CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVII.
[Illustration: It was as if the man was deliberately insulting her.]
ILLUSTRATIONS
It was as if the man was deliberately insulting her.
The long, black launch nosed its way out to sea.
The man wore a gun ... within reach of his hand.
Mary sobbed as the man she loved faced winged death.
THE ALASKAN
CHAPTER I
Captain Rifle, gray and old in the Alaskan Steamship service, had not
lost the spirit of his youth along with his years. Romance was not dead
in him, and the fire which is built up of clean adventure and the
association of strong men and a mighty country had not died out of his
veins. He could still see the picturesque, feel the thrill of the
unusual, and—at times—warm memories crowded upon him so closely that
yesterday seemed today, and Alaska was young again, thrilling the world
with her wild call to those who had courage to come and fight for her
treasures, and live—or die.
Tonight, with the softly musical throb of his ship under his feet, and
the yellow moon climbing up from behind the ramparts of the Alaskan
mountains, something of loneliness seized upon him, and he said simply:
“That is Alaska.”
The girl standing beside him at the rail did not turn, nor for a moment
did she answer. He could see her profile clear-cut as a cameo in the
almost vivid light, and in that light her eyes were wide and filled
with a dusky fire, and her lips were parted a little, and her slim body
was tense as she looked at the wonder of the moon silhouetting the
cragged castles of the peaks, up where the soft, gray clouds lay like
shimmering draperies.
Then she turned her face a little and nodded. “Yes, Alaska,” she said,
and the old captain fancied there was the slightest ripple of a tremor
in her voice. “Your Alaska, Captain Rifle.”
Out of the clearness of the night came to them a distant sound like the
low moan of thunder. Twice before, Mary Standish had heard it, and now
she asked: “What was that? Surely it can not be a storm, with the moon
like that, and the stars so clear above!”
“It is ice breaking from the glaciers and falling into the sea. We are
in the Wrangel Narrows, and very near the shore, Miss Standish. If it
were day you could hear the birds singing. This is what we call the
Inside Passage. I have always called it the water-wonderland of the
world, and yet, if you will observe, I must be mistaken—for we are
almost alone on this side of the ship. Is it not proof? If I were
right, the men and women in there—dancing, playing cards,
chattering—would be crowding this rail. Can you imagine humans like
that? But they can’t see what I see, for I am a ridiculous old fool who
remembers things. Ah, do you catch that in the air, Miss Standish—the
perfume of flowers, of forests, of green things ashore? It is faint,
but I catch it.”
“And so do I.”
She breathed in deeply of the sweet air, and turned then, so that she
stood with her back to the rail, facing the flaming lights of the ship.
The mellow cadence of the music came to her, soft-stringed and sleepy;
she could hear the shuffle of dancing feet. Laughter rippled with the
rhythmic thrum of the ship, voices rose and fell beyond the lighted
windows, and as the old captain looked at her, there was something in
her face which he could not understand.
She had come aboard strangely at Seattle, alone and almost at the last
minute—defying the necessity of making reservation where half a
thousand others had been turned away—and chance had brought her under
his eyes. In desperation she had appealed to him, and he had discovered
a strange terror under the forced calm of her appearance. Since then he
had fathered her with his attentions, watching closely with the wisdom
of years. And more than once he had observed that questing, defiant
poise of her head with which she was regarding the cabin windows now.
She had told him she was twenty-three and on her way to meet relatives
in Nome. She had named certain people. And he had believed her. It was
impossible not to believe her, and he admired her pluck in breaking all
official regulations in coming aboard.
In many ways she was companionable and sweet. Yet out of his
experience, he gathered the fact that she was under a tension. He knew
that in some way she was making a fight, but, influenced by the wisdom
of three and sixty years, he did not let her know he had guessed the
truth.
He watched her closely now, without seeming to do so. She was very
pretty in a quiet and unusual way. There was something irresistibly
attractive about her, appealing to old memories which were painted
clearly in his heart. She was girlishly slim. He had observed that her
eyes were beautifully clear and gray in the sunlight, and her
exquisitely smooth dark hair, neatly coiled and luxuriant crown of
beauty, reminded him of puritanism in its simplicity. At times he
doubted that she was twenty-three. If she had said nineteen or twenty
he would have been better satisfied. She puzzled him and roused
speculation in him. But it was a part of his business to see many
things which others might not see—and hold his tongue.
“We are not quite alone,” she was saying. “There are others,” and she
made a little gesture toward two figures farther up the rail.
“Old Donald Hardwick, of Skagway,” he said. “And the other is Alan
Holt.”
“Oh, yes.”
She was facing the mountains again, her eyes shining in the light of
the moon. Gently her hand touched the old captain’s arm. “Listen,” she
whispered.
“Another berg breaking away from Old Thunder. We are very near the
shore, and there are glaciers all the way up.”
