THE SOLDIER FINDS AN UNTRODDEN VALLEY
During the weeks that followed Meade Burrell saw much of Necia. At
first he had leaned on the excuse that he wanted to study the curious
freak of heredity she presented; but that wore out quickly, and he let
himself drift, content with the pleasure of her company and happy in
the music of her laughter. Her quick wit and keen humor delighted him,
and the mystery of her dark eyes seemed to hold the poetry and beauty
of all the red races that lay behind her on the maternal side. At times
he thought of her as he had seen her that morning in the dance-girl's
dress, and remembered the purity of neck and breast it had displayed,
but he attributed that to the same prank of heritage that had endowed
her with other traits alien to her mother's race.
He had experienced a profound sense of pity for her upon learning her
father's relation to Alluna, but this also largely vanished when he
found that the girl was entirely oblivious to its significance. He had
tried her in many subtle ways, and found that she regarded the matter
innocently, as customary, and therefore in the light of an accepted
convention; nor did she seem to see anything in her blood or station to
render her inferior to other women. She questioned him tirelessly about
his sister, and he was glad of this, for it placed no constraint
between them. So that, as he explored her many quaint beliefs and pagan
superstitions, the delight of being with her grew, and he ceased to
reason whither it might lead him.
As for her, each day brought a keener delight. She unfolded before the
Kentuckian like some beautiful woodland flower, and through
innumerable, unnoticed familiarities took him into her innermost
confidence, sharing with him those girlish hopes and beliefs and
aspirations she had never voiced till now.
A month of this went by, and then Runnion returned. He came on an
up-going steamer which panted in for a rest from its thousand-mile
climb, and for breath to continue its fight against the never-tiring
sweep of waters. The manner of his coming was bold, for he stood fairly
upon the ship's deck, staring at the growing picture of the town, as he
had watched it recede a month before, and his smile was evil now, as it
had been then. With him was a stranger. When the boat was at rest
Runnion sauntered down the gang-plank and up to the Lieutenant, who
stood above the landing-place, and who noted that the scar, close up
against his hat-band, was scarce healed. He accosted the officer with
an insolent assurance.
"Well, I'm back again, you see, and I'm back to stay."
"Very well, Runnion; did you bring an outfit with you?" The young man
addressed him civilly, although he felt that the fellow's presence was
a menace and would lead to trouble.
"Yes, and I'm pretty fat besides." He shook a well-laden gold-sack at
the officer. "I reckon I can rustle thirteen dollars a month most
anywhere, if I'm left alone."
"What do you want in this place, anyhow?" demanded Burrell, curiously.
"None of your damned business," the man answered, grinning.
"Be sure it isn't," retorted the Lieutenant, "because it would please
me right down to the ground if it were. I'd like to get you."
"I'm glad we understand each other," Runnion said, and turned to
oversee the unloading of his freight, falling into conversation with
the stranger, who had been surveying the town without leaving the boat.
Evidently this man had a voice in Runnion's affairs, for he not only
gave him instructions, but bossed the crew who handled his merchandise,
and Meade Burrell concluded that he must be some incoming tenderfoot
who had grub-staked the desperado to prospect in the hills back of
Flambeau. As the two came up past him he saw that he was mistaken--this
man was no more of a tenderfoot than Runnion; on the contrary, he had
the bearing of one to whom new countries are old, who had trod the edge
of things all his life. There was a hint of the meat-eating animal
about him; his nose was keen and hawk-like, his walk and movements
those of the predatory beast, and as he passed by, Burrell observed
that his eyes were of a peculiar cruelty that went well with his thin
lips. He was older by far than Runnion, but, while the latter was
mean-visaged and swaggering, the stranger's manner was noticeable for
its repression.
Impelled by an irresistible desire to learn something about the man,
the Lieutenant loitered after Runnion and his companion, and entered
the store in time to see the latter greet "No Creek" Lee, the
prospector, who had come into town for more food. Both men spoke with
quiet restraint.
"Nine years since I saw you, Stark," said the miner. "Where you bound?"
"The diggings," replied Stark, as Lee addressed the stranger.
"Mining now?"
"No, same old thing, but I'm grub-staking a few men, as usual. One of
them stays here. I may open a house in Dawson if the camp is as good as
they say it is."
"This here's a good place for you."
Stark laughed noiselessly and without mirth. "Fine! There must be a
hundred people living here."
