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The World is Yours

Chapter Two

page 37

Chapter Two

In Nineteen-Twenty old Dawson was dead as Nineveh, but young Dawson City still was dying hard, although each year fewer tourists came down the Yukon River on the "palatial river steamers" to take snapshots of the Midnight Sun. It almost seemed, thought the hotel-keepers, that the sun might as well stop staying up until midnight.

Young Dawson, leaving the rotting water-front with its First and Second Avenues to ghosts of the past, had cleared many little tar-paper shacks out of the scrub nearer the Dome and there built a hospital, a school, churches (for no one loves all his neighbours when he worships), a spacious graveyard, and a fine block of Mounted Police Barracks. It had done some spiritual conversion too. Dawson had its Mission House, its Elk Club, Sewing Societies, Sons of the Yukon and Girls' Friendly. Also it had abolished most of the gilt mirrors and all the plaster cupids from the Hotel Royal Queen which once (to its regret) had been Mat Colom's Tinky-Tink Saloon. Dawson, in a word, had reformed, and found the exchange a good deal of a relief and a certain milestone on the road to dissolution.

In the general room of the Hotel Royal Queen a young woman sat under the tarnished gilt-and-cherub ceiling waiting for Kirk Regard. Ladies usually sat up on the half-landing where a few rugs, cane chairs and pot-plants made an atmosphere which the proprietor considered more suitable to the sex. But this young woman never did what was considered suitable. She preferred the smoke-room where the curtained alcoves had given place to a long front of double windows where men sat smoking in deep leather arm-chairs to watch the passers-by. On this chilly fall evening not many passed, but the chairs were full. Occasionally someone—a Mountie, a prospector, a clerk of the Administration, an page 38engineer off one of the dredges—got up and silently went to the bar. They all wondered who Dierdre Cass was lying in wait for, but none spoke to her, for they had long learned that it was wiser to let Dierdre make the first move. She was difficult enough to evade even if a man did not invite destruction.

This evening she did not appear to see any of them. She sat perfectly still, her pale face pointed like a fox's mask propped on her thin hand, her narrow reflective eyes looking at nothing, her thin black-clothed body a little tense. Folk said she had a touch of Russian as well as Indian in her blood, and this was likely enough; those great days when Baranoff the Russian held his court at Sitka for the slaying of the fur-otter having left a good many repercussions in the way of mongol eyes and excitable temperaments throughout the North. Her father ran one of the gold-dredges now operating among the shingle-heaps of the smothered Klondyke River, and that was all men knew of her ancestry, for Cass was not a talkative man.

The heavy double doors swung, letting in a blast of cold air and Sergeant Plume very smart and bulky in his tight scarlet and dark blue. Having established himself spiritual guardian of Dawson as the Law had established him physical he went straight to Dierdre, pulling off his stetson to show a broad ruddy face with twinkling eyes and a blunt nose.

"Waitin' for someone, Miss Cass? Will I do?"

"No," she said, not moving.

Plume stared down at her. For the witless Magdalens of this world he had a pity as warm and broad as his face; but for Dierdre Cass, scampering like a wild goat on the edge of the precipice and yet too cunning to fall over, he had nothing but disgust. She had spoiled too many good men and would yet, the durn little devil. He considered it his duty to find out who she was at the spoiling of now.

"Who are you waitin' for?" he asked, abruptly.

"Kirk Regard."

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Plume let out a short whistle. Regard, one of the best Big Game Guides of the North, could look after himself if any man could, but he was still out on the Kluane with his hunting-party.

"Reckon you're settin' right thar for a spell, then. Kirk ain't back yet."

"His party's in the dining-room. And here he is himself." She stood, and Plume turned to watch the meeting. He was vexed. After hard months in the mountains a man like Regard would be far safer helling around with the boys on his first night in town than flirting with Dierdre Cass. Plume knew well enough what sight and touch of a woman meant after long abstinence, and he shouldered forward now, adding to the storm of greetings.

"My! Kirk; you're lookin' fine. Come an' have a wet. An' dinner's on to me, boy."

But this self-possessed young man, talking, laughing, refusing, would, it appeared, have none of Sergeant Plume. He flung off his furs, showing a sinewy alert body in close-fitting leathers, and below the black tilted brows his eyes were amused. He took Dierdre's elbow in his hand and turned her about with jaunty possessiveness.

"Come along, I'm hungry," he said, and marched her off to one of the curtained recesses in the eating-room. He walked with moccasined feet, light and springy, like one used to narrow trails, and Dierdre Cass slid her lean dark body along-side him like a snake.

"Well! What do you know about that?" said Plume, trying to laugh.

Kirk drew the curtains of the recess, frowning at the indoor smell of the stuff, of cooking, of humanity. Like some thin ghost on the edge of his excitement and pleasure hovered still the crystal angel of the wild.

Dierdre linked her arms about his neck, leaning back, letting her eyes speak for her. Smouldering eyes under narrow brows page 40in a face duskily-pale as the walrus-ivory men make trinkets of to sell in Skagway and other towns of the North. Herself of the trinket-class she was hanging herself on a man's neck and Kirk had the wit to see it. He had learned to see many things up and down the world, throughout the Great War, in hospitals, brothels and canteens, and always he found women ready to be kind to him. Dierdre was not specially kind, nor did he specially like her. But he was careless in his choosings and, despite another, she would do.

