Big Bill grumbled a good deal at the addition to the party. It would be decidedly awkward if this stranger should become rational and understand the status of the camp he had joined. The word of old Holt alone might be negligible, but supported by that of a disinterested party it would be a very different matter. Still, there was no help for it. They would have to take care of the man until he was able to travel. Perhaps he would go in with them as an additional guard. At the worst Big Bill could give him a letter to Selfridge explaining things and so pass the buck to that gentleman.
Gid Holt had, with the tacit consent of his guards, appointed himself as a sort of nurse to the stranger. He lit a smudge fire to the windward side of him, fed him small quantities of food at intervals, and arranged a sleeping-place for him with mosquito netting for protection.
Early in the evening the sick man fell into a sound sleep from which he did not awake until morning. George was away looking after the pack-horses, Dud was cooking breakfast, andBig Bill, his rifle close at hand, was chopping young firs fifty feet back of the camp. The cook also had a gun, loaded with buckshot, lying on a box beside him, so that they were taking no chances with their prisoner. He could not have covered twenty yards without being raked by a cross-fire.
The old miner turned from rearranging the boughs of green fir on the smudge to see that his patient was awake and his mind normal. The quiet, steady eyes resting upon him told that the delirium had passed.
"Pretty nearly all in, wasn't I?" the young man said.
The answer of Gid Holt was an odd one. "Yep. Seven—eleven—fifteen. Take 'er easy, old man," he said in his shrill, high voice as he moved toward the man in the blankets. Then, in a low tone, while he pretended to arrange the bedding over the stranger, he asked a quick question.
"Are you Elliot?"
"Yes."
"Don't tell them. Talk football lingo as if you was still out of your haid." Holt turned and called to Dud. "Says he wants some breakfast."
"On the way," the cook answered.
Holt seemed to be soothing the delirious man. What he really said was this. "Selfridge hasarranged a plant for you at Kamatlah. The camp has been turned inside out to fool you. They've brought me here a prisoner so as to keep me from telling you the truth. Pst! Tune up now."
Big Bill had put down his axe and was approaching. He was not exactly suspicious, but he did not believe in taking unnecessary chances.
"I tell you I'm out of training. Played the last game, haven't we? Come through with a square meal, you four-flusher," demanded Elliot in a querulous voice. He turned to Macy. "Look here, Cap. Haven't I played the game all fall? Don't I get what I want now we're through?"
The voice of the young man was excited. His eyes had lost their quiet steadiness and roved restlessly to and fro. If Big Bill had held any doubts one glance dissipated them.
"Sure you do. Hustle over and help Dud with the breakfast, Holt. I'll look out for our friend."
Elliot and Holt found no more chance to talk together that morning. Sometimes the young Government official lay staring straight in front of him. Sometimes he appeared to doze. Again he would talk in the disjointed way of one not clear in the head.
An opportunity came in the afternoon for a moment.
"Keep your eyes skinned for a chance to lay out the guard to-night and get his gun," Holt said quickly.
Gordon nodded. "I don't know that I've got to do everything just as you say," he complained aloud for the benefit of George, who was passing on his way to the place where the horses were hobbled.
"Now—now! There ain't nobody trying to boss you," Holt explained in a patient voice.
"They'd better not," snapped the invalid.
"Some scrapper—that kid," said the horse wrangler with a grin.
Macy took the first watch that night. He turned in at two after he had roused Dud to take his place. The cook had been on duty about an hour when Elliot kicked Holt, who was sleeping beside him, to make sure that he was ready. The old man answered the kick with another.
Presently Gordon got up, yawned, and strolled toward the edge of the camp.
"Don't go and get lost, young fellow," cautioned Dud.
Gordon, on his way back, passed behind the guard, who was sitting tailor fashion before a smudge with a muley shotgun across his knees.
"This ain't no country for chechakoes to be wandering around without a keeper," the cookcontinued. "Looks like your folks would have better sense than to let their rah-rah boy—"
He got no farther. Elliot dropped to one knee and his strong fingers closed on the gullet of the man so tightly that not even a groan could escape him. His feet thrashed to and fro as he struggled, but he could not shake off the grip that was strangling him. The old miner, waiting with every muscle ready and every nerve under tension, flung aside his blanket and hurled himself at the guard. It took him less time than it takes to tell to wrest the gun from the cook.
