A WHITEMAN’S PURPOSE
Bill Wilder and Chilcoot moved slowly up from the water’s edge. The
outlook was grey and the wind was piercing. The river behind them was
ruffled out of its usual oily calm, and the two small laden canoes,
lying against the bank, and the final stowing of which the men had been
engaged upon, were rocking and straining at their raw-hide moorings.
The change of season was advancing with that suddenness which drives the
northern man hard. Still, however, the first snow had not yet fallen,
although for days the threat of it had hung over the world. The ground
was iron hard with frost, and each morning a skin of ice stretched out
on the waters of the river from the low, shelving banks. But the grip of
it was not permanent. There was still melting warmth in the body of the
stream, and, each day, the ice yielded up its hold.
It was three days since the camp had witnessed the gathering of children
about its camp fire. Three days which Bill had devoted to those
preparations, careful in the last detail, for the rush down to Placer
before the world was overwhelmed by the long winter terror. Now, at
last, all was in readiness for the start on the morrow. All, that is,
but the one important matter of Red Mike’s return to camp. Until that
happened the start would have to be delayed.
Everything had been planned with great deliberation.
Clarence McLeod had even been called upon to assist, in view of the race
against time which the task these men had set themselves represented.
Three days ago he had been despatched up the river to recall the
Irishman. His immediate return was looked for. Chilcoot had hoped for it
earlier. But this third day was allowed as a margin in case the gold
instinct had carried Mike farther afield than was calculated.
The last of the brief day was almost gone. And only a belt of grey
daylight was visible in the cloud banks to the south-west. Half way up
to the camp Wilder paused and gazed out over the ruffled water, seeking
to discover any sign of the man’s return in the darkening twilight. He
stood beating his mitted hands while Chilcoot passed on up to the camp
fire.
There was no sign, no sound. And a feeling of keen disappointment took
possession of the expectant man. So much depended on Mike’s return.
Under ordinary circumstances the season was not the greatest concern,
and Wilder would have been content enough to wait. But the circumstances
were by no means ordinary. There was that lying back of his mind which
disturbed him in a fashion he was rarely disturbed. And it was a thought
and concern he had imparted to no one, not even to his loyal partner,
Chilcoot.
He moved on up to the camp, and the keenness of his disappointment
displayed itself in his eyes, and in the tone of his voice as he
conveyed the result of his search to his comrade.
“Not a dam sight of ’em,” he said peevishly.
He had halted at the fire over which Chilcoot was endeavouring to
encourage some warmth into his chilled fingers. He removed his mitts and
held his hands to the blaze.
“I was kind of wondering,” he went on, “about that boy, Clarence. Maybe
he’s hit up against things. Maybe—Say—”
A faint, far-off echo came down stream. It was a call. A familiar cry in
a voice both men promptly recognised. Chilcoot grinned.
“That’s Mike,” he said. Then he added: “Sure as hell.”
Wilder breathed a deep sigh of relief.
“I’m glad. I’m mighty thankful,” he exclaimed with a short laugh. “We’ll
be away to-morrow after all.”
Chilcoot eyed his companion speculatively.
“I hadn’t worried fer that,” he said. “Guess we can’t make Placer in
open weather.” He shrugged a pair of shoulders that were enormous under
his fur parka. “It’ll be dead winter ’fore we’re haf way. It’ll be black
night in two weeks, anyway. The big river don’t freeze right over till
late winter, but ther’ll be ice floes ’most all the way. I can’t see a
day more or less is going to worry us a thing.”
“No.”
Bill was searching the heart of the fire.
“The Hekor don’t freeze right up easy,” he went on. “That’s so. But
it’ll sure be black night.” Then he looked up, and Chilcoot recognised
his half smile of contentment. “It don’t matter anyway. The thing’s
worth it.”
“What thing?”
Bill laughed.
“Why the jump we’re making.”
There was a brief pause. Then Chilcoot’s eyes twinkled.
“You scared of the winter trail, Bill?” he asked quietly.
“Not a thing.”
The older man nodded.
“It would ha’ been the first time in your life,” he said. “I’ve seen you
take the chances of a crazy man.”