"Never mind, you take it from me," said the miner, positively, "and get
in now on the quiet. There's something doing." His one sharp eye
detected the Lieutenant close by, so he drew his friend aside and began
talking to him earnestly and with such evident effect as to alter
Stark's plans on the moment; for when Runnion entered the store shortly
Stark spoke to him quickly, following which they both hurried back to
the steamer and saw to the unloading of much additional freight and
baggage. From the volume and variety of this merchandise, it was
evident that Mr. Stark would in no wise be a burden to the community.
Burrell was not sufficiently versed in the ways of mining-camps to know
exactly what this abrupt change of policy meant, but that there was
something in the air he knew from the mysterious manner of "No Creek"
Lee and from the suppressed excitement of Doret and the trader. His
curiosity got the better of him finally, and he fell into talk with
Lee, inquiring about the stranger by way of an opening.
"That's Ben Stark. I knew him back in the Cassiar country," said Lee.
"Is he a mining man?"
"Well, summat. He's made and lost a bank-roll that a greyhound couldn't
leap over in the mining business, but it ain't his reg'lar graft. He
run one of the biggest places in the Northwest for years."
"Saloon, eh?"
"Saloon and variety house--seven bartenders, that's all. He's the
feller that killed the gold-commissioner. Of course, that put him on
the hike again."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, he had a record as long as a sick man's drug bill before he went
into that country, and when he put the commissioner away them Canadian
officials went after him like they was killin' snakes, and it cost him
all he had made to get clear. If it had happened across the line, the
coroner's jury would have freed him, 'cause the commissioner was drunk
and started the row; but it happened right in Stark's saloon, and you
know Canucks is stronger than vitriol for law and order. Not bein' his
first offence, it went hard with him."
"He looks like a killer," said Burrell.
"Yes, but he ain't the common kind. He always lets the other man begin,
and therefore he ain't never done time."
"Come, now," argued the Lieutenant, "if it were the other man who
invariably shot first, Stark would have been killed long ago."
"I don't care what WOULD have happened, it 'AIN'T happened, and he's
got notches on his gun till it looks like a cub bear had chawed it. If
you was a Western man you'd know what they say about him."
"'The bullet 'ain't been run to kill him.' That's the sayin'. You
needn't grin, there's many a better man than you believes it."
"Who is it that the bullet hasn't been run to kill?" said the trader's
deep voice behind them. He had finished with his duties, and now
sauntered forward.
"Ben Stark," said Lee, turning. "You know him, John?"
"No, I never saw him, but I know who he is--used to hear of him in the
Coeur d'Alenes."
"That's him I was talking to," said the miner. "He's an old friend of
mine, and he's going to locate here."
Burrell thought he saw Lee wink at the trader, but he was not sure, for
at that moment the man of whom they were speaking re-entered. Lee
introduced him, and the three men shook hands. While the soldier fell
into easy conversation with the new-comer, Gale gazed at him narrowly,
studying him as he studied all men who came as strangers. As he was
doing so Alluna entered, followed by Johnny and Molly. She had come for
sugar, and asked for it in her native tongue. Upon her exit Stark broke
off talking to the Lieutenant and turned to the trader.
"Your squaw, Mr. Gale?"
The old man nodded.
"Pah-Ute, eh?"
"Yes. Why, do you savvy the talk?"
"Some. I lived in California once."
"Where?" The question came like a shot.
"Oh, here and there; I followed the Mother Lode for a spell."
"I don't recall the name," said the trader, after a bit.
"Possibly. Where were you located?"
"I never lit on any one place long enough to call it home."
It seemed to Burrell that both men were sparring cautiously in an
indirect, impersonal manner.
"Those your kids, too, eh?" Stark continued.
"Yes, and I got another one besides--older. A girl."
"She's a 'pip,' too," said "No Creek" Lee, fervently. "She's plumb
beautiful."
"All of them half-breeds?" questioned Stark.
"Sure." The trader's answer was short, and when the other showed no
intention of pressing the subject further he sauntered away; but no
sooner was he out of hearing than Stark said: "Humph! They're all
alike."
"Who?"
"Squaw-men."
"This one ain't," Lee declared. "He's different; ain't he, Lieutenant?"
"He certainly is," agreed Burrell. This was the first criticism he had
heard of Necia's father, and although Stark volunteered no argument, it
was plain that his opinion remained unaffected.
The old man went through the store at the rear and straightway sought
Alluna. Speaking to her with unwonted severity in the Pah-Ute language,
he said:
"I have told you never to use your native tongue before strangers. That
man in the store understands."
"I only asked for sugar to cook the berries with," she replied.
"True, but another time you might say more, therefore the less you
speak it the better. He is the kind who sees much and talks little.
Address me in Siwash or in English unless we are alone."
"I do not like that man," said the woman. "His eyes are bad, like a
fish eagle's, and he has no heart."
