MINGLED WITH THE TRAVELLERS AT GUMBOOT ANNIE'S BOARD.
There was a dead silence, broken only by the fly-catcher's mocking refrain, every man with wonderful restraint and delicacy avoiding so much as a glance toward Durant.
Then, again, Nick rose to the occasion, manfully. "Why, ter be sure! Everybody knows Lucky, and Lucky's Rainbow Mine, eh, boys? Blast yer, can't yersayyer does?" he demanded, in an undertone that would have been backed up with a shooting-iron had his hands been free.
But of their own accord the boys, their presence of mind recovered, all were loyally assuring Miss Durant that Lucky and Lucky's mine were synonyms for boundless wealth at Lost Shoe Creek and throughout the golden northland. "The mere mention of it brings better fortin' than touchin' a hunchback, or spittin' on your money at new moon," one summed up.
"Too bad, but Lucky ain't here just now," the Bully went on to state, with an authority that, handcuffed though he was, not even the most audacious would have dared dispute. "An' what's more, tain't so easy ter locate him. Like as not he's off, attendin' ter them vast interests of his'n somewhar out among them hills!" He nodded, towardthe hoary-beaded mountains as if defying their granitic silence to gainsay him.
"Sure he is!" corroborated the prospectors, in a chorus, covering up the long-drawn sigh of relief that nearly betrayed Durant.
"Prospectors is here ter-day, and gone ter-morrer, like the snow, d'ye see?" concluded Nick. "But he'll turn up in time all right, fer fair, with a pokeful of dust in his corjeroys, and a train of mules loaded down with nuggets fer his gal!"
"Sure! That's what! Betchersweetlife!" cried the boys, who lacked their leader's skill in improvising lies, but knew a good one when they heard it.
"Oh, thank you, thank you so much!" Evelyn had begun to feel real uneasiness at the continued postponements in arriving at her journey's end or obtaining definite intelligence of her father. "And when I join him I shall tell him what a welcome you have given me. And I promise you he shall back everybody's proposition. I promise every one of you a substantial slice of our good fortune in the Rainbow Mine."
Comment on this generous pledge was headed off by Ikey's vigorous ringing of the supper-bell, coupled with an announcement from Gumboot Annie that for a dollarwithin the tent might be obtained a meal calculated to turn the mother of the Delmonicos the colors of a lettuce and tomato salad from professional jealousy, on which, at Evelyn's invitation and with Barney's willing concurrence, the execution of justice temporal again was stayed, while Nick and his followers, with their custodian, mingled with the travelers at Gumboot Annie's board. There the Bully's manacled efforts to devour bacon and flapjacks particularly delighted the young ladies, who took turns in cutting up his food for him, while he himself was moved almost to tears that his last victim could not be present to share the joy their late unpleasantness was procuring for himself as the survivor.
Durant followed them to the entrance of the tent where, unnoticed, he lingered a few minutes, listening to the hum of merry voices, and feasting his sad eyes upon his girl, then turned despairingly away.
EVELYN ENGAGES A COURIER
While, as he knew, his identity was suspected by Nick and Nick's gang, yet, so long as these were at supper his disguise enabled Scarlett to wander through the camp, as if seeking employment, and reconnoitre in order to ascertain what were the most flagrant examples of law-breaking industries with which, officially, he would have to deal. Meanwhile, his thoughts kept straying toward the picture-girl with pleasure in the thought of her fascinating proximity, not unmingled with criticism of her large assumption of little dignities, softened, however, with pity for the bitter disappointment in store for her when she should learn the true state of her father's affairs.
As it would be manifestly impossible for her to continue under the delusion that hers was the purse of Fortunatus to draw on, theobviously wisest plan would be for Durant to disclose himself to her without delay, confess the truth, and either arrange for her to remain with him, sharing his rough lot, should she have the grit so to do, or take up a collection to send her back to any friends who might be willing to give her a home until, if ever, his luck should turn again. For his own part, however, both as official and man, Sergeant Scarlett was strongly of opinion that it would be an unholy act to allow a bevy of girls to leave a district so sorely needing them, above all when among their number was the girl of girls whom no young man can fail to recognize the moment he sets eyes on her; or, as in his case, even on her portrait. Accordingly, a thousand schemes passed through his head for making the wilderness, in spite of straitened means and harsh conditions, an acceptable habitation to the newcomers. The first step was to take counsel with Evelyn's father, but when, after making his duty rounds of inspection, he returned to the neighborhood of Gumboot Annie's hostelry, Durant had disappeared, nor did inquiry reveal the slightest trace of him.
Scarlett's next idea was formally to present himself to Miss Durant and proffer his services in finding her party suitable accommodationstill her father could be reached. Just as he arrived at this decision the travelers came from the tent. Approaching Evelyn, with a military salute less effectively seconded than he could have desired by the battered apology for a hat that he was wearing, he was about to accost her, when, to his surprise, she waved him imperiously aside.
"Out of the way, my good man. I wish to speak with the officer."
At this, Barney, who was engaged in lining up his prisoners for the march to headquarters, came forward, with a flattered grin. "Out av the way, ye hulkin' vagabone!" he ordered his superior, with a rough shove that filled Scarlett with wrath, and sent Nick and his men, who every moment were becoming surer of the equivoque, into loud guffaws.
"I tell you, I never give indiscriminately to beggars," stated Miss Durant, as the young man seemed inclined to persist. "Kate, love," she beckoned a serious-looking young girl, "investigate his case."
Kate wrinkled up her conscientious eyebrows. "His face is very red," she whispered Evelyn, "but somehow I don't think it's drink."
"Let him wait, then," ordained Evelyn,"and I'll see about him myself. Meanwhile—oh, officer, I want your help! I'm in such a pickle for lack of a man servant," she went on to confide in Barney. "The French courier I brought out with me deserted the moment we set foot in Skagway, taking my camera, automobile, and I don't know what besides. Of course, my father will see to it that he's found and punished—and the things don't matter, because, till my own are recovered, they can be replaced. But the difficulty is to replace Alphonse. I never before saw so many idle and poverty-stricken men in all my life; yet—it's the strangest thing—no matter what inducements I offer, no one is willing to take service with me."
