Night is always a time of mystery in Snowy Gulch--that little cluster of
frame shacks lost and far in the northern reaches of the Caribou Range.
Shadows lie deep, pale lights spring up here and there in windows, with
gaping, cavernous darkness between; a wet mist is clammy on the face. At
such times one forgets that here is a town, an enduring outpost of
civilization, and can remember only the forests that stretch so heavy
and dark on every side. Indeed the town seems simply swallowed up in
these forests, immersed in their silence, overspread by their gloom, and
the red gods themselves walk like sentries in the main street.
The breath that is so fragrant and strange between the fronting rows of
shacks is simply that of the forest: inept the woodsman who would not
recognize it at once. The silence is a forest silence, and if the air is
tense and electric, it is because certain wilderness forces that no
white man can name but which surely dwell in the darker thickets have
risen and are in possession.
It is not a time when human beings are at their best and strongest.
There is an instinctive, haunting feeling which, though not fear, wakens
a feeling of inadequacy and meekness. Only a few--those who have given
their love and their lives to the wild places--have any idea of
sympathetic understanding with it. Among these was Beatrice Neilson, and
she herself did not fully understand the dreams and longings that swept
her ever at the fall of the mysterious wilderness night.
The forest had never grown old to her. Its mystery was undying. Born in
its shadow, her love had gone out to it in her earliest years, and it
held her just as fast to-day. All her dreams--the natural longings of an
imaginative girl born to live in an uninhabited portion of the
earth--were inextricably bound up in it; whatever plans she had for the
future always included it. Not that she was blind to its more terrible
qualities: its might and its utter remorselessness that all foresters,
sooner or later, come to recognize. Her thews were strong, and she loved
it all the more for the tests that it put to its children.
She was a daughter of the forests, and its mark was on her. To-night the
same moon that, a thousand miles to the south, was lighting the way for
Ben and Ezram on their northern journey, shone on her as she hastened
down the long, shadowed street toward her father's shack, revealing her
forest parentage for all to see. The quality could be discerned in her
very carriage--swift and graceful and silent--vaguely suggesting that of
the wild creatures themselves. But there was no coarseness or ruggedness
about her face and form such as superficial observation might have
expected. Physically she was like a deer, strong, straight-limbed,
graceful, slender rather than buxom, dainty of hands and feet. A perfect
constitution and healthful surroundings had done all this. And good
fairies had worked further magic: as she passed beneath the light at the
door of the rude hotel there was revealed an unquestioned and rather
startling facial beauty.
It seemed hardly fitting in this stern, rough land--the soft contour and
delicacy of the girl's features. It had come straight from her mother, a
woman who, in gold-rush days, had been the acknowledged beauty of the
province. Nor was it merely the attractive, animal beauty that is so
often seen in healthy, rural girls. Rather its loveliness was of a
mysterious, haunting kind that one associates with old legends and far
distant lands.
Perhaps its particular appeal lay in her eyes. They seemed to be quite
marvelously deep and clear, so darkly gray that they looked black in
certain lights, and they were so shadowed and pensive that sometimes
they gave the image of actual sadness. For all the isolation of her home
she was no stranger to romance; but the romance that was to be seen,
like a gentleness, in her face was that of the great, shadowed forest in
which she dwelt.
Pensive, wistful, enthralled in a dreamy sadness,--what could be nearer
the tone and pitch of the northern forest itself? There might have been
also depths of latent passion such as is known to all who live the full,
strong life of the woods. The lines were soft about her lips and eyes,
indicating a marked sweetness and tenderness of nature; but these traits
did not in the least deny her parentage. No one but the woodsman knows
how gentle, how hospitably tender, the forest may be at times.
She had fine, dark straight brows that served to darken her eyes, dark
brown hair waving enough to soften every line of her face, a girlish
throat and a red mouth surprisingly tender and childish. As might have
been expected her garb was neither rich nor smart, but it was pretty and
well made and evidently fitted for her life: a loose "middy," blue
skirt, woolen stockings and rather solid little boots.
As she passed the door of the hotel one of the younger men who had been
lounging about the stove strode out and accosted her. She half-turned,
recognized his face in the lamplight, and frankly recoiled.
She had been lost in dreams before, vaguely pensive, for Beatrice had
been watching the darkness overspread and encompass the dark fringe of
the spruce forest that enclosed the town. Now, because she recognized
the man and knew his type--born of the wild places even as herself, but
a bastard breed--the tender, wistful half-smile sped from her childish
mouth and her eyes grew alert and widened as if with actual fear. She
halted, evidently in doubt as to her course.
"Going home?" the man asked. "I'm going up to see your pop, and I'll see
you there, if you don't mind."