* * * * *
“Don’t it beat Hell?”
The Irishman had listened to the story of the “strike” and sat raking
his great fingers through the thick stubble of flaming beard he had
developed, and grinned first across at his chief, Bill Wilder, then at
the twinkling, deep-set eyes of Chilcoot.
They were all gathered about the fire, that centre of everything to the
northern man. The youth Clarence was sprawled full length on the ground,
happy in the thought that he was playing his part in the great game on
which these men were engaged. He was content to listen while the others
talked. But he drank in every word with the appetite of healthy youth,
digesting and learning as his young mind so ardently desired.
“An’ it’s rich? Full o’ the stuff?” Mike’s lips almost smacked as he
persisted.
“So full you’ll get a nightmare reckonin’ it.”
Chilcoot nodded while his eyes sparkled. Mike drew a deep breath. The
two summers behind them looked like a happy picnic instead of the months
of wasted endeavour they had seemed to his impetuous soul.
“Ther’s more than a hundred claims on it we know of,” Bill said soberly.
“Maybe ther’s miles of it up that queer, crazy stream. We haven’t
worried farther. The stakes are in fer the whole of our bunch, an’ the
folks across the water. That’s as far as we’re concerned. We’re beating
it to Placer to-morrow to register. Say,” he went on impressively,
“ther’ll be a rush like the days of ’98, and we can’t take chances. If
the thing’s like what I guess we’ll cheapen gold worse than the Yukon
boom did. Does it hit you?”
“Between the eyes.” Mike laughed out of his boisterous feelings. “We ken
get the bunch right down, an’ get a dump of stuff out before the
freeze-up,” he went on eagerly. “What’s it to be? A pool or claim work?”
“Ther’s goin’ to be no pool. An’ ther’s goin’ to be no rake over till
spring.” Wilder’s tone was decided, and the grin died out of the
Irishman’s eyes. “I told you we’re takin’ no chances. Chilcoot and I
have planned this thing right out. Of the three best claims we’re sure
about, one is yours. But you don’t pan an ounce of soil till the
register’s made, and you’ve got your ‘brief.’ Then it’s yours on your
own, the same as the others belong to each of the other folk. An’ you
can work how you darn please. But you won’t see the place, even, till we
get right back from Placer. An’ the boys aren’t hearing a word of it
till spring. It’s this I sent Clarence, here, up to get you around for.
I want you to sit tight, right here, till we get back with the whole
thing fixed. It’s worth waiting for, Mike. It’s so good you just haven’t
figgers enough in your fool head to count your luck. You’ll act this
way, boy. I promised you haf a million dollars if you hit back to Placer
without a colour. That still goes, but you won’t need a thing from me.
You’ll play our hand right?”
Mike’s disappointment was all the keener for his mercurial temperament,
but he nodded readily and Wilder was satisfied.
“Sure I’ll play it right, the way you want it. But I don’t see we need
act like ther’ was spooks around waitin’ to jump in on us before the
register’s fixed.”
Wilder smiled back at the protesting man.
“But ther’ are,” he said. “If you’d the experience I’ve had of this
blamed old North you’d be scared to death for our ‘strike.’ It’s a
ghost-haunted country this, and most of the spooks have got a kind of
wireless of their own that ’ud beat anything we Christian folk ever
heard tell of. Ther’s six months of winter ahead, and most of that we’ll
be on the trail, or fixing things. It just needs one half-breed pelt
hunter to get wise to the game happening around, or a stray bunch of
Euralian murderers, and we’d have haf the north on us before the
Commissioner could sign our ‘briefs.’ No, boy, get it from me, and just
sit around till daylight comes again, an’ dream of the hooch you’re
going to drink to the luck of the Kid. It’s the Kid’s luck that’s handed
us this thing. It’s the luck her father reckoned was to be hers. And by
no sort of crazy act are we going to queer it. I’m taking your scow, and
beating it down stream. Clarence’ll feel like gettin’ to home.”
The grinning eyes of Mike followed the tall figure of his leader, with
the youth, Clarence, striding beside him, as it vanished in the darkness
on its way to the water’s edge. And as they passed from view he turned
to the man who displayed no desire to quit the comfort of the fire.
