THE CHEECHAKOS
The man was standing at the edge of the river landing gazing out across
the broad waters as they drifted slowly by, a calm, gentle flood
undisturbed by the rushing freshet of spring, which had already spent
its turbulent life leaving the sedate Hekor embraced in the gentler arms
of advancing summer.
The landing was little better than a wreck. The green log piles were
awry. There were rifts where last summer’s timbers had been carried
bodily away by the crash of ice at winter’s break up. For the annual
rebuilding necessitated by the tremendous labour at the birth of the
Arctic spring had been dispensed with. There was no longer any need for
it.
The man’s gaze was far-searching. It was seriously ruminating. Perhaps,
even, it was regretful. For he knew that in a few hours all that he had
looked out upon for the past seven years would lay behind him, possibly
never to be looked upon again.
The mile-wide river lay open to the caressing sunlight. It was unshaded
anywhere. The far bank rose in a gentle slope, a perfect carpet of wild
flowers, and beyond, as the valley rose upwards, the shimmer of summer
heat bathed the purpling distance in an almost dazzling haze. Away to
his left, beyond the waters, stood the dark spread of Fox Bluff, which
gave the place its name, a wide stretch of tattered forest, isolated on
an undulating plain many miles in extent. And the ruins of the old
Mission House, long since burned out by the Euralian marauders, still
stood gaunt and bare, a monument to the tragedy that was now some
fifteen years old.
Behind him, well above the highest water level of the river, the staunch
walls of the stockade of old Fort Cupar still sheltered the frame
building which was about to be abandoned. But already the place had
assumed something of the lifelessness which human desertion leaves in
its wake. There were no Eskimo encampments gathered about its timbers.
There were no columns of smoke arising from camp fires. The familiar
yelp of trail dogs, and the shrill voices of native children were
silent. There was no life anywhere but in the presence of the man on the
landing, and in that of the girl clad in native buckskin standing beside
him, and in the slow movements of five Indians and half-breeds who,
under the guidance of the factor, were completing the stowage of cargo
in the three canoes moored to the derelict landing.
It was the day of the great retreat. It was the final yielding after
years of struggle. It was the giving up of that last thread of hope
which is the most difficult thing in human psychology.
Old Ben Needham was more than reluctant. He was a hard-bitten fur-trader
of the older school. A man of force and wide experience. A man bred to
the work, acute, rough, and not too scrupulous. He had been born in the
Arctic, schooled in the Arctic, and only when the needs of his trade
demanded had he ever passed out of that magic circle. He was a man
approaching sixty, full of an aggressive fighting spirit which usually
modifies in men of advancing years. And he knew that he was about to
acknowledge complete defeat after seven years of battling against
invisible odds. He knew that the company had selected him out of all
their army of servants to attempt the rehabilitation of the fortunes of
Fort Cupar, and he had utterly and completely failed. And so, as he
stood on the landing superintending the last removal of stores, and
contemplating the return with his story of failure to those who had sent
him on his forlorn hope, his mood was uneasy, his temper was sour and
inclined to violence.
The voice of the girl beside him roused him out of his contemplation of
the familiar scene.
“You need Mum here to put heart into you, Ben,” she said with a smile
that masked her own feelings. “You know, Mum’s the wisest thing in a
country where fools are dead certain to go under. She’d tell you there’s
nothing so bad in the world as flogging a dead mule. The feller who acts
that way most generally gets kicked to death by a live one. Which, I
guess, is only another way of saying it’s a fool’s game anyway.”
“Does she say that, Kid?”
The man turned from the scene that had so preoccupied him, and his
deep-set, hard grey eyes surveyed the speaker from beneath his bushy,
snow-white brows. For all his mood there was a sort of mild tolerance in
his tone.
The girl he addressed as Kid smiled blandly into his unresponsive face,
and her wide blue eyes were full of girlish raillery. For all the
sunburn on her rounded cheek, and the rough make of her almost mannish
clothing, or perhaps because of these things, she was amazingly
attractive. She was young. Something less than twenty. But she was tall,
taller than the broad figure of the man beside her. And there was
physical strength and vigour in her graceful girlish body.
