THE CASTAWAY
Kayak Bill was the first to find voice.
"By the roarin' Jasus,"--his tones trembled with enormous
astonishment--"if it ain't young Harlan!"
"My God, Gregg, has anything happened to the schooner?" shouted
Boreland, his long stride covering the distance to the porch.
"Not a thing that I know of, Skipper." The young man, with a weary
gesture, brushed the hair back from his forehead upon which blood from
a slight wound had dried. "But you see I left her before she started
back to Katleean." In answer to the quick questioning in the five
pairs of eyes raised to his he stammered: "I--I--wanted to
come--ashore--for a few minutes, and--I--I--the current carried me onto
the reefs at the south end, and--I wandered in here a little while ago."
Bruises and deep scratches marred the whiteness of his slim body, and
bore evidence of a desperate struggle with the sea and rocks. He was
the last person in the world that Ellen would have chosen to be thus
romantically cast up on the shores of Kon Klayu with them, but woman is
potentially a mother and even her heart was touched by his plight. For
Harlan, trying--and failing--to appear nonchalant and at ease in his
embarrassing situation was boyishly appealing.
"Why, Shane, then the poor fellow hasn't had a bite to eat since
yesterday," she exclaimed practically, while preparing to divest
herself of her pack. "Everybody get busy here and we'll get him some
lunch. Shane, you and Kayak see what you can spare in the way of
clothes, and in the meantime, Mr. Harlan--" her conventionally polite
tone as she turned to that young man caused Boreland and Kayak Bill to
exchange an amused wink--"you may take this blanket that Jean has
wrapped about her violin, and put it around you."
A few minutes later Kayak Bill filled the coffee pot from a small
crystal spring that trickled from the hillside into a sunken,
moss-grown barrel, and placed it over a bonfire Boreland had made.
Ellen left the old man to prepare lunch for their unexpected guest, and
followed Jean and Lollie into the cabin that was to be their home.
As she crossed the threshold the close, musty odor of decay smote her
unpleasantly. The room had one tiny cobwebbed window through which the
north light filtered. In the center a rough, home-made table, with one
leg slanting inward, supported some battered cooking utensils now green
with a fungus-like mould and disagreeably reminiscent of the Indian
hunters who had last camped in the place, no one knew how long ago. In
the corner where a stove had once stood, was a pile of damp soot and
ashes, and the floor was littered with decaying woolen socks, old
papers and rubber boots from which the tops had been cut to make a
house-shoe known to Alaskan miners as "stags." Here and there daylight
showed between the uncovered log walls, and great cobwebs wavered in
dusty festoons from the chinking of brown peat. An infirm ladder
leaned against one side of the room evidently for the purpose of
mounting to the loft indicated by the black opening that yawned in the
ceiling.
Ellen had no inclination to follow her sister into the little room that
opened off the right. She was appalled at the amount of work to be
done before the musty squalor of the place could be banished and the
cabin made really habitable. For a moment she even considered the
possibility of living in the tents until the White Chief brought the
winter provisions, by which time she hoped she might be able to
persuade her husband to leave the Island.
Boreland, coming into the room with the broom on his shoulder,
interrupted her gloomy thoughts.
"Pretty snug little place, eh, El?" he said cheerfully, looking about
him and lunging for the nearest cobweb with his broom. "The roof is
good and when we get another window here facing the sea, and fix her up
a bit, we'll be cozy as bears in a cave."
He filled his pipe, still warm from the last smoke, and lighted it.
Going to the opening leading to the next room he called: "Clear out
now, young ones. I'm going to start things going in here pretty
pronto!"
Through the open cabin doorway Ellen could see Harlan sitting by the
bonfire in a borrowed undershirt and the scarlet blanket. He seemed
refreshed and strengthened by his lunch and was telling Kayak Bill of
his failure to swim back to the _Hoonah_, and his subsequent landing on
the south end of the Island. Though all but exhausted by his battle
with the waves he had managed to dig himself into the dry, sun-warmed
sand, and had slept heavily for hours. When he awoke the position of
the sun told him that it must be morning. After washing the blood and
sand from his scratches, he had set out to find the camp of the
Borelands.
Harlan did not give any reason for his apparently senseless
determination to swim ashore at the last moment, nor was any expected.
On the frontier it is actions, not the reasons for them that are of
moment. At the risk of appearing a fool Harlan kept silent on the
subject. If he told now what he had heard of Kon Klayu that night he
had lain in the top bunk at Silvertip's, there would be nothing for the
Borelands to work for, nothing to hope for, during the time that must
elapse before the _Hoonah_ returned with the winter stores. The truth
now would only arouse bitter thoughts of revenge in the heart of
Boreland, who must chafe inwardly at his helplessness. There was time
enough for the truth when the schooner returned to Kon Klayu.
"Over there on the east side of the Island, almost directly opposite to
this point, I think, I found a sort of Eskimo hut made of whale ribs
and peat and drift," Harlan was saying as Ellen came out of the cabin.
"It isn't half bad, and with a little work I can make it fit to live
in."
The young man saw Ellen and came to his feet. "I honestly don't know
how to excuse myself for being here, Mrs. Boreland,"--there was a hint
of wistfulness in the deep dark eyes he bent upon her--"but--I _am_
here and dependent on your generosity until the schooner comes back.
I'll try to be as little of a bother as I can. I was just telling
Kayak about the hut I found on the other side of the Island. I'll live
there."
