DEPARTED IN A GLOW OF SELF CONGRATULATION AT HER TACT.
Ignoring his greeting, in high good humor with herself and all the world, Evelyn opened fire. "Mr. Maclane, I wish you would tell that young man he owes me an apology."
Scarlett suppressed a gratified smile. "Mr. Maclane, will ye convey to the speaker that she'll have to prove the debt for me to pay it?"
"Tell him the last time we met he put me in the wrong," said Evelyn, prettily, the glow of her goodness toward the envious Graysons still upon her. "He behaved as though he thought me narrow, contemptible—and the worst is, the shoe pinches, because in a tiny degree I fear it may have been true."
She waited with a charming air of penitence for contradiction, but, to her astonishment, none came.
Instead, "I'm a brute, just," Scarlett remorsefully described himself. "Who am I to hold ye up the looking-glass? I'll never be so rude again."
"Oh"—Miss Durant stiffened perceptibly—"I do not usually find the reflection unbearable to contemplate."
"I've lived so long in the open, in primitive conditions," Scarlett, unmindful of her interruption, went on, "I always blurt out whatever pops into my mind. Well, there's precedent. In Eden, Adam must have called a spade a spade."
"Ah, my young friend, but there's no record of his having called Eve a spade," observed Maclane, with a twinkle in his eye.
"Faith, I'll drop the spade, then," laughed the Irishman, "if she'll let me call her Eve!"
"Tell him," laughed Miss Durant, with heightened color, "that he goes too far."
"Tell her I'd go farther—to any lengths, for her, so long as it didn't take me from her side."
"Tell him he's kissed the blarney-stone."
"Tell her I only practiced on it to keep my hand in till she should come."
"How dare you!" cried Evelyn, feeling that she ought to be very angry.
"Come, come, my children, peace," prescribed Maclane. "Miss Durant, I am here as a petitioner. One of my dear Indians, in fact the sister-in-law of Chilkat Jo, has a baby——"
"Velly damfine Clistian baby!" interpolatedthe trader, who was sitting on the step near by, whittling out a toy canoe.
"Oh, Joseph!" the minister protested, "when will you learn that a damn baby cannot be a Christian baby—nor a Christian baby a damn baby. We are to baptize the little one this morning," he told Evelyn. "And I am asked to beg you to stand godmother."
"For a heathen unregenerate, miss!" Sarah put her head out of the window just behind the group. "Don't you mix yourself up with that truck!"
"I'm a bit of a heathen nowadays myself." Maclane stopped Chilkat Jo's angry outburst. "My dear Indians have converted me."
"I wonder you aren't afraid of being tried for heresy, sir," commented Sarah, "talking that loose way."
"Perhaps I should be," agreed Maclane, "in the cities across yon mountains. But here they hold us in a charmed circle, and who can escape their spell?" He pointed to the lake, brilliantly ablaze, like a vessel holding wondrous depths of color, in which the snow-capped peaks with their V-shaped crevasses lay mirrored like cameos in turquoise relief. "My Indians—in my civilized days I used to preach hell-fire to them, till they scorned me for it, crying, 'Our childrenwhen they die become birds of song. Why, then, should we give them to you Christians to be burned?' Then, again, though I knew him to be a saint, dedicated in Christ's name to the service of his fellow-men, I used to avoid my brother, the Catholic priest, because his doctrines on the surface differed from my own! Again, my Indians taught me, scoffing, 'If Christianity makes enemies of her ministers, why, we want none of it.' Yes, all that I have given the heathen have they requited me a hundredfold, making me a Christian through the Christ I try to show to them!"
"I will do what you ask me only too gladly, Mr. Machine!" cried Evelyn, understanding that this was the good minister's way of making peace between herself and Chilkat Jo. "I shall be proud of my godchild; and I promise it the finest cup from Tiffany's——"
"No, no! No presents, please," enjoined Maclane. "Only kindness, neighborliness, and an appreciation of the heathen virtues. The Sergeant here has consented to be godfather."
"The Sergeant!" involuntarily exclaimed Evelyn.
"Aye! In the short time he has been in charge, he has completely won the hearts ofthe tribe of Raven and Frog. No baptism complete without him."
"Oh, as a sponsor, I'm painting the town red," admitted the Irishman. "And the Claim has a regular column of feeble-minded puns upon the epidemic. Well, I only hope the Scarlett creepers won't turn to Scarlett runners, in time of battle."
"I will tell Lallah that you consent. Be ready, both, please, when you hear the chapel bell," directed the minister, going to the mission.
Scarlett lingered, but as Evelyn took no notice of him, "Thankee for the pressing invitation," he remarked, drawing up a chair and seating himself beside her. "And are ye beginning to feel acclimated among us savages?"
"Oh, you are doing your best!" Evelyn assured him. "Though I must say, even for the wilderness, the ideas of social distinction seem curiously lax. Why, as his head waiter is off on a spree, Mr. Hastie has offered me the place—three hundred dollars a month and tips!"
"Good pay," commented Scarlett. "Why don't ye take it? I'd ask no better for my own sister, if I had one."
Evelyn tossed her head. "To pass dishes to unwashed barbarians in corduroys whogobble off their knives and drink from their saucers. Even for your own sister," she could not forbear asking, "wouldn't you consider the situation rather primitive?"
"I should, and that's the situation's saving grace," he promptly replied, "since primitive man is woman's best friend, once she makes him realize she will not let him be her enemy."
Against her will, Evelyn looked at the speaker with reluctant admiration, forced to recognize that however ignorant of class distinctions the poor young man might be, his was certainly no ordinary mentality. Accordingly, woman-like, she harked back to personalities, hoping in shallow waters to take him, through his very superiority, at a disadvantage. "Oh, we have nothing to complain of on the score of friendliness," she laughed. "Our matrimonial opportunities seem limited only by the number of single men within proposing radius. No, Sergeant, I am not the belle. That proud position is disputed by Sarah and the plainest orphan, who also is the most muscular, because they frankly tell us, in a land where hired labor is not to be had a man must marry to get some one to cook and wash for him. However, such few score of proposals as have come my way, I honestly can brag,are for myself, since I am not considered a specially useful 'household proposition,' and oddly enough my great wealth seems not to impress these poverty-stricken millionaires in the least degree."
