SUNRISE
“So here you be, my pretty!” cried Dalzene. “Come down to meet me did
ye?” The man’s voice was thick of utterance. He was drunk.
Instantly the girl gained control of herself: “Stand out of my way! Let
me pass!”
The man laughed coarsely: “Haw, haw, haw! Pretty sassy, hain’t you?
Well, you won’t be so sassy agin you’ve had a chance to learn my ways.”
Swiftly the girl’s eyes surveyed the creek bed. The banks were high
and steep. The man divined her intention: “No ye don’t! No use tryin’
to slip by us. Turn around an head back up the crick. I’ve got some
business with yer pa--an’ later with you.”
“What do you mean?” again the deadly fear gripped at her heart.
“Remember what I told you that day in Nolan. Well, I ain’t fergot.
I had plenty time to think it over, back there in Nome. Six months
they kep’ me in their damn jail--all on account of you an’ Old Man
Gordon--an’ now it’s my turn.” His voice fairly quivered with insane
rage as he jerked off his mitten and extended the twisted claw that
had been a hand. “An’ that’s what yer damn dog done! But he won’t never
chaw no one else up! An’ Old Man Gordon won’t never beat another race,
neither. An’ you--well--you an’ me might git on all right when you come
to know me better--an’ then agin--we mightn’t.”
A cold calm took possession of the girl: “Don’t be a fool, Dalzene,”
she said. “The man you just passed is coming back in a few minutes, and
when he does, he will kill you.”
“Oh, that’s it, is it? That’s what’s goin’ on up here on Myrtle? Kind
of thought Old Man Gordon’s b’iler would cost him about all the race
money, time he got it up here. You ort to move down where they’s more
men.”
Lou Gordon understood nothing of the man’s implication, but the look
in the leering eyes brought a hot flush of shame to her face. Dalzene
continued: “But, you don’t need to bother about him--he’s through.”
“What do you mean?” she shrieked the question, staring wide-eyed into
the leering face.
The man laughed: “You know what yer friends would do to me if they
ketched me on the Koyukuk. Well, I done it first--that’s all. He’s
layin’ back there in the snow, ’bout five mile down the crick. An’ he
ain’t comin’ back--none whatever.”
A single piercing cry forced itself from between the girl’s lips.
_Huloimee Tilakum_ was dead! And before her the man who had killed him
stood and grinningly bragged of his deed. A red haze filmed her brain.
Like a flash she whirled in her tracks and disappeared around the bend.
In the cabin was the rifle! She would kill these two human beasts as
she would kill wolves. A wild primordial fury gripped her heart--a fury
that for the moment overshadowed the pain. This man had killed her
man--and in red vengeance he should be killed!
With the hand of all men against him Jake Dalzene hated all men.
Brooding upon this hate during the term of his imprisonment had
transformed him into a veritable beast of hate. A malignant, dangerous
thing of evil he was turned loose upon the North at the expiration of
his term. Hating all men, he concentrated the full venom of his insane
rage upon the Gordons upon whom he laid the blame for his downfall.
It was Old Man Gordon who had caused him to lose his money on the
Koyukuk, and indirectly had turned the whole Koyukuk against him. Over
there they would kill him on sight--as they would kill a snake. The
Gordon dog had maimed him for life, and Lou Gordon had treated him with
supreme contempt in the roadhouse at Nolan, and later had outwitted him
(as he thought) in Nome.
When he gained his freedom his one obsession was to even the score
with the Gordons. He would slip over onto Myrtle, would kill the old
man, and then--alone on the deserted creek with the girl--his eyes
flickered with bestial lust as he thought of the girl. After that, if
they killed him on the Koyukuk, they would have something to kill him
for!
Dalzene was penniless. He needed an outfit, for the journey to Myrtle
Creek. So he went to work on the dumps. It was there he met a fellow
convict whose term had expired a month previous, and realizing that he
might need help, cautiously sounded the man out. Satisfied, he laid
stress upon the winnings of Gordon, and broached a scheme whereby they
should visit Myrtle together, murder Gordon, divide whatever of loot
there might be in the cabin.
The two pooled their earnings for the venture, and toward the middle of
January, pulled out of Nome. The utmost caution had been used in the
ascent of the Koyukuk from the mouth of the Alatna. Dalzene knew every
foot of the country, and he was careful to detour past all camps and
native villages. Once on Myrtle caution was relaxed. The deep snows of
the winter had rendered it extremely improbable that there would be any
travel on the abandoned creek, and the outfit held to the creek bed.