Suddenly she dropped her work and came close up to him. "Can he be the
one?"
"I don't know. Stark is not the name, but he might have changed it; he
had reasons enough."
"Who is this man Stark?"
"I don't know that, either. I used to hear of him when I was in British
Columbia."
"But surely you must know if he is the same--she must have told you how
he looked--others must have told you--"
Gale shook his head. "Very little. I could not ask her, and others knew
him so well they never doubted that I had seen him; but this much I do
know, he was dark--"
"This man is dark--"
"--and his spirit was like that of a mad horse--"
"This man's temper is black--"
"--and his eyes were cruel."
"This man has evil eyes."
"He lacked five years of my age," said the trader.
"This man is forty years old. It must be he," said the squaw.
Even Necia would have marvelled had she heard this revelation of her
father's age, for his hair and brows were grizzled, and his face had
the look of a man of sixty, while only those who knew him well, like
Doret, were aware of his great strength and the endurance that belied
his appearance.
"We will send Necia down to the Mission to-night, and let Father Barnum
keep her there till this man goes," said the squaw, after some
deliberation.
"No, she must stay here," Gale replied, with decision. "The man has
come here to live, so it won't do any good to send her away, and, after
all, what is to be will be. But she must never be seen in that
dance-girl's dress again, at least, not till I learn more about this
Stark. It makes no difference whether this one is the man or not; he
will come and I shall know him. For a year I have felt that the time
was growing short, and now I know it."
"No, no!" Alluna cried; "we have no strangers here. No white men except
the soldiers and this one have come in a year. This is but a little
trading-post."
"It was yesterday, but it isn't to-day. Lee has made a strike--like the
one George Carmack made on the Klondike. He came to tell me and Poleon,
and we are going back with him to-night, but you must say nothing or it
will start a stampede."
"Other men will come--a great many of them?" interrogated Alluna,
fearfully, ignoring utterly the momentous news.
"Yes. Flambeau will be another Dawson if this find is what Lee thinks
it is. I stayed away from the Upper Country because I knew crowds of
men would come from the States, and I feared that he might be among
them; but it's no use hiding any longer, there's no other place for us
to go. If Lee has got a mine, I'll have the one next to it, for we will
be the first ones on the ground. What happens after that won't matter
much, you four will be provided for. We are to leave in an hour, one at
a time, to avoid comment."
"But why did this man stop here?" insisted the woman. "Why did he not
stay on the steamboat and go to Dawson?"
"He's a friend of Lee's. He is going with us." Then he added, almost in
a whisper, "Before we return I shall know."
Alluna seized his arm. "Promise to come back, John! Promise that you
will come back even if this should be the man."
"I promise. Don't worry, little woman; I'm not ready for a reckoning
yet."
He gave her certain instructions about the store, charging her in
particular to observe the utmost secrecy regarding the strike, else she
might precipitate a premature excitement which would go far towards
ruining his and Poleon's chances. All of which she noted; then, as he
turned away, she laid her hand on his arm and said:
"If you do not know him he will not know you. Is it not so?"
"Yes."
"Then the rest is easy--"
But he only shook his head doubtfully and answered, "Perhaps--I am not
sure," and went inside, where he made up a light pack of bacon, flour
and tea, a pail or two, a coffee-pot and a frying-pan, which he rolled
inside a robe of rabbit-skin and bound about in turn with a light
tarpaulin. It did not weigh thirty pounds in all. Selecting a new pair
of water-boots, he stuffed dry grass inside them, oiled up his
six-shooter, then slipped out the back way, and in five minutes was
hidden in the thickets. Half an hour later, having completed a detour
of the town, he struck the trail to the interior, where he found Poleon
Doret, equipped in a similar manner, resting beside a stream, singing
the songs of his people.
When Burrell returned to his quarters he tried to mitigate the feeling
of lonesomeness that oppressed him by tackling his neglected
correspondence. Somehow, to-day, the sense of his isolation had come
over him stronger than ever. His rank forbade any intimacy with his
miserable handful of men, who had already fallen into the monotony of
routine, while every friendly overture he made towards the citizens of
Flambeau was met with distrust and coldness, his stripes of office
seeming to erect a barrier and induce an ostracism stronger and more
complete than if they had been emblems of the penitentiary. He began to
resent it keenly. Even Doret and the trader seemed to share the general
feeling, hence the thought of the long, lonesome winter approaching
reduced the Lieutenant to a state of black despondency, deepened by the
knowledge that he now had an open enemy in camp in the person of
Runnion. Then, too, he had taken a morbid dislike to the new man,
Stark. So that, all in all, the youth felt he had good reason to be in
the dumps this afternoon. There was nothing desirable in this
place--everything undesirable--except Necia. Her presence in Flambeau
went far towards making his humdrum existence bearable, but of late he
had found himself dwelling with growing seriousness on the unhappy
circumstances of her birth, and had almost made up his mind that it
would be wise not to see her any more. The tempting vision of her in
the ball-dress remained vividly in his imagination, causing him hours
of sweet torment. There was a sparkle, a fineness, a gentleness about
her that seemed to make the few women he had known well dull and
commonplace, and even his sister, whom till now he had held as the
perfection of all things feminine, suffered by comparison with this
maiden of the frontier.