She was clad in buckskin from her head to the reindeer moccasins on her
shapely feet. Her tunic, or parka, was tricked out with beads and narrow
fur trimmings in truly Indian fashion. And the leather girdle about her
slim waist supported a long sheath knife, much as the native hunters
were equipped. But she was white, with fair curling hair coiled in a
prodigal mass under her fur cap, with wide, smiling eyes that rivalled
the blue of the summer sky, and a nose as perfectly modelled, and lips
as warm and ripe as any daughter of the more southern latitudes. Her
manner was easy and self-reliant. It was full of that cool assurance
bred of the independence which the hard life of the Northland forces
upon its children. Nature had equipped her with splendid generosity, and
the man understood that her sex robbed her of nothing that could make
her his equal in understanding of the conditions in which their lives
were cast.
The girl laughed gaily.
“She says a whole lot of things, Ben,” she cried. “But then you see
she’s the mother of six bright kids who’re yearning to learn, and she
doesn’t guess to let them down, or have them tell her instead. Yes, she
said that sure, when we were wondering how your quitting was going to
fix us. You see, I’ve depended on your store for trade. I guess I was
the only supply of pelts that came your way. And you were the only
supply for our needs. Your folks are right,” she added, with a sigh.
“You can’t run a trading post to hand out to a bunch of kids the stuff
that makes life reasonable, and for the sake of the few bales of furs
we’re able to snatch before they fall into the hands of foreign
poachers. It was sure flogging a dead mule. But it’s going to be tough.
It’s going to be tough for us, as well as for you and your folk. I’ve
tried to look ahead and see what’s to be done, but I can’t see all I’d
like to. Mum reckons we’ll get through, but she leaves it to Providence
and me to say how.”
The man bit off a chew of tobacco and shouted some orders at the men
stowing the last of the stores. His words came forcefully amidst a
shower of harsh expletives. Then he turned again to the girl.
“I’d say your Mum’s as bright a woman as the good God ever permitted to
use up his best air,” he said, with a shake of his grey head. “But I
just can’t see how trading reindeer with the fool Eskimo up north’s
goin’ to feed a whole bunch of hungry mouths, and clothe a dandy outfit
of growin’ bodies right, if there ain’t a near-by market for your goods,
and a store to trade you the things you need. There ain’t a post from
here to Placer, which is more than three hundred and fifty miles by the
river. It kind o’ looks bad to me.”
“Yes.”
The smile had passed out of the girl’s eyes, and her fair brows had
drawn slightly together under the rim of her fur cap.
“You see, Kid,” the man went on, in a tone that was almost gentle for
all the natural harshness of his voice, “I’d be mighty glad to fix you
as right as things’ll let me. We’ve figgered on this thing all we know,
you and me, and you’ve a year’s store of canned goods and groceries by
you paid for by your last bunch of pelts. But after that—what?”
The swift glance of the Kid’s eyes took in the earnest expression of the
man’s rugged face. She realised his genuine concern in spite of all the
worries with which his own affairs beset him. And forthwith she broke
into a laugh that completely disarmed.
“We’ll need to feed caribou meat,” she said. “The farm’s plumb full of
it. Mum says the good God’s always ready to help those who help
themselves. And I guess the bunch at home’ll do that surely when they
find their vitals rattling in the blizzard. Don’t just worry a thing,
Ben. You’ve done the best for us, you know. For all the grouch you hand
out to most folk you’re white all thro’. You’re forgetting there’s Usak
and me. If it means Placer for trade and food for the bunch I guess
we’ll make it.”
The girl’s laugh, and her lightness of manner in her dismissal of the
threat overshadowing her future and that of those who were largely her
care made their talk easy. But there was seriousness and a great courage
lying behind it. She knew the nightmare this break up of her market was
to all those she cared for. But she had no intention of adding one
single moment of disquiet to the burden of the man’s concern for his own
future.
“But it’s a hell of a long piece, Kid,” the factor protested with a
shake of his shaggy grey head. “Couldn’t you folks quit too?”
The girl shook her head while her blue eyes were turned on the broad
expanse of water where it vanished in the south. Perhaps it was the
trend of their talk which had attracted her gaze in that direction.
