Back in Dawson, on the evening of the same day when Britton stood alone
with the awful Klondike solitude at the edge of Five Mountain Gulch-as
it came to be named afterwards-when he faced at once the icy phantom
Cold, the grisly skeleton Starvation, and the devil-faced thing Remorse,
when he halted with death at his feet and its dread power pervading the
desolate snows about him, there occurred, in the golden city, a
strikingly different scene, a scene palpitating with warmth and life.
A group of men, present at Grant Simpson's invitation, occupied one of
the ground-floor rooms of the Half Moon restaurant, engaged ostensibly
in doing justice to a very elegant and costly supper, but really killing
time in a luxurious way and waiting anxiously for the bell-note of
business which they knew their host intended to ring in on them.
Simpson, with his accustomed lavish expenditure, had engaged the room to
the utter exclusion of other guests who might have dined at two of the
three tables which the chamber held; he had ordered that the trio of
tables be lined up and converted into one long feasting board which
could be covered with fine viands and drinks-principally drinks! The
catering was let to the hostess of the Half Moon, Aline Giraud, who was
a genius of management, all the more so since Pierre's absence on the
trails left every responsibility in her hands. That night she expected
him back from the completion of his baggage-freighting contract with
Laverdale, the big American mine-owner who was bound for Dyea and the
States, and Aline wished to have everything right. She wished the
supper that this well-dressed, money-burning lawyer was giving to be a
thing beyond criticism, and her every effort was devoted to making it
so.
And the bill! She told herself the bill would be the best of it all.
It would be a thing to cheer Pierre's heart and cause him to dance, with
his cap thrown among the ceiling festoons.
Simpson's was the dominating figure of the company present in the room
of the Half Moon where Aline Giraud served so assiduously with her
alert, graceful movements and her full, white arms. He seemed to hold
the key to some enterprise which claimed the attention of all under
their masks of good fellowship, but Simpson did not yet consider the
moment propitious for the unfolding of hidden plans.
He sat at the head of his table, with his guests ranged in two lines on
either side, men well known in Dawson, the chief characteristic of whom
was money. That was why they were present! If they had not had money
to invest, they could have entered into no proposition with Simpson.
Jarmand, the fat, wealthy broker with the currant-roll neck and the oily
insolence, was there; Fripps, the sour, thin, anaemic promoter,
maintained his usual unobtrusive but nevertheless certain presence; a
trio of capitalists of a somewhat similar stamp, keen-visaged but
rotund-bodied, quelled their impatience successfully, while they
secretly chafed at Simpson's dalliance, and awaited his proposition.
These men were inseparable in any business prospect; they worked
together, invested together, and stood or fell by a triumvirate
judgment; and since their names began with the same letter-Cranwell,
Crowdon, and Carr-they had been dubbed the three C's.
Where the three C's went in, the financial project need not be strictly
legitimate. They had few scruples or qualms, and when they took hold of
a mining scheme or a real estate deal, wise men kept out.
There were others present, probably a dozen in all, and among them Jim
Laurance, who had come with a great deal of misgiving and scepticism on
receipt of a letter from Simpson advising him of an opportunity of
getting in on the ground floor right under the scoops of a dredging
proposition.
And in preparation for his demonstration of ideas and plans, Grant
Simpson bade them all enjoy themselves, setting the example himself with
a free hand on the ladle of the punch bowl. Many followed his example
from appetite; the three C's imitated, thinking of a relished business
dessert as a sort of solace.
Famine might be threatening in the land of gold, but she had certainly
no embargo on liquors and cigars. Both were indulged in without stint.
Blue, acrid wreaths of smoke filled the room, and the atmosphere became
very warm. No one would have guessed it was forty below in the street,
The two lines of guests at the table and the host at its head emptied
glasses and refilled, tossed them off and ladled up again. Small talk
hummed, and jests cracked out, more or less coarse in the intervals when
pretty Aline Giraud was absent from the room during the different
courses of the meal.
Jim Laurance, the only temperate one in the company, sipped his simple
glass of punch sparingly, refusing the bottled stuff and the heavy
wines. He felt disgusted and sorry that he had come, but he had money
to invest if Simpson's thing suited him, and he settled himself to sit
out the revel.
The roadhouse at Indian River had proved a good thing for Laurance. He
had struck his Klondike right on that creek, and he was sane enough to
know it. Instead of frittering away his coin on fool stampedes in hopes
of a mighty strike, he was satisfied to invest it in sound mining
securities and watch the dividends slowly grow. Such an enterprise, he
hoped, was in Simpson's mind.
