GOLD
The one desire, obsessing Jim's mind, was to get away from Devinne's
place. Natalie's unblushing overtures had scared him very considerably.
Women had always puzzled him--they puzzled him even more now. He certainly
had no use for women who ran at one in that way. Far better for them to be
like Angela, cold and unapproachable, alluring yet repellent. One knew
where one was with Angela, but never with Natalie.
And Angela had heard, and perhaps seen, all that had taken place! He
mopped his brow as he reflected upon her feelings in the matter. He was
modest and foolish enough to think that jealousy was out of the question,
but she would undoubtedly object to playing second fiddle to Natalie. So
much he knew of her.
Fearful of meeting Natalie at breakfast, he rose early and made his way
out, determined not to return until Chips the half-breed arrived with his
cargo. A little distance from the house he stopped, and returned for the
shovel and pick and washing-pan, with a view to filling in his spare time
and banishing from his mind the painful scene of last night.
The red sun was just mounting the horizon as he strode off, and birds were
singing gayly in the woods. Half an hour's walk brought him out of the
timber into comparatively bare country. Aimlessly he wandered on, drinking
in the fresh morning air and stopping to gaze at the brilliant landscape
from time to time. Below him, to the west, a small creek made a junction
with the Yukon, its red water foaming over broken boulders, and leaping
ten perpendicular feet to join the parent stream. He sauntered down
towards it, the washing-pan clanking against the shovel as he walked.
Few men would have dug for gold along that creek; the surface had all the
characteristics of unadulterated muck. He stuck the pick into it for the
mere fun of hitting something. Though the sun shone warmly and rich the
grass grew on either bank, the eternal ice was down under the surface.
In one hour he managed to dig out a cubic yard of earth. Having satisfied
his hunger for exercise, he flung the shovel down and began to smoke.
Looking down the creek, he saw a clumsy flat-bottomed boat, piled high
with cargo, swirling down the river, with a tousled-haired man in the
stern keeping her from the bank by means of a pole.
"Chips," he murmured. "He must have started last night. So the food is
here, and we can hike out to-day, thank God!"
As he looked, the punt struck a submerged sandbank and beached on it.
Chips' little body bent on the pole, but except to swivel the punt on its
axis it had no other result.
Jim stood up, and seizing his tools, made down the creek. He shouted to
Chips, and the latter looked at him imploringly. Jim waded through the
water and reached the craft.
"You should have kept her out more in the center, my friend," he said.
"Current go swift there--no make the landing."
"Hm! perhaps you're right. Here, take these aboard--I'll come back with
you."
He put the shovel and pick over the side of the boat and catching hold of
the stern, pushed hard. Chips gave a yell of joy as the punt slithered and
then jolted into deep water. Jim clambered aboard and took the pole. Half
an hour later they beached her at the landing-place.
Devinne and the other half-breed came running down the slope. The former
looked at Jim in surprise.
"Where did you go to? We waited breakfast for twenty minutes, and then
discovered you were not in."
"Sorry," mumbled Jim. "I was mad for a walk. I met Chips up the river,
stuck on a sandbank, so I came along. He ain't a good sailor." Chips
grinned, and he and his comrade commenced to pack the cargo up the hill.
Jim walked back with Devinne; the latter regarded him in curious fashion.
Entering the house, he met Angela, but Natalie was pleasantly absent.
Angela surveyed his wet figure with a smile.
"Been swimming?" she queried.
"No. I've bin hurrying along the stores. I met Chips."
She was obviously pleased with the news.
"Then we can leave to-day?"
"Sure--and the sooner the better," he responded emphatically.
She was silent for a moment, then she said softly:
"Why weren't you in for breakfast?"
"Didn't feel like it."
"Was it because of last night?"
He nodded gloomily.
"I'm real scared of that woman," he murmured. "Gee! I shan't be happy till
we clear away."
"Then you didn't know--know she----"
"Know!" he ejaculated. "Jumping rattlesnakes! It knocked me silly. Angela,
you don't think I--gave her reason to believe----"
"I don't think you did. But, Jim, you are an extraordinary man."
"I don't get you."
"Not to know when a woman loves you."
He puckered his lips and shook his head in perplexity.
"How's a chap goin' to tell? It's a kind of disease that takes folks
different ways. Can't rely on the symptoms. I once thought----"
She sunk her head.
"Don't talk of that--now. Here comes Devinne. Let us get the packs ready
and go, while the day is yet young."
Half an hour later they were ready for the thirty-mile journey to Dawson.
They said good-bye to Devinne, and to Natalie, who appeared at the last
moment, exhibiting a gayety which was obviously superficial. She kissed
Angela, and clung for a moment to Jim's hand to whisper:
"I vish you every happiness. _Bon voyage!_"
They saw her waving her handkerchief as they entered the woods and headed
for their destination.
