, in her wild effort to win her battle, the girl was deaf to it all.
The line grew shorter and shorter, tighter and tighter. What a fish! Thirty yards away, perhaps, now twenty. Now—how should she land him? She had no gaff.
That question remained unanswered, for at that instant things began to happen. The fish, in a last mad effort to escape, leaped full three feet in air. This was far too much for the crazy craft. Over it went and with it went the girl.
That was not all; at the same instant a dark bulk loomed out of the clouds to come racing with the speed of thought towards the girl.
“An—an airplane,” she gasped. Closing her eyes, she executed a sudden dive.
This action would have proved futile, the pontoons of the plane sank deep. Fortunately, they passed some thirty feet from the spot where the girl disappeared.
When she rose sputtering to the surface, her first thought was of the fish. No use. The line was slack, the salmon gone.
She looked up at the plane. At that moment a young aviator was peering anxiously out over the fuselage.
“Ah! There you are!” he beamed. “I’m awfully glad.”
“Why don’t you look where you’re going? You cut my line. I lost my fish.” Florence was truly angry.
“Fish? Oh, I see! You were fishing?” The young aviator stood up. He was handsome in an exciting sort of way. “But I say!” he exclaimed, “I’ll fix that. I’ve a whole leg of venison here in my old bus. What do you say we share it? Can you bake things?”
“Sure, but my aunt can do it much better.” Florence climbed upon a pontoon to shake the water out of her hair.
Five hours later, with the rain beating a tattoo on the well weathered roof of the cabin, they were seated about the hand-hewn table, the Hughes family, Florence, and the young aviator. Seven candles winked and blinked on the broad board. At the head sat Mark, and before him the first roast of wild venison the family had ever tasted. How brown and juicy it was!
“Wonderful!” Florence murmured. “How did you get it?” the words slipped unbidden from her lips.
“No secret about that,” Speed Samson, the aviator, smiled. “I’m a guide. Take people up into the mountains for fish and game. Just left a party up there. Going back in a week. It’s wonderful up there. Snow. Cold. Refreshing. Great! Want to go along?” He looked at Florence.
“Why, I—” she hesitated.
“Take you all,” his eyes swept them in a circle.
“Can’t be done just now. Thanks all the same.” It was Mark who spoke. “We’re new here. Lots to do. Adventure will have to wait.
“Of course,” he hastened to add, “I’m not talking for Florence.”
“Oh, yes, you are!” the big girl flashed back. “I’m in this game the same as you, at least until snow flies.”
“O. K.!” the aviator laughed. “When snow flies I’ll be back. Winter up here is the time for adventure.” He was looking now at Mary, whose dark eyes shone like twin stars. “I’ll take you for a long, long ride.”
At that instant something rattled against the windowpane. Was it sleet driven by the rain or was it some spirit tapping a message, trying to tell Mary how long and eventful that ride would really be?
Next day the smiling aviator went sailing away into a clear blue sky. Florence and Mary went back to their work, but things were not quite the same. They never are after one has dreamed a bright dream.
Three days later, Florence got her fish, or was it his brother? He weighed twenty pounds. Of course that called for one more feast. Fortunately, one who works hard may enjoy a feast every day in the year and never waste much time. Truth is, only one whodoeswork hard can truly enjoy any feast to its full. The Hughes family enjoyed both work and wonderful food.
Florence stirred uneasily beneath the blankets. Morning was coming. A faint light was creeping in over the cabin loft where she and Mary slept in a great, home-made bed.
More often than not it is a sound that disturbs our late slumbers. Florence had never become quite accustomed to the morning sounds about their little farm. All her life she had lived where boats chug-chugged in the harbor and auto horns sounded in the streets. Here more often than not it was the croak of a raven, the song of some small bird, the wild laugh of a loon on the lake that awoke her.
Now, as a sharp suggestion of approaching winter filled the air, on more than one morning it was the quack-quack of some old gander of the wild duck tribe, flown to the lake from the far North, or the honk-honk of geese.
All this was music to the nature-loving girl’s ear. And, of late, all of life seemed to her a great symphony full of beautiful melodies. The hard battle of summer was over. Bravely the battle had been fought. The Hughes family had come to this valley to win themselves a home. She was one of them, in spirit at least. The beginning they had made surpassed their expectations. Now, as she opened her eyes to find herself fully awake, she thought of it all.