Simpson's wine, however, was more in Simpson's thoughts than the
enterprise. He had unwisely glutted his taste for beverages with a
tang, and he lost control of his manners as well as his senses, laughing
boisterously and telling unsavory tales.
"Hi, there!" he would yell, skidding the empty punch-bowl down the table
to Jarmand. "Fill her up, Fatty. You're the doctor. Put in something
stiff-stiff enough to make your moustache stand! Something d-d stiff,
Fatty!"
"That's it, Jarmand," gurgled Bonneaves, a young profligate and an
especial chum of Simpson's. "Mix us a regular old hair-raiser. We're
out for fun! Who's holding us down?"
"No one! No one!" shouted three or four of the muddled men, stamping on
the floor and breaking into confused singing, which set up rumbling
echoes through the other parts of the restaurant and went far to
disturbing its customers.
"Tell us a story, Simp," said Jarmand. "Old Simp's the boy for spicy
ones. Eh, men? You bet your liver-colored notes he is. Rip one off,
Simp, there's a good fellow!"
Accordingly Simp ripped one off, a story that convulsed the drinkers but
which made Laurance's blood boil. The one-time plainsman, now an
Alaskan sourdough, sat very still, without the shadow of a smile upon
his face.
Aline Giraud, accompanied by a waitress, an ugly, angular Danish woman,
brought in the meats. These were bear steaks, slices of moose flank,
and grouse in pairs, a veritable feast which would have fed a hundred
poverty-pinched wretches in the outlying camps. The thought came to
Laurance as he poised his knife and fork over the breast of a fat grouse
dressed with sage dressing in a wonderful brown gravy.
"Seems hard to waste this here," he said simply, "when there's so many
poor cusses starvin' round the Fields."
"To h-l with them!" cried Simpson, roughly. "What we have, we got. Eh?
We pay for it, and when you pay your way, the rest can go and be d-d to
'em. How's that?"
"Right," nodded Bonneaves. "You're always right, Simp. You're a wise
old buck. Glad I've known you. You can show a fellow things. Here's to
you, Simp!"
The talk grew louder and looser. As the gravies were being served,
Simpson and Jarmand, exchanging winks, attempted a double surprise. The
lawyer made a bungling effort to kiss Aline Giraud on the cheek, while
at the same time the fat broker leaned forward and pecked at the
waitress. The result was a startling surprise for Jarmand. The
ham-like hand of the Danish woman descended with a resounding smack on
the currant-roll neck of the broker.
The seated company roared at Jarmand. Jim Laurance frowned at Simpson
and half rose from his chair, but Aline had succeeded in eluding the
lawyer and fled through the doorway, the angry red showing in her
cheeks.
"That's one on you, Fatty," tittered his friends. "Beautiful throw-down,
that! Right place, too! Like another, Fatty? Better try again. Ho!
ho!"
"Cheer up, old man," laughed Simpson, accepting the joke. "Better luck
next time. Walk into the punch there, Fatty; you have a weak heart."
They walked into the punch till the third bowl failed to withstand the
charges, and a fourth had to be mixed. Some of the men, unable to
restrain their vivacity, arose and capered about the laden table,
singing and playing the fool perfectly, and stopping only to refill
empty tumblers.
The Danish waitress, now secure in the triumph of her first quick
victory, held her ground undaunted, completing the serving of the
banquet in spite of the noise. Aline, no longer entering the room,
watched the progress of things through the doorway from the farther
chamber. Somehow, this fine supper over which she had spent so much
effort had not turned out as she had contemplated; things were getting
beyond her grasp; her eyes grew anxious wide, and startled.
After all, she thought, it might not please Pierre. Even the bill would
never compensate for the disgusting clamor and the humiliation.
Laurance had finished his single glass of punch and was drawing on his
short, black pipe. He disdained the long, fat cigars of Jarmand and the
three C's, and cursed the ill-smelling, coronet-banded cigarettes of
Simpson and Bonneaves. The oddest figure in the group himself, he felt
nothing but contempt for the others. The only thing about them he
respected was the business instinct of their sober moments, and there
seemed but little chance for a display of that now.
The Alaskan waited till the fourth bowl of punch ran low, hoping that
Simpson would open his mouth to speak sound sense, instead of salacious
nonsense, and tell them why he had invited them to supper, but when the
concoction of a fifth bowl was begun, amid most uproarious hilarity,
Laurance inwardly fumed, making up his mind that he would not sit there
much longer.
