"It's well I know ye, Shevè Cross, ye weary, stony hill,An' I'm tired, och, I'm tired to be looking on ye still.For here I live the near side an' he is on the far,An' all your heights and hollows are between us, so they are.Och anee!"
"It's well I know ye, Shevè Cross, ye weary, stony hill,An' I'm tired, och, I'm tired to be looking on ye still.For here I live the near side an' he is on the far,An' all your heights and hollows are between us, so they are.Och anee!"
"It's well I know ye, Shevè Cross, ye weary, stony hill,
An' I'm tired, och, I'm tired to be looking on ye still.
For here I live the near side an' he is on the far,
An' all your heights and hollows are between us, so they are.
Och anee!"
Gordon, as he listened, felt the strange hunger of that homesick cry steal through his blood. He saw his own emotions reflected in the face of the Scotch-Canadian, who was watching with a tense interest the slim, young figure at the piano, the girl whose eyes were soft and dewy with the mysticism of her people, were still luminous with the poetry of the child in spite of the years that heralded her a woman.
Elliot intercepted the triumphant sweep of Diane's glance from Macdonald to her husband. In a flash it lit up for him the words he had heard on the hotel porch. Diane, an inveteratematchmaker, intended her cousin to marry Colby Macdonald. No doubt she thought she was doing a fine thing for the girl. He was a millionaire, the biggest figure in the Northwest. His iron will ran the town and district as though the people were chattels of his. Back of him were some of the biggest financial interests in the United States.
But the gorge of Elliot rose. The man, after all, was a law-breaker, a menace to civilization. He was a survivor by reason of his strength from the primitive wolf-pack. Already the special agent had heard many strange stories of how this man of steel had risen to supremacy by trampling down lesser men with whom he had had dealings, of terrible battles from which his lean, powerful body had emerged bloody and battered, but victorious. The very look of his hard, gray eyes was dominant and masterful. He would win, no matter how. It came to Gordon's rebel heart that if Macdonald wanted this lovely Irish girl,—and the young man never doubted that the Scotchman would want her,—he would reach out and gather in Sheba just as if she were a coal mine or a placer prospect.
All this surged through the mind of the young man while the singer was on the first line of the second stanza.
"But if 't was only Shevè Cross to climb from foot to crown,I'd soon be up an' over that, I'd soon be runnin' down.Then sure the great ould sea itself is there beyont the bar,An' all the windy wathers are between us, so they are.Och anee!"
"But if 't was only Shevè Cross to climb from foot to crown,I'd soon be up an' over that, I'd soon be runnin' down.Then sure the great ould sea itself is there beyont the bar,An' all the windy wathers are between us, so they are.Och anee!"
"But if 't was only Shevè Cross to climb from foot to crown,
I'd soon be up an' over that, I'd soon be runnin' down.
Then sure the great ould sea itself is there beyont the bar,
An' all the windy wathers are between us, so they are.
Och anee!"
The rich, soft, young voice with its Irish brogue died away. The little audience paid the singer the tribute of silence. She herself was the first to speak.
"'Divided' is the name of it. A namesake of mine, Moira O'Neill, wrote it," she explained.
"It's a beautiful song, and I thank ye for singing it," Macdonald said simply. "It minds me of my own barefoot days by the Tay."
Later in the evening the two dinner guests walked back to the hotel together. The two subjects uppermost in the minds of both were not mentioned by either. They discussed casually the cost of living in the North, the raising of strawberries at Kusiak, and the best way to treat the mosquito nuisance, but neither of them referred to the Macdonald coal claims or to Sheba O'Neill.
Macdonald, from his desk, looked up at the man in the doorway. Selfridge had come in jauntily, a cigar in his mouth, but at sight of the grim face of his chief the grin fled.
"Come in and shut the door," ordered the Scotchman. "I sent for you to congratulate you, Wally. You did fine work outside. You told me, didn't you, that it was all settled at last—that our claims are clear-listed for patent?"
The tubby little man felt the edge of irony in the quiet voice. "Sure. That's what Winton told me," he assented nervously.
"Then you'll be interested to know that a special field agent of the Land Department sat opposite me last night and without batting an eye came across with the glad news that he was here to investigate our claims."
Selfridge bounced up like a rubber ball from the chair into which he had just settled. "What!"
"Pleasant surprise, isn't it? I've been wondering what you were doing outside. Of course I know you had to take in the shows and cabarets of New York. But couldn't you edge in an hour or two once a week to attend to business?"
Wally's collar began to choke him. The cool, hard words of the big Scotchman pelted like hail.
"Must be a bluff, Mac. The muckrake magazines have raised such a row about the Guttenchild crowd putting over a big steal on the public that the party leaders are scared stiff. I couldn't pick up a newspaper anywhere without seeing your name in the headlines. It was fierce." Selfridge had found his glib tongue and was off.
"I understand that, Wally. What I don't get is how you came to let them slip this over on you without even a guess that it was going to happen."
That phase of the subject Selfridge did not want to discuss.
"Bet you a hat I've guessed it right—just a grand-stand play of the Administration to fool the dear people. This fellow has got his orders to give us a clean bill of health. Sure. That must be it. I suppose it's this man Elliot that came up on the boat with us."