“Surely we could quit if—we had the notion,” she said, after a moment’s
reflection. “But what if we did? I mean how would it help? Maybe I don’t
know. Placer? What if we made Placer where there’s food and trade? What
could we do? There’s Mum, and my six little brothers and sisters,
running up like a step-ladder from inches to feet. Then there’s Usak, an
Indian man who’s got no equal as a pelt hunter and trailman. Here we’re
lords over a limitless territory. We’ve a herd of deer that runs into
thousands, and reindeer are the beginning and end of everything to the
Eskimo, but wouldn’t be worth dog meat in Placer. Show me. I’m ready to
think. We can go on making out right here if we only make one trip a
year to Placer. If we quit, I guess there’d be nothing but the dance
halls of Placer you’ve told me about for me and my little sisters as
they grow up, while Usak, with a temper like a she-wolf, would run foul
of half the city in a week. No. You said a thing once to me, Ben, that’s
stuck in my stupid head since. What was it? ‘The North’s big, an’ free,
an’ open, an’ clean. The longer you know it the more you’ll curse it.
But the feller who’s bred to it can’t go back on it. There’s no place on
God’s earth for him outside it but the hell of perdition.’ I guess that
fits my notion of—Say, there’s an outfit coming up out of the south.”
The girl broke off.
She stood pointing out over the water where the river seemed to rise out
of the distance between two low hill breasts. A group of canoes,
infinitely small in the distance, had suddenly leapt into view.
The man became absorbed in the unaccustomed vision. He raised a gnarled
hand, broad and muscular for all its leanness, and shaded his eyes from
the sun-glare. After a moment he dropped it to his side. A grim, cynical
light shone in his eyes.
“Cheechakos,” he said in profound contempt.
“How d’you know?” The girl was full of that interest and curiosity bred
of the solitude in which she lived.
“They’re loaded down with truck so they look like swamping. It’s a big
outfit, an’ they look mighty like they’ve bought up haf the dry goods
the gold city can scratch together. Yes. They’re Cheechakos, sure. An’
they’re huntin’ the gold trail. I can locate ’em at a hundred miles.
I’ve seen ’em come, but most generally go, on every blamed river runnin’
north of Dawson.”
The girl laughed lightly.
“To listen to you, Ben, folk might guess you hadn’t feeling softer than
tamarack for a thing in the world. I want to laugh sure. Sometimes I
feel I could shake you till the bones rattled in your tough old body.
Then I remember. An’ I—I don’t want to do a thing but laff. If you’re
not through with your outfit, and beating it down the river by the time
those folk happen along I’ll gamble a caribou cow to a gopher you’ll be
handing them just anything you reckon they need, if it’s only the wise
old talk I know you’re full up to the brim with. You can’t bluff me.”
The girl shook her head and her eyes were full of a smiling, almost
motherly tenderness for the strong man of many years who was tasting the
bitterness of real defeat. She had known him from the day he first set
foot at Fort Cupar with that sort of family intimacy which is part of
the life of the great solitudes. She had been a child then. Now she was
a grown woman with a mind that was simply serious despite her ready
laugh, and a heart full of deep, womanly sympathy. All life and hope
still lay before her. This man had gone far beyond the meridian of both.
He was rapidly approaching those declining years with a great failure to
his credit, and she realised the tragedy of it.
“No,” he said. “I guess I can’t bluff you, Kid. You’re kind of nimble.”
His eyes were still on the approaching outfit. “I wonder,” he went on.
“That wise old talk you reckon I’m full of. Do you fancy me passing it
to you before I quit, instead of to that bunch of Cheechakos?”
The girl nodded with a twinkling smile.
“Sure,” she said. “I’d feel jealous you handing it to the others.”
Ben Needham laughed in that short, dry fashion which was his limit of
hilarious expression.
“Well, you best pull your freight out of here before that bunch of
Cheechakos come alongside. Ther’s a whole heap o’ things you know, but a
sight bigger heap of the things you don’t know. The junk that comes up
out of Placer is mostly junk, mean, human junk. The men of the gold
trail ain’t like the metal they’re chasing, except in the colour of
their livers. One of the things I haven’t figgered you’re wise to is
you’re a gal of nigh twenty, and you’ve a face that smiles like spring
sunshine, and the sort of eyes that makes a man feel like shooting up
the other feller. Do you get me? Beat it, my dear. You’ve a Mum, an’
you’ve got a dandy bunch of brothers an’ sisters. You’ve got a home way
out there on the Caribou River that ain’t ever known a thing but what a
good woman can make it. Wal, keep things that way. But you won’t do it
if the muck of the gold trail hits your tracks.”