The two celebrated their safe arrival on Myrtle with liberal quantities
of hooch, the fiery liquor acting upon Dalzene’s brain added fuel to
his desire for revenge.
Upon rounding a bend they had come face to face with MacShane. The
rifle and heavy six gun with which they had provided themselves were
lashed to the toboggan and the man was right upon them. To attempt
to release the gun would invite disaster. With a sense of vast relief
Dalzene noted that the man was using a toboggan. He was not a man of
the Koyukuk, and in all probability would know nothing of the edict
of the miners’ meeting. With elaborate heartiness, he tendered his
bottle, but the other declined, and after a few words of commonplace
conversation, he passed on and disappeared in the gloom.
Five miles farther on, Lou Gordon had come suddenly upon them, and all
the hate of his warped soul leaped into Dalzene’s brain. Helpless she
was, unarmed and completely at his mercy. He took fiendish delight in
taunting her. When she mentioned the man who had passed on the trail,
it was his devilish ingenuity alone that prompted him to concoct the
lie about killing him. He divined that it would cause her pain--so
he told her the man was dead. And he had gloated as the sound of the
girl’s shriek rose on the air. That cry was music to the ears of
Dalzene, and he chuckled all the way up the creek as his inflamed
brain dwelt upon the pain that had showed in her eyes. She could not
escape him. Old Man Gordon would be no match for him and his convict
companion. So, as he mushed he laughed. Just before reaching the cabin,
Dalzene paused, and unlashing the rifle from the sled, passed it to the
other. About his own waist he strapped a belt from which dangled a six
gun in a holster. Then, keeping the door in sight, they separated and
cautiously advanced toward the cabin.
“Open up, Gordon!” he called, “Open up, an’ we’ll make a dicker.” There
was no response from the interior, and Dalzene drew nearer. Pausing,
he examined the snow, passing completely around the cabin, and walking
to the boiler. Then he returned and took a position near the door. “So
that’s the way of it!” he called, “The old man ain’t here! He ain’t
be’n here since the last snow! So, yer here alone, eh?”
Within the cabin Lou Gordon gripped her rifle and answered: “I expect
dad any minute!”
“You do, do you? Well, it’s be’n a good many minutes since he was here,
an’ I guess he won’t be bustin’ in on our party. If he does he’ll git
his’n like the stranger did back on the trail.”
Inside the cabin, the girl’s lips pressed into a straight white line,
and her fingers gripped the rifle till the knuckles whitened. If she
could only shoot! But the same log walls that protected her, protected
her besiegers also. She wished now she had followed her first plan
to lie in wait for them outside, but she had overestimated Dalzene’s
cunning. She had figured that he would divide his forces, and that she
would be struck down from behind before she could kill him. The heavily
frosted panes of the windows gave her no chance to shoot from the cabin.
The dog kennels attracted Dalzene’s eye, and with a curse, he gripped
his revolver and lurched toward them. “You kin say good bye to yer big
lead dog, now!” he taunted. “I’ll fix him, fer chawin’ the hand off
me! Damn him, he’s where he can’t git at me an’ I’ll shoot him all to
pieces before I kill him.” At the girl’s side, in the cabin, Skookum
sniffed the air suspiciously and a low growl rumbled in his throat,
as the hair bristled upon his back. “Oh, why didn’t you kill him,
Skookum?” whispered the girl in desperation.
She could hear Dalzene moving about near the kennels. Stealthily she
raised the bar of the door, and opened it just a crack, the next moment
the door slammed shut and the bar crashed into place. The other man had
leaped for the opening. Stepping swiftly back the girl sent a bullet
crashing through the door, and the man answered with a taunting laugh.
“Try it agin, sis! If you hit me you git a cigar!”
A loud cry from Dalzene brought her up, tense, listening. “Damn you,
don’t you kill that gal--she’s mine! I’ll tend to her case.”
In vain Dalzene sought for the great lead dog among the dogs in the
corral, round and round the fence he walked trying to single him out in
the gloom. The noontime dawn had not yet broken, and as the man stepped
onto a mound of snow close beside the fence for a better view of the
corral, his snowshoe caught upon an obstruction and he fell heavily.