"Myself, I don't think it much loss, miss," Evelyn's maid struck in. "That Alphonse was too tight-laced to be of any good use. And, anyway, for my part I don't think it respectable for a man to wear corsets any more than for a woman to go without 'em."
"Oh, it's not Alphonse's usefulness I mourn for," admitted Miss Durant. "It's the appearance of the thing; thechic. My father always likes me to have the best of everything; and I owe it to his position no less than to my own dignity to travel in the best style. Officer," again she appealed toBarney, "can't you recommend me a courier?"
Barney looked his bewilderment. "Is it a currier for the horses av your automeboiler ye do be wanting, miss?"
Perceiving in this breach his opportunity, Scarlett stepped boldly into it. "May I apply for the position? I'm looking for work."
"Lookin' for throuble, more like," muttered Barney, with solicitude. "Wid all thim lasses! Begorra, I know the sect."
Evelyn turned about and surveyed the speaker critically. "Ah, I'm glad it's employment and not alms you want," she commended the busiest, most hardworked official in the district. "But—I wonder—are you qualified?" Into her pretty eyes there crept a look of doubt.
"I know something about horses," with truth the Mounted Policeman assured her.
"But not about lasses," Barney anxiously tugged at his sleeve. "'Tis them as leads ye the divvle av a ride, and is like as not to run away wid ye."
"H'm!" Evelyn considered the matter. The shaggy picturesqueness of the prospectors in colored flannel shirts, top boots and corduroys, with hands ever on gun or pistol, their odd phrase and lurid expletive,touched the silly streak of romanticism in her as had they been chorus of an opera in which she found herself enacting the star rôle, but this clean-skinned young man, with unadorned speech, in commonplace, work-a-day clothes, at first failed to interest her.
"H'm! Well," she conceded finally, "I'm something of a judge of people. Step into the light where we can take a good look at you."
As Scarlett obeyed, "There!" cried little Kate, triumphantly. "The nice, modest way he changes color, I'm sure he doesn't drink!"
Evelyn also noticed, as who could fail to do, the ingenuous blush that overspread the white crescent of the young giant's brow, and it flattered her woman's love of power. "Well, girls," she demanded, in an audible aside, "and what do you think of him?"
The verdict of the orphans was unanimous; they thought him fine, Gertrude, who would have been frivolous and slangy had her institution permitted it, pronouncing him "a peach." Sarah alone challenged him.
"He's a sassy piece," she informed Evelyn. "Look at him now, fit to burst with laughter at us! I never heard of a decent man-servant that couldn't keep his face straight."
"But if I'm not straight-faced and strait-laced like Alphonse," urged Scarlett, "at least ye can count on me never to take French leave of ye."
Sarah shook her head ominously. "He's too young, miss," she warned Evelyn. "Far too young."
"But I'm growing older every day," pleaded the postulant, "and up here the days are so long, one grows old twice as fast."
"He has too much command of language for a man-servant, miss," insisted Sarah. "That kind is apt to put on airs above their station. And—look at him now!—there's something altogether too masterful about the way he walks."
"Ah, that comes from soldiering," the young man explained. "Me legs are always under arms, as it were."
Evelyn laughed with a distinct prepossession. "What is your name?" she inquired.
"Scarlett."
"Scarlett what?"
"It's what Scarlett."
"Eh? What do you sign yourself—that is, can you write?"
"Oh, I manage to make me mark with my fist on any human document that gets in my way. I sign myself J. Scarlett."
"Oh! And what does J stand for?"
"Gerald."
"Gerald! How do you spell it?"
"The usual way. G-e-r-a-l-d."
"Then, why do you sign it J?"
"Oh, that's just a mistake other people make in the pronunciation," the owner of the name elucidated, to his own if not to his hearer's satisfaction. "It once nearly cost me a lawsuit to establish it."
Sarah groaned: "He talks for all the world like an Irishman."
"Murther will out," Barney proclaimed, with pride.
Evelyn turned on the owner of Dunshinnanon. "Are you Irish?"
"It's the best excuse my parents could make for me," admitted Scarlett.
"I am more than half inclined to take him on trial," Evelyn stated. "But first," she again consulted Barney, "officer, can you give the young man a character?"
"A character? Faith, but that's phwat he does be needing some ginerously minded person to bestow on him, for niver a wan av his own has he to show at all, at all!" cried Barney, mindful of his chief's earlier injunctions to depict him in unflattered lights. "Glory be! If I was to begin to tell yez phwat I don't know about the lad he'dbe afther breaking my skull for me, an' not for the first toime."
"Nor the last, either, you idiot!" growled Scarlett.
"That's rather vague," commented Evelyn. "Tell me, is he honest?"
"Gosh! th' Irish is no thieves," Barney answered handsomely for his race, "though now and thin maybe wan might snap at something in your hand. It takes a dhirty Hollander to do the stealin'!"
"Oh! And—is he sober?"
"Sober! A pure-blooded Celt like himself!" Wishing still to carry out Scarlett's first orders, Barney hotly repudiated the charge of damaging sobriety on his behalf, but warned by a surreptitious kick that he was exceeding instructions, he softened it by asking, generally: "Wid a felly like himself, that dhrunk or sober is aqually an omadhaun, phwat the divvle is the differ?" And Scarlett also pleaded his own cause by admitting that he was frequently quite sober, though, thanks be! never to an intemperate degree.
Sarah groaned portentously, but the missionary spirit was awakening in Evelyn. "I can put up with a good deal," she asserted, "if I feel I am giving employment where it is really needed. But I must first knowwhere I stand. Is this young person reliable, to be depended on in an emergency?"
"You betcherlife on that!" yelled the prospectors, in delighted chorus. As outlaws, the mounted policeman was their natural enemy, but for the time he had downed them, as in the long run, they, by instinct, realized he always would down them, and they respected him.
"You stake yer bottom plunk on it, d'ye see? He's the only man ever got me skinned forty ways from the Jack," in a generous climax conceded Bully Nick.
