GOLD
Toward the end of September another heavy gale swept the Island. This
time the little party was snug and warm in the cabin with the
provisions under cover, and while the storm raged outside, Ellen and
Boreland climbed up into the loft and made a list of the supplies on
hand. In the log Ellen had begun to keep the day they landed on Kon
Klayu she made this entry:
"Heavy gale blowing from the southwest. We hear again that strange
rolling sound from the south cliffs. Discovered today that all rolled
oats and flour is musty from being wetted by the tide when we landed,
and much of it is spoiled. Fortunately the flour caked on the outside
and the inside is fairly well preserved. We used the last of our
butter today. We have sugar for one more week."
Though she said little her growing anxiety communicated itself in some
occult way to the other members of her household, even to Loll, to whom
she gave daily lessons in reading, writing and arithmetic. The little
fellow was at this time moved to write and illustrate a book on some
discarded letter-heads of a defunct life insurance company. Ellen
breathed a prayer of thanks that he so well entertained himself on
stormy days.
On the first page of this work appeared the text of Old Mother Hubbard
written in the boy's large, childish, downhill hand with spelling of
distinct originality. Above it in a flaming red wrapper a lady with a
large bust and impossible tiny feet, slanted tipsily toward some
shelves--conspicuously empty, while in the offing quite aloof from the
lady a lean, pale-green animal stood with despondent drooping head and
tail. Other nursery favorites that had to do with eating and food,
followed. They were illustrated in red and black and green. The red
was made by a crayon pencil, miraculously produced by Kayak Bill; the
green was obtained by the simple expedient of chewing up rice-grass.
Toward the end of the book were many of Lollie's own poems, composed
for his mother, and beautified with marginal decorations of flying
gulls, sailing ships and fat button-eyed daisies, all bearing evidence
of repeated erasures with a wet little finger.
"The red sun sinks down in the sea of the West,
The wind goes to sleep.
Seagulls flies homes to their nests.
And the gold stars their watches keeps.
I think the weather will be fine.
So the _Hoonah_ can come in.
If she don't we will be out of grub.
And O, what will we do then."
Thus Lollie indicated the unspoken thought which underlay all the
activities of the Boreland household now. They were subconsciously
counting the days until the White Chief should come to the Island with
the _Hoonah_ and, while they counted, they were beginning to fear.
During the time of this second great gale Boreland and Kayak Bill made
ready for mining by making a gold-saving device called a rocker. It
was a box-like affair four feet long, eighteen inches wide and the same
dimension in height. The front end was open as well as the top and it
was mounted on rockers like a cradle. Over the back end was a sieve or
hopper, and immediately beneath slanted a frame covered with blanket
cloth. The pay-dirt was to be poured into the hopper and running water
turned in on it. While the cradle was rocked with a jerky movement the
sand sifted down through the hopper to the slanting apron. Much of the
gold, Boreland explained, would be caught in the nap of the apron, and
in the little sag at the bottom of it, but the sand would flow on out
over the bottom of the rocker which was also lined with blanket cloth
held down by cleats nailed crosswise at intervals. The sand, being
lighter than the gold, was washed on down the length of the rocker
floor and thence out on the ground, while the cleats and the rough nap
of the cloth caught any further yellow metal.
With his Irishman's gift for seeing life through childish eyes,
Boreland made a small duplicate of the rocker for his son's use, a gift
which, in a way, was for the purpose of distracting Loll's mind from a
misfortune which had befallen Kobuk during the storm. The dog in
playing about the shed where the men were working, had knocked down the
long cross-cut saw, and the sharp teeth had fallen with full force
across Kobuk's right foreleg cutting it cruelly and, it was feared,
cracking the bone. Shane had cleansed the wound with the last bit of
antiseptic and bound it up in splints, but Kobuk's limping had brought
forth Loll's extravagant proffers of sympathy.
The first receding tide after the six-day storm found the whole party
on the beach. With the provisions under cover and the cabin repaired
all was clear for the mining. They were patrolling the beach for
prospects.
Kayak Bill and Gregg turned southward toward Skeleton Rib, as Harlan's
growing interest in the round boulders of that vicinity often drew him
there. Shane and his family took the beach around the bluff toward the
north. Ellen carried the rifle, for though there had been no time yet
to hunt, especially for the great bear that roamed Kon Klayu, she was
always on the alert. Boreland, happier than he had been since his
landing, was at last outfitted with a shovel and a gold pan, emblems of
his romantic calling.