“I’d guessed he’d fallen for it two summers back,” he said. “You can
locate it with both eyes shut, an’ cotton batten stuffed in your brain
box. That gal had him fast by the back of the neck on sight. The Kid,
eh? It’s not Bill Wilder’s way of playing safe on a gold ‘strike.’ That
gal’s got him scared to death for the plum he guesses to hand her. No,
sirree,” he went on, with a shake of his disreputable head, “the
Jezebels o’ Placer for mine, an’ a bunch o’ hooch you could drown a
battleship in. It’s easy game that don’t hand you a nightmare, if it’s
liable to empty your sack o’ dust. That Kid! What’s he goin’ to do?”
Chilcoot shrugged. Mike was not the man he felt like opening out to.
“He ain’t crazy enough to—marry her?” Mike went on contemptuously. “No.
He’s no fool kid.”
A deep flush mounted to the veteran’s temples. His deepset eyes sparkled
as he surveyed the other through the smoke of the fire.
“You best ask Bill the things you want to know,” he said coldly. “It
don’t matter what you think. It don’t matter what any darn fool thinks.
Bill’s mostly spent his life playin’ the game as he sees it. An’ I guess
he’ll go right on doin’ the same. And the game he plays is a right game.
An’ he’s as ready to hand it out to a hooch-soused no-account, as he is
to a gal with a dandy pair of blue eyes.”
* * * * *
It had been a quiet, almost subdued evening at the homestead. Somehow
Bill Wilder’s manner had been graver than was its wont, and these simple
folk, who, since his re-discovery of Marty Le Gros’ gold “strike,” had
so quickly come to regard him as something in the nature of the arbiter
of their destinies, had been clearly affected by his change of manner.
He had shared their supper, and listened to Clarence’s story of his
search for Red Mike. He had found it easier to listen than to talk.
Hesther, too, had spent her time in listening, while the children
chattered all unconscious of the real mood of their elders.
For the Kid it was a time of quiet happiness, marred only by the thought
that with the first streak of brief daylight on the morrow this man
would be speeding on his race with the season to ensure her own, and the
good fortunes of all those she loved.
The girl looked forward to the coming months of winter clarkness without
any glimmer of that happy, contented philosophy which had always been
hers. Looking ahead the whole prospect seemed so dark and empty. The
days since Bill’s coming to the Caribou had been so overflowing, so
thrilling with happy events and delirious joy that the contrasting
prospect was only the more deplorably void. And with all the untamed
spirit in her she rebelled at the coming parting.
Yet she understood the necessity. She realised the enormous stake he was
playing for on their behalf, and so she was determined that no act or
word of hers should hinder him. There had been moments when the impulse
to plead permission to accompany him was almost irresistible. It filled
her heart with delighted dreams of displaying, for his appreciation, her
skill and sturdy nerve on the winter trail. She felt that for all her
sex she could easily accept more than her due share of the labour, and
could increase his comfort a hundredfold. But in sober moments she knew
it could not be. If nothing else the woman instinct in her forbade it.
The girl never for one moment paused to question her feelings. Why
should she? The life she knew, the life she had always lived, had left
her free of every convention which encompasses a woman’s life in
civilization. Bill Wilder had leapt into her life as her dream man. He
was her all in all, the whole focus of her simple heart. Why then should
she deny it? Why then should she attempt to blind herself? There had
been no word of love between them. It almost seemed unnecessary. She
loved his steady grey eyes, with their calm smile. She revelled in his
unfailing, kindly confidence. His spoken word was always sufficient,
backed as it was by his great figure, so full of manhood’s youthful
strength. Then he was of her own country. That vast Northland which
claimed their deepest affection for all its terror. Oh, yes, she loved
him with her whole soul and body. And her love inspired the surging
rebellion which her sturdy sense refused outlet or display.
No. She had long since learned patience. It was the thing her country
taught her as surely as anything on earth. Besides, the planning was all
Bill’s. Every detail had been weighed and measured by him. Even it was
his veto that had been set on her own journey for trade. He had urged
its abandonment, demanding both her and Usak’s presence on the river
during his absence. So it must be.
