At the street corner, as solid as granite in the “rush-hour” tide of
humanity, stood the Man from Nome. The Arctic winds and sun had stained
him berry-brown. His eye still held the azure glint of the glaciers.
He was as alert as a fox, as tough as a caribou cutlet and as
broad-gauged as the aurora borealis. He stood sprayed by a Niagara of
sound—the crash of the elevated trains, clanging cars, pounding of
rubberless tires and the antiphony of the cab and truck-drivers
indulging in scarifying repartee. And so, with his gold dust cashed in
to the merry air of a hundred thousand, and with the cakes and ale of
one week in Gotham turning bitter on his tongue, the Man from Nome
sighed to set foot again in Chilkoot, the exit from the land of street
noises and Dead Sea apple pies.
Up Sixth avenue, with the tripping, scurrying, chattering, bright-eyed,
homing tide came the Girl from Sieber-Mason’s. The Man from Nome looked
and saw, first, that she was supremely beautiful after his own
conception of beauty; and next, that she moved with exactly the steady
grace of a dog sled on a level crust of snow. His third sensation was
an instantaneous conviction that he desired her greatly for his own.
This quickly do men from Nome make up their minds. Besides, he was
going back to the North in a short time, and to act quickly was no less
necessary.
A thousand girls from the great department store of Sieber-Mason flowed
along the sidewalk, making navigation dangerous to men whose feminine
field of vision for three years has been chiefly limited to Siwash and
Chilkat squaws. But the Man from Nome, loyal to her who had resurrected
his long cached heart, plunged into the stream of pulchritude and
followed her.
Down Twenty-third street she glided swiftly, looking to neither side;
no more flirtatious than the bronze Diana above the Garden. Her fine
brown hair was neatly braided; her neat waist and unwrinkled black
skirt were eloquent of the double virtues—taste and economy. Ten yards
behind followed the smitten Man from Nome.
Miss Claribel Colby, the Girl from Sieber-Mason’s, belonged to that sad
company of mariners known as Jersey commuters. She walked into the
waiting-room of the ferry, and up the stairs, and by a marvellous
swift, little run, caught the ferry-boat that was just going out. The
Man from Nome closed up his ten yards in three jumps and gained the
deck close beside her.
Miss Colby chose a rather lonely seat on the outside of the
upper-cabin. The night was not cold, and she desired to be away from
the curious eyes and tedious voices of the passengers. Besides, she was
extremely weary and drooping from lack of sleep. On the previous night
she had graced the annual ball and oyster fry of the West Side
Wholesale Fish Dealers’ Assistants’ Social Club No. 2, thus reducing
her usual time of sleep to only three hours.
And the day had been uncommonly troublous. Customers had been
inordinately trying; the buyer in her department had scolded her
roundly for letting her stock run down; her best friend, Mamie Tuthill,
had snubbed her by going to lunch with that Dockery girl.
The Girl from Sieber-Mason’s was in that relaxed, softened mood that
often comes to the independent feminine wage-earner. It is a mood most
propitious for the man who would woo her. Then she has yearnings to be
set in some home and heart; to be comforted, and to hide behind some
strong arm and rest, rest. But Miss Claribel Colby was also very
sleepy.
There came to her side a strong man, browned and dressed carelessly in
the best of clothes, with his hat in his hand.
“Lady,” said the Man from Nome, respectfully, “excuse me for speaking
to you, but I—I—I saw you on the street, and—and—”
“Oh, gee!” remarked the Girl from Sieber-Mason’s, glancing up with the
most capable coolness. “Ain’t there any way to ever get rid of you
mashers? I’ve tried everything from eating onions to using hatpins. Be
on your way, Freddie.”
“I’m not one of that kind, lady,” said the Man from Nome—“honest, I’m
not. As I say, I saw you on the street, and I wanted to know you so bad
I couldn’t help followin’ after you. I was afraid I wouldn’t ever see
you again in this big town unless I spoke; and that’s why I done so.”
Miss Colby looked once shrewdly at him in the dim light on the
ferry-boat. No; he did not have the perfidious smirk or the brazen
swagger of the lady-killer. Sincerity and modesty shone through his
boreal tan. It seemed to her that it might be good to hear a little of
what he had to say.
“You may sit down,” she said, laying her hand over a yawn with
ostentatious politness; “and—mind—don’t get fresh or I’ll call the
steward.”
The Man from Nome sat by her side. He admired her greatly. He more than
admired her. She had exactly the looks he had tried so long in vain to
find in a woman. Could she ever come to like him? Well, that was to be
seen. He must do all in his power to stake his claim, anyhow.
“My name’s Blayden,” said he—“Henry Blayden.”
“Are you real sure it ain’t Jones?” asked the girl, leaning toward him,
with delicious, knowing raillery.
“I’m down from Nome,” he went on with anxious seriousness. “I scraped
together a pretty good lot of dust up there, and brought it down with
me.”
“Oh, say!” she rippled, pursuing persiflage with engaging lightness,
“then you must be on the White Wings force. I thought I’d seen you
somewhere.”
“You didn’t see me on the street to-day when I saw you.”
“I never look at fellows on the street.”
“Well, I looked at you; and I never looked at anything before that I
thought was half as pretty.”
“Shall I keep the change?”
“Yes, I reckon so. I reckon you could keep anything I’ve got. I reckon
I’m what you would call a rough man, but I could be awful good to
anybody I liked. I’ve had a rough time of it up yonder, but I beat the
game. Nearly 5,000 ounces of dust was what I cleaned up while I was
there.”
“Goodness!” exclaimed Miss Colby, obligingly sympathetic. “It must be
an awful dirty place, wherever it is.”
And then her eyes closed. The voice of the Man from Nome had a monotony
in its very earnestness. Besides, what dull talk was this of brooms and
sweeping and dust? She leaned her head back against the wall.
“Miss,” said the Man from Nome, with deeper earnestness and monotony,
“I never saw anybody I liked as well as I do you. I know you can’t
think that way of me right yet; but can’t you give me a chance? Won’t
you let me know you, and see if I can’t make you like me?”
The head of the Girl from Sieber-Mason’s slid over gently and rested
upon his shoulder. Sweet sleep had won her, and she was dreaming
rapturously of the Wholesale Fish Dealers’ Assistants’ ball.
The gentleman from Nome kept his arms to himself. He did not suspect
sleep, and yet he was too wise to attribute the movement to surrender.
He was greatly and blissfully thrilled, but he ended by regarding the
head upon his shoulder as an encouraging preliminary, merely advanced
as a harbinger of his success, and not to be taken advantage of.
One small speck of alloy discounted the gold of his satisfaction. Had
he spoken too freely of his wealth? He wanted to be liked for himself.
“I want to say, Miss,” he said, “that you can count on me. They know me
in the Klondike from Juneau to Circle City and down the whole length of
the Yukon. Many a night I’ve laid in the snow up there where I worked
like a slave for three years, and wondered if I’d ever have anybody to
like me. I didn’t want all that dust just myself. I thought I’d meet
just the right one some time, and I done it to-day. Money’s a mighty
good thing to have, but to have the love of the one you like best is
better still. If you was ever to marry a man, Miss, which would you
rather he’d have?”
“Cash!”
The word came sharply and loudly from Miss Colby’s lips, giving
evidence that in her dreams she was now behind her counter in the great
department store of Sieber-Mason.
Her head suddenly bobbed over sideways. She awoke, sat straight, and
rubbed her eyes. The Man from Nome was gone.
“Gee! I believe I’ve been asleep,” said Miss Colby. “Wonder what became
of the White Wings!”