ON THE NORTHERN SEAS
The mists hung drearily on snow-crowned, distant hilltops. The deadly
gray of the sky suggested laden clouds bearing every threat known to
the elements. They were traveling fast, treading each other's heels,
and overwhelming each other till the gloom banked deeper and deeper.
It was the mockery of an early spring day. It had all the appearance
of the worst depths of winter, except that the intense cold had given
place to a fierce wind of higher temperature.
The seas were running high, and the laden vessel labored heavily as it
passed the sharp teeth of the jaws of the wide sound which marked the
approach to the northern land.
There was no sheltering bar here. The only obstruction to the fierce
onslaught of the North Pacific waters was the almost submerged legion
of cruel rocks which confined the deep water channel. It was a deadly
approach which took years of a ship's captain's life to learn. And
when he had learned it, so far as it was humanly possible, it quickly
taught him how little he knew. Not a season passed but some
unfortunate found for himself a new, uncharted rock.
The land rose up to overwhelming heights on either side, and these vast
barriers narrowed the wind channel till the force of the gale was
trebled. It swept in from the broad ocean with a roar and a boom,
bearing the steamer along, floundering through the racing waters, with
a crushing following sea.
There were twelve hours of this yet ahead of him, and John Dunne paced
his bridge with every faculty alert. He watched the skies. He watched
the breaking waters. He watched the shores on either side of him, as
he might watch the movements of a remorseless adversary about to attack
him. He had navigated this channel for upwards of fifteen years, and
understood to-day how small was his understanding of its virtues, and
how real and complete his fears of its vices. But it was his work to
face it at all times and all seasons, and he accepted the
responsibility with a cheerful optimism and an equal skill.
Once or twice he howled a confidence to his chief officer, who occupied
the bridge with him. There were moments when his lips were at the
speaking tubes, and his hand on the telegraph. There were moments when
he stood with his arms folded over the breast of his thick pea-jacket,
and his half-closed eyes searched the barren shores while he leaned
against the shaking rail.
He had been on the bridge the whole night, and still his bodily vigor
seemed quite unimpaired. His stocky body concealed a power of
endurance which his life had hardened him to. He rarely talked of the
dangers through which he had journeyed on the northern seas. He feared
them too well to desire to recall them. He was wont to say he lived
only in the present. To look ahead would rob him of his nerve. To
gaze back over the manifold emergencies through which he had passed
would only undermine his will. The benefit of his philosophy was
displayed in his habitual success. In consequence he was the commodore
of his company's fleet.
He passed down from his bridge at last. And it was almost with
reluctance. It was breakfast time, and he had been summoned already
three times by an impatient steward. At the door of his cabin he was
met by John Kars who was to be his guest at the meal. These men were
old friends, bound by the common ties of the northland life. They had
made so many journeys together over these turbulent waters. To Kars it
would have been unthinkable to travel under any other sea captain.
"Still watching for those jaws to snap?" said Kars, as he passed into
the little room ahead of his host, and sniffed hungrily at the fragrant
odor of coffee.
"Why, yes," he said. "Jaws that's always snapping generally need
watching, I guess. A feller needs the eyes of a spider to get to
windward of the things lying around Blackrock Sound. Say, I guess it
wouldn't come amiss to dump this patch into the devil's dugout fer fool
skippers, who lost their ships through 'souse,' to navigate around in.
It has you guessin' most of the time. And you're generally wrong,
anyway."
The men sat down at the table, and the steward served the coffee. For
a few moments they were busy helping themselves to the grilled kidneys
and bacon. Presently the steward withdrew.
"It's been a better trip than usual this time of year," Kars said.
"It's a pity running into this squall just now."
The seaman raised a pair of twinkling eyes in his guest's direction.
"It's mostly my experience. Providence generally figgers to hand you
things at--inconvenient times. This darn sound's tricky when there
ain't breeze enough to clear your smoke away. It's fierce when it's
blowing. Guess you'll be glad to see your outfit ashore."
"Ye-es."
"Up country again this year?"
Kars laughed.
"Sure."
The seaman regarded him enviously.
"Guess it must be great only having the weather to beat. A piece of
hard soil under your feet must be bully to work on. That ain't been
mine since I was fourteen. That's over forty years ago."
"There's something to it--sure." Kars sipped his coffee. "But there's
other things," he added, as he set his cup down.
The seaman smiled.
"Wouldn't be Life if there weren't."
"No."