"Kiss me, then," he said, "and let me feed. I've not had a bite since sun-up."

She dropped her arms and turned away. He caught her roughly and kissed her mouth, twice, three times. Then he thrust his head through the curtain and called the waiter. When food was brought she was sitting at the table, her eyes still as a snake's, her chin in her thin hand.

"My! I'm peckish," said Kirk, beginning on the stewed caribou-meat and the circle of little vegetable-dishes.

"You men," said Dierdre, reflectively, "you do make me laugh."

"Laugh away, honey. You'd have waited for me there all night."

"I know."

Her voice had a wistful fall and he looked sharply up. Always when she saw him after long absences he made her catch her breath as though, invisible about that strong warm-coloured body, were presences, ancient, terrible, and yet most divinely glad. He was a different Kirk when a few days in Dawson had rubbed from him that mysterious bloom. Then she could remember that he was a coming man among the Big Game Guides, with important parties assigned to him by the Administration and millionaire tips worth putting into the Bank. Then she could remember that he was no better than other men; probably, if twice-told tales were true, a little worse. But it was her business to marry him, all the same.

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As he looked at her the rapt far-off expression on his face exchanged for something warmer.

"Lyin' awake dreamin' of me nights, honey?" he enquired.

"Too often, Kirk."

"Splendid liar you are, Dierdre."

Talk went easily now. When the meal was done he sat smoking, his arm about her thin shoulders. He liked the feel of her yielding softness just as he liked the intentness of her pursuit. She meant to catch him, did she? Well, let her try. He had dodged grizzly bears before now.

Beyond the curtained alcove moccasined feet pattered. Rough voices rose and fell. From the street came the hoot of an automobile. Men and women again with all their complications instead of the bleak and terrific majesty of the hills. Instead of red fierce dawnings and cold sunsets and the strain of guiding America's Big Men after Big Game through dangerous solitudes here were slackness and warmth and a woman's hand lingering on his neck. Vaguely he knew that Yukon's wastes had to him something the quality of women. They drew him so that he could not leave them alone, and yet he distrusted, sometimes feared, often hated them.

A transcendent thing there must be somewhere in life, but it went by him. Often through the War he thought that he had found it. Endurance, courage, sacrifice … surely all the verities were there. He and men like him were to win the War, save the world. But the War had not been won. That was clear already. And the world had not been saved. That was clearer still. Again, with love. He had forgotten that first desperate storm of desire and denial just as he had forgotten the girl. There had been so many since, and yet he could never be sure that any were love, any more than he could be sure what he had been put into the world for. His life was as full as the next man's and often it felt so strangely empty. He kissed Dierdre absently and wished that he felt hotter. During page 42these last weeks he had looked forward so keenly to kissing a woman.

She stirred under the perfunctory kiss, saying maliciously: "I s'pose you'll go down the Kanana now and see your foster-parents, and the MacDonalds. I hear every man is raving about that girl Tamsin."

"I'm booked to go to Macpherson with the Patrol Party."

He was not interested to talk of Tamsin: her ways and his had parted so long ago. When he had returned to Dawson from that summer on the Kluane he had hated everything, although now he hardly remembered why. Something that old Mat Colom had done or said. In Dawson he had become a byword for mischief and trouble, and MacDonald had sent Tamsin out to a Vancouver school. He had never seen her since, nor desired to, and a little later he had gone off as a horse-rustler with Hansen the Guide and lived among stables and pack-ponies ever since. Nor had he seen much of the Coloms since old Mat had "taken religion" and started a fox-farm on the Kanana, where Aggie would certainly quarrel with everyone as she always had done. A dull life, but all civilized life was dull, anyway.

"Hell," he said, suddenly restless. "Any place where we can dance or anything?"

"Not to-night. To-morrow the Y.M.C.A. is giving a small…"

"Aw! You make me tired. I wish I was down in Ketchikan. This durn good little burg …"

Dierdre accepted the ancient role of placation and told him what the millionaires of his party said of him while they stood about in the general room, waiting for their dinner.

"They sure do think you a smart guide, Kirk. There was one fat man said he'd been up twice with Hansen and never got such heads …"

Kirk listened tolerantly. He knew his worth to the last dollar, but it was well that others should know it too. He page 43began to feel happier. After all, it was good to be back, good to be appreciated. After all, there were not many men whom the Police Patrol would have asked to accompany them to Macpherson. When Dierdre stood up at last he held her hand, laughing up at her.

"You're hopin' I'll ask is your dad away on the dredge to-night, honey."

"You're always so sure of yourself. There are times when I hate you, Kirk."

"There are times when I love you, Dierdre, and this is one of 'em. Too bad, nothing lasts. May I come home with you?"

"Only to the door. Dad is away."