The girl’s smile had passed as she watched the old man expectorate into
the clear waters at his feet. She remained completely silent while, in
an utterly changed tone, he hurled violent expletives at his workers.
She looked on while he passed down to where the lashings were being made
fast on the last canoe whose load had just been completed. When he came
back her thoughtful mood had passed, and her smile was supreme once
more.
“I’d wanted to see you start out, Ben,” she said gently. “You know it’s
hard not to be able to speed a real friend, when—when— But there, it’s
no use. The kids are needin’ me, so’s Mum, and Usak and the deer. You’re
so slow getting away I just can’t stop.” Her gaze wandered again to the
approaching outfit, and it was a little regretful, and something
wistful. “Are all the men of the gold trail tough? I mean are they just
all bad?”
The grey head denied her. The man’s cynical smile twinkled in his eyes.
“The men ain’t no better, an’ no worse than most of us,” he said slily.
“That is till they get the yellow fever of it all. When that gets around
they’re mighty sick folk till the fever passes. Guess your memory don’t
carry you back to the days when you weren’t more than knee-high to a
grasshopper. If it did maybe you’d be wise to the thing that’s got a
mighty big place in your dandy life. It’s gold. The yarns I’m told say
it was gold that robbed you of a father. It was gold that left you
helpless, feed for the coyotes that didn’t find you. It was gold,” he
went on, pointing across the river, “that left them burnt out sticks,
which one time was your rightful home. Gold, I guess, has played a
mighty tough part in your life, Kid, and maybe it ain’t goin’ to let up.
That’s the way of things. I’d say you ain’t done with gold yet. You see,
ther’s the story of that ‘strike’ your father made, an’—lost. No,” he
added thoughtfully. “It’s goin’ to come back on you. An’ that’s why I
say beat it. Don’t wait around for those folks comin’ up the river. They
got the fever bad, I guess, or they wouldn’t be makin’ a country that’s
cursed by the Euralian fur poachers. Yes. Beat it, Kid. Light out.
They’re comin’ right in.”
* * * * *
The swift stroke reached its length. The Kid lifted the paddle from the
water and laid it across the little vessel in front of her. Resting
against the paddling strut she craned round and gazed back over the
shining waters.
She had passed the wooded bend of the river, and the far-reaching
shelter of Fox Bluff completely shut her off from observation at the
Fort. The landing was hidden; so, too, were the three great canoes that
were to carry the defeated factor and his outfit down the river to those
who quite possibly would have no further use for his services.
Even the Fort itself, on the higher ground of the opposite bank, was no
longer visible.
The girl was satisfied. She returned to her labours, for the drift of
the stream had carried her canoe back some few yards.
It shot forward again, however, under the skilful strokes of her strong
young arms, and the water rippled and sang as it smote the sharp
cutwater that drove into it. Three miles farther on she had reached the
limits of the great woods, and the turbulent rapids came into view.
They were the rapids at the junction of the two rivers. It was here that
the Caribou River disgorged itself upon the flood of the greater river.
A wide litter of frothing, churning popple disported itself over the
shallows at the mouth of the invading stream. In the passage of time,
the Caribou had battled its way up out of the south-east. It had broken
into the sedate course of the Hekor diagonally, meeting its stream
defiantly. Final overwhelming had been its lot, in the process of which
a vast stretch of sheltering banks had been washed completely out and
transformed into treacherous shoals. It was the girl’s immediate
objective.
Again she ceased from her labours and gazed smilingly over the distant
view. It was alight with a lavish wealth of colour, the vivid hues of
Arctic blossoms with which the ripening sun of spring had set the whole
country ablaze. Her smile was full of girlish enjoyment. For she was
thinking of the wise, friendly, cynical old Ben Needham and his earnest
warning.
She was thinking of him in no spirit of ridicule, but she knew she meant
to disregard his warning utterly. It was the youth in her. It was the
girlish curiosity and a spirit of independence that urged her. The world
beyond was a sort of dream place of wonder to her; a book whose pages
were sealed lest her eyes should seek the things that were there
written. He had warned her that these folk coming up out of the south
were the Cheechakos of the gold trail. He was probably right, but at
least they were white folk who belonged to that world from which she was
wholly cut off. It was an opportunity she had no intention of missing.