He was steeped in this sweet, grave melancholy, when a knock came at
his door, and he arose to find Necia herself there, excited and
radiant. She came in without sign of embarrassment or slightest
consciousness of the possible impropriety of her act.
"The most wonderful thing has happened," she began at once, when she
found they were alone. "You'll faint for joy."
"What is it?"
"Nobody knows except father and Poleon and the two new men--"
"What is it?"
"I teased the news out of mother, and then came right here."
He laughed. "But what--may I ask--"
"Lee has made a strike--a wonderful strike--richer than the Klondike."
"So? The old man's luck has changed. I'm right glad of that," said the
soldier.
"I came as fast as I could, because to-morrow everybody will know about
it, and it will be too late."
"Too late for what?"
"For us to get in on it, of course. Oh, but won't there be a stampede!
Why, all the people bound for Dawson on the next boat will pile off
here, then the news will go up-river and down-river, and thousands of
others will come pouring in from everywhere, and this will be a city.
Then we will stake our town lots and sell them for ever so much money,
and go around with our noses in the air, and they will say to each
other:
"'Who is that beautiful lady with the fine clothes?' and somebody will
answer:
"'Why, that is Miss Necia Gale, the mine-owner.' And then you will come
along, and they will say:
"'That is Lieutenant Burrell, the millionaire, and--'"
"Hold on! hold on!" said the soldier, stopping her breathless patter.
"Tell me all about this."
"Well, 'No Creek' came in this morning to tell dad and Poleon. Then the
boat arrived with an old friend of Lee's, a Mr. Stark, so Lee told him,
too, and now they've all gone back to his creek to stake more claims.
They slipped away quietly to prevent suspicion, but I knew there was
something up from the way Poleon acted, so I made Alluna tell me all
about it. They haven't more than two hours start of us, and we can
overtake them easily."
"We! Why, we are not going?"
"Yes, we are," she insisted, impatiently--"you and I. That's why I
came, so you can get a mine for yourself and be a rich man, and so you
can help me get one. I know the way. Hurry up!"
"No," said he, in as firm a tone as he could command. "In the first
place, these men don't like me, and they don't want me to share in
this."
"What do you care?"
"In the second place, I'm not a miner. I don't know how to proceed."
"Nevermind; I do. I've heard nothing but mining all my life."
"In the third place, I don't think I have the right, for I'm a soldier.
I'm working for Uncle Sam, and I don't believe I ought to take up
mining claims. I'm not sure there is anything to prevent it, but
neither am I sure it would be quite the square thing--are you?"
"Why, of course it's all right," said Necia, her eager face clouding
with the look of a hurt child. "If you don't do it, somebody else will."
But the Lieutenant shook his head. "Maybe I'm foolish, but I can't see
my way clear, much as I would like to."
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" she exclaimed, brokenly. "I do so want to go. I
want you to be rich, and I want to be rich myself. I want to be a fine
lady, and go outside and live like other girls. It's--the only
chance--I ever had--and I'll never have another. Oh, it means so much
to me; it means life, future, everything! Why, it means heaven to a
girl like me!" Her eyes were wet with the sudden dashing of her hopes,
and her chin quivered in a sweet, girlish way that made the youth
almost surrender on the instant. But she turned to the window and gazed
out over the river, continuing, after a moment's pause: "Please
don't--mind me--but you can't understand what a difference this would
make to me."
"We couldn't possibly overtake them if we tried," he said, as if
willing to treat with his conscience.
"No, but we could beat them in. I know where Lee is working, for I went
up last winter with Constantine and his dog-team, over a short cut by
way of Black Bear Creek. We took it coming back, and I could find it
again, but Lee doesn't know that route, so he will follow the summer
trail, which is fifteen miles farther. You see, his creek makes a great
bend to the southward, and heads back towards the river, so by crossing
the divide at the source of Black Bear you drop into it a few miles
above his cabin."
