"DARTER DON'T LOOK AS IF IT WAS SPELLED RIGHT," CRITICIZED BULLY.
"Oh, I'll make that all right!" The Dandy put the letter in his breast and walked away.
"Ef yer don't may yer sizzle!" Nick called after him. Turning to Durant: "Pard, I'm grateful," he declared, with feeling. "Pard, the best wish I kin give ye is, may ye never need no one ter do the same by you."
"Thanks, Nick. That's all right." Durant looked about him, and seeing that Raish was out of earshot and Blenksoe not in sight, went closer to the Bully and his followers. "Friends, there's something I want to say to you," he began. "It's just this: You've all done me a kindness to my dying day I shan't forget. A fortnight ago, when my girl came into camp expecting to find me living in a diamond-encrusted palace, and I stood there so forlorn she didn't recognize me, a broken-hearted beggar, you who by one word might have pricked the bubble and humiliated me before her and her before the world, by your silence protected her and me. It was the noblest thing——" His voice broke; he wiped his eyes.
"Thet's all right, Lucky! Brace up, oldman!" came from one and another of the group.
"Aye, but now I want you all to hear my good news!" cried Durant, detaining them as they were preparing to go back into the dining-tent to resume their interrupted feast. "It has all come true!With so many grafters and claim-jumpers round I daren't be explicit, but I want you to know that my luck has turned for good and all. Oh, this time it's no pocket; it's the big strike of which I've always dreamed. I don't deserve it, some may think, after playing with my girl's credulity, yet for her sake I thank God with all my heart that I've won out! Till it's staked and recorded I know you'll all keep my secret—but, boys, every one of you is in it, the Rainbow Mine!"
The same wonderful delicacy that had marked their treatment of Evelyn did not fail her father. The Bully and his gang listened to this speech in respectful silence, at its conclusion crying, "Great! Good for you, old man! You done grand! Allus knew you'd git thar fer keeps! Sure! Betcherlife! That's what!" with every evidence of conviction and spontaneous joy. But as he walked off, Durant laughed. He did not need to look back to know that fingers were being pointed after him, winks interchangedand foreheads tapped significantly, with comment that found food for mirth, even while it deplored: "Off his nut fer fair. Balmy on the crumpet. Bats in his belfry. Qualifying for Queer Street. Plumb crazy. Poor old Lucky!"
Well, let them think so, bless them, since another day would set them right and prove him all he claimed to be. And then nothing gold could procure would be too good for them, nothing—this rough crew, more beast than man, that had yet behaved like more than man to his deceived, defenceless girl.
That hour—its memory was seared upon his very soul—the hour of Evelyn's arrival in camp that had witnessed the deepest degradation, followed immediately by the crowning justification and triumph of his career. He visualized it now, as he walked: In the Klondike Delmonico's, in her rôle of Lady Bountiful, Evelyn was dispensing hospitality right and left. He alone, her father, dared not enter in. Crushed, crazed, he walked back to the spot where he had left young Pierce. Him he found still brooding beneath the huge pine, dazed, amid the ruin of his own air castles. Then for one bad moment Durant went really mad. Picking up the gun he had dropped when an irresistible force drew him to go watch the incomingstage, he turned its deadly charge against his fevered brain.
With a cry, Walter sprang forward, but not before old Blenksoe, who had been watching his associate's actions curiously, seized him, capturing the gun. "No yer don't, blast yer!"
"Give it to me, Blenksoe! Of what use is my life to you?"
"Lucky you've been afore, and lucky you may be yet, and when the luck turns I'm in it, see?"
"Give it to me!" With a madman's fury, Durant leaped at the other's throat, only to be met by a blow that sent him reeling to the ground with such force that a young willow bush he clutched at was partially uprooted. For a few seconds he lay prone, foaming at the mouth and clawing the soil with frenzied impotency. Then of a sudden he paused, raised himself, face still downturned, and burst into insane laughter that made Pierce's blood run cold.
"Mad! Stark, starin' mad!" Blenksoe turned on his heel.
"There's a squirrel on yonder tree I could bring down for the dogs' supper if you'd give me back my gun, Blenksoe," his laughter spent, Durant meekly suggested as he scrambled to a sitting posture.
"Fetch her with a stun," was the succinct reply, as, retaining his partner's weapon, Blenksoe re-entered the tent.
Acting on the suggestion, Durant gathered up a handful of clots, selecting them carefully, and with deliberate aim took long shots at the chattering creature on the bough.
"Sit here, beside me, close, Walter," in an undertone he bade the young clerk, who still was gazing at him in horrified bewilderment. "But don't start or show the slightest surprise at what I am going to say. Oh, tut, tut, lad, never fear!" For Pierce seemed disinclined to comply with his command. "I am not mad. That is all over, thank God! with all the struggle, the heartbreak.The luck has turned, do you hear? Yes, turned for good and all! Every clot that I am throwing contains gold!—careful!" For involuntarily Walter had given vent to an ejaculation of amazed incredulity. "Oh, I'm an old prospector, and I see indications, and read signs where these grafters pass them by. I've always believed in this locality, and now I'm justified. In uprooting that willow I unearthed a bonanza!" Pausing in his speech, he renewed his attempts on the squirrel's life, and then went on: "Yes, each dull handful of earthI throw is a priceless witness that beneath us, on this spot, lies the Rainbow Mine——" Breaking off, as he observed old Blenksoe watching him narrowly, he rose as if discouraged, with a sigh. "My hand shakes. I'm no match to-day even for a squirrel. I'll have to give it up." Then, cleverly simulating the foolishly detailed actions of one who, having lost his grasp on the great things of life, clutches at the trivialities, he set about replanting the willow, stamping down the disordered earth about its roots, meanwhile in a pregnant undertone continuing his conversation with Walter.
The latter, so between them it was arranged, was to hang about the locality, watching for a chance, unobserved, to pick up the valuable clots, and these he was to have exchanged for their cash value, for current expenses, at a bank so distant that their source could not be predicated with any degree of accuracy—a precaution that Durant deemed essential in a district where even officialdom was likely to be corrupted by the lust for gold. He himself, meanwhile, would watch his opportunity, and disappear, without leaving a trace, from Lost Shoe Creek, as if madness had indeed possessed him, in order to throw Blenksoe off the scent and cause him also to move on,since, as Durant rightly conjectured, the pastmaster of graft would not be likely to remain in any spot which he thought Lucky had turned down. To-day Walter was to meet him here, return with him to the scene of his discovery, aid him in staking it, by stealth; journey to the nearest office where recording-books were opened, to file the claim with the necessary fee, while Durant himself would remain, defending the stakes, if need be, with his life. Once his rights legally safeguarded, all the world might know. Again Durant laughed in joyful anticipation of his meeting with Evelyn, when confession and revelation would come in the same breath. Then, impatiently, he looked up and down the trail, wondering at Pierce's delay on this day of days, when he heard a low moan among the bushes, and, turning, beheld the young man on whose co-operation such high hopes depended, lying, bedded in furs, upon a sled, swathed in bandages, pallid—a dying man.
"My God! Walter, my poor lad, what does this mean?" exclaimed Durant, in horrified accents.