Unconsciously, he was frowning through the drifting haze of smoke at his
companions. There was no stern decorum present, nor any nicety of
attire. To be sure, Simpson, as host, and Bonneaves, to imitate his
model, wore dinner clothes, but the rest were dressed in the ordinary
dress which occupation demanded. The three C's were in black
broadcloth; Jarmand sported a suit of loud check pattern; Fripps favored
grey, as wrinkled and faded as his skin. The others of the company were
mostly mining men who had come in corduroys, with trousers stuffed in
knee-high cruisers, and had hung fur coats and caps on the pegs behind
their chairs. Laurance, travelling by dog-train to Dawson, wore the
musher's outfit of the trails.
He looked rough and uncouth, but very much a man. His beard was
disreputable as ever; the iron-gray hair stood up stiffer and stubbier,
allowing his rat ears to be seen; his nose peeped out, cherry-red and
snub. He was lowering on the foolish antics of the rest of the men, and
his keen blue eyes were narrowed so much that they did not flash.
"What's the matter with you, Laurance, old sport?" cried Bonneaves,
joyously. "Look as if you'd buried your best friend in the punch-bowl!"
"Why," shouted Simpson, "if that's so, we'll resurrect him! Resurrect's
the word, boys. Eh? How's that?" He seized the bowl in both arms and
emptied it to the last drop in the array of glasses. Then he turned the
dish upside down on the table and hammered upon its bottom, while the
company roared as if he had done some extremely witty thing.
"What say, Laurance?" asked young Bonneaves. "Feel any better?"
"I feel like twistin' your cussed neck, young man," answered Laurance,
wrathfully. "What did I come here for? To eat a decent meal an' talk
business! I didn't come to swill meself-I'm certainly certain of that!
We're men anyhow, an' there's no call for us to act like a lot of calf
youngsters as can't pull the draw-string on their gullets. I say we're
here to talk business!"
"H-l, yes," grunted Bonneaves, with the air of sudden recollection.
"You're right, sport, now I come to remember. Simp did bring us here
for a purpose, and that's no lie. Give us your scheme, Simp. Hot and
heavy and fast-that's the way!"
Because their tastes palled a little, the others added their clamorous
entreaties. Their exhortations made a confused babel:
"Hit it up, Simp! Uncork your oracle. Spread yourself quick, old boy.
What's the tune now? Time we talked, by gad!" And Bonneaves nodded
sagely at Laurance, muttering: "You're all right, sport. Simp's a wise
buck, but you're a wiser! See? Attention, you duffers!" He secured
order by pounding the board with the thick bottom of his tumbler.
"Simp's going to spout," he announced authoritatively. Noticing that
the lawyer had engrossed himself with the opening of a champagne bottle,
Bonneaves hastily added: "Why, no! Rat me if he isn't going to swallow!
Here, Simp, that won't do. Put it away. Can't you see your friends are
waiting?"
"I'm busy," protested Simpson, struggling with the cork. "It's all
about that Yukon dredging business anyhow. I've taken it off Morris's
hands since he's played the fool and disappeared, d-n him! I need
backing. That's what I need. I can't go it alone!"
"What's the lay-out?" prompted Jarmand. "Put aside the bottle and get
down to business."
Simpson flung away the opener as a useless thing and grasped a fresh
one.
"Curse the bottle and curse the business," he fumed. "I'm busy, I tell
you. Here, I have the prospectus. Read it yourselves, and you'll save
my wind!" He drew some typewritten sheets from his breast-pocket and
flung them upon the cloth.
What he had called the prospectus passed down the line at one side of
the table, up again, and down the other side, greeted with grunts of
approval by those still clear-brained enough to understand and with much
head-wagging from such as were incapable of comprehension.
"Bully!"
"Standard bred!"
"Up to snuff!"
"Neat as garters!"
These were some of the comments from the appreciative assembly.
Last of all, the prospectus came to Jim Laurance. At the top of the
sheet, in large typing, was the name, "Yukon Dredging Company."
Underneath that reposed the list of directors, picked, apparently, from
the group invited to supper. Jarmand's name appeared, and Fripps's,
Bonneaves's, and the names of the three C's.
Laurance quietly read the sheets through, with their significance
vitally impressing itself on him, and when he finished, he saw that he
held the kind of thing which is circulated by thousands through the
mails for the catching of suckers. It was the universally familiar,
folded sheet that expounded the virtues of the greatest dredging
proposition in the world.
"By gad," he cried, angrily shaking the prospectus in the air, "so this
is what you've hauled me over here to back up, eh? A cussed, dirty,
widow-an'-orphan robbin' swindle, if you ast me! An', gents, I give it
to you straight: you're a pack of low faro dealers, a bunch of
thimbleriggers, a handful of flimflammers if you put through that there
deal. You're a ring of thieves and d-d blacklegs, gents!"