"Oh, I tell ye, in a mining camp one gets down to first principles, or lack of them," commented the soldier. "It's chaos, till man and woman together evolve a paradise."
Evelyn waited, hoping he also would propose to her in order that she might refuse him, not kindly, with the consideration she had shown the other poor victims who had laid their hearts at her feet, but with scathing denunciation of his insolence. Instead of improving his opportunity, however, the soldier rose. "Ye'll bid me to the wedding, Miss Durant?"
"In what capacity—officially, or as a guest?"
"Not as a mourner, that I swear."
"I may decide to elope."
"Impossible! In my bally those that want a marriage license have to come to me."
"I've always had a leaning toward the nobility," remarked Evelyn, rather maliciously. "Are there no men of title in the camp?"
"A handful or so of younger sons," Scarlett informed her, "and a pathetic lot in the main they are. 'Remittance Men,' we call them, because they are on allowance to stay away from home, avowedly that in a new country they may turn over a new leaf, but in reality that their families may be spared the shame of witnessing their final disintegration. Be good to such when ye come across them, Miss Durant, for the sake of what they ought to be, but don't marry them, for the whole lot of them together wouldn't make one decent man."
Evelyn laughed, but her face crimsoned. "Dear, dear! And suppose, after all, you disapprove my choice?"
"Faith, I'll exercise my official prerogative and take ye in charge myself! Meanwhile, I must turn my attention toward yonder suspect." He indicated a person with the deportment of a personage, who, dressed in the height of fashion, was strolling, tourist-wise, kodak in hand, down the village street.
"Why, who can that be?" Evelyn leaned forward with interest.
"That's my own question. He travels under the name of the Count St. Hilaire."
"There's something very familiar about his appearance. I wonder if I mayn't havemet him at Newport, or Washington. If so, bring him here that I may renew the acquaintance, Sergeant, please."
"I'll search his title first." Scarlett ran down the veranda steps. "Now look out for trouble," he muttered to himself, seeing the stranger pause opposite a cottage in the Indian quarter, and level his camera at the totem-pole in front of it.
A crowd of angry Indians who had been squatting on mats in the sunshine, making moccasins and weaving baskets, instantly rose and swarmed about him, vehemently protesting in Chinook against this insult to their sacred emblems, Chilkat Jo acting as interpreter.
"Shame, shame, cursed shame to photoglaph the Laven and the Flog!" he cried, alluding to the totem's tribal device. "Velly godam Clistian shame!"
"Hold on!" cried Scarlett, impartially, interposing his tall form between the evidently frightened foreigner and the avenging group.
"Mais—ze Klondike barber-pole—I no steal him; je vous jure, gendarme! I make ze photographie!"
"Yes, but unless you pay them for it to show your good will, the Indians think you are marking them for death," the Sergeantinstructed him. "All right, honest Injun," he in turn assured the crowd. "Only sun-picture. Big man pay you big money."
"Why," exclaimed Evelyn's astonished voice at Scarlett's elbow, "it is my courier, Alphonse—he has let his beard grow! That is the kodak he stole from me!"
"Sacré papier, ze mademoiselle!" shrieked the man, recognizing her; and off he set as fast as his trembling limbs could carry him, Scarlett, reinforced by the children of the Raven and the Frog, in hot pursuit.
"It's only what you might have expected, miss," remarked Sarah, consolingly, as in mortified silence Evelyn returned to the veranda. "The French is a deceitful nation. They always have to talk in a foreign language so you can't understand 'em."
"It's all right!" Flushed and breathless, Scarlett came up. "He ran plump into Barney's arms. Here's your camera, Miss Durant. Later I'll get you to appear against the Count—just a formality, you know."
"I shall do nothing of the sort!" declared Evelyn loftily. "Instead, you can fine me any amount you please for contempt of court. You doubtless will enjoy doing it! As for the kodak, you can give it back to Alphonse. I shall never touch it again!"
"Miss, you are ungrateful," Sarah reprovedher, "and the young man wounded in the fracas!"
"Wounded!" cried Evelyn, in dismay.
"Oh," disclaimed Scarlett, who was shaking his fingers as if to cast a pain from them, "it's nothing. Only in protecting the Count's beauty from an irate populace I gave my wrist a twist."
"Oh, a sprained wrist is nothing to boast of," derided Miss Durant.
"That's why I wasn't boasting of it." Scarlett turned to go.
"Nevertheless"—Evelyn put a detaining hand lightly on his arm—"I took a course in First Aid to the Injured to fit myself for this life, and I know that a sprain ought to be treated with something, for fear something or other should set in. Sarah," she asked in a whisper, "what treatment does one give a sprain?"
"Fermentation," prompted the maid, sagaciously.
"That's it: fomentation! Please, Sarah, go fetch me—whatever one needs for fomentation."
"Believe me, it is not necessary." Scarlett gave his hand another shake. "It soon will be all right."
"Sit here!" Evelyn motioned him, peremptorily, to a chair beside her. "No, onthis side. A soldier's first duty should be to obey."
"Ah, well, my arms are ever at your service, even in times of peace." Scarlet leaned back, luxuriously, as she rolled up his sleeve.
"Of course, you understand I should do this for anybody," observed Evelyn, sponging his wrist with the warm water Sarah had provided.
"Of course, ye understand I should fight in defence of anybody's property," he matched her. "'Tis for that I draw my pay."
"Is it tender?" inquired Evelyn, pillowing his hand upon her lap and dabbing it softly with a towel.
"Tender's not half the word for it." The patient turned his face aside. "It's the limit of tenderness, and has to be treated on the homeopathic principle."
"Miss, he makes light of it!" cried Sarah, who, under a harsh exterior, was, by nature, kind. "But his poor brow is simply wrung with anguish." She mopped the beads of perspiration that stifled mirth had brought upon the Sergeant's comely forehead.
"Let us talk of other things to distract him," ordained Evelyn. "Come, Sergeant,tell us all about yourself. Begin at the very beginning."
"Faith, like most babies," he complied, "I began by being the child of my parents."
"Poor but honest folk, no doubt. Go on!"