"My! Aren't we the good girl! Well…"

They put on their furs and went out into the thinly-lit streets. Kingly, remote, the Dome looked above them; its head against the stars. Up among those white hills from which Kirk had so lately come those stars would be bright and sharp as needles, cruelly watching the slow closure of the rivers, the steady pressure of increasing snow, the secretive advances and retreats of the Glories above a frozen world. Soon the lower side-streams and the Yukon would be throwing ice. Soon all transportation would cease and for a long eight months the Yukon would be locked in on itself and Kirk with it. One of the panic moments from which he was never entirely free caught him, walking by the dark river with the girl.

For the first time he wondered if he could ever really settle down with Dierdre. She, at least, would never be painfully conscious as he was of the ghosts of past generations at their door. Ghosts of gold-seekers with famished eyes and desolate laughter: of Baranoff the Russian, holding barbarian court among the dead at vanished Sitka; of the æons behind that, back to the beginnings when men first arose on their feet, snarling with white fangs, and wrestled naked with beasts, and overthrew them—and so paved the way for Dierdre and Kirk Regard. He laughed suddenly.

page 44

"Funny, when you think of it," he said. And when Dierdre lifted puzzled eyes he stooped and kissed her.

In the electric cold a spark passed between their lips. She cried out and he kissed her again. But he had turned away before the door shut. That was enough of Dierdre for one night.

Yet this tall empty world felt emptier without her. He walked slowly. Now that the long intense inspiring effort of the last months was over he was at a loss, his wheels run down, his mind a muddled liason of sensuousness and an aching for those clear heights again. What manner of men were they who had been responsible for this fool and devil and struggling honest man who called himself Kirk Regard? Jesters all. And what did he owe them? From one day to another he never knew.

Implacable stars gleamed in a sky incredibly far. Frail wild-fire flicker ran along the forehead of the Dome. Somewhere up there Kirk and Tamsin had been used to gather cranberries and saskatoons. Tamsin? It was years since he had thought of her. A little freckled girl in a soiled frock she was, with a hell of a temper and sleep in the corners of her eyes. Once, on the Kluane, he believed that he had thought her rather wonderful. He had a habit of doing that with girls—for a time.

Scattered street-lamps held sharp points of light in the dark. Between them lay great masses of shadow; backs of stores and houses; empty selections, clumps of trees and scrub; the great block of the Administrative Buildings behind the Barracks. In the Administrative Buildings he had seen a man tried for his life. Killed someone, apparently. To a man who had seen as much legalized killing as Kirk there were greater crimes.

Dead was old Dawson. Dead as last year's flowers, last year's love. Kirk had a mind to walk on deserted First Avenue where MacDonald's store had been. He wished Dierdre had not spoken of the MacDonalds. Although his brain forgot his heart remembered that there had been gleams of spiritualness, page 45veils of loveliness in those early days. Sometimes, when he had been afraid of the dark, Tamsin had rocked his head in her little fat arms….

On First Avenue loose planks in the boardwalk flapped under his feet. In places the boardwalk was rotted into holes, but there had been enough snow that day to show them, to throw up a faint gleam like glare-ice into the gaunt sockets which had once been gambling-dens., eating-houses, saloons and stores of sorts. In the black gaze of the windows he saw himself pass like a wraith. Behind open doors strips of wallpaper flapped and rats rustled. Log houses canted sideways on sun foundations. Tottering hotels had had their painted bars torn out to prop the next drunken building. And the crazy little shack of beaten-out tins and the knees of drowned boats still stood. MacDonald's Store—for MacDonald the Scot had never wasted money on externals.

Kirk went in, tentatively, as though opening a long-closed door. The place smelt badly. A huge pack-rat squeaked and scampered, stared with green eyes from the top of a rusty stove. Nothing here of Tamsin. Nothing even of MacDonald. Tamsin was now a tall girl whom all men raved about. Kirk considered that. If he saw her now he would likely rave too— for a time. Suddenly he knew that he did not want Tamsin in that harem. … It was here she had sat, under the broken stair, cradling his frightened head in her little fat arms. Lord, but it was queer how he remembered that….

Walking back to the hotel he was still restless; glad that he was soon to lead the Dawson Patrol over the range to Macpherson on the Canadian side. The Sergeant who usually led was already on the Mackenzie, and Orange, next in charge, was new to the trail. The Patrol considered itself lucky to retain Kirk's services, it said. And Kirk agreed. Of course it was lucky to get him.

Long ago the Mounted Police earned the gratitude of the North. Now they were earning it from film-producers and page 46the suppliers of cheap magazines as well. Not their fault, poor chaps., thought Kirk, squatting before one of the fires on their first-night camp. Well-set-up and cleanly, although they were not spectacular.

"Wouldn't you like to act for the Movies, Orange?" he asked.

Orange, examining a suspected blister on his heel, lifted a wind-reddened face and smirked faintly.

"Maybe I will, some day," he said with a hint of swagger.

"Put me on as a super when you do." Kirk yawned, flinging a clod of snow at a husky scratching just beyond the rim of light. Trust him to uncover another man's weakness. Orange thought he owned all the good looks in the world. Fenier, too; and Scudery, the big corporal with a continual grievance. They had their fool's side for certain, just like every other man. Having satisfactorily established human relationship to this vast silence, this white dignity of snow, Kirk curled up in his sleeping-bag and just stopped short of thanking God that he was not as other men.

