SILVER GRAY TREASURE
"What do you think!" exclaimed Cordie. "It was such a strange thing to
happen. I just have to tell some one, or I'll burst. I daren't tell
Lucile. I am afraid she'd scold me."
James, the mysterious seaman who carried bundles in the book department,
looked at her and smiled.
"I've heard a lot of stories in my life, and them that wasn't to be
repeated, wasn't. If you've got a yarn to file away in the pigeon holes
of somebody's brain, why file it with me."
She had come upon James while on the way from the cloak room. She would
have to wait a full half hour before Lucile would have finished her work,
and she felt that she just must tell some one of her thrilling adventure
with Dick and the policeman.
Seated on the edge of a table, feet dangling and fingers beating time to
the music of her story, she told James of this thrilling adventure.
"You came out well enough at that," he chuckled when she had finished.
"Lots better'n I did the last time I mixed into things."
Cordie wondered if this remark had reference to his chase after the
hawk-eyed young man who had followed her to the furnace room that night.
But asking no questions, she just waited.
"Funny trip, that last sea voyage I took," James mused at last, his eyes
half closed. "It wouldn't have been half bad if it hadn't been for one
vile crook.
"You see," he went on, "sometimes of a summer I run up to Nome. I've
always had a few hundred dollars, that is up until now. I'd go up there
in the north and sort of wander round on gasoline schooners and river
boats, buyin' up skins; red, white, cross fox, and maybe a silver gray or
two. Minks and martin too, and ermine and Siberian squirrel.
"Always had a love for real furs; you know what I mean, the genuine stuff
that stands up straight and fluffy and can't be got anywhere far south of
the Arctic Circle--things like the fox skin that's on that cape your pal
Lucile wears sometimes. When I see all these pretty girls wearin' rabbit
skin coats, it makes me feel sort of bad. Why, even the Eskimos do better
than that! They dress their women in fawn skin; mighty pretty they are,
too, sometimes.
"Well, last summer I went up to Nome, that's in Alaska, you know, and
from there I took a sort of pirate schooner that ranges up and down the
coast of Alaska and into Russian waters."
"Pirate," breathed Cordie, but James didn't hear her.
"We touched at a point or two," he went on, "then went over into Russian
waters for walrus hunting--ivory and skins.
"We ran into a big herd and filled the boat up, then touched at East
Cape, Siberia.
"There wasn't any real Russians there, so we went up to the native
village. Old Nepassok, the chief, seemed to take a liking to me. He took
me into his storeroom and showed me all his treasure--walrus and mastodon
ivory, whale bone, red and white fox skins by the hundred, and some mink
and beaver. Then at last he pulled out an oily cotton bag from somewhere
far back in the corner and drew out of it--what do you think? The most
perfect brace of silver fox skins I have ever seen! Black beauties, they
were, with maybe a white hair for every square inch. Just enough for
contrast. Know who wears skins like that? Only the very wealthiest
people.
"And there I was looking at them, worth a king's ransom, and maybe I
could buy them."
"Could you?" breathed Cordie.
"I could, and did. It took me four hours. The chief was a hard nut to
crack. He left me just enough to get back to Chicago, but what did I
care? I had a fortune, one you could carry in two fair sized overcoat
pockets, but a fortune all the same.
"I got to Chicago with them," he leaned forward impressively, "and then a
barber--a dark faced, hawk-eyed barber--done me out of them. Of course he
was a crook, just playing barber. Probably learned the trade in jail.
Anyway he done me for my fortune. Cut my hair, he did, and somehow got
the fox skins out of my bag. When I got to my hotel all I had in my bag
was a few clothes and a ten dollar gold piece. I raced back to the barber
shop but he was gone; drawed his pay and skipped, that quick.
"That," he finished, allowing his shoulders to drop into a slouch, "is
why I'm carrying books here. I have to, or starve. Just what comes after
Christmas I can't guess. It's not so easy to pick up a job after the
holidays.
"But do you know--" he sat up straight and there was a gleam in his eye,
"do you know when I saw that barber fellow last?"
"Where?"
"Down below the sub-basement of this store, in the boiler room at night."
"Not--not the one who was following me?"
"The same. And I nearly got him, but not quite."
"You--you didn't get him?"
Cordie hardly knew whether to be sorry or glad. She hated violence; also
she had no love for that man.
"I did not get him," breathed James, "but next time I will, and what I'll
say and do for him will be for both you and me. G'night!" He rose
abruptly and, shoulders square, gait steady and strong, he walked away.
"What are you dreaming about?" Lucile asked as she came upon Cordie five
minutes later.
"Nothing much, I guess. Thinking through a story I just heard, that's
all."