CHAPTER XIVKNOCKOUT INN
“Wasn’t there gold in Mr. Chase’s mine after all?” asked Ruth eagerly.
Mr. Knowles looked troubled and rubbed a blue-veined hand across his forehead.
“That’s what I don’t know and what I have come all this way to find out,” he confessed.
He relapsed into one of his thoughtful pauses, and eager as Ruth was to hear the rest of this remarkable story she did not hurry him. She knew that eventually he would tell her everything, for he was even more eager to disclose the facts than she was to hear them.
“Mary herself wrote to me,” he said, after a moment. “She wrote to tell me of her father’s death and the fact that she and her sister Ellen were in desperate trouble.”
“How old are they?” Ruth interrupted long enough to ask.
“Mary has just come of age,” returned the old gentleman. “She seems to be a sturdy,courageous young person, however, and from her letter to me it appears she is following in the footsteps of her father, and with her younger sister Ellen and with the help of three miners who were friends of her father, is trying to operate the mine herself.”
“Are the girls all alone—are they living alone?” asked Ruth breathlessly.
“Yes. But that it not the worst of it,” said Mr. Knowles. He sat up straight and his thin face flushed with indignation. “These two plucky children—for they are hardly more—have enemies, wicked conniving enemies, who are plotting to get the mining claim away from them.”
“Ah!” Ruth’s eyes were bright. “Then that at least seems to show one thing!”
“What?” asked the old gentleman, in a puzzled way.
“That there is real gold on the claim. Otherwise these enemies, whoever they are, would not be so anxious to get hold of it!”
“Yes, I have thought of that,” said Mr. Knowles, and he had never looked so pathetically helpless as at the moment when he made that admission. “But even though there is gold in the mine, that will do the girls little good if their enemies succeed in taking it away from them before I get there.
“And after all,” he added, with a pitiful shrugof his shoulders, “what can an old man like me do against such villains as these probably are? I know nothing of mines or of the laws of the Yukon country. A sorry protector the girls will find in me, I fear, even when I have reached them.”
Though Ruth tried to encourage the old gentleman and reassure him as well as she could, in her heart she was convinced that he had spoken very near the truth. An unworldly, gentle, dreaming old man, no matter how kind-hearted and desirous of serving, could probably avail little against the cold-blooded, hardened type of pioneer buccaneer who would deliberately attempt to wrest a lawful claim from two orphaned and defenseless girls.
What Mary and Ellen Chase undoubtedly needed was a young and virile defender, preferably one acquainted with the ways of the gold country and so would be best qualified to cope with the kind of pirates these poor young things were facing.
Mr. Knowles did not again refer to the story during the trip. Ruth told the sad story to Helen, who expressed the hope that they would run into the unfortunate girls during their own adventures and perhaps be able to do something to help them.
Then came the day when the travelers could actually look forward to landing within a fewhours at St. Michael. At that disturbing center they were to take a smaller steamer for points up the Yukon.
Their ultimate destination was Knockout Point, a little settlement not far from Dawson City. This was the spot Ruth had chosen for the filming of the greater part of the picture. It would form, she thought, a splendid setting full of local color for the main outdoor scenes of “The Girl of Gold.” If she found it necessary later to take steamer for the filming of some scenes farther up the river, that all could be arranged for in due time.
Meanwhile, Knockout Point was their appointed destination.
Good connections were made at St. Michael. The small steamer on which Tom had taken passage for his party was almost ready to leave as the great liner docked.
Their quarters aboard the smaller ship were not as commodious as those they had enjoyed aboard the liner. But once aboard, no one cared particularly, since the longest part of the journey was now over and their destination almost in sight.
The one thing Ruth regretted was that, in the excitement of landing, she had lost sight of her elderly friend, Mr. Knowles. She thought of him constantly during the rest of the trip and wonderedwhat his ultimate destination really was.
Then, a few days later, came the great moment when they all gathered on deck to watch the approach to Knockout Point. As the steamer plied steadily up the broad river, the excitement of players, cameramen, and directors grew.
It seemed as though Ruth was everywhere at once, exhorting cameramen to make sure that precious films and cameras reached shore safely, seeing that every one had packed and was ready for the landing.
