THE GIRL FROM DROGHEDA
Gordon Elliot was too much of a night owl to be an early riser, but
next morning he was awakened by the tramp of hurried feet along the
deck to the accompaniment of brusque orders, together with frequent
angry puffing and snorting of the boat. From the quiver of the walls he
guessed that the Hannah was stuck on a sandbar. The mate's language gave
backing to this surmise. Divided in mind between his obligation to the
sleeping passengers and his duty to get the boat on her way, that
officer spilled a good deal of subdued sulphurous language upon the
situation.
"All together now. Get your back into it. Why are you running around
like a chicken without a head, Reeves?" he snapped.
Evidently the deck hands were working to get the Hannah off by poling.
Elliot tried to settle back to sleep, but after two or three ineffectual
efforts gave it up. He rose and did one or two setting-up exercises to
limber his joints. The first of these flashed the signal to his brain
that he was stiff and sore. This brought to mind the fight on the
hurricane deck, and he smiled. His face was about as mobile as if it
were in a plaster cast. It hurt every time he twitched a muscle.
The young man stepped to the looking-glass. Both eyes were blacked, his
lip had been cut, and there was a purple weal well up on his left cheek.
He stopped himself from grinning only just in time to save another
twinge of pain.
"Some party while it lasted. I never saw more willing mixers. Everybody
seemed anxious to sit in except Mr. Wally Selfridge," he explained to
his reflection. "But Macdonald is the class. He's there with both right
and left. That uppercut of his is vicious. Don't ever get in the way of
it, Gordon Elliot." He examined his injuries more closely in the glass.
"Some one landed a peach on my right lamp and the other is in mourning
out of sympathy. Oh, well, I ain't the only prize beauty on board this
morning." The young man forgot and smiled. "Ouch! Don't do that, Gordon.
Yes, son. 'There's many a black, black eye, they say, but none so bright
as mine.' Now isn't that the truth?"
He bathed, dressed, and went out on the deck.
Early though he was, one passenger at least was up before him. The
young woman he had noticed last evening with the magazine was doing a
constitutional. A slight breeze was stirring, and as she moved against
it the white skirt clung first to one knee and then the other, moulding
itself to the long lines of her limbs with exquisite grace of motion.
It was as though her walk were the expression of a gallant and buoyant
personality.
Irish he guessed her when the deep-blue eyes rested on his for an
instant as she passed, and fortified his conjecture by the coloring of
the clear-skinned face and the marks of the Celtic race delicately
stamped upon it.
The purser came out of his room and joined Elliot. He smiled at sight of
the young man's face.
"Your map's a little out of plumb this morning, sir," he ventured.
"But you ought to see the other fellow," came back Gordon boyishly.
"I've seen him--several of him. We've got the best collection of bruises
on board I ever clapped eyes on. I've got to give it to you and Mr.
Macdonald. You know how to hit."
"Oh, I'm not in his class."
Gordon Elliot meant what he said. He was himself an athlete, had played
for three years left tackle on his college eleven. More than one critic
had picked him for the All-America team. He could do his hundred in just
a little worse than ten seconds. But after all he was a product of
training and of the gymnasiums. Macdonald was what nature and a long
line of fighting Highland ancestors had made him. His sinewy, knotted
strength, his massive build, the breadth of shoulder and depth of
chest--mushing on long snow trails was the gymnasium that had
contributed to these.
The purser chuckled. "He's a good un, Mac is. They say he liked to have
drowned Northrup after he had saved him."
Elliot was again following with his eyes the lilt of the girl's
movements. Apparently he had not heard what the officer said. At least
he gave no answer.
With a grin the purser opened another attack. "Don't blame you a bit,
Mr. Elliot. She's the prettiest colleen that ever sailed from Dublin
Bay."
The young man brought his eyes home. They answered engagingly the smile
of the purser.
"Who is she?"
"The name on the books is Sheba O'Neill."
"From Dublin, you say."
"Oh, if you want to be literal, her baggage says Drogheda. Ireland is
Ireland to me."
"Where is she bound for?"
"Kusiak."
The young woman passed them with a little nod of morning greeting to the
purser. Fine and dainty though she was, Miss O'Neill gave an impression
of radiant strength.
"Been with you all the way up the river?" asked Elliot after she had
passed.
"Yep. She came up on the Skagit from Seattle."
"What is she going to do at Kusiak?"
Again the purser grinned. "What do they all do--the good-looking ones?"
"Get married, you mean?"
"Surest thing you know. Girls coming up ask me what to bring by way of
outfit. I used to make out a long list. Now I tell them to bring clothes
enough for six weeks and their favorite wedding march."
"Is this girl engaged?"
"Can't prove it by me," said the officer lightly. "But she'll never get
out of Alaska a spinster--not that girl. She may be going in to teach,
or to run a millinery store, or to keep books for a trading company.
She'll stay to bring up kiddies of her own. They all do."
Three children came up the stairway, caught sight of Miss O'Neill, and
raced pell-mell across the deck to her.
The young woman's face was transformed. It was bubbling with tenderness,
with gay and happy laughter. Flinging her arms wide, she waited for
them. With incoherent cries of delight they flung themselves upon her.
Her arms enveloped all three as she stooped for their hugs and kisses.
The two oldest were girls. The youngest was a fat, cuddly little boy
with dimples in his soft cheeks.
"I dwessed myself, Aunt Sheba. Didn't I, Gwen?"
"Not all by yourself, Billie?" inquired the Irish girl, registering a
proper amazement.
He nodded his head slowly and solemnly up and down. "Honeth to
goodness."
Sheba stooped and held him off to admire. "All by yourself--just think
of that."
