I
There were four bunks in the shanty, and three of them were filled.
Ohlsen lay in one, a great bulk under the Hudson Bay Company blankets,
breathing like a bull; in the next was Forbes, with eyes as quick as a
mink’s, and now red rimmed from snow blindness, twinkling from time to
time over his yellowish furs. Nearest the door was Lajeune, singing in
his sleep. In one corner an old Indian cowered, as little regarded as
the rags and skins in which he was hidden; and Desmond sat by the stove,
drinking to his luck, fingering it and folding it.
It was all there in a bag—raw gold, pure gold, the food of joy. At the
weight of it in his rough palm, Desmond chattered and chuckled with
delight. He had sat there talking and laughing for hours, while the glow
of the stove grew darker and the cold crept in. Little blots of snow
from the snow-shoes, first melting, had turned again to dark ice on the
floor; the red light clung to them until each little circle seemed to be
one of blood. Outside the world trembled under the shafts of the bitter
stars; but Desmond, with the very fuel of life in his hand, was warm.
Dreams ran in his brain like a tide and dripped off his tongue in words.
They were strangely innocent dreams of innocent things; sunlight on an
old wall, honey, a girl with sandy eyebrows, and yellow ducklings.
“And maybe there’ll be a garden, with fruit you can pick off the bushes.
’Twas under a thorn-bush she used to stand, with the wind snapping her
print gown. Or maybe I’ll see more of the world first in an easy
fashion, never a drink scarce, and no man my better at it. I know how a
gentleman should behave. Are you hearing me, boys?”
Ohlsen breathed as slowly and deeply as a bull. Forbes blinked a moment
over the greasy furs and said, “I’m hearing you.” Lajeune gave a sudden
little call in his sleep, like a bird.
“They’re all asleep, like so many hogs,” said Desmond, with a maudlin
wonder; “they don’t care. Two years we’ve struggled and starved together
in this here freezing hell, and now my luck’s come, and they don’t care.
Well, well.”
He stared resentfully at the bunks. He could see nothing of Ohlsen but
blanket, yet Ohlsen helped him to a new outfit when he lost everything
in a snow-slide. Forbes was only an unheeding head of grimy fur, yet
once he had pulled Desmond out of a log-jam. And Lejeune had nursed him
laughingly when he hurt his foot with a pick. Yet now Lejeune cared
nothing; he was asleep, his head flung back, showing his smooth, lean
throat and a scar that ran across it, white on brown. Desmond felt hurt.
He took another drink, strode over to the bunk, and shook him
petulantly.
“Don’t ye hear when a friend talks t’ ye?”
Lajeune did not move, yet he was instantly awake. His eyes, so black
that they showed no pupil, stared suddenly into Desmond’s muddled blue
ones. His right hand gripped and grew rigid.
Desmond, leaning over him, was sobered by something in the breathless
strain of that stare. He laughed uneasily.
“It’s only me, Jooney. Was you asleep? I’m sorry.”
He backed off bewildered, but young Lajeune smiled and yawned, showing
his red tongue curled like a wolf’s.
“Still the gold, my friend?” he asked, drowsily.
“I—I can’t seem to get used to it, like,” explained Desmond; “I have to
talk of it. I know I’m a fool, but a man’s luck takes him all ways. You
go to sleep, young Jooney. I won’t talk to you no more.”
“Nor before your old savage in the corner, _hein_?”
Desmond glanced at the heap of rags in the corner.
“Hom? What’s the matter? Think he’ll steal it? Why, there’s four of us,
and even an Injun can have a corner of my shack for an hour or two
to-night. I reckon,” finished Desmond, with a kind of gravity, “as my
luck is making me soft. It takes a man all ways.”
Lajeune yawned, grinned, flung up his left arm, and was instantly asleep
again. He looked so young in his sleep, that Desmond was suddenly moved
to draw the blanket over him. In the dim light he saw Forbes worn and
grizzled, the wariness gone out of him, a defeated old man with horrible
eyes. Ohlsen’s hand lay over the edge of the bunk, his huge fingers
curved helplessly, like a child’s. Desmond felt inarticulately tender to
the three who had toiled by his side and missed their luck. He piled
wood on the stove, saying, “I must do something for the boys. They’re
good boys.”
At the freshened roar of the stove the old Indian in the corner stirred
and lifted his head, groping like an old turtle in the sunlight. He had
a curious effect of meaningless blurs and shadows. Eye and memory could
hold nothing of his insignificance. Only under smoked and puckered lids
the flickering glitter of his eyes pricked in a meaning unreadable.
Desmond looked at him with the wide good nature born of his luck.
“I ain’t going to turn ye out, Old Bones,” he said.
The eyes steadied on him an instant, and the old shadow spoke fair
English in the ghost of a voice.
“Thanks. You give grub. I eat, I warm, I rest. Now I go.”
“Jest as ye like. But have a drink first.” He pushed over the dregs of
the whiskey bottle.
The old man seized it; seemed to hold it to his heart. While he could
get whiskey he might drink and forget; when he could get it no more, he
must remember and die. He drank, Lethe and Paradise in one, and handed
back the bottle.
“How,” he said. “You good man. Once I had things to give, now nothing.
Nothing but dreams.”
“Dreams, is it, Old Bones?”
The eyes were like cunning sparks.
“Dreams, yes,” he said with a stealthy indrawing of breath. “You good
man. I give you three dreams. See.”
With a movement so swift the eye could hardly follow it, he caught three
hot wood-coals from the ash under the stove and flung them on the floor
at Desmond’s feet. He bent forward, and under his breath they woke to a
moment’s flame. The strangeness of his movements held Desmond, and he
also bent forward, watching. He had an instant’s impression that the
coals were burning him fiercely somewhere between the eyes, that the
bars of personality were breaking, that he was falling into some
darkness that was the darkness of death. Before his ignorance could find
words for his fear, the old Indian leaned back, the fire fled, and the
spent coals were no more than rounds of empty ash, which the old man
took in his hands.
“Dreams,” he said, with something that might have been a laugh. He blew
the ash like little grey feathers toward the sleeping men in the bunks.
His eyes were alive, fixed on Desmond with a meaning unreadable. He
thrust his face close. “You good man. You give me whiskey. I give you
three dreams, little dreams—for luck.”
Desmond was staring at the little floating feathers of wood ash. As they
slowly sank and settled, he heard the door close and felt a sharp stab
of cold. The old Indian had gone; Desmond could hear his footsteps
dragging over the frozen crust of the snow for a little while. He got up
and shook himself. The drink had died out of him; he felt himself
suddenly and greatly weary of body and mind. The fire would last till
morning. “Dreams—dreams, for luck!” he muttered, as he rolled into the
fourth bunk. He was ready for sleep. And as he lay down and yielded to
the oncoming of sleep, as a weed yields to the tide, he knew of a swift,
clear, certainty that he would dream.