Pierce Phillips possessed the average young American's capacities for
good or evil. Had he fallen among healthy surroundings upon his arrival
at Dawson, in all probability he would have experienced a healthy
growth. But, blown by the winds of chance, he took root where he
dropped--in the low grounds. Since he possessed the youthful power of
quick and vigorous adaptation, he assumed a color to match his
environment. Of necessity this alteration was gradual; nevertheless, it
was real; without knowing it he suffered a steady deterioration of
moral fiber and a progressive change in ideals.
His new life was easy; hours at the Rialto were short and the pay was
high. Inasmuch as the place was a playground where cares were
forgotten, there was a wholly artificial atmosphere of gaiety and
improvidence about it. When patrons won at the gambling-games, they
promptly squandered their winnings at the bar and in the theater; when
they lost, they cheerfully ignored their ill-fortune. Even the gamblers
themselves shared this recklessness, this prodigality; they made much
money; nevertheless, they were usually broke. Most of them drank quite
as freely as did the customers.
This was not a temperance country. Although alcohol was not considered
a food, it was none the less regarded as a prime essential of comfort
and well-being. It was inevitable, therefore, that Pierce Phillips, a
youth in his growing age, should adopt a good deal the same habits, as
well as the same spirit and outlook, as the people with whom he came in
daily contact.
Vice is erroneously considered hideous; it is supposed to have a visage
so repulsive that the simplest stranger will shudder at sight of it and
turn of his own accord to more attractive Virtue. If that were only
true! More often than not it is the former that wears a smile and
masquerades in agreeable forms, while the latter repels. This is true
of the complex life of the city, where a man has landmarks and
guide-posts of conduct to go by, and it is equally true of the less
complicated life of the far frontier where he must blaze his own trail.
Along with the strength and vigor and independence derived from the
great outdoors, there comes also a freedom of individual conduct, an
impatience at irksome restraints, that frequently offsets any benefits
that accrue from such an environment.
So it was in Pierce's case. He realized, subconsciously, that he was
changing, had changed; on the whole, he was glad of it. It filled him
with contemptuous amusement, for instance, to look back upon his old
puritanical ideas. They seemed now very narrow, very immature, very
impractical, and he was gratified at his broader vision. The most
significant alteration, however, entirely escaped his notice. That
alteration was one of outlook rather than of inlook. Bit by bit he had
come to regard the general crowd--the miners, merchants,
townspeople--as outsiders, and him self as an insider--one of the wise,
clever, ease-loving class which subsisted without toil and for whom a
freer code of morals existed. Those outsiders were stupid,
hard-working; they were somehow inferior. He and his kind were of a
higher, more advanced order of intelligence; moreover, they were bound
together by the ties of a common purpose and understanding and
therefore enjoyed privileges denied their less efficient brethren.
If jackals were able to reason, doubtless they would justify their
existence and prove their superiority to the common herd by some such
fatuous argument.
Pierce's complacency received its first jolt when he discovered that he
had lost caste in the eyes of the better sort of people--people such as
he had been accustomed to associate with at home. This discovery came
as the result of a chance meeting with a stranger, and, but for it, he
probably would have remained unaware of the truth, for his newly made
friends had treated him with consideration and nothing had occurred to
disturb his complacency. He had acquired a speaking acquaintance with
many of the best citizens, including the Mounted Police and even the
higher Dominion officials, all of whom came to the Rialto. These men
professed a genuine liking for him, and, inasmuch as his time was
pretty full and there was plenty of amusement close at hand, he had
never stopped to think that the side of Dawson life which he saw was
merely the under side--that a real social community was forming, with
real homes on the back streets, where already women of the better sort
were living. Oblivious of these facts, it never occurred to Pierce to
wonder why these men did not ask him to their cabins or why he did not
meet their families.
He had long since become a night-hawk, mainly through a growing
fondness for gambling, and he had arrived at the point where daylight
impressed him as an artificial and unsatisfactory method of
illumination. Recently, too, he had been drinking more than was good
for him, and he awoke finally to the unwelcome realization that he was
badly in need of fresh air and outdoor exercise.
After numerous half-hearted attempts, he arose one day about noon;
then, having eaten a tasteless breakfast and strengthened his languid
determination by a stiff glass of "hootch," he strolled out of town,
taking he first random trail that offered itself. It was a wood trail,
leading nowhere in particular, a fact which precisely suited his
resentful mood. His blood moved sluggishly, he was short of breath, the
cold was bitter. Before long he decided that walking was a profitless
and stultifying occupation, a pastime for idiots and solitaire-players;
nevertheless, he continued in the hope of deriving some benefit,
however indirect or remote.