Each storm that tore the Island produced a different effect on the
beach. When they rounded the bluff this morning, instead of finding
piles of seaweed and gravel tossed up as they had after the first great
gale, they were surprised at vast areas of bedrock from which every
vestige of sand had been swept away. Tiny rills of water, drainage
from the tundra banks above the beachline, flowed down the shallow
crevices of the clayey, hard substance.
Jean, who had never seen a nugget in its native state, was excitedly
searching for pieces of gold. Ellen smiled to see her, with Loll at
her heels, running hither and thither, expecting any moment to come
upon large, brassy-looking lumps resting like eggs on the hardpan.
Boreland skirted the edges of the bedrock.
They had reached the vicinity of Bear Paw Lake when abruptly he dropped
to his knees and looked keenly at the formation beneath him. In an
instant they were all running toward him.
He raised his face transfigured with an eager joy.
"Gosh all hemlock!" he exclaimed. "Here it is at last! Ruby
sand--_kon klayu_! Look, El! Jean!"
At the edge of the bedrock dark beach sand was mixed with minute
garnet-like particles that imparted to it a tinge of ruby. A first
glance revealed nothing but rills of water running down through the
sand carrying it through the depression in the bedrock. Like live
things the atoms crawled slowly along the seam. Suddenly each watcher
caught her breath. Amid the shifting flow there came a glint--then
another. A second later, in the roughened surface of the bedrock lay
flakes of virgin gold!
Gold!
No thrill that gold can buy ever equals the wild ecstasy experienced by
those who find it. Jean threw her arms successively about her happy
sister and brother-in-law, and finished by capering over the bedrock
with Loll as a willing partner.
When the first excitement had spent itself, Boreland sent the boy to
Kayak Bill and Harlan with word to bring shovels and the wheelbarrow.
It was necessary to gather and convey the pay-sand to a place of safety
before the next tide covered it, as the surf of Kon Klayu was too heavy
to permit surf-mining. Marking the spot with a piece of drift Boreland
continued down the beach with the others.
They followed the shore as far as the site of the West Camp looking for
further patches of ruby sand, but found none.
Having learned that by the aid of a hairpin and Boreland's knife they
could pick up the colors of gold that were caught in the crevices,
Ellen and Jean were on their knees examining the seams in the bedrock
when Kayak and Harlan arrived. The particles of gold were
extraordinarily flat and thin, and the largest flakes only could be
seen with the naked eye. There were few of these, but no miner was
ever prouder of his spring clean-up than was Jean of the ten colors she
collected in her drinking cup.
Harlan could hardly credit his eyesight when he beheld the yellow
flakes Jean showed to him. . . . Gold on the Island of Kon Klayu after
all! . . . Then he recalled that on that memorable night of the
Potlatch dance the White Chief had admitted there was gold, but while
the tides occasionally uncovered pay-sand rich beyond most placers,
there would follow months when not a single color showed up in the
sands of Kon Klayu. It was not a paying proposition. This deposit of
ruby sand must be what Kayak Bill called a mere "flash in the pan."
Though he tried not to let his co-workers become aware of it, Harlan
was filled with doubts.
All that day, while the tide permitted, the men wheeled pay-sand to a
place of safety above the high-tide line and the following morning, the
cart, speeding before a spanking breeze, carried all the mining outfit,
including Loll's rocker, down to the pay-dirt. Ellen, because of
household duties was the only one to remain at the cabin.
Once more the night-tide had shifted the sands, and they found no trace
of any gold-carrier. The bedrock that had been bare the day before now
lay under several feet of gravel. The complete change in the
topography of the shore was almost weird. It filled them with
wondering and a strange respect for the mysterious workings of the sea.
The rockers were set up on the beach just below Bear Paw Lake, and with
a flume made of a series of boards nailed together in a V-shape, water
was conveyed to the hopper of the rocker. Jean and Loll, before
beginning their own preparations, watched while Boreland and his two
helpers rocked out the first gold. After glints of yellow began to
appear in the nap of the cloth apron, they turned to their own outfit.
Harlan solved their water problem by digging a hole below the large
rocker and catching the waste after it had done its work above. Long
before the pool was completed he and Jean were on terms of laughing
friendliness. This was the first time he had been with her, without
being uncomfortably aware of the watchful and disapproving eye of
Ellen. He felt a distinct exhilaration.
He poured sand into the hopper while Jean rocked and Loll, detailing
much little-boy wisdom, dipped up the water from the hole beside them.