While she made this appeal Burrell fought with himself. There were
reasons why he longed to take this trip, more than he had longed for
anything since boyhood. These men of Flambeau had disregarded him, and
insisted on treating him with contemptuous distrust, despite his
repeated friendly overtures; wherefore he was hungry to beat them at
their own game, hungry to thrust himself ahead of them and compel them
to reckon with him as an equal, preferring a state of open enmity, if
necessary, to this condition of indifferent toleration. Moreover, he
knew that Necia was coveted by half of them, and if he spent a night in
the woods alone with her it would stir them up a bit, he fancied. By
Heaven! That would make them sit up and notice him! But then--it might
work a wrong upon her; and yet, would it? He was not so sure that it
would. She had come to him; she was old enough to know her mind, and
she was but a half-breed girl, after all, who doubtless was not so
simple as she seemed. Other men had no such scruples in this or any
other land, and yet the young man hesitated until, encouraged by his
silence, the girl came forward and spoke again, impulsively:
"Don't be silly, Mr. Burrell. Come! Please come with me, won't you?"
She took him by the edges of his coat and drew him to her coaxingly. It
may have been partly the spirit of revolt that had been growing in him
all day, or it may have been wholly the sense of her there beside him,
warm and pleading, but something caused a great wave to surge up
through his veins, caused him to take her in his arms, fiercely kissing
her upturned face again and again, crying softly, deep down in his
throat:
"Yes! Yes! Yes! You little witch! I'll go anywhere with you! Anywhere!
Anywhere!" The impulse was blind and ungovernable, and it grew as his
lips met hers, while, strangely enough, she made no resistance,
yielding herself quietly, till he found her arms wound softly about his
neck and her face nestling close to his. Neither of them knew how long
they stood thus blended together, but soon he grew conscious of the
beating of her heart against his breast, as she lay there like a little
fluttering bird, and felt the throbbing of his own heart swaying him.
Her arms, her lips, and her whole body clung to his in a sweet
surrender, and yet there was nothing immodest or unmaidenly about it,
for his strength and ardor had lifted her and drawn her to him as on
the sweep of a great wave.
She drew her face free and hid it against his neck, breathing softly
and with shy timidity, as if the sound of the words she whispered half
frightened her.
"I love you. I love you, Meade."
It may happen that a man will spend months in friendly and charming
intimacy with a woman and never feel the violence or tenderness of
passion till there comes a psychic moment or a physical touch that
suddenly enwraps them like a flame. So it was with Burrell. The sweet
burden of this girl in his arms, the sense of her yielding lips, the
warmth of her caressing hands, momentarily unleashed a leaping pack of
mad desires, and it was she who finally drew herself away to remind him
smilingly that he was wasting time.
"My lips will be here when those mines are worked out," she said. "No,
no!" and she held him off as he came towards her again, insisting that
if they were going they must be off at once, and that he could have no
more kisses for the present. "But, of course, it is a long trip, and we
will have to sit down now and then to rest," she added, shyly; at which
he vowed that he was far from strong, and could not walk but a little
way at a time, yet even so, he declared, the trail would be too short,
even though it led to Canada.
"Then get your pack made up," she ordered, "for we must be well up
towards the head of Black Bear Creek before it grows dark enough to
camp."
Swiftly he made his preparations; a madness was upon him now, and he
took no pains to check or analyze the reasons for his decision. The
thought of her loveliness in his arms once more, far up among the
perfumed wooded heights, as the silent darkness stole upon them,
stirred in him such a fret to be gone that it was like a fever. He
slipped away to the barracks with instructions for his corporal, but
was back again in a moment. Finally he took up his burden of blanket
and food, then said to her:
"Well, are you ready, little one?"
"Yes, Meade," she answered, simply.
"And you are sure you won't regret it?"
"Not while you love me."
He kissed her again before they stepped out on the river trail that
wound along the bank. A hundred yards beyond they were hidden by the
groves of birch and fir.
Two hours later they paused where the foaming waters of Black Bear
Creek rioted down across a gravelled bar and into the silent, sweeping
river, standing at the entrance to a wooded, grass-grown valley, with
rolling hills and domes displayed at its head, while back of them lay
the town, six miles away, its low, squat buildings tiny and toy like,
but distinctly silhouetted against the evening sky.
"Is it not time to rest?" said the soldier, laughingly, yet with a look
of yearning in his misty eyes as he took the girlish figure in his
arms. But she only smiled up at him and, releasing his hold, led the
way into the forest.
He turned for a moment and shook his fist at the village and those in
it, laughing loudly as if from the feel of the blood that leaped within
him. Then he joined his companion, and, hand-in-hand, they left the
broad reaches of the greater stream behind them and plunged into the
untrodden valley.