Ellen's mind had already been busy with the problem of housing her
unwelcome guest. She had not been blind to the interested and
welcoming look Jean had given the young man as she greeted him half an
hour before. She was aware of the almost inevitable result of
propinquity. She looked up now with relieved interest and despite
herself, with faintly quickening approval. By living on the other side
of the Island, Harlan would in part solve the problem. She could then
see to it that he saw little of Jean. If it were not for her sister,
she might find it in her to like, though she could never approve of the
good-looking young ne'er-do-well. Through Kayak Bill she had come to
know part of the truth about the death of Naleenah, but like most good
women, she could not bring herself fully to exonerate one who had been
so compromised. Potentially, if not actually, Gregg Harlan was to her
a squaw-man, and most certainly he was a drunkard.
"Well, Lady, me and him's goin' down to the North end of the Island for
another load o' grub and camp gear," drawled Kayak Bill as he finished
scouring out a burned place in the frying pan. "You can't tell a speck
about how long this here weather's goin' to last and we want to get
under cover soon as possible. Besides--" the old man's eyes
twinkled--"Gregg here looks too durned lady-like in this la-de-dah
outfit." He pointed to the scarlet blanket. "What he needs is a pair
o' pants. Pants, I claim, has a powerful civilizin' and upliftin'
influence on the mind o' man. Take the heathen now. They don't wear
none, and see what----"
Kayak's threatened monologue was cut short by Boreland, who, having
attacked the dirt and debris in the cabin appeared now and began to
pile some of it on the fire.
After the old man and Harlan had gone, Boreland swept down the cobwebs
and made the cabin ready for scrubbing. That sense of satisfaction and
happiness which comes to those in the process of home-making in the
wilderness, found expression in his rollicking Irish melody.
The legless Yukon stove was set up after the fashion of the country--an
old packing box, found at the cabin, being filled with gravel and the
stove put on top of it. A few minutes later there was a crackling fire
of drift-wood and every pot and kettle brought from the camp that
morning was full of heating water.
The floor of smooth boards, was unbelievably dirty. The lack of soap
at first caused Ellen to despair of ever getting it clean, but Loll,
who had watched Senott at Katleean cleaning her house, solved the
problem by pouring sand on it while Boreland scrubbed with the broom.
Two hours later the clean bare floor was drying rapidly from the heat
of the stove before which Ellen stood stirring a savory pot of duck
mulligan for an early supper. . . .
It was late afternoon when Kayak and Harlan returned with their loads.
As they turned in from the beach to the little grass-grown trail, Kayak
stood a moment looking up at the silver smoke floating against the
green hill. Jean, more starry-eyed than usual, was singing as she
arranged the dishes on a canvas spread upon the floor of the porch, and
at her direction Lollie was painstakingly placing some wild flowers in
a tin can for a centerpiece. The two looked up to wave a welcome to
the packers as they approached.
"By hell," said Kayak with slow appreciation, "it beats all creation
how quick women folks can make a home out o' nothin'." . . .
After supper the men sat on the porch smoking and discussing ways of
transferring the provisions from the north end of the Island.
"If we ever get a day calm enough so that we can use the whale-boat,"
said Boreland, "it won't take long to get the whole business down here.
But we can't depend on that. I don't think the sea will get smooth
enough this fall for us to bring the boat around the North Shoals.
We'd better skid it across to this side of the Island--it can't be over
a quarter of a mile wide there--and pack the grub over too. When a
favorable day comes we can load her up and it's only a few miles down
here. It's lucky for us, Gregg," he added placing a hand on the young
man's shoulder, "that we have another strong back to depend on." . . .
As they talked evening closed in. From the alders on the hillside came
the plaintive night-song of the golden-crown--the three notes of
poignant beauty and mystery that were linked indissolubly with the
summer twilights of Kon Klayu. Out over the reefs the sun had gone
down splendidly into the sea. Broad ribbons of clear jade streaked the
primrose of the sky. Beneath, bands of amethyst, amber and rose merged
slowly into a flame of crimson, and while the violet dusk crept over
the sea, the stars came out. Blowing across the bare brown reefs the
night wind brought the scent of kelp and the muffled boom of surf.
The peace and promise of the sunset soothed all into silence for a
time. Ellen and Jean and Lollie sitting close on the bottom step of
the porch, watched in reverent wonder as the colors changed. At last
the boy lifted his eyes to his mother's face.
"God smiles, mother," he said simply, resting his tired head against
her shoulder.
Jean leaned across to her sister.
"Ellen," she said quietly, "I think I love best of all the evening-time
of things, don't you--the fall of the year; the end of the day. I
wonder--" a wistfulness crept into her voice--"I wonder . . . I
hope . . . no, I _know_ that when it comes, I'll find that the sunset
time of life is the most beautiful!"
As she finished speaking she turned instinctively to look at the old
man on the porch above her, the only one of them whose slowing feet had
turned into the Sundown Trail. Kayak's hand, loosely holding his
cooling pipe, rested on his knee. His sombrero backed his strong,
bearded face, which had taken on the serenity of the evening. His deep
eyes were calm with revery. As she gazed the girl's heart was flooded
with a pitying tenderness for him, for Kayak Bill who, because of
something buried deep in his past, faced the sunset of life--alone.
She turned her face away--and met the warm young eyes of Gregg Harlan
bent upon her. . . . Then suddenly she was glowingly happy because she
was still young.