"Oh, my Mill!"
Barefoot as he was, being clad only in his shirt and trousers, he leapt down the hill and never felt his wounded feet. Jenny saw him go, saw the crowd break and waver, saw it turn and flood the lower hillside, moving down. Their lighted faces turned from her, she saw them run.
"Oh, Tchorch, oh, Tchorch!"
But George never heard her feeble cry in the torrent. He had forgotten her and the boy.
And when she could again see for her tears she was alone save for Sam, her faithful Sam, and Annawillee and Indian Annie, the last to climb the hill. Even Chihuahua had gone and all the Chinamen. She saw Wong departing last of all. The fire drew even the philosopher. She heard Annie speak to her.
"Ho, tenas Jenny, toketie Jenny, dis your man, mesachie Pete. Evelybody savvy Pete done um, Jenny. Oh, what peety toketie house mamook piah, all bu'n, all flame."
"Oho, hyu keely, hyu keely," moaned Annawillee, "pletty house mamook piah. Mamook nanitch you' papoosh, Jenny, let me see papoosh."
These were foul and filthy hags, and now Jenny knew it. She cried and Sam did not know what to do.
"Missus, you no cly," he said despairingly. But still she cried, and Annie sat down by her.
"Where Mista Quin klatawa? Ha, Moola mamook piah all same yo' toketie house, tenas. Now you got halo house, you come mine, Jenny."
And Annawillee lifted the quilt from the baby and saw it.
"Hyu toketie papoosh, hyu toketie, ha, I love papoosh, Jenny's papoosh."
"What I do, Sam?" moaned Jenny. The Mill was in a roar of flames. It lighted the town and the river and the white canneries across the wide red flood.
"Oh, you come down to sto'e," said Sam. Where else could she go but to the store? Why hadn't the big boss told him what to do? For everything outside the house Sam was as helpless as the very papoose. He hated and loathed the Siwashes and their klootchmen. They were dreadful, uncleanly people. It was his one great wonder in life that "Missus" was a Siwash klootchman.
"You come down to sto'e," he said.
"You come my house, Jenny," said Annie, who thought if she gave Jenny shelter she would get more dollars from Quin, who lately had refused her anything. "You come my house, tenas."
But Sam held her tight and helped her on the difficult path. Her feet were bare and so were his. Neither Annie nor Annawillee had mocassins on, the soles of their feet were as hard as horn.
They went down the hill slowly, and still the old hag said—
"You come my shack, tenas, bad for papoose to be out night."
Every stick and stone of the path was lighted for them. Jenny's heart was in ashes for the grief of "Tchorch," who so loved his Mill and his house. All her beautiful clothes were burnt. Perhaps Pete would kill him even now.
"Oh, where is Tchorch?" she cried as they came to the bottom of the hill. And the wavering crowd kept on saying where he was.
"The boss is on the river."
"Went in a boat, pardner——"
"Oh, but he was mad! I wouldn't be the Siwash——"
"I don't hanker none to be Quin if Pete gets him. Pete's a boy, ain't he? Solid ideas, by gosh——"
"See, there's the Planin' Mill goin' up the flume!"
"'Tis a mighty expensive fire, this. Eh, what?"
"Licks me Moolas don't burn mor' off'n, pard!"
"Well, we're out of a job, tilikums."
The crowd moved and swayed and moaned. They cried "Oh!" and "Ah!" and "See!" The Mill was hell. Old Dutchy sat on a pile of sawed lumber with his lighted lamp on his knees; the poor doddering fool trimmed the wick and cried. Jenny heard old Papp speak to him in German.
"Sei ruhig, alte dummkopf."
And Papp went on in English.
"Dain'd your vault, old shap, iv so be Pete wanded to purn ze Mill, he vould purn it all same. If I had him I vould braig him lige a sdick, so!"
There was no pity for the man who had spiked the logs. They would have hung him if they had had hold of him. They would have thrown him on the fire. Then the front of the Mill fell out. The crowd surged backwards, and Jenny was near thrown down. Old Papp fell against Sam, and both went down. Annie and Annawillee caught hold of Jenny and her papoose, and dragged her to their shack.
"That all light, tenas. You come. I give you a dlink, tenas. Here, Annawillee, you hold papoosh."
She snatched the baby from Jenny's weakening arms and Annawillee ran on ahead with him.
When Sam recovered his feet Jenny was gone.
"Oh, where my Missus, where my Missus?" roared Sam, blubbering.
"What's the infernal Chinaman kickin' up such a bobbery about?" asked the scornful crowd.
