"He was here yesterday, and the day before, too, wasn't he?"
"Well?"
"He'd ought to stay away; people are talking."
She turned on him defiantly. "What of it? What do I care? I'm lonesome.
I want company. Mr. Barclay and I were good friends."
"You're my wife now."
"Your wife? Ha! ha! Your wife!" She laughed hysterically.
"Yes. Don't you love me any more, Alice?"
She said nothing.
"I've noticed a change, lately, and--I can't blame you none, but if you
loved me just a little, if I had even that much to start on, I wouldn't
mind. I'd take you away somewhere and try to make you love me more."
"You'd take me away, would you?" the woman cried, gaining confidence
from his lack of heat. "Away, where I'd be all alone with you? Don't you
see I'm dying of lonesomeness now? That's what's the matter. I'm half
mad with the monotony. I want to see people, and live, and be amused.
I'm young, and pretty, and men like me. You're old, McGill. You're old,
and I'm young."
Her husband withered beneath her words; his whole big frame sagged
together as if the life had ebbed out of it; he felt weary and sick and
burned out. His brain held but one thought--Alice did not love him,
because he was old.
"Don't go on this way," he said, finally, to check her. "I suppose it's
true, but I've felt like a daddy and a mother to you, along with the
other feeling, and I hoped you wouldn't notice it. I don't reckon any
young man could care for you like that. You see, it's all the loves of
my whole life wrapped up together, and I don't see, I don't see what we
can do about it. We're married!" It was characteristic of him that he
could devise no way out of the difficulty. A calamity had befallen them,
and they must adjust themselves to it as best they could. In his eyes
marriage was a holy thing, an institution of God, with which no human
hands might trifle.
"No," he continued, "you're my wife, and so we've got to get along the
best way we can. I know you couldn't do anything wrong--you ain't that
kind." His eyes roved over the homely little nest and the evidences of
their married intimacy. "No, you couldn't do that."
"Then you won't make it any harder for me than you can help?"
"No." He rose stiffly. "You're entitled to a fair show at anything you
want. I don't like Barclay, but if you want him around, I won't object.
Try to be as happy as you can, Alice; maybe it'll all come out right.
Only--I wish you'd known it wasn't love before you married me." He put
on his cap and went out into the cold.
During the ensuing week or two he devoted himself to his work, spending
every daylight hour on his claim, in this way more than satisfying
Barclay and the woman, who felt that a great menace had been removed.
But Hopper determined that his friend should know all and not part of
the truth, for good men are rare and weak women in the way, so he put on
his parka and walked out to the place where McGill was working, and
there, under a bleak March sky, with the snow-flurries wrapping their
legs about, he told what he had learned. Hopper was a little man, but he
had courage.
"I've heard it from half a dozen fellers," he concluded, "and they'd
ought to know, because they come up on the same boat with them. Anyhow,
you can satisfy yourself easy enough."
McGill moistened his lips and, thanking his informant, said, "Now you'd
better hustle back to camp; we're due for a storm."
It was still early afternoon when he walked swiftly out of the gulch and
into the straggling little town. On his way down from the claim the
blizzard had broken, or so it seemed, for the narrow valley had suddenly
become filled with a whirling smother through which he burst like a ship
through a fog. When he emerged upon the flats he saw that it was no more
than a squall and the wind was abating again.
His moccasins made no sound as he came up to his own house, and the
first inkling of his presence that the two inside received was when the
door opened and he stood before them. Something in his bearing caused
his wife to clutch at the table for support, and Barclay to retreat with
his back to the opposite wall, his hand inside his coat.
McGill never carried a weapon, having yet to feel the need of one. He
spoke now in a harsh, cracked voice. "Take your hand off that gun,
Barclay."
[Illustration: "Take your hand off that gun, Barclay."]
"What's the matter with you?" the younger man questioned.
Mrs. McGill's eyes were wide with terror, her frame racked by
apprehension, when her husband turned upon her and asked:
"Is it true? Do you love--him?" He jerked his head in Barclay's
direction. "Answer me!" he rumbled, savagely, as she hesitated.
Her lips moved, and she nodded without removing her gaze from him.
"How long have you loved him?"
When she still could not master herself, he softened his voice: "You
needn't be scared, Alice. I couldn't hurt _you_."
"A long--time," she said, finally.
McGill leveled a look at the other man.
"That's right," Barclay agreed. "You might as well know."
"They tell me that you and her had--" McGill ground his teeth, and his
little eyes blazed--"that she didn't have no right to marry
without--telling me something about you."
The former answered through white lips: "Well? Everybody knew it except
you, and you could have found out. I'd have married her sometime,
myself, if you hadn't come along."