"You're shipping arms," John Dunne went on significantly. "Guns an'
things don't signify all smiles an' sunshine. No, I guess we sea folks
got our troubles. It's only they're diff'rent from other folks. You
ain't the only feller shipping arms. We got cases else. An' a big
outfit of cartridges. I was looking into the lading schedule
yesterday. Say, the Yukon ain't makin' war with Alaska?"
The man's curiosity was evident, but he disguised it with a broad smile.
Kars' steady eyes regarded him thoughtfully. Then he, too, smiled.
"I don't reckon the Yukon's worrying to scrap. But folks inside--I
mean right inside beyond Leaping Horse where the p'lice are--need arms.
There's a lot of low type Indians running loose. They aren't to be
despised, except for their manners. Guess the stuff you speak of is
for one of the trading posts?"
"Can't say. It's billed to a guy named Murray McTavish at Blackrock
Flat. There's a thousand rifles an' nigh two million rounds of
cartridges. Guess he must be carryin' on a war of his own with them
Injuns. Know the name?"
Kars appeared to think profoundly.
"Seems to me I know the name. Can't just place it for---- Say--I've
got it. He's the partner of the feller the neches murdered up at Fort
Mowbray, on the Snake River. Sure, that explains it. Oh, yes. The
folks up that way are up against it. The neches are pretty darn bad."
He laughed. "Guess he's out for a war of extermination with such an
outfit as that."
"Seems like it." The skipper went on eating for some moments in
silence. His curiosity was satisfied. Nor did Kars attempt to break
the silence. He was thinking--thinking hard.
"It beats me," Dunne went on presently, "you folk who don't need to
live north of 'sixty.' What is it that keeps you chasing around in a
cold that 'ud freeze the vitals of a tin statue?"
Kars shook his head.
"You can search me," he said, with a shrug. "Guess it sort of gets in
the blood, though. There's times when I cuss it like you cuss the
waters that hand you your life. Then there's times when I love it
like--like a pup loves offal. You can't figger it out any more than
you can figger out why the sun and moon act foolish chasing each other
around an earth that don't know better than to spend its time buzzing
around on a pivot that don't exist. You can't explain these things any
more than you can explain the reason why no two folks can think the
same about things, except it is their own way of thinking it's the
right way. Nor why it is you mostly get rain when you're needin' sun,
and wind when you're needin' calm, and anyway it's coming from the
wrong quarter. If you guess you're looking for gold, it's a thousand
dollars to a dime you find coal, or drown yourself in a 'gush' of oil.
If you're married, an' you're looking for a son, it's a sure gamble you
get a gal. Most everything in life's just about as crazy as they'll
allow outside a foolish house, and as for life itself, well, it's a
darn nuisance anyway, but one you're mighty glad keeps busy your way."
At that moment, the speaking tube from the bridge emitted a sharp
whistle, and the skipper, with a broad smile on his weather-beaten
face, went to answer it.
The clatter of the winches ceased. The creaking of straining hawsers
lessened. The voices of men only continued their hoarse-throated
shoutings. The gangways had been secured in place, and while the crew
were feverishly opening the vessel's hatches the few passengers who had
made the journey under John Dunne's watchful care hustled down the
high-angled gangway to the quay, glad enough to set foot on the
slush-laden land.
The days of the wild rush of gold-mad incompetents were long since
past. The human freight of John Dunne's vessel, with the exception of
John Kars, was commercial. They were mostly men whose whole work was
this new great trade with the north.
Kars was one of the first to land, and he swiftly searched the faces of
the crowd of longshoremen.
It was a desolate quay-side of a disreputable town. But though all
picturesqueness was given over to utility, there was a sense of
homeliness to the traveler after the stormy passage of the North
Pacific. Blackrock crouched under the frowning ramparts of hills which
barred the progress of the waters. It was dwarfed, and rendered even
more desolate, by the sterile snow-laden crags with which it was
crowded. But these first impressions were quickly lost in the life
that strove on every hand. In the familiar clang of the locomotive
bell, and the movement of railroad wagons which were engaged in haulage
for Leaping Horse.
Kars' search ended in a smile of greeting, as a tall, lean American
detached himself from the crowd and came towards him. He greeted the
arrival with the easy casualness of the northlander.
"Glad to see you, Chief," he said, shaking hands. "Stuff aboard?
Good," as the other nodded. "Guess the gang'll ship it right away jest
as soon as they haul it out o' the guts of the old tub. You goin' on
up with the mail? She's due to get busy in two hours, if she don't get
colic or some other fool trouble."