Another moan was the only answer, but reading in the glazing eyes a wish to speak, Durant knelt down and bent so that his ear touched the stiff lips.
"What is it, Walter?"
"The samples," the young man at last managed to articulate. "The mine——"
"Aye, the mine—the samples!" cried Durant, with frantic eagerness. But Walter's confession never reached the man he had betrayed. A sudden darkness came over Durant. He struggled, but his grasp was pinioned from behind. He tried to cry aloud, but his voice was muffled. Swift, treacherous hands seized him, gagged him, bound him fast, bore him off, blind, mute, a prisoner!
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE
With an effort regaining the composure unwontedly ruffled by Scarlett's audacious response to her challenge as to an Irishman's method of love-making, while adjusting hat and hair, whose order, as she blushingly was conscious, had suffered from the same cause, Evelyn hurried toward the fir-encircled spot where she saw Dandy Raish awaiting her.
A fellow-passenger aboard the boat that had brought her party up the Alaskan coast, Travers had lost no chance to ingratiate himself with Evelyn by rendering her all manner of unobtrusive service, so that his letter, requesting this appointment, at an out-of-the-way place under conditions of absolute secrecy, while exciting her curiosity, caused her no alarm. The matter to which he had mysteriously alluded, as of supreme importance to herself and her father, she had assumed to refer to Durant's vast mininginterests. She took it for granted that the obliging Mr. Travers was bearer of a remittance that would enable her to defy Scarlett's absurd advice in favor of roughing it, and enable her to resume her wonted style of luxurious living.
To escape awkward questions, she had decided to turn the expedition into a day's outing that should include Sarah and her young companions, thus giving her meeting with Travers the appearance of chance. Scarlett's unforeseen presence on the scene only added a piquancy to the occasion, in her eyes, since she thought it might furnish her with an opportunity to put down that estimable but altogether too masterful young man. That the opportunity would land her in the young man's arms was something she had not reckoned with.
As Travers watched her speeding toward him with glowing cheeks and eyes, a lovely picture of blossoming young womanhood between the wintry ground and summer sky, something leaped to life in the Dandy's breast that made it a hard task for him to greet her with the grave impersonal politeness it was his policy to assume, and determined him more than ever to cut out "that blasted Scarlett."
After formal salutations had been exchanged,he remarked: "I think I saw you speaking with some one in uniform, Miss Durant. I trust it was not a member of the Mounted Police?"
"It was Sergeant Scarlett."
"Good heavens! Scarlett, of all men! May I hope you did not mention our appointment to him?"
"My appointments are my own affair, Mr. Travers. Please let us get to the matter in hand without delay. What is it you have to say to me?"
"I am more anxious than you possibly can be for haste, since to you the matter is but one of temporary inconvenience, while to carry it through I am risking my very life. But before we go any further I must have your sacred promise that what I say is in inviolable confidence."
"Confidences between you and me, Mr. Travers! Aren't you making too much of what is probably some ordinary business matter; taking rather an undue advantage of my complaisance in granting you this interview?"
"Miss Durant, you wrong me. I tell you that in seeking you I have nothing to gain, everything to lose; life, honor, everything! I am running this tremendous risk—not, as you think, because you are a woman, young,rich, beautiful; but because I owe a debt of gratitude, that only life could pay, to your dear father."
"My dear father! You come from him? Then he knows of my arrival! Why isn't he here himself to welcome me?" Evelyn's questions came rushing eagerly.
"Miss Durant, he cannot come. He is a prisoner."
"A prisoner! What do you mean?" she faltered.
"A captive, rather; held by a gang of desperados for ransom."
"God in heaven!" Evelyn went white. "My daddy!"
"You are faint!" Raish went to her side, supporting her.
"No, no! Thanks, I am all right." Evelyn drew away. "But your pledge of secrecy—why, it is preposterous! Every one should be told. The alarm given—rewards offered—the country roused!" She moved forward as she spoke.
"No, no! Not as you value his life!" Raish held her back. "Listen. One incautious word, and your father is a dead man. There are spies about us—everywhere. That is why I got you to meet me here—Miss Durant, believe me, by raising the hue and cry you will sound your father's death-knell."
Evelyn shuddered. "I can't believe——" she began, however, incredulously.
"I will explain. Miss Durant, you have been in the district over two weeks—the district in which you know your father's interests to lie. Yet have you been able to locate him, to obtain one satisfactory answer as to his goings and comings, his present whereabouts? Have you not invariably been put off with specious generalities—sugar-plums to soothe a wayward child? Admit that no man has said to you in definite terms, 'Yonder, on such and such a hill, is the camp of Matthew Durant. By such and such a trail can you reach him.'"
"Yes, that is true," admitted Evelyn. "Every one puts me off. Still——"
"The reason is," Raish interrupted her, "that no one knows where, among those mountains, his prison lies. But that he is a prisoner is public property, though not a soul has had the heart to break it to you."
"How cruel to have deceived me!" Evelyn burst into a flood of tears. "And all the time he is wondering why I don't rescue him. But with his resources what is the difficulty? Why has not he himself bought his freedom?"
"Because their price is high—it is your entire fortune—the Rainbow Mine—andyour father loves you too well to subject you to poverty."
"It is like my father to put me first," sobbed Evelyn, "but doesn't he know me better? Does he for a moment think I would weigh any consideration on this earth against his safety?"
"Ah!" cried Raish, triumphantly, "I knew you were true blue. That is what I told my old friend Durant—but captivity has so preyed on his spirits that he is ill—unable to judge——"
"My father ill!" Evelyn clenched her little hands and moaned: "Oh, oh, oh! If only I could go to him!"
"Have you the courage?" questioned Raish.
"The courage!" She looked at him, amazed. "If you know how to reach him take me to him instantly!"
Raish almost laughed aloud. "Women are dead easy," he mentally reiterated, before replying: "Very good." He drew Evelyn's furs closer about her neck, protectingly. "I take you at your word. But we must invent some excuse for our going off together. We must elude pursuit. Above all, we must get rid of your friend, the Irishman."
"I trust Sergeant Scarlett," said Evelyn.
"And so do I!" cried Raish, with assumed cordiality. "I trust that excellent young man to do his duty and win promotion at all costs. The Sergeant makes love like an Irishman, Miss Durant. Ah, I saw!" he checked her protest. "But believe me, not even for your bright eyes will he sacrifice his loyalty to the government he serves by countenancing a dicker with the thieves, its enemies."
"Let us leave the Sergeant out of the discussion," cried Evelyn, with blazing cheeks. "What do you propose?—for by your manner I see you have some plan."
"The plan is not mine. I never should have ventured to suggest it," answered Raish. "It is your father's, entirely. He and I were taken prisoners together. I, as the unimportant man, financially, am used as intermediary, being sent here, on parole, to treat with you for his release. Spies are dogging my footsteps. Meanwhile, his life is hostage, until I return with you in my charge. Your father, ever scrupulous, fearing compromising comment, were you to travel with me alone, day and night, as we shall have to do, advised——" He paused, as if delicacy made the words difficult. "Miss Durant, he wishes you to go through a form of marriage with me first."
"I marry you!" gasped Evelyn.