Ray Brent's voice had an undeniable ring of power. It was deeply bass,
evidently the voice of a passionate, reckless, brutal man. The covetous
caress of his thick hand upon her arm indicated that he was wholly sure
of himself in regard to her.
She stared with growing apprehension into his even-featured, not
unhandsome face. Evidently she found it hard to meet his eyes,--eyes
wholly lacking in humor and kindliness, but unquestionably vivid and
compelling under his heavy, dark brows. "I'm going home," she told him
at last. "I guess, if you're going up to see Pop, you can walk along
too."
The man fell in beside her, his powerful frame overshadowing hers. It
was plain at once that the manner of her consent did not in the least
disturb him. "You're just letting me because I'm going up there anyway,
eh?" he asked. "I'll walk along further than that with you before I'm
done."
The girl paused, as if in appeal. "Ray, we've thrashed that out long
ago," she responded. "I wish you wouldn't keep talking about it. If you
want to walk with me--"
"All right, but you'll be changing your mind one of these days." Ray's
voice rang in the silence, indicating utter indifference to the fact
that many of the loungers on the street were listening to the little
scene. "I've never seen anything I wanted yet that I didn't get--and I
want you. Why don't you believe what your pop says about me? He thinks
Ray Brent is the goods."
"I'm not going to talk about it any more. I've already given you my
answer--twenty times."
The man talked on, but the girl walked with lifted chin, apparently not
hearing. They followed the board sidewalk into the shadows, finally
turning in at a ramshackle, three-room house that was perched on the
hillside almost at the end of the street at the outer limits of the
village.
The girl turned to go in, but the man held fast to her arm. "Wait just a
minute, Bee," he urged. "I've got one thing more to say to you."
The girl looked into his face, now faintly illumined by the full moon
that was rising, incredibly large and white, above the dark line of the
spruce tops. For all the regularity of his rather handsome features, his
was never an attractive face to her, even in first, susceptible
girlhood; and in the moonlight it suddenly filled her with dread. Ray
Brent was a dangerous type: imperious willed, slave to his most
degenerate instincts, reckless, as free from moral restraint as the most
savage creatures that roamed his native wilds. Now his facial lines
appeared noticeably deep, dark like scars, and curious little flakes of
iniquitous fire danced in his sunken eyes.
"Just one minute, Bee," he went on, wholly rapt in his own, devouring
desires. The dark passions of the man, always just under the skin,
seemed to be getting out of bounds. "When I want something, I don't know
how to quit till I get it. It's part of my nature. Your pop knows
that--and that's why he's made me his pardner in a big deal."
"If my father wants men like you--for his pardners, I can't speak for
his judgment."
"Wait just a minute. He's told me--and I know he's told you too--that
I'd suit him all right for a son-in-law. He and I agree on that. And
this country ain't like the places you read about in your story
books--it's a man's country. Oh, I know you well enough. It's time you
got down to brass tacks. If you're going to be a northern woman, you've
got to be content with the kind of men that grow up here. Up here, the
best man wins, the hardest, strongest man. That's why I'm going to win
you."
Because he was secretly attacking her dreams, the dearest part of her
being, she felt the first surge of rising anger.
"You're not the best man here," she told him, straightening. "If you
were, I'd move out. You may be the strongest in your body, and certainly
the hardest, going further to get your own way--but a real man would
break you in two in a minute. Some one more than a brute to beat horses
to death and jump claims. I'm going in now. Please take away your hand."
"One thing more. This is the North. We do things in a man's way up
here--not a story-book way. The strong man gets what he wants--and I
want you. And I'll get you, too--just like I get this kiss."
He suddenly snatched her toward him. A powerful man; she was wholly
helpless in his grasp. His arms went about her and he pressed his lips
to hers--three times. Then he released her, his eyes glowing like red
coals.
But she was a northern girl, trained to self-defense. As he freed her,
her strong, slender arm swung out and up--with really startling force.
Her half-closed hand struck with a sharp, drawing motion across his
lips, a blow that extinguished his laughter as the wind extinguishes a
match-blaze.
"You little--devil!"
The tempest of the forest was upon her, and her eyes blazed as she
hastened around the house.
V
Jeffery Neilson and Chan Heminway were already in session when Ray
Brent, his face flushed and his eyes still angry and red, joined them.
Neilson was a tall, gaunt man, well past fifty--from his manner
evidently the leader of the three. He had heavy, grizzled brows and
rather quiet eyes, a man of deep passions and great resolve. Yet his
lean face had nothing of the wickedness of Brent's. There had evidently
been some gentling, redeeming influence in his life, and although it was
not in the ascendancy, it had softened his smile and the hard lines
about his lips. Notorious as he was through the northern provinces he
was infinitely to be preferred to Chan Heminway, who sat at his left
who, a weaker man than either Ray or Neilson, was simply a tool in the
latter's hand,--a smashing sledge or a cruel blade as his master wished.