McGill's fingers opened slowly, at which the woman burst forth:
"No, no! Don't--do that. You can't blame him, Dan. I did it. Don't you
understand? _I'm_ the one. I loved him in 'Frisco, long before I saw
you, and I've loved him ever since. Take it out on me, if you want to,
but don't hurt him."
"I don't reckon I'd have minded it much if I'd known the truth at the
start," said McGill. "Most women have made mistakes at one time or
another, at least most of those I've known have. No, it ain't that, but
you married me knowing that you loved him all the time."
"I tried to quit," cried the wife. "I tried to, but I couldn't."
"And what's the rottenest of all"--McGill's voice was ugly again--"you
made him best man at the wedding, or just the same. He stood up with us.
Didn't you, Barclay?"
The wife flung herself into the breach once more with a self-sacrifice
that wrenched her husband's heart. "He didn't want to, but I made him. I
thought you had money, and I was mad at him for letting me go, so I
tried to hurt him. I wanted him to marry me, but he wouldn't, and I took
you. When it was over and I saw the kind of man you are I tried to love
you--honestly I did, but I couldn't. You're so--I--I couldn't do it,
that's all." She broke into a torrent of tears, holding herself on her
feet by an effort. Her wretched sobbing was the only sound in the cabin
for a time, then Barclay inquired:
"Well, what are you going to do?"
McGill turned to his wife, ignoring Barclay. "I guess I understand
things pretty well now, and I'm beginning to see your side. Of course I
never aimed to hurt _you_, Alice--I couldn't; but I aimed to kill this
man, and I will if he stays here." Over his shoulder he flung out,
quickly: "Oh, the gun won't help you none. You've got to go, Barclay."
"I'll go with him," cried Mrs. McGill, desperately. "If he goes, I'll
go, too."
"That's exactly what you've got to do. You can't stay here now, neither
of you. If he ain't able to take care of you, why, I will as long as I
live, but you've both got to go."
"It's the best course under the circumstances," Barclay agreed, with
relief. "We'll take the first boat--"
"You'll go to-day, now," said the husband, grimly, "before I have time
to think it over."
"But where?"
"To hell! That's where you're headed."
"We can't go afoot," the woman cried in a panic.
"I've got dogs! And don't argue or I'll weaken. I'm letting him go
because you seem to need him, Alice. Only remember one thing, both of
you--there ain't no town big enough to hold all three of us. Now go,
quick, before I change my mind, for if the sun ever goes down on Barclay
and me together, so help me God! it won't rise on both of us. There
ain't no place in the world that's big enough for him and me, no place
in the world."
McGill stood on the river-bank and watched them vanish into the ghostly
curtain that sifted slowly down from the heavens, and when they were
finally lost to view he turned back to his empty cabin. Before entering
he paused as usual to note the weather--it was a habit. He saw that the
sky was strangely leaden and low, and in spite of the fact that the
"quick" was falling rapidly, the air was lifeless and close. If McGill
was any judge, that squall had been but a warning, and foretold more to
follow. He sighed miserably at the thought of the night his wife would
have to face.
He cooked his supper mechanically, then sat for hours staring at it. The
wind rattling at his door finally roused him to the knowledge that his
fire was out and the room chilly. Being unable longer to bear the
silence and the mute evidences of her occupation that looked at him from
every side, he slipped into his parka and went down to Hopper's place,
where there were life and human voices at least.
The night was yelling with a million voices when he stepped out. The
bitter wind snapped his fur garment as if to rend it to ribbons, the
whirling particles of snow rasped his face like the dry grains from a
sand-blast. Boreas had loosed his demons, and they were lashing the
night into chaos. McGill felt a sudden tender concern for the woman, a
concern so great as almost to destroy his bitterness, but he reflected
that he had seen to loading the sled himself, and among the other
paraphernalia had included a tent and a stove. Unless Barclay was a
fool, therefore, Alice was perfectly safe. There was wood aplenty, and
the spruce forests offered shelter from the gale. The thought awakened a
memory of those night camps he had made on that dreamlike
wedding-journey and brought forth a groan. How old and spiritless he had
become; he could scarcely stand against the wind!
Of course the story had gone broadcast, hours before, for other eyes
than his had watched the man and woman take the outbound trail that
afternoon, so when he came stumbling into Hopper's place a sudden
silence fell. He went directly to the bar and called for straight
"hootch," to drive the cold from his bones, but, although it warmed his
flesh, his soul remained numb and frozen. Inside him was a great aching
emptiness that even Hopper's kindly words could not reach.
"Looks like the worst night we've had this year," said the proprietor.
"Better have a drink with me."
McGill's teeth rattled on the glass when he put it to his lips. "She's
gone!" he whispered, staring across the bar, "and I didn't kill him. I
couldn't--on her account."