“A ticket to adventure,” she whispered low to herself, “that’s what the man said he was giving me. It’s been a ticket to duty and endless labor. And yet,” she sighed, “I’m not complaining.” A great wave of contentment swept over her. They were secure for the winter. That surely was something.
“Adventure,” she laughed, silently. “Bill has had the adventure. He—”
Her thoughts broke off. From somewhere, all but inaudible, a sound had reached her ear. More sensation than sound, she knew at once that it was made by no wild thing. But what could it be? She listened intently, but, like a song on their little battery radio, it had faded away.
Yes—her thoughts went back to her neighbor—Bill Vale had sought adventure and had found it. With his mother still in Palmer, he had packed up a generous supply of food, charged to his mother’s account at the government commissary, and joining up with the dreamy-eyed prospector, Malcomb Dale, had gone away into the hills searching for gold.
“Not that Bill’s mother would have objected,” Florence thought. “She would have said, ‘Bill is incurably romantic. The quest for gold appeals to him. All our desires in the end must be satisfied if we are to enjoy the more abundant life. Besides, what is there to do? There are six hundred men working in gangs. They will clear up our land for us and build cabins before snow flies. We shall be charged with it all, but then we have thirty years to pay.’ Yes, that is exactly what Bill’s mother would have said,” and the thought disgusted Florence not a little.
So Bill had gone away into the mountains. The mountains, those glorious, snow-capped mountains! Florence, as she bent over her work in their large garden, had watched him start. And as she saw him disappear, she had, for the moment, envied him.
Often and often, in the sweet cool of the evening, she and Mary had talked about how, in some breathing spell, they would borrow a horse and go packing away into those mountains. The breathing spell had never come. And now, the brief autumn was here. Winter was just around the corner. Florence had no regrets. Never before had she felt so happy and secure.
Bill had been gone six weeks. The clearing and building crew had arrived while he was away. There was dead and down timber at the back of Bill’s lot that would have made a fine, secure cabin, had Bill been there to point it out. He was not there. So the cabin was built of green logs. Already you could see daylight through the cracks, and Bill’s mother, who had moved in with what to Florence seemed an unnecessary amount of furniture and equipment, was complaining bitterly about “the way the government has treated us poor folks.”
Bill had returned at last. Sore-footed and ragged, his food gone, his high-priced rifle red with rust, he had returned triumphant. He had found gold. In the spring he would begin operations in a big way. Proudly he displayed six tiny nuggets, none of them bigger than a pea.
“Seeds,” old John McQueen had called them. “Golden seeds of discontent.” But to Bill they were marvelous. For him they hid the cracks in their cabin, his unplowed field, his uncut woodpile. And, because she doted on her son, they hid all these things from his mother’s eyes as well—at least, for a time.
“Poor Bill!” Florence sighed, as she snuggled down beneath the blankets. “He’s such a dreamer. He—”
There was that strange sound again, like a speedboat motor. She laughed at the thought of a speedboat on their tiny lake. But now, as before, it faded away.
Yes, with her help, the Hughes family had won. Their summer had been a complete success. How they had worked, morning to night. Mosquitoes and flies, tough sod and weeds, they had battled them all. And how they had been rewarded! Never had plants grown and flourished as theirs did. Mark’s tomatoes were a complete success. Twice, it was true, the mercury dropped to a point perilously near freezing and their heads rested on uneasy pillows. But the Alaskan weather man had been kind. Their bright red harvest, “bushels and bushels of tomatoes,” had come and had been sold at unbelievable prices. All along the Alaskan railroad, people had gone wild about their marvelous tomatoes.
“And now,” the girl heaved another happy sigh. Now their little sodded-in cellar was packed full of potatoes, beets, turnips, and carrots; their shelves were lined with home-canned wild fruit, raspberries, blueberries, high bush cranberries, and their storeroom crowded with groceries, all paid for. What was more, a horse! “Old Nig,” bought from a discouraged settler, was in their small log barn. It was marvelous, truly marvelous! And yet, in this wild land full of possible exciting events, they had known no adventure.
“Duty first,” John McQueen had said to her once. “And when duty is done, let adventure come as it may. And itwillcome.”
“Good old McQueen,” she sighed. “God surely knows all our needs. He sends us such men.”