"Yes."
"Well, that's easy. If he hasn't been seen we can see him."
Macdonald looked his man Friday over with a scarcely veiled contempt. "You have a beautiful, childlike faith in every man's dishonesty,Wally. Did it ever occur to you that some people are straight—that they won't sell out?"
"All he gets is a beggarly two thousand or so a year. We can fix him all right."
"You've about as much vision as a breed trader. Unless I miss my guess Elliot isn't that kind. He'll go through to a finish. What I'd like to know is how his mind works. If he sees straight we're all right, but if he is a narrow conservation fanatic he might go ahead and queer the whole game."
"You wouldn't stand for that." The quick glance of Selfridge asked a question.
The lips of the Scotchman were like steel traps and his eyes points of steel. "We'll cross that bridge if we come to it. Our first move is to try to win him to see this thing our way. I'll have a casual talk with him before he leaves for Kamatlah and feel him out."
"What's he doing here at all? If he's investigating the Kamatlah claims, why does he go hundreds of miles out of his way to come in to Kusiak?" asked Selfridge.
Macdonald smiled sardonically. "He's doing this job right. Elliot as good as told me that he's on the job to look up my record thoroughly. So he comes to Kusiak first. In a few days he'll leave for Kamatlah. That's where you come in, Wally."
"How do you mean?"
"You're going to start for Kamatlah to-morrow. You'll arrange the stage before he gets there—see all the men and the foremen. Line them up so they'll come through with the proper talk. If you have any doubts about whether you can trust some one, don't take any chances. Fire him out of the camp. Offer Elliot the company hospitality. Load him down with favors. Take him everywhere. Show him everything. But don't let him get any proofs that the claims are being worked under the same management."
"But he'll suspect it."
"You can't help his suspicions. Don't let him get proof. Cover all the tracks that show company control."
"I can fix that," he said. "But what about Holt? The old man won't do a thing but tell all he knows, and a lot more that he suspects. You know how bitter he is—and crazy. He ought to be locked away with the flitter-mice."
"You mustn't let Elliot meet Holt."
"How the deuce can I help it? No chance to keep them apart in that little hole. It can't be done."
"Can't it?"
Something in the quiet voice rang a bell of alarm in the timid heart of Selfridge.
"You mean—"
"A man who works for me as my lieutenant must have nerve, Wally. Have you got it? Will you take orders and go through with them?"
His hard eyes searched the face of the plump little man. This was a job he would have liked to do himself, but he could not get away just now. Selfridge was the only man about him he could trust with it.
Wally nodded. His lips were dry and parched. "Go to it. What am I to do?"
"Get Holt out of the way while Elliot is at Kamatlah."
"But, Good Lord, I can't keep the man tied up a month," protested the leading tenor of Kusiak.
"It isn't doing Holt any good to sit tight clamped to that claim of his! He needs a change. Besides, I want him away so that we can contest his claim. Run him up into the hills. Or send him across to Siberia on a whaler. Or, better still, have him arrested for insanity and send him to Nome. I'll get Judge Landor to hold him a while."
"That would give him an alibi for his absence and prevent a contest."
"That's right. It would."
"Leave it to me. The old man is going on a vacation, though he doesn't know it yet."
"Good enough, Wally. I'll trust you. But remember, this fight has reached an acute stage. No more mistakes. The devil of it is we never seem to land the knockout punch. We've beaten this bunch of reform idiots before Winton, before the Secretary of the Interior, before the President, and before Congress. Now they're beginning all over again. Where is it to end?"
"This is their last kick. Probably Guttenchild agreed to it so as to let the party go before the people at the next election without any apologies. Entirely formal investigation, I should say."
This might be true, or it might not. Macdonald knew that just now the American people, always impulsive in its thinking, was supporting strongly the movement for conservation. A searchlight had been turned upon the Kamatlah coal-fields. Magazines and newspapers had hammered it home to readers that the Guttenchild and allied interests were engaged in a big steal from the people of coal, timber, and power-site lands to the value of more than a hundred million dollars.
The trouble had originated in a department row, but it had spread until the Macdonald claims had become a party issue. The officials of the Land Office, as well as the National Administration, were friendly to the claimants.They had no desire to offend one of the two largest money groups in the country. But neither did they want to come to wreck on account of the Guttenchilds. They found it impossible to ignore the charge that the entries were fraudulent and if consummated would result in a wholesale robbery of the public domain. Superficial investigations had been made and the claimants whitewashed. But the clamor had persisted.
Though he denied it officially, Macdonald made a present to the public of the admission that the entries were irregular. Laws, he held, were made for men and should be interpreted to aid progress. Bad ones ought to be evaded.
The facts were simple enough. Macdonald was the original promoter of the Kamatlah coal-field. He had engaged dummy entrymen to take up one hundred and sixty acres each under the Homestead Act. Later he intended to consolidate the claims and turn them over to the Guttenchilds under an agreement by which he was to receive one eighth of the stock of the company formed to work the mines. The entries had been made, the fee accepted by the Land Office, and receipts issued. In course of time Macdonald had applied for patents.
Before these were issued the magazines began to pour in their broadsides, and since then the papers had been held up.