Evelyn's pretty face was clouded with perplexity. Categorically there was no specific charge against the applicant; moreover, the longer she looked at him the more was she impressed with the promise of strength in his splendid proportions, the resolute chin, clear, friendly eyes, even though the corners of a mobile mouth did curl as if with perpetual laughter in an outlook on life too original to be seemly in a wearer of livery—yet, evidently, something was being withheld from her. Urged, however, by all the little orphans, who by this time were in love with Scarlett, she remarked: "Yes, we must remember that we came up here not only for our own pleasure, but also to do good. I am tempted to take theyoung man on a month's trial, and at least endeavor to reform him. That is, if—— Officer," she again consulted Barney, "is he really the best protector you can find for us?"
Pushing his hat back from a brow heated by such unwonted drafts upon its thinking powers, Barney scratched his head while regarding his superior with disparagement. Finally, "well, yis, he is," he admitted, as if it were the last damnatory word to be spoken of the man.
Having ascertained that something over a dollar a day and his keep was as much as he was used to in the way of wage, Miss Durant instructed her new courier in his duties—"to look after our trunks, bicycles, banjos, pianola, mandolins——"
"And the pets, dear," put in Ruth, who was rather tired of trying to keep the peace between an Angora cat and a canary, a parrot that looked as if it had a wicked past and a bull pup who wished to include the parrot, past and all, in his present rampageous scheme of life.
"Oh, of course the menagerie! Then you must go ahead to engage the best suites for us at the hotels, and——"
"And follow ye to pick up the articles ye leave behind," Scarlett nodded, understandingly."But till we get fairly started, I'll just accompany ye."
"Very well," assented Evelyn. "Sarah, I hope you won't mind having the young man eat with you while we are traveling?"
"I suppose it can't be helped, miss," gloomily replied the maid. "I only hope the young man will have the grace to improve the opportunity."
"Oh, I'll improve it fast enough," promised Scarlett, with a twinkling eye on Sarah, "so long as ye don't expect me to embrace it."
Evelyn cut short the maid's angry reproof. "Now, Gerald, you must keep your place. Conduct us to the nearest large city. We must telegraph my father to join us there. Meanwhile, we want to do a lot of shopping. We want, oh, ever so many things! Girls, which of you has my list?"
"I put down prizes for our bridge parties," cried Effie, her eyes snapping at the thought of the unhallowed joys in store for her.
"And materials for making fudge," whispered Ethel, who had thirty-two sweet teeth.
"Yes," assented Evelyn. "And we must buy presents: neckties and things for the poor dear miners who have been so kind tous. Also cotillion favors. As soon as we are settled I mean to give a ball."
"But, miss, how about money?" Sarah reminded her. "We have only fifty-odd dollars left."
"Oh, we can have things charged!" cried Evelyn, airily. "My father's name will be letter of credit to any amount."
Scarlett looked about with a growing uneasiness. The day was fast subsiding into the long twilight that precedes the short northern summer night. Barney had departed with his captives on the long march that was the most effective object-lesson conceivable in what could be accomplished in policing a district by but two men, with the might of a Government behind; and here was he, practically alone, save for the minister, to guard these women, since, as he shrewdly guessed, in an emergency the courage of the other passengers traveling by the coach would prove of negligible quality. The horses had been put into harness some time before, yet the driver kept delaying their departure on the most trivial pretexts. On this Gumboot Annie, when appealed to, threw a lurid local color. "Guess Logan is timin' things fer the hold-up."
"The hold-up!" in alarm, exclaimed the passengers, who enjoyed these things betteron billboards forthsetting Bowery melodrama. "You don't mean to say they really have hold-ups in these parts?"
Gumboot Annie spat deliberately before replying, "Why, that's our specialty."
"But the driver—does not the driver defend his passengers?"
"The driver! Now wouldn't thet jostle yer!" demanded Gumboot Annie of the mountains. "Logan hes ter stand in with the gang ter save his own skin. And, mind you folks don't make no fuss. Pass in yer checks an' no jawin', and the boys won't hurt yer none. But if yer squeal—well, it's none of my funeral."
Great consternation prevailed among the passengers who had booked to Camp Perdu, the stage's next destination, and elaborate were the preparations they made to conceal their valuables. The bills and gold-dust Maclane had collected for his hospital he skilfully packed into his moccasin, while, to the general amusement, Sarah bestowed Evelyn's ready money in the fauna and flora of her own bonnet.
"It's my belief the woman only said that to frighten us," decided Evelyn as, with a flourish of his horn, the driver shouted, "All aboard!" And as the stage rumbled peacefully along she added: "In any case, ourparty is safe. Our courier will protect us!" In no respect, however, were her predictions justified. Hardly was Lost Shoe Creek left behind when from the bushes by the wayside sprang a band of men, with hats drawn over their faces, pistols in hand, bidding the driver halt.
It was the most systematic proceeding in the world, reducing the bandits to the level of petty tradesmen, and their victims to that of unwilling contributors to a recognized if oppressive impost. Not one of the former offered to spare the fair sex on condition its fairest representative should tread with him the stately measure of a minuet; not one of the latter invoked the memory of the former's spotless childhood hallowed by a mother's caresses beneath an old oaken bucket or spreading chestnut tree. Instead, Logan wound the reins about the whip as this stood in its socket, and held up his hands, though without ceasing to chew the straw in his mouth, while the passengers under invitation apparently no more coercive than that of the average trolley car conductor to step lively or move up, dismounted and stood with uplifted arms while methodically relieved of purses, watches and the like. Terror tied the women's tongues, while the men, knowingthe futility of remonstrance, were silent. Only Scarlett, while submitting with the rest, ventured on a lively sally or so that called down on him a few curses or served to provoke a laugh that later helped him in identifying the malefactors. But not a word of importance was uttered on either side till the leader of the gang, surveying the pile of loot, muttered, discontentedly: "Well, this is a blamed mean crowd! Go over 'em again!"