She would transform herself into something resembling the creatures of
the shy world to which she belonged. She would lie hidden, and gaze upon
these strange and terrible people from another world, against whom she
had been so gravely warned.
She turned her little vessel sharply towards the bank of the river where
it rose high, and the last of Fox Bluff projected a dense mass of Arctic
willow which hung down, a perfect screen, till the delicate foliage
buried itself in the bosom of the stream. A few swift strokes of her
paddle and she passed from view behind it.
The nose of her vessel was securely resting on the sticky mud of the
bank. She had turned about. And now she sat waiting, peering out through
the foliage as might some hunted silver fox, whose pelt was one of the
chief objects of her trade. She gave no sign, she made no sound. She had
no intention of revealing her presence. But she would see for herself
the thing she must shun, the thing whose presence in her home she must
always deny.
It was a long waiting, but it mattered nothing. The daylight was almost
unending now, and anyway time had small enough bearing on the simple
affairs of her life. She had time for the indulgence of every whim, and
the youth in her prompted a full measure of such indulgence.
A happy excitement thrilled her. Everything that lifted her out of the
humdrum routine of her life on the farm became an exhilarating
excitement. She was completely happy in her life. She was happy in her
support of the mother woman labouring in her home for her many
offspring, she was happy in her association with the Indian, Usak, whose
untiring labours had built up the great reindeer farm of which he had
assured her she was mistress. But her mind was groping amongst a world
of girlish dreams, yearning and full of unspoken, unadmitted desires. A
subtle restlessness was at work in her, and it found expression in the
impulse which had become so irresistible. All her life had been bounded
by narrow limits of association. Her only human associations had always
been those of her far-off home, and the trading post with its factor,
and those men of the fur trail who foregathered about its staunch walls.
Here, for the first time, was something new. And more than all it was
something that was prohibited.
* * * * *
The two men were gazing out at the churning waters storming over the
shoals, and the outlook was threatening. They were standing on the low
bank, trampling underfoot the carpet of flowers which grew in profusion
down to the very edge of the river. They were surveying the junction of
the two rivers where the Caribou broke its way into the flood of the
Hekor, and the endless battle of conflicting streams was being fought
out. The cauldron of boiling rapids extended for nearly two miles.
Wilder raised a sunburnt hand and crushed the blood glutted bodies of
half a hundred mosquitoes on the back of his powerful neck.
“It’s portage, sure, Chilcoot,” he said, with that finality which
denoted a mind made up. “I don’t see a passage anywhere fit to take the
big boats. I’d say the stream’s deep this side under the bank, but we
can’t chance things.”
Chilcoot Massy chewed on for a moment in deep contemplation. He was a
silent creature, squat, powerful and grey-headed, with the hard-beaten
face of a pugilist. He was a product of the northern gold trail whose
experience went far back to the first rush over the Skagway in ’98, and
looked it all in the rough buckskin and cord clothing in which he was
clad. He was Bill Wilder’s chief lieutenant; a man whose force and
courage was unabated for all his years, and whose restless spirit denied
him the comfort and leisure which the ample wealth he had achieved in
association with his friend and one-time employer, entitled him to.
“It certainly looks that way,” he agreed. Then he demurred. “You never
can tell on these rivers,” he said. “We’d have done a heap better
breaking down our outfit, an’ takin’ on a bigger bunch of lighter
canoes. Maybe we’ll run into this sort of stuff right away up the river
as we get nearer the headwaters.”
Wilder shook his head.
“That trader feller didn’t reckon that way,” he said. “There isn’t a
thing to worry from here to the Great Falls,” he said. “And Loon Creek
is twenty miles this side of them. We’re liable to find it tough on the
creek. But that’s not new. We’ll be at work then with a fixed
headquarters, and we can travel light. Ben Needham said we could get
through this stuff if we fancied taking a chance. He guessed if we knew
it there wasn’t any sort of chance about it. Well, we don’t know it. And
I’m taking no chances. You see, there’s more to this thing than chasing
a simple gold trail.” He laughed. “Guess we aren’t civilians any longer.