Traveling was pleasant enough, though the packs were heavy. Now that the
following day would see them at Dawson, the question of the future loomed
larger than ever. Broke, travel-stained, and tormented by the thought of
parting, Jim could find little conversation, though Angela seemed cheerful
enough. They came to the creek where Jim had rested but an hour or two
before, and waded across it at the shallowest part. Traversing the
opposite bank, Angela stopped and stared at the newly excavated hole.
"Someone has been digging here!" she exclaimed.
"Me," said Jim. "This morning."
"To find what we always find--muck?"
"I didn't wash it. Chips turned up and was in trouble----"
She stared at him in amazement.
"You dug all that and didn't wash it?"
"What's the use? It didn't look good to me."
She shrugged her shoulders and slipped her pack down.
"What's wrong?" he queried.
"Nothing. I'm going to wash it."
"Better not waste time----"
"Waste time! A few minutes won't make any difference, considering we've
wasted a year already."
He turned from her with a sigh. She called it wasted, but it hadn't been
wasted to him. Now that the end of the journey was nigh, he found a
strange joy in looking back over the past. Every little incident of their
strange pilgrimage seemed to have garnered gold about it. Compared to the
lonely, forbidding future, the past was like a paradise, to live for ever
in his heart and mind. He had missed much, but he had gained
something--passionate, all-consuming love for a woman. Though she gave
little in return, it mattered not. The finest type of love does not make
demands upon that which it worships. He could keep her still by the same
means as he had retained her all along, but his mode of thought had
changed somewhat. A deeper love had grown out of the old tempestuous,
tyrannous thing. It were better to give than to receive.
He watched her shaking the washing-pan in the water, her clear-cut face
intent on the task at hand, and her hair glinting in the sunshine. She
came splashing through the water with the pan in her hands.
"Look--something glitters there!"
He took it from her and gave one glance at the contents--a small heap of
black and yellow.
Then he laughed loudly.
"Then it isn't----" she commenced.
He ceased to laugh as he probed the dust in the pan. The whole thing was
so miraculous to him, he could scarcely find expression.
"You've found it, Angela," he said. "It's gold--real high-grade ore.
You've dealt a straight flush at the last hand."
"But it doesn't look like gold!"
"That black stuff ain't gold, it's magnetic ore. Gee, wash some more
dirt. This looks like Eldorado!"
He flung down his pack and started shoveling out more gravel from the
hole. In the meantime Angela washed the pay-dirt and placed the residue in
a handkerchief. Excitement grew as the work went forward. Lower down, the
yield was enormous. The pile in the handkerchief grew to an enormous size.
Taking no heed of time, the work went on until the declining sun called
them from their labors.
Jim poured a pound or so of mercury into a tub of water, and submerged the
results of their toil in it.
"You think it is gold?" she queried.
"Gold! Tons of it. I'll show you later. Come along and have some food."
An hour or two later Jim brought from the tub the amalgam formed by the
combination of the pan gold-dust with the mercury. This was squeezed
through a bearskin, the process segregating the gold and depositing the
mercury back into the tub.
What little mercury remained in the glittering mass was evaporated out in
a shovel over the camp-fire.
For the first time Angela realized why the gold-miner, once successful,
could never rid himself of the fever. All the bitter disappointments,
pessimism, and misery vanished in the presence of that sizzling mass in
the shovel. It was difficult to believe that here, dug from the frozen
earth, was the thing for which men suffered, sinned, and died.
Jim seized the gold nugget with his leathern hands and tossed it into the
air, caught it again, and dropped it into his hat.
"Angela, you're right. We're bursting with wealth! There ain't bin nothin'
like this since that guy found Bonanza Creek. And now I've got to git to
Dawson."
"Dawson!"
"Yep. It ain't ours yet. I've got to stake claims--one for you and one for
me."
"Then I'll come too."
"Nope. Any prowling broiler might bunch in and take a fancy to this pitch.
You jest sit tight. I'll be back to-morrow morning."
"But you can't get to Dawson and back in one night."
"Can't I? Jest watch my smoke. I'll get the claims registered and yank a
man up here from the Syndicate. We'll sure sell out and save digging.
We'll come down the river. You ain't skeered of stoppin' alone?"
She laughed at his serious question, and watched him making ready for the
journey. In a few minutes he had washed, shaved, and put on a pair of
walking boots. He turned and nodded and went off with huge strides.
She continued to sit by the fire, no longer wrestling with the future. In
that unexpected moment of wonderful luck, she had seen the future
clear-cut as it affected her. The pendulum swung the other way now--she
meant to leave Alaska with the least possible delay.