He got to his feet just as Big Bill, his eyes and brain still fogged with sleep, sat up and began to take notice of the disturbance.
"Don't move," warned Holt sharply. "Better throw your hands up. You reach for the stars, too, Holway. No monkey business, do you hear? I'd as lief blow a hole through you as not."
Big Bill turned bitterly upon Elliot. "So you were faking all the time, young fellow. We save your life and you round on us. You're a pretty slick proposition as a double-crosser."
"And that ain't all," chirped up Holt blithely. "Let me introduce our friend to you, Mr. Big Bill Macy. This is Gordon Elliot, the land agent appointed to look over the Kamatlah claims. Selfridge gave you lads this penitentiary jobso as I wouldn't meet Elliot when he reached the camp. If he hadn't been so darned anxious about it, our young friend would have died here on the divide. But Mr. Selfridge kindly outfitted a party and sent us a hundred miles into the hills to rescue the perishing, as the old sayin' goes. Consequence is, Elliot and me meet up and have that nice confidential talk after all. The ways of Providence is strange, as you might say, Mr. Macy."
"Your trick," conceded Big Bill sullenly. "Now what are you going to do with us?"
"Not a thing—going to leave you right here to prospect Wild-Goose Creek," answered Holt blandly. "Durden says there's gold up here—heaps of it."
Bill Macy condemned Durden in language profane and energetic. He didn't stop at Durden. Holt came in for a share of it, also Elliot and Selfridge.
The old miner grinned at him. "You'll feel better now you've got that out of your system. But don't stop there if you'd like to say a few more well-chosen words. We got time a-plenty."
"Cut it out, Bill. That line o' talk don't buy you anything," said Holway curtly. "What's the use of beefing?"
"Now you're shouting, my friend," agreed old Gideon. "I guess, Elliot, you can loosenup on the chef's throat awhile. He's had persuading enough, don't you reckon? I'll sit here and sorter keep the boys company while you cut the pack-ropes and bring 'em here. But first I'd step in and unload all the hardware they're packing. If you don't one of them is likely to get anxious. I'd hate to see any of them commit suicide with none of their friends here to say, 'Don't he look natural?'"
Elliot brought back the pack-ropes and cut them into suitable lengths. Holt's monologue rambled on. He was garrulous and affable. Not for a long time had he enjoyed himself so much.
"Better begin with Chief Big Bill," he suggested. "No, I wouldn't make that move if I was you, Mr. Macy. This old gun is liable to go off accidental in your direction and she spatters like hell. That's the idee. Be reasonable. Not that I give a hoot, but a man hadn't ought to let his impulses run away with his judgment, as the old sayin' is."
Gordon tied the hands of Big Bill behind him, then roped his feet together, after which he did the same for Holway. The old miner superintended the job and was not satisfied till he had added a few extra knots on his own behalf.
"That'll hold them for awhile, I shouldn't wonder. Now if you'll just cover friend chefwith this sawed-off gat, Elliot, I'll throw the diamond hitch over what supplies we'll need to get back to Kamatlah. I'll take one bronch and leave the other to the convicts," said Holt cheerfully.
"Forget that convict stuff," growled Macy. "With Macdonald back of us and the Guttenchilds back of him, you'll have a hectic time getting anything on us."
"That might be true if these folks were back of you. But are they? Course I ain't any Sherlock Holmes, but it don't look to me like they'd play any such fool system as this."
Big Bill opened his mouth to answer—and said nothing. He had caught a look flashed at him by Holway, a look that warned him he was talking too much.
After Holt had packed one of the animals he turned to Elliot.
"I reckon we're ready."
Under orders from Elliot, Dud fixed up the smudges and arranged the mosquito netting over the bound men so as to give them all the protection possible.
"We're going to take Dud with us for a part of the trip. We'll send him back to you later in the day. You'll have to fast till he gets back, but outside of that you'll do very well if you don't roll around trying to get loose. Do that,and you'll jar loose the mosquito netting. You know what that means," explained Gordon.
"It ain't likely any grizzlies will come pokin' their noses into camp. But you never can tell. Any last words you want sent to relatives?" asked Gideon Holt.
The last words they heard from Big Bill as they moved down the draw were sulphuric.