We’re police. You and me, and Mike. And we’ve got our orders from our
superiors who don’t stand for disobedience. We’re being paid a dollar a
day to make good. And I don’t reckon the police pay out such a powerful
bunch of money to folks to make a failure. Come right on. We’ll get back
and eat. Then we’ll start in on the portage.”
They re-traced their steps to the camp that had been pitched well below
the rough waters.
It was a busy scene. The five great laden canoes were moored nose on to
the bank, and two smaller vessels were drawn up clear of the water on
the mud. It was an imposing fleet, equipped to the last detail, and old
Ben Needham had done it less than justice when he had contemptuously
characterised it for the benefit of the Kid. This was no Cheechako
outfit laden with the useless equipment engendered of inexperience.
It was an equipment such as only the wide experience of Wilder and
Chilcoot could have designed. It was made up of everything which the
outlands of the North demanded, from dogs and sleds to a miniature army
of Breeds and hard-living whitemen, armed to encounter human hostility
as well as the fiercest onslaughts of Nature’s most antagonistic moods.
Furthermore, full preparation for a long sojourn in an inhospitable
region had been made.
Hot food had been made ready when they reached the camp, and dogs and
men were busily engaged satisfying keen appetite for all the fierce heat
of the day and the shadelessness prevailing everywhere. The leader’s
camp had been set apart, and Red Mike, a red-haired, giant Irishman,
whose only sober moments were breathed beyond the drink-laden atmosphere
of the dance halls of Placer, was awaiting their return. He was third in
command, and his responsibility was that of quartermaster, and river
man, and for the discipline of the ruffian crew of the expedition. His
greeting was characteristic.
“Chance is the salt of life,” he cried, in a pleasant brogue, addressing
Wilder. “Are we takin’ it, boss?”
Wilder shook his head.
“No,” he said.
“Then sure you’ll set in an’ eat,” was the prompt retort. “Guess portage
was invented by the divil himself, an’ the Holy Fathers don’t reckon we
need to get in a hurry knockin’ at Hell’s gates. This sow-belly’s as
tough as dried snakes. I don’t seem to notice even the flies yearning.
Tea? Gee! It’s poor sort of hooch, even when you’ve skimmed the stewed
flies clear. I—Mother of Snakes! Wher’ did that come from?”
The man’s blue eyes were turned on the shining waters. His roving gaze
had been caught by the sight of a small hide kyak heading for the camp.
It was propelled by a single paddle dipping in the noiseless fashion
which belongs to the river Indians. And he squatted with a mouthful of
sow-belly poised ready to be devoured.
Chilcoot had flung his length on the ground, but Bill Wilder was still
standing. His eyes were turned at once on the approaching vessel.
Red Mike laughed.
“That trader guy’s sent us along a scout,” he said. “He’s a reas’nable
sort of citizen. I guess that Injun’s goin’ to save us portage.”
Wilder shook his head.
“Needham was all in beating it down river. And anyway—”
“He wouldn’t be passin’ us along a _white gal_ to show us them rapids.”
Chilcoot was sitting up. His hard face was wearing a grin that might
well have seemed impossible to it. And he spoke with an assurance that
brought the Irishman to his feet, with his food thrown aside as though
it were the last thing to be desired at such a moment.
The kyak approached the bank within some twenty yards. Then with a
thrust of the paddle the Kid held it up and sat contemplating the men on
the shore.
The whole camp was agog. The crews lounging over their rough trail food
watched the intruder curiously. But seemingly they had missed, in the
sunburnt figure, clad in familiar mannish buckskin, the thing which the
lightning eye of Chilcoot had discovered on the instant.
Wilder and Red Mike passed hastily down the bank while the older man
followed more leisurely.
It was just a little difficult. Once the men reached the waterside
Chilcoot’s assertion was left beyond question. Had the intruder been a
man, greeting and possible invitation would have been forthcoming on the
instant. As it was even the Irishman was reduced to silence in sheer
amazement. The girl was less than twenty yards away beyond the vessels
moored, a rampart between herself and the Cheechakos against whom the
factor had warned her. Her beautiful blue eyes were unsmiling. Her
sunburnt face was almost painfully serious. And her whole manner, and
her attitude told the men on the bank that her approach had definite
meaning which had nothing to do with idle curiosity. So they waited, and
finally the difficulty was solved by the girl herself.
“You’re getting ready for portage?” she called across the water.