A few nights later a wandering prospector came into camp, slightly frost-bitten and talking of his soul. It had been a long and hard day, with the steel runners striking a thin persistent note in the thin and frosty air and a thermometer dropping fast, and the Patrol was tired. They were tolerant of the prospector and his soul, being used to men who talked of all things, from candied cherries to El Greco paintings. But they grew annoyed when the prospector left his soul for theirs.

"What I say's this. A man's gotta re'lize he has a soul or go under," said the prospector earnestly out of his beard. "What I mean ter say … these hills an' things…. They git a man down if you don't re'lize your soul."

"Ever hear of 'em getting an animal down?" asked Kirk. "If there's one place where a man can't afford to own a soul it's in the Yukon."

Almost he believed it, but he would have said it, anyway.

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Scudery complained that he had no use for sky-dogs. "Want to bury a man living. That's what they want."

"Well, I've no quarrel with sky-dogs," said Orange, handsomely. "Reckon I've no quarrel with anyone who has a belief. That kind of thing just doesn't interest me. That's all."

Behind his small neat head the monstrous hills reared to the dark cavern of the sky where a newly-unleashed wind went mourning. Who unleashed it? wondered Kirk, looking at Orange.

"There's things in the hills/' mumbled the prospector, turning his gentle sunken eyes on the others. "Sounds and shadders an' laughin' … I dunno…. You can't leave the hills once they're into your bones, but they take yer wits in the end. I knew a feller once," he said, dreamily. "He thought he was the year changin' seasons an' he kept on goin' around on a hill-top till he dropped in his tracks. I buried him there. An' my mate, Pat O'Conner—any of you 'member Pat? Well, I guess mebbe you're too young. He got the notion a musk-ox was a rag-carpet hangin' on the line in his own back-yard and he follyed it off into the Barrens. My! I was that peeved! He never come back…. An' there was another chap…."

A horned Arctic owl sheered by; jewelled eyes set in a noiseless mass of white feathers. Round the shoulders of the hills the wind was whimpering.

"I reckon mebbe a' Artic owl's the soul of someb'dy," said the prospector, and Kirk got up. This, he felt almost wildly, was too much. Souls … yes, he supposed we had souls and be damned to it; but why did the Yukon make him feel that it had a soul too? Some half-formed huge blundering soul moving uncouth and blind upon the mountains. Even the smell of snow and hills was live, like breath.

"Guess I'll turn in," he said, and lay in his blankets wishing that he had gone down to Ketchikan: to the eternal rattle of the stamping-machines in the dark mines above the water, the clatter of canning-factories, the bubbles upon the brimming page 48bowl of life. For a man who confesses to a soul it could not even be said that he was thankful for small mercies. Turning he felt by his hand the flute which had long taken the place of his jews' harp. Softly he blew into it and was rewarded by seeing the prospector jump up with a scream.

"Eh! Have yer come at last?" he cried. "Mary …"

The Patrol passed on, crossing the spoor of ermine, rat and mink, sly marten and the luckless rabbit on which the whole North feeds. Wolves howled round their camp-fires. Caribou drifted across the eternal white like dust-clouds. Snow fell and froze into powder. A silver moon rode the sky all day among the scampering Glories that began to take colour as daylight lessened. Those endless majestic heights shouldering each other silently against darkening skies began to affect even light-hearted Orange, and when at last they reached Peel River and turned up its glassy surface to Macpherson every man shouted to his team and broke into an eager run.

The snow-covered blocks of the Police Post buildings among their gaunt willows had red light streaming from the windows. In the corral dogs were tonguing and the straining teams answered. In the trampled grey snow about the Post a woman's figure showed as she ran from the kitchen to the potato-shed in the hill. Scudery said:

"My! Has the Old Man taken a wife?" But Kirk knew that woman for an Indian by the way she moved.

The mess-room was a good place to be in that night, with the long stove pipes exuding heat and a gay red roar from its open mouth. The scarlet tunics, the blue breeches with the yellow stripe, the glint of the brass buffalo-head collar-badges were all good to see, just as the smell of tobacco-smoke and wood-smoke, of heated men and frosty air when the door was opened were good. Kirk felt happy and restless, enjoying the sense of life, of shelter from the great Outside, and wondered when he would see the woman. She was squaw, someone said, of Olafssen, a huge Swede who had just mushed in from page 49Hershel and had been allowed to camp in the potato-shed because of the strong cold.

Presently they were playing cards and Kirk, who had learned in many lands, took all Olafssen's spare cash. The man stood up, a grotesque hairy creature in bright mackinaw coat and leather chaps such as the Indians use.

"You do it a-purpose," he cried. "You give me back."

"Come and take it," suggested Kirk, grinning.

Olafssen came, and it took five men to separate them and return the Swede to his potato-shed. Orange said severely:

"You'll get yourself killed some day, Regard": and when, a little later, they had all gone out about their business, Kirk sat over the blazing lire and wondered if he would mind very much.