The canoe in which Pete had set out in his great adventure was both heavy and cranky, and no one but a Siwash of the river or the Lakes would have paddled it a mile without disaster. But he had been bred in the sturgeon-haunted water of Pitt River, and knew the ways of his craft and could use the single-bladed paddle with the same skill that he showed with the maul and wedges on a great sawlog. Now as he left the light of the fired Mill behind him he knew (or feared) that he had not left his enemies behind him as well. The whole of the Mill would be his enemies. That he was sure of: he remembered poor old Skookum Charlie. He understood the minds of those he had endangered as well as the heart of such a man as Quin. And if Quin himself had escaped from the fire of the house he would be on the river! That Pete was sure of in his heart. And his heart failed him even as he swept outward on the first of the ebb, which ran fast, being now reinforced by the waters of the big river fed by the melting snows of a thousand miles of snow-clad hills.
This was, indeed, the nature of the man, as Long Mac knew it. He was capable of fierce resentment, capable of secret though unsubtle revenge, but he was not capable of standing up like a man at the stake of necessity; not his the blood of those nobler Indians of the Plains who could endure all things at the last. His blood was partly water, of a truth, and now it melted within him.
"They catch me fo' su'e," said Pete. His muscles weakened, his very soul was feeble. What a fool, a thrice-sodden fool, he had been to cut the hose in the Mill. But for that they might not have known he had fired it. But Long Mac knew, and perhaps Long Mac himself, who had nerves and muscles of steel, was out after him in the night. Oh, rather even Quin than that man, whom Quin himself treated with a courtesy he denied to all the others who worked for him.
But now the light of the Mill faded. On both sides of the river were heavy shadows: the great moving flood was but a mirror of darkness and a few stars that flicked silver into the lip and lap of the moving waters. Pete knew the ebb and current ran fastest in the middle of the stream, and yet to be out in the middle meant that he would be seen easier, if indeed he was pursued. He could not make up his mind whether to chance this or not. He sheered from the centre to the banks and back again. And every now and again it seemed to him that it would be wisest to run ashore, turn his dugout loose and take to the brush. And yet he did not do it. He was weak, now that fear was in him, and the alcohol died out of him, and he felt renewed pangs of hunger. To wander in the thick brush would be fatal. They would renew their search on the morrow: every avenue of escape would be guarded. And hunger would so tame the little spirit he had within him that he would give himself up.
"They hang me, they hang me," he said piteously, even as Ned Quin had said it. But there was none to help him. The very men who had been his brothers, his tilikums, would give him up now.
He cursed himself and Jenny and Quin and the memory of Skookum Charlie. He took the centre of the river at last and paddled hard. It was his only chance. If he could but get out to sea and then run ashore somewhere in the Territory, among some of the Washington Indians who knew nothing of him, he would be hard to find. The very thought of this helped him. He might escape after all.
And then his ears told he was not to escape so easily. He heard the sound of oars in the rowlocks of a boat. Or was it only the beating of his own heart? He could not locate the sound. At one moment it seemed to him that after all it was but someone further down the river and then it seemed behind him. If it were down stream it might be only some stray salmon boat doing its poor best in a bad year. Even they would say they had met him. He ceased to row and sheered across towards the darkest shadow of the bank.
And, as he sheered inwards, from behind the last bend of that very bank there shot a boat which was inshore of him. For Quin knew the river below the City as Pete did not, and he had kept in the strongest of the stream, which sometimes cut its deepest channel close to the shore. He was but a hundred yards from Pete when the Sitcum Siwash saw him and knew it was Quin.
Here the great river below the Island, where North and South Arms were one, was at its widest. And by the way his enemy came Pete knew that his hour had arrived. Though he paddled for awhile in sheer desperation he knew that his wretched heavy dug-out had no chance against a light boat, driven by the strongest arms in the City, perhaps the strongest in the whole country. And Quin was an oarsman and had loved the water always. The wretched fugitive changed his tune even as he strove in vain.
"He fix me, oh, he fix me——!"
Hot as he was with paddling, the cold sweat now ran down his brow and cheeks. He felt his heart fail within him: he felt his muscles fail. Yet still he strove and kept a distance between himself and Quin that only slowly lessened. For now Quin himself slackened his pace. He was sure he had the man, and yet it needed coolness to secure him.
To Quin, Pete had become the very incarnation of the devil, and he was wholly unconscious now that he had ever wronged him. The fact that he had stolen Jenny from him was but an old story. And Pete had brought it upon himself. No one but Quin in the whole world could have known (as Quin did know) that any kindness, any decency of conduct, in Pete would have secured Jenny to him against the world itself. She was pure faithfulness and pure affection, and malleable as wax in any warmth of heart. But Pete had been even as his fellows. He should have wedded some creature of the dust like Annawillee, to whom brutality was but her native mud. And Jenny was a strange blossom such as rarely grows in any tribe or race of men.