"As a matter of form only; to be dissolved when your father's freedom is secured."
"Never—never! It is impossible!"
"Very good. I will carry back that answer." Raish turned to go. "You send your love to him, I suppose, Miss Durant, and as he is a very sick man, good-by?"
"Stop," she commanded him. "Give me a few moments. You aresuremy father said that—about a marriage ceremony?"
"Aye, furthermore, he wrote it," Raish assured her. "Though to clear myself from any suspicion of interested motives I begged him to send the letter by another messenger. You should already have received it from the hand of Walter Pierce."
"Miss Durant! Where is Miss Durant? Oh, Miss Durant!" At the moment Maclane's agitated voice came toward them. As Evelyn, responding, emerged from the thicket he met her, breathlessly. Chilkat Jo, whom he had despatched to Lost Shoe Creek for Evelyn, had returned some time before to announce that he had met her by the way, but the minister, not expecting her for hours, had to be hunted up among the cabins further on, whither he had gone on some errand of mercy. "I only just heard of your arrival. How providential that youshould have chosen this of all days for your expedition! A poor lad—Chilkat Joseph and I found him by the wayside—the victim, I fear, of foul play, has brought you tidings of your father." As he spoke he was hurrying her toward the spot where young Pierce lay.
"Walter Pierce—my father!" Evelyn almost shrieked in her excitement, but at a warning sign from Travers, who had followed her, controlled herself. "I have been expecting him."
"After all I fear it is too late." Maclane touched pulse and brow. "He is beyond human help. He will not speak again." Kneeling by the sled he began prayers for the passing soul, when he was interrupted by a cry from Evelyn, as Walter's arm, which had rested loosely across his breast, fell stiffly by his side, disclosing an open letter which, as she saw immediately, was in her father's hand.
"Women are dead easy—women and parsons," chuckled Raish, who had adroitly placed the missive where Evelyn found it. Going to her where she stood, apart, reading her father's transcription of Nick's behest to Gelly, "Well," he asked, "now are you convinced?"
"One moment, please!" Without explanationto him, Evelyn ran up the hill where, international formalities complied with, under the two flags the Bully was bidding his followers farewell.
"Dear, dear Nick"—she clasped his handcuffed fists in her soft, warm palms—"you welcomed me to the district; you are my oldest friend. Tell me, when did you last see my father?"
"Lucky? Why, now come ter think of it, Lucky were here not an hour since. Fit as a fiddle, now warn't he, boys? Grand reports of the Rainbow Mine. Shovelin' out pay-dirt like greased lightnin'! Ain't thet so, boys? Sent love, of course, and he'd be in ter see yer ter-morrer. His own words, d'ye see? Eh, boys?"
To which the boys, challenged by Nick's fiery eye, loyally responded: "Sure! Thet's what! Betcherlife!"
Evelyn looked from face to face and read that, beneath a clumsy mask, through heroic but mistaken kindness, ill news was being held back from her. "Thank you all so much," she replied, and, turning, ran downhill to rejoin Raish.
Sarah intercepted her. "Miss, I think we had ought to be getting back to camp. The orphans are behaving scandalous, getting themselves engaged three deep. I don'tknow as you can blame 'em, miss. I suppose it's a microbe. I myself have just refused three marriages and two guilty loves."
"I shall have to leave you to manage the orphans, Sarah." Evelyn smiled an odd smile. "I myself am going to be married and start off on a honeymoon immediately."
"You don't say, miss!" The maid raised her eyebrows. "Well, a common soldier is hardly in the same social class as my own Scotch intended, with a literary turn and a copper proposition, but I will say that Sergeant Scarlett looks and acts quite the gentleman."
"Oh, it's not Sergeant Scarlett! It is the Mr. Travers who looked after us so civilly aboard the Skagway boat."
Sarah's eyebrow's went up further still. "Indeed, miss! He's very smart in his dress, yet—however, I suppose everything goes in a country where no one minds the clocks."
Meanwhile, with the assistance of Ikey, Maclane, having covered the funereal sled with the Stars and Stripes loaned by Gumboot Annie, drew it across to poor Walter's own side of the dividing line, that his mortal remains might rest in their native soil.
When he came to seek Evelyn, to consult her about the last rites, she met him with a strange request, to the effect that first heshould unite her with all despatch and secrecy to one Mr. Horatio Travers, whom she then and there presented to him.
"My dear young lady!" The minister stared at her. "Isn't this decision very sudden? Forgive my interference, but you being alone up here, and so young——"
"I'm twenty-two," Evelyn assured him, "and that's middle-aged for a New York girl."
In spite of the bravado of her manner, her tone so wholly lacked all bridal joyousness that Maclane was impelled to draw her aside and ask: "Is this act of your own free will?"
"Heavens, yes!" she asserted, confidently. "No one on earth could make me do anything I didn't choose to."
"Nevertheless," the minister demurred, "let me entreat you to defer so important a step till you can consult your father."
"It is my father's desire, expressed with an emphasis that makes it almost a command," averred Evelyn, solemnly. "And conveyed to me at the price of that poor lad's life."
Still dissatisfied, but without sufficing reason for refusing, Maclane put the usual questions to the prospective groom. As witness, Travers introduced old Blenksoe,who, having disposed of Durant, had ambled up, calling him a dear old family retainer—a lifelong friend.
"That's me," corroborated the old sinner. "Rough an' ready, but allus in it with Raish. Not only is Raish by nature and eddication fitted to adorn the proudest spear, but he's a square proposition. Ye kin safely leave it ter Raish, every time."
"Well," reluctantly the minister consented, "where is your license?"
"A license!" exclaimed Travers. "What for?"
"To legalize the marriage," Maclane instructed him. "You must get one from the Gold Commissioner or Justice of the Peace."
"Then that queers the show," stated old Blenksoe, "sence thar ain't no gold round these here diggings, nor no justice, nor no peace."
"Is there no way of dispensing with it, under exceptional circumstances?" Evelyn asked, anxiously. "If you knew how imperative my reason for desiring haste——"
"In lieu of it, then," the minister conceded, "I will accept a copy of the appropriate clause of the Dominion Marriage Act, signed by the Mounted Policeman in charge of the district where Miss Durant resides."
And before Raish, who sprang forward, with an oath, could stop him, he had entered the Customs building, calling for Sergeant Scarlett.
NORTHERN LIGHTS
Scarlett looked from Evelyn to Travers and back again, in bewilderment, dismay. "Miss Durant," he at last found voice to say, "surely there is some mistake! Surely there's no love lost between ye and this—gentleman!"
"My private affairs, my feelings, seem to cause a great deal of unnecessary comment," remarked Evelyn, hiding her emotion under a mask of irony. "May I beg you to refrain from criticism, and to give us the requisite authority?"
Scarlett looked at her fixedly, and seeing her control weaken, her color change, and her eyes fill and falter beneath his penetrating gaze, shook his head. "That I must absolutely decline to do!"
"And why, pray?" she commanded herself to ask.
"Oh, the reason is plain!" Raish sneeringly interposed. "Every one knows theSergeant's own matrimonial aspirations. Every one has heard of the cheap device by which on the very day of her arrival he tried to worm himself into the favor of my fiancée. If he did but know it, her father's chief reason for insisting on the immediate celebration of our marriage is to protect her from the persecutions of adventurers!"