Excitement had died down now. He was tired and, for the moment, out of a job. The others had whitefish to thaw out for the dogs' suppers, wood to haul from the pile, the water-butts to fill with snow. They had detail work to do in the office, and a breed who had stolen another man's cache—very nearly a capital offence in the North—to be visited in the cells. Only for Kirk there was nothing. In the red firelight and the dim yellow of the lamplight he slouched luxuriously in the big chair, blowing idly into his flute.

"It's a long, long way to Tipperary," the music ran, and he thought: "It's a durn sight longer road to Content. Wonder if there is such a place anywheres."

From the kitchen door came an ecstatic grunt and Kirk looked up to see Olafssen's squaw standing with a steaming kettle in her hand. He continued to play, watching her from the corners of his bright eyes. In this rugged place she looked absurdly young—sixteen at a guess. Her black hair had a curl in it, her thick lips were warm red instead of the usual brown and her hands delicious small bunches of puddiness. Step by step she came near, the kettle dribbling, paused by his chair with a finger in her mouth.

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"I Ooket," she whispered, shyly.

"Are you, now? You're a mighty pretty girl, Ooket."

Ooket giggled. She took her damp finger from her mouth and touched his cheek with it.

"I be liking you," she remarked.

"You're not the first, my dear, though they're not all so ready to say so." He caught the little fat finger and smiled at her. "And yet I'm not much like Olafssen, you know."

"I don't be liking him."

Steps sounded in the kitchen. She pulled free and vanished, while the cook, on the trail of the dribbling kettle, followed with maledictions. Kirk went on blowing idly into his flute and thinking. The girl had undoubtedly been missionary-taught and would have been missionary-married. What a lot of harm those fellows did under their earnest and impossible struggle for purity and Tightness. Left to herself Ooket would have stayed with her kind; been swapped back and forth, possibly, and none the worse for it. Now … the Lord help her.

During the time the Patrol spent at Macpherson Kirk did not in any way assist the Lord. When Ooket showed a desire to enter his amusements he did not prevent her, partly from indifference and partly from the pleasure of angering Olafssen who complained to everyone but Kirk. Since their fight he had not cared to interfere personally with Kirk.

"Well, get right along with her and don't talk any more nonsense," said Boone, Sergeant in charge, at last. "You can't blame a man if he will pass the time o' day with her, 'specially since she has a rather coming-on disposition, like most Injun girls. You get off with her right now, Olafssen."

"I go wi' de Dawson Patrol," said Olafssen, sullenly.

"All right. They're leaving in the morning." Boone looked down the long yard dim with blue mist where the loaded and covered sleds lay like seals on the tramped snow. A few men were still at work, blowing on their fingers as they thrust the stiffened hide-lacings through the eye-holes of the canvas-page 51covers, and from the corral came the barking of the dogs, answering a coyote somewhere back along the river. "Regard's goin' too, you know, so you've only yourself to blame if you find more trouble."

"Don' like Regard," said Olafssen.

His English was poor and he confined himself to short sentences. He stood like a clumsy animal in his furs, peering with small eyes. In his red pendant ears the round brass rings worn by many sailors seemed ridiculous, Boone thought. He said sharply:

"Well, an' I guess he don't like you any, neither. You kip out of his way."

Emerson, the Dawson Sergeant who had awaited the Patrol at Macpherson, had bought there a team of young dogs which Kirk was to drive back. He had trouble in starting them, and the Patrol, accompanied by Olafssen's outfit, was already out of sight before he mushed off down the river, leaning against the light wind as though he loved it, running beside the big Labrador team like a hare.

"He'll have to quit that when he gets along a piece," said a Corporal, watching. But the cook laughed, going back to his pans. "Reckon he won't quit till he's caught up on Ooket," he thought.

Kirk had no intention of quitting. He never loved loneliness, and the world was enormous to-day, with a diffused light that perverted distance, bringing near the sullen mountains until they seemed to stoop, lending an interested ear for his coming, and removing as though they fled in fear the little spruces beside the river although he could plainly smell their piney fragrance. Before him the trail where so many runners had passed wound steel-grey and he felt a curious reluctance to follow it. Grim and bare-toothed as a trap it looked, with the life that gave it meaning out of sight ahead among the snow-swollen heights and hollows.

Now the Fort with its warmth and jollity was sunk behind page 52and in all the vast and motionless universe there was nothing but the tiny black bunch of specks that was a dog-team and Kirk Regard. Thinking this Kirk was on his guard immediately. A man must not make these comparisons among mountains. Mountains were too strong. They took advantage unless one was of the elect and earth-bound like the prospector or animal-bound like the lone hunter. Kirk was neither. He needed humanity with him to ward-off the unconscious dread of the unseen that always lay darkly in his heart, but with a mate there was nowhere he would not go. Seeking his mates now he hurried up the dogs, fancying that in this silence his voice fell back on him like a stone, and choking down that fancy. He would surely overtake the Patrol before nightfall. Surely they would wait….