"They died before my remembrance of them. I infer the honesty and inherit the poverty. I was brought up by an aunt and uncle, who didn't want me. One time when I came home from school for the holidays my aunt just looked up from her novel and remarked, 'Oh, Jerry, how dirty you are!' So I ran away to make my fortune."
"Which consists of something over a dollar a day and your keep."
"And the prospect of a pension for my widow."
"Your widow!" Evelyn dropped the hand she was engaged in bandaging. "I didn't know——"
"Oh, I haven't got one yet," Scarlett hastened to assure her. "But I shall, please God, if I live long enough."
"Sergeant, you are talking nonsense," said Evelyn. "Pain has made you flighty."
"'Way up in the seventh heaven," assented Scarlett. "Don't be so cruel as to call me down."
"There!" Having stuck a final pin in the handkerchief she had bound about thewrist, Evelyn folded the soldier's arm across his breast. "Sarah, go fetch me another sash, will you? I'm going to use this one for a sling."
"Which color shall I get you, miss?" asked the maid, preparing to obey.
Evelyn shrugged her shoulders with indifference. "I don't care—though I should think your own taste would lead you to see that blue goes best with this frock. There, Sergeant"—having made a creditable cradle of the ribbon for the soldier's arm and knotted it behind his neck, she came in front of him and surveyed her work admiringly—"that will do, I think. Now, remember, it must not be unbound for four and twenty hours. Promise! I wish you would stop laughing in that silly way and tell me if it feels all right, really."
"Joyous, beyond words," Scarlett affirmed. "I only wish I were that chap in the mythology with a hundred hands—and every blessed one of them in need of fomentation."
"I suppose you say these inane things to me because you think me incapable of appreciating sense," commented Miss Durant. "Just because all my poor little efforts to do good up here have seemed superfluous. Oh, yes"—she checked the protest that rose to his lips—"you all have been kindness personified,but I do not think you quite understand me," she complained, with the injured quaver of one who at heart knows herself to be understood only too well. "I'm really not such an overbearing, ill-natured girl; only, I acknowledge, a wee bit spoiled. You see, after my mother died, when I was still a very small child, in Colorado, my father sent me to a fashionable school in San Francisco, and there I began to feel that in Colorado we had been quite savage. Then, in my early 'teens I was put at another still more fashionable school in Chicago, where I was made to feel that in San Francisco I had been hopelessly Western. Next, I moved on to an ultra-fashionable school in New York, where it was tacitly impressed on me that in Chicago we had been positively vulgar. After this came a course of Dresden, Vienna, London, Paris, by which I realized that in New York I had been provincial, crude. On my return I felt myself cosmopolitan, a finished product. Yet, in this short space up here you all have made me wonder if, after all, all the time, I have not been a bit of a snob. Yes, you can't contradict me. I know. A thoroughbred would have taken things as she found them—would be at home anywhere, while I——" Having amazed herself far more even thanher hearer by this unexpected burst of confidence, Miss Durant amazed herself still more by an unexpected burst of tears.
"Poor child!" Scarlett compassionated her, while liking her thoroughly for her candor. "Dear, dear little Evelyn, it's libelling yourself you are, although it's true, and that's the sweetest part of it. Here, take mine!" As she was hunting, between inconsolable sniffs, for the handkerchief with which she herself had bandaged him, he tendered her his own.
"Oh, the sprain—your wrist!" cried Evelyn, in alarm.
"That's all right," Scarlett reassured her, while drying her eyes with the hand he had removed for the purpose from the sling. "It was the other one that got the twist."
Evelyn drew back. "You mean you dared let me bind up the wrong one?"
"Ye made your own selection," Scarlett reminded her, in tones he vainly tried to render penitent.
"That you did, miss," corroborated Sarah, coming from the hotel with the blue sash and tying it about Evelyn's slender waist.
"Give me back my ribbon, my handkerchief!" demanded Evelyn of Scarlett, furiously.
"Not for four and twenty hours," he answered."Not even for you would I break a promise to a lady."
"Never, never, never will I speak to you again!" cried Miss Durant.
Just then the chapel bell began to ring merrily, and at the same moment Maclane hurried toward them from the mission, an open hymnal in hand. "Come, my children, we march in, singing," he explained, pointing toward the Indians, who were forming in a procession by the chapel door. "As I am short of hymnals, you and the Sergeant will have to share one, Miss Durant. Hymn 674. 'Peace, Perfect Peace.'"
Evelyn stood still. "I absolutely decline to be associated in any way whatever with Sergeant Scarlett."
"Oh, my children!" remonstrated the minister. "How can we talk of missionizing the heathen when the Gentiles so wrangle among themselves! Ready, please! Fall into line!" Striking up the tune, he led the way.
And, somehow, in despite of her protest, Miss Durant found herself following, side by side with the hated young soldier, sharing the same hymnal, moreover, and joining her sweet voice with his manly one in praise of "Peace, Perfect Peace."
AT THE SIGN OF THE TEMPERANCE SALOON.
"One sandwich, pie an' corfee, three-fifty! One ham an' eggs, pie, corfee, five! One whiskey on a doctor's prescription, two bits!" Thus Gumboot Annie scored off their reckonings to a party of prospectors who had patronized her lunch-tent, whereupon the prospectors meekly handed their pokes across the counter for her to weigh out the dust, according to her own liberal interpretation.
"Halt!" Barney's rich brogue rang out upon the trail. "Twinty minutes for refrishmints by request, for man and baste!"
"What's up now?" Gumboot Annie put her head out to reconnoitre. "Why, who's thet blamed cop runnin' in?"
"Why, it's pop!" in dismay, cried Gelly, who was assisting the mother of Klondike Delmonicos in the capacity of bean-slinger. "My pop!" She began to cry.
"Aye, it's Bully Nick, all right," corroborateda prospector, selecting a wooden toothpick with nicety. "They're fixin' ter extrydite him. Charge of murder. Oh, he'll be hanged this time fer sure!" he added, with relish.
"Now, wouldn't thet jostle yer!" exclaimed Gumboot Annie, generally. "But didn't the stiff he peppered get well some?"
"Yep, and they let off th' Bully on parole. But ef th' all-fired fool didn't celebrate his freedom by gittin' crazy drunk and shootin' at a United States Deputy Marshal fer targit! The marshal was a mean man an' deserved ter die—but Nick should 'a' left it to a meaner man to shoot him."