"I beg," cried Evelyn, checking Scarlett's furious retort, "that there may be no such personalities! Mr. Travers, pray understand that I do not, in the least, assent to your characterization of the Sergeant, who, up to this moment, has treated me and my friends with the utmost delicate consideration and chivalry!"
"Forgive me, dearest"—Raish took her hand. "I spoke too warmly! Yet who could blame me? Come, come, my good Sergeant, put your name to that paper without further ado, unless you wish to suffer under the imputation of sacrificing official honor to personal revenge."
Not deigning to heed the taunt, Scarlett turned to the minister. "I can't sign, because down in yonder valley is a lass in a red cloak who has a prior claim upon this man."
Raish forced a contemptuous laugh. "The red-cloak, who should not even be mentionedin this presence, may stay in the valley for me. My acquaintance with the red-cloak belongs to a day before I knew Evelyn. She condones the past, accepts the dedication of my future life." Drawing Evelyn aside, he whispered, "Don't be alarmed. My pledge holds good. This is all bluff, my doing the devoted, to throw them off the track." Stooping suddenly he kissed her.
"My young friend," Maclane restrained and admonished Scarlett, "my sympathies are yours wholly. But are you not exceeding your authority?"
"Aye," confessed the Irishman, "I'm stretching it a bit, maybe, to fit me intuitions. Dominie, I tell ye 'tis a fishy business. Not an hour since, the girl was in these arms of mine, lip to lip, and liking it. And now, look at her shudder at that fellow's touch."
"Sergeant Scarlett"—breaking from Raish, Evelyn came to him and laid a coaxing hand upon his arm—"I know that in your heart you are despising me for a cheap coquette. And I deserve it. I have given you cause to think the worst of me. I can't explain. But if you could only read my heart—could only know what this means to me—it's the happiness of my life! It will be misery to the end of my days if I fail himat this supreme test. You're magnanimous, above all pettiness, I know. You simply want to save me, as you think, from making a mistake. But believe me, trust me, I know what I'm about. Now, will you do me the greatest favor one human being ever entreated of another, by signing your name to that document?"
Scarlett looked tenderly down on her, and, swayed against his judgment by her earnestness, he might have yielded, had not the Dandy inopportunely added the word too much.
"Sergeant Scarlett will hardly dare take the consequences of refusing when I tell him that without the protection of my name Miss Durant will be irretrievably compromised!"
Scarlett checked an almost overwhelming impulse to kick the speaker. Instead, he took Evelyn's cold fingers into his honest grasp. "I'd give my name to shield ye, my life to serve ye, and now I'm going to risk my official honor, to—as I think, to save ye." He tore up the paper.
Above the general outcry that ensued, Sarah's tones were heard. "A pretty country where you can't marry whom you please! America's good enough for me!"
"America!" exclaimed Evelyn, struck bya sudden thought. "Are there such restrictions with us in America?"
"Unfortunately not, my dear," replied Maclane, who had once occupied a Chicago pastorate. "In the States the sacred tie is made and broken far more easily."
"Then, quick," she cried, "across the boundary!" And seizing Travers' hand she ran, the others following breathlessly, not halting till she reached the tall mast from which proudly floated the emblem of the free.
"God in Heaven!" Scarlett looked after her, his personal grief swallowed up in anxiety. "Is there no power above, below, to stop a wilful woman from cutting her own throat with a wedding-ring?" He cast about for aid. Barney, who might have thrown some light on the plot, had returned to duties at headquarters, but Nick and Gelly might yet be reached in time, and for them he sent messengers flying. Meanwhile, he bethought himself of Chilkat Jo. Sheltered by the Customs water-butt, he found the trader squatting peaceably, whittling a mimic totem-pole. On his shoulder Scarlett laid a gauntleted hand. "Chilkat Jo, man, look what devil's work is going on forninst ye! Can't ye say the word to stop it?"
There was an appreciable pause while,with a silken sound, the soft shavings curled, fell, under the skilful knife. Then without looking up, the Siwash gently replied, "Me no such godam-hellan-blazes Clistian fool! Laish mally Missy Dulant! I mally Gelly!"
In desperation Scarlett strode toward the bridal group, reaching it just as the minister's solemn tones rolled forth, challenging the wilderness to show just cause or impediment why these two persons might not lawfully be joined together.
"Just or unjust," he shouted, "sure it's myself will furnish the impediment"—as, collaring the bridegroom, with a series of violent jerks he sent him flying back into precincts that rendered him amenable to Dominion law, where he neatly knocked him down, and sat on him. "Now, I've got ye in my own jurisdiction, I'll detain ye as a suspicious person till evidence for or against ye is forthcoming!" Maclane's protests, Evelyn's tears, Sarah's shrieks and taunts, and old Blenksoe's curses were as unavailing as Raish's struggles; the young giant held the position by main force till Nick, who had been easily overtaken, by courtesy of his custodians arrived in response to the recall.
"There, there," Scarlett soothed thesquirming Dandy. "If I find I'm mistaken; if that damned incriminating face of yours belies ye, sure I'll apologize in sackcloth and give ye the satisfaction of a gentleman." Jerking Travers to his feet, he confronted him with Gelly's father. "Nick," he inquired, "what is your unvarnished opinion of this fellow?"
"Wa'al, thar's things in his past," admitted the Bully, "same as in most men's, thet you wouldn't hold up as a shinin' example to a Sunday-school, d'ye see? But bygones is bygones. Arter wot he projected ter-day, I've nought but good words fer Dandy Raish."
"Not another syllable, Nick, I beg," Travers hastened to cut short the Bully's elogium at a period so favorable to his plans. "Now, Sergeant, we accept your apology for your ill-directed zeal, and dispense with your further company."
"Say, Scarlett," wrathfully demanded Nick, "I kin cheek yer now I'm goin' ter be hanged by U. S. law! Take yer hands off'n Raish! Wot the hell d'ye mean by damagin' my son-in-law?"
"Your son-in-law?" in one breath cried Evelyn, Sarah and Maclane.
"I sent my gal a letter," elucidated Nick. "Your pop Lucky put it in writin'fer me, Missy. That's it you got in your hand."
"This letter! And that villain made me believe—— Oh, oh, oh!" Evelyn burst into a flood of humiliated tears.
"You black scoundrel; you'd 'a' deceived her as you deceived my gal!" Nick made a blind rush at Raish, but was held back by his custodians. "Sure as thar's a God in Heaven, Raish," he vowed, as they restrained him, "I'll live ter kill ye yet!"
Vain threat! A sharp sound cleft the crystal air and, echoing, died away in soft detonations among the hills. The Dandy threw up his hands as he had forced so many luckless travelers to do in his career of highway robbery, and fell, gracefully, as he did everything, face downward, with a little trickle of blood, upon the snow. With a shriek of anguish a girl in a red cloak, who had been speeding up the hill, threw herself beside him, calling his name with all the loving epithets that even the lowest of the low seems able to win from some woman's heart.
