IV

Twice Freda sent messengers up to the Barracks, where the dance was in

full swing, and as often they came back without answers. Then she did

what only Freda could do--put on her furs, masked her face, and went up

herself to the Governor's ball. Now there happened to be a custom--not

an original one by any means--to which the official clique had long since

become addicted. It was a very wise custom, for it furnished protection

to the womankind of the officials and gave greater selectness to their

revels. Whenever a masquerade was given, a committee was chosen, the

sole function of which was to stand by the door and peep beneath each and

every mask. Most men did not clamor to be placed upon this committee,

while the very ones who least desired the honor were the ones whose

services were most required. The chaplain was not well enough acquainted

with the faces and places of the townspeople to know whom to admit and

whom to turn away. In like condition were the several other worthy

gentlemen who would have asked nothing better than to so serve. To fill

the coveted place, Mrs. McFee would have risked her chance of salvation,

and did, one night, when a certain trio passed in under her guns and

muddled things considerably before their identity was discovered.

Thereafter only the fit were chosen, and very ungracefully did they

respond.

On this particular night Prince was at the door. Pressure had been

brought to bear, and he had not yet recovered from amaze at his having

consented to undertake a task which bid fair to lose him half his

friends, merely for the sake of pleasing the other half. Three or four

of the men he had refused were men whom he had known on creek and

trail,--good comrades, but not exactly eligible for so select an affair.

He was canvassing the expediency of resigning the post there and then,

when a woman tripped in under the light. Freda! He could swear it by

the furs, did he not know that poise of head so well. The last one to

expect in all the world. He had given her better judgment than to thus

venture the ignominy of refusal, or, if she passed, the scorn of women.

He shook his head, without scrutiny; he knew her too well to be mistaken.

But she pressed closer. She lifted the black silk ribbon and as quickly

lowered it again. For one flashing, eternal second he looked upon her

face. It was not for nothing, the saying which had arisen in the

country, that Freda played with men as a child with bubbles. Not a word

was spoken. Prince stepped aside, and a few moments later might have

been seen resigning, with warm incoherence, the post to which he had been

unfaithful.

* * * * *

A woman, flexible of form, slender, yet rhythmic of strength in every

movement, now pausing with this group, now scanning that, urged a

restless and devious course among the revellers. Men recognized the

furs, and marvelled,--men who should have served upon the door committee;

but they were not prone to speech. Not so with the women. They had

better eyes for the lines of figure and tricks of carriage, and they knew

this form to be one with which they were unfamiliar; likewise the furs.

Mrs. McFee, emerging from the supper-room where all was in readiness,

caught one flash of the blazing, questing eyes through the silken mask-

slits, and received a start. She tried to recollect where she had seen

the like, and a vivid picture was recalled of a certain proud and

rebellious sinner whom she had once encountered on a fruitless errand for

the Lord.

So it was that the good woman took the trail in hot and righteous wrath,

a trail which brought her ultimately into the company of Mrs. Eppingwell

and Floyd Vanderlip. Mrs. Eppingwell had just found the opportunity to

talk with the man. She had determined, now that Flossie was so near at

hand, to proceed directly to the point, and an incisive little ethical

discourse was titillating on the end of her tongue, when the couple

became three. She noted, and pleasurably, the faintly foreign accent of

the "Beg pardon" with which the furred woman prefaced her immediate

appropriation of Floyd Vanderlip; and she courteously bowed her

permission for them to draw a little apart.

Then it was that Mrs. McFee's righteous hand descended, and accompanying

it in its descent was a black mask torn from a startled woman. A

wonderful face and brilliant eyes were exposed to the quiet curiosity of

those who looked that way, and they were everybody. Floyd Vanderlip was

rather confused. The situation demanded instant action on the part of a

man who was not beyond his depth, while _he_ hardly knew where he was. He

stared helplessly about him. Mrs. Eppingwell was perplexed. She could

not comprehend. An explanation was forthcoming, somewhere, and Mrs.

McFee was equal to it.

"Mrs. Eppingwell," and her Celtic voice rose shrilly, "it is with great

pleasure I make you acquainted with Freda Moloof, _Miss_ Freda Moloof, as

I understand."

Freda involuntarily turned. With her own face bared, she felt as in a

dream, naked, upon her turned the clothed features and gleaming eyes of

the masked circle. It seemed, almost, as though a hungry wolf-pack

girdled her, ready to drag her down. It might chance that some felt pity

for her, she thought, and at the thought, hardened. She would by far

prefer their scorn. Strong of heart was she, this woman, and though she

had hunted the prey into the midst of the pack, Mrs. Eppingwell or no

Mrs. Eppingwell, she could not forego the kill.