"Macy he ain't wearin' any W. J. Bryan smile this glad mo'nin'," mused old Holt aloud.
It was three o'clock in the morning by the watch when they started. About nine they threw off for breakfast. By this time they were just across the divide and were ready to take the down trail.
"I think we'll let Dud go now," Elliot told his partner in the adventure.
"Better hold him till afternoon. Then they can't possibly reach us till we get to Kamatlah."
"What does it matter if they do? We have both rifles and have left them only one revolver. Besides, I don't like to leave two bound men alone in so wild a district for any great time. No, we'll start Dud on the back trail. That grizzly you promised Big Bill might really turn up."
The two men struck the headwaters of Wild-Goose Creek about noon and followed the stream down. They traveled steadily without haste.So long as they kept a good lookout there was nothing to be feared from the men they had left behind. They had both a long start and the advantage of weapons.
If Elliot had advertised for a year he could not have found a man who knew more of Colby Macdonald's past than Gideon Holt. The old man had mushed on the trail with him in the Klondike days. He had worked a claim on Frenchman Creek with him and had by sharp practice—so at least he had come to believe—been lawed out of his rights by the shrewd Scotchman. For seventeen years he had nursed a grudge against Macdonald, and he was never tired of talking about him. He knew many doubtful things charged to the account of the big man as he had blazed a way to success over the failures of less fortunate people. One story in particular interested Gordon. It came out the second day, as they were getting down into the foothills.
"There was Farrell O'Neill. He was a good fellow, Farrell was, but he had just one weakness. There was times when he liked the bottle too well. He'd let it alone for months and then just lap the stuff up. It was the time of the stampede to Bonanza Creek. Men are just like sheep. They wear wool on their backs like them and have their habits. You can start 'em anyfool way for no cause a-tall. Don't you know it? Well, the news of the strike on Bonanza reached Dawson and we all burnt up the trail to get to the new ground first. O'Neill was one of the first. He got in about twenty below discovery, if I remember. Mac wasn't in Dawson, but he got there next mo'nin' and heard the news. He lit out for Bonanzapronto."
The old miner stopped, took a chew of tobacco, and looked down into the valley far below where Kamatlah could just be seen, a little huddle of huts.
"Well?" asked Elliot. It was occasionally necessary to prompt Holt when he paused for his dramatic effects. He would pretend to forget that he was telling a yarn which might interest his hearer.
"Mac draps in and joins O'Neill at night. They knew each other, y' understand, so o' course it was natural Mac would put up at his camp. O'Neill had a partner and they had located together. Fellow named Strong."
"Not Hanford Strong, a little, heavy-set man somewhere around fifty?" Gordon asked quickly.
"You've tagged the right man. Know him?"
"I've met him."
"Well, I never heard anything against Han Strong. Anyway, he was off that night packinggrub up while Farrell held down the claim. Mac had a jug of booze with him. He got Farrell tanked up. You know Mac—how he can put it across when he's a mind to. He's a forceful devil, and he can be a mighty likable one."
Elliot nodded understanding. "He's always the head of the table no matter where he sits. And there is something wonderfully attractive about him."
"Sure there is. But when he is friendliest you want to watch out he don't slip an upper cut at you that'll put you out of biz. He done that to Farrell—and done it a-plenty."
"How?"
"O'Neill got mellowed up till he thought Mac was his best friend. He was ready to eat out of his hand. So Mac works him up to sign a contract—before witnesses too; trust Mac for that—exchanging his half-interest in the claim for five hundred dollars in cash and Mac's no-'count lease on Frenchman Creek. Inside of a week Mac and Strong struck a big pay streak. They took over two hundred thousand from the spring clean-up."
"It was nothing better than robbery."
"Call it what you want to. Anyhow, it stuck. O'Neill kicked, and that's all the good it did him. He consulted lawyers at Dawson. Finally he got so discouraged that he plumb wentto pieces—got on a long bat and stayed there till his money ran out. Then one bitter night he starts up to Bonanza to have it out with Mac. The mercury was so low it had run into the ground a foot. Farrell slept in a deserted cabin without a fire and not enough bedding. He caught pneumony. By the time he reached the claim he was a mighty sick man. Next week he died. That's all Mac done to O'Neill. Not a thing that wasn't legal either."