"A United States Marshal!" exclaimed Gumboot Annie, scornfully. "Shucks! Drunk or sober, I thought Nick had more sense."
"Nick shoots blind when"—her informant considerately lowered his voice—"when he's on the rampage for Dandy Raish. Nick has sworn ter kill Raish on sight along of Gelly."
"Gumboot Annie! Gumboot Annie!" Bill's eager voice rang out on the clear air, as he came running toward the tent.
"We're planning for to give Bully Nick a handsome send-off. Rustle, won't you? and get us up an A1, gilt-edged blow-out!"
"Betcherboots I will," promised Gumboot Annie, cordially, adding that the Bully would be a great loss, socially, if hanged.
"'Twas the drink done it—and I cud ha' kept him from it," moaned Gelly, rocking and wringing her hands.
"Here, stop whining and make the sandwiches. Better git down behind the stove whar yer pop can't see yer!" Gumboot Annie gave the girl an ungentle but not unkindly push, and thrusting a carving-knife into her hand, bade her, as it might be the old man's last square feed upon this planet, not to spare the butter.
"Gents, I thankee hearty for these here evidences of popularity," cried the Bully, as they placed him at the head of the well-filled board inside the lunch-tent. "Gents, go thou an' do likewise, but don't git pinched! Ah, well, ef I'd got my deserts I guess I'd'a' bin strung up twenty years ago."
"Better late than nivver," politely remarked Barney, who, as an honored guest, by his gift of repartee was contributing greatly to the meal's hilarity.
"Mush, get up, there! Godam you, Teleglaph and Langel. Mush!" Thus Chilkat Jo might have been heard profanely to encourage to increase of speed on a pious errandthe parson's dogs that now were drawing a sled beside which the parson and the trader were running on their snow-shoes toward Gumboot Annie's tent. For all this took place many miles from Perdu and Lost Shoe Creek, on the heights where the snow still lingered in heavy, frozen masses, though the valleys below were abloom with summer flowers. "Him velly damn sick," he pityingly added, indicating the bundle wrapped in furs, strapped to the sled.
"Very sick, indeed, I fear, my son; but not damn sick," the minister corrected. "Perhaps we can get succor here. Whoa, Telegraph, Wrangle, lads, whoa!" Halting opposite the tent, he read its legend with surprise, "TEMPERANCE SALOON. GUMBOOT ANNIE, PROPRIETOR."
"Why, my daughter," he accosted the hostess, who, hearing sleigh-bells and scenting custom, had come forth, "does this indicate a happy change of heart and saving grace? You are taking thought to save your soul?"
"Save my skin," retorted the Gumbooted one, spitting with an accurate estimate of distances. "That blamed Scarlett was making things hot for me, so I jest wheeled the hull outfit acrost the boundary!" She pointed to an old Russian landmark, protruding like a tiny headstone from the snow,and followed by a line of rude pickets, the records of a surveying party, that straggled, single file, downhill, dividing the United States from British North America. "Lasky's a prohibition proposition, y'know."
"Whatever the motive, the action is most praiseworthy," Maclane commended her, "since your income must be greatly decreased by foregoing the sale of intoxicants."
"Now wouldn't thet jar yer!" demanded Gumboot Annie, humorously, of the landscape. "I ain't up here fer me health," she then reminded the minister. "Fines or license, it's all one ter me. And prohibition, or wide open, you betcherlife the boys has jest the same old thirst."
"H'm! Well, for the present I will waive the ethical aspect of the argument," replied Maclane, "and will beg you to sell me some stimulant for medicinal purposes. We have a lad here whom we found in trouble by the wayside; he is very low——"
"What's it a case of?" Gumboot Annie leaned across the counter to inspect the bundle on the sled, from which Jo was now unharnessing the dogs. "Drink or scurvy?"
"Neither," replied Maclane, raising the patient's head; "but, I fear, foul play."
"Now don't that pa'alyze yer!"
"WHY, MY DAUGHTER, DOES THIS DENOTE A HAPPY CHANGE OF HEART AND SAVING GRACE? YOU ARE TAKING THOUGHT TO SAVE YOUR SOUL?"
From a bottle she took from its hiding-place, Gumboot Annie poured out a generous dose. "Here, Ikey, take that ter the kid."
"Whiskey, two bits!" cried Ikey, from sheer force of habit, as he obeyed.
"Stop thet, yer little skin!" Leaning far over the counter, to the endangerment of her balance, his employer gave him a smart cuff. "I'm as close as they make 'em when I'm dealing with the healthy, but I've yet ter see myself take money from a dyin' man."
"He told me to meet him here to-day," gasped Walter Pierce, as Maclane bent over him with skilful ministry.
"Who, my son?"
"Hush! Wait—it is a secret! I have a confession to make."
When Gumboot Annie and her assistant had withdrawn, and the Indian had gone to a distance to feed the dogs, Walter tried to speak.
"It was the drink!"
"It generally is," commented the parson, mournfully.
"I had an errand for another man—one of the greatest importance. He trusted me. Some men suspected his secret and dogged my footsteps, entered into conversation withme—pretended to take a fancy to me—to show themselves my friends—good fellows. They made me drink with them. Then I, in my turn, stood treat to keep my end up and show myself a good fellow."
"Alas!" whispered the minister, as Walter paused for breath, "how many lads have I seen go down to the lowest depths, under that banner bearing the devil's own device: To show one's self a good fellow!"
"Then, when they had got me where they wanted me, drunk," continued the sick man, "they robbed me. Oh, not of money—for though they made me play, they let me win—but of my honor——"
"Oh, no, my son! It was you who threw away your own honor."
"If only I had thought of that at the time! Now they have his secret—his samples. They'll know about his mine! Tell him——"
The minister worked over the fainting form with tender skill. At last, when a glimmer of consciousness returned, "Now, my son," he said, "you owe it to the man you have wronged to make restitution. Tell me who he is, and what I am to say to him."
Walter gathered his strength for a supreme effort. "Durant," at last he managed to gasp. "Tell his daughter——" He fell back in the stupor that precedes death.