"Hold on there, sport!" yelled Bonneaves. "You go it too strong. We
won't stand for all that."
"I can go lots stronger yet, young cocky-neck," warned Lawrence. "Why,
I ain't half goin'. You should see me fizz some time, me son, an' you'd
run your feet off for fear of bein' blowed up." He regarded the
youthful profligate grimly, shaking his stubby scalp and gray beard
aggressively, but in the corners of his eyes there lurked a humorous
expression.
"Aren't you in on this?" asked Jarmand, rolling a wave of his oily
insolence down the table to Laurance. "Aren't you taking hold? There's
money in it!"
The Alaskan eyed him squarely.
"Not the kind of money I want," he said severely. "Not me own kind, by
a thousand yard shot! I don't want no widow's mites or orphan's
pennies; I don't steal no wimmen's savin's nor the hard-earned dollars
of some poor laborin' cuss as thinks the Yukon is one whoppin' lump of
gold an' all we got to do here is to file up our finger-nails and claw
it off in pieces. No, sir, count me out! An' I'll see some law-sharp
an' have you gents counted out, too. You don't work this here game so
easy. I'm certainly certain of that! You can't rob people so d-d
bare-faced. No, sir, you truly can't. Why, this here would be wors'n
jumpin' all the claims on Samson Creek!"
Laurance's glance rested full on Grant Simpson as he uttered his bold
words, and the lawyer looked up with suspicious, drink-steeped eyes.
"What the devil's wrong with this thing?" he demanded angrily. "What
puts your back up?"
"Look here," snapped Laurance, pointing to the typewritten sheet. "You
claim to have one hundred miles river frontage, or 'bout ten thousand
acres, on Indian Creek. You bought it from the Government! Pretty lie,
if you ast me! Clear title from them, and all the rest of the
high-falutin's! Pah!-it turns me sick. For you haven't a yard-not one
d-d yard. I'm there, an' I know!"
The Alaskan's vehemence drew the attention of everyone, drunk or sober.
"An' you have two dredges at work, expectin' a third," he went on,
continuing to read from the prospectus. "That's a crackin' good Sunday
paper joke. What does it mean?"
"Well," growled Simpson, "we will have. We intend to."
"The devil you do," said Laurance. "You'll put the money in your pocket
an' keep it there. To h-l with your prospectus!" He tore the sheets in
half and threw the fragments on the floor.
Simpson laughed. He viewed the whole affair with colossal unconcern.
In its time he could proceed with the venture at immense gain to himself
and the others. It must be postponed, in spite of it being the reason
for the assembly, because, just now, wine was a much more important
thing.
"You don't have to plunge," he commented. "Stay out if you can't like
it."
"Yes, but he doesn't need to give us extra work," interposed Jarmand,
expostulating about the torn prospectus.
"Have an ice, Laurance." advised young Bonneaves. "It'll cool you
down."
"I'll have nothin'," Laurance growled, reaching for his coat. "I don't
hanker after suppin' with them as I now know is thieves."
At the host's call, the Danish waitress brought in the ices on a tray,
while Jim Laurance muffled himself in his coat.
"Where's Aline?" Simpson asked, assuming the privilege of familiarity.
"My mistress?" said the waitress. "She will serve no more. She will
not enter."
"But she'll have to," cried Simpson, flushing with anger and obstinacy.
"Tell her to run in and serve immediately or I shall come after her and
kiss both her cheeks instead of one."
The Danish woman flounced out, and Jarmand involuntarily put his fingers
to his fat neck.
"You see," explained Simpson, "it isn't like as if I hadn't paid her for
the supper and for occupying her room. And, by the way, this isn't the
only room!" He nodded and laughed evilly, adding: "The hubby's on the
trails."
Laurance's coat went off his back with a reverse of the motion which was
putting it on. The garment flew into one corner, and the owner's voice
rang out across the room like the clank of good steel.
"By heaven, Simpson," he roared, "you can't throw one speck of mud on
Pierre's wife. You'll eat dirt for it. You're a d-d dago-hearted
liar!"
Laurance sprang along behind the row of chairs to reach Simpson at the
table's head, but a hand caught his elbow as he passed the side door and
whirled him about. With the suddenness of an apparition, he saw Pierre,
in musher's dress, fresh from the trails, filling the entrance with his
bulk, so that the white face of Aline had to peer under the arm which
held Laurance back.