It was then Scarlett took a quick decision. Little as passivity suited his fighting manhood; much as, in his own phrase, it pained him to Evelyn's appealing glances to turn a deaf ear, he knew that to offer the slightest resistance would be to forfeit his own life and leave the womenkind to a fate one dared not think of calmly. Nevertheless, when at the second overhauling he saw her jeweled belt and studs torn rudely from her he could not forbear a movement of impatience that drew to himself the serious attention of the robbers.
"Say, young feller"—one pressed the cold muzzle of a pistol to his forehead—"air you in an all-fired hurry ter see yer affairs wound up?"
"Oh, as to that," he answered, "ye can wind up me affairs and welcome if ye'll takethe time. They're just the Waterbury watch inside me pocket."
The ruffian laughed, and told him he could keep his worthless timepiece for his wit, but Evelyn shuddered with a disgust that gave her voice. "The pitiful coward! When I took it for granted you would risk your life for me!"
"Faith, but I'm not dying to be corpse at me own wake," jeered Scarlett. "For a lady I might risk my life, but not for the dust the reverend gentleman is treading under foot, nor for the greenbacks sprouting from yonder good woman's botanical headpiece!"
Shrieks from the women, groans and reproaches from the men, denounced this treachery, as the bonnet of the protesting Sarah yielded up its riches and the minister in heartbroken silence suffered himself, perforce, to be despoiled, while old Blenksoe, taken off his guard, in his natural tones cried, approvingly, "Ah, thet's somethin' like!"
As they hurriedly packed their loot, "Rustle, boys," in undertones, warned the leader, "else we shall have that blasted M. P. of a Scarlett on our backs!" His caution came none too soon. At Scarlett's instigation, Barney had contrived toget word to Perdu, and just as the robbers had cleared into the jungle with their booty an armed delegation of citizens appeared upon the scene. As the victims were left penniless, Dave Hastie, proprietor of the Grand Hotel, offered them gratuitous hospitality for the approaching night, a kindness that was accepted only too gladly.
"But before we start," cried Evelyn, amid general acclamation, "I wish to denounce a coward, a poltroon, a traitor! A contemptible being whose betrayal of those who trusted him should not go unscathed. Creature," she turned on her smiling courier, "have you no sense of shame?"
"Sure, but I have," he answered. "Never a day passes that I don't blush for human nature in the lump!"
Evelyn sighed, and again addressed the delegation of Perdu's Law and Order League, who, having missed the robbers, were fairly spoiling with eagerness to kill the next best man. "He never so much as lifted a finger to defend us," she explained.
"Oh, but I did! All ten of them," he defended himself, in injured tones.
"It's only what one might expect," Sarah harangued the throng, "taking on a scallywag without character or references. Practically robbing miss here of every penny ofready money she possesses, and damaging this bunnet that I got at a reduction off of a lady friend as has set up a swell millinery establishment in Sixth Avenue."
"He delivered us to our enemies!" There were tears in Maclane's voice. "He stripped the sick, the suffering; turned into channels of vice the contributions for my hospital."
All agreed that hanging was too good for the culprit, and some were in favor of lynching. One consideration alone deterred them from extreme measures, even while a rope was being hunted for among the skunk willows, sage and wild lupin by the road: namely, the unpopularity of such punitive proceedings with the Mounted Policeman newly appointed to the district.
"Times is sadly changed, boys," the leader reminded the delegation. "The gentlemanly way with us has allus bin ter choke off a traitor's last prayers with a hempen Amen. But this blamed M. P. is as apt ter pinch the gentlemen as acts impulsive in a little lynchin' matter as quick as he'd pinch a criminal. Thar's only two of 'em," he explained to the travelers, "the Sergeant and his man—but the way the feller covers distances—his horse has seven-leagued boots for sure! Now, as president of Perdu'sPeace Committee and Law and Order League, I'd claim it my proud privilege ter fit the noose ter this young rascal's neck—but as husband to a good woman and father to her kids I don't want ter run up contrairy-wise agin Scarlett of the Mounted!"
"Very well," decided Evelyn. "I myself am in favor of government. I belong to several ladies' associations for upholding clean streets and economy in the Mayor's office and things like that. From what you say, this—I didn't catch the Mounted Policeman's name, but he obviously must be an officer; and though with us, in New York, policemen, even mounted ones, have no standing in Society, yet, in his way, he must be a gentleman. Then let this miserable fellow be bound and taken before him for sentence. I myself will press the charge against him."
"Good business," applauded the delegation, heartily.
But as they were about to bind the prisoner with a rope taken from the skeleton of a wretched horse that some inferior brute of a human being had put to purposes of transportation under conditions for which nature had never intended it, the Irishman put them lightly aside.
"One moment, please. Now that ye'vewisely decided to postpone suspending the judged, also, as a famous American in a crisis once remarked, suspend judgment. All the accusations brought against me are dead true, which is why ye are alive to make them. I assisted in the despoiling of ye, on business principles, sacrificing small sums to one ten times their combined amounts. For under my own right foot I carry a sum that will not only replace Sarah's bonnet, greenbacks and all, but also reimburse the hospital with a little contribution of my own to boot."
As he spoke, he drew a roll of ready money from its hiding place and handed some bills over to the astonished maid and the no less astonished minister. "The rest, a draft, I am commissioned to deposit in the bank on account of one Durant, now absent on a prospecting trip, for the maintenance, till he returns, of his daughter——"
A loud chorus of surprise, admiration, gratitude interrupted the young man who was now hero of the hour.
The League enrolled him an honorary member on the spot. To his terror, three depressed women with bundles wanted to kiss him for his mother, while Maclane, on behalf of all the disabled people in the district, nearly wrung his hand off. As breakingaway he started to make his escape, Evelyn detained him. "My preserver," she cried, in impassioned tones, "let me reward you!"
And when Scarlett, laughing, shook his head, refusing a moiety of his own ready money that, at Evelyn's direction, Sarah was proffering him, "Then at least tell me your name—for in the excitement I am ashamed to say I have clean forgotten it."
"Yes, yes," insisted the group, "your name!"