The conscience of Macdonald was quite clear. The pioneers in Alaska were building out of the Arctic waste a new empire for the United States, and he held that a fair Government could do no less than offer them liberal treatment. To lock up from present use vast resources needed by Alaskans would be a mistaken policy, a narrow and perverted application of the doctrine of conservation. The Territory should be thrown open to the world. If capital were invited in to do its share of the building, immigration would flow rapidly northward. Within the lives of the present generation the new empire would take shape and wealth would pour inevitably into the United States from its frozen treasure house.
The view held by Macdonald was one common to the whole Pacific Coast. Seattle, Portland, San Francisco were a unit in the belief that the Government had no right to close the door of Alaska and then put a padlock upon it.
Feminine voices drifted from the outer office. Macdonald opened the door to let in Mrs. Selfridge and Mrs. Mallory.
The latter lady, Paris-shod and gloved, shook hands smilingly with the Scotch-Canadian. "Of course we're intruders in business hours, though you'll tell us we're not," she suggested.
He was not a man to surrender easily to thespell of woman, but when he looked into her deep-lidded, smouldering eyes something sultry beat in his blood.
"Business may fly out of the window when Mrs. Mallory comes in at the door," he answered.
"How gallant of you, especially when I've come with an impertinent question." Her gay eyes mocked him as she spoke.
"Then I'll probably tell you to mind your own business," he laughed. "Let's have your question."
"I've just been reading the 'Transcontinental Magazine.' A writer there says that you are a highway robber and a gambler. I know you're a robber because all the magazines say so. But are you only a big gambler?"
He met her raillery without the least embarrassment.
"Sure I gamble. Every time I take a chance I'm gambling. So does everybody else. When you walk past the Flatiron Building you bet it won't fall down and crush you. We've got to take chances to live."
"How true, and I never thought of it," beamed Mrs. Selfridge. "What a philosopher you are, Mr. Macdonald."
The Scotchman went on without paying any attention to her effervescence. "I've gambledever since I was a kid. I bet I could cross Death Valley and get out alive. That time I won. I bet it would rain once down in Arizona before my cattle died. I lost. Another time I took a contract to run a tunnel. In my bid I bet I wouldn't run into rock. My bank went broke that trip. When I joined the Klondike rush I was backing my luck to stand up. Same thing when I located the Kamatlah field. The coal might be a poor quality. Maybe I couldn't interest big capital in the proposition. Perhaps the Government would turn me down when I came to prove up. I was betting my last dollar against big odds. When I quit gambling it will be because I've quit living."
"And I suppose I'm a gambler too?" Mrs. Mallory demanded with a little tilt of her handsome head.
He looked straight at her with the keen eyes that had bored through her from the first day they had met, the eyes that understood the manner of woman she was and liked her none the less.
"Of all the women I know you are the best gambler. It's born in you."
"Why, Mr. Macdonald!" screamed Mrs. Selfridge in her high staccato. "I don't think that's a compliment."
Mrs. Mallory did not often indulge in theluxury of a blush, but she changed color now. This big, blunt man sometimes had an uncanny divination. Did he, she asked herself, know what stake she was gambling for at Kusiak?
"You are too wise," she laughed with a touch of embarrassment very becoming. "But I suppose you are right. I like excitement."
"We all do. The only man who doesn't gamble is the convict in stripes, and the only reason he doesn't is that his chips are all gone. It's true that men on the frontier play for bigger stakes. They back their bets with all they have got and put their lives on top for good measure. But kids in the cradle all over the United States are going to live easier because of the gamblers at the dropping-off places. That writer fellow hit the nail on the head about me. My whole life is a gamble."
She moved with slow grace toward the door, then over her shoulder flashed a sudden invitation at him. "Mrs. Selfridge and I are doing a little betting to-day, Big Chief Gambler. We're backing our luck that you two men will eat lunch with us at the Blue Bird Inn. Do we win?"
Macdonald reached for his hat promptly. "You win."
Wally Selfridge was a reliable business subordinate, even though he had slipped up in the matter of the appointment of Elliot. But when it came to facing the physical hardships of the North he was a malingerer. The Kamatlah trip had to be taken because his chief had ordered it, but the little man shirked the journey in his heart just as he knew his soft muscles would shrink from the aches of the trail.
His idea of work was a set of tennis on the outdoor wooden court of the Kusiak clubhouse, and even there his game was not a hard, smashing one, but an easy foursome with a girl for partner. He liked better to play bridge with attendants at hand to supply drinks and cigars. By nature he was a sybarite. The call of the frontier found no response in his sophisticated soul.
The part of the journey to be made by water was not so bad. Left to his own judgment, he would have gone to St. Michael's by boat and chartered a small steamer for the long trip along the coast through Bering Sea. But this would take time, and Macdonald did not mean to lethim waste a day. He was to leave the river boat at the big bend and pack across country to Kamatlah. It would be a rough, heavy trail. The mosquitoes would be a continual torment. The cooking would be poor. And at the end of the long trek there awaited him monotonous months in a wretched coal camp far from all the comforts of civilization. No wonder he grumbled.