It was not of Jenny that Quin thought. He forgot her very danger that night and forgot his own. He even forgot his child. He remembered nothing but the burnt Mill, nothing but the spiked logs. Oh, but he "had it in" for Pete!
"He's burnt my Mill," said Quin. In spite of any help the loss would be heavy, but it was not the loss that Quin thought of: it was of the Mill itself. So fine a creature it was, so live, so quick, so wonderful. Rebuilt it might be, but it would no longer be the Mill that he had made: that he had picked up a mere foundling, as a derelict of the river, and turned to something so like a living thing that he came to love it. Now it was hot ashes, burning embers: the wind played with it. It was dead!
There was no sign of red fire behind them now, but the fire burnt within Quin. The fire was out in Pete. He wished he had never seen Jenny, never seen the Mill, never played the fire. He went blind as he paddled, ever and ever more feebly. If Quin had called to him then the Siwash would have given in: he would have said——
"All right, Mista Quin, I'm done!"
That was his nature: the nature of the Coast Indians, as Long Mac knew it. There wasn't in him or his tilikums, pure-blooded or "breeds," the stuff to stand up against the bitter, hardy White, who had taken their country and their women, and had made a new world where they speared salmon, or each other. He knew he had no chance.
But Quin never spoke, even when he was within twenty yards of his prey.
The terror of the white man got hold of Pete, and the terror of his silence maddened him anew. There was not so much as a grunt out of his pursuer. Pete saw a machine coming after him. It was not a man, it was a thing that ran Indians down and drowned them. So might a steamer, a dread "piah-ship," run down the dug-out of some poor wild Siwash in some unexplored creek. Quin was not a man, or a white man, he was the White Men: the very race. There had always been a touch of the wild race in Pete: an underlying hint of the wrath of those who go under. He had avenged himself, but it was still in vain. The last word was, it seemed, with the deadly thing behind him.
Of a sudden Pete howled. It was a horrid cry: like the cry of a solitary coyoté on a bluff in moonlight on a prairie of the South. The very forests echoed with it, as they had echoed in dim ages past with the war-whoops of other Indians. It made Quin turn his head as he rowed. It was just in time, for with one sweep of his paddle Pete had turned his canoe. The next instant it ran alongside the boat, and Pete with one desperate leap came on board with his bare knife in his hand. He fell upon his knees and scrambled to his feet as Quin, loosing his oars, got to his. The capsized dug-out floated side by side with the boat.
"I fix you," said Pete. Even in the darkness Quin could see the white of his eye, the uplifted hand, the knife. The boat swayed, nearly went over, Pete struck and missed, staggered, threw out his left arm and Quin caught it. The next moment they were both in the river, fighting desperately.
"I fix you," said Pete. They both mouthed water and Quin got his right wrist at last. But not before a blow of Pete's had sliced his ribs and cut a gash that stung like fire.
Both of the men could swim, but swimming was in vain. Both were strong, and now Pete's strength was as the strength of a madman who chooses death in a very passion for the end of all things. He seemed as if made of fine steel, of whip-cord, of something resilient, tense. There was in him that elasticity which enables the great quinnat to overcome the awful stream of the Fraser in its narrow Cañon. It was with difficulty, with deadly difficulty, that Quin held the wrist that controlled the knife. He knew that he must do that even if he drowned. It was his last thought, his last conscious thought, just as Pete's last thought was to free himself and find Quin's heart.
They sank, as they struggled, far below the surface of the flood. Quin held his breath till it seemed that he would burst. His lungs were bursting with blood: his brain fainted for it. He struggled to preserve his power of choice, for it appeared better to be stabbed if even so he could breathe. But even as he fought he was aware in some cool and dreadfully far-off cell of his brain that though he let go he would not yet rise. It was a question of who could last longest. As he was drowning he remembered (and recalled how he had heard the saying) that the other man was probably as bad. He even grinned horribly as he thought this. Then he saw Jenny and the child. The vision passed and he saw the burning Mill. He heard Mac speak, heard the roar of the flames, and the murmur of the crowd. Then he came to the surface and knew where he was, knew that he was alive but at handgrips with Death himself. He sucked in air, filled his lungs and rolled over, and went under once again.
