IN THE TOILS
Late one afternoon, a dog sled, with Joe Pete in the lead, and Brent and
Snowdrift following swung rapidly down the Klondike River. A few miles
from Dawson, the outfit overtook a man walking leisurely toward town, a
rifle swung over his shoulder. Recognizing him as one Zinn, a former
hanger-on at Cuter Malone's, Brent called a greeting.
"Damned if it ain't Ace-In-The-Hole!" cried the man, in well simulated
surprise. "They'll be rollin' 'em high in Dawson tonight!"
Brent laughed, and hurried on. And behind him upon the trail Zinn
quickened his pace.
At the outskirts of town the three removed their snowshoes and, ordering
Joe Pete to take the outfit to his own shack, Brent and Snowdrift
hurried toward the Reeves'.
As they passed up the street Brent noticed that the dark eyes of the
girl were busily drinking in the details of the rows upon rows of low
frame houses. "At last you are in Dawson," he said, including with a
sweep of the arm the mushroom city that had sprung up in the shadow of
Moosehide Mountain, "Does it look like you expected it would? Are you
going to like it?"
The girl smiled at the eagerness in his voice: "Yes, dear, I shall love
it, because it will be our home. It isn't quite as I expected it to
look. The houses all placed side by side, with the streets running
between are as I thought they would be, but the houses themselves are
different. They are not of logs, or of the thin iron like the warehouse
of the new trading company on the Mackenzie, and they are not made of
bricks and stones and very tall like the pictures of cities in the
books."
Brent laughed: "No, Dawson is just half way between. Since the sawmills
came the town has rapidly outgrown the log cabin stage, although there
are still plenty of them here, but it has not yet risen to the dignity
of brick and stone."
"But the houses of brick and stone will come!" cried the girl,
enthusiastically, "And take the place of the houses of wood, and we
shall be here to see the building of another great city."
Brent shook his head: "I don't know," he replied, doubtfully, "It all
depends on the gravel. I wouldn't care to do much speculating in Dawson
real estate right now. The time for that has passed. The next two or
three years will tell the story. If I were to do any predicting, I'd say
that instead of the birth of a great city, we are going to witness the
lingering death of an overgrown town." He paused and pointed to a small
cabin of logs that stood deserted, half buried in snow. "Do you see that
shack over there? That's mine. It don't look like much, now. But, I gave
five thousand in dust for it when I made my first strike."
The girl's eyes sparkled as she viewed the dejected looking building,
"And that will be our home!" she cried.
"Not by a long shot, it won't!" laughed Brent, "We'll do better than
that. I never want to see the inside of the place again! Yes, I do--just
once. I want to go there and get a book--the book that lured me to the
Coppermine--the book in which is written the name of Murdo MacFarlane.
We will always keep that book, darling. And some day we will get it
bound in leather and gold."
Before a little white-painted house that stood back from the street, the
man paused: "The Reeves' live here," he announced, and as he turned into
the neatly shovelled path that led to the door, he reached down and
pressed the girl's hand reassuringly: "Mrs. Reeves is an old, old
friend," he whispered, "She will be a sister to you."
As Brent led the way along the narrow path his eyes rested upon the
slope of snow-buried earth that pitched sharply against the base of the
walls of the house, "Hardest work I ever did," he grinned, "Hope the
floor kept warm."
As he waited the answer to his knock upon the door, he noticed casually
that Zinn sauntered past and turned abruptly into the street that led
straight to Cuter Malone's. The next instant the door was opened and
Reba Reeves stood framed in the doorway. Brent saw that in the gloom of
early evening she did not recognize him. "Is Mr. Reeves home?" he asked.
"Yes, won't you step in? answered the woman, standing aside.
"Thank you. I think we will."
Something in the man's tone caused the woman to step quickly forward and
peer sharply into his face: "Carter Brent!" she cried, and the next
instant the man's hands were in both of hers, and she was pulling him
into the room. Like a flash Brent remembered that other time she had
called his name in a tone of intense surprise, and that there had been
tears in her eyes then, even as there were tears in her eyes now, but
this time they were tears of gladness. And then, from another room came
Reeves, and a pair of firm hands were laid upon his shoulders and he was
spun around to meet the gaze of the searching grey eyes that stared into
his own. Brent laughed happily as he noted the start of surprise that
accompanied Reeves' words: "Good Lord! What a change!" A hand slipped
from his shoulder and grasped his own.