Among the great splayed marks of snowshoes he saw occasionally the prints of Ooket's light moccasined feet and, defying the silence, sang love-songs to them, feeling that he challenged Olafssen. When they all sat together over the camp-fires that night he would sing them again:

"Egypt! If you don't want rne
Why will you haunt me
The way you do!"

But he had almost forgotten what Ooket looked like already.

With a preoccupied air the mountains drew shadows about their feet. Their heads never ceased to watch him. Occasionally they sighed. It grew colder. The pallid lights thinned and faded. In the shadows the dogs stumbled and whined. They were unused to his handling and would not steady down. Kirk accepted the inevitable and made camp in a clump of balsams for the night. Like every man he had food for himself and his dogs, but without a tent a long trek would be impossible and the Patrol must certainly wait for him tomorrow. Even now, around their fires, they would be listening, expecting him to trek in. Nervously his tired limbs went tense page 53at the thought. He half rose. Maybe he could do it yet. But the black hollows ahead forbade, and he pulled the sleeping-bag over his head again.

It was the next mid-day before he found the cold ashes of the Patrol camp, and the sight drove him into sudden frenzy. He leapt along, lashing his team and shouting, with the crazy echoes flinging back from the sheer ironstone heights and rumbling off over the snowfields. Along the glacier-tops the sun was busy with javelins, stabbing and jabbing here and there as if seeking someone to kill. Kirk's sled, bouncing along the frozen trail, would be an attractive mark….

Presently he found himself talking aloud. "The silence," he said, "is excessive. With a good deal less of it there would still be too much." Then he caught himself up. If twenty-four hours could do this to him what would twenty-four days do? But that, of course, was unthinkable. If the Patrol did not wait at the next camp he would turn back. But it must wait, was probably waiting now. Certainly he would sit at their camp-fires that night. The grade was steep and the frozen trail slippery and uneven, so that he could not make such good time as the Patrol had done. He pushed on feverishly, urging the dogs; and slowly the long shadows drew up the long valleys and the intense hush deepened, and only the mountains seemed waiting in their age-long patience for the passing of this ephemeral life which dared intrude upon their reverie.

Kirk was exhausted, the blood throbbing in his ears when he made camp at last in the sheer darkness; coaxed a small fire out of a few willow-sticks and some moss and thawed out the whitefish for the dogs. They fell on the food, snarling. The snarling increased in his ears until it was the ancient cries of creatures heaving out of chaos, turning amid all this sullen negation of life upon themselves in a terrified fury of destruction. Memories that lie sunk in the brain-cells of us all were stirring; the insensate brutishness of flesh, the power of page 54winds, the cruelty of seas and rivers, the stealthy approach of the unseen. He had a sudden fear of looking over his shoulder; looked defiantly and saw nothing. Now it was at the other shoulder….

He began to sing ribald songs until the beat in his ears was a crazy jazz. He steeped himself in hot and lusty thoughts, warding off that silent pressure about him. He called up the dogs and wrestled with them in a passion to get his hands on something alive. With the first dimness of dawn he was off again, following Ooket's footmarks among the snowflakes beginning to fall. He had a furious feeling that Ooket owed him something because, nearer the wild than he, she would know none of its terrors.

The snow fell, wavering, reluctant, as though hesitating to soil itself with earth. At first Kirk cursed it, shook his fist at it, spat tobacco-juice upon its whiteness. Then, as he tired, a strange peace slowly possessed him. The jazz band died to the melody of the distant flutes; the drifting flakes took gracious shapes, had gleams of light as though unseen hands attended him with delicate tapers. There were rosy tints among the white, like the heaped masses of flowers—rhododendrons, azaleas—he had once seen in Kew Gardens. Their faint fragrance was in his nostrils and that immortal music in his ears. He felt himself climbing through clouds to the crest of heaven; giant-strong and secure. But there was still something to be done. He did it, with an effort, for his voice was blurred. "Lord," he said, "I'm a sinful man." And went on, rocking with weariness; now seeing the crystal wings of angels and now rivers of blood. All day he climbed, stiffened with cold, but still the dim peace held him. The trail had grown very faint and thin, yet it led him on, and it must have been midnight when he staggered into a sudden dark bluff of trees and saw a little red blink of fire in the heart of it.

He fell by the fire, forgetting even his dogs; and when a cup was put to his lips at last he said vaguely: "Who is it?"

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Somebody giggled, and he looked to see Ooket crouched over him like a small animal in her furs and about them both the dark trees standing sentinel. She chattered explanation but it took him some time to grasp that she and Olafssen had left the Patrol at the last camp. The trail he had followed since dawn had been theirs alone. He began to laugh.

"Why for?" demanded Ooket.

"Oh, nothin'. Ways back I thought I was Christian climbin' out of the slough, that's all. Where's Olafssen?"

"He going after caribou. I feeding your dogs. Kirk. Now I feeding you."

"Why did he leave the Patrol?"

"S'pose it me," she answered., peeping through her fingers.

"It would be." He stared at her. "And when he turns up it will be you again. I'm in a nice mess now. You little devil."

"Wah, wall," cried Ooket, outraged. She flung her arms round him. "I loving you, Kirk. I having very loving blood, me."