When consciousness is past there is a long space of organized, of purposed, instinctive struggle for life left in a man. So it was with Quin. He knew not that he slipped both hands to Pete's right wrist: he was unaware that when they once more rose Pete howled as his wrist snapped. Even Pete did not know it: he knew that he was a fluid part of nature, suffering agony and yet finding sleep in agony, sleep so exquisite that it was a recompense at last for all the woes of the world. And he was all the world himself, one with the river, one with the night and the great darkness which comes in the end to all. Pete sighed deliciously and sank, and rose and sank again, into the arms of one who was perhaps his mother, perhaps his dear Jenny whom he now loved so tenderly.
And a blind creature, still unconscious, unknowing, hung on to Pete's wrist. That was what Quin thought. But what he hung to was the boat, capsized but still floating, which had gone down stream with them. He was in a cramp of agony: if he could have let go he would have done so, but something not himself, as it seemed, made him hold on. He still fought with the dead man who rolled below him at the bottom of the river.
Then he came back to the knowledge that he was at least alive. Yet at first he was not even sure of that. He was only sure that he suffered, without knowing what it was that suffered. It seemed monstrous that he should be in such agony, in all his limbs and body and brain. But he could not distinguish between them for a long time after he was able to discern, with such curious eyes as an infant may possess, the fact that there were lights in the dim sky. That was the first thing he named.
"Stars!" he said doubtfully.
And then he knew that there was such a creature as a man! He gasped and drew in air again and with it life and more far-off knowledge. He remembered the Mill which was burnt in some ancient day, and Jenny, long since dust, of course. And then the past times marched up to him: he knew they were the present, and that he had lost Pitt River Pete in the river, and that he hung feebly to a capsized boat. The rest of his knowledge of himself was like an awful flood: it was overwhelming: it weakened him and made him cry. Tears ran down his face as he lifted his chin above the water.
And still he floated seaward.
A huge and totally insoluble problem oppressed him. He was aware now that water was not his element. This dawned on him gradually. At first all his remembered feelings were connected with water. He had, it seemed, been born in it. It was very natural to be floating in it. There was at least nothing to contradict its being natural. But now he felt for something with his feet, for he was conscious of them. What he wanted was land. Men walked on land. Houses, yes, houses and Mills were built on land.
That was land over there! It was a million miles off. How did one get so far? To be sure, one swam! He shook his head feebly. One couldn't swim, one would have to let go the boat! He forgot all about the land far a very long time. When he remembered it again with a start it was much nearer, very much nearer. He saw individual trees, knew they were trees. Branches held out their arms to him. Though swimming, was impossible it was no longer wholly ridiculous. He remembered doing it himself. He even remembered learning swimming. He had won a race as a boy in Vermont.
"To be sure," said Quin. The current swept him closer in shore. Something touched his feet. He drew them up sharply and shuddered. Pete was down there somewhere. Oh, yes, but he was dead! Dead men were disagreeable, especially when they had been drowned and not recovered for days in hot weather. He touched bottom again. It was very muddy. It was easy to get stuck in mud. One could drown in it.
"Why, I may be drowned yet," said Quin. It was very surprising to think of!
"No, I won't be drowned," said Quin. "I'll hang on to this boat. Why not?"
Nevertheless the water was cold. It came down from the mountains, from much further off than Caribou and from the Eagle Range. There was snow there.
"I am cold," said Quin. "I ought to get ashore."
The boat itself touched a mud-bank. Quin felt bottom again and just as he was deciding to let go the boat swung off. Quin cried and was very angry.
"I'll do it next time," said Quin. But he didn't. He was afraid to let go. And yet the shore was very close. Once more the boat touched and his feet were quite firm in the mud. But there was a bottom six inches down. He thought he prayed to something, to God perhaps, and then he saw the boat swing away from him. He was quite alone and very solitary. To lose the boat was like losing one's home. He staggered and fell flailing and found bottom with his hands. He hung to the very earth, but was dizzy. He waited quite a while to be sure of himself and then scrambled with infinite and most appalling labour to the shore. His limbs were as heavy as death, as lead. He dragged them after him. He ached.
But at last he came out on the land.
It was earth: he had got there. Was there ever in all human experience such a pleasant spot to lie down on, to sleep in? He just knew there wasn't. He forgot he was wet, that he was cold, that Pete was dead, that he was alive, and he went on his knees and scrabbled like a tired beast at the ground. And then he went to sleep, holding himself with his arms and making strange comfortable little noises.
Sleep rolled over him like a river. Artillery would not have awakened him, nor thunder, nor the curious hands of friends or the hostile claws of creatures of prey.
And within a few minutes of his going to sleep other boats came down the river and passed him.
They picked up the capsized boat.
"Quin's dead then," they told each other.