A moment later, Brent freed the hand, and as Mrs. Reeves lighted the
lamp, turned and drew Snowdrift toward him. "And now I want you to
meet--Miss Margot MacFarlane. Within a very few hours she is going to
become Mrs. Carter Brent. You see," he added turning to Reba Reeves, "I
brought her straight to you. The hotel isn't----"
The sentence was never finished, already the two women were in each
other's arms, and Reba Reeves was smiling at him over the girl's
shoulder: "Carter Brent! If you had dared to even think of taking her to
the hotel, I'd never have spoken to you again! You just let me catch you
talking about hotels--when your _folks_ are living right here! And now
take off your things because supper is most ready. You'll find warm
water in the reservoir of the stove, and I'll make an extra lot of good
hot coffee, because I know you will be tired of tea."
Never in his life had Brent enjoyed a meal as he enjoyed that supper in
the dining room of the Reeves', with Snowdrift, radiant with happiness,
beside him, and his host and hostess eagerly plying him with questions.
"I think it is the most romantic thing I ever heard of!" cried Reba
Reeves, when Snowdrift had finished telling of her life among the
Indians, and at the mission, "It's easy enough to see why Carter chose
you, but for the life of me I can't see how you came to take an old
scapegrace like him!" she teased, and the girl smiled:
"I took him because I love him," she answered, "Because he is good, and
strong, and brave, and because he can be gentle and tender and--and he
understands. And he is not a scapegrace any more," she added, gravely,
"He has told me all about how he drank hooch until he became a--a
bun----"
"A what?"
"A bun--is it not that when a man drinks too much hooch?"
"A bum," supplied Brent, laughing.
"So many new words!" smiled the girl. "But I will learn them all.
Anyway, we will fight the hooch together, and we will win."
"You bet you'll win!" cried Reeves, heartily, "And if I'm any judge, I'd
say you've won already. How about it Brent?"
Deliberately--thoughtfully, Brent nodded: "She has won," he said.
"On the word of a Brent?" Reba Reeves' eyes were looking straight into
his own as she asked the question.
"Yes," he answered, "On the word of a Brent."
A moment's silence followed the words, after which he turned to Reeves:
"And, now--let's talk business. I have used about half the dust you
loaned me. There is nothing worth while on the Coppermine--now." He
smiled, as his eyes rested upon the girl, "So I have come back to take
that job you offered me. Eleven hundred miles, we came, under the
chaperonage of Joe Pete----"
"And a very capable chaperonage it was!" laughed Reeves, "Funniest thing
I ever saw in my life--there in your cabin the morning you started. It
was then I learned to know Joe Pete. But, go on."
"That's about all there is to it. Except that I'd like to keep the rest
of the dust, and pay you back in installments--that is, if the job is
still open. I've got to borrow enough for a start, somewhere--and I
reckon you're about the only friend I've got left."
"How about that fellow, Camillo Bill? I thought he was a friend of
yours."
"I thought so too, but--when I was down and out, and wanted a
grub-stake, he turned me down. He's all right though--square as a die."
"About that job," continued Reeves, gravely, "I'm a little afraid you
wouldn't just fill the bill."
For a moment Brent felt as though he had been slapped in the face. He
had counted on the job--needed it. The next instant he was smiling:
"Maybe you're right," he said, "I reckon I am a little rusty on
hydraulics and----"
"I'd take a chance on the hydraulics," laughed Reeves, "But--before we
go any further, what would you take for your title to those two claims
that Camillo Bill has been operating?"
"Depends on who wanted to buy 'em," grinned Brent.
"What will you sell them to me for?"
"What will you give?"
"How would ten thousand for the two of them strike you?"
Brent laughed: "Don't you go speculating on any claims," he advised,
"I'd be tickled to death to get ten thousand dollars--or ten thousand
cents out of those claims--but not from you. It would be highway
robbery."
"And if I did buy them from you at ten thousand, or a hundred thousand,
you would be only a piker of a robber, as compared to me."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that if anybody offers you a million for 'em--you laugh at 'em,"
exclaimed Reeves, "Because they're worth a whole lot more than that."
Brent stared at the man as though he had taken leave of his senses. "Who
has been stringing you?" he asked, "The fact is, those claims are a
liability, and not an asset. Camillo Bill took them over to try to get
the million I owed him out of 'em--and he couldn't do it. And when
Camillo Bill can't get the dust out, it isn't there."
"How do you know he couldn't do it?"
"Because he told me so."
"He lied."
Brent flushed: "I reckon you don't know Camillo Bill," he said gravely,
"As I told you, he wouldn't grub-stake me when I needed a grub-stake,
and I don't understand that. But, I'd stake my life on it that he never
lied about those claims--never tried to beat me out of 'em when I was
down and out! Why, man, he won them in a game of stud--and he wouldn't
take them!"
"But he lied to you, just the same," insisted Reeves, and Brent saw that
the man's eyes were twinkling. "And it was because he is one of the best
friends a man ever had that he did lie to you, and that he wouldn't
grub-stake you. You said a while ago that I was about the only friend
you had left. Let me tell you a little story, and then judge for
yourself.