It was a still afternoon. A silvery brightness beyond the mountain
crests far to the southward showed where the low winter sun was
sweeping past on its flat arc. The sky to the north was empty,
colorless. There had been no wind for some time, and now the firs
sagged beneath burdens of white; even the bare birch branches carried
evenly balanced inch-deep layers of snow. Underfoot, the earth was
smothered in a feathery shroud as light, as clean as the purest
swan's-down, and into it Pierce's moccasins sank to the ankles. He
walked as silently as a ghost. Through this queer, breathless hush the
sounds of chopping, of distant voices, of an occasional dog barking
followed him as he went deeper into the woods.
Time was when merely to be out in the forest on such a day would have
pleased him, but gone entirely was that pleasure, and in its place
there came now an irritation at the physical discomfort it entailed. He
soon began to perspire freely, too freely; nevertheless, there was no
glow to his body; he could think only of easy-chairs and warm stoves.
He wondered what ailed him. Nothing could be more abhorrent than this,
he told himself. Health was a valuable thing, no doubt, and he agreed
that no price was too high to pay for it--no price, perhaps, except
dull, uninteresting exercise of this sort. He was upon the point of
turning back when the trail suddenly broke out into a natural clearing
and he saw something which challenged his attention.
To the left of the path rose a steep bank, and beyond that the bare,
sloping mountain-side. In the shelter of the bank the snow had drifted
deep, but, oddly enough, its placid surface was churned up, as if from
an explosion or some desperate conflict that had been lately waged. It
had been tossed up and thrown down. What caused him to stare was the
fact that no footprints were discernible--nothing except queer,
wavering parallel streaks that led downward from the snowy turmoil to
the level ground below. They resembled the tracks of some oddly
fashioned sled.
Pierce halted, and with bent head was studying the phenomenon, when
close above him he heard the rush of a swiftly approaching body; he
looked up just in time to behold an apparition utterly unexpected,
utterly astounding. Swooping directly down upon him with incredible
velocity was what seemed at first glance to be a bird-woman, a valkyr
out of the pages of Norse mythology. Wingless she was, yet she came
like the wind, and at the very instant Pierce raised his eyes she took
the air almost over his head--quite as if he had startled her into an
upward flight. Upon her feet was a pair of long, Norwegian skees, and
upon these she had scudded down the mountain-side; where the bank
dropped away she had leaped, and now, like a meteor, she soared into
space. This amazing creature was clad in a blue-and-white toboggan
suit, short skirt, sweater jacket, and knitted cap. As she hung
outlined against the wintry sky Pierce caught a snap-shot glimpse of a
fair, flushed, youthful face set in a ludicrous expression of
open-mouthed dismay at sight of him. He heard, too, a high-pitched cry,
half of warning, half of fright; the next instant there was a mighty
upheaval of snow, an explosion of feathery white, as the human
projectile landed, then a blur of blue-and-white stripes as it went
rolling down the declivity.
"Good Lord!" Pierce cried, aghast; then he sped after the apparition.
Only for the evidence of that undignified tumble, he would have doubted
the reality of this flying Venus and considered her some creature of
his imagination. There she lay, however, a thing of flesh and blood,
bruised, broken, helpless; apprehensively he pictured himself
staggering back to town with her in his arms.
He halted, speechless, when the girl sat up, shook the snow out of her
hair, gingerly felt one elbow, then the other, and finally burst into a
peal of ringing laughter. The face she lifted to his, now that it wore
a normal expression, was wholly charming; it was, in fact, about the
freshest, the cleanest, the healthiest and the frankest countenance he
had ever looked into.
"Glory be!" he stammered. "I thought you were--completely spoiled."
"I'm badly twisted," the girl managed to gasp, "but I guess I'm all
here. Oh! What a bump!"
"You scared me. I never dreamed--I didn't hear a thing until-- Well, I
looked up and there you were. The sky was full of you. Gee! I thought
I'd lost my mind. Are you quite sure you're all right?"
"Oh, I'll be black and blue again, but I'm used to that. That's the
funniest one I've had, the very funniest. Why don't you laugh?"
"I'm--too rattled, I suppose. I'm not accustomed to flying girls. Never
had them rain down on me out of the heavens."
The girl's face grew sober. "You're entirely to blame," she cried,
angrily. "I was getting it beautifully until you showed up. You popped
right out of the ground. What are you doing in the Queen's Park,
anyhow? You've no business at the royal sports."
"I didn't mean to trespass."
"I think I'll call the guards."
"Call the court physician and make sure--"
"Pshaw! I'm not hurt." Ignoring his extended hand, she scrambled to her
feet and brushed herself again. Evidently the queenly anger was
short-lived, for she was beaming again, and in a tone that was boyishly
intimate she explained:
"I'd made three dandy jumps and was going higher each time, but the
sight of you upset me. Think of being upset by a perfectly strange man.
Shows lack of social training, doesn't it? It's a wonder I didn't break
a skee."
Pierce glanced apprehensively at the bluff overhead. "Hadn't we better
move out of the way?" he inquired. "If the royal family comes dropping
in, we'll be ironed out like a couple of handkerchiefs. I don't want to
feel the divine right of the king, or his left, either."
"There isn't any king-nor any royal family. I'm just the Queen of
Pretend."