Gordon thought of Sheba O'Neill as she sat listening to the tales of Macdonald in Diane's parlor and his gorge rose at the man.
"But Mac had fell on his feet all right," continued Holt. "He got his start off that claim. Now he's a millionaire two or three times over, I reckon."
They reached the outskirts of Kamatlah about noon of the third day. Gordon left Holt at his cabin after they had eaten and went in alone to look the ground over. He met Selfridge at the post-office. That gentleman was effusive in his greeting.
"Thisisa pleasant surprise, Mr. Elliot. When did you get in? Had no idea you were coming or I'd have asked you for the pleasure of your company. I'm down on business, of course. No need to tell you that—nobody would come to this hole for any other reason.Howland and his wife are the only possible people here. Hope you play bridge."
Elliot played it, but he did not say so. It was his business not to be drawn into entangling alliances.
"Of course you'll put up with me as my guest," Selfridge flowed on. "I've wanted to meet you again ever since we were on the Hannah together."
This was a little too cheeky. Gordon recalled with some amusement how this tubby little man and his friends had ignored the existence of Sheba O'Neill and himself for several days.
He answered genially. "Pleasant time we had on the river, didn't we? Thanks awfully for your invitation, but I've already made arrangements for putting up."
"Where? There's no decent place in camp except at Howland's. He keeps open house for our friends."
"I couldn't think of troubling him," countered Gordon.
"No trouble at all. We'll send for your things. Where are they?"
The land agent let him have it right between the eyes. "At Gideon Holt's. I'm staying with him on his claim."
Wally had struck a match to light a cigarette, but this simple statement petrified him.His jaw dropped and his eyes bulged. Not till the flame burned his fingers did he come to life.
"Did you say you were staying—with Gid Holt?" he floundered weakly.
Gordon noticed that his florid face had lost its color. The jaunty cock-sureness of the man had flickered out like the flame of the charred match.
"Yes. He offered to board me," answered the young man blandly.
"But—I didn't know he was here—seems to me I had heard—somewhere—that he was away."
"He was away. But he has come back." Gordon gave the information without even a flash of mirth in his steady eyes.
Selfridge could not quite let the subject alone. "Seems to me I heard he went prospecting."
"He did. Up Wild-Goose Creek, with Big Bill Macy and two other men. But I asked him to come back with me—and he did."
Feebly Wally groped for the clue without finding it. Had Big Bill sold him out? And how had Elliot got into touch with him?
"Just so, Mr. Elliot. But really, you know, Howland can make you a great deal more comfortable than Holt. His wife is a famous cook. I'll have a man go get your traps."
"It's very good of you, but I think I won't move."
"Oh, but you must. Holt's nutty—nobody at home, you know. Everybody knows that."
"Is he? The old man struck me as being remarkably clear-headed. By the way, I want to thank you for sending a relief party out to find me, Mr. Selfridge. Except for your help I would have died in the hills."
This was another facer for Wally. What the devil did the fellow mean? The deuce of it was that he knew all the facts and Wally did not. He talked as if he meant it, but behind those cool eyes there might lie either mockery or irony. One thing alone stood out to Selfridge like a sore thumb. His plans had come tumbling down like a house of cards. Either Big Bill had blundered amazingly, or he had played traitor. In either case Wally could guess pretty shrewdly whose hide Macdonald would tan for the failure. The chief wanted results. He did not ask of his subordinates how they got them. And this was the second time in succession that Selfridge had come to grief.
Big Bill and his companions reached Kamatlah early next day. They reported at once to Selfridge. It had been the intention of Wally to vent upon them the bad temper that had been gathering ever since his talk with Elliot. But his first sarcastic question drew such a snarl of anger that he reconsidered. The men were both sullen and furious. They let him know roundly that if Holt made them any trouble through the courts, they would tell all they knew.
The little man became alarmed. Instead of reproaches he gave them soft words and promises. The company would see them through. It would protect them against criminal procedure. But above all they must stand pat in denial. A conviction would be impossible even if the State's attorney filed an indictment against them. Meanwhile they would remain on the company pay-roll.
Gordon Elliot was a trained investigator. Even without Holt at his side he would probably have unearthed the truth about the Kamatlahsituation. But with the little miner by his side to tell him the facts, he found his task an easy one.