But though he grumbled at home and at the club and on the street about his coming exile, Selfridge made no complaints to Macdonald. That man of steel had no sympathy with the yearnings for the fleshpots. He was used to driving himself through discomfort to his end, and he expected as much of his deputies. Wherefore Wally took the boat at the time scheduled and waved a dismal farewell to wife and friends assembled upon the wharf.
Elliot said good-bye to the Pagets and Miss O'Neill ten days later. Diane was very frank with him.
"I hear you've been sleuthing around, Gordon, for facts about Colby Macdonald. I don't know what you have heard about him, but I hope you've got the sense to see how big a man he is and how much this country here owes him."
Gordon nodded agreement. "Yes, he's a big man."
"And he's good," added Sheba eagerly. "He never talks of it, but one finds out splendid things he has done."
The young man smiled, but not at all superciliously. He liked the stanch faith of the girl in her friend, even though his investigations had not led him to accept goodness as the outstanding quality of the Scotchman.
"I don't know what we would do without him," Diane went on. "Give him ten years and a free hand and Alaska will be fit for white people to live in. These attacks on him by newspapers and magazines are an outrage."
"It's plain that you are a partisan," charged Gordon gayly.
"I'm against locking up Alaska and throwing away the key, if that is what you mean by a partisan. We need this country opened up—the farms settled, the mines worked, the coal-fields developed, railroads built. It is one great big opportunity, the country here, and the narrow little conservation cranks want to shut it up tight from the people who have energy and foresight enough to help do the building."
"The Kusiak Chamber of Commerce ought to send you out as a lecturer to change public opinion, Diane. You are one enthusiastic little booster for freedom of opportunity," laughed the young man.
"Oh, well!" Diane joined in his laughter. It was one of her good points that she could laugh at herself. "I dare say I do sound like a real estate pamphlet, but it's all true anyhow."
Gordon left Kusiak as reluctantly as Wally Selfridge had done, though his reasons for not wanting to go were quite different. They centered about a dusky-eyed young woman whom he had seen for the first time a fortnight before. He would have denied even to himself that he was in love, but whenever he was alone his thoughts reverted to Sheba O'Neill.
At the big bend Gordon left the river boat for his cross-country trek. Near the roadhouse was an Indian village where he had expected to get a guide for the journey to Kamatlah. But the fishing season had begun, and the men had all gone down river to take part in it.
The old Frenchman who kept the trading-post and roadhouse advised Gordon not to attempt the tramp alone.
"The trail it ees what you call dangerous. Feefty-Mile Swamp ees a monster that swallows men alive, Monsieur. You wait one week—two week—t'ree week, and some one will turn up to take you through," he urged.
"But I can't wait. And I have an official map of the trail. Why can't I follow it without a guide?" Elliot wanted to know impatiently.
The post-trader shrugged. "Maybeso, Monsieur—maybe not. Feefty-Mile—it ees one devil of a trail. No chechakoes are safe in there without a guide. I, Baptiste, know."
"Selfridge and his party went through a week ago. I can follow the tracks they left."
"But if it rains, Monsieur, the tracks will vaneesh, n'est ce pas? Lose the way, and the little singing folk will swarm in clouds about Monsieur while he stumbles through the swamp."
Elliot hesitated for the better part of a day, then came to an impulsive decision. He knew the evil fame of Fifty-Mile Swamp—that no trail in Alaska was held to be more difficult or dangerous. He knew too what a fearful pest the mosquitoes were. Peter had told him a story of how he and a party of engineers had come upon a man wandering in the hills, driven mad by mosquitoes. The traveler had lost his matches and had been unable to light smudge fires. Day and night the little singing devils had swarmed about him. He could not sleep. He could not rest. Every moment for forty-eight hours he had fought for his life against them. Within an hour of the time they found him the man had died a raving maniac.
But Elliot was well equipped with mosquito netting and with supplies. He had a reliable map, and anyhow he had only to follow thetracks left by the Selfridge party. He turned his back upon the big river and plunged into the wilderness.
There came a night when he looked up into the stars of the deep, still sky and knew that he was hundreds of miles from any other human being. Never in all his life had he been so much alone. He was not afraid, but there was something awesome in a world so empty of his kind. Sometimes he sang, and the sound of his voice at first startled him. It was like living in a world primeval, this traverse of a land so void of all the mechanism that man has built about him.
The tracks of the Selfridge party grew fainter after a night of rain. More rain fell, and they were obliterated altogether.
Gordon fished. He killed fresh game for his needs. Often he came on the tracks of moose and caribou. Sometimes, startled, they leaped into view quite close enough for a shot, but he used his rifle only to meet his wants. A huge grizzly faced him on the trail one afternoon, growled its menace, and went lumbering into the big rocks with awkward speed.
The way led through valley and morass, across hills and mountains. It wandered in a sort of haphazard fashion through a sun-bathed universe washed clean of sordidness and meanness. Always, as he pushed forward, the pathgrew more faint and uncertain. Elk runs crossed it here and there, so that often Gordon went astray and had to retrace his steps.
The maddening song of the mosquitoes was always with him. Only when he slept did he escape from it. The heavy gloves, the netting, the smudge fires were at best an insufficient protection.