Though it was her first year in the North, Jean, he thought, had fallen
into the ways of the country with the natural ability that marks the
young sea-gull launching out on the deep. Evidently she had dressed
hastily that morning. Her khaki-flannel shirt, belted loosely with
green leather and worn like a Russian blouse, lay open at the throat.
Her mass of dark hair was tucked under a green tam o' shanter perched
at an unconsciously rakish angle. Unframed by her hair her face had a
piquant, boyish look, and her wide-set hazel eyes seemed larger than
usual. There was a ghost of a golden freckle or two on the bridge of
her straight little nose. From her green tam to her stout leather
boots Harlan could find no evidence of a single feminine artifice--not
a thing, perhaps, that might have appealed to him a year ago,--yet he
was conscious of a stir of pleasure as he looked at her.
He placed a shovel of sand in the hopper, spilling half of it on Lollie
who was at the same moment pouring in water. The girl laughed at his
clumsiness, as she loosened her hold on the rocker handle and
straightened, tossing her head so that the tam assumed a different but
equally alluring angle. Her sleeves were rolled to the elbow. She had
the lithe slimness, and the greens and browns that suggested the
outdoors. When she turned away from him presently to look out over the
sun-lit sea, Harlan rested his shovel in the sand to watch her.
"I wonder where my Kobuk is this morning?" The remark came from Loll
squatting at the edge of the water-hole, waiting for it to fill again.
Neither answered him.
"Have you noticed how clearly, on days like this, one can see the
mainland, though it is ninety miles away?" Jean asked, her mind
apparently intent on the far horizon. "There seems to be something in
the atmosphere that brings it nearer."
"I whisht I knew where my Kobuk is, I do!" murmured Loll plaintively.
The youngster was evidently getting tired of work. He was filling the
pail listlessly, emptying the contents over his own red little hand.
Jean's eyes roaming out over the shining ocean spaces, rested upon a
spot in the northwest. Very low on the rim of the sea lay a mountain
range, its purple and white ethereal in the distance.
"I _said_ I whisht I knew where my Kobuk is!" There was a slight
belligerent tone in Lollie's voice which Jean, doubtless, failed to
catch, for she mused on:
"Though I know that coast over there is practically uninhabited it
always gives me a feeling of being closer to people when I can see
it--and a sense of delightful unknown things lying just there beyond
the range." She paused as if contemplating some illusive thought.
Harlan, looking at her profile, became aware that her chin, while of an
engaging firmness, had that impalpably soft texture that suggests the
powdered wing of a creamy butterfly. He was surprised that he had
never noticed it before. The tam slanted obligingly to the other side
and left exposed the lobe of a small ear that was as rosy in tint as
the delicate tiny clam shells he occasionally marveled at on the beach.
The curve at the back of her neck had the look that invites kisses in a
very little girl who has her curls knotted up on the top of her
head. . . . He found mining a distinctly agreeable occupation.
"You are like a soft, cool breeze from the sea, after a hot day in the
city," he was astonished to find himself saying. But his statement was
lost in a verbal explosion from the enraged Lollie.
"Gosh darn it! _Nobody_ 'll notice _me_!" The little fellow was
looking up at Jean with petulant indignation. "I'm going to find
Kobuk!"
He flung his pail to the sand as if casting all thought of fickle woman
from him and ran off down the beach toward the cabin, deigning not to
hear Jean as she called to him.
"The poor little man!" The girl's voice was sympathetic as she looked
after the flying figure of her nephew. "I know he must feel lonely
sometimes with no one of his own age to play with."
"It's a feeling he shares, then, with some of us older ones."
Jean glanced at Harlan quickly. "Then why--" she began, and checked
herself.
She wanted to ask him why, if this were so, he had buried himself in
the isolated post of Katleean. She wanted to know why he, young,
educated, brave, with the world of opportunity before him had immersed
himself in the lazy, dreamy life of an Alaskan trading post. Was he of
the stuff that Silvertip was made--Silvertip who was content to do odd
bits of work for the White Chief at Katleean, for which he took his pay
in tobacco or some other luxury necessary to his own comfort, while the
energetic Senott kept his house, gathered and chopped his wood, salted
fish, canned berries, dried clams and put down sea-gulls eggs in salt
for the winter? Was this good-looking young creature a squaw-man at
heart, if not in reality.