For the girl this last evening together passed all too swiftly. Much of
the time, while the others chattered, she remained scarcely heeding
sufficiently to respond intelligently to the occasional appeals made to
her. And then, when the time came for Bill’s going, she rose quickly
from her seat beside the stove and slipped her fur parka over her
buckskin clothing. She regarded the privilege she contemplated as her
right.
Hesther observed, but wisely refrained from comment. But her children
were less merciful. Perse grinned impishly.
“Wher’ you goin’, Kid?” he demanded.
The ready mother instantly leapt to the girl’s assistance.
“Lightin’ Bill to the landin’,” she said sharply. “Which the scallawag
menfolk around this shanty don’t seem yearnin’ to do.”
“She don’t need to,” Clarence protested.
“Don’t she?” The mother laughed. “You’re too late, boy. Guess Bill,
here, ’ud hate to be lit by folks who need reminding the thing’s due.
You boys beat it to your blankets. Kid’ll see Bill on his way.”
The man was ready. He bulked tremendously under the thick fur of his
outer clothing. He pulled his fur cap low down on his head, while the
Kid lit the queer old hurricane lamp with a burning brand from the
stove. Hesther’s diminutive figure was further dwarfed beside him as she
prepared to make her farewell.
“It’ll be quite a piece before you get along again,” she said, in a
voice that was not quite steady. And the man laughed shortly for all
there seemed no reason.
“I just can’t figger how soon before I’m along back,” he said. “I’d like
to fix it, but it wouldn’t be reasonable anyway. You see, mam,” he went
on, his gaze turned on the girl who shut the lamp with a slam, “Gold
Commissioners have their ways, and sort of make their own time. And
though I reckon to pull some wires I can’t say when I’ll get through.
And then ther’s always the winter trail. But I’ll sure be along back
before the spring break.”
His gaze came back to the little woman who was regarding him with
wistful eyes of affection, as though he were one of her own boys, and he
thrust out a hand which was instantly clasped between both her rough
palms.
“I just got to be back then,” he went on. “And when I come you can
gamble I got things fixed so tight you’ll only need to sit around and
act the way I tell you.” He smiled down into the misty brown eyes. “You
keep a right good fire, mam,” he said gently. “Ther’s no trouble for you
while I’m gone. Mike’s not a thing but a nightmare to look at, but he’s
got clear orders while Chilcoot and I are on the trail. And he’ll put
’em through to the limit. You won’t need for a thing he can hand you. So
long.”
The mist in the mother’s eyes had developed into real tears, and they
overflowed down her worn cheeks.
“God bless you, Bill,” she stammered, as she released his hand with
obvious reluctance. “I’ll sure do my best. I just can’t say the things
in here,” she went on, clasping her thin bosom with both hands. Then she
struggled to smile. “Guess we’ll all be countin’ up till you get back,
an’ it can’t be a day sooner than we’re all wishin’. So long, boy.”
Bill turned to the elder children who had remained to speed him on his
way and nodded comprehensively.
“So long, folks,” he said. “See you again.”
He passed quickly to the door, where the Kid was awaiting him, and moved
out. And a final glance back revealed Hesther framed in the open
doorway, with the yellow light of the room behind her, silhouetting her
fragile figure, as she waved a farewell in the direction of the swinging
lantern.
* * * * *
The Kid’s pretty blue eyes were raised to the smiling face looking down
into hers. It was a moment tense with feeling. It was that moment of
parting when she felt that all sense of joy, all sense of happiness was
to be snuffed right out of her life. And the responsive smile she forced
to her eyes was perilously near to tears.
The lantern in her hand revealed the canoe hauled up against the crude
landing. Its rays found reflection in the dark spread of water where a
skin of ice was already forming, seeking to embed the frail craft at its
mooring.
There was little enough relief from the darkness under the heavy night
clouds. There was no visible moon. That was screened behind the stormy
threat, yet it contrived a faint twilight over the world. Not a single
star was to be seen anywhere and the ghostly northern lights were deeply
curtained.
