"Then you're quite sure, Jack? You don't mind my being a--nobody?" The
girl's tone was half-playful, half-sad. There was a note of wistfulness
in the musical cadences of her voice.
The young man whom she had addressed answered with an emphasis that left
no doubt as to his sincerity. His clear gray eyes were alight with love,
as he looked into the dark, gypsy-like face of the girl at his side.
"Why, Nell, you're just everybody. You're everything worth while in this
little old world of ours."
"You do say the sweetest things, Jack!" The shadowy eyes that met
tenderly the warm gaze of the lover were lighted with fond appreciation.
Then, of a sudden, the red lips trembled into a mischievous smile, as
she added: "I guess I wouldn't give a snap for a sweetheart who was
tongue-tied when he talked about my charms."
The two were seated in the main room of a small, roughly-built Alaskan
cabin, which stood on the outskirts of a ramshackle village, created
almost in a day by the gold lure's magic. The lovers had been left alone
together on the eve of their wedding-day by the kindness of the girl's
foster parents, Mr. and Mrs. Ross. It was of these, who, in the tiny
back room, were recalling the distant days of their own courtship, that
Nell now spoke.
"They have been so good to me!" she said musingly. "I've told you that
they were not really and truly my parents. I didn't tell you just how I
came to be with them, because it was such a dreadful time to me. Even
after all these years, I hate thinking of it."
"Don't!" Jack Reeves urged. "What's past is past, and there's no earthly
reason for you to worry yourself over it by telling me."
The girl shook her head.
"I want to tell you, dear," she said simply. Then she fell silent for a
little. The lover, watching the warm olive contour of the cheek against
which the long black lashes swept as her eyes closed in meditation,
rejoiced yet once again in the beauty and the daintiness of this maiden
whom he had found and won for himself here amid the rigors of the
Northland. He noted the slight drooping of the tenderly curving lips,
and longed to kiss away their sadness. Presently Nell went on speaking,
rather rapidly, as if anxious to be done with an unpleasant task, and in
a tone that told of restrained emotion:
"It was twelve years ago that Papa and Mamma Ross found me. You know
Papa Ross is a born pioneer, and Mamma has grown to be just like him.
For years they have been moving with the frontiers. That time they were
camping by a river down below. There had been a heavy storm, and the
river ran high. They heard a cry from somewhere out in the night on the
water. They ran to the bank and looked. But it was dark, and they
couldn't see anything or hear another sound. Rover was with them--a
splendid big Newfoundland." The girl's voice softened. "Rover died two
years ago, just before we came up here. I loved him so!"
"I think I can guess," Jack ventured, as the girl paused. "It was Rover
who saved you--for, of course, it was you out there in the river."
The girl nodded somberly.
"Yes," came her answer, very gently uttered; "I was out there in the
river, drowning. The current swept me along with it. There was a point
of the shore just below where Papa Ross had camped. I was carried into
the eddies there. Somehow, Rover caught a glimpse of my face, or, maybe,
just his instinct guided him. Anyhow, as Papa Ross has told me, Rover
sprang into the river, and, when Papa Ross had followed around the inlet
toward the point, he found the dog trying to drag me out of the water,
up on the bank. Papa Ross carried me to the camp, and there he and Mamma
worked over me for a long time. It was a close call, Papa Ross says,
but finally they got me to breathing again.... And that's about all."
"And so," Jack questioned in some surprise, "you don't know any more
than that?--where you came from, or anything?"
Once again Nell shook her head.
"No, nothing more than that. Papa Ross always thought that I must have
struck my head somehow, there in the water. Anyhow, I was confused when
I came to. I couldn't seem to remember anything exactly--except my name,
Nell. Sometimes I have shadowy memories, but they melt away before I can
get anything definite. So, you see, I'm just a nobody, Jack, as I told
you--just a mystery that came out of the night and the river."
"Everybody to me," the lover declared again; "everything to me." And
now, at last, he took the lithe, slender form of the girl into his arms,
and kissed the sorrowfully drooping lips to smiles again.
But, after a little, when there came a lull in the caresses and murmured
endearments, Jack Reeves spoke a question that was puzzling him:
"But I should think it would have been easy enough to trace you? If
inquiries had been made, surely you might have learned where you came
from, and who you were, and all that?"
But, once again, Nell shook her head, and this time very emphatically.
"Papa Ross did what he could, but it came to nothing. When we got to a
town, he tried to find out about any girl's being lost like that. Nobody
knew of any such case. There was no report of any child's having been
drowned. He did what he could--I'm sure of that. Anyhow, as long as you
don't care, Jack, I don't suppose I need to. But, somehow--" Nell's
voice broke, and she sat silent, absorbed in melancholy reverie. Always,
this mystery was a painful thing to her. Even now, when her happiness
was full, on the eve of her marriage to the man she loved, she was
grieved by the fact that she must come to her husband as a waif, a
creature whose origin was unknown, a nameless bit of flotsam, dragged
from the river by a dog. Then, in another moment, the depression of her
mood was forgotten as she drew away from Jack's embrace, for she heard
Papa Ross stamping heavily about the back room of the cabin--in kindly
warning that he was about to intrude upon the lovers.
* * * * *
The next morning broke clear, and when at last the slowly clambering sun
rose to traverse its short circle between the horizons, its slanting
beams seemed full of warmth and good cheer, though the mercury stood at
twenty degrees below zero. There was not a breath of wind, and the chill
air, pure with a purity unknown to lower latitudes, was like the wine of
life. The breath of it in the lungs set the blood a-tingle with
joyousness. And the purity of the air had for its background the visible
purity of the snow-mantle that lay over everything. Beneath the sun, the
white expanse shimmered in prismatic brilliance. Afar, the mountains
loomed in purple masses--the green of conifers seen through the vista
of many miles.