But here Mrs. Eppingwell did a strange thing. So this, at last, was

Freda, she mused, the dancer and the destroyer of men; the woman from

whose door she had been turned. And she, too, felt the imperious

creature's nakedness as though it were her own. Perhaps it was this, her

Saxon disinclination to meet a disadvantaged foe, perhaps, forsooth, that

it might give her greater strength in the struggle for the man, and it

might have been a little of both; but be that as it may, she did do this

strange thing. When Mrs. McFee's thin voice, vibrant with malice, had

raised, and Freda turned involuntarily, Mrs. Eppingwell also turned,

removed her mask, and inclined her head in acknowledgment.

It was another flashing, eternal second, during which these two women

regarded each other. The one, eyes blazing, meteoric; at bay,

aggressive; suffering in advance and resenting in advance the scorn and

ridicule and insult she had thrown herself open to; a beautiful, burning,

bubbling lava cone of flesh and spirit. And the other, calm-eyed, cool-

browed, serene; strong in her own integrity, with faith in herself,

thoroughly at ease; dispassionate, imperturbable; a figure chiselled from

some cold marble quarry. Whatever gulf there might exist, she recognized

it not. No bridging, no descending; her attitude was that of perfect

equality. She stood tranquilly on the ground of their common womanhood.

And this maddened Freda. Not so, had she been of lesser breed; but her

soul's plummet knew not the bottomless, and she could follow the other

into the deeps of her deepest depths and read her aright. "Why do you

not draw back your garment's hem?" she was fain to cry out, all in that

flashing, dazzling second. "Spit upon me, revile me, and it were greater

mercy than this!" She trembled. Her nostrils distended and quivered.

But she drew herself in check, returned the inclination of head, and

turned to the man.

"Come with me, Floyd," she said simply. "I want you now."

"What the--" he began explosively, and quit as suddenly, discreet enough

to not round it off. Where the deuce had his wits gone, anyway? Was

ever a man more foolishly placed? He gurgled deep down in his throat and

high up in the roof of his mouth, heaved as one his big shoulders and his

indecision, and glared appealingly at the two women.

"I beg pardon, just a moment, but may I speak first with Mr. Vanderlip?"

Mrs. Eppingwell's voice, though flute-like and low, predicated will in

its every cadence.

The man looked his gratitude. He, at least, was willing enough.

"I'm very sorry," from Freda. "There isn't time. He must come at once."

The conventional phrases dropped easily from her lips, but she could not

forbear to smile inwardly at their inadequacy and weakness. She would

much rather have shrieked.

"But, Miss Moloof, who are you that you may possess yourself of Mr.

Vanderlip and command his actions?"

Whereupon relief brightened his face, and the man beamed his approval.

Trust Mrs. Eppingwell to drag him clear. Freda had met her match this

time.

"I--I--" Freda hesitated, and then her feminine mind putting on its

harness--"and who are you to ask this question?"

"I? I am Mrs. Eppingwell, and--"

"There!" the other broke in sharply. "You are the wife of a captain, who

is therefore your husband. I am only a dancing girl. What do you with

this man?"

"Such unprecedented behavior!" Mrs. McFee ruffled herself and cleared for

action, but Mrs. Eppingwell shut her mouth with a look and developed a

new attack.

"Since Miss Moloof appears to hold claims upon you, Mr. Vanderlip, and is

in too great haste to grant me a few seconds of your time, I am forced to

appeal directly to you. May I speak with you, alone, and now?"

Mrs. McFee's jaws brought together with a snap. That settled the

disgraceful situation.

"Why, er--that is, certainly," the man stammered. "Of course, of

course," growing more effusive at the prospect of deliverance.

Men are only gregarious vertebrates, domesticated and evolved, and the

chances are large that it was because the Greek girl had in her time

dealt with wilder masculine beasts of the human sort; for she turned upon

the man with hell's tides aflood in her blazing eyes, much as a

bespangled lady upon a lion which has suddenly imbibed the pernicious

theory that he is a free agent. The beast in him fawned to the lash.

"That is to say, ah, afterward. To-morrow, Mrs. Eppingwell; yes,

to-morrow. That is what I meant." He solaced himself with the fact,

should he remain, that more embarrassment awaited. Also, he had an

engagement which he must keep shortly, down by the water-hole off the

hospital. Ye gods! he had never given Freda credit! Wasn't she

magnificent!

"I'll thank you for my mask, Mrs. McFee."