"'Tis the same as it has always been," he answered, blithely, turning on his heel. "I haven't changed it yet. Any time ye want me just ask at headquarters for Himself, for Scarlett of the Mounted."
EVELYN SEEKS COUNSEL
A few days later Evelyn, accompanied by Sarah, knocked at the door of St. Andrew's Mission, near Perdu. An Indian woman opened to her, and on her asking for Mr. Maclane, the minister came forward with a cordial welcome.
"I won't invite you in, since just at present my study is in requisition as a hospital, and in any case you will doubtless prefer the veranda with its vista of the mountains."
"And your lovely garden," added Evelyn, glancing at the beds in which vegetables and ornamental plants were growing in orderly profusion. "I never supposed that cultivation was possible so far north."
"That is a common mistake," replied the minister. "But it is the same with plants as with people: wherever it is possible for them to grow it is intended that they should be cultivated; by which I do not mean thatwe should take the nature out of them, teaching them tricks and artificial ways; I mean that we should improve the conditions surrounding them, in order that their natural tendencies and activities may have the widest scope for beneficent purposes."
"And yet"—Evelyn looked up and down the road—"you seem to be almost the only one who recognizes these possibilities. All the cabins seem to have been dropped in uncompromising rows along the highways, as if they were so many children's toys taken out of cardboard boxes labeled 'Made in Germany'."
"Ah, most of the folk who come here are so busily engrossed in spading up the soil for treasure they have no time to till and sow. Yet our short summer of long days is capable of harvests that would yield pure gold in a land of canned supplies, where men get to long for green food as for water in the desert. Metz, the pioneer baker of Perdu, a far-sighted German, is raking in the gold-dust that other men laboriously pan out, by the sackful, simply by adding a fresh lettuce leaf, or radish, to every plate of fried eggs and bacon that he serves. Brackett of Atlin is famous for the beauty of his poppy patch that blazes like a banner on a dusty mountainside, no less than for the succulenceof the turnips with which he regales his friends, all grown on a tiny corner of an auriferous claim that overhangs the sluiceboxes. Dr. Milne of Dawson received a prize for the tomatoes and celery he took down from his far-north home to the exposition in Victoria, on the occasion of the visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales. Indeed, there was a story going the rounds that on the third day of the exposition, when the good doctor wanted to substitute fresh produce for his own, which, by that time had wilted, he could find none in Victoria to match their size. And I myself am not a little proud of my own sweet-peas." He handed Evelyn the fragrant blossoms he had been cutting as he talked.
"Thank you. They are indeed lovely. But I must not detain you too long. I have come to you for that which I rarely seek—advice."
"I am wholly at your service." Maclane installed her in a steamer-chair and placed himself on a bench beside her. "Some ethical question?"
"Oh, dear, no! I am an Episcopalian," answered Evelyn, loftily. "Not but what I am very liberal," she hastened to add. "I subscribe to worthy charities of all denominations."
There was charity without resentment on Maclane's good brow as he merely said: "Then in what way can I help you?"
"My troubles are all of a practical nature."
"In that respect, perhaps, I am not the best adviser."
"But there's no one else in whom I can confide. People up here treat me in the strangest way. I never had such an experience."
"Well, well, I'll do my best."
"In the first place I don't know how to manage about money. Sergeant Scarlett has deposited several hundred dollars to my account in the Canadian Bank of Commerce, and as much more in the Bank of British North America, yet this morning, when I went to draw some, the managers of each informed me, apparently on their own responsibility, that I am put on a weekly allowance; that I may only draw so much, at stated times, and not a penny more. When I threatened to withdraw my patronage, they said that would be impossible till the account was closed. I went to three lawyers in succession to get out injunctions and things against them—but not a man would undertake the case. Oh, evidently all the officials are leagued in some sort of a ring or another,for when I went to the office of thePerdu Claimand asked the editor to help me expose them, he only laughed. In New York, one or the other of the ten-cent magazines would have jumped at such an opportunity. However, that wouldn't matter so much if I could buy things from the stores on credit, but I find not a merchant will allow me to run up a bill. 'Cash down; spot cash for everything.' I never was so insulted in all my life."
"I am sorry people have seemed inhospitable," began Maclane, "but——"
"Oh, when it comes to that," Evelyn interrupted, "every one has been hospitality itself. Even the bank people, while officially they were insulting me, in the name of their wives and sisters offered to put up my party in some sort of fashion till we get settled. Hastie refuses to charge one penny for accommodating us till we find permanent quarters, though he had the impertinence—I'm sure he didn't mean to be impertinent—to suggest that we could stay indefinitely if we liked to work our way as chambermaids and waitresses and dishwashers and things. Even that impudent editor offered to turn out of the wretched cupboard of a room at the back of his office where he lives, and sleep on a printing pressif we liked to go stay there. At least a dozen families have invited us to bunk in their stuffy little cabins till my father's return. But that isn't my way of doing things at all. I'm accustomed to having the best and paying for it. Yet not a soul will accept my note or give me one pennyworth of credit. Just wait till my father hears how I am being treated!"
"Ah, your father!" Maclane caught at the idea. "A talk with your father would clear things up immediately."
"Yes, of course. But where is my father? how to get at him? I ask, ask, ask. Everyone has seen him quite recently. Every one assures me he is in his usual perfect health. Yet when I insist on knowing definitely which path he took, every one points vaguely north, south, east, west, toward the mountains."
"Then, for the present, why not accept that view of it?" the minister suggested. "It seems to be a matter of general knowledge that he is well, and off on a prospecting tour—and to a born prospector, such as is your father, there seem to be no limitations in the way of time, space, endurance, when searching for treasure. Only one thing can be predicated with certainty: sooner or later a man must turn up at some base of suppliesto renew his outfit. And then, knowing your anxiety, the whole district will see to it that he and you are put into communication with each other."
Miss Durant moved her daintily shod feet impatiently. "I'm not accustomed to waiting for anything that money can procure me. Why can't I send messengers flying to recall him, in every direction where there is a trail? One would think that hordes of these out-at-elbow camp hangers-on would be on their knees to me, begging for the chance—yet, though I have notices posted up everywhere offering a liberal salary and a thousand dollar bonus, I have had not one single application, not though I offer for security the Rainbow Mine."