It was quite possible Quin's body believed that, too. But his warm mind knew better, of course. He had got earth under him, and he warmed it.
"Oh, oho, the toketie papoosh: I love the papoosh, Jenny's papoosh," said Annawillee, as she held the baby. The shack was lighted by the burning Mill rather than by the stinking slush lamp on the foul table. Jenny cried for her baby, but Annawillee was after all a woman and loved children in her own way. For years she hadn't handled one. Her only child had died. Its father was not Chihuahua.
"Oh, give him me, Annawillee," said Jenny. He was George's child, and now she knew that "Tchorch" was out on the great lonely river, hunting unhappy Pete. Men said they would never come back. Her soul was burning even as the Mill burnt. "Tchorch" loved her and yet had forgotten her.
"Give him to me."
But Annawillee sat on the floor and sang about the papoosh, a song of a poor Klootchman deserted by her man and left with her child:
"Oh, nika tenasHyas nika klahowyam,Hyu keely,Konaway sun,Nika tenas.
"Ah, my little one,Sad am I——I mourn and weep,Ah, still must cry,Ah, my little one, every day!"
Annie screamed at her.
"Pelton Annawillee, halo mamook Jenny keely, make her not mournful, pelton, oh, fool!"
"I love papoosh," said Annawillee. She burst into tears.
"Take heem, Jenny, take yo' papoosh. Mine mimaloose, is dead."
Jenny took the baby to her bosom, and sat down desolately on the edge of Annie's bed. Her body shivered at the foulness of things, even as her soul shivered for fear about George. An hour ago she had been happy, happy, happy! Now——
"Oh, God," she prayed. But she could not weep.
"Jenny, you have dlink, you tak' one dlink, tenas toketie?" said Annie. What else was there but "dlink" for misery, for the loss of a home, for the loss of her man?
But Jenny shook her head.
"I got one," said Annie. For she remembered she had not finished the bottle before she went to sleep by the fire. She hunted for the bottle and found it. It was empty!
"Some dam' tief stealum," screamed Annie. Who could it have been but Annawillee?
"I never takum," yelled Annawillee when the old hag got her by the hair and tugged at it. "You old beast, leggo me. I never tak' um."
Jenny cried out to Annie. It was awful to see this in her agony of grief.
"I get mo'," said Annie. "I got dolla. I find Chihuahua, he buy bottle whisky!"
She went out. Annawillee wrung her hair into a horrid coil and knotted it clumsily at the back of her neck. She cried about her dead papoosh. The tears ran down her dirty face.
Outside the hum and murmur of the crowd still endured. Every now and again there was a crash, as some of the great Mill fell in. Piles of lumber caught: they roared to the skies in wavering columns. The crowd laughed and moaned and roared and was silent, as the sea beach is silent between great breakers.
And George was on the river hunting Pete! Jenny clutched her baby to her bosom. Annawillee went on crying. Then the door opened and Annie came back.
"I send Chihuahua. He get dlink. Dlink velly good for you, Jenny. By-by Shautch Quin come back and say I good to you, and he be good to poor old Annie, who get you for heem, tenas!"
But Jenny only heard her words as part of the sounds of the night. If George did not come back! She moaned dreadfully, and shivered in spite of the heat of the great fire, which made itself felt even in the shack.
"Tchorch, Tchorch!"
She felt him in her arms, as she had held to him when he bore her through the fire. He was a man, a real man. She saw poor Ned, who wasn't one. She saw Mary. But Mary had no child. Poor Mary and poor Annawillee!
The door opened and Chihuahua came in with a bottle.
"You dam' thief, you open um and dlink," said Annie furiously. Chihuahua laughed.
"Hey, hermosa Annie, why you tink I no do dat?"
He was half drunk already. He saw Jenny.
"Hallo, Jenny, peretty Jenny! Peretty womans make mischief. All for dis Pete burn the Moola, and we all out of jhob!"
That was true enough, and Jenny knew it. But Chihuahua was a beast. He came over to her and put his arm about her waist and hugged her.
"I love you, peretty," he whispered; "if de boss no come back, I kick Annawillee out and have you for klootchman!"
It was as if he had struck her down and dragged her in the mud. She turned cold with horror. Oh, if George didn't come back what would she do: what would she do?
"I love you, peretty Jenny!" said the hot breath of the beast. And Annawillee mourned upon the floor, but heard not. Annie took a drink.
"Now, toketie, my own tenas Jenny, you have dlink," said Annie. She spoke in Chinook, and Jenny answered in it. It was the first time she had used the Jargon since she went to George.
"Nika halo tikegh, I no want it," said Jenny.