"O Joseph! Chilkat Jo!" called Maclane. And when the Indian, obeying with alacrity, replied, "Godam you, what you want?" he did not stay to reprove him, only bade him, "Run hot-foot to Lost Shoe Creek and fetch Miss Durant. Tell her I have a message from her father!"
When the trader had set off, the speed of his winged-footed race redoubled by good will, Maclane, having drawn the sled to a spot where a clump of evergreens would act as wind-brake, went to the Customs Office on the crest of the hill in search of remedies.
Seeing the coast clear, old Blenksoe, who for some time past had been hovering about the place, now came to the lunch counter, where he soon was joined by his arch-accomplice in villainy, Dandy Raish. "Hello, old tortoise!" was the hitter's salutation as his partner sauntered up. "I've been waiting for you this ever so long."
"Thet you hevn't," contradicted Blenksoe. "Not that it matters—but you allus were a fust-class liar!"
"Some folks have not enough imagination to lie," retorted the Dandy, paring his nails. "But chuck all that and get to business!"
"Business! Hully gee! Anythin' doin'? Am I in it?"
"Sure—if you can deliver the goods! Order the drinks, won't you?"
"Say, you got a tocter's brescription for liquor?" queried Ikey, when old Blenksoe did as he was bidden.
"I'll sure hev an undertaker's stiff-ticket ef I don't get it," replied Blenksoe, as he carried the medicinal doses over to the bench where the Dandy had ensconced himself.
"Best stay out here where no one can hear us," explained the latter.
"That suits me all right," agreed Blenksoe, lighting a pipe and settling himself on the Canadian side. "Thar's a warrant out fer my arrest in 'Lasky."
"I thought you werepersona non gratain the Dominion also, since that hold-up of the stage near Lost Shoe Creek."
"Thet hold-up you put me up to, while you sneaked in the bushes. You'd orter be pinched yerself fer takin' a rake-off. Ain't the receiver as bad as the thief?"
"Piano, pianissimo," advised Raish. "One never knows who's within earshot." He glanced about him fearfully.
"Thet's so," admitted Blenksoe. "I declar, what between Kennedy on the one hand and Uncle Sam on t'other, and both a-gittin' so all-fired pertikeler, every daymakes it harder for a crook ter make an honest livin'." He lighted an ill-smelling pipe. "Well, Dandy, fire away."
"Have you seen Durant lately?"
"Durant? Who th' hell's Durant?"
"Your partner, Lucky. Durant is his outside name."
"You don't say! Oh, Lucky, he ain't no good no more. Lucky's off his nut. Went stark, ravin' mad the day his gal came inter camp. I've shuk Lucky."
"More fool you. He's found a mine!"
"I dessay. As usual, a pocket, or a pot of gold eagles at th' fut of a rainbow."
"Not a bit of it. A bona-fide mine. What d'you make of these samples?"
Through his prospector's glass, Blenksoe examined the small clods of earth Raish held out to him, then uttered the profanest expletive at his command.
"Free gold, assayin' sixty ter th' ton!"
"You'd better believe it is!" The Dandy pocketed the samples which Blenksoe was eyeing hungrily.
"Say, I'd like a sample ter test. Oh, well, as you say! How'd you come by 'em?"
"I got them with the information from a kid whom Lucky has taken in on the ground floor."
"You mean ter tell me the stiff hes shukme, his pard an' dearest friend?" Blenksoe seized his gun. "I'll fix Lucky!"
"Keep quiet, you old fool! Durant don't owe you a bean, and you know it. And the way you've always grafted on him he is not likely to run after you to put you wise."
"Thet's so. Whar is the mine?"
"Ah, that's just where my information stops short. If I knew I shouldn't need you."
"Well, I s'pose the game is ter lay low, rubber round till we locate the claim, and jump it."
"And have that blasted Scarlett butting in? Guess again! Claim-jumping don't go, now the M. P. are in charge. We have to do something far cleverer. I'll tell you what. I've thought it all out. We have to kidnap Durant, and kidnap his daughter."
"Why the hell——"
"Blenksoe, a cow could give you cards and spades. We'll play them off, one against the other, till he signs over a half interest in his mine for ransom."
"Dandy, you're a wonder!" Blenksoe regarded the brains of the concern with admiration. "I'll get the gang on to it to oncet. It ull be no trick at all ter kidnap Lucky. Lucky's dead easy! But the gal—gals is scarce, and conspickerous accordin',in a mining camp. How the hell are we to handle the gal?"
"Leave her to me. I have already struck up a traveling acquaintance with her; managed to do her some little service en route. That's why I was careful to keep in the background during the hold-up. I sent her a private message to meet me here to-day, telling her I had a confidential message from her father. We must act like a flash, for that blasted Scarlett is sweet on her. By Jove! that's an idea!" The Dandy slapped his knee. "I owe him a bad turn. I'll cut him out! I'll marry her myself!"
"You, you son of a camp cook!" sneered Blenksoe.
Raish shrugged his shapely shoulders. "The camp cooks of to-day are the swells of to-morrow. I'm ambitious. I've always qualified myself for the toniest society. I spend as much for perfumery as for liquor, and I never sleep between sheets but I wear pink silk pyjamas."
"By gum, I b'lieve you'll git thar!" cried Blenksoe, overcome by these evidences of culture. Going to the counter, before Raish could stop him, he ordered: "Set up th' drinks, Ikey! Here's ter Dandy an' his bride!"
"Haow's that? Raish a-goin' ter git married?"inquired Gumboot Annie, who was bustling about for more provender for the banqueters inside the tent. "And who's the lady?"
"Oh, jest a little silk-stockin' proposition from the States," replied old Blenksoe, unmindful of the Dandy's warning signs. "One of the Noo York smarties, and jes' fitted fer Raish."
"Eh?" shrieked Gelly, starting up from her corner behind the stove. "She is, is she! And what about me?"
"Gelly! Tagging on as usual!" exclaimed Raish, in disgust.
"Thar, thar, Gelly! I was only joshin'," Blenksoe tried to soothe the girl.
"Dandy, you're a wonder!" Blenksoe re[1]him, pleading. "Pop is run in, and mebbe goin' ter be hanged. Raish, make an honest woman of me that I may go bid him good-by!"
[1]Transcriber's Note: One or more lines are missing in the original.