That lady, for the nonce speechless, turned over the article in question.

"Good-night, Miss Moloof." Mrs. Eppingwell was royal even in defeat.

Freda reciprocated, though barely downing the impulse to clasp the

other's knees and beg forgiveness,--no, not forgiveness, but something,

she knew not what, but which she none the less greatly desired.

The man was for her taking his arm; but she had made her kill in the

midst of the pack, and that which led kings to drag their vanquished at

the chariot-tail, led her toward the door alone, Floyd Vanderlip close at

heel and striving to re-establish his mental equilibrium.

V

It was bitter cold. As the trail wound, a quarter of a mile brought them

to the dancer's cabin, by which time her moist breath had coated her face

frostily, while his had massed his heavy mustache till conversation was

painful. By the greenish light of the aurora borealis, the quicksilver

showed itself frozen hard in the bulb of the thermometer which hung

outside the door. A thousand dogs, in pitiful chorus, wailed their

ancient wrongs and claimed mercy from the unheeding stars. Not a breath

of air was moving. For them there was no shelter from the cold, no

shrewd crawling to leeward in snug nooks. The frost was everywhere, and

they lay in the open, ever and anon stretching their trail-stiffened

muscles and lifting the long wolf-howl.

They did not talk at first, the man and the woman. While the maid helped

Freda off with her wraps, Floyd Vanderlip replenished the fire; and by

the time the maid had withdrawn to an inner room, his head over the

stove, he was busily thawing out his burdened upper lip. After that he

rolled a cigarette and watched her lazily through the fragrant eddies.

She stole a glance at the clock. It lacked half an hour of midnight. How

was she to hold him? Was he angry for that which she had done? What was

his mood? What mood of hers could meet his best? Not that she doubted

herself. No, no. Hold him she could, if need be at pistol point, till

Sitka Charley's work was done, and Devereaux's too.

There were many ways, and with her knowledge of this her contempt for the

man increased. As she leaned her head on her hand, a fleeting vision of

her own girlhood, with its mournful climacteric and tragic ebb, was

vouchsafed her, and for the moment she was minded to read him a lesson

from it. God! it must be less than human brute who could not be held by

such a tale, told as she could tell it, but--bah! He was not worth it,

nor worth the pain to her. The candle was positioned just right, and

even as she thought of these things sacredly shameful to her, he was

pleasuring in the transparent pinkiness of her ear. She noted his eye,

took the cue, and turned her head till the clean profile of the face was

presented. Not the least was that profile among her virtues. She could

not help the lines upon which she had been builded, and they were very

good; but she had long since learned those lines, and though little they

needed, was not above advantaging them to the best of her ability. The

candle began to flicker. She could not do anything ungracefully, but

that did not prevent her improving upon nature a bit, when she reached

forth and deftly snuffed the red wick from the midst of the yellow flame.

Again she rested head on hand, this time regarding the man thoughtfully,

and any man is pleased when thus regarded by a pretty woman.

She was in little haste to begin. If dalliance were to his liking, it

was to hers. To him it was very comfortable, soothing his lungs with

nicotine and gazing upon her. It was snug and warm here, while down by

the water-hole began a trail which he would soon be hitting through the

chilly hours. He felt he ought to be angry with Freda for the scene she

had created, but somehow he didn't feel a bit wrathful. Like as not

there wouldn't have been any scene if it hadn't been for that McFee

woman. If he were the Governor, he would put a poll tax of a hundred

ounces a quarter upon her and her kind and all gospel sharks and sky

pilots. And certainly Freda had behaved very ladylike, held her own with

Mrs. Eppingwell besides. Never gave the girl credit for the grit. He

looked lingeringly over her, coming back now and again to the eyes,

behind the deep earnestness of which he could not guess lay concealed a

deeper sneer. And, Jove, wasn't she well put up! Wonder why she looked

at him so? Did she want to marry him, too? Like as not; but she wasn't

the only one. Her looks were in her favor, weren't they? And

young--younger than Loraine Lisznayi. She couldn't be more than twenty-

three or four, twenty-five at most. And she'd never get stout. Anybody

could guess that the first time. He couldn't say it of Loraine, though.

_She_ certainly had put on flesh since the day she served as model. Huh!

once he got her on trail he'd take it off. Put her on the snowshoes to

break ahead of the dogs. Never knew it to fail, yet. But his thought

leaped ahead to the palace under the lazy Mediterranean sky--and how

would it be with Loraine then? No frost, no trail, no famine now and

again to cheer the monotony, and she getting older and piling it on with

every sunrise. While this girl Freda--he sighed his unconscious regret

that he had missed being born under the flag of the Turk, and came back

to Alaska.