Tears wrung from his being's depths for baffled retribution coursing down his rough cheeks, the Bully lifted pinioned hands to Heaven and uttered the one prayer of his life: "O Almighty Gawd, with all respect,why did You butt in? O Gawd! I've made cold meat of a score o' men on end from fust ter last! But they was jes' accident or playfulness, d'ye see? This here skunk were the only livin' thing I ever hankered fer ter kill! And Thou hast called my bluff, and took the wind outen my sails by puttin' the shootin'-iron of my vengeance inter another's hand! Thar ain't no four-flushin' Thee, O Gawd! Thou hast plumb squared the reckonin' fer all my sins, past and ter come, world without end. Amen."
Whose the hand that shot Dandy Raish no one ever knew, though many a young fool, in his cups, boasted of the high distinction. In the case of a man so universally detested perhaps official enquiry thought it policy to rest. But, possessed at the moment by a literal interpretation of duty, with a heavy heart the good minister sought his favorite Indian proselyte.
Sitting beside him, where he found him whittling peaceably in the shelter of the Customs water-butt, "O Joseph, Chilkat Jo," sighing, he began. "My son, if on your hands there be blood-guiltiness, you must repent, confess!"
The soft shavings slithered, curled and fell, as the emblem of the Raven and the Frog grew beneath the skilful knife. Then,in unimpassioned monotone, the Indian remarked, "Some day, when I velly old, old chief, I lepent, confess, make godam-hellan-blazes Clistian deathbed. But now——" He paused to twist the weird features of his tribal god into an inscrutable smile. "Now, I mally Gelly."
It was the cool of the evening. From behind the mountains northern lights shot up in streamers of living green and rose. There was a sound of bells, and "mushing," as the drivers harnessed up their dog-teams to carry the picnickers back to camp. Scarlett looked over at Evelyn with an odd contraction of the heart, where the bud of hope was trembling for life under the icy hand of circumstance, but as she did not appear to notice him he turned and went on his own road without farewell.
Then Evelyn went to Gelly where, the violence of her grief spent, she still crouched beside her lover's stiffening form. Putting an arm about her, "Come. Come home with me to live," she said. "Yes." For Gelly looked up with resentment changing to incredulity. "Please. As a favor to me. I have so much to learn. I need you."
A YEAR AFTER
Winter had come and gone; spring had passed into a new summer. In the prosperous township of Lost Shoe Creek no one would have recognized the god-forsaken camp of the year before. While the locality was generally condemned as an auriferous proposition, its situation fitted it admirably for base of supplies to other creeks: Abe Lincoln, Jubilee, Old Glory and Princess May, where hydraulic machinery had been established and placer claims were being worked with profitable, if not phenomenal, results.
Some critics attributed the marvelous transformation that had taken place to the presence of women, dating from the arrival of Evelyn and her party; others to the gospel tidings of good-will brought by Parson Maclane, when, wild rose in buttonhole, and followed by his dogs, Telegraph and Wrangel, he came running on the trail. A thirdfaction was for giving the credit to law and order, personified by the ubiquitous young soldier, Sergeant Scarlett, and his right-hand man, Barney. But the wise set it down to the trinity of saving influences.
For Evelyn the time had been one of unusual happiness. Learning early that the boundless wealth of which she supposed herself possessor was not a popular subject among folk to whom daily bread came hardly, she wisely decided to omit mention of it from her conversation. Also, finding herself likely to be embarrassed for ready money, since credit was denied her, she followed Scarlett's excellent advice to try roughing it, with excellent results. Moreover, at the suggestion of the good Graysons, whose neighborliness she soon learned to value, and loyally backed by the "boys," she opened a real-estate office at Lost Shoe Creek, with a branch at Perdu, showing herself an admirable business woman. Amateur theatricals, concerts, and ice-carnivals had brightened the dark season, when mining-camps in the North are as desert islands, cut off from all communication with the outside; and for the first time in her life Evelyn tasted the unalloyed pleasure that springs from giving pleasure and helpfulness that money cannot buy. One sorrow only dimmedher sky: the continued absence of her father. No one told her that, far and wide, official search was being made for Matthew Durant, nicknamed Lucky, who, on a fateful day of the previous summer had disappeared as utterly as had the earth in which he worked opened to engulf him; she still believed, uncontradicted, that his vast interests were detaining him somewhere among the baffling distances of snow-capped hills, and that any hour that suited him would bring him back to her.
THE UBIQUITOUS YOUNG SOLDIER, SERGEANT SCARLETT.
It was the day when, by the most lovable of paradoxes, in that region, two festivals—one of independence declared, one of allegiance covenanted—are celebrated, with crossed flags: Dominion Day and the Fourth of July, in one.
On this particular anniversary gala preparations of extra splendor were afoot in honor of the return of Bully Nick, once more a free man, not because in equity he was held worthy to be at large, so much as through a technical slip by which but six jurors had been requisitioned to sit on his case, whereas, as his backers claimed, he was territorially entitled to be adjudged guilty by a full dozen good men and true.
"Well, I'm dazzled fer fair," announced the hero, as, amid cheers from his friendsand followers, he alighted from the stage. "This here bloomin' Paradise ain't never Lost Shoe Creek."
"Sure, 'tis! Betcherboots! That's what!" he was assured.
Nick rubbed astonished eyes. "By gum, a Gospel-mill!"
"Aye, and filled to overflowing every Sabbath, Nicholas," proudly stated good Maclane.
"Wa'al, y' see," Mops hastened to apologize to his leader for this hated concession to religion, "the gals like piousness."
The neat jail next the church was described by Barney as "just an impty forrum intoirely, owing to the ladies' distaste for the spacies of bird such cages are controived for, begorra!"
The decorative touch to the personal appearance of his followers, in honor of the holiday, naturally came in for the Bully's quizzical attention: their shorn faces; the soap "with the tony smell" in vogue; the paper collars with jeweled studs in which, all day, Ikey had been doing a rushing trade, were noted by him categorically till Bill silenced him by stating that "style was like for to fetch the girls."
Gumboot Annie, to whose hostelry he was conducted to drink his own health, had beenallowed to reopen, he was informed, under close restriction and surveillance from "that blamed Scarlett." Nevertheless, as she told Nick, spitting with deliberation, not being in business for salubrious ends merely, she was making great profit out of "moderate drinkin' and no drunks," through the girls' preference for sober cavaliers. Or, as she phrased it, "the gals won't swaller the booze."
This was too much for the Bully's equanimity. "The gals, indeed!" Slapping his knee, he chuckled. "The hell!"
"Eh, Nicholas?" the minister challenged him. "Did I understand you to say 'the hell?'"
"The hell you did, Parson!" The Bully turned on him truculently. "And what the hell hev you agin it?"
"If no better argument, Nicholas," smiled Maclane, "the girls won't stand for hell."
"Parson," Nick acknowledged his defeat, "the drinks is on me." Later he took occasion to state, "I ain't convarted. But, say, Parson, you're jes' the squarest proposition Gawd ever grub-staked ter prospect fer human souls, and, say—I won't oppose you none. And when I pass in my checks jes' you stand by my grave, and put up a little prayer fer my epitaffy, 'He done his leveldamnedest, angels cud no more. Amen.'" Then he took from Gelly's arms the fine infant she had brought to show him, described by its fond father as "a velly godam skukum Clistian baby." Dandling it tenderly, "See here, son," he adjured it, "ef I find indications of you takin' arter me—gamblin', cussin', drinkin',—why, grandpop 'ull spankee, d'ye see?"