It was the seventh night out that Elliot suspected he was off the trail. Rain sluiced down in torrents and next day continued to pour from a dun sky. His own tracks were blotted out and he searched for the trail in vain. Before the rain stopped, he was thoroughly disturbed in mind. It would be a serious business if he should be lost in the bad lands of the bogs. Even though he knew the general direction he must follow, there was no certainty that he would ever emerge from this swamp into which he had plunged.
Before he knew it he was entangled in Fifty-Mile. His map showed him the morass stretched for fifty miles to the south, but he knew that it had been charted hurriedly by a surveying party which had made no extensive explorations. A good deal of this country wasterra incognita. It ran vaguely into a No Man's Land unknown to the prospector.
The going was heavy. Gordon had to pick his way through the mossy swamp, leading thepack-horse by the bridle. Sometimes he was ankle-deep in water of a greenish slime. Again he had to drag the animal from the bog to a hummock of grass which gave a spongy footing. This would end in another quagmire of peat through which they must plough with the mud sucking at their feet. It was hard, wearing toil. There was nothing to do but keep moving. The young man staggered forward till dusk. Utterly exhausted, he camped for the night on a hillock of moss that rose like an island in the swamp.
After he had eaten he fed his fire with green boughs that raised a dense smoke. He lay on the leeward side where the smoke drifted over him and fought mosquitoes till a shift of the wind lessened the plague. Toward midnight he rigged up a net for protection and crawled into his blankets. Instantly he fell sound asleep.
Elliot traveled next day by the compass. He had food for three days more, but he knew that no living man had the strength to travel for so long in such a morass. It was near midday when he lost his horse. The animal had bogged down several times and Gordon had wasted much time and spent a good deal of needed energy in dragging it to firmer footing. This time the pony refused to answer the whip. Its master unloaded pack and saddle. He tried coaxing; he tried the whip.
"Come, Old-Timer. One plunge, and you'll make it yet," he urged.
The pack-horse turned upon him dumb eyes of reproach, struggled to free its limbs from the mud, and sank down helplessly. It had traveled its last yard on the long Alaska trails.
After the sound of the shot had died away, Gordon struggled with the pack to the nearest hummock. He cut holes in a gunny-sack to fit his shoulders and packed into it his blankets, a saucepan, the beans, the coffee, and the diminished handful of flour. Into it went too the three slices of bacon that were left.
He hoisted the pack to his back and slipped his arms through the slits he had made. Painfully he labored forward over the quivering peat. Every weary muscle revolted at the demands his will imposed upon it. He drew on the last ounce of his strength and staggered forward. Sometimes he stumbled and went down into the oozing mud, minded to stay there and be done with the struggle. But the urge of life drove him to his feet again. It sent him pitching forward drunkenly. It carried him for weary miles after he despaired of ever covering another hundred yards.
With old, half-forgotten signals from the football field he spurred his will. Perhaps his mind was already beginning to wander, though throughit all he held steadily to the direction that alone could save him.
He clapped his hands feebly and stooped for the plunge at the line of the enemy. "'Attaboy, Gord—'attaboy—nine, eleven, seventeen. Hit 'er low, you Elliot."
When at last he went down to stay it was in an exhaustion so complete that not even his indomitable will could lash him to his feet again. For an hour he lay in a stupor, never stirring even to fight the swarm of mosquitoes that buzzed about him.
Toward evening he sat up and undid the pack from his back. The matches, in a tin box wrapped carefully with oilskin, were still perfectly dry. Soon he had a fire going and coffee boiling in the frying-pan. From the tin cup he carried strung on his belt he drank the coffee. It went through him like strong liquor. He warmed some beans and fried himself a slice of bacon, sopping up the grease with a cold biscuit left over from the day before.
Again he slept for a few hours. He had wound his watch mechanically and it showed him four o'clock when he took up the trail once more. In Seattle and San Francisco people were still asleep and darkness was heavy over the land. Here it had been day for a long time, ever since the summer sun, hidden for a while behind thelow, distant hills, had come blazing forth again in a saddle between two peaks.
Gordon had reduced his pack by discarding a blanket, the frying-pan, and all the clothing he was not wearing. His rifle lay behind him in the swamp. He had cut to a minimum of safety what he was carrying, according to his judgment. But before long his last blanket was flung aside. He could not afford to carry an extra pound, for he knew he was running a race, the stakes of which were life and death.
A cloud of mosquitoes moved with him. He carried in his hand a spruce bough for defense against them. His hands were gloved, his face was covered with netting. But in spite of the best he could do they were an added torture.
Afternoon found him still staggering forward. The swamps were now behind him. He had won through at last by the narrowest margin possible. The ground was rising sharply toward the mountains. Across the range somewhere lay Kamatlah. But he was all in. With his food almost gone, a water supply uncertain, reserve strength exhausted, the chances of getting over the divide to safety were practically none.
He had come, so far as he could see, to the end of the passage.
As soon as Selfridge reached Kamatlah he began arranging the stage against the arrival of the Government agent. His preparations were elaborate and thorough. A young engineer named Howland had been in charge of the development work, but Wally rearranged his forces so as to let each dummy entryman handle the claim entered in his name. One or two men about whom he was doubtful he discharged and hurried out of the camp.
Selfridge had been given a free hand as to expenses and he oiled his way by liberal treatment of the men and by a judicious expenditure. He let them know pretty plainly that if the agent on his way to Kamatlah suspected corporate ownership of the claims, the Government would close down all work and there would be no jobs for them.