A squaw-man! She was intensely interested in those strange members of
the white race who go native. She had not the contempt for them that
Ellen felt. She had only a kindly desire to understand their point of
view. In a way she could account for the White Chief. Katleean was
his wilderness kingdom where he ruled white and native alike by sheer
strength of arm and will. Silvertip, ignorant, lazy, weak, she could
also understand vaguely. But there were others. She recalled a day on
the beach at the trading-post when she had met a tall, blond man. He
was sitting on the edge of his canoe nonchalantly smoking a cigarette,
while his Indian wife and four little half-breed children dug clams a
few feet away. One minute he had talked to her of the effect on
character of the geographical aspect of the country, sprinkling his
remarks with "Schopenhauer maintains" and "Nietzsche says." In the
next breath he had informed her proudly that he and his children were
of the eagle totem--claiming it by reason of his Thlinget wife's clan.
The incident remained vivid in her mind, setting up never ceasing
queries of "Why?" "How?" Neither Ellen or Shane encouraged her
attempts to discuss these conditions. . . .
Jean's thoughts wandered on. It occurred to her that Ellen seemed to
be changing, too. There was not the old freedom of speech between them
that had always existed prior to their coming to Kon Klayu. Perhaps it
was her own fault, for lately, especially since the day at the bluff,
she had resented Ellen's attitude toward herself and Gregg Harlan.
There were many things she wished she might talk over with the young
man. Her interest in squaw-men, for instance--but of course that would
be impossible, she reminded herself. She had nearly forgotten--there
had been that Indian girl, Naleenah.
As if in answer to her unspoken thought, Harlan turned to her
impulsively.
"There's something I want to tell you, Miss Wiley, about--about that
little Indian girl--" He stopped, his tanned face flushing. It was as
if he had no words to express himself in terms that she would
understand. "You see I--I----"
"Ahoy, there, Gregg! Jean! A ship! Look, it must be the _Hoonah_!"
Boreland's joyous call broke in on them. He had run down from his own
rocker and was pointing far out where the sunlight fell on the sails of
a vessel heading directly for the Island of Kon Klayu. It was the
first sail sighted since the schooner went away.
"Hurrah boy! She's coming with the provisions!" Boreland tossed his
cap into the air. "Jean, run down to the cabin and tell Ellen the
glorious news!"
The girl looked at the approaching ship a moment. Happy as she was at
the sight she could not help wishing that Boreland had discovered it a
few minutes later. She leaned toward Harlan.
"Tell me some other time," she said softly, and with a word to Shane
started for the cabin.
She found Ellen, who never threw anything away that might later be used
for food, rolling some hard, sea-soaked lumps of flour beneath the
rolling-pin trying to crush them fine enough to use.
"O, angel child, you won't have to save that stuff now!" Jean shouted,
bursting in upon her. "The _Hoonah's_ coming! We sighted her!" She
caught Ellen about the waist and whirled her madly over the floor,
releasing her suddenly to dash out the door with a "Come on, sis!"
The two arrived breathless on the point of the bluff from whence the
ship was visible, and whence the men had gathered. Jean began eagerly
pointing out the sail, but even as she did so, she faltered. She
turned and caught the sickening look of disappointment on the faces
about her. A thin line of smoke was now trailing out behind the
vessel. It was not the _Hoonah_, but a steamer. Also it had swerved
in its course and now, broadside to the Island, it was headed south.
"O-o-o!" With a world of hopelessness in her voice Jean uttered the
sound and threw her arm about Ellen's waist. Together they watched the
departing vessel with that desperation of heart that hopes, even while
the brain knows there is no hope. A quarter of an hour passed, but the
ship did not change its course.
They turned from the sea to find that the men had begun to gather up
the tools and the clean-up from the sand.
"It's a cannery steamer, El, with the sail up, going to the States for
the winter," Boreland said, dully. "The salmon run is over."
Ellen was not listening. She had taken her eyes from the fast
vanishing steamer and was looking anxiously down the empty beach toward
the far away rockers.
"Shane . . . Shane . . ." she faltered now. There was a queer,
frightened tone in her voice that sent a chill to the hearts of her
listeners. "Where is Lollie?"
Boreland wheeled about.
"Why, he went home to you two hours ago, El! Haven't you seen him?"
"No!" Ellen's alarmed gaze sought his. Forgotten was the ship, the
gold, the people about them; forgotten was everything else in the world
but the soul-gripping parental fear they saw reflected in each other's
face.
"The grizzly!" The mother's white lips whispered the words the father
dared not utter. "O, Shane, come! Quick! We must find him!"