His mind thus freed, his future pacific course outlined, Nick inquired, circumstantially for "the girls." Sarah, he learned, was the great lady of the place, making a large income as a "lady-barber," her firm hand, unshaken as her masculine competitors were apt to be by sprees, making her a peculiarly safe artist to be trusted to operate with a razor in the region of the jugular, and her husband's copper proposition still remaining an undeveloped asset, she was forcing him to work for regular wage as a teamster. In spite of which, on his occasional lapses Sandy was wont to boast that at heart he was "a mon for a' that."
The orphans all had settled down; Mary, having discovered a new violet at the foot of a glacier, had paired off with the young botanist who had been sent out from Ottawa to report on the flora of the region. Ruth was running postoffice and postmaster.Ethel and the town doctor had made a match. Kate's lot was cast with Bill, now doing assessment work and writing to his mother regularly. Effie had pre-empted the young editor of the weeklyClaim, helping both to write his editorials and set them up in type. Gertrude had struck it rich with the bank manager. All would be on hand at the ball to-night. No, Evelyn had not made a choice. Rumor assigned her to Scarlett, yet how matters stood between them no man could say with certainty.
At this the Bully's eye took on a fiery glow. "Ef thet thar uniformed cuss is a-playin' fast an' loose with Lucky's gal, d'ye see, it's up ter me to set it straight!" And, forthwith, he led the way to Evelyn's bower.
Evelyn was found, outside her cabin, superintending the arrangements for a grand display of fireworks in honor of the double holiday; the crowning piece to show the two flags crossed beneath a wondrous rainbow. By a coincidence that exactly suited the Bully's plans, Scarlett was, at the minute, seen approaching. After greetings had been interchanged with all heartiness, suddenly the young soldier found himself surrounded by the men—Nick, in the center, pointing agun at his heart. Evelyn shrieked, and would have interposed, but was forced back by hands roughly tender, tenderly peremptory.
"Well, boys," asked Scarlett, calmly, "is this some new kind of game?"
"Thet's as mebbe," answered Nick. "See here, Missy Durant, it ain't human natur fer a gal ter stay single in a minin'-camp."
"That's what!" the boys interrupted him to say.
"And I reckon you've had your pick of every miner an' prospector in the district—aye, and loafer, worthy of the name!"
"Sure! Betcherlife!" the boys confirmed him.
"Now," concluded the Bully, magnificently, "the question we're debatin' is jes' this: Hev you give this here blamed Scarlett the mitten, or hev you not?"
Evelyn laughed merrily. "To tell the truth, Nick, he hasn't given the opportunity—as yet."
"And I wouldn't take it if she gave it me," added the soldier, referring to the mitten.
The Bully looked from one to the other, and, in spite of their enigmatic replies, reading in the glances they exchanged some happy understanding, surrendered for good and all.
"Boys," he announced, "the drinks, as usual, is on us when we run up agin the church, perlice, and gals—Here, Parson." He handed his weapon to Maclane who, fearing trouble, had hurried to the spot. "Keep this here shootin'-iron. I ain't fit ter be trusted with it, d'ye see? When I want a shot at moose or ptarmigan I'll borrow the loan of it from you."
"That's what! Betcherlife!" applauded the boys.
When, at last, they found themselves left together, Evelyn held up a mocking finger at her lover. "To think you had to be coerced! For shame!"
"I wanted to give ye time," he explained, "to feel surer of yourself and me."
"I knew it," she exclaimed. "You feared I might suspect you of interested motives. But the surest proof of my love for you has been my certainty that you care for me for myself alone, not for what I bring."
"That's the sweetest thing that ever has come from your lips," announced the soldier. "Not another word till I taste a sweeter."
He was about to illustrate his meaning when Barney's voice was heard, discreetly inquiring of the landscape for "himself."
Affecting, for the first time, to perceivehis superior, "Och, are ye there, sorr?" saluting, he inquired.
"Here or there, I'm beside myself with joy," remarked Scarlettsotto voce. "Well, Barney, what's that you bring?"
"If appearances are not desayving, sorr, I'm thinking 'tis a letther. Our rint-roll, I'm thinking." He stood by with an air of partnership while Scarlett opened the envelope.
"Your rent-roll!" Puzzled, Evelyn looked at the address. "'Sir Gerald Scarlett.' Is that some joke?"
"A hereditary wan, begorra," Barney hastened to assure her. "It runs in our family."
"More roll than rent, though." Scarlett held out to her a long, legally drawn-up document.
"Not to mintion the castle," remarked Barney.
"Just a ruin in a bit of a potato patch," Scarlett hastened to apologize for his ancestral glories.
"And a cow to chaperon it—God bless her!" Barney saluted respectfully, as he turned to go.
Sir Gerald looked down on his lady-love with laughing eyes.
"My offence is rank," he quoted.
"Oh, it's not an unpardonable sin," Evelyn assured him, also laughing, but confused. "What a goose you must have thought me all this time—the way I have condescended to you!"
"The greater my triumph in winning you on my own recognizances," he replied.
Evelyn held him at arms' length, contemplatively. "What a difference," she remarked, "between the myself of to-day and of a year ago! Then I should have suspected myself of being influenced by this—but now nothing seems to matter so much as that we care for each other."
"Miss Durant! O Miss Durant!" The lovers broke apart as, by a cross-cut through the bushes, the minister came hurrying toward them. "Here is—some one who brings you news of your father."
He pointed to an elderly man who, with lagging footstep, followed him.
"Of daddy? Hurrah!" Evelyn clapped her hands. "That was the one thing needed to complete my happiness! How is he? And where? Why hasn't he come to me himself?" she demanded impatiently of the stranger.
"Our friend here has traveled far," Maclane gently reminded her. "He is worn and spent."
"Oh, how thoughtless I am!" As Evelyn placed the newcomer in a comfortable chair she noticed that his features, as she saw them between his slouch hat and heavy beard, were pinched, and that his frame was bowed beyond his years, as if from recent suffering. "How tired you look! You have been ill?" she asked him considerately.
"He has undergone great hardships for the sake of a dearly loved daughter," Maclane hastened to explain. "He has escaped with but little besides his life. But for that let us give thanks. Let us make him feel that, so long as he is spared, his daughter will not mind poverty."
"To be sure!" Evelyn tried not to show the impatience she felt at the concerns of outsiders being placed before her own, with a touch of her old patronizing manner adding, "And I dare say my father and I can arrange matters so that this good man's daughter need not complain of poverty."
The stranger opened his lips to speak, but unable to command himself, turned his head aside with a slight groan.
With an inexplicable foreboding, Evelyn looked from him to Maclane, and in the latter's kind eyes reading a deep pity, "What is wrong?" she faltered. "Has anything happened to my father?"