He was vicious without strength, brutal without self-control. Locks of
his blond hair, unkempt, dropped over his low forehead into his eyes.
"Where's Beatrice?" Neilson asked at once. "I thought I heard her
voice."
Ray searched for a reply, and in the silence all three heard the girl's
tread as she went around the house. "She's going in the back door.
Likely she didn't want to disturb us."
Ray looked up to find Neilson's eyes firmly fixed upon his face. Try
hard as he might he couldn't restrain a surge of color in his cheeks.
"Yes, and what's the rest of it?" Neilson asked.
"Nothing--I know of."
"You've got some white marks on your cheeks--where it ain't red. The kid
can slap, can't she--"
Ray flushed deeper, but the lines of Neilson's face began to deepen and
draw. Then his voice broke in a great, hearty chuckle. He had evidently
tried to restrain it--but it got away from him at last. No man could
look at him, his twinkling eyes and his joyous face, and doubt but that
this soft-eyed, strong-handed daughter of his was the joy and pride of
his life. He had heard the ringing slap through the ramshackle walls of
the house, and for all that he favored Ray as his daughter's suitor, the
independence and spirit behind the action had delighted him to the core.
But Ray's sense of humor did not run along these lines. The first danger
signal of rising anger leaped like a little, hot spark into his eyes.
Many times before Ray had been obliged to curb his wrath against
Neilson: to-night he found it more difficult than ever. The time would
come, he felt, when he would no longer be obliged to submit to Neilson's
dictation. Sometime the situation would be reversed; he would be leader
instead of underling, taking the lion's share of the profit of their
enterprises instead of the left-overs, and when that time came he would
not be obliged to endure Neilson's jests in silence. Neilson himself, as
he eyed the stiffening figure, had no realization of Ray's true attitude
toward him. He thought him a willing helper, a loyal partner, and he
would not have sat with such content in his chair if he could have
beheld the smoldering fires of jealousy and ambition in the other's
breasts The time would come when Ray would assert himself, he
thought--when Beatrice was safe in his hands.
"It may seem like a joke to you, but it doesn't to me," he answered
shortly. Nor was he able to keep his anger entirely from his voice.
"Everything that girl does you think is perfect. Instead of encouraging
her in her meanness you ought to help me out." His tones harshened, and
he lost the fine edge of his self-control. "I've stood enough nonsense
from that little--"
Seemingly, Neilson made no perceptible movement in his chair. What
change there was showed merely in the lines of his face, and
particularly in the light that dwelt in the gray, straightforward eyes.
"Don't finish it," he ordered simply.
For an instant eyes met eyes in bitter hatred--and Chan Heminway began
to wonder just where he would seek cover in case matters got to a
shooting stage. But Ray's gaze broke before that of his leader. "I'm not
going to say anything I shouldn't," he protested sullenly. "But this
doesn't look like you're helping out my case any. You told me you'd do
everything you could for me. You even went so far as to say you'd take
matters in your own hands--"
"And I will, in reason. I'm keeping away the rest of the boys so you can
have a chance. But if you think I'm going to tie her up to anybody
against her will, you're barking up the wrong tree. She's my daughter,
and her happiness happens to be my first object." Then his voice
changed, good-humored again. "But cool down, boy--wait till you hear
everything I've got to tell you, and you'll feel better. Of course, you
know what it's about--"
"I suppose--Hiram Melville's claim."
"That's it. Of course we don't know that he had a claim--but he had a
pocket full of the most beautiful nuggets you ever want to see. No one
knows that fact but me--I saw 'em by accident--and I got 'em now. You
know he's always had an idea that the Yuga country was worth
prospecting, but we always laughed at him. Of course it is a pocket
country; but it's my opinion he found a pocket that would make many a
placer look sick, before he died."
"But he might have got the nuggets somewheres else--"
"Hold your horses. Where would he get 'em? There's something else
suspicious too. He wrote a letter, the day before he died, and addressed
it to Ezra Melville, somewhere in Oregon. He must just about got it by
now--maybe a few days ago. He had the clerk mail it for him, and got him
to witness it, saying it was his will--and what did that old hound have
to will except a mine? Next day he wrote another letter somewhere
too--but I didn't find out who it was to. If I'd had any gumption I'd
got ahold of 'em both. The point is--I'm convinced it's worth a trip, at
least."
"I should say it was worth a trip," Ray agreed. "And a fast one, too.