Now, in these last moments of parting, the youth in Bill Wilder was once
more surging with impulse. As he gazed down into the bravely smiling
eyes a hundred desires were beating in his brain. And he yearned
desperately to fling every caution to the winds and abandon himself to
the love which left him without a thought but of the delight with which
the Kid’s presence filled him.
Somehow it seemed to his big nature a wanton cruelty that this girl
should be charged with the cares of a struggle for existence in this
far-flung northern wilderness. Perhaps as great a feeling as any that
stirred him at this moment was a desire to relieve her of the last
shadow of anxiety in the monstrous season about to descend upon them.
And yet he was compelled to leave her to face alone the very hardships
he would have saved her from. And this with an acute understanding of
the uncertainty of the outcome of the thing he had planned to accomplish
in the darkness of the long winter night. For once in his life his usual
confidence was undermined by curious forebodings. But he gave no outward
sign, while he listened to the urgent little story the girl had to tell
of the Indian Usak.
“He’s a queer feller,” he said thoughtfully. Then he added: “You told
him clear out ther’s to be no trading trip to Placer? An’ still he’s
making ready a trip?”
The girl laughed shortly. There was no mirth in it. It was a little
nervous expression of feeling.
“You just can’t get back of that feller’s mind,” she said. “Usak’s dead
obstinate. He’s obstinate as a young bull caribou when he feels like it.
It was when I told him it was your plan we shouldn’t make Placer. I sort
of read it in his queer black eyes, even though he took the order
without a kick. Maybe he was disappointed. You see, he’s got that swell
black fox. Next day I found him fixing for a trip on his own. I asked
him right away about it, an’ his answer left me worried an’ guessing.
‘That all right,’ he said, ‘I know us not mak Placer. So. Then I mak one
big trip.’”
The girl’s imitation of the Indian’s broken talk brought a deepening
smile to Bill’s eyes for all the concern her story inspired.
“I told him right away you guessed it best for him to stop around,” she
went on. “An’ it was then he got mulish. He snapped me like an angry
wolf. ‘Who this whiteman say I not mak big trip? Him not all thing, this
man. No. I mak big trip.’ He went right on fixing his outfit after that
and wouldn’t say another word. He’s right up ther’ in his shanty now. I
saw the lamp burning as we came down. He means to go his trip, and-”
“Nothing’s goin’ to stop him.” The man’s jaws shut with a snap. “He’s
surely got a mule beat.”
He remained buried in deep thought for some moments while the girl
watched him, wondering anxiously at his interpretation of Usak’s
attitude. She was filled with an unease she could not shake off.
Quite suddenly Bill’s manner underwent a change. He laughed quietly, and
his gaze, which had passed to the dark river came again to the troubled
face beside him.
“Just don’t worry a thing, Kid,” he said, with an assumption of
lightness which drew a responsive sigh of relief. “It don’t matter.
Ther’s the boys around, and Mike, and my bunch. Usak’s full of his own
notions, an’ it’s best not to drive him too hard. If he guesses to make
a trip, just let him beat it. No. Don’t you worry a thing.”
“No.”
The Kid sighed again. And the man understood that the comfort he had
desired for her had been achieved.
Again came his quiet laugh.
“Anyway we can’t worry with Usak—to-night.”
The girl shook her head. In a moment she had forgotten the Indian and
remembered only the thing about to happen. It was their farewell that
had yet to be spoken, and this man would be speeding up the darkened
river to his camp, and it would be months—long, dreary months before she
would witness again those calm smiling grey eyes, and hear again the
voice that somehow made the heaviest burdens of her life on the river
something that was a joy to contemplate. The desolation of his going
appalled her now that the moment of parting had actually arrived.
“Gee! It’s going to be a long night to—Spring.”
Bill spoke with a surge of feeling he could no longer deny.
The girl remained silent, and her blue eyes sought the dark course of
the river in self-defence.
“What’ll you be doing—all the time?”
Bill’s voice had lowered. There was a wonderful depth of tenderness in
its tone.
“Waitin’—mostly.”
It was a little wistful, a little desperate. For the first time the
girl’s voice had become unsteady.
Bill drew a deep breath.
“Waiting?”