Selfridge followed orders and let him talk with the men freely. All of them had been drilled till they knew their story like parrots. They were suspicious of the approaches of Elliot, but they had been warned that they must appear to talk candidly. The result was that some talked too much and some not enough. They contradicted themselves and one another. They let slip admissions under skillful examination that could be explained on no other basis than that of company ownership.
Both Selfridge and Howland outdid themselves in efforts to establish close social relations. But Gordon was careful to put himself under no obligations. He called on the Howlands, but he laughingly explained why he could not accept the invitations of Mrs. Howland to dinner.
"I have to tell things here as I see them, and may not have your point of view. How can I accept your hospitality and then report that I think your husband ought to be sent up for life?"
She was a good, motherly woman and she laughed with him. But she did wish this pleasant young fellow could be made to take the proper view of things.
Within two weeks Elliot had finished his work at Kamatlah.
"Off for Kusiak to-morrow," he told Holt that night.
The old miner went with him as a guide to the big bend. Gordon had no desire to attempt again Fifty-Mile Swamp without the help of some one who knew every foot of the trail. Holt had taken the trip a dozen times. With him to show the way the swamp became merely a hard, grueling mush through boggy lowlands.
Weary with the trail, they reached the river at the end of a long day. An Indian village lay sprawled along the bank, and through this the two men tramped to the roadhouse where they were to put up for the night.
Holt called to the younger man, who was at the time in the lead.
"Wait a minute, Elliot."
Gordon turned. The old Alaskan was offering a quarter to a little half-naked Indian boy. Shyly the four-year-old came forward, a step at a time, his finger in his mouth. He held out a brown hand for the coin.
"What's your name, kid?" Holt flashed a look at Elliot that warned him to pay attention.
"Colmac," the boy answered bashfully.
His fist closed on the quarter, he turned, andlike a startled caribou he fled to a comely young Indian woman standing near the trail.
With gleaming eyes Holt turned to Elliot. "Take a good look at the squaw," he said in a low voice.
Elliot glanced at the woman behind whose skirts the youngster was hiding. He smiled and nodded pleasantly to her.
"She's not bad looking if that's what you mean," he said after they had taken up the trail again.
"You ain't the only white man that has thought that," retorted the old miner significantly.
"No?" Gordon had learned to let Holt tell things at his leisure. It usually took less time than to try to hurry him.
"Name of the kid mean anything to you?"
"Can't say it did."
"Hm! Named for his dad. First syllable of each of his names."
The land inspector stopped in his stride and wheeled upon Holt. His eyes asked eagerly a question. "You don't mean Colby Macdonald?"
"Why don't I?"
"But—Good Lord, he isn't a squawman, is he?"
"Not in the usual meaning of the word. She never cooked and kept house for him. Just thesame, little Colmac is his kid. Couldn't you see it sticking out all over him? He's the spit'n' image of his dad."
"I see it now you've pointed it out. I was trying to think who he reminded me of. Of course it was Macdonald."
"Mac met up with Meteetse when he first scouted this country for coal five years ago. So far's I know he was square enough with the girl. She never claimed he made any promises or anything like that. He sends a check down once a quarter to the trader here for her and the kid."
But young Elliot was not thinking about Meteetse. His mind's eye saw another picture—the girl at Kusiak, listening spellbound to the tales of a man whose actions translated romance into life for her, a girl swept from the quiet backwaters of an Irish village to this land of the midnight sun with its amazing contrasts.
And all the way up on the boat she continued to fill his mind. The slowness of the steamer fretted him. He paced up and down the deck for hours at a time worried and anxious. Sometimes the jealousy in his heart flamed up like a prairie fire when it comes to a brush heap. The outrage of it set him blazing with indignation. Diane ought to be whipped, he told himself, for her part in the deception. It was no less than a conspiracy. What could an innocent young girllike Sheba know of such a man as Colby Macdonald? Her imagination conceived, no doubt, an idealized vision of him. But the real man was clear outside her ken.
Gordon set his jaw grimly. He would have it out with Diane. He would let her see she was not going to have it all her own way. By God, he would put a spoke in her wheel.