Abe Dodds refused to respond to his friend and chief's smile of
greeting. He rarely shed smiles on anything or any one. He was a
mining engineer of unusual gifts, in a country where mining engineers
and flies vied with each other for preponderance. He was a man who
bristled with a steady energy which never seemed to tire, and he had
been in the service of John Kars from the very early days.
Kars indicated the snub-nosed vessel he had just left.
"The stuff's all there," he said. "Nearly fifty tons of it. You need
to hustle it up to Leaping Horse, and on to the camp right away. Guess
we break camp in two weeks."
The man nodded.
"Sure. That's all fixed. Anything else?"
His final inquiry was his method of dismissing his employer. But Kars
did not respond. His keen eyes had been searching the crowd. Now they
came back to the plain face of Abe, whose jaws were working busily on
the wreck of the end of a cigar. He lowered his voice to a
confidential tone.
"There's a big outfit of stuff aboard for Murray McTavish, of Fort
Mowbray. Has he an outfit here to haul it? Is he still around Leaping
Horse?"
Abe's eyes widened. He was quite unconcerned at the change of tone.
"Why, yes," he replied promptly. "Sure he's an outfit here. He's
shipping it up to Leaping Horse by the Yukon Transport--express. He
quit the city last November, an' come along down again a week ago.
Guess he's in the city right now. He's stopping around Adler's Hotel."
Kars' eyes were on the "hauls" of the cargo boat which were already
busy.
"You boys kept to instructions?" he demanded sharply. "No one's wise
to your camp?"
"Not a thing."
"There's not a word of me going around the city?"
"Not a word."
"The outfit's complete?"
"Sure. To the last boy. You can break camp the day after this stuff's
hauled and we've packed it."
"Good." Kars sighed as if in relief. "Well, I'll get on. Hustle all
you know. And, say, get a tally of McTavish's outfit. Get their time
schedule. I'll need it. So long."
Kars followed his personal baggage which a quayside porter had taken on
to the grandiosely named mail train.
John Kars was standing at the curtained window of Dr. Bill's apartment
in the Hoffman Apartment House. His back was turned on the luxuriously
furnished room. For some time the silence had been broken only by the
level tones of the owner of the apartment who was lounging in the
depths of a big rocker adjacent to a table laden with surgical
instruments. He had been telling the detailed story of the
preparations made at the camp some ten miles distant from the city, and
the supervision of whose affairs Kars had left in his hands. As he
ceased speaking Kars turned from his contemplation of the tawdry white
and gold of the Elysian Fields which stood out in full view from the
window of the apartment.
"Now tell me of that boy--Alec," he demanded.
The directness of the challenge had its effect. Bill Brudenell stirred
uneasily in his chair. His shrewd eyes widened with a shade of
trouble. Nor did he answer readily.
"Things are wrong?" Kars' steady eyes searched his friend's face.
"Well--they're not--good."
"Ah. Tell me."
Kars moved from the window. It almost seemed that all that had passed
was incomparable in interest with his present subject. He seated
himself on the corner of the table which held the surgical instruments.
"No. It's not good. It's--it's darned bad." Bill rose abruptly from
his chair and began to pace the room, his trim shoulders hunched as
though he were suddenly driven to a desire for aggression. "Look here,
John," he cried almost vehemently. "If you or I had had that boy set
in our charge, seeing what we saw that first night, and knowing what
I've heard since, could we have quit this lousy city for months and
left him to his fool play over at Pap's? Not on your life. But it's
what Murray's done. Gee, I could almost think he did it purposely."
Kars pointed at the rocker. There was a curious light in his gray
eyes. It was a half smile. Also it possessed a subtle stirring of
fierceness.
"Sit down, Bill," he said calmly. "But start right in from--the start."
The man of healing obeyed mechanically, but he chafed at the restraint.
His usual ease had undergone a serious disturbance. There was nothing
calculated to upset him like the disregard of moral obligation. Crime
he understood, folly he accepted as something belonging to human
nature. But the moral "stunt," as he was wont to characterize it, hurt
him badly. Just now he was regarding Murray McTavish with no very
friendly eyes, and he deplored beyond words the doings of the boy who
was Jessie Mowbray's brother.
"The start!" he exploded. "Where _can_ I start? If the start were as
I see it, it 'ud be to tell you that Murray's a callous skunk who don't
care a whoop for the obligations Allan's murder left on his fat
shoulders. But I guess that's not the start as you see it. That boy!"