"You have it, pelton," said Annie. "What for, kahta you so fool? Him velly good whisky."
"Take it, Jenny," said the hot breath in her ear.
"I won't," said Jenny. She knew all it meant now. Again Chihuahua put his arm about her. She wrenched herself away from him and Annawillee saw what her man was doing, and scrambled to her feet.
"Oh, you dam' man you do dat," she screamed jealously, forgetting her dead child and its dead father.
"You s'ut up, dry up," said Chihuahua, "or I keek you, Annawillee."
He took the bottle from Annie and drank.
"I lov' Jenny, toketie Jenny; Jenny mia hermosa muchacha, and she lov' me."
He caught at her again, and Annawillee came at him with her claws. He knocked her down, and she lay where she fell. Annie screamed at him.
"You no do dat, Chihuahua. You leave Jenny alone, man. When Shautch Quin come back he keel you——"
Chihuahua grinned.
"He no come back no more. Pete fix him on the river, I sure of dat, Annie. Jenny she be my klootchman, eh, Jenny!"
Jenny was as white as death. She had lived for more than a year with George and this was hell for her. And if George didn't come back! Chihuahua came staggering to her. She caught the empty bottle by the neck and stared at him with blazing eyes. He stopped.
"You peretty devil!" said Chihuahua. "I lik' kees you all same, Jenny."
"I'll keel you," she whispered. There was murder in her eyes, and drunk as he was he knew it. And Annie had picked up a burnt bar of iron that served her as a poker. Chihuahua quailed before them.
"I on'y jhoke," he said. "My klootchman she Annawillee, very good woman, Annawillee. You geeve me one mo' dolla I get mo' whisky, Annie."
But all Annie had to give him was the iron bar.
"You bad man, you beas', you go!"
And Chihuahua whitened, as he had done more than once before when Annie got mad. He went out like a lamb, and Jenny sat down on the bed, and sobbed for the first time as if her heart would break.
And the fire still burnt, but without great flames. Some of the crowd went home. It was past two o'clock and soon would be dawn.
"You no tak' my man, Jenny?" moaned Annawillee.
"No, no, no," said Jenny.
"Chihuahua him a beas' to me," said Annawillee. "I hat' heem, but I hav' no other man now and I no more a pretty klootchman. What I do if he tak' other klootchman?"
"I rather die, Annawillee," said Jenny.
"Him no so velly bad," said Annawillee, "but easy for young and toketie gal lik' you fin' nodder man."
She murmured, snuffling, a song that the Siwash women often sing:
"Kultus kopet nika,Spose mika mahsh nika,Hyu tenas men koolie kopa town,Alkie wekt nika iskum,Wake kul kopa nika."
"'Tis naught to me,If you act so,For I can see,Young men who goAbout the town, and when I canI soon will take another man."
"You soon fin' a man, you," said Annawillee. "All men say you toketie. S'pose Shautch Quin mimaloose any man tak' you, Jenny."
"Dat so," said Annie soothingly. "I fin' you Shautch, Jenny, and I queek fin' other one, my pretty Jenny!"
And Jenny's heart was cold within her. For her child's sake perhaps——
And then there came a knock at the door, and her heart leapt again like a babe. Annie opened the door, and outside stood Sam.
"My Missus here, oh, where my Missus?" he cried dolorously. "My loosee my Missus in the clowd!"
Jenny cried out to him.
"Oh, Sam, Sam!"
He had always been good and kind and was clean and bright.
"Oh, Missus here, my heap glad, Missus. What for Missus stay inside house like t'is, no good for Missus, no clean, bah!"
She cried out for George, and Sam shook his head mournfully.
"Boss no come back, Missus, Moola-man say Boss low boat in liver, looksee t'at tief makee fy in Moola and house. Bymby boss catchee. You come, Missus."
But Annie had no mind to let her go.
"Dam' Shinaman, klatawa, you go. Jenny she stay wit' Annie."
She stood in the doorway, and Jenny was behind her. Annawillee went on with her song. "Soon Jenny get another man. That easy for Jenny!"
"Oh, where I go, Sam?"
"My tinkee you go Wong's, Missus. Him velly good man, house heap clean."
"She no go dam' Shinaman," roared Annie.
"I will go," said Jenny.
But Annie slammed the door in Sam's face. The boy was furious.
"All light, Missus! One Moola-man, him Long Mac, wantshee you. My tellee Wong and him. Bymby my comee back. Yah, old cow-woman, Annie!"