With a curse, he scrambled to his feet and kicked at the obstacle that
had tripped him. It was immovable, but the kick had partially dislodged
the loose snow from about it. Swiftly Dalzene dropped to his knees, and
with his hands dug the snow away. The object was a little wooden cross,
and placing his eyes close to its surface he read the inscription
burned into the wood.
STUART GORDON
Died Jan. 13, 19--.
Slowly the man rose to his feet and with lust-gleaming eyes, stood
staring down into the snow, while in his brain, a new plan was born.
With the journey to Myrtle accomplished and Gordon out of the way,
he would have no further use for his confederate. He would watch his
chance, shoot him from behind, and the loot and the girl would be his
own. He glanced up. The man was watching him. He would play for time.
Swiftly he walked to the cabin. “Just when was it you was expectin’ the
old man back?” he asked, following the words with a hoarse laugh that
told the girl that he knew. She answered nothing.
Again the man spoke, changing his tactics: “Come on out, peaceable, an’
we won’t hurt you none,” he wheedled, “All I want is you should hit up
to Nolan an’ fix it with the boys so they’ll let me back on the river.
That’s all I want. Honest to God, it is. An’ they’ll do it if you tell
’em to.” Again, no answer. “All right, I got another proposition.
Throw in with me, an’ we’ll stay here an’ work the old man’s claim.
They ain’t no use tryin’ to buck me. I got you where I want you, an’
you ort to know it. The old man hain’t comin’ back. I jist stumbled
onto his grave. How about it?”
Silence from the cabin. Suddenly into Dalzene’s hate-crazed brain
leaped the memory of that other day when he had talked to this girl and
she had not deigned reply. It was the day of the miners’ meeting. A
sudden fury flared within him. And his voice raised to a bellow: “Damn
you! You will come out! Come out, I say! Or, By God, I’ll burn you out!
Bar the door all you want to, you can’t bar fire! Come out here! Damn
you! Do you hear?”
Inside the cabin the girl stood gripping her rifle. Cold fear clutched
her heart. She closed her eyes, and for a moment the world swam and
she reeled, slightly. Fire! They would fire the cabin. Instantly she
recovered herself. Well, it was the end. She would go out--when the
smoke and heat forced her out. But she would go out shooting. She would
never surrender! Never would that brute defile her living body with his
foul touch. He might kill her, but he would never take her alive. The
odds were two-to-one, but she would die fighting. She would kill them,
or force them to kill her.
She could hear the enraged Dalzene ordering the man to carry spruce
branches. She could hear the branches being heaped against the cabin.
Then--the crackle of flames--louder and louder the crackling sounded,
until it rose in a steady roar. The frost began to melt on the window
panes, some chinking from high on the wall fell to the floor and the
acrid smell of smoke reached her nostrils. Leaping to the window whose
panes were fast clearing in the heat she saw Dalzene standing upon the
edge of the creek facing the door. A cloud of smoke shot through with
red flame swept past the window, concealing the figure. Stepping back
the girl cocked her rifle and raising it waited for the smoke-screen to
drift past.
* * * * *
“Wonder where they’re headin’?” muttered MacShane as the two-man outfit
disappeared in the darkness. “Guzzlin’ hooch on the trail ain’t goin’
to git ’em far. The big one was plumb drunk. They’ll have to camp
before long. Anyway,” he grinned, “They’ve left me a good trail!”
A half-hour later he pulled up his dogs before the door of a deserted
cabin and explored its interior. “This will do till Old Man Gordon gets
back,” he decided, and proceeded to unharness his dogs. This done, he
carried his pack from the toboggan and tossed it upon the floor of the
cabin. “Wonder where the old man went an’ how long he’s goin’ to stay?”
he mused, “Nolan prob’ly. She said she expected him back any time.” A
slow smile twisted the corners of his mouth. “I wonder if she’s found
my note, yet? I wonder if she cares? Maybe I hadn’t ought to put that
down--about us two bein’ tired of missin’ life. Wish I hadn’t. Wonder
if she’ll be watchin’ for me to come back?” He paused abruptly, and
stepping to the door, stared in the direction from which he had come.
