ANTHEA GROWS ANXIOUS
The afternoon was hot, but Jordan failed to notice it as he swung along,
as fast as he could go without actually running, down a street in
Vancouver. He walked in the glaring sunlight, because there was more
room there, as everybody else was glad to seek the shadow cast across
one sidewalk by the tall stores and offices, and he appeared unconscious
of the remarks flung after him by the irate driver of an express wagon
which had almost run over him. Jordan was one of the men who are always
desperately busy, but there were reasons why his activity was a little
more evident than usual just then. His associates had contrived to raise
sufficient money to purchase a boat to take up the _Shasta_'s usual
trip, but the finances of the Company were in a somewhat straitened
condition as the result of it, and he was beset with a good many other
difficulties of the kind the struggling man has to grapple with.
For all that, he stopped abruptly when he saw Forster's driving-wagon, a
light four-wheeled vehicle, standing outside a big dry-goods store. He
was aware that Mrs. Forster seldom went to Vancouver without taking
Eleanor with her, which appeared sufficient reason for believing that
the girl was then inside the store. If anything further were needed to
indicate the probability of this, there was a well-favored and very
smartly-dressed man standing beside the wagon, and Jordan's face grew
suddenly hard as he looked at him. As it happened, the man glanced in
his direction just then, and Jordan found it difficult to keep a due
restraint upon himself when he saw the sardonic twinkle in his eyes. It
was more expressive than a good many words would have been.
Jordan had for some time desired an interview with him, but,
warm-blooded and somewhat primitive in his notions upon certain points
as he was, he had sense enough to realize that he was not likely to gain
anything by an altercation in a busy street, which would certainly not
advance him in Eleanor's favor. Besides this, it was probable that
somebody would interfere if he found it necessary to resort to physical
force. Jordan, who was by no means perfect in character, had, like a
good many other men brought up as he had been in the forests of the
Pacific Slope, no great aversion to resorting to the latter when he
considered that the occasion warranted it.
Still, he held himself in hand, and strode into the store where, as it
happened, he came upon Mrs. Forster. There was a faint smile in her eyes
when she turned to him, for she was a lady of considerable discernment;
but she held out her hand graciously. She liked the impulsive man.
"It is some time since we have seen anything of you," she said.
"That," said Jordan, "is just what I was thinking, though it's quite
likely there are people who wouldn't let it grieve them. In fact, I was
wondering whether you would mind if I asked myself over to supper with
your husband this evening?"
Mrs. Forster laughed.
"I really don't think it would trouble me very much, and I have no doubt
that Forster would enjoy a talk with you," she said. "I wonder whether
you know that Mr. Carnforth is coming?"
"I do;" and Jordan looked at her steadily with a trace of concern in his
manner. "In fact, that was one of my reasons for asking you."
The lady shook her head. "So I supposed," she said. "Still, while
everybody is expected to know his own business best, I'm not sure you're
wise. You see, I really don't think Eleanor is very much denser than I
am, though you can tell her you have my invitation to supper."
Jordan, who expressed his thanks, strode across the store and came upon
Eleanor standing by a counter with several small parcels before her. She
turned at his approach, and he found it difficult to believe that his
appearance afforded her any great pleasure. While he gathered up the
parcels, she made him a little imperious gesture, and they moved away
toward a quieter part of the big store. Then she turned to him again.
"Charley," she said sharply, "what are you doing here?"
"I saw Forster's wagon outside, and that reminded me that it was at
least a week since I had seen you."
Eleanor smiled somewhat curiously, for it was, of course, clear to her
that he could not have seen the wagon without seeing Carnforth too.
"And?" she said.
"I'm coming over to supper with Forster. You don't look by any means as
pleased as one would think you ought to be."
The girl appeared disconcerted. "I should sooner you didn't come
to-night."
"Of course!" said Jordan. "I can quite believe it."
A tinge of color crept into Eleanor's face, and there was now nothing
that suggested a smile in the sparkle in her eyes. "Pshaw!" she said.
"Charley, don't be a fool!"
"I'm not," said Jordan slowly. "That is, I don't think I am, in the way
you mean. In fact, though it shouldn't be necessary, I want to say right
now that I have every confidence in you."
"Thanks! There are various ways of showing it. You haven't chosen one
that appeals to me."
Jordan flung out one hand. "After all, I'm human--and I don't like that
man."
"You are. Now and then you are also a little crude, which is probably
what you mean. Still, that's not the question. I think I mentioned that
I should sooner you didn't come to supper this evening."