And the day, in its spirit of vigorous life and wholesome gayety, was
suited to the mood of the tiny temporary town, which sprawled here in
the wilderness. For the place was en fete. The hardy men who had thus
ventured into the wilds of the North welcomed the diversion of this
romance among them, which was to culminate to-day in the wedding of Jack
Reeves and Nell Ross at the Dyea Hotel. Public sentiment had insisted
that the nuptials should be celebrated at the hotel. The hotel, truth to
tell, was neither commodious nor imposing. But it was a boarded
structure, the only one in the village, and it was by far the largest,
small though it was. And the citizens were determined that they should
be permitted to assemble in force on this auspicious day, when the
glamour of love was to soften in some degree the austerity of the arctic
land. So, betimes, the men of the community gathered at the hotel to
await the marriage ceremony. A scant half-dozen women, courageous
followers of the men they loved, were there as well. Some had been at
pains to bring heaps of evergreen boughs, and with these the main room
of the hotel--at once lobby, bar and office--was decorated. Caribou Bill
brought a great bank of moss, for which he had dug through six feet of
snow. To it was attached a piece of flaming-red paper, in which tea had
originally been packed, and this paper had been laboriously cut by
Caribou Bill into the shape of two hearts, lovingly joined as one. The
symbol of wedded happiness was established by its smirking inventor on
the central shelf above the bar, where it commanded the enthusiastic
admiration of the populace.
It was noon to the second when Nell Ross and Jack Reeves stood in the
center of the main room of the hotel before the one who was to make them
man and wife. He, too, was at heart a pioneer, and he was, as well, an
earnest worker for the saving of souls. His own preference, with a
roving commission, had brought him to this remote place. He found a
singular pleasure in the fact that his ministrations were required for
the uniting of this winsome maiden and this virile, clean young man. It
was as if the ceremony typified in some fashion the purity and vigor of
life here within the frozen North.... It was noon to the second! The
time-keeper was Harry, the Dog-Man, who carried a Waterbury watch, on
the accuracy of which he would cheerfully have staked his hopes of
eternal happiness. Because of the exactness of his time-piece, which
none cared to deny, he had usurped the office of master of ceremonies.
When he saw the two hands of the watch blent as one upon the hour of
twelve, he raised his arm, and Nell and Jack moved forward within the
little lane walled by the crowd, to stand before the clergyman, who
regarded them with a benevolent smile, in which, unknown to himself, was
something almost of envy in the presence of their youth and happiness
and love.
So, the minister spoke the words that made this pair husband and wife.
There was a noise of snapping dogs outside. A man came into the hotel,
stamping the snow from the high-buckled overshoes worn over his boots of
felt. Behind him came a woman muffled in furs. She looked on the scene
with a certain feminine interest, for she realized at once that a
wedding was in progress; but without any personal concern. Indeed, she
was rather displeased, being weary from a long journey over the snows,
because she saw that she must wait for attention until the ceremony
should be concluded. The man with her shook the hood of the parka from
his head, and stood regarding with cynical amusement the two who had
clasped hands before the clergyman. So he waited while the words were
uttered that made the pair one. The ceremony ended, the husband kissed
the bride; the minister in turn bent and touched his lips to hers, with
a curious stirring of half-forgotten emotions.
Then the crowd surged forward, eager for its prerogative of a kiss. And,
as she turned, Nell saw the man who had just entered, standing there
with that smile of cynical amusement upon his handsome face. The eyes of
the two met and battled. There came to her a strange feeling of dread.
In this, the supreme moment of her life, wherein all had been happiness,
there stirred a feeling of doubt, of evil anticipation.
The man, staring into the face of this beautiful girl upon whose
nuptials he had stumbled by chance, experienced a thrill of emotion
which he could not understand. Some secret monition moved him to an
alarm. He felt an unreasonable disturbance in the presence of this
girl.... Dan McGrew had no suspicion that he had blundered thus on the
child who, years before, had been swept away from him in the darkness of
the river's flood-tide.... Nor did the woman, who stood behind him so
wearily, waiting for the end of this tiresome ceremony, guess that the
gentle girl, blushing there under the storm of kisses claimed by the
crowd, was, in fact, the daughter for whose death she had mourned
through so many years.... Nell did not see the woman at all.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "THEY'VE STRUCK IT RICH ON FORGOTTEN CREEK!"]
Of a sudden there came an interruption:
A man leaped through the doorway. He waved his hands and staggered as
one drunken. His voice rose in a raucous shriek:
"They've struck it rich on Forgotten Creek!"
There was a moment of intense stillness. These men had fled from
civilization in pursuit of the will-o'-the-wisp of gold. Now sounded the
clarion call:
"They've struck it rich on Forgotten Creek!"
[Illustration: THESE MEN HAD FLED FROM CIVILIZATION IN PURSUIT OF THE
WILL-'O-THE WISP OF GOLD.]
For long seconds the stillness endured. Then, abruptly, there came a
huge cachinnation. It was the mellow, roaring laughter of Bert Black,
the only negro in this Aladdin village so close up under the Pole. The
company looked at the man expectantly, and he answered the interrogation
in their eyes:
"We-all is just shohly goin' to have a stampede!"
Then, again, the silence held for a little, while each and every man of
them saw the vision of the straggled crowd trailing the waste places,
lured on by the will-o'-the-wisp of gold.