There might be some competition--"
"There won't be a rush, if that's what you mean. Everybody knows it's a
pocket country, and the men in this town wouldn't any more get excited
about the Yuga River--"
"True enough--but that Ezra Melville will be showin' up one of these
days. We want to be settin' pretty when he comes."
"You've got the idea. It ought to be the easiest job we ever did. It's
my idea he had his claim all laid out, monuments up and everything, and
was on his way down to Bradleyburg to record it when he died. He just
went out before he could make the rest of the trip. All we'll have to do
is go up there, locate in his cabin, and sit tight."
"Wait just a second." Ray was lost in thought. "There's an old cabin up
that way somewhere--along that still place--on the river. It was a
trapping cabin belonging to old Bill Foulks."
"That's true enough--but it likely ain't near his mine. Boys, it's a
clean, open-and-shut job--with absolutely nothing to interfere. If his
brother does come up, he'll find us in possession--and nothing to do but
go back. So to-morrow we'll load up and pack horses and light out."
"Up Poor Man creek, through Spruce Pass--"
"Sure. Then over to the Yuga. Old Hiram was hunting down some kind of a
scent in the vicinity of that old cabin you speak of, last heard of him.
And I wouldn't be surprised, on second thought, if it wasn't his base of
operations."
"All easy enough," Ray agreed. He paused, and a queer, speculative look
came into his wild-beast's eyes. "But what I don't see--how you can
figure all this is going to help me out with Beatrice."
Jeffery Neilson turned in his chair. "You can't, eh? You need
spectacles. Just think a minute--say you had fifty or sixty thousand all
your own--to spend on a wife and buy her clothes and automobiles. Don't
you think that would make you more attractive to the feminine eye?"
At first Ray made no apparent answer. He merely sat staring ahead. But
plainly the words had wakened riot in his imagination. Such a sum meant
_wealth_, the power his ambitious nature had always craved, idleness and
the gratification of all his lusts. He was no stranger to greed, this
degenerate son of the North. "It'd help some," he admitted in a low
voice. "But what makes you think it would be worth that much?"
"Because old Hiram talked a little, half-delirious, before he died. 'A
quarter of a million,' he kept saying. 'Right there in sight--a quarter
of a million.' If he really found that much stowed away in the rocks,
that's fifty or sixty apiece for you and Chan."
Ray's mind worked swiftly. Sixty thousand apiece--and that left one
hundred and thirty thousand for their leader's portion. The old rage and
jealousy that had preyed upon his mind so long swept over him, more
compelling than ever. "Go on," he urged. "What's the rest of it?"
"The second thing is--we'll need some one to cook, and look after us,
when we get up there. Who should it be but Beatrice? She wouldn't want
to stay here; you know how she loves the woods. And if you know anything
about girls, you know that nothing counts like having 'em alone. There
wouldn't be any of the other boys up there to trouble you. You'd have a
clear field."
Ray's dark eyes shone. "It'd help some," he admitted. "That means--hunt
up an extra horse for her to-morrow."
"No. I don't intend she should come up now. Not till we're settled."
"Why not?"
"Think a minute, and you'll see why not. You know how she regards this
business of jumping claims. She's dead against it if any one could
be--bless her heart!"
"Don't go getting sentimental, Neilson."
"And don't let that mouth of yours get you into trouble, either." Once
more their eyes locked: once more Ray looked away. "I hope she'll always
stay that way, too. As I say, she's dead against it, and she's been a
little suspicious ever since that Jenkins deal. Besides, it wouldn't be
any pleasure for her until we find a claim and get settled. When she
comes up we'll be established in a couple of cabins--one for her and me
and one for you two--and she won't know but that we made the original
find."
"How will she know just where to find us?"
"We're bound to be somewhere near that old cabin on the Yuga. We'll set
a date for her to come, and I can meet her there."
It was, Ray was forced to admit, a highly commendable scheme. He sat
back, contemplating all its phases. "It's slick enough," he agreed. "It
ought to do the trick."
But if he had known the girl's thoughts, as she sat alone in the back
part of the house, he wouldn't have felt so confident. She was watching
the moon over the spruce forest, and she was thinking, with repugnance
in her heart, of the indignity to which she had been subjected at her
father's door. Yet the kisses Ray had forced on her were no worse than
his blasphemy of her dreams. The spirit of romance was abroad
to-night--in the enchantment of the moon--and she was wistful and
imaginative as never before. This was just the normal expression of her
starved girlhood--the same childlike wistfulness with which a Cinderella
might long for her prince--just as natural and as wholesome and as much
a part of youth as laughter and happiness.
"I won't believe him, I won't believe him," she told herself. Her
thought turned to other channels, and her heart spoke its wish.
"Wherever he is--sometime he'll come to me."