He ran to Wong's shack and told the old man he had found the "Missus." By the time they came again to Annie's, Chihuahua and Spanish Joe had gone there and, being more drunk than ever, Chihuahua had burst the door in. Joe tackled Annie and took the iron bar from her. She screamed like a wild-cat in a trap. Both the men went for Jenny, who stood in the corner and shrieked for George and Sam.
"'Ole your tongue, peretty one," said handsome Joe. "I always lov' you; now you be my woman——"
Chihuahua trampled over Annie to get to Jenny.
"She mine, Joe, she mine!"
Joe turned on Chihuahua with a very evil smile, and spoke to him in Spanish.
"I take her, see, Chihuahua!"
Outside, Wong knocked at the door. Perhaps he was not a very brave man. It is not wise to be very brave in an alien country, but he owed a good deal to George Quin and liked him. Sam stood behind him wringing his hands and crying out, "Missus, Missus!"
Joe had her round the waist. Annawillee screamed and held to Chihuahua's legs. He kicked her hard, and panted furiously at Joe.
"You say you help me, Joe!"
"I help myself, you fool," said Joe. Chihuahua had been a mat for him to wipe his feet on for years. "I wait for her; now I have her."
Chihuahua kicked Annawillee again and got free. Annie got up and ran to their end of the room. She caught Joe by the arm: he sent her headlong and she fell against the table. It went over and the lamp fell on the floor. The only light in the room came from the live embers of the great dead Mill.
And suddenly Jenny felt Joe loose her. He made an awful sound, which was not a cry, and something hot and warm gushed upon her bosom. She saw him stagger, saw his arms go up in the air, and heard a growl from Chihuahua.
"Fool," said the Mexican. He had sliced Joe's throat right open and cut his voice and his cry asunder. The Castilian reeled again and fell, and then the door was burst open. Long Mac stood in the opening.
"Jenny, my girl," he cried; But Jenny did not answer. She lay insensible on the bed: she was dyed crimson. Her child screamed, but she heard nothing.
"Long Mac!" said Chihuahua. He feared him always, and now feared all men.
"Jenny here," he said in a quavering voice. And Mac strode in. He stepped across Joe and found Jenny and her child. He took them in his arms, though he ached dreadfully in his set shoulder, and carried them out.
"Missus, oh, Missus," said Sam. Chihuahua crept out after them and then ran into the shadows, casting away his stained knife. Annawillee had lost her man, and the police found him the next day. A poor fool of a white woman in the City shrieked about the dead Castilian. No one but that poor fool was sorry.
Mac carried Jenny into Wong's shack, and laid her on the bed. Though the house smelt of China and of opium it was clean as fresh sawdust. They washed the blood from her and the child, while Sam cried, fearing she was hurt. And she came back to consciousness. Mac was very solemn.
"Where the boss, you tink?" asked Wong.
The men who had followed George Quin down the river were home again by now. They brought back with them the empty boat.
"I reckon he's dead," answered Mac. Sam cried, for he was "heap solly." Quin had been a good boss to him and there are many Chinamen who understand that after all, whatever we may say about them.
"Oh, the Missus, the Missus," said Sam. He sat down and sobbed. Jenny opened her eyes and saw old Wong, with a million wrinkles on his kindly face, inscrutable in every feature.
"Tchorch," she murmured. The tears came to Mac's eyes, though he was hard to move and knew much of the bitterness of life.
Wong's face was like that of some carved god who sits in the peace which is undisturbed by human prayer. And yet his hands were kind and his voice gentle. He murmured to himself in his own tongue.
"Where is Tchorch?" asked Jenny. Now she saw Long Mac, whom Quin trusted. She appealed to the strong man.
"He has not returned, ma'am," said Mac. She was no longer a little Siwash klootchman to him, but a bereaved woman.
She looked at him long and steadfastly, and read his face. She was an Indian, after all, and could endure much.
"My baby," she said. Sam had the boy. He gave it her. She murmured something to the fatherless, and lay back with him in her arms, She motioned to Mac and he came nearer.
"Is Tchorch dead, Mister Maclan?"
She could not speak his name.
"I'm afraid so, ma'am," he answered.
"Have they found him?"
"Only the empty boat."
Then no one spoke. She turned her head away, Outside the dawn came up and looked down on ashes. In the distance they heard Annawillee mourning. She sat in the road with dust upon her head, like an Indian widow.
"I loved Tchorch," said Jenny. Then she rose in the bed and shrieked awfully.
"I want Tchorch, I want Tchorch!"
She was like steel under the powerful hands of the man who sat by her.
"Oh, ma'am," said Mac. He said—"I've lost many."
The tears ran down his face. Sam was like a reed shaken by the wind. Old Wong stood by the window and stared across the river, now open to the view, since the Mill was gone.