The gleam in her pale-blue eyes grew plainer, and it said a good deal
for Jordan's courage that he persisted, since most of Eleanor's
acquaintances had discovered that it was not wise to thwart her when she
looked as she did then.
"I'm afraid I can't allow that to influence me, especially as Mrs.
Forster expects me."
"Very well!" and Eleanor's tone was dry. "You may carry those parcels to
the wagon."
Jordan did so, and felt his blood tingle when Carnforth favored him with
a glance of unconcerned inquiry. There was a suggestive complacency in
his faint smile that was, in the circumstances, intensely provocative,
but Jordan contrived to restrain himself. Then Mrs. Forster and Eleanor
came out, and the latter took the parcels from him.
"Four of them?" she said. "You haven't dropped any?"
Jordan did not think he had, and the girl pressed one or two of the
parcels between her fingers. "Then I wonder where the muslin is?"
"I guess they can tell me in the store," said Jordan.
He swung around, and in a moment or two was back at the counter. The
clerk there, however, had to refer to one of her companions, and, as the
latter was busy, Jordan had to wait a minute or two.
"I wrapped up the muslin with the trimming," she said at last. "Miss
Wheelock had four parcels, and I saw you take up all of them."
Jordan turned away with an unpleasant thought in his mind, and was out
of the store in a moment. There was, however, no wagon in the street,
and after running down most of it he stopped with a harsh laugh.
Forster's team was a fast one, and Jordan realized that it was very
unlikely that he could overtake it, especially when Eleanor, who usually
drove, did not wish him to. After all, her quickness and resolution in
one way appealed to him, and he remembered that he had promised to dine
with Austerly that evening. Still, he went back to his business feeling
a trifle sore, and one or two of the men who called on him noticed that
his temper was considerably shorter than usual.
He had, in fact, not altogether recovered his customary good-humor when
he sat on the veranda of Austerly's house some hours later. The meal
which Austerly insisted on calling dinner, though he had found it
impossible to get anybody to prepare it later than seven o'clock in the
evening, was over, and the rest of the few guests were scattered about
the garden. Valentine, who had arrived in the _Sorata_ a day or two
earlier, sat at the foot of the short veranda stairway close by the
lounge chair where Nellie Austerly lay looking unusually fragile, but
listening to the bronzed man with a quiet smile. Austerly leaned on the
balustrade, and Anthea sat not far from Jordan. She was, as it happened,
looking out through a gap in the firs which afforded her a glimpse of
the shining Inlet. A schooner crept slowly across the strip of water, on
her way to the frozen north with treasure-seekers.
"She seems very little," said Anthea. "One wonders whether she will get
there, and whether the men on board her will ever come back again."
"The chances are against it," said Austerly. "It is a long way to St.
Michael's, and one understands that those northern waters are either
wrapped in fog or swept by sudden gales. Besides that, it must be a
tremendous march or canoe trip inland, and before they reach the gold
region the summer will be over. One would scarcely fancy that many of
them could live out the winter. In fact, it seems to me scarcely
probable that the Yukon basin will ever become a mining district.
Nature is apparently too much for the white man there. What is your
opinion, Jordan?"
Jordan smiled, though there was a snap in his eyes.
"It seems to me you don't quite understand what kind of men we raise on
the Slope," he said. "Once it's made clear that the gold is there,
there's no snow and ice between St. Michael's and the Pole that would
stop their getting in. When they take the trail those men will go right
on in spite of everything. You have heard what their fathers did here in
British Columbia when there was gold in Caribou? They hadn't the C.P.R.
then to take them up the Fraser, and there wasn't a wagon-road. They
made a trail through the wildest canyons there are on this earth, and
blazed a way afterward, over range and through the rivers, across the
trackless wilderness. It was too big a contract for some of them, but
they stayed with it, going on until they died. The others got the gold.
It was a sure thing that they would get it. They had to."
"Just so!" said Austerly, with a smile. "Still, if I remember correctly,
they were not all born on the Pacific Slope. Some of them, I almost
think, came from England."
"They did," said Jordan, who for no very evident reason glanced in
Anthea's direction. "The ones who got there were for the most part
sailormen. They and our bushmen are much of a kind, though I'm not quite
sure that the hardest hoeing didn't fall to the sailor. He hadn't been
taught to face the forest with nothing but an axe, build a fire of wet
wood, or make a pack-horse bridge; but he started with the old-time
prospectors, and he went right in with them. It's much the same
now--steam can't spoil him. When a big risky thing is to be done
anywhere right down the Slope, that's where you'll come across the man
from the blue water."