"We helped just the teeniest bit on the buttons," confessed Janet, the
oldest of the small family.
"And I tied his shoes," added Gwendolen, "after he had laced them."
"Billie will be such a big man Daddie won't know him." And Sheba gave
him another hug.
Gwendolen snuggled close to Miss O'Neill. "You always smell so sweet and
clean and violety, Aunt Sheba," she whispered in confidence.
"You're spoiling me, Gwen," laughed the young woman. "You've kissed the
blarney stone. It's a good thing you're leaving the boat to-day."
Miss Gwen had one more confidence to make in the ear of her friend.
"I wish you'd come too and be our new mamma," she begged.
A shell-pink tinge crept into the milky skin of the Irish girl. She was
less sure of herself, more easily embarrassed, than the average American
of her age and sex. Occasionally in her manner was that effect of
shyness one finds in the British even after they have escaped from
provincialism.
"Are all your things gathered ready for packing, Janet?" she asked
quietly.
The purser gave information to Elliot. "They call her Aunt Sheba,
but she's no relative of theirs. The kids are on their way in to their
father, who is an engineer on one of the creeks back of Katma. Their
mother died two months ago. Miss O'Neill met them first aboard the
Skagit on the way up and she has mothered them ever since. Some women
are that way, bless 'em. I know because I've been married to one myself
six months. She's back there at St. Michael's, and she just grabs at
every baby in the block."
The eyes of Elliot rested on Miss O'Neill. "She loves children."
"She sure does--no bluff about that." An imp of mischief sparkled in
the eye of the supercargo. "Not married yourself, are you, Mr. Elliot?"
"No."
"Hmp!"
That was all he said, but Gordon felt the blood creep into his face.
This annoyed him, so he added brusquely,--
"And not likely to be."
When the call for breakfast came Miss O'Neill took her retinue of
youngsters with her to the dining-room. Looking across from his seat at
an adjoining table, Elliot could see her waiting upon them with a fine
absorption in their needs. She prepared an orange for Billie and offered
to the little girls suggestions as to ordering that were accepted by
them as a matter of course. Unconsciously the children recognized in her
the eternal Mother.
Before they had been long in the dining-room Macdonald came in carrying
a sheaf of business papers. He glanced around, recognized Elliot, and
made instantly for the seat across the table from him. On his face and
head were many marks of the recent battle.
"Trade you a cauliflower ear for a pair of black eyes, Mr. Elliot," he
laughed as he shook hands with the man whose name he had just learned
from the purser.
The grip of his brown, muscular hand was strong. It was in character
with the steady, cool eyes set deep beneath the jutting forehead, with
the confident carriage of the deep, broad shoulders. He looked a dynamic
American, who trod the way of the forceful and fought for his share of
the spoils.
"You might throw in several other little souvenirs to boot and not miss
them," suggested Elliot with a smile.
Macdonald nodded indifferently. "I gave and I took, which was as it
should be. But it's different with you, Mr. Elliot. This wasn't your
row."
"I hadn't been in a good mix-up since I left college. It did me a lot of
good."
"Much obliged, anyhow." He turned his attention to a lady entering the
dining-room. "'Mornin', Mrs. Selfridge. How's Wally?"
She threw up her hands in despair. "He's on his second bottle of
liniment already. I expect those ruffians have ruined his singing voice.
It's a mercy they didn't murder both him and you, Mr. Macdonald. When I
think of how close you both came to death last night--"
"I don't know about Wally, but I had no notion of dying, Mrs. Selfridge.
They mussed us up a bit. That was all."
"But they _meant_ to kill you, the cowards. And they almost did it too.
Look at Wally--confined to his bed and speaking in a whisper. Look at
you--a wreck, horribly beaten up, almost drowned. We must drive the
villains out of the country or send them to prison."
Mrs. Selfridge always talked in superlatives. She had an enthusiasm
for the dramatics of conversation. Her supple hands, her shrill, eager
voice, the snapping black eyes, all had the effect of startling
headlines to the story she might be telling.
"Am I a wreck?" the big Scotchman wanted to know. "I feel as husky as a
well-fed malamute."
"Oh, you _talk_. But we all know you--how brave and strong you are.
That's why this outrage ought to be punished. What would Alaska do if
anything happened to you?"
"I hadn't thought of that," admitted Macdonald. "The North would have to
go out of business, I suppose. But you're right about one thing, Mrs.
Selfridge. I'm brave and strong enough at the breakfast table. Steward,
will you bring me a double order of these shirred eggs--and a small
steak?"
"Well, I'm glad you can still joke, Mr. Macdonald, after such a terrible
experience. All I can say is that I hope Wally isn't permanently
injured. He hasn't your fine constitution, and one never can tell about
internal injuries." Mrs. Selfridge sighed and passed to her place.
The eyes of the big man twinkled. "Our little fracas has been a godsend
to Mrs. Selfridge. Wally and I will both emerge as heroes of a desperate
struggle. You won't even get a mention. But it's a pity about Wally's
injuries--and his singing voice."
The younger man agreed with a gravity back of which his amusement was
apparent. The share of Selfridge in the battle had been limited to leg
work only, but this had not been good enough to keep him from being
overhauled and having his throat squeezed.
Elliot finished breakfast first and left Macdonald looking over a
long typewritten document. He had it propped against a water-bottle
and was reading as he ate. The paper was a report Selfridge had brought
in to him from a clerk in the General Land Office. The big Canadian
and the men he represented were dealing directly with the heads of the
Government departments, but they thought it the part of wisdom to keep
in their employ subordinates in the capacity of secret service agents
to spy upon the higher-ups.