"Dis for me, _camarade_," murmured Pierre, pushing the Alaskan behind
him.
Giraud then walked quickly past the astonished men till he stood in
front of Simpson. Very deliberately he gazed at him.
"M'sieu'," he said, "you wan coward. You wan dam coward!" And his open
palms gave Simpson a stinging blow on either cheek.
The lawyer lashed out with both hands and feet, but Pierre grasped him
by the throat and shook him like a long rag. Bedlam broke loose! Chairs
and tables were overturned as the half-dazed revellers jumped up.
Aline's screams were mingled with the crash of glass and chinaware.
Jarmand, Bonneaves, and two or three more of Simpson's friends rushed to
his assistance, bent on violence toward Pierre, but Jim Laurance swung
on them sharply, with eight inches of blued, cylindrical steel
glittering in either hand.
"Back there," he yelled, "every man-jack of you, or I'll plug you with
these gas-pipes!"
The glinting light on the dull, ugly Colts daunted them no more than the
determined gleam in the eyes of the man behind. The rescuers fell aside
like gale-blown gravel and remained glued to the wall.
Pierre Giraud set the lawyer on his feet. The voyageur's face was pale
and rigid.
"M'sieu'," he said, "you lak wan feather in my hand. Ah no be go fight
wit' you dat way, 'cause dat not be fair. _Mais_ you geeve Aline wan
insult-de wors' insult dat man could geeve! An' Aline, she lak wan
leetle w'ite saint. M'sieu'," and he tapped Simpson's shoulder, "wan of
us be keel here. Ah keel you, fair, or you keel me. Tak' de choice of
dose!" He indicated Laurance's pistols.
It was no orthodox duel. There occurred no pacing, no arrangement, no
seconding, no counting! Laurance put one weapon in Simpson's hand,
whipped the other over to Giraud, and stepped between the door-jambs,
screening the thing from Aline.
Abruptly the shooting began, the revolvers spurting jets of flame
through the blue haze of the room, whose atmosphere thickened into
swirling wreaths with every report.
It was a scene of the wildest disorder, with the overturned tables and
chairs and shattered glass below; lights above, swaying to the
explosions of the pistols; at the sides the lines of awed yet excited
men flattened against the walls; the anxious Laurance and the frantic,
white-faced wife in the side entrance; guests fleeing from the other
parts of the establishment with shrieks and clamor; and in the centre of
it all the two combatants manoeuvring in the mist of smoke to avoid
being hit, advancing and firing swiftly as they advanced.
Simpson shot the faster, with wild, deadly, malevolent hatred; Giraud
directed his weapon with slower deliberateness, ruled by one earnest,
avenging impulse. The room rocked to the deafening reverberations of
the pistols; the bullets went pang-panging on the wainscoting; the jets
of flame turned to crossed spears stabbing through the smoke.
In ten seconds the men were within gun-reach in the centre of the floor.
Simpson's sixth ball broke the skin on his opponent's neck, but Giraud's
fifth went hurtling through the lawyer's brain.
Simpson sagged in a little heap of black tuxedo and white starch, his
brow stained with spurting red. Aline Giraud was sobbing on Pierre's
breast, but Laurance roused him roughly to an acceptance of realities.
"Hit it, an' hit it quick!" Jim urged vociferously. "The Mounted will
be here on the run in a minnit. Gad, that firin' must wake up the whole
town. Where's the dog-train? Is it unhitched?"
"_Non_," answered Pierre, speaking like a man in a dream, "she be in de
yard lak Ah left her."
"Come on, then," whispered Laurance, pulling him out.
Aline clung to him piteously, and Pierre embraced her with a swift,
despairing, passionate gesture. Then he put her from him with an effort
that was agony.
"He'll come back," consoled Laurance, "as soon as this blows over. Come
on, Pierre. I hear runnin'."
They were gone on the instant, leaving Aline Giraud with her sweet,
white face upturned in prayer and her hands clasped in an attitude of
fear, parting, and renunciation.
When the uniformed men of the Mounted Police filled the room where
Simpson lay dead, Pierre was galloping his dog-team at full speed up the
ice-trail of the Klondike.
"Hit it for the Thron-Diuck camps," Laurance had advised. "They're
somewhere in them mountains. An' lie low till I send you word by an
Indian."
That was how Pierre, heading for the Thron-Diuck encampments near the
Klondike's source, found Rex Britton four days later, half dead from
starvation and exposure, with his last burned match in his pocket,
ravings on his tongue and delirium in his brain, about fifteen miles
from Five Mountain Gulch.