"Nothing that sympathy and loving care cannot cure," replied the minister. "Mr. Durant was on his way to you a year ago when he fell into the power of ruffians, even as Travers, for his own evil purposes, informed you. After serious ill-treatment at their hands he escaped, but so broken in mind and body that for months he wandered about, unable to fix his own identity or put himself in communication with his friends. Now, thank God, he is almost cured."
"He shall be completely so, if, as you say, love can accomplish it." Evelyn started up. "I'll go to him at once." She addressed the stranger. "Where is he?"
"First——" Again Maclane hurriedly interposed. "There is something you should know about your father's finances. He is not rich, as you think him. By incessant toil from time to time he used to make vast sums, as miners are apt to do—and as miners are apt to do, he spent as fast as he made, his one extravagance being your pleasure. But the inexhaustible supply, the purse of Fortunatus—that was a fable that somehow grew up between your romanticism and his optimism. It does not exist. It never has existed. To-day he is absolutely penniless."
The words rained on her like hailstones.Evelyn met them, standing erect, very white and still.
At last, "I do not grasp your meaning," she replied. "Every one in the district knows that my father is a very rich man."
"Not so." Maclane shook his head. "Every one knows the reverse; has always known it. Believe me, my child, what I tell you is true."
"My father's wealth does not exist." Evelyn's mind seemed to take slow, cautious steps backward over the minister's statements, with every impact feeling surer of the truth. "To-day he is absolutely penniless. Every one knows it; has always known it. Then why," she demanded with sudden passion, "has it been kept from me?"
"Out of kindness," replied Maclane, simply.
"Kindness!" Evelyn laughed scornfully, hysterically; calmed herself, then laughed again. "Kindness! When I recall how I used to brag of what my wealth would do for the place—and all the time, poor fool that I am, I have been the laughing-stock——"
"Again not so," emphatically said Maclane. "Think how quickly you fell into our primitive ways, becoming the heart and spirit of the camp. Believe me, Evelyn, youhave endeared yourself, accomplished a thousand times as much by this year's bread-winning toil and good-fellowship as had you been the Lady Bountiful you started out to be. It isn't money that builds up camps, closing dives and opening reading-rooms—it's neighborliness—working and suffering with people, side by side. And in all his grief, remorse for your bitter disappointment, your poor father may take this comfort: that it has been the making of you as a woman, just as you, the real woman, have been the making of the camp."
"Thank you." Evelyn spoke in a hard little dry voice. "Some day I may bring myself to see it in that light." She took a few steps to and fro, then came to a standstill opposite the minister. "Mr. Maclane, I want you to give my love to the 'boys'—to all who, by their silence, have shielded me as they thought, from the painful truth. Tell them that I appreciate it. Also ask them to try not to show that they pity me. I'm going to do something that's not easy for me. It would be easiest to go away to a strange place, where I could hide my head—but I have my poor father to think of. I have a good business here, which will support us both decently, at least. I shall bring him here to care for him—and mind! not oneword of reproach, or mockery, is he ever to hear from any one! Not one word!"
"Bravely spoken," cried Maclane. "Oh, there's happiness in store for you, my child. You'll see."
"Together, sweetheart!" Scarlett, who had been standing by in mute distress for her great trouble, now came to her and took her hand. "We'll fight it out together—you and I."
"Oh, no." Evelyn wrenched her hand from him. "That is all over. Things are changed with me. My eyes are open at last. I can forgive every one but you, Sir Gerald Scarlett—you who let me condescend to you, lead you on—and finally almost do the asking!"
"Faith, your eyes may be open, but they don't see as straight as they did when closed," Scarlett indignantly contradicted her. "I've loved ye all along, and sooner; since the moment I saw your picture smiling up to me among the roses."
"We won't discuss it. I only know"—Evelyn's voice broke—"I never want to see you again."
"But if only I could make people understand—believe in me——"
The stranger, who, all this time, had been sitting bowed forward, his face buried in hishands, suddenly broke forth. "It's not a fable! The Rainbow Mine—it'strue!I discovered it the day—but where—where—where? My God, where?" He looked about wildly.
Evelyn turned sharply on the speaker. "Who are you?"
Matthew Durant, his passion spent, lifted streaming eyes to his daughter's face. "Don't you know me, Evie?"
"Oh, no, no! You're not—oh, daddy!" Falling on her knees beside him, she gathered the feeble form into her strong young arms.
Then Maclane led Scarlett quietly away.
CONCLUSION
Within the cabin her father was resting peacefully. While eating the food she set before him, he told Evelyn the history of his wonderful discovery, as it came back, fragmentarily, to his blurred memory, and she, the better to bring him back, as she thought, to sanity, humored his delusion by not betraying incredulity.
At the mission where he had been tended during the long illness that followed his captivity, so he explained, he had purposely given a fictitious name and account of himself, lest the truth should somehow reach Blenksoe, thus furnishing the clue to the whereabouts of the unstaked mine, which precaution also accounted for his having eluded the diligent search that the Mounted Police had never ceased to prosecute since his disappearance. From Blenksoe, however, he had no longer anything to fear; thatarch-conspirator having gone the way of his leader, Dandy Raish, by the avenging bullet from some victim's hand.
And, now, please God, he concluded, restored health would bring back recollection, enabling him to unearth the pot of gold to which the heavenly sign had pointed him.
When, at last, her loving tendance had won him to sleep, Evelyn went out into the cool air, to draw a long breath and readjust her reckonings with life that the day's events had thus cruelly disturbed.
It was the sunset's glowing aftermath that, to the pilgrims of the north, alone justifies a long journey from conditions that those hide-bound with conventions are inclined to associate with creature comfort, opening a new wonderland of beauty. In such regions where nature is elemental, man becomes elementary, feeling himself in the Almighty's workshop, in close communication with the powers of life, dealt with, not by subtle processes that the artificial conditions of city life have engendered, but swiftly, directly, summarily, as in the days of burning bush and pillars of flame.
Gazing over the now prosperous township of Lost Shoe Creek, across the lake, to the colossal mountains shutting it in from that "outside," to which even miners so heavilyunder the mysterious spell of the North that nothing ever could induce them to forsake it, still never ceases fondly to speak of as "God's country," Evelyn seemed to herself to be born again. Had she known it, it was then that she attained the noblest moment of her being, resolving, even as she already had resolved to meet it bravely, also to meet this uncompromising blow of providence without bitterness; if possible with love.
Hearing Durant move within, she was about to go to him when her attention was arrested by a tatterdemalion figure at her gate, beseeching charity.
"Mademoiselle—peety ze poor!"
"Alphonse!" she exclaimed, recognizing the once jaunty person of her former courier, alias Count St. Hilaire.
Alphonse, who had not thought of her from that day to this, in turn recognizing her, hastened to attribute his present pitiful plight as the deserved vengeance of an outraged Heaven for his baseness in despoiling one of its own angels of kodak and motorcar. "But," he wept, "zese fruits of sin did not long time 'dure. Ze automobile she bust, zen I bust—and now—I have a such hunger."
In spite of the weight of sadness at herheart, Evelyn could not but smile. It was one of the jests of the great powers—jests that are, nevertheless, always tinged with irony, this confronting her with the scarecrow of her whilom splendor at the supreme hour of her misery.