He sprang from his seat again and Kars made no further attempt to
restrain him. "He's on the road to the devil faster than an express
locomotive could carry him. He's in the hands of 'Chesapeake' Maude,
who's got him by both feet and neck. And he's handing his bank roll
over to Pap, and his gang, with a shovel. He's half soused any old
time after eleven in the morning. And his back teeth are awash by
midnight 'most every day. You can see him muling around the dance
floor till you get sick of the sight of his darn fool smile, and you
wish all the diamonds Maude wears were lost in the deepest smudge fires
of hell. Start? There is no start. But there's a sure finish."
"You mean if he don't quit he'll go right down and out?"
Bill came to a halt directly in front of his friend. His keen eyes
gazed straight into the strong face confronting him.
"No, I don't mean that. It's worse," he said, with a gravity quite
changed from his recent agitated manner.
"Worse?" Kars' question came sharply. "Go on."
"Oh, I did all you said that night. I got a holt on him next day at
the Gridiron, where he's stopping. He told me to go to a certain hot
place and mind my own business, which was doping out drugs. I went to
Murray, and he served me little better. He grinned. He always grins.
He threw hot air about a youngster and wild oats. He guessed the kid
would sober up after a fling. They'd figgered on this play. His
mother, and José, and him. They guessed it was best. Then he was
going to get around back and act the man his father was on the trail.
That was his talk. And he grinned--only grinned when I guessed he was
five sorts of darned fool."
Bill paused. It might almost have been that he paused for breath after
the speed at which his words came. Kars waited with deliberate
patience, but his jaws were set hard.
"But now--now?" The doctor passed a hand across his broad forehead and
smoothed his iron gray hair. He turned his eyes thoughtfully upon the
window through which they beheld the white and gold of the Elysian
Fields. "The worst thing's happened. It's in the mouth of every one
in Leaping Horse. It's the scream of every faro joint and 'draw'
table. The fellers on the sidewalk have got the laugh of it. Maude's
got dopey on him. She's plumb stuck on him. The dame Pap's spilt
thousands on has gone back on him for a fool boy she was there to roll.
Things are seething under the surface, and it's the sort of atmosphere
Pap mostly lives in. He's crazy mad. And when Pap's crazy, things are
going to happen. There's just one end coming. Only one end. That
boy's going to get done up, and Pap's to be all in at the doing. Oh,
he'll take no chances. There'll be no shriek. That kid'll peter right
out sudden. And it'll be Pap who knows how."
"Murray's in the city. Have you seen him?" Kars spoke coldly.
"I saw him yesterday noon. I went to Adler's at lunch time to be sure
getting him."
"What did he say?"
"I scared him. Plumb scared him. But it was the same grin. Gee, how
that feller grins."
"What did he say?" Kars persisted.
"He'd do all he knew to get the kid away. But he guessed he'd be up
against it. He guessed Alec had mighty little use for him, and you
can't blame the kid when you think of that grin. But he figgered to do
his best anyway. He cursed the kid for a sucker, and talked of a
mother's broken heart if things happened. But I don't reckon he cares
a cuss anyway. That feller's got one thing in life if I got any sane
notion. It's trade. He hasn't the scruples of a Jew money-lender for
anything else."
Kars nodded.
"I'm feeling that way--too."
"You couldn't feel otherwise."
"I wasn't thinking of your yarn, Bill," Kars said quickly. "It's
something else. That feller's shipped in a thousand rifles, and a big
lot of ammunition. I lit on it through John Dunne. What's he want 'em
for? I've been asking myself that ever since. He don't need a
thousand rifles for trade."
It was Bill's turn for inquiry. It came with a promptness that
suggested his estimation of the importance of the news.
"What is it?" he demanded.
"Is he going to wipe out the Bell River outfit?" Kars' eyes regarded
his friend steadily.
For some moments no further word was spoken. Each was contemplating
the ruthless purpose of a man who contemplated wiping out a tribe of
savages to suit his own sordid ends. It was almost unbelievable. Yet
a thousand rifles for a small trading post. It was the number which
inspired the doubt.
It was Kars who finally broke the silence. He left his seat on the
table and stood again at the window with his back turned.
"Guess we best leave it at that," he said.
"Yes. What are you going to do?"
"Look in at the Gridiron, and pass the time of day with young Alec."
Kars laughed shortly. Then he turned, and his purpose was shining in
his eyes. "Alec's Jessie's brother--and I've got to save that kid from
himself."