“And that other sound, like low wind—on a night so still and calm! What
is it?”
“You always hear that when very close to the big mountains, Miss
Standish. It is made by the water of a thousand streams and rivulets
rushing down to the sea. Wherever there is melting snow in the
mountains, you hear that song.”
“And this man, Alan Holt,” she reminded him. “He is a part of these
things?”
“Possibly more than any other man, Miss Standish. He was born in Alaska
before Nome or Fairbanks or Dawson City were thought of. It was in
Eighty-four, I think. Let me see, that would make him—”
“Thirty-eight,” she said, so quickly that for a moment he was
astonished.
Then he chuckled. “You are very good at figures.”
He felt an almost imperceptible tightening of her fingers on his arm.
“This evening, just after dinner, old Donald found me sitting alone. He
said he was lonely and wanted to talk with someone—like me. He almost
frightened me, with his great, gray beard and shaggy hair. I thought of
ghosts as we talked there in the dusk.”
“Old Donald belongs to the days when the Chilkoot and the White Horse
ate up men’s lives, and a trail of living dead led from the Summit to
Klondike, Miss Standish,” said Captain Rifle. “You will meet many like
him in Alaska. And they remember. You can see it in their faces—always
the memory of those days that are gone.”
She bowed her head a little, looking to the sea. “And Alan Holt? You
know him well?”
“Few men know him well. He is a part of Alaska itself, and I have
sometimes thought him more aloof than the mountains. But I know him.
All northern Alaska knows Alan Holt. He has a reindeer range up beyond
the Endicott Mountains and is always seeking the last frontier.”
“He must be very brave.”
“Alaska breeds heroic men, Miss Standish.”
“And honorable men—men you can trust and believe in?”
“Yes.”
“It is odd,” she said, with a trembling little laugh that was like a
bird-note in her throat. “I have never seen Alaska before, and yet
something about these mountains makes me feel that I have known them a
long time ago. I seem to feel they are welcoming me and that I am going
home. Alan Holt is a fortunate man. I should like to be an Alaskan.”
“And you are—”
“An American,” she finished for him, a sudden, swift irony in her
voice. “A poor product out of the melting-pot, Captain Rifle. I am
going north—to learn.”
“Only that, Miss Standish?”
His question, quietly spoken and without emphasis, demanded an answer.
His kindly face, seamed by the suns and winds of many years at sea, was
filled with honest anxiety as she turned to look straight into his
eyes.
“I must press the question,” he said. “As the captain of this ship, and
as a father, it is my duty. Is there not something you would like to
tell me—in confidence, if you will have it so?”
For an instant she hesitated, then slowly she shook her head. “There is
nothing, Captain Rifle.”
“And yet—you came aboard very strangely,” he urged. “You will recall
that it was most unusual—without reservation, without baggage—”
“You forget the hand-bag,” she reminded him.
“Yes, but one does not start for northern Alaska with only a hand-bag
scarcely large enough to contain a change of linen, Miss Standish.”
“But I did, Captain Rifle.”
“True. And I saw you fighting past the guards like a little wildcat. It
was without precedent.”
“I am sorry. But they were stupid and difficult to pass.”
“Only by chance did I happen to see it all, my child. Otherwise the
ship’s regulations would have compelled me to send you ashore. You were
frightened. You can not deny that. You were running away from
something!”
He was amazed at the childish simplicity with which she answered him.
“Yes, I was running away—from something.”
Her eyes were beautifully clear and unafraid, and yet again he sensed
the thrill of the fight she was making.
“And you will not tell me why—or from what you were escaping?”
“I can not—tonight. I may do so before we reach Nome. But—it is
possible—”
“What?”
“That I shall never reach Nome.”
Suddenly she caught one of his hands in both her own. Her fingers clung
to him, and with a little note of fierceness in her voice she hugged
the hand to her breast. “I know just how good you have been to me,” she
cried. “I should like to tell you why I came aboard—like that. But I
can not. Look! Look at those wonderful mountains!” With one free hand
she pointed.
“Behind them and beyond them lie the romance and adventure and mystery
of centuries, and for nearly thirty years you have been very near those
things, Captain Rifle. No man will ever see again what you have seen or
feel what you have felt, or forget what you have had to forget. I know
it. And after all that, can’t you—won’t you—forget the strange manner
in which I came aboard this ship? It is such a simple, little thing to
put out of your mind, so trivial, so unimportant when you look back—and
think. Please Captain Rifle—please!”
So quickly that he scarcely sensed the happening of it she pressed his
hand to her lips. Their warm thrill came and went in an instant,
leaving him speechless, his resolution gone.
“I love you because you have been so good to me,” she whispered, and as
suddenly as she had kissed his hand, she was gone, leaving him alone at
the rail.