"My poor girl!"
She held his hand now as if it was life itself. And yet it might have been as if he were Death.
"He was so good," she said.
It wasn't what many would have said. But Mac understood: for he had lost many, and some said that he, too, was a hard man.
She lay back again. Wong still stood by the window without moving. He, too, had lost one he loved; she, who was to have brought him children who would have honoured his ashes and his ancestral spirit, was dead in child-birth far away across the long, long paths of ocean.
But now he looked across the river as the dawn shone upon its silver flood. Perhaps he looked at something. It seemed so to Sam, who rose and went to him. The old man spoke to him very quietly. They both went outside.
"Tchorch is dead," said Jenny.
But Tchorch was not dead. Something spoke of hope to Mac, something he didn't understand. Perhaps the wise old Wong could have explained it. He and Sam stood by the wharf and looked across the river to the further bank. His eyes were strong, they were the eyes of an old man who can see far. Now he saw something on the other bank, something moving in the half darkness of the dawn. As the day grew, even Sam saw that a man came stumbling along the bank of the shore. Who was it?
"Oh, even yet he may not be dead, Jenny," said Mac. It was as if some dawn grew in him because the dawn grew in the East: some hope within him because there was hope in the heart of a poor serving boy and a wise old man. She clutched his hand.
"Tchorch was very strong," she said.
And Sam came walking to the door.
"Wong wantchee see you, Sir," he said. He came in without raising his eyes. Mac pressed Jenny's hand and went out.
"Oh, Missus," said Sam.
His heart was full.
Though the river was wide the day was now bright. A strong man's voice might reach across it in a windless time. But strong men may be weak, if they have struggled.
Wong stood still as Mac came up to him. Though he could see so well he was a little deaf.
"What is it, Wong?" asked Mac. Even as he spoke it seemed to him that he heard a faint far-off call.
"My tinkee t'at Mista Quin," said Wong as he pointed across the river. He spoke as quietly as if he had said that he thought he could see the rosy cone of Mount Baker shining in the rising sun.
"You think—oh, hell!" said Mac.
He smote Wong on the shoulder and the old man turned to him. There was something like a smile upon his face at last.
"Ta't the boss fo' su'," he said; "my can see."
Mac ran a little way up-stream, past the burnt wharves, and came to one where there was a boat. He thrust it down the shore into the water and forgot his aching shoulder, bad as it was.
"Oh, poor Jenny, poor Jenny!" he said. He heard the call again.
"That's Quin's call. By the Holy Mackinaw that's him," said Mac. Now that he knew, the ache came back to him. He pulled in one oar and sculled the boat from the stern with the other.
And George Quin sat down on the edge of the water and waited.
"If he says 'How's Jenny?' first of all, I'll recken he's worth the little klootchman," said Mac. He saw Quin rise up and stand waiting. He was torn to rags and still soaking, but his face was strong and calm.
"That you, Quin?" asked Mac.
"That's me," said Quin. Then he spoke aright.
"How's Jenny, old man?"
"All hunkey," said Mac. "But we tho't you was mimaloose."
"Pete is," said Quin. He climbed into the boat stiffly. His wound smarted bitterly, but he said nothing of it.
"You must have had a close call, Quin."
"Tol'rable," said Quin. "Where's the little woman?"
"Old Wong's lookin' after her. 'Twas him spotted you over here."
"Wong's all right," said Quin. "'Tis a clean sweep of the old Moola, Mac."
"That's what," said Mac. They came to the shore. When they were both on dry land Mac held out his hand.
"Shake," he said.
They "shook," and walked up to the road.
"You and the little gal kin hev my house till you've time to look araound," said Mac. "It's not dandy, but I reckon you can make out in it."
Quin nodded.
"Right," he said. He stood still for a minute and looked at the open space where the Mill had been.
"You and me and the boys will build the old Moola up again, Mac," said Quin.
"Oh, I reckon," said Mac.
And Quin went across the road to Shack-Town and came to Wong's. The old man saluted him gravely.
"You're all right," said Quin. What more could any man say?
He heard a cry inside the shack, and Sam came out with the papoose in his arms.
"Oh, Mista Quin, my heap glad you not dead, my heap glad!"
"You damn fool," said Quin with a smile. He went in and found Jenny.
"Tchorch!" she said.
"Jenny, my girl!"
He held her in his arms and she laid her head upon his heart.
"Tchorch!" she murmured.
"Oh, but you've had a time," said George.
"I jhoost want Tchorch," said Jenny.
THE END
Printed at The Chapel River Press, Kingston, Surrey.