“SWIFTWATER BILL GATES is back.”
One morning in Seattle months after Bera and I had set up a little
housekeeping establishment in Seattle, I picked up the Saturday evening
edition of The Times and almost dropped over in my chair when I saw
headlines in the paper as shown in the foregoing.
What had been Swiftwater Bill’s fortune in all those months, I knew
not, but the fact as stated in the paper that he had returned from
Alaska was sufficient for me.
Bera said: “Mama, I don’t know any reason why you should fuss around
about Swiftwater.”
“Never mind me,” said I, “I’ll find him, my dear, just to see what he
has to say for himself.”
Down to the Hotel Northern, then the Butler, the Rainier-Grand and the
Stevens and all the rest I went and searched the registers without
avail. As I remember now, it took me the greater part of a day to cover
all the ground.
Finally, by a curious chance I located Swiftwater at the Victoria
Hotel. I waited until the next morning and then went to the Victoria
and asked for Gates.
Swiftwater, the clerk said, was out--had not been seen but once since
his arrival.
I am not going to say whether or not it was the humor of the situation
or the bitter resentment I bore toward him that led me to tramp up
three flights of stairs to the little parlor on the landing close to
Swiftwater’s room, and to wait there ten hours at a stretch--until 1:10
in the morning. Then I went home, only to return at 8 o’clock the next
day.
“Mr. Gates is in his room, but he is asleep,” said the clerk.
“I am Mrs. Beebe, his mother-in-law, and I want to see him now and I
shall go direct to his room. You can go with me if you desire,” said I.
The little clerk scanned me carefully and then said, “Very well.” We
went upstairs together.
The clerk rapped on the door twice. There was no answer.
“I guess he’s out,” said the boy.
“Knock again--good and loud,” I commanded.
The boy rapped and just then the door opened a tiny way--about an inch,
I guess, but through that little crack I saw the eye and part of the
curling black moustache of Swiftwater Bill.
Then I threw myself against the door and walked in.
[Illustration: “COME OUT OF THAT, BILL! I HAVEN’T GOT A GUN.”]
I wish I could tell you how funny was Swiftwater’s apparition, as, clad
only in his white night robe, he jumped into bed, pulling the covers
over his head.
This was the first time that Swiftwater had seen me since he left me in
Dawson alone and unprotected, to find means as best I could to provide
shelter and sustenance for his little baby boy, Clifford.
In spite of myself, I laughed, forgetting all of the long months that
we had waited for some sign of Swiftwater and an indication of his
desire to do what was right by his own two little babies.
“Coward,” I said, still laughing. “You know you deserve to be shot.”
No answer from Swiftwater, whose body was completely covered up by bed
clothes.
Now, most men and most women will admire a MAN, but a cur and a coward
are universally despised.
As I looked at that huddled up mass of humanity underneath the white
bedspread, my heart rose in rage. The contempt I felt for him is beyond
all expression.
“Come out of that, Bill,” said I. “I have no gun!”
After a while, Swiftwater poked his head from beneath the bed clothes
and showed a blanched face covered with a three weeks’ old growth of
black beard. I told him to dress and I would wait outside. In a few
minutes Swiftwater emerged and there stood a man who had commanded
hundreds of thousands of dollars in money and gold in Alaska, looking
just exactly as if he had dropped from the brake-beam of a Northern
Pacific freight train and had walked his way into Seattle. He was clad
in a dirty sack coat, that shone like a mirror, with brown striped
trousers, an old brown derby hat and shoes that were out at the sole
and side.
“Mrs. Beebe,” said Swiftwater in a trembling voice, “I am all in. If
you will not have me arrested, but will give me a chance, I’ll soon
provide for the babies and Bera.”
Swiftwater pleaded as if for his life. He said that he could get money
in San Francisco from a man who had offered to back him in a new scheme
in the Tanana country.
There was I with the two little boys and Bera all on my hands. I told
Swiftwater that I would do nothing for him, but that I would forego
having him put behind steel bars until I had made up my mind just what
course I should take.
The next night, there was a knock at our door about 3 o’clock in the
morning. Bera slept in the front room of our little two-room apartment
and I in the other with the babies. I went to the door--there stood
Swiftwater.
“Mrs. Beebe,” he said, “I have no place to sleep tonight. If you will
let me lie down on the floor, so that I can get a little sleep, I will
get up early tomorrow morning and not bother you.”
I told Bera to come into my room and I let Swiftwater into the kitchen,
where I gave him a comforter on which to lie. The next morning, after
Bera had gone, I prepared Swiftwater’s breakfast. The man was in rags,
almost. I made him take a bath, while I washed his underclothes, and
then I went out and bought him a new pair of socks and gave him money
with which to buy a new hat.
The next day Swiftwater went to San Francisco on money I furnished him
after I had pawned my diamonds with one of the best jewelry houses in
Seattle.
Why? Well, because Swiftwater had made me believe that he had another
chance in the Tanana and that his friends in San Francisco, having
faith in his judgment as a miner--whatever may be said of Swiftwater,
he was known throughout the North as an expert miner--had raised a
large sum with which to grubstake him.
I will say this for Swiftwater: that he gave me a contract providing
that he should pay what he owed me and give me an interest in such
mines as he would locate in the Tanana country. And then he went away.