"Poor child!" Maclane looked at her compassionately, wondering in what way the bitter truth might be most gently broken to her, and examining his own honest conscience to know if his should be the task. Before this was clear to him, however, to his infinite relief he saw the handsome person of the Sergeant, now clad in full uniform, coming up the garden path. "Why not take our friend Scarlett into our counsels?" he hastened to suggest.
"What! That insolent young man who pretended to take service with me!" MissDurant ignored the soldier's military salute.
"My dear," remonstrated the good Maclane, "our friend is greeting you."
"Ah, Sergeant," cried Evelyn, with hauteur, "I did not see you! That is to say, in my world a lady does not see a gentleman until she recognizes him."
"Faith, then, I'd best make myself invisible, lest when recognized I mayn't be seen." Scarlett turned to go.
"Oh, please remain," pleaded Maclane, "and help me advise with Miss Durant. Pending her father's arrival, she finds herself, er—financially embarrassed—or rather at a loss to proportion her finances to her wants in the style to which she is accustomed. Now what do you suggest?"
"The first word lies with you, Dominie." His back toward the two, Scarlett had seated himself on the veranda steps and was playing with Telegraph and Wrangel, who, after a series of critical sniffings, had taken him unreservedly into their favor.
"Oh, not with me; not with any son of man," hastily disclaimed Maclane, who quite forgot that he had tried to throw the responsibility on Scarlett. "First always comes prayer. Take your troubles, my daughter, to the Divine Footstool."
"Oh, of course," replied Evelyn, petulantly, "I always say my prayers, and make the responses in church. But just now I'm asking you how I am to pay for daily bread."
"Well," Scarlett considered, "I should advise—to begin with—well——"
"You've said well twice," Evelyn sharply pulled him up. "Best let well alone."
"Pardon," retorted Scarlett. "Truth lies at the bottom of my well."
In spite of herself Evelyn smiled, and perceiving his advantage he went on: "After all, well is the best beginning when you can't find a better. Why not for the present—just for a lark, you know—try roughing it?"
"Roughing it!" echoed Evelyn, in dismay. "Wouldn't that be a bit rough?"
"That's where the lark comes in," Scarlett assured her. "And we'd all make it as smooth as we know how."
"A capital idea!" Maclane slapped his knee and looked toward the sweet-pea vines as if calling on them to agree with him. "So—er—original. Think what letters you can write to your friends at home, Miss Durant. And then that is the only way to get the full—er—bouquet of a country, so to speak; not from the tourist standpoint, but by livingthe life of the people of any class who, by their work, are making it."
Miss Durant frowned, pondered a little, then smiled. "I rather like the notion. We came here largely to do good, and it will make the inhabitants feel more at ease; bridge over the social difference, as it were, if I adopt their mode of life. I really am very democratic."
"Then that's where ye'll feel out of place," Scarlett remarked. "Wherever the surface is flat as a billiard table, as regards conditions, all class distinctions being wiped out, it's there that aristocracy begins. The democrats insist on it!"
"Perhaps I can accommodate myself even to your idea of aristocracy," Evelyn remarked, ironically. "The first question is, can we find a suitable dwelling?"
"I've been investigating," answered Scarlett, "and I find at Lost Shoe Creek there is an abandoned cabin ye can have rent free; a really very decent affair 'twill be with a little patching, which the boys will be only too proud to lend a hand with."
Evelyn gasped. "And you call that suitable forme!"
Scarlett shrugged his shoulders. "This is the wilderness, my lady."
"My dear," interposed Maclane, "youmust remember that building is a costly matter. Even unskilled labor, when you can obtain it, commands five dollars a day. Talk of democracy; no man here is looking for a day's wage at carpentering, when any turn of the pick and shovel may make him a Croesus! Make up your mind to it that the Sergeant is offering you the equivalent of New York's most costly hostelry."
"Oh, very well!" Miss Durant condescended to the cabin. "I suppose we can have tents for the servants? I shall need two women besides Sarah."
"Pardon, miss." At her name, the maid's stout form appeared from behind the angle of the veranda, where she had been conducting a discreet flirtation with the waterman, who with a bucket supported by a frame on wheels and drawn by eight frisky little huskies, supplied Perdu with water from the lake at five cents the pail. "Do not count on me, miss. When my month is up I am looking to settle down on my own account."
"You are going to desert me? You are planning to set up in business, Sarah?" asked Evelyn, dismayed.
"Business!" Sarah laughed, scornfully. "With men growing on the bushes, as one might say."
"You don't mean to say you are going to get married?"
"Why not me as well as the next lady, miss, and sooner than some, in a place where ladies is valued far more for their practical abilities than for mere youth and skin-deep beauty. I am told that two French-Canadian gentlemen, who are starting rival laundries, came to blows about me in the Pioneer Bakery last night; this gentleman with the waterworks concession has just passed some extremely gratifying remarks about me—though my own preference is for a Scotch gentleman with religious views and a copper proposition. Dear knows one needs something stable to tie up to in this outlandish place, where day and night get all mixed up!"
"But, Sarah," Evelyn laughed, "you know you haven't changed your watch hands since we left the Grand Central Station."
"Time is time, miss," stated Sarah, "and twisting the hands of a watch don't affect it. I've always heard that mining camps was immoral places, and I'll answer for it this monkeying-with-the-clock business was invented by some scapegrace that wanted to deceive his poor wife about the hour he got home at night. But my choice, whichever I decide on, won't take me in that way!" Sheshook her umbrella with a mixture of coquetry and warning in the direction of the waterman.
Again Evelyn laughed, rather helplessly. "And I have been so indulgent with you, allowing you to gratify your crude taste for colors, where any other mistress would have insisted on black, serge or alpaca, with at most for your bonnet a quill or wing. However, I mustn't stand in your light, Sarah."