“That’s so.”
It was Wilder who replied to her, and a smile lit his angular face as he
noted the sweetly girlish tones of the voice that reached him.
“You don’t need to,” came back the Kid’s prompt reply, and her paddle
stirred in the water and her little vessel crept in towards the laden
canoes. “There’s a deep channel. It’s right along under the bank, and
it’ll take the biggest boat you’ve got without a worry.”
Wilder stepped on to the nearest vessel and moved down its length. The
prow of the girl’s canoe had come within a yard of him, and he looked
down into the wide eyes gazing so confidently up into his.
“That’s just kind of you,” he said, in a tone he intended should escape
the listening ears behind him. “It’s a mighty big proposition portaging
this outfit, and I was feeling kind of reluctant.” He withdrew his gaze
from the fascinating picture of the white girl in the boat and glanced
in the direction she had indicated. “The channel cuts in under this
bank, you say? And it’s clear all the way?”
“Sure.”
The Kid’s bright eyes were measuring. In her mind was the haunting
memory of old Ben’s warning, but somehow it was powerless before her
inclination and the sight of this large man with his steady,
good-looking eyes, and wholesome, clean-shaven face. Her confidence
increased and her impulse became irresistible.
“If you feel like it I’ll give you a lead,” she said. “I know it by
heart. You see,” she added, with simple conclusiveness, “I was raised on
this river.”
Wilder nodded. His smiling eyes had come back again to the girl’s face
as she sat with her paddle stirring in the water to keep her place
against the stream.
“Did Ben Needham send you along?” he asked.
“Oh, no,” the Kid denied frankly. “I just saw you pass up stream and
guessed you were strangers. So—” She broke off. In a moment she realised
her mistake from the flash of inquiry she saw in the man’s eyes.
“I don’t remember passing you on the river,” he said quickly.
The girl’s moment of confusion passed, and frank impulse again took hold
of her. She laughed happily, and the man felt the infection of it.
“I saw you coming an’ took cover,” she said simply. “I guessed you were
Cheechakos and reckoned I’d take a look—at a distance.”
“Why did you take—cover? There wasn’t need?”
“No.” The Kid shook her head a little dubiously. “There wasn’t real
need. Only—”
“Yes?”
“Well, anyway I’ll be glad to pass you through the rapids if it’ll help
you. It’ll save you more than a day.”
“I’ll be grateful. I—wonder.”
“What?”
“You see, my name’s Wilder—Bill Wilder. And I was wondering what yours
was.”
Again the girl broke into a happy laugh and the gold man, in sheer
delight, joined in. Somewhere out of the blue a pretty white girl, with
blue eyes and a wealth of fair hair, clad in the vividly ornamented
buckskin which he associated only with the Indian, had descended upon
him at a time and place when he had only looked for the roughness of the
northern trail. It was all a little amazing. It was all rather absurd.
And she was offering to pass him practical help in the work in which he
had always believed himself complete master.
“I’m—the Kid,” she returned presently.
“Is that your name?”
The girl shook her head and her smile was irresistible.
“No,” she said. “But it’s how I’m known all along the river.”
“Then I guess it’s good enough for me.” Bill Wilder drew a quick breath.
“Well, Kid,” he went on with a smile, “we were just about to eat. Will
you step ashore and join us? Then, after, I’ll be mighty glad to have
you pass us up those rapids.”
The smile died abruptly out of the girl’s eyes. She remembered Ben
Needham and his warning.
“You’re Cheechakos—on the gold trail?” she asked.
Bill laughed. The whole position suddenly dawned on him.
“No,” he said. “No, Kid. We’re an outfit on the gold trail, sure,” he
went on quite seriously. “But we’re decent citizens. And there’s not a
thing to this camp to scare you. Will you come right ashore?”
For answer the girl’s paddle stirred more deeply and the nose of her
canoe shot up to the vessel on which the man was standing. He held out
one brown hand to assist her, but it was ignored. The Kid rose to her
feet, tall and beautifully slim, and sprang on to the vessel beside him,
carrying her own mooring rope of rawhide in her hand.
“I’m kind of glad you ain’t—Cheechakos,” she said.
And they both laughed as they passed back together over the bales of
outfit with which the boat was laden, and reached the river bank where
Chilcoot and Mike were waiting for them.