"About a week after you had gone, inquiries began to float around town
as to your whereabouts. I didn't pay any attention to them at first, but
the inquiries persisted. They searched Dawson, and all the country
around for you. When I learned that the inquiries emanated from such men
as Camillo Bill, and Old Bettles, and Moosehide Charlie, and a few more
of the heaviest men in the camp, I took notice, and quietly sent for
Camillo Bill and had a talk with him. It seems that after he had taken
his million out of the claims, he went to you for the purpose of turning
them back. He had not seen you for some time, and he was--well, it
didn't take him but a minute to see what would happen if he turned back
the claims and dumped a couple of million dollars worth of property into
your hands at that time. So he told you they had petered out. Then he
hunted up a bunch of the real sourdoughs who are your friends, and they
planned to kidnap you and take you away for a year--keep you under guard
in a cabin, a hundred miles from nowhere, and keep you off the liquor,
and make you work like a nigger till you found yourself again. They
laid their plot, and when they came to spring it, you had disappeared."
Brent listened, with tight-pressed lips, and as Reeves finished, he
asked:
"And you say he got out his million, and there is still something left
in the gravel?"
Reeves laughed: "I would call it something! Camillo Bill says he only
worked one of the claims--and only about half of that. Yes, I would say
there was something left."
"I reckon a man don't always know his friends," murmured Brent, after a
long silence, "I wonder where I can find Camillo Bill?"
"He's in town, somewhere. I saw him this afternoon."
Brent turned to Snowdrift, who had listened, wide-eyed to the narrative:
"You wait here, dear," he said, "And I'll hunt up a parson, and a ring,
and Camillo Bill. I need a--a best man!"
"Oh, why don't you wait a week or so and give us time to get ready so we
can have a real wedding?" cried Mrs. Reeves.
Brent shook his head: "I reckon this one will be real enough," he
grinned, "And besides, we've waited quite a while, already."
As he turned into the street from the path leading from the door he
almost bumped into a man in the darkness:
"Hello! Is that you, Ace-In-The-Hole? Yer the man I'm huntin' fer.
Friend of yourn's hurt an' wants to see you."
"Who is it, Zinn? And how did he know I was in town?"
"It's Camillo Bill. I was tellin' I see'd you comin' in--an hour or so
back, in Stoell's. Then Camillo, he goes down to the sawmill to see
about some lumber, an' a log flies off the carriage an' hits him. He's
busted up pretty bad. Guess he's goin' to cash in. They carried him to a
shack over back of the mill an' he's hollerin' fer you."
"Come on then--quick!" cried Brent. "What the hell are you standin'
there for? Have they got a doctor?"
"Yup," answered Zinn, as he hurried toward the outskirts of the town,
"He'll be there by now."
Along the dark streets, and through a darker lumber yard, hurried Zinn,
with Brent close at his heels urging him to greater speed. At length
they passed around behind the sawmill and Brent saw that a light showed
dimly in the window of a disreputable log shack that stood upon the edge
of a deep ravine. The next moment he had pushed through the door, and
found himself in the presence of four as evil looking specimens as ever
broke the commandments. One of them he recognized as "Stumpy" Cooley, a
man who, two years before had escaped the noose only by prompt action of
the Mounted, after he had been duly convicted by a meeting of outraged
miners of robbing a _cache_.
"Where's Camillo Bill?" demanded Brent, his eyes sweeping the room.
"Tuk him to the hospital jest now," informed Stumpy.
"Hospital!" cried Brent.
"Yes--built one sence you was here. But, you don't need to be in no
hurry, 'cause he's out of his head, now." The man produced a bottle and
pulling the cork, offered it to Brent: "Might's well have a little
drink, an' we'll be goin'."
"To hell with your drinks!" cried Brent, "Where is this hospital?"
Suddenly he sensed that something was wrong. And whirling saw that two
of the men had slipped between himself and the door. He turned to Stumpy
to see an evil grin upon the man's face.
"When I ask anyone to drink with me, he most generally does it," he
sneered, "Or I know the reason why."
"There's the reason!" roared Brent, and quick as a flash his right fist
smashed into the man's face, the blow knocking him clean across the
room. The next instant a man sprang onto Brent's back and another dived
for his legs, while a third struck at him with a short piece of
scantling. Brent fought like a tiger, weaving this way and that, and
stumbling about the room in a vain effort to rid himself of the two men
who clung to him like leeches. Stumpy staggered toward him, and Brent
making a frenzied effort to release one of his pinioned arms, saw him
raise the heavy quart whiskey bottle. The next instant it descended with
a full arm swing. Brent saw a blinding flash of light, a stab of pain
seemed to pierce his very brain, his knees buckled suddenly and he was
falling, down, down, down, into a bottomless pit of intense blackness.