“I wonder if them two would bother her any?” Smiling at the thought, he
returned to his unpacking. A few moments later he again stepped to the
door and gazed up the creek. “Hell!” he muttered, “No one would bother
a woman! But--the big one was drunk. She’s a sourdough all right an’
able to take care of herself. But--it wouldn’t hurt to kind of mush
along up that way--maybe the old man’s got back.” MacShane laughed
aloud: “Trouble with me is I’m just naturally honin’ to be near her.
You can’t never tell what a drunk man will do. I’ve got a kind of a
hunch I ought to hit the back trail--an’ when I get a hunch--I ride it!”
Fastening on his snowshoes he struck swiftly off up the creek. Their
trail afforded good footing, and he walked rapidly.
At the point when the two-man outfit halted for the second time he
paused and examined the tracks in the snow. “Someone else was comin’
down the creek besides me,” he muttered, “Someone in my trail--an’
when he met this other outfit he turned around an’--” MacShane’s words
ceased abruptly as he further examined the marks left by the snowshoes
where their edges overlapped the toboggan trail. “He was runnin’,” he
exclaimed “What in hell?”
For an instant his heart ceased beating. Could it have been--_her_? Why
had she turned back--running? The thought raced through his brain, and
with a hoarse cry he dashed up the trail.
Rounding the last bend he stopped, horror-stricken. The red flare of
flames confronted him. The cabin was on fire! No, it was light brush
piled against the cabin! By the light of the leaping blaze he could
make out the figures of the two armed men watching the cabin. The
larger of the two stood upon the bank of the creek scarce twenty yards
away. He caught the glint of the heavy revolver in the man’s hand.
MacShane was unarmed. Swiftly releasing the thongs of his snowshoes, he
dropped from the bank to a strip of wind-swept ice, dashed toward the
motionless figure of the man.
“Come on out! Damn you! I told you the time would come when you would
talk pretty to Jake Dalzene!” The words ended in a startled cry as
MacShane hurled himself upon him. The six gun, knocked from his hand,
buried itself in the snow.
A puff of wind eddied the smoke-screen and Lou Gordon dropped her eye
to the sights of her rifle. The man she had so long feared--the man who
had, in cold blood, murdered _Huloimee Tilakum_ stood as he had stood
before the smoke and flames had blotted him from her sight. Her finger
tightened upon the trigger. The next instant the rifle was lowered and
with face pressed close to the glass the girl was staring wide-eyed
through the window. Another form had leaped into view behind the form
of Dalzene. The words with which the man was taunting her ended in a
hoarse cry of fear--and two bodies were struggling in the snow!
A blur of motion caught the corner of the girl’s eye and she turned her
head to see the man with the rifle rushing to Dalzene’s assistance.
Crossing the room at a bound, she hurled the heavy bar aside, flung
the door open, raised her rifle, and fired. The man with the rifle
staggered a few steps, and regaining his balance, turned toward her,
bringing his rifle to his shoulder. Again she fired and the man sagged
slowly at the knees and crumpled into the snow.
As the door opened Skookum sprang past his mistress with a hoarse growl
of fury.
Upon the bank of the creek the two struggling figures had regained
their feet. Neither had been able to recover the six gun. At the sound
of shots they sprang apart and stared at the man in the snow.
The next instant the air was rent by a thin, shrill scream. The most
blood-curdling sound MacShane had ever heard--coming as it did from the
throat of a full-grown man--a cry so awful in its abandon of abject
soul-terror as to cause a prickling sensation at the roots of his hair.
Hardly had the shriek left the man’s lips than a great tawny shape
hurtled through the air and MacShane gazed in horror as the gleaming
white fangs that studded the cavernous yawning mouth closed with an
audible crunch upon the man’s face. The great dog’s momentum carried
him past, as he bowled the man into the snow. Strange, inarticulate
sounds came from the writhing body and MacShane, after one horrified
glance turned away. The man in struggling to rise turned his head
toward him and where his face had been living eyeballs bulged from
their sockets and between two naked, flesh-stripped rows of teeth a
living tongue writhed in audible mouthings.
The great dog sprang again--and MacShane rushed to the girl. “Quick!”
he cried, “We can save the cabin yet!” and with his bare hands began
to tear the blazing boughs from the wall. Side by side they worked,
tearing away the brush and throwing snow on the blazing eaves. The
thick logs of the cabin wall, already smoking, were easily extinguished
with snow.