Knockout Point was a straggling settlement, extending along the bank of the broad Yukon for a quarter of a mile or more. It had several docks, one about ready to fall apart, and a dusty, straggling main street of one and two story buildings. It had, in years gone by, gained its name from a fierce fight between a gold hunter and a desperado of that vicinity, in which the desperado had gotten the worst of the combat.
“Doesn’t look much like New York, does it?” remarked Chess.
“New York!” cried Helen. “Why, it can’t compare with—with Cheslow!”
“Some pretty high mountains in the background,” went on the young man.
“Yes, and they look grand, don’t they? I suppose we’ll do some mountain climbing while we are here.”
Ruth thought of and wondered about Mary and Ellen Chase. She wished she had asked Mr. Knowles more about them. The old gentleman had not said in just what part of Alaska their mine was located, except that it was near Snow Mountain.
However, he had known that her destination was Knockout Point and had mentioned the possibility of her meeting with these unfortunate girls. Was Snow Mountain and the property of Mary and Ellen Chase, then, somewhere in the neighborhood of Knockout Point?
Unable to answer the question to her satisfaction, Ruth was sorry that she had not found more time to spend with the old gentleman during the last days of the trip. He had seemed so lonesome and bewildered and troubled! If only she had found out definitely the location of the Chase mine, she or Tom or some of the rest of them might have found a way to help the girls and the old gentleman at the same time.
Well, it was too late now! They had reached the dock and from that time on other and more important duties claimed her attention.
Tom was bargaining with an evil-looking person, whose huge mustache and overhanging eyebrows seemed to Helen to proclaim him a desperado of the worst sort, an opinion she confided in an undertone to Ruth.
The name of this dangerous-looking individual was Sandy Banks, and the girls were later to learn that the only fierce part of Sandy was his appearance. In reality he was the simplest and gentlest of men, always ready to do a service for his fellow men, and an ardent admirer and champion of all women.
When Tom presented him to Ruth and Helen, this gallant cavalier bent low over the hand of each of them, his mustache sweeping upward in a grand and impressive manner.
Helen suppressed a giggle. But Ruth only smiled, for she had seen the simple friendliness in the eyes of this great hulking fellow and knew at once just what type of man he was.
Besides, her mind was working busily along professional lines. This Sandy Banks would contribute excellent local color to her picture if he could be persuaded to act for a day or two as an extra. Ruth stowed this thought away in a corner of her brain to be brought forward again when the time was ripe.
Meanwhile Sandy readily agreed to transport the motion picture company and its paraphernalia to Knockout Inn, where Tom had already telegraphed ahead for reservations.
“You purty nigh scairt Slick Jones into his grave,” said their new acquaintance, with a deep-chested chuckle. “You come near fillin’ up hishull place—which ain’t worryin’ Slick none, since he leaves nigh onto every cent he kin scrape together down to The Big Chance. Well, sir, where do you want them things stowed?”
Tom gave instructions in regard to the trunks and other luggage, but the cameramen decided to carry their precious cameras with them.
“So far from home it ain’t any use taking chances with them, Miss Fielding,” said Schultz, with a grin.
Finding that Knockout Inn was not far from the river front, they all determined to walk, leaving only the luggage to Sandy Banks’ rattling old wagon and dispirited horse.
So they filed along behind this equipage, keeping at a safe distance from the dust flung up by its wheels, quite willing that Sandy should take the lead and that he should proceed as slowly as possible. It was glorious to be on land again after the long ship journey, and every one was in high spirits. Every one, that is, except the dwarf who brought up the rear in a sort of sulky isolation, seeming like a dark blot upon the gayety of the party.
They found Knockout Inn a typical settlement building, a long low, one-story structure with more sheds and outhouses than there was building itself.
The proprietor came out to meet them in personas Sandy drew his horse to a standstill before the door. The motion picture company straggled up, feeling, and perhaps looking, like a band of gypsies on the trail.
There was a smile on the habitually doleful countenance of Slick Jones and his hair, black and sleek, brushed straight back from a rather low and bulging forehead, shone with unusual brilliance. Slick was famous among his neighbors for this style of hair dressing, for no matter how careless the rest of his attire might be, Slick’s hair was always sleek and polished like a piece of patent leather.
“Glad to meet you!” he said now, with a manner that was evidently intended to match his hair. “My place ain’t much on looks, but I’m aimin’ to make it comfortable. Sandy, there! Step lively, my lad. This way, ladies and gents! This way!”