He turned swiftly in the shadow that hid them up. His eyes were no
longer calm. They were hot with those passions which are only the deeper
and stronger for the strong man’s restraint. Suddenly he thrust a hand
into the bosom of his parka and withdrew the folded plans of Marty Le
Gros’ gold “strike.”
“Here, Kid,” he said urgently. “You best have these. They’re yours
anyway whatever happens. You never can guess in this queer old country.
Take ’em in case. I’ll sure get right back in the spring. If I don’t
you’ll just have to figger—I can’t.”
He waited for the girl to take the paper. But she only gazed round on
him with eyes that had widened in real terror.
“You mean you’ll be—dead?” There was an instant’s pause as though the
thought had paralysed her. Then a piteous cry broke from her. “Oh, no,
no, no!” she cried. “You’ll come back, Bill. You won’t let a thing kill
you. I want you, Bill. You’ll come back to me. Oh, say you will.”
It was a distracted face that was raised to his with widened eyes that
had filled with tears.
“Would it hurt if—I didn’t?”
The man had moved a step nearer.
Just for one instant the tearful eyes stared up at him. Then the
threatened storm broke. The lantern clattered to the ground and
extinguished itself, and the girl’s face was buried in her mitted hands.
The sight of her distress was unendurable. The man no longer had power
to deny himself. Impulse leapt from under all restraint. That wonderful
impulse that is the very essence of the human soul, the inspiration of
all life. He caught her up in his fur-clad arms, and held her crushed
against a heart leaping madly with the triumph of glowing manhood.
* * * * *
The grey daylight was still faint over the south-eastern horizon. It was
growing slowly, transforming the darkened world under a grey twilight
that was hard set to dispel the night shadows. Still it was daylight,
and just sufficient to serve as a reminder that behind the drear Arctic
winter lay the promise of ultimate golden day.
The teeming rapids lay ahead, a cauldron of furiously boiling waters,
and away beyond them the stately course of the Hekor River. To the south
lay the wide woodland bluff that had witnessed the years-old tragedy of
Marty Le Gros’ home, flinging deep shadows across the turbulent waters.
While to the north, far as the eye could see, lay the low lichen-grown
land rollers inclining gently away to the purple distance.
Bill Wilder and Chilcoot had pulled in to the northern bank. Their two
light canoes were moored just at the head of the narrow, deep, swift
channel down to the greater river, which was the only open passage
through the boiling rapids. They were made fast to an up-standing
boulder, and the men were afoot on the shore, gazing down at their
outfit, and engaged in earnest talk.
Chilcoot was listening for the moment while his thoughtful eyes searched
anywhere but in the direction of the purposeful face of his friend. And
Wilder was talking rapidly and with a decision that forbade all protest.
“Old friend, ther’s just one thing I don’t want from you now,” he said.
“That’s any sort of old kick. Maybe I’m handing you reason enough to set
you kicking like a crazy steer. But you won’t do it, boy, for the sake
of all the years we’ve ground at the queer old mill of life together.
You’re the one feller, the only feller, I look to to help me along when
I’m set neck deep in a tight hole, and if you fail me I’ll have to
squeal on the thing above all others that seems right to me. I gave a
promise, and I’ve got to make that promise good if it beats the life out
of me, and robs me of all that little gal back there means to me. I’m
going right up the big river to the Valley of the Fire Hills, while you
get right on down to Placer, and pull every darn wire in my name and
your own to fix the ‘strike’ right. Later I’m gambling to get along down
and join you, if this darn country don’t beat the life out of me. I’ve
got to go if hell freezes over. Ther’s a helpless woman, and a blinded
man right up there, and if I don’t make ’em first they’ll be murdered by
a savage who’s just stark mad to slaughter ’em. They’re the folk I got
the plans of the ‘strike’ from. And I got it on a sort of promise I’d
see no harm got around their way from the feller who hates ’em so he’d
beat his way out of the gates of hell to get after ’em.”
“Usak.”
The bright eyes of the older man searched his friend’s.
Bill nodded.
“An’ that’s why you split the outfit into two boats?”
“Sure.”
“Is he settin’ right out? You got to beat him on the river?”
There was sharp doubt in Chilcoot’s question.