The company boarding-house became a restaurant, above which was suspended a newly painted sign with the legend, "San Francisco Grill, J. Glynn, Proprietor." The store also passed temporarily into the hands of its manager. Miners moved from the barracks that hadbeen built by Macdonald into hastily constructed cabins on the individual claims. Wally had always fancied himself as a stage manager for amateur theatricals. Now he justified his faith by transforming Kamatlah outwardly from a company camp to a mushroom one settled by wandering prospectors.
Gideon Holt alone was outside of all these activities and watched them with suspicion. He was an old-timer, sly but fearless, who hated Colby Macdonald with a bitter jealousy that could not be placated and he took no pains to hide the fact. He had happened to be in the vicinity prospecting when Macdonald had rushed his entries. Partly out of mere perversity and partly by reason of native shrewdness, old Holt had slipped in and located one of the best claims in the heart of the group. Nor had he been moved to a reasonable compromise by any amount of persuasion, threats, or tentative offers to buy a relinquishment. He was obstinate. He knew a good thing when he had it, and he meant to sit tight.
The adherents of the company might charge that Holt was cracked in the upper story, but none of them denied he was sharp as a street Arab. He guessed that all this preparation was not for nothing. Kamatlah was being dressed up to impress somebody who would shortly arrive. Thefirst thought of Holt was that a group of big capitalists might be coming to look over their investment. But he rejected this surmise. There would be no need to try any deception upon them.
Mail from Seattle reached camp once a month. Holt sat down before his stove to read one of the newspapers he had brought from the office. It was the "P.-I." On the fifth page was a little boxed story that gave him his clue.
ELLIOT TO INVESTIGATE MACDONALD COAL CLAIMSThe reopening of the controversy as to the Macdonald claims, which had been clear-listed for patent by Harold B. Winton, the Commissioner of the General Land Office, takes on another phase with the appointment of Gordon Elliot as special field agent to examine the validity of the holdings. The new field agent won a reputation by his work in unearthing the Oklahoma "Gold Brick" land frauds.Elliot leaves Seattle in the Queen City Thursday for the North, where he will make a thorough investigation of the whole situation with a view to clearing up the matter definitely. If his report is favorable to the claimants, the patents will be granted without further delay.
ELLIOT TO INVESTIGATE MACDONALD COAL CLAIMS
The reopening of the controversy as to the Macdonald claims, which had been clear-listed for patent by Harold B. Winton, the Commissioner of the General Land Office, takes on another phase with the appointment of Gordon Elliot as special field agent to examine the validity of the holdings. The new field agent won a reputation by his work in unearthing the Oklahoma "Gold Brick" land frauds.
Elliot leaves Seattle in the Queen City Thursday for the North, where he will make a thorough investigation of the whole situation with a view to clearing up the matter definitely. If his report is favorable to the claimants, the patents will be granted without further delay.
This was too good to keep. Holt pulled on his boots and went out to twit such of the enemyas he might meet. It chanced that the first of them was Selfridge, whom he had not seen since his arrival, though he knew the little man was in camp.
"How goes it, Holt? Fine and dandy, eh?" inquired Wally with the professional geniality he affected.
The old miner shook his head dolefully. "I done bust my laig, Mr. Selfish," he groaned. It was one of his pleasant ways to affect a difficulty of hearing and a dullness of understanding, so that he could legitimately call people by distorted versions of their names. "The old man don't amount to much nowadays. Onct a man or a horse gits stove up I don't reckon either one pans out much pay dust any more."
"Nothing to that, Gid. You're younger than you ever were, judging by your looks."
"Then my looks lie to beat hell, Mr. Selfish."
"My name is Selfridge," explained Wally, a trifle irritated.
Holt put a cupped hand to his ear anxiously. "Shellfish, did you say? Tha' 's right. Howcome I to forget? The old man's going pretty fast, Mr. Shellfish. No more memory than a jackrabbit. Say, Mr. Shellfish, what's the idee of all this here back-to-the-people movement, as the old sayin' is?"
"I don't know what you mean. And my nameis Selfridge, I tell you," snapped the owner of that name.
"'Course I ain't got no more sense than the law allows. I'm a buzzard haid, but me I kinder got to millin' it over and in respect to these here local improvements, as you might say, I'm doggoned if Isabethe whyfor." There was an imp of malicious deviltry in the black, beady eyes sparkling at Selfridge from between narrowed lids.
"Just some business changes we're making."
Holt showed his tobacco-stained teeth in a grin splenetic. "Oh. That's all. I didn't know but what you might be expecting a visitor."
Selfridge flashed a sharp sidelong glance at him. "What do you mean—a visitor?"
"I just got a notion mebbe you might be looking for one, Mr. Pelfrich. But I don't know sic' 'em. Like as not you ain't fixing up for this Gordon Elliot a-tall."
Wally had no come-back, unless it was one to retort in ironic admiration. "You're a wonder, Holt. Pity you don't start a detective bureau."
The old man went away cackling dryly.
If Selfridge had held any doubts before, he discarded them now. Holt would wreck the whole enterprise, were he given a chance. It would never do to let Elliot meet and talk withhim. He knew too much, and he was eager to tell all he knew.