MacShane rubbed a handful of snow upon the last glowing coal and as
he turned from the wall his eyes met the eyes of Lou Gordon--those
wondrous dark eyes that were living wells of--_love_! The next instant
his arms were about her and the tears from those dark eyes were wetting
his cheeks.
“This is the answer to your question,” he whispered, a few moments
later when, with her head resting against his breast she looked up into
his face.
“But we haven’t missed--life! For us life is just beginning,” she said.
“I sure hope Gordon will come back soon,” smiled the man. And for
reply, the girl pointed to the little wooden cross that Dalzene had
uncovered in the snow, and together they turned away.
“And now, my woman, we’ll be married,” said MacShane, as they paused at
the door of the cabin. The girl looked into his face with a smile. “And
I will be Mrs.--_Huloimee Tilakum_?” she asked, “Do you know, dear--”
the unfamiliar word hesitated upon her lips. “You have never told me
your name.”
“My name,” he laughed, “I told you once I would some day tell you my
name. It is Burr MacShane----”
“Burr MacShane!” cried the girl, staring wide-eyed into his face.
“Why dad has been hunting for you for years! He wanted to apologize
for--what he said--back in Dawson. Dear old dad--if he could only know!”
“Maybe he does know,” whispered MacShane, softly, as his lips met hers.
“Wait!” she cried a few moments later, and darting into the cabin she
reappeared with a grotesquely carved wooden doll, in a dress of faded
silk. “Do you know what this is?” she asked, holding it up before him,
“It has been my most treasured possession.”
The man smiled, “Yes,” he answered, “I gave it to you myself--years
ago--that Christmas, in Dawson. I told you back in Nome it was a
game--I knew you, an’ you didn’t know me--the biggest game of all,
girl--and I won! And now I’m goin’ to claim the stakes. There’s a
parson at Alekaket Mission,” he whispered and smiled happily as the
girl’s face flushed crimson.
Skookum left off worrying at the _thing_ that sprawled in the snow on
the creek bank, and as the two stood arm in arm, he joined them, and
rearing upward, placed a huge paw upon the breast of each. And as their
hands stroked the great dog’s neck, the smouldering amber eyes glowed
softly.
An hour later the two paused for a farewell look at the little cabin on
Myrtle. Beside them the worthless iron boiler reared its gaunt black
sides above the drifted snow.
The girl’s eyes filmed as they rested for a moment upon the little
wooden cross, and as she turned away the Arctic gloom gradually
lightened. She glanced upward toward the broad bands of purple and pink
that shot into the zenith.
“Come!” she cried, and hurriedly led the way to the summit of a long
bare ridge. “Look!” she pointed toward the southern horizon where a
red disk upon the far-off rim of the world was dissipating the bands
of purple and pink: “The sun! I watched it go down nearly three months
ago,” she murmured, softly. “And my heart was heavy and sad. I thought
I had lost you, dear. I thought that for me love was dead, and my life
loomed dark and cold as the long, long night that was before me. But
see--now it is day!”
“Yes, girl,” answered MacShane--“now it is day. It is a good omen. The
sun means--life, and love, and happiness.
“I told Camillo Bill, way back in Dawson that my hunch said
‘North’--an’ I rode it!”
THE END
_A Selection from the
Catalogue of_
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
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The
Man in the Twilight
By
Ridgwell Cullum
Author of “The Heart of Unaga” etc.
[Illustration]
The setting of this story is laid in the forests, in a country the
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and is worked out among the toilers in two great pulp industries, with
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“It is vital, highly strung, full of fire and vim and zest. It is
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read.”--_Freeman’s Journal._
G. P. Putnam’s Sons
New York London
Where the
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By
Barrett Willoughby
Read, and you’ll agree that “Where the Sun Swings North” is a find! So
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“Scotty Allan,” famous throughout all the Northwest, calls this the
best book yet about Alaska--and the _truest_.
The breath of actuality blows through its fascinating pages; its people
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G. P. Putnam’s Sons
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The East Wind
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The six short novels included in this book abundantly illustrate
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Here is a book to enjoy, to think about, and to keep.
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My Northern
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_The Kawa_ at the Pole
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Similar in format to the famous =_Cruise of the Kawa_=, this new volume
carries the reader on an exciting and riotously funny expedition to the
frozen north. It is an account of the adventures of the redoubtable Dr.
Traprock (and party) who set out to discover the real North Pole--but
undertake their voyage in a most unusual manner. The incidents,
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