Sometimes, when the cool, evening breezes blew on his bare, fevered head, he laughed at himself for an idiot. How did he know that Macdonald wanted Sheba O'Neill. All the evidence he had was that he had once seen the man watch her while she sang a sentimental song. Whereas it was common talk that he would probably marry Mrs. Mallory, that for months he had been her almost daily companion. If the older woman had lost the sweet, supple slimness of her first youth, she had won in exchange a sophisticated grace, a seductive allure that made her the envy of all the women with whom she associated. She held at command a warm, languorous charm which had stirred banked fires in the hearts of many men. Why should not Macdonald woo her? Gordon himself admitted her attractiveness.
And why should he take it for granted that Sheba was ready to drop into the arms of the big Alaskan whenever he said the word? At theleast he was twenty years older than she. Surely she might admire him without falling in love with the man. Was there not something almost insulting in the supposition that Macdonald had only to speak to her in order to win?
But in spite of reason he was on fire to come to his journey's end. No sooner had he reached his hotel than he called up Mrs. Paget. Quite clearly she understood that he wanted an invitation to dinner. Yet she hesitated.
"My 'phone can't be working well," Gordon told her gayly. "You must have asked me to dinner, but I didn't just hear it. Never mind. I'll be there. Seven o'clock, did you say?"
Diane laughed. "You're just as much a boy as you were ten years ago, Gord. All right. Come along. But you're to leave at ten. Do you understand?"
"No, I can't hear that. My 'phone has gone bad again. And if I had heard, I shouldn't think of doing anything so ridiculous as leaving at that hour. It would be an insult to your hospitality. I know when I'm well off."
"Then I'll have to withdraw my invitation. Perhaps some other day—"
"I'll leave at ten," promised Elliot meekly.
He could almost hear the smile in her voice as she answered. "Very well. Seven sharp. I'll explain about the curfew limit sometime."
Macdonald was with Miss O'Neill in the living-room when Gordon arrived at the Paget home.
Sheba came forward to greet the new guest. The welcome in her eyes was very genuine.
"You and Mr. Macdonald know each other, of course," she said after her handshake.
The Scotchman nodded his lean, grizzled head, looking straight into the eyes of the field agent. There was always a certain deliberation about his manner, but it was the slowness of strength and not of weakness.
"Yes, I know Mr. Elliot—now. I'm not so sure that he knows me—yet."
"I'm beginning to know you rather well, Mr. Macdonald," answered Gordon quietly, but with a very steady look.
If the Alaskan wanted to declare war he was ready for it. The field agent knew that Selfridge had sent reports detailing what had happened at Kamatlah. Up to date Macdonald had offered him the velvet glove. He wondered if the time had come when the fist of steel was to be doubled.
Paget was frankly pleased to see Gordon again. He was a simple, honest man who moved always in a straight line. He had liked Elliot as a boy and he still liked him. So did Diane, for that matter, but she was a little on her guard against him. She had certain plans under way that sheintended to put through. She was not going to let even Gordon Elliot frustrate them.
"Did you have a successful trip, Mr. Elliot?" asked Sheba innocently.
Paget grinned behind his hand. The girl's question was like a match to powder, and every one in the room knew it but she. The engineer's interests and his convictions were on the side of Macdonald, but he recognized that Elliot had been sent in to gather facts for the Government and not to give advice to it. If he played fair, he could only tell the truth as he saw it.
The eyes of Diane held a spark of hostility as she leaned forward. The word had already been passed among the faithful that this young man was not taking the right point of view.
"Did you, Gordon?" echoed his hostess.
"I think so," he answered quietly.
"I hear you put up with old Gideon Holt. Is he as cracked as he used to be?" asked Macdonald.
"Was he cracked when you used to know him on Frenchman Creek?" countered the young man.
Macdonald shot a quick, slant look at him. The old man had been talking, had he?
"He was cracked and broke too," laughed the mine-owner hardily. "Cracked when he came, broke when he left."
"Yes, that was one of the stories he told me." Gordon turned to Sheba. "You should meet the old man, Miss O'Neill. He knew your father at Dawson and on Bonanza."
The girl was all eagerness. "I'd like to. Does he ever come to Kusiak?"
"Nonsense!" cut in Diane sharply. She flashed at Gordon a look of annoyance. "He's nothing but a daft old idiot, my dear."
The dinner had started wrong, and though Paget steered the conversation to safer ground, it did not go very well. At least three of those present were a little on edge. Even Sheba, who had missed entirely the point of the veiled thrusts, knew that Elliot was not in harmony with either Diane or Macdonald.