[1]Transcriber's Note: One or more lines are missing in the original.
The Dandy drew back. "What! Me, with my prospects, take up with the daughter of a murderer!"
"You, you——" Gelly flew at him with the carving-knife she held.
"Here, quit that!" Gumboot Annie adroitly snatched away the weapon. "My sandwich-knife! Now wouldn't thet stick yer?" in aggrieved tones she appealed to animaginary audience on the horizon line. Bystanders joined in the discussion, and, attracted by the noise, some of the diners came running from the tent, the Japanese paper napkins, that the high character of the occasion had warranted, in hand, ready for a scrap or any other fun that might be going; accordingly, the Dandy saw the wisdom of adopting a conciliating policy. "Gelly"—he led the girl aside—"I do mean to do the square thing by you, but no man likes to be coerced, you know; and after what has gone between us I don't want to be laughed at publicly for a fool—and if you love me, you don't want to render me publicly ridiculous. Just go back, quietly, like a good girl and wait for me at Lost Shoe Creek. When I have one or two tangles straightened out I'll come back and marry you, honest! But remember, on the quiet, If you blab—well, I'll see you somewhere before I ever speak to you again. Now, good-by and go!"
And for the last time, though not the first, poor Gelly trusted him.
Looking after the red-cloaked and hooded figure, as on snow-shoes she sped lightly down the trail, the Dandy laughed. "Women are easy, dead easy!" he exclaimed; and then he laughed still louder, as winding inand out through mountain passes the sound of approaching sleigh-bells and girls' merry voices floated through the crystal air. "Dead, dead easy," he reiterated, with the unction of enjoyment in his sapient superiority. "Here comes Evelyn now!"
THE PROVISIONAL BOUNDARY.
"Miss Durant! This is a delightfull surprise!" Dismounting from her sled drawn by eight frisky little huskies, Miss Durant encountered not the Mr. Horatio Travers who had written, begging for a private interview near Gumboot Annie's, on a confidential mission from her father, but the handsome and genial presence of Sergeant Scarlett.
"The surprise at least is not all on one side," laughed Evelyn, giving him her hand. "What are you doing so far from headquarters?"
"My jurisdiction extends to the boundary line. Just now it is my painful duty to meet a United States Representative in yonder Customs building, and formally make over to him the person of Bully Nick."
"Ah, the poor Bully!" Evelyn sighed. "He has this incorrigible habit of shooting the wrong people. But I'm in hopes of gettinghim off. I shall spare no expense. I've wired to Sitka, in my father's name, for the ablest counsel to defend him."
"And, confidence for confidence," said Scarlett, "what are you doing here?"
"Oh, just keeping an appointment—I mean, mushing it with Sarah and the girls for a day's outing," Evelyn hurriedly corrected herself, recalling that Travers' note enjoined the strictest secrecy. "And, pardon me, I must go to their rescue now." To conceal a slight embarrassment caused by her prevarication, she sped toward her party on whom the Customs' officials of two nations had pounced down, assuming that they intended to cross the boundary and must be treated like malefactors accordingly.
Picking up the muff that Evelyn in her haste had dropped, Scarlett buried his face in the soft fur. "I'm another," he confided to it.
"'Tis himself!" Barney hurried toward him from the tent, but as Scarlett, in his abstraction, did not notice him, he inquired, with solicitude: "Are ye here, sorr?"
"Faith, no, man. I'm wandering."
"Is ut impty ye do be feeling yourself inside, sorr?"
"Empty is it, with the appetite that's there! Bring me rations out here. Bring adouble share." His eye strayed toward Evelyn.
"H'm! 'Tis a case of wan plate and two spoons, or I'm a blind man!" commented Barney, hastening to obey.
"Miss," cried Sarah, in shocked accents, as Evelyn drew near, "them orphans are flirting outrageously with the Customs gentlemen of both nations, and feeding them with fudge."
"Dear, dear," mocked Evelyn, "we must put a stop to that at all costs, Sarah. Take the girls into the tent and give them their dinner—or there will be international complications."
"Internal ones, more likely," put in Scarlett, who had followed her. "Sweet things don't often come our way. And speaking of sweet things, Miss Durant, won't you yourself mess with me out here in the open? Just for the experience, ye know. It isn't really cold. The snow is left over from the winter, but it's a summer sun overhead."
"It does look tempting," confessed Evelyn, as Barney appeared, bringing with him provender, with its equipments, for two, deftly arranging it on a table by the bench. "I'm early for my appointment—I mean, I have plenty of time, and Sarah can chaperon the girls."
"Have ye room enough?" with solicitude inquired the soldier, placing himself beside her.
"Plenty, thanks. Have you?"
"Too much," he protested, "on the wrong side." The bench having no back, he gallantly supplied the lack. "Allow me to make ye an arm-chair."
Evelyn properly edged away. "Sergeant, are these your company manners?"
"Surely, since two's company."
"Come, come, I can't permit you so much latitude!"
"If you knew your map ye'd know that the further north ye go the closer the lines of latitude are drawn."
"Speaking of maps, I wish you'd tell me exactly where we are?"
"Faith, where I am is exactly what I'm trying to find out—how far I've gone with you."
"Do be sensible, if you can, and tell me where we are sitting, geographically speaking."
"Geographically speaking, we are sitting on the provisional boundary between our respective nations."
"Oh! Please don't add it is called provisional because one stops here for provisions."
"At any rate, provisions don't stop here long. Here, I've saved ye the last bean."
"Thanks. I take my bean wherever I find it."
"Good! Now will ye poach on my preserves?"
"With pleasure!" Evelyn held out her tin plate. "I love peaches."
"Ah, I'm more exclusive. I only love a peach!"
"One at a time, no doubt, you mean. And for the sake of your taste, I hope, fresh ones, not canned. By the way, you, I believe, would write them tinned?"
"But we both pronounce them excellent." Scarlett divided with her the last spoonful of the fruit.
"A century ago you taxed my tea." Leaning over, Evelyn took the extra lump of sugar from the young man's saucer. "So now, to even things, I steal your sugar."
"Quite right," he acquiesced, "since revenge is sweet."
"How silly this climate makes one, though I wish all international differences could be so bloodlessly adjusted," remarked Evelyn. "Suppose, instead of war, we had spelling matches! That, indeed, would bring peace with honor."