He stopped a moment as if for breath, with a deprecatory gesture. "There
are one or two things that sure start me talking. It's a kind of useless
habit in a man who's shackled down to his work in the city, but I can't
help it. Anyway, the men who are going north won't head for St.
Michael's and the Yukon marshes much longer. They'll blaze a shorter
trail in from somewhere farther south right over the coast range. It
won't matter that they'll have to face ten feet of snow."
Neither of the other two answered him, but the fact that they watched
the fading white sails of the little schooner had its significance.
There was scarcely a man on the Pacific Slope whose thoughts did not
turn toward the golden north just then, and one could notice signs of
tense anticipation in all the wooden cities. The army of
treasure-seekers had not set out yet, but big detachments had started,
and the rest were making ready. So far there was little certain news,
but rumors and surmises flew from mouth to mouth in busy streets and
crowded saloons. It was known that the way was perilous and many would
leave their bones beside it, and though, as Jordan had said, that would
not count if there were gold in the land to which it led, men waited a
little, feverishly, until they should feel more sure about the latter
point.
By and by Austerly, who spoke to Valentine, went down the stairway, and
Anthea smiled when the latter, after walking a few paces with him,
turned back again to where Nellie Austerly was lying.
"There are things it is a little difficult to understand," she said.
"Valentine has, perhaps, seen Nellie three or four times since she left
the _Sorata_, and yet, as no doubt you have noticed, he will scarcely
leave her. She would evidently be quite content to have him beside her
all evening, too."
"You didn't say all you thought," and Jordan looked at her gravely. "You
mean that the usual explanation wouldn't fit their case. That, of
course, is clear, since both of them must realize that she can't expect
to live more than another year or so. I naturally don't know why she
should take to Valentine; but I have a fancy from what Jimmy said that
she reminded him of somebody. What is perhaps more curious still, I
think she recognizes it, and doesn't in the least mind it."
"Somebody he was fond of long ago?"
Jordan appeared to consider. "That seems to make the thing more
difficult to understand? Still, I'm not sure it does in reality. He is
one of the men who remember always, too. He would not want to marry her
if she were growing strong instead of slowly fading. It would somehow
spoil things if he did."
"Of course!" said Anthea slowly. "In any case, as you mentioned, it
would be out of the question. But how----"
Jordan checked her, with a smile this time. "How do I understand? I
don't think I do altogether; I only guess. A man who lived alone at sea
or on a ranch in the shadowy bush might be capable of an attachment of
that kind, but not one who makes his living in the cities. One can't get
away from the material point of view there."
He broke off, and sat still for a minute or two, for though it was clear
that Anthea had no wish to discuss that topic further, he felt that she
had something to say to him.
"Mr. Jordan," she asked at last, "have you had any news about the
_Shasta_?"
Jordan's face clouded, but he did not turn in her direction, for which
the girl was grateful.
"No," he said, "I have none. As perhaps you know, she should have turned
up two or three weeks ago."
It was a moment or two before he glanced around, and then Anthea met his
gaze, in which, however, there was no trace of inquiry.
"You are anxious about her?" she asked.
"I am, a little. It is a wild coast up yonder, and they have wilder
weather. The charts don't tell you very much about those narrow seas.
One must trust to good fortune and one's nerve when the fog shuts down.
That," and he smiled reassuringly, "was why I sent Jimmy."
Anthea felt her face grow warm, but she looked at him steadily.
"Ah!" she said, "you believe in him. Still, skill and nerve will not do
everything."
"They will do a great deal, and what flesh and blood can do, one can
count on getting from the _Shasta_'s skipper. I believe"--and he lowered
his voice confidentially--"Jimmy will bring her back again. That's why I
sent her up there less than half-insured. Premiums were heavy, and we
wanted all our money. Still, if he does not, I know he will have made
the toughest fight--and that will be some relief to me. You see, I'm
fond of Jimmy--and I'm talking quite straight with you."
There was a hint of pain in the girl's face, and she realized that it
was there, but his frankness had had its effect on her. It suggested a
sympathy she did not resent, and she smiled at him gravely.
"Thank you!" she said. "There is another thing I want to ask, Mr.
Jordan. If you get any news of the _Shasta_, will you come and tell me?"
"Within the hour," said Jordan, and Anthea, who thanked him, rose and
turned away.
Jordan, however, sat still, gazing straight in front of him
thoughtfully, for, though she had perhaps not intended this, the girl's
manner had impressed him. He fancied that he knew what she was feeling,
and that she had in a fashion taken him into her confidence. It was also
a confidence that he would at any cost have held inviolable. Then he
rose with a little dry smile.
"She is clear grit all through," he said. "And her father is the ------
rogue in all this Province."