Gordon was ashamed of himself. He could not quite have told what were the impulses that had moved him to carry the war into the camp of the enemy. Perhaps, more than anything else, it had been a certain look of quiet assurance in the eyes of his rival when he looked at Sheba.
He rose promptly at ten.
"Must you go so soon?" Diane asked. She was smiling at him with bland mockery.
"I really must," answered Elliot.
His hostess followed him into the hall. She watched him get into his coat before saying what was on her mind.
"What did you mean by telling Sheba that old Holt knew her father? What is he to tell her if they meet—that her father died of pneumonia brought on by drink? Is that what you want?"
Gordon was honestly contrite. "I didn't think of that."
"No, you were too busy thinking of something mean to say to Mr. Macdonald."
He agreed, yet could not forbear one dig more. "I suppose I wanted Holt to tell her that Macdonald robbed her father and indirectly was the cause of his death."
"Absurd!" exploded Diane. "You're so simple that you accept as true the gossip of every crack-brained idiot—when it suits your purpose."
He smiled, boyishly, engagingly, as he held out his hand. "Don't let's quarrel, Di. I admit I forgot myself."
"All right. We won't. But don't believe all the catty talk you hear, Gordon."
"I'll try to believe only the truth." He smiled, a little ruefully. "And it isn't necessary for you to explain why the curfew law applies to me and not to Macdonald."
She was on her dignity at once. "You're quite right. It isn't necessary. But I'm going to tell you anyhow. Mr. Macdonald is going awayto-morrow for two or three days and he has some business he wants to talk over with Sheba. He had made an appointment with her, and I didn't think it fair to let your coming interfere with it."
Gordon took this facer with his smile still working.
"I've got a little business I want to talk over withyou, Di."
She had always been a young woman of rather a hard finish. Now she met him fairly, eye to eye. "Any time you like, Gordon."
Elliot carried away with him one very definite impression. Diane intended Sheba to marry Macdonald if she could bring it about. She had as good as served notice on him that the girl was spoken for.
The young man set his square jaw. Diane was used to having her own way. So was Macdonald. Well, the Elliots had a will of their own too.
Obeying the orders of the general in command, Peter took himself to his den with the excuse that he had blue-prints to work over. Presently Diane said she thought she heard one of the children crying and left to investigate.
The Scotchman strode to the fireplace and stood looking down into the glowing coals. He seemed in no hurry to break the silence and Sheba glanced at his strong, brooding face a little apprehensively. Her excitement showed in the color that was beating into her cheeks. She knew of only one subject that would call for so formal a private talk between her and Macdonald, and any discussion of this she would very much have liked to postpone.
He turned from the fire to Sheba. It was characteristic of him that he plunged straight at what he wanted to say.
"I've asked to see you alone, Miss O'Neill, because I want to make a confession and restitution—to begin with," he told her abruptly.
She had a sense of suddenly stilled pulses. "That sounds very serious." The young woman smiled faintly.
His face of chiseled granite masked all emotion. It kept under lock and key the insurgent impulses that moved him when he looked into the sloe eyes charged with reserve. Back of them, he felt, was the mystery of purity, of maidenhood. He longed to know her better, to find out and to appropriate for himself the woman that lay behind the fine veil of flesh. She seemed to him delicate as a flame and as vivid. There would come a day when her innocent, passional nature would respond to the love of a man as a waiting harp does to skillful fingers.
"My story goes away back to the Klondike days. I told you that I knew your father on Frenchman Creek, but I didn't say much about knowing him on Bonanza."
"Mr. Strong has told me something about the days on Bonanza, and I knew you would tell me more some day—when you wanted to speak about it." She was seated in a low chair and the white throat lifted toward him was round as that of a bird.
"Your father was among the first of those who stampeded to Bonanza. He and Strong took up a claim together. I bought out the interest of your father."
"You told me that."
His masterful eyes fastened to hers. "I didn't tell you that I took advantage of him. He was—notwell. I used that against him in the bargaining. He wanted ready money, and I tempted him."
"Do you mean that you—wronged him?"
"Yes. I cheated him." He was resolved to gloss over nothing, to offer no excuses. "I didn't know there was gold on his claim, but I had what we call a hunch. I took his claim without giving value received."