"Sure and there'd be fighting over peace,"the soldier told her, "since you would spell it H-O-N-O-R, while I should insert a U."
"Naturally," replied Evelyn. "Your nation's honor always will include U."
"A pretty compliment," conceded Scarlett, "but I feel as if I had been spelling for it." As they had finished he put aside the dinner-tray. "I wonder if I shall ever persuade you to cross the line in earnest?"
"And pray, why should I do the crossing? Why should not you be the one to come over to the enemy?"
"Ah, I'm a soldier! And I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not HONOUR more!"
"All very fine, sir, but, like England, somehow you have advanced imperceptibly across the boundary."
"Oh, no!" Scarlett moved closer to her. "Like England, when I make advances I push the line ahead of me."
"Remember the old commination," Evelyn exhorted him, "'Cursed be he that moveth his neighbor's landmark.'"
"That was ancient law," Scarlett reminded her. "The modern dispensation bids thee love thy neighbor as thyself. And up here, where both nations work side by side, common hardship makes us truly neighbors, next of kin. Look yonder!" He pointed tothe summit of the watershed, the ridge-pole of the mountain range, where, sheltered under one roof, were the Customs offices of two nations, while from lofty flag-poles floated, side by side, the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes. "The snow, as it melts, parts into two rivers, one running down into the Dominion, the other into the States, each bearing greetings from the sister flags. And, listen! In the tent, to the same tune the two national anthems are being sung——" Rising, he bared his head, Evelyn standing beside him, while in perfect attune the banqueters sang, according to their allegiance: "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," or "God Save the King."
"After all," commented Scarlett, "peace is spelled without a difference, both sides of the boundary; and, lip to lip, our views will be identical on the way of spelling love."
"And how may that be?" inquired Evelyn, gathering up her furs and moving away. "In love-letters?" As Scarlett caught up with her she quickened her pace, remarking, "I must go now. Really, Sergeant, you ought some day to give us a lecture on these theories of yours, for I have always wondered how an Irishman makes love."
"Like a lover, sure," promptly retortedScarlett, catching her in his arms and stooping his head to hers.
To her surprise, Evelyn found herself more than half consenting to his kiss even while trying to rebuke it. Before, however, she had found breath to protest, Scarlett released her hurriedly in silence, for at the moment Nick, with his custodian, and followed by his faithful henchmen, came from the tent, escorting Sarah and the orphans in an aura of national and personal good will, while a messenger came to inform the Sergeant that the United States representative, to whom the prisoner's person was to be delivered, had arrived.
Evelyn, for her part, overcome with an embarrassment mingled with another feeling that was wholly new to her, ran in the opposite direction down the trail, and over a patch of frozen snow to a secluded spot sheltered by a thicket of scrub firs, where, even as she broke from her lover's embrace, she had seen her former traveling acquaintance and present correspondent, Horatio Travers, awaiting her.
Scarlett went up immediately to the Customs building, there to transact the formalities incident to the extradition of Bully Nick. These concluded, and the official courtesies having been duly proffered andaccepted, he at last felt free to continue his interrupted wooing. Coming out into the open, he was going to seek Evelyn in a merry group where the orphans were being taught the art of keeping erect on snow-shoes, when he was accosted by Maclane.
"Oh, Sergeant! I am called upon to marry a couple under circumstances of a peculiar nature, involving exceptional haste. There is no Gold Commissioner, I find, nor Justice of the Peace, in the district, nor within a day's journey, from whom to obtain a license; but I have consented to accept a copy of the Dominion Marriage Act, or rather a specified clause thereof, signed by yourself as Mounted Policeman in charge. Will that arrangement satisfy you, judicially speaking?"
"Surely," replied Scarlett, "any marriage that you can, with conscience, solemnize I can sanction without a conscience, sir."
"I never was called upon to perform a duty that I liked so ill," the minister acknowledged, as he followed the soldier to the Customs building. "In fact, I have exceeded my prerogative, through my personal interest in one of the contracting parties, in counseling, beseeching, delay. Yet what can I do? The young lady is of age; she is determined on the step; moreover, shehas her father's consent, while I have not one single argument to urge against it, merely a feeling of dislike, distrust, for the gentleman of her choice."
"In primitive regions I have found it unwise to oppose too many obstacles to marriages," remarked the soldier, who, by this time, was busily copying the required clause from a sheepskin-covered tome, "since there is always a popular tendency to forego the ceremony, if it involves the slightest trouble. Oh, I'm used to this! Also, I have had not a few applications for divorces."
"Eh?" exclaimed the minister. "Surely you do not grant them, my young friend?"
"I have no power to," Scarlett told him. "The best I can do under such circumstances is to give the applicants a bill of Dissolution of Partnership, to minimize the squabbling over the division of the outfit. These present protégés of yours may be my next candidates. There." He handed Maclane the paper. "Now it is ready for the signatures—yours and mine. But, first, these blanks must be filled in with the names of bride and groom."
"They shall write them for themselves," replied the minister, who was visibly agitated. "Not by a pen stroke will I further them beyond what is forced upon me." Goingto the door he beckoned two persons waiting without, and to Scarlett's amazement summoned by name, "Horatio Travers! Evelyn Durant!"
LUCKY'S LUCK.
Cheerful, erect, recreated in body and spirit, Durant came to Gumboot Annie's hostelry, where he had made an appointment to meet Walter Pierce. Not seeing the young man, and having his own reasons for not letting it be known that there was anything of a business nature between them, he refrained from making inquiries; ordered a cup of coffee, and, lighting a pipe, seated himself in a sheltered nook outside the tent to wait.
He had not been there long when the altercation between Dandy Raish and Gelly interrupted the banquet then in progress, bringing the diners from the tent, Nick, closely guarded by Barney, in the van.
Gelly, acting on Raish's instructions, had gone speeding down the trail, but the Dandy still lingered, to keep his secret tryst with Evelyn.
Catching sight of him, the Bully, handcuffedas he was, made a furious lunge at him. "Thet thar's the snake I've swore ter kill!" he shouted. "Let me free!"
"No, sorr!" Barney restrained him. "No cheatin' av the extry-edition, if ye please."