"You can't, miss," the maid informed her, respectfully, but with finality. "As for deserting you, as a married lady I shall only be too happy to chaperon you till your father gets back or till you settle down on your own account. And to start with, though my month isn't up, let me give you a bit of advice as from one lady to another. Policemen," she eyed Scarlett with disparagement, "are all very well in their way, but as from my own experience I know they are apt to be triflers, particularly on promotion. Measured by a New York figure of speech among us below-stairs ladies, miss, I myself wouldn't think of permitting an arm with fewer than three stripes on it round my waist."
On this Scarlett assured Sarah, to her great indignation, that she, at any rate, would be safe from his advances, his armnot being long enough to meet her figure-of-speech's measurements. When she had returned to the waterman, Evelyn, recovering from the indignant embarrassment into which Sarah's advice had thrown her, sighed: "Such an admirable maid! However will my hair get dressed?"
"Do it yourself," suggested Scarlett. "I always do mine." A girl in a red cloak just then happening to pass by he beckoned her. "I think after all I can find some one to do your work. Come here, Gelly. Miss Durant wants to talk with you."
Evelyn surveyed the girl's unkempt, though now sober comeliness dubiously. "She doesn't look very—— However, is she willing, clean and honest?"
"No, I ain't," snapped out Gelly, irritated by the inspection. "Not one of 'em. I'm as bad as they make 'em!"
"Do you mean to tell me——" Evelyn's voice dropped to a shocked whisper. "Sergeant, have you dared recommend me a young person who is not—not virtuous?"
"But she has so many other virtues," pleaded Scarlett for his protégée, "I thought ye might give her a chance." He appealed to Sarah, who had drawn near. "Perhaps ye'll let me explain to you as being the older woman."
Sarah pursed her lips primly. "There's some things I'll never be old enough to hear."
"I beg your pardon, heartily," Scarlett was heard quietly to say.
"I am by no means sure that I shall grant it," replied Miss Durant, with a haughty toss of the head.
"Oh, I was addressing Gelly here," he hastened to set her straight. "I had no right to let her be present at her own dissection."
"Wait!" Evelyn had an inspiration. "I spend a week every Lent in a Settlement, and we came up here to do good, so why not——"
"Now, look here!" Confronting her, arms akimbo, Gelly let loose the coarsely expressed, though not wholly unjustifiable, anger that in deference to Maclane and Scarlett she had been trying to restrain. "You better just dry up on that good-doin' proposition, else it ull be the worse fer yer round these diggin's! I know yer kind. I was in a Home oncet, and they came and sang to us, sometimes in fine duds ter show thet they regarded us like as their equals, which is lies! And sometimes dressed, oh my! so goody-goody plain, ter show thet rich folkdon't reely care fer silk and sealskin—which is lies! And then they sent me to a convent, and the Sisters, they meant all right, but they cheated the doctor about the medicines they put in his prescriptions to save money fer the Church, and kidded to the saints about their souls. Souls! Shucks! Thar was a missioner oncet who thought she'd got a holt of me all right, all right. She were a-prospectin' ter launder my soul and show it tied up with baby-blue ribbons and sashayed with sanctity as a prize sample to the Lord. Want ter know what I done ter her? Not a thing, you betcherlife! Only smashed her face with a sody-water bottle! Soft drinks, cos thet kind puts most heft in the bottle and least ter the booze. See? Now you better get busy and earn your own salt, virtuous ef you're so plumb struck on virtue, and ef not, anyway——"
A firm hand on her shoulder cut her short, as, wheeling her right-about-face, Scarlett sternly bade her, "Come!" And, like a little cowering dog about to be whipped for a victory in which, while half ashamed of it, it wholly glories, Gelly meekly followed him.
The color which the girl's attack had driven from Evelyn's face came flooding back as she turned reproachfully upon Maclane: "And you never said a word to stop her!"
"Ah," replied the minister, "I have learned that I always gain so much from listening to the other fellow's point of view."
"But surely"—for Miss Durant was not a little proud of her capacity for "emanating gracious influences," as the dilettanti of her kind were apt to phrase it—"surely you believe in missionary work; in doing good?"
Before replying, Maclane stooped forward and drew back a spray of vine that was spreading itself obtrusively over a little pink-faced daisy making a sturdy effort to look up to the god of light. "The best we can do is to try to give created things their chance. And in the end, my dear," he patted Evelyn's hand kindly, "it's the missionaries, the good-doers, to whom the good is done."
"Gelly," Scarlett meanwhile was admonishing his stubborn charge, "in all this lowdown district there isn't a man so mean he could be hired to tell that poor girl yonder the truth about her father till we've made her feel at home among us and somehow fitted her to bear it. Now, Gelly, are you, a girl that has known trouble, going to be meaner than the men?"
Gelly looked at him. "Better hev yer uniform let out fer the wings ter sprout," sheadvised him, with unfeigned homage, if with mocking tongue. "As fer thet thar stuck-up piece——" A rude grimace completed her estimate of Evelyn, but in the midst of it she paused suddenly, her ill-bred thumb dropping from her saucy nose. "I'm jiggered ef I don't b'lieve yer gone on her!"
"That's neither here nor there," answered the young soldier. "I'll lock up your tongue in jail if it disturbs the peace, but I'd so much sooner put you on your honor, Gelly."
"Till next time," promised Gelly, "yer kin let it go at that!" Then, as she went down the road, she burst into loud sobbing: "And I cud be decent ef some decent woman ud believe in me!"
Maclane, who had been considering, had a new idea. "I wonder if Chilkat Jo couldn't be persuaded to help you, Miss Durant; that is, if you feel you must have service."
"Of course I must," said Evelyn. "The orphans have been brought up to work, and make themselves useful, but they are my guests, my partners in this expedition; and naturally I cannot expect them to do things that I should not do myself."
"Naturally," Maclane agreed with her, more readily than she deemed politeness required.Going to the door he opened it, and called to some one within. "O Joseph! Chilkat Jo!"
The trader, who had been enjoying the hospitality of the mission, came forth with alacrity. Seeing Maclane, "Godam you! what do you want?" he asked, in tones at once amiable and fraught with high respect.