"Well?" Both hands of the clock pointed perpendicularly to midnight, and

it was high time he was getting down to the water-hole.

"Oh!" Freda started, and she did it prettily, delighting him as his

fellows have ever been delighted by their womankind. When a man is made

to believe that a woman, looking upon him thoughtfully, has lost herself

in meditation over him, that man needs be an extremely cold-blooded

individual in order to trim his sheets, set a lookout, and steer clear.

"I was just wondering what you wanted to see me about," he explained,

drawing his chair up to hers by the table.

"Floyd," she looked him steadily in the eyes, "I am tired of the whole

business. I want to go away. I can't live it out here till the river

breaks. If I try, I'll die. I am sure of it. I want to quit it all and

go away, and I want to do it at once."

She laid her hand in mute appeal upon the back of his, which turned over

and became a prison. Another one, he thought, just throwing herself at

him. Guess it wouldn't hurt Loraine to cool her feet by the water-hole a

little longer.

"Well?" This time from Freda, but softly and anxiously.

"I don't know what to say," he hastened to answer, adding to himself that

it was coming along quicker than he had expected. "Nothing I'd like

better, Freda. You know that well enough." He pressed her hand, palm to

palm. She nodded. Could she wonder that she despised the breed?

"But you see, I--I'm engaged. Of course you know that. And the girl's

coming into the country to marry me. Don't know what was up with me when

I asked her, but it was a long while back, and I was all-fired young--"

"I want to go away, out of the land, anywhere," she went on, disregarding

the obstacle he had reared up and apologized for. "I have been running

over the men I know and reached the conclusion that--that--"

"I was the likeliest of the lot?"

She smiled her gratitude for his having saved her the embarrassment of

confession. He drew her head against his shoulder with the free hand,

and somehow the scent of her hair got into his nostrils. Then he

discovered that a common pulse throbbed, throbbed, throbbed, where their

palms were in contact. This phenomenon is easily comprehensible from a

physiological standpoint, but to the man who makes the discovery for the

first time, it is a most wonderful thing. Floyd Vanderlip had caressed

more shovel-handles than women's hands in his time, so this was an

experience quite new and delightfully strange. And when Freda turned her

head against his shoulder, her hair brushing his cheek till his eyes met

hers, full and at close range, luminously soft, ay, and tender--why,

whose fault was it that he lost his grip utterly? False to Flossie, why

not to Loraine? Even if the women did keep bothering him, that was no

reason he should make up his mind in a hurry. Why, he had slathers of

money, and Freda was just the girl to grace it. A wife she'd make him

for other men to envy. But go slow. He must be cautious.

"You don't happen to care for palaces, do you?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"Well, I had a hankering after them myself, till I got to thinking, a

while back, and I've about sized it up that one'd get fat living in

palaces, and soft and lazy."

"Yes, it's nice for a time, but you soon grow tired of it, I imagine,"

she hastened to reassure him. "The world is good, but life should be

many-sided. Rough and knock about for a while, and then rest up

somewhere. Off to the South Seas on a yacht, then a nibble of Paris; a

winter in South America and a summer in Norway; a few months in England--"

"Good society?"

"Most certainly--the best; and then, heigho! for the dogs and sleds and

the Hudson Bay Country. Change, you know. A strong man like you, full

of vitality and go, could not possibly stand a palace for a year. It is

all very well for effeminate men, but you weren't made for such a life.

You are masculine, intensely masculine."

"Think so?"

"It does not require thinking. I know. Have you ever noticed that it

was easy to make women care for you?"

His dubious innocence was superb.

"It is very easy. And why? Because you are masculine. You strike the

deepest chords of a woman's heart. You are something to cling to,--big-

muscled, strong, and brave. In short, because you _are_ a man."

She shot a glance at the clock. It was half after the hour. She had

given a margin of thirty minutes to Sitka Charley; and it did not matter,

now, when Devereaux arrived. Her work was done. She lifted her head,

laughed her genuine mirth, slipped her hand clear, and rising to her feet

called the maid.

"Alice, help Mr. Vanderlip on with his _parka_. His mittens are on the

sill by the stove."

The man could not understand.

"Let me thank you for your kindness, Floyd. Your time was invaluable to

me, and it was indeed good of you. The turning to the left, as you leave

the cabin, leads the quickest to the water-hole. Good-night. I am going

to bed."