It was her turn now to look into the fire and think. From the letters of her father, from talks with old-timers she knew how in the stampedes every man's hand had been for himself, how keen-edged had been the passion for gold, a veritable lust that corroded the souls of men.
"But—I don't understand." Her brave, steady eyes looked directly into those of Macdonald. "If he felt you had—done him a wrong—why did he come to you when he was ill?"
"He was coming to demand justice of me. On the way he suffered exposure and caught pneumonia. The word reached us, and Strong and I brought him to our cabin."
"You faced a blizzard to bring him in. Mr. Strong told me how you risked your life by carrying him through the storm—how you wouldn't give up and leave him, though you were weak and staggering yourself. He says it was a miracle you ever got through."
The big mine-owner brushed this aside as of no importance. "We don't leave sick men to die in a blizzard up North. But that's not the point."
"I think it has a bearing on the matter—that you saved him from the blizzard—and took him in—and nursed him like a brother till he died."
"I'm not heartless," said Macdonald impatiently. "Of course I did that. I had to do it. I couldn't do less."
"Or more," she suggested. "You may have made a hard bargain with him, but you wiped that out later."
"That's just what I didn't do. Don't think my conscience is troubling me. I'm not such a mush-brained fool. If it had not been for you I would never have thought of it again. But you are his daughter. What I cheated him out of belongs to you—and you are my friend."
"Don't use that word about what you did, please. He wasn't a child. If you got the best of him in a bargain, I don't think father would think of it that way."
The difficulty was that he could not tell her the truth about her father's weakness for drink and how he had played upon it. He bridged all explanations and passed to the thing he meant to do in reparation.
"The money I cleaned up from that claim belongs to you, Miss O'Neill. You will oblige me by taking it."
From his pocket he took a folded paper and handed it to her. Sheba opened it doubtfully. The paper contained a typewritten statement and to it was attached a check by means of a clip. The check was made out to her and signed by Colby Macdonald. The amount it called for was one hundred and eighty-three thousand four hundred and thirty-one dollars.
"Oh, I couldn't take this, Mr. Macdonald—I couldn't. It doesn't belong to me," she cried.
"It belongs to you—and you're going to take it."
"I wouldn't know what to do with so much."
"The bank will take care of it for you until you decide. So that's settled." He passed definitely from the subject. "There's something else I want to say to you, Miss O'Neill."
Some change in his voice warned her. The girl slanted a quick, shy glance at him.
"I want to know if you'll marry me, Miss O'Neill," he shot at her abruptly. Then, without giving her time to answer, he pushed on: "I'm older than you—by twenty-five years. Always I've lived on the frontiers. I've had to take the world by the throat and shake from it what I wanted. So I've grown hard and willful.All the sweet, fine things of life I've missed. But with you beside me I'm not too old to find them yet—if you'll show me the way, Sheba."
A wave of color swept into her face, but her eyes never faltered from his. "I'm not quite sure," she said in a low voice.
"You mean—whether you love me?"
She nodded. "I—admire you more than any man I ever met. You are a great man, strong and powerful,—and I am so insignificant beside you. I—am drawn to you—so much. But—I am not sure."
Afterward, when she thought of it, Sheba wondered at the direct ease of his proposal. In the romances she had read, men were shy and embarrassed and fearful of the issue. But Colby Macdonald had known what he wanted to say and had said it as coolly and as readily as if it had been a business detail. She was the one that had blushed and stammered and found a difficulty in expressing herself.
"I'm going away for two days. Perhaps when I come back you will know, Sheba. Take your time. Marriage is serious business. I want you to remember that my life has been very different from yours. You'll hear all sorts of things about me. Some of them are true. There is this difference between a man and a good woman. He fights and falls and fights againand wins. But a good woman is finer. She has never known the failure that drags one through slime and mud. Her goodness is born in her; she doesn't have to fight for it."
The girl smiled a little tremulously. "Doesn't she? We're not all angel, you know."
"I hope you're not. There will need to be a lot of the human in you to make allowances for Colby Macdonald," he replied with an answering smile.
When he said good-bye it was with a warm, strong handshake.
"I'll be back in two days. Perhaps you'll have good news for me then," he suggested.
The dark, silken lashes of her eyes lifted shyly to meet his.
"Perhaps," she said.