Bill nodded again.
“Yes.” Then he laughed mirthlessly. “I got to beat it up that river as
if all the legions of hell were hard on my heels. Say, boy, I got to
beat the hardest trail man around the North, with a crazy eye running
over levelled sights. I’ve got to beat him and I’ve got to beat the
winter night. I just don’t know a thing how it’s to be done, but if I
don’t do it I’ll have broke my fool word—which ’ud break me.”
Chilcoot’s gaze was turned up the river in the direction of the queer
homestead whose simple dwellers had flung them their farewell as they
passed down on their journey in the darkness.
“An’ that little gal, Bill,” he said slowly. “That little gal you reckon
to take right out of here, an’ marry, an’ educate, an’ set around in a
land of sunshine to raise your dandy kids. Ain’t ther’ a promise there
that it’ll break you to fail in? Are you feelin’ like makin’ a great
give-up for lousy scum of—Euralians? Are you?”
“There’s sure a promise there, boy, I’ll make good. If I don’t it’ll
only be I’m dead.”
The old man shook his head.
“I jest don’t get the argument,” he said in his blunt fashion. “If I
didn’t know you I’d say you’re dead crazy. But you ain’t,” he went on,
with another shake of the head. “Your promise is the biggest thing in
your life, bigger than that Kid’s happiness. Maybe you just can’t help
it. Maybe none of us ken help the things we are. I ain’t goin’ to kick.
It ain’t my way with you. I’m goin’ right on down to Placer, an’ I’m
goin’ to put things through, same as if you was along. An’ I’ll wait fer
you to come along till I know you can’t get. Then I’ll get back to here,
an’ see the Kid, an’ her folks get the thing you fancy for them, an’
I’ll see ’em along their trail till they can handle their own play. That
goes, Bill. Guess it goes all the time with me.”
“I knew.”
Wilder’s real acknowledgment was in the faint smile that shone in his
eyes. There was no attempt to find words to express himself. And anyway
with Chilcoot there was no need.
Chilcoot gazed down at the swaying boats.
“Will we beat it?” he said, and turned and glanced down the swift
stream.
“We best.”
It was then the older man voiced something of the real feeling that so
deeply stirred his rough heart.
“You know, Bill, ther’s things in life make a feller wish they weren’t.
You’re bug on a promise, an’ it’s the thing that’s left you the feller
you are in other folks’ minds. I’d make any old promise, so it suited
me, to folks I ain’t worried about. An’ I wouldn’t lie awake o’ nights
breakin’ it. But I ain’t any sort o’ high notions. Japs—Euralians?” he
snorted, “Why, I’d promise ’em the earth with a dandy barbed wire fence
set all round it to get the thing I wanted from ’em. I’d—”
“Not if you’d seen a queer little woman whose worst crime was giving up
her life nursing a blinded devil of a murdering Euralian husband, and
was nigh crazy that some feller was coming along to rob her of his life.
Man, the sight made me sweat pity. If I can save that poor soul that
much, why—I want to do it.”
Bill sighed and passed a hand across his broad brow. “It’s no sort of
self-righteousness with me, boy,” he went on. “I just won’t know an easy
moment if I don’t do everything in my power to beat that crazy Indian.
Come on. We’ll get right on. We’ll clear these rapids and part the other
side.”
He moved hurriedly down to the water’s edge and began to cast the
moorings adrift. Chilcoot held the canoes ready. In a few moments both
had taken their places, and the thrusting paddles still held the little
vessels against the stream.
Bill suddenly held out a hand from which the mitt had been removed, and
Chilcoot gripped it forcefully.
“We’ll shake right here, old pard,” Bill said quietly. “When we get
below we’ll be full up keeping clear of the popple. You got everything
clear. An’ ther’s nothing on the river to beat you. I’ll be glad to have
your wish of luck.”
Their hands fell apart.
“You sure have it, Bill, all the luck that’s always yours rolled right
up into one.”
Chilcoot nodded and his eyes sparkled with real feeling. “So long,” he
cried.
“So long.”
Bill’s farewell came ringing back as his little craft shot out into the
stream under the plunging stroke of his paddle.