In her natural setting between the flame-flicker and the dark pines she was touched with enchantment. Kirk reached his lips to kiss her and almost in the act he slept again.

A blizzard beat the trees without when he woke, and such dawn as there was no more than made manifest the dark pines clotted with snow and the mighty fire where the huskies lay and Ooket was cooking bacon.

"Now we eating an' then we kissing," she said, cheerfully.

Kirk rose, shaking the stiffness from his limbs. He inspected his team, but Ooket had cared for them. He looked out through the thick defence of spruces to the whirling snow and then returned to the tent-fly stretched between branches by the fire.

"Well … I guess it's him an' me for it now. I can't go back and I can't go on for I don't know this trail. Damn you, Ooket."

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"I hoping he no come back," said Ooket, wiping greasy fingers on her furs.

"Yes. I know your morals all right. How'd we reach Dawson without him?"

"I knowing the trail. Injun trail. More short'n Patrol trail."

"The deuce you do!" Kirk was startled. This, then, was the trail which the Police had sought for years. The trail which Ferguson of Herschel and his men had lost their lives over a few years back. "How long this way?"

"Not knowing. Fif … twelf… ten days perhap."

"You Injuns never have any notion of time. Eat and sleep when there's food. Trek when there isn't. That's all life means to you."

He spoke savagely., venting his dismay on the woman as Adam did, as Lucifer presumably did, if we had the rights of that story. Through the day he was anxious and sullen, repelling Ooket and keeping his loaded Remington near at hand. Olafssen, no doubt, would shoot at sight, but it behoved Kirk to get his shot in first. And he must not shoot to kill, although Olafssen would have no such qualms.

The blizzard continued. It seemed to be in Kirk's brain, bewildering him. "It ain't fair," he said, several times, disclaiming responsibility. But in his heart he knew that it was quite fair. The angels he had invoked, had led him safely down his chosen path, but they were under no obligation to attend him further. As the second night drew in and Ooket became more urgent he knew that they did not so attend him.

"I hating Olafssen. Well, you know how it is, Kirk. He making me cross all taime an' I no liking be cross," she leaned to him with her dark fathomless eyes, the heritage of those centuries of cunning and patience which are the lot of the Indian woman. "Well, now, Kirk; s'pose you shooting Olafssen when him coming? Then I going Dawson with you all right."

"Maybe that's the morals of most women if they had the page 57spunk to say it. I guess I've done enough shootin' in my time, though. Nor I don't want to be bumped off by the Mounties for it, neither."

"Me never telling," said Ooket. She leaned against him, yawning. "I making up fire an' we go to bed," she said.

On the third day the storm passed and the sky was a clear pale-blue and the air like crystal. Kirk walked to a deep under-current of a sound that was not wind and ran out to the edge of the drifted snow to see a herd of caribou feeding up the opposite hill. He could hear clearly the stroke of the sharp hoof as it cut away the snow to bare the grey succulent reindeer-moss and the loose rattle of horns as the heads moved. The yellowish-dapple coats stood out like dirty smudges on the dead white of the snow and he ran back for his rifle. Fresh meat was probably going to save their lives now. He dropped a buck with his first shot, and the slow feeding movement became a lumbering rush as the herd raced down the valley in a cloud of snow that flew up like dust. Kirk went back complacently to Ooket.

"I'll take out the sled," he said, and then a sudden growling of the dogs turned him to see Olafssen stepping into the clearing.

"Wah, wah," remarked Ooket with a gesture that flung hope beyond the stars.

Olafssen fired at once. He had a full clip, and one bullet took the tip of Kirk's ear and another drilled his sleeve before Kirk could get his Remington up. Then there were no more shots, for Olafssen crumpled slowly without a word and lay at Kirk's feet.

"Wah, wah," whimpered Ooket like a coyote-pup. She crept to Olafssen, poking him with a soft finger. "Him going off dead," she announced with satisfaction.

"Dead my eye," said Kirk. He knelt, moving hurried hands over the still body. But he had seen too much death not to know it at once. The dogs moved about, stiff-legged and with page 58hackles up, scenting blood. Ooket stood up, brushing the snow from her furs.

"Him going off dead all right. Now we going Dawson," she said, cheerfully.

Kirk sat back on his heels staring. His attitude and tilted brows gave him something the appearance of a satyr, but he was a very distressed and rather frightened man. He had not meant to kill, but skill and instinct had been too strong. And now Olafssen was dead and he must go into Dawson and say so. He had very little pity for Olafssen. If the man had been a better shot it would have been Kirk who lay there … but Olafssen would have had more justification. Kirk saw already that his own plea would not be so simple. What was he doing in Olafssen's camp, this man who had never been known to lose a trail?

"Now we going off Dawson," chuckled Ooket.

Kirk glanced up at her. "Is that all you care?" He had a sudden crazy desire to laugh. It was for this little bitch that a man was dead and the life—almost certainly the liberty—of another man in danger. "Oh, hell," he said wearily, getting up. He had no thought of evading issues. His everyday unconscious building-up of character had rather inclined him to rush on them. He felt that impulse now.

"Well, get busy," he said to Ooket. "He's crow-bait all right and we'll have to plant him. Where's that shovel?"