Macdonald's lieutenant got busy at once with plans to abduct Holt. That it was very much against the law did not disturb him much so long as his chief stood back of him. The unsupported word of the old man would not stand in court, and if he became obstreperous they could always have him locked up as a lunatic. The very pose of the old miner—the make-believe pretension that he was half a fool—would lend itself to such a charge.
"We'll send the old man off on a prospecting trip with some of the boys," explained Selfridge to Rowland. "That way we'll kill two birds. He's back on his assessment work. The time limit will be up before he returns and we'll start a contest for the claim."
Howland made no comment. He was an engineer and not a politician. In his position it was impossible for him not to know that a good deal about the legal status of the Macdonald claims was irregular. But he was a firm believer in a wide-open Alaska, in the use of the Territory by those who had settled it. The men back of the big Scotchman were going to spend millions in development work, in building railroads. It would help labor and business. The whole North would feel a healthful reaction from theKamatlah activities. So, on the theory that the end sometimes justifies doubtful means, he shut his eyes to many acts that in his own private affairs he would not have countenanced.
"Better arrange it with Big Bill, then, but don't tell me anything about it. I don't want to know the details," he told Selfridge.
Big Bill Macy accepted the job with a grin. There was double pay in it both for him and the men he chose as his assistants. He had never liked old Holt anyhow. Besides, they were not going to do him any harm.
Holt was baking a batch of sour-dough bread that evening when there came a knock at the cabin door. At sight of Big Bill and his two companions the prospector closed the oven and straightened with alert suspicion. He was not on visiting terms with any of these men. Why had they come to see him? He asked point-blank the question in his mind.
"We're going prospecting up Wild-Goose Creek, and we want you to go along, Gid," explained Macy. "You're an old sour-dough miner, and we-all agree we'd like to have you throw-in with us. What say?"
The old miner's answer was direct but not flattering. "What do I want to go on a wild-goose mush with a bunch of bums for?" he shrilled.
Bill Macy scratched his hook nose and looked reproachfully at his host. At least Holt thought he was looking at him. One could not be sure, for Bill's eyes did not exactly track.
"That ain't no kind o' way to talk to a fellow when he comes at you with a fair proposition, Gid."
"You tell Selfridge I ain't going to leave Kamatlah—not right now. I'm going to stay here on the job till that Land Office inspector comes—and then I'm going to have a nice, long, confidential chat with him. See?"
"What's the use of snapping at me like a turtle? Durden says Wild-Goose looks fine. There's gold up there—heaps of it."
"Let it stay there, then. I ain't going. That's flat." Holt turned to adjust the damper of his stove.
"Oh, I don't know. I wouldn't say that," drawled Bill insolently.
The man at the stove caught the change in tone and turned quickly. He was too late. Macy had thrown himself forward and the weight of his body flung Holt against the wall. Before the miner could recover, the other two men were upon him. They bore him to the floor and in spite of his struggles tied him hand and foot.
Big Bill rose and looked down derisively at his prisoner. "Better change your mind andgo with us, Holt. We'll spend a quiet month up at the headquarters of Wild-Goose. Say you'll come along."
"You'll go to prison for this, Bill Macy."
"Guess again, Gid, and mebbe you'll get it right this time." Macy turned to his companions. "George, you bring up the horses. Dud, see if that bread is cooked. Might as well take it along with us—save us from baking to-morrow."
"What are you going to do with me?" demanded Holt.
"I reckon you need a church to fall on you before you can take a hint. Didn't I mention Wild-Goose Creek three or four times?" jeered his captor.
"Every step you take will be one toward the penitentiary. Get that into your cocoanut," the old miner retorted sharply.
"Nothing to that idee, Gid."
"I'll scream when you take me out."
"Go to it. Then we'll gag you."
Holt made no further protest. He was furious, but at present quite helpless. However it went against the grain, he might as well give in until rebellion would do some good.
Ten minutes later the party was moving silently along the trail that led to the hills. The pack-horses went first, in charge of George Holway.The prisoner walked next, his hands tied behind him. Big Bill followed, and the man he had called Dud brought up the rear.
They wound up a rising valley, entering from it a cañon with precipitous walls that shut out the late sun. It was by this time past eleven o'clock and dusk was gathering closer. The winding trail ran parallel with the creek, sometimes through thickets of young fir and sometimes across boulder beds that made traveling difficult and slow. They went in single file, each of them with a swarm of mosquitoes about his head.
Macy had released the hands of his prisoner so that he might have a chance to fight the singing pests, but he kept a wary eye upon him and never let him move more than a few feet from him. The trail grew steeper as it neared the head of the cañon till at last it climbed the left wall and emerged from the gulch to an uneven mesa.
The leader of the party looked at his watch. "Past midnight. We'll camp here, George, and see if we can't get rid of the 'skeeters."
They built smudge fires of green wood and on the lee side of these another one of dry sticks. Dud made coffee upon this and cooked bacon to eat with the fresh bread they had taken from the oven of Holt. While George choppedwood for the fires and boughs of small firs for bedding, Big Bill sat with a rifle across his knees just back of the prisoner.