"Oh, Joseph, what expressions!" The minister shook his head. "You see," he explained to Evelyn, "like all the Indians, he learned bad habits from the white traders before the missionaries came his way. I sometimes wonder, if any Indians survive civilization, whether morally they will recover from contact with the whites. But, come, Joseph, our friends here are looking for a handy man to——"
"Mally them, eh?" inquired the Indian, nimbly. After a quick glance at Evelyn he shook his head disparagingly. "Damn pletty gal, but not good business ploposition!" He then turned a considering attention upon Sarah, and nodded his head approvingly. "She all light. Fat squaw! Skukum squaw. Not lightfoot gadabout! Damfine cook, eh?" he inquired of the maid. "Squat by fire, fly venison, leady chiefs leturn flom hunting? Shake!" He held out a covenanting hand.
"What, me become the bride of a heathen!" shrieked Sarah, horrified.
"Me no heathen," indignantly protested Chilkat Jo. "Me swear, gamble, dlink like hell, plenty wives, laise Cain, all same as white man."
"Joseph, my son, I will revise your code later," Maclane told him. "Meanwhile, this is not a marriage proposition. Are you willing to help Miss Durant here with her household chores—as a favor, you know," he hastened to add.
"Not as a favor at all," broke in Evelyn, in a high, hard voice. "I wish to engage a man-servant, at good wages; one who knows his place and can take orders, and——"
Her voice died before the Indian's fixed regard. "No squaw say to me, Mush! Get up, there! like dog. Mush! Lie down like dog. Me damn high muckamuck Skukum chief!" Wrapping more closely about him the blanket that, with a boiled shirt and store trousers, formed his costume, he re-entered the mission with the unsurpassable dignity of his race.
Evelyn rose without a glance in the direction of Scarlett, who had rejoined them. "Come, Sarah. Thank you very much for all your good offices, Mr. Maclane. I anticipate the suggestion you and the Sergeantare obviously about to make: that I cook, wash, scrub, sew for myself."
"Considering the conditions of camp life, my dear, it might be wise," acquiesced the minister, as he shook hands.
"Just for a lark, ye know," murmured Scarlett, pacifically, saluting. But though her pretty lip trembled, Evelyn held her head high and passed him without a sign.
PEACE, PERFECT PEACE
Feeling that on her father's return she could requite the obligation a thousandfold, Evelyn consented to remain with her party as guests of Perdu's Grand Hotel while the shack at Lost Shoe Creek was being made ready for their tenancy.
Perdu, lying on a large lake of the same name, is port of entry, and base of supplies, to the goldfields beyond. Being at that time in the third year of its existence it had a highly developed social and commercial life. For in its initial season a camp is likely to be a bedlam of frenzied maniacs shrieking, Gold, gold, gold! The second season witnesses a slump proportioned to the inflated values of its predecessor. But if it weathers to a third, then some sort of poise is attained, as steady industries develop and existence seeks a normal plane. The fancy-women who flock wherever the nuggets arethickest, now segregate themselves in a secluded quarter of the township; married men send for their families, while the unblessed bachelor whistles "The Girl I Left Behind Me," or pays attention to the schoolteacher. On all sides one sees the effort, sometimes pitiful, always human and worthy, from the harsh matrix of the wilderness to wrest a home. And then follow the petty complexities of a miscalled civilization. To Evelyn's surprise, after the first warm tender of hospitality, she encountered the same restricted social conditions in Perdu that obtain in villages on the "outside," as the world beyond the mountains in northern latitudes is termed. Women left cards on her; heads of rival cliques warned her one against the other; the wife of the principal grocer planned a tea in her honor.
On a brilliant summer morning, without cloud or shadow, mountains and valleys alike lying exposed to a broadside of sun that had been warming to its work since four hours after midnight, Evelyn set out to return the visit of the town surveyor's wife. A short cut through the clustered willow bushes brought her to the back door of their cabin, where she came upon the hostess at her washtubs, while from the doorstep the town surveyor was cleaning his teeth publicly.Wholly unembarrassed, the good people greeted their visitor with cordiality, and conducted her into the living-room, where babies, cot beds and cooking commingled with such observances of decency and taste as a woman of refinement, no matter how overworked, seems somehow generally able to contrive. In point of cultivation, so Evelyn soon discovered, her new acquaintances were fully her equal. Delighted as they professed themselves to be that her stay would be of long duration, yet to the plans she outlined for her projected improvement of the district they showed an almost marked indifference. When she dropped hints about the free library she intended to establish, Mr. Grayson began quite inappositely to brag of having made more money the previous winter by lumbering than in the way of his profession, owing to the fact that "up here, thank God! no one, man or woman, loses caste by honest labor of any sort." When she alluded to the art furniture she thought of importing for her domicile, Mrs. Grayson cautioned her to be very careful of her lamp chimneys, the commonest kind costing fifty cents at local stores, because, so the storekeepers said, of the exorbitant freight rates that prevailed. Also she advised Evelyn to start right in anddo her own washing, as the local laundries charged something over four dollars for a dozen simple pieces. When Miss Durant mentioned the theatre she was arranging to have built, the opera troupe with which she already was negotiating for a series of performances to beguile the long Klondike winter, the Graysons merely said, almost with sarcasm, "How nice!" adding that the camp contrived to get up some fair entertainments of its own in the hall over the truckman's stable. Coming to the conclusion that they were jealous lest her advent should undermine the social prestige which, so Hastie had informed her, they enjoyed, Evelyn rose to take her leave and, kindly wishful to put them at their ease, admired the babies, the bearskin rugs, the horns of mountain sheep and goat upon the wall, the view, the two geraniums in pots upon the window-sill; accepted an invitation to a wild-strawberry picnic, offered to teach them bridge, and departed in a glow of self-gratulation at her tact in dealing with the envious and small-minded.
On the hotel piazza she found the minister waiting for her, and with him Scarlett. To the latter she had not spoken since the day of their difference, for such she chose to consider it, in regard to Gelly. True, morethan once she had caught sight of him galloping down the road or striding by on some official errand, but never had she lifted a finger to delay him, nor he appeared conscious of her presence.