Floyd Vanderlip employed strong words to express his perplexity and

disappointment. Alice did not like to hear men swear, so dropped his

_parka_ on the floor and tossed his mittens on top of it. Then he made a

break for Freda, and she ruined her retreat to the inner room by tripping

over the _parka_. He brought her up standing with a rude grip on the

wrist. But she only laughed. She was not afraid of men. Had they not

wrought their worst with her, and did she not still endure?

"Don't be rough," she said finally. "On second thought," here she looked

at his detaining hand, "I've decided not to go to bed yet a while. Do

sit down and be comfortable instead of ridiculous. Any questions?"

"Yes, my lady, and reckoning, too." He still kept his hold. "What do

you know about the water-hole? What did you mean by--no, never mind. One

question at a time."

"Oh, nothing much. Sitka Charley had an appointment there with somebody

you may know, and not being anxious for a man of your known charm to be

present, fell back upon me to kindly help him. That's all. They're off

now, and a good half hour ago."

"Where? Down river and without me? And he an Indian!"

"There's no accounting for taste, you know, especially in a woman."

"But how do I stand in this deal? I've lost four thousand dollars' worth

of dogs and a tidy bit of a woman, and nothing to show for it. Except

you," he added as an afterthought, "and cheap you are at the price."

Freda shrugged her shoulders.

"You might as well get ready. I'm going out to borrow a couple of teams

of dogs, and we'll start in as many hours."

"I am very sorry, but I'm going to bed."

"You'll pack if you know what's good for you. Go to bed, or not, when I

get my dogs outside, so help me, onto the sled you go. Mebbe you fooled

with me, but I'll just see your bluff and take you in earnest. Hear me?"

He closed on her wrist till it hurt, but on her lips a smile was growing,

and she seemed to listen intently to some outside sound. There was a

jingle of dog bells, and a man's voice crying "Haw!" as a sled took the

turning and drew up at the cabin.

"_Now_ will you let me go to bed?"

As Freda spoke she threw open the door. Into the warm room rushed the

frost, and on the threshold, garbed in trail-worn furs, knee-deep in the

swirling vapor, against a background of flaming borealis, a woman

hesitated. She removed her nose-trap and stood blinking blindly in the

white candlelight. Floyd Vanderlip stumbled forward.

"Floyd!" she cried, relieved and glad, and met him with a tired bound.

What could he but kiss the armful of furs? And a pretty armful it was,

nestling against him wearily, but happy.

"It was good of you," spoke the armful, "to send Mr. Devereaux with fresh

dogs after me, else I would not have been in till to-morrow."

The man looked blankly across at Freda, then the light breaking in upon

him, "And wasn't it good of Devereaux to go?"

"Couldn't wait a bit longer, could you, dear?" Flossie snuggled closer.

"Well, I was getting sort of impatient," he confessed glibly, at the same

time drawing her up till her feet left the floor, and getting outside the

door.

That same night an inexplicable thing happened to the Reverend James

Brown, missionary, who lived among the natives several miles down the

Yukon and saw to it that the trails they trod led to the white man's

paradise. He was roused from his sleep by a strange Indian, who gave

into his charge not only the soul but the body of a woman, and having

done this drove quickly away. This woman was heavy, and handsome, and

angry, and in her wrath unclean words fell from her mouth. This shocked

the worthy man, but he was yet young and her presence would have been

pernicious (in the simple eyes of his flock), had she not struck out on

foot for Dawson with the first gray of dawn.

The shock to Dawson came many days later, when the summer had come and

the population honored a certain royal lady at Windsor by lining the

Yukon's bank and watching Sitka Charley rise up with flashing paddle and

drive the first canoe across the line. On this day of the races, Mrs.

Eppingwell, who had learned and unlearned numerous things, saw Freda for

the first time since the night of the ball. "Publicly, mind you," as

Mrs. McFee expressed it, "without regard or respect for the morals of the

community," she went up to the dancer and held out her hand. At first,

it is remembered by those who saw, the girl shrank back, then words

passed between the two, and Freda, great Freda, broke down and wept on

the shoulder of the captain's wife. It was not given to Dawson to know

why Mrs. Eppingwell should crave forgiveness of a Greek dancing girl, but

she did it publicly, and it was unseemly.

It were well not to forget Mrs. McFee. She took a cabin passage on the

first steamer going out. She also took with her a theory which she had

achieved in the silent watches of the long dark nights; and it is her

conviction that the Northland is unregenerate because it is so cold

there. Fear of hell-fire cannot be bred in an ice-box. This may appear

dogmatic, but it is Mrs. McFee's theory.