"Gid's a shifty old cuss, and I ain't taking any chances," he explained aloud to Dud.
Holt was beginning to take the outrage philosophically. He sat close to a smudge and smoked his pipe.
"I wouldn't either if I were you. Sometime when you ain't watching, I'm liable to grab that gun and shoot a hole in the place where your brains would be if you had any," countered the old man.
He slept peacefully while they took turns watching him. Just now there would be no chance to escape, but in a few days they would become careless. The habit of feeling that they had him securely would grow upon them. Then, reasoned Holt, his opportunity would come. One of the guards would take a chance. Perhaps he might even fall asleep on duty. It was not reasonable to suppose that in the next week or two he would not catch them napping once for a short ten seconds.
There was, of course, just the possibility that they intended to murder him, but Holt could not associate Selfridge with anything so lawless. The man was too soft of fiber to carry through such a programme, and as yet there was needof nothing so drastic. No, this little kidnapping expedition would not run to murder. He would be set free in a few weeks, and if he told the true story of where he had been his foes would spread the report that he was insane in his hatred of Macdonald and imagined all sorts of persecutions.
They followed Wild-Goose Creek all next day, getting always closer to its headwaters near the divide. On the third day they crossed to the other side of the ridge and descended into a little mountain park. They were in a country where prospectors never came, one deserted even by trappers at this season of the year.
The country was so much a primeval wilderness that a big bull moose stalked almost upon their camp before discovering the presence of a strange biped. Big Bill snatched up a rifle and took a shot which sent the intruder scampering.
From somewhere in the distance came a faint sound.
"What was that?" asked George.
"Sounded like a shot. Mebbe it was an echo," returned Dud.
"Came too late for an echo," Big Bill said.
Again faintly from some far corner of the basin the sound drifted. It was like the pop of a scarcely heard firecracker.
The men looked at one another and at their prisoner. Their eyes consulted once more.
"Think we better break camp and drift?" asked Dud.
"No. We're in a little draw here—as good a hiding-place as we'd be likely to find. Drive the horses into the brush, George. We'll sit tight."
"Got the criminals guessing," Holt contributed maliciously. "You lads want to take the hide offen Macy if he lands you in the pen through that fool shot of his. Wonder if I hadn't better yell."
"I'll stop your clock right then if you do," threatened Big Bill with a scowl.
Dud had been busy stamping out the camp-fire while Holway was driving the horses into the brush.
"Mebbe you had better get the camp things behind them big rocks," Macy conceded.
Even as he spoke there came the crack of a revolver almost at the entrance to the draw.
One of the men swore softly. The gimlet eyes of the old miner fastened on the spot where in another moment his hoped-for rescuers would appear.
A man staggered drunkenly into view. He reeled halfway across the mouth of the draw and stopped. His eyes, questing dully, fell uponthe camp. He stared, as if doubtful whether they had played him false, then lurched toward the waiting group.
"Lost, and all in," Holway said in a whisper to Dud.
The other man nodded. Neither of them made a move toward the stranger, who stopped in front of their camp and looked with glazed eyes from one to another. His face was drawn and haggard and lined. Extreme exhaustion showed in every movement. He babbled incoherently.
"Seven—eighteen—ninety-nine. 'Atta-boy," he said thickly.
"Don't you see he's starving and out of his head?" snapped Holt brusquely. "Get him grub,pronto."
The old man rose and moved toward the suffering man. "Come, pard. Tha' 's all right. Sit down right here and go to it, as the old sayin' is." He led the man to a place beside Big Bill and made him sit down. "Better light a fire, boys, and get some coffee on. Don't give him too much solid grub at first."
The famished man ate what was given him and clamored for more.
"Coming up soon, pardner," Holt told him soothingly. "Now tell us howcome you to get lost."
The man nodded gravely. "Hit that line low, Gord. Hit 'er low. Only three yards to gain."
"Plumb bughouse," commented Dud, chewing tobacco stolidly.
"Out of his head—that's all. He'll be right enough after he's fed up and had a good sleep. But right now he's sure some Exhibit A. Look at the bones sticking through his cheeks," Big Bill commented.
"Come, Old-Timer. Get down in your collar to it. Once more now. Don't lie down on the job. All together now." The stranger clucked to an imaginary horse and made a motion of lifting with his hands.
"Looks like his hawss bogged down in Fifty-Mile Swamp," suggested Holt.
"Looks like," agreed Dud.
The old miner said no more. But his eyes narrowed to shining slits. If this man had come through Fifty-Mile Swamp he must have started from the river. That probably meant that he had come from Kusiak. He was a young man, talking the jargon of a college football player. Without doubt he was, in the old phrasing of the North, a chechako. His clothing, though much soiled and torn, had been good. His voice held the inflections of the cultured world.
Gideon Holt's sly brain moved keenly to thepossibility that he could put a name to this human derelict they had picked up. He began to see it as more than a possibility, as even a probability, at least as a fifty-fifty chance. A sardonic grin hovered about the corners of his grim mouth. It would be a strange freak of irony if Wally Selfridge, to prevent a meeting between him and the Government land agent, had sent him a hundred miles into the wilderness to save the life of Gordon Elliot and so had brought about the meeting that otherwise would never have taken place.