Every one began to talk at once, his followers urging the Bully to vengeance or forgiveness, according to their natural dispositions, at present heightened by conviviality, while Raish, fearing lest the former policy should prevail, held up a hand for truce. "It's all right, Nick. You don't understand. Stand back, you fellows, can't you, and give me a word alone with Nick."
"Aye!" acquiesced the Bully. "I don't need help to curse ye, Raish. When I'm through with him, lads, I'll leave him to you ter skin him fer the skunk he is, d'ye see?"
"Can't you leave us?" inquired Raish of Barney, who still stood his ground by Nick.
"No, sorr, I cannot."
"But it's a private matter."
"Bedad, thin, that takes me in all right, since I'm a private meself till promoted."
"Oh, very well! Only I didn't like to drag in a woman's name before a third person," explained the Dandy. "What I want to say, Nick, is this: I'm awfully sorry for all the trouble I've brought on you. It's not entirely my fault, the way women do pursuea fellow. But never mind all that," he hastened to add as the Bully began to growl ominously. "I want you to know that I intend to do the square thing. I'm going to marry Gelly."
"Eh?" cried Nick, unable to believe his ears. "You'll right my gal! Honest, Raish?"
"On my honor as a gentleman—that is, if she'll have me. Now, don't get angry, Nick, till I explain. Something has turned her against me of late. Suppose you write her a little note, advising her to do it."
"Advisin' her! I'll skin her if she kicks!" threatened Nick. "Here, boy," he turned to Barney, "get me quit of these bracelets while I write ter my darter."
"No, sorr, I wull not!"
"I tell ye it's my last words—good-by—to my darter."
"First or last, sure ye can dictate your autography."
"Oh, hang!" ejaculated the Bully.
"Sure, thin, that's for what I'm saving ye!"
"Thar ain't no word profane enough ter describe ye, d'ye see?" Nick told his keeper. "Here, boys, which one of ye kin write?" he called over to his followers.
"Don't make her name common with that gang," cautioned the Dandy, whose alertmind was actively evolving a new piece of villainy as the situation developed. "Ask an older man; a gentleman."
"You've never done a thing ter her name, hev yer?" inquired the Bully, wrathfully, yet not wholly rejecting the advice. "Here, Sandy, man, come write a message for me. You've had schoolin'."
"Ou, aye!" assented the Scotchman, "ower muckle schoolin'. Mon, mon, when I reflect on a' this sma' head contains! I'll e'en gie ye a selection fra' Marmion—or a wee bit o' Rabbit Burruns." Being, however, far gone in conviviality, he maundered off into protestations of undying affection for his leader, assuring him he'd e'en gie his proper copposeetion to see him hangit decently.
Disgusted, Nick shoved Sandy aside, and in so doing caught a glimpse of Durant in his corner, smoking peaceably. "Thar's old man Lucky!" he exclaimed, even as Raish had foreseen. "Might ask him ter help us out. Hi, Lucky! Want ter do me a good turn?"
"Willingly." Rising, Durant joined him. "What is it, Nick?"
"Waal, the government thinks so much of me these days I hev to employ a secretary fer me correspondence, d'ye see? Say, willyou write down a message fer me to my gal?"
"With all the pleasure in the world," assented Durant, heartily.
"Babper an' envelobe, two bits. Ben an' ink, two bits. Plotter, two bits, bostache-shtamp, two bits!" At Nick's order, Ikey set writing materials before them on the counter.
"Say, Nick," Raish prompted, in an undertone, while Durant was removing his snow-spectacles and chafing his stiff fingers, "best not enter into details. Best let bygones be bygones. Best just say you want your daughter to let me bring her as my wife to pay you a visit during your enforced captivity—perhaps to say good-by."
"You let me choose my own words, and be damned to yer."
"Oh, very well! Only I don't see why you should be in a hurry to shame me and Gelly before an outsider."
"My gal has shamed herself, and thar ain't no shamin' you!" Nick, however, acted on the advice. "Ready, Lucky? Say, I don't know how to start it. I kin jaw her fluent ter her face, but I never wrote her afore." He hesitated, embarrassed.
Smiling reassuringly, Durant pointed to the words he already had mechanically setdown. "My dear daughter—that's how I begin to my own girl."
"Darter don't look as if it was spelled right," criticized the Bully. "But you know best, Lucky. Fire away! Make it affectionate, but firm, d'ye see? Tell her I'll cuss her in this life and skin her in the next ef she don't let Raish bring her ter me as his wife ter say good-by. No trimmin's, mind! Blow the signiture! She'll know fast enough it comes from me."
"Your loving dad," Durant concluded. "That's how I end off when I'm writing to Evelyn."
"Pop ud 'a' sounded more nateral," remarked the Bully. "But mebbe dad is dockimentary. So let her go."
"Add a postscript," in a hurried whisper Raish enjoined Durant. "Tell her this is just a matter of form, and that I promise on my honor not to hold her to the arrangement permanently, if it is distasteful to her. Tell her——"
Durant looked up, surprised. "Surely all that lies wholly between you and the young woman."
"True," admitted Raish, "but as I don't mind confiding in you that the young woman is tired of me, I want her to feel secure that in satisfying her father's scruplesI don't intend to take an unfair advantage of her. Suppose I set that down myself." He did so, writing rapidly, but clearly. "Now, Mr. Durant," he handed the other the pen, "you will add to your kindness to me more than you dream by placing your signature as witness to my pledge."
Durant did as he was asked, feeling that, little as he understood the matter, he was probably serving the best interests of the unfortunate Gelly.
"As witness only," he, however, stated. "It is an arrangement in which I take no moral responsibility."
"Thanks. I understand your scruples and respect them. The responsibility is mine entirely. Just at present I cannot explain, but later the whole position will be made clear."
"What's all them goin's-on?" suddenly demanded Nick, whose attention had been momentarily distracted by an argument between Mops and Sandy on the poetic merits of Rabbit Burruns. "No monkeyin' with dockiments over thar."
"I'm only directing it," explained the Dandy, who had folded the letter and inclosed it in an envelope.
Nick looked over his shoulder, breathing heavily with interest. "By gum," he ejaculated, wrathfully, "ef ye hevn't blotted my gal's name, Raish, and not fer the fust time!"