"Ground too hard. Leaving him for the wolves," suggested Ooket, looking down on the dead face already frozen into its scowl of hatred.

"Well, by gum! I'd like to raise a little hell around you, my lady. Maybe it'd do you good. Here … get out of my way if you don't want me to step on you."

"Wah, wah …" Ooket threw herself on Kirk and was received by a cuff on the ear.

"Can't you wait till he's cold? Gosh, I don't wonder the missionaries get sick sometimes, seeing some of the material page 59they have to deal with. Well… go away from me if you don't like it. Where's that shovel?"

Even as Ooket he knew that Yukon soil freezes from three to four feet down in winter; but this pile of stones brought down by a long-past avalanche would at least give protection from the wolves. He worked furiously, clearing a trough, and when he came back Ooket had wrapped the dead man in his blanket and was striking the tent. She smiled at Kirk. His slap had pleased her better than Olafssen's jealous pawings, and she felt that she had achieved all the morality the Mission could have wished for by not considering Kirk as her husband while Olafssen lived.

"You my 'usbin now," she said, happily.

Kirk made no answer. The full current of his blood was directed toward the present. It was late when the maimed and ghostly ceremonial was over, but he would not spend the night near that dark cairn in the pines. Grimly he broke trail under Ooket's direction, sweating his devils out as best he might, and grimly he discouraged her over the camp-fires every night. The ghost of Olafssen did not stalk between them, for the times had used him to blood and slaughter in his youth. But other companions came. Companions that have walked with man out of the blind past and will go with him into the blind future, tormenting, staying him with all the long-begotten and forgotten knowledge of the centuries.

"If they shut me up for killing Olafssen I shall go mad," he said, knowing it quite surely. There were times when he could not bear the control of a hand. "Unless Ooket tells no one'd ever know," he said, watching her tramping ahead down the level of the valley. The trail was less difficult than that of the Patrol; the white walls and passes not so steep, the way more generous of trees. But he calculated that they must now be far behind the Patrol, and when they struck the route again who was to know they had ever been off it? Unless Ooket told….

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Still the mighty concourse of mountain-giants watched him, but he could defy them now. It was unaccountable the difference that Ooket made there, and yet it was true. He was all man now, with a man's hot life and longings and a man's dread of death. When they came at last to the Patrol route he had made up his mind and all the turbulence of his blood spoke for him when he sat the matter before Ooket at the mid-day halt.

"I know just where we are now, Ooket. Not ten miles out of Dawson. We mustn't come in together, you know, or we'll both be put in gaol."

"Wah, wah," said Ooket, startled. She had been much depressed by his treatment on the trail. But it was the way of men to be brutal then, and she was still ready to be friends. "But I want you for my 'usbin."

"I couldn't be your husband if we were jugged. And that's what would happen. No. We must part now, my girl, and if ever you let out a chirp about this you'll have all the Mounties in Yukon after you with claws. See?"

"I must talk," protested Ooket, dropping her strip of pemmican.

"Sure. I'll tell you what to talk. Now, listen. There'll be Indians passing all the time now, and you'll go into Dawson with them. And you'll say you quarrelled with Olafssen and he went off. And as he didn't come back you went on alone. That's safe and sense. You're not to bring me in. You never saw me on the trail. Remember that."

Ooket sat sulkily silent. Kirk went over and relaced the lashing on his sled. Coming down a frozen creek to the right was a straggling handful of Indians on their way to Dawson. He hurried back.

"Ooket! I don't want to mess up your thoughts—if you have any. But I want to know if you understand."

"I never seeing you," said Ooket, crossly. "And Olafssen not coming back. If I say seeing you you go in prison."

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"Sure. And you too. We'd never see each other again."

"Wah, wah. We seeing each now, Kirk?"

"Sure. Some day. Now, on you go and join those nitches comin' down that draw. I shall beat it. They mustn't see me."

He drew a long breath as she mushed obediently away. He had no fear of Ooket, for your true Indian always prefers not to tell, even without a reason. Those imponderable ranges would keep their secret, although the Police might—and would —inquire for Olafssen later. No white man knew that trail and what an Indian found on it he would keep to himself. When Kirk reached Dawson he had only to tell the Patrol that he'd fallen in with Indians and come on with them. "I'm safe," he said, turning back on the trail until the Indians were past. It was, he felt, as simple as all that.

He mushed into Dawson two nights later, passing with another knot of hunters by the Klondyke with its heaps of shingle monstrous under the moon, and so up to the Barracks. He felt older and yet in some way stronger than when he had left the town. He had had his wrestle with Fate and beaten her, and a strange excited defiance was on him still.

Plume met him at the door; peered beyond him; stared.

"My! You've made quick time," he said. "Killed off the others, have you?"

"What d'you mean? Aren't they here?"

"Nary one of 'em. How should they? You're two days ahead of schedule. What the—— Gosh A'mighty, Regard! You've found that Injun trail! I might ha' guessed you would. And the others wouldn't try it, eh? Well, son; you will lead the Patrol over it next year sure's you live. Say…. What you laughin' at that way? …"