Grateful for food which he devoured eagerly, overwhelmed by the gift of a small sum she bestowed on him to enable him to prosecute his journey, Alphonse sought some expression of his feelings beyond his mere copious Gallic thanks. He was selling photographs for a living, and he besought mademoiselle, could she bring herself to overlook the regrettable fact that they were the product of her own camera, to accept the choicest example of his art—a veritable triumph, an arc-en-ciel—a rainbow!
Involuntarily, Evelyn shuddered at the word. Would the gods never cease their mocking sport, she wondered, even while with becoming graciousness she thanked Alphonse and sent him on his way, rejoicing. She still held the picture in her hand, carelessly, occupied with her thoughts, when she heard a cry from Durant, who had come out without her noticing him, and was looking over her shoulder.
"My God! Evelyn! Look," he cried. "The mine—The Rainbow!"
"Father, dear," she sought to soothe him, "it is nothing—merely a chance photograph."
"Nothing? It is my witness, my record," answered Durant. "No, Evie, I'm not mad. This clears away the last cloud. Examine it carefully." Getting out his prospector's glass, he polished the lens carefully and held it over the photograph.
Evelyn looked, as she was bidden, at first merely to humor him, then with awakening interest as, under the glass's magnifying power, she studied the picture in detail. In his passion for the picturesque Alphonse had, indeed, put her camera to good use. In this composition he had caught a striking moment: Durant himself, in his rough miner's garb, standing with arms flung up, as if in thankfulness to Heaven, while near by, beside a half-uprooted willow-bush, knelt Walter Pierce with an expression of wonder on his young face; while in the background, beyond the creek, stood the imperturbable mountains, spanned by a faint, elusive rainbow.
"This is the very spot!" Durant laughed like a happy boy. "Lost Shoe Creek! Fancy forgetting even the name!—I had always believed in it, though every other miner turned it down. It had shared the fate of hundredsof other northern camps: a new strike; a stampede, prospectors, traders, grafters, from all quarters rushing madly in; then, disappointment, failure, starvation, desertion to new fields. It became the most god-forsaken place on earth—an abandoned camp drained of everything but the dregs of its population. I alone held on, having a nose for gold, and scenting it right here, and now and then coming on indications: Blenksoe, Raish, and all the other grafters meanwhile dogging my steps to profit by any strike I might make, jump my claim, and make away with me!—Oh, this brings it all back, this picture: Walter Pierce; your coming; how Nick and the boys covered up my humiliation; my trying to kill myself; and then—the gold!"
While he was speaking, he had hurried to the clearing at the back of the cabin, comparing the lay of the land with the picture, Evelyn following with keenest anxiety at this new phase of his delusion, yet not knowing how to restrain him.
"Father, dear, don't," she remonstrated, seeing him uprooting a willow with frenzied eagerness. "Why, that's the bush on which I spread out my wash."
But Durant only laughed and went on spading up the soft earth with a bit ofwood. Wild as were his actions, his face and bearing had regained all their old, light-hearted poise. He was as Evelyn always had known him on his occasional visits to her, when they spent money like princes and amused themselves like children.
Soon he threw his improvised tool aside. "Here we are! Look at this, Evie!"
Evelyn took the substance he handed to her, and, as the earth crumbled from it, saw that it was of irregular shape, and oddly indented, as though some underground giant had chewed it with Titanic teeth before spewing it up for man's good or ill, as fate might decree. A slight, bluish hue with which it first met the eye melted softly into that indefinable lustre that proclaims gold and only gold—the lust for which is more potent than the love of woman, wine; in whose quest more lives have been sacrificed than for any other cause since the world began; for whose possession souls innumerable are being bartered every day.
"A sixty-dollar nugget," Durant appraised it, weighing it in his expert hand, "and valuable merely as an earnest of what lies beneath—just a chip of the old block; a clue to the great Lode! Now, to take possession formally!" He paced the ground, whittled and marked the stakes, and was preparingto post them, when a sudden thought arrested him. "But—the land now lies within the township limits!" he groaned. "Oh, my girl, what, if, after all, my luck should fail you!"
Evelyn smiled happily. "I think I can come to your assistance in that matter. If you will call to-morrow morning at the office of E. Durant you can acquire the mineral rights from the present owner of the lot, who happens to be—myself. Then you can record it as soon as the Commissioner's books are open."
"But——" Durant looked about with a touch of the furtive apprehension that had shadowed his recent life, and that never wholly left him. "Suppose some one has seen—how can I defend it?"
"Oh," cried Evelyn, "no fear about that! There are no claim-jumpers in this camp, thanks to Scarlett of the Mounted."
"Aye, Scarlett. A fine fellow that. He did me a great kindness last year," said her father. "It began by his finding your picture, which I had dropped, and giving it back to me. If my foresight had been equal to my hindsight, I should have confided my discovery to him as soon as I made it, and so saved you this year of bitter experience, my girl."
"Well, daddy," replied Evelyn, "if you haven't suffered too much by it, not only do I not regret it, but I'm glad. It has taught me to value the gifts of the mother Lode infinitely less, and infinitely more, than formerly. I can hardly wait overnight to claim my pot of gold from the rainbow's foot—but I'm humbler about the possession of wealth than I used to be. And I want the whole camp to be 'in it.'"
"And so they shall, my girl," responded Durant, heartily. Then, as two figures came in sight, "There goes the Sergeant now, with Mr. Maclane, passing by the gate. Suppose we begin with them, Evie. Suppose we call them in and tell them all about it." He already was summoning them.
"Suppose, for the present, you take charge of Mr. Maclane," amended Evelyn, as the two drew near, "and leave the Sergeant to me."
Scarlett and the minister were bent on some errand in another quarter of the town, but by tacit consent had taken the road past Evelyn's cabin, actuated, in the case of the older man, by a kind wish not to lose sight of her for long, and in the case of the lover by the force that guides all steps toward the beloved. For, dismissed as he had been, and dejected as he found himself accordingly,yet in his heart of hearts there still lurked a hope that she might relent toward him. When, therefore, they saw Evelyn, radiant, and beckoning to them from the veranda, they joined her and her father with alacrity. Nor did good Maclane need any suggestion from Durant that the two young people should be left to make their peace unaided.
"Sergeant Scarlett," Evelyn began when the older men had withdrawn to examine Durant's discovery, "I want to beg your pardon for the way I treated you this afternoon! I felt bitter, cheated—oh, it wasn't your fault one bit; it was my own, which was why I was so angry with you. And you—all along you have behaved so generously to me—nobly!—Yes, let me finish," she cried, retreating from the advance with which he sought to interrupt her. "I shall always think it—but I may not ever be in the mood to tell you again quite how well I think of you."
"But, Evelyn, dearest, what's the good of compliments to a hungry man?" cried Scarlett. "I'm asking ye for bread—and ye give me the blarney-stone."
Evelyn laughed, and, sitting, patted the place beside her, invitingly. "I'll tell you the whole story. It's like a romance—I wasgoing to write you a letter about it if you had not come."
"We'll write it together. We'll write it all our lives." Her lover slipped an arm about her. "But we'll start with the postscript."