"You're skee-jumping, alone? Is that what you mean?"
The girl nodded.
"Isn't that a dangerous way to amuse self? I thought skees
were--tricky."
"Have you ever ridden them?" the girl inquired, quickly.
"Never."
"You don't know what fun is. Here--" The speaker stooped and detached
her feet from the straps. "Just have a go at it." Pierce protested, but
she insisted in a business-like way. "They're long ones--too long for
me. They'll just suit you."
"Really, I don't care to--"
"Oh yes, you do. You must."
"You'll be sorry," Pierce solemnly warned her. "When my feet glance off
and leave me sticking up in the snow to starve, you'll--Say! I can
think of a lot of things I want to do, but I don't seem to find
skee-jumping on the list."
"You needn't jump right away." Determination was in the girl's tone;
there was a dancing light of malice in her eyes. "You can practise a
bit. Remember, you laughed at me."
"Nothing of the sort. I was amazed, not amused. I thought I'd flushed a
very magnificent pheasant with blue-and-white stripes, and I was afraid
it was going to fly away before I got a good look at it. Now, then--"
He slowly finished buckling the runners to his feet and looked up
interrogatively. "What are your Majesty's orders?"
"Walk around. Slide down the hill."
"What on?"
The girl smothered a laugh and waved him away. She looked on while he
set off with more or less caution. When he managed to maintain an
upright position despite the antics of his skees her face expressed
genuine disappointment.
"It's not so hard as I thought it would be," he soon announced,
triumphantly. "A little awkward at first, but--" he cast an eye up at
the bank. "You never know what you can do until you try."
"You've been skeeing before," she accused him, reproachfully.
"Never."
"Then you pick it up wonderfully. Try a jump."
Her mocking invitation spurred him to make the effort, so he removed
the skees and waded a short distance up the hill. When he had secured
his feet in position for a second time he called down:
"I'm going to let go and trust to Providence. Look out."
"The same to you," she cried. "You're wonderful, but--men can do
anything, can't they?"
There was nothing graceful, nothing of the free abandon of the
practised skee-runner in Pierce's attitude; he crouched apelike, with
his muscles set to maintain an equilibrium, and this much he succeeded
in doing--until he reached the jumping, off place. At that point,
however, gravity, which he had successfully defied, wreaked vengeance
upon him; it suddenly reached forth and made him its vindictive toy. He
pawed, he fought, he appeared to be climbing an invisible rope. With a
mighty flop he landed flat upon his back, uttering a loud and dismayed
grunt as his breath left him. When he had dug himself out he found that
the girl, too, was breathless. She was rocking in silent ecstasy, she
hugged herself gleefully, and there were tears in her eyes.
"I'm--so--sorry!" she exclaimed, in a thin, small voice. "Did you--trip
over something?"
The young man grinned. "Not at all. I was afraid of a sprained ankle,
so I hit on my head. We meet on common ground, as it were."
Once again he climbed the grade, once again he skidded downward, once
again he went sprawling. Nor were his subsequent attempts more
successful. After a final ignominious failure he sat where he had
fetched up and ruefully took stock of the damage he had done himself.
Seriously he announced:
"I was mistaken. Women are entitled to vote--they're entitled to
anything. I've learned something else, too--Mr. Newton's interesting
little theory is all wrong; falling bodies travel sixteen miles, not
sixteen feet, the first second."
The girl demanded her skees, and, without rising, Pierce surrendered
them; then he looked on admiringly while she attached them to her feet
and went zigzagging up the hill to a point much higher than the one
from which he had dared to venture. She made a very pretty picture, he
acknowledged, for she was vivid with youth and color. She was lithe and
strong and confident, too; she was vibrant with the healthy vigor of
the out-of-doors.
She descended with a terrific rush, and this time she took the air with
grace and certainty. She cleared a very respectable distance and
ricocheted safely down the landing-slope.
Pierce applauded her with enthusiasm. "Beautiful! My sincere
congratulations, O Bounding Fawn!"
"That's the best I've done," she crowed. "You put me on my mettle. Now
you try it again."
Pierce did try again; he tried manfully, but with a humiliating lack of
success. He was puffing and blowing, his face was wet with
perspiration, he had lost all count of time, when his companion finally
announced it was time for her to be going.
"You're not very fit, are you?" said she.
Pierce colored uncomfortably. "Not very," he confessed. He was relieved
when she did not ask the reason for his lack of fitness. Just why he
experienced such relief he hardly knew, but suddenly he felt no great
pride in himself nor in the life that had brought him to such a state
of flabbiness. Nor did he care to have this girl know who or what he
was. Plainly she was one of those "nice people" at whom Laure and the
other denizens of the Rialto were wont to sneer with open contempt;
probably that was why he had never chanced to meet her. He felt cheated
because they had not met, for she was the sort of girl he had known at
home, the sort who believed in things and in whom he believed. Despite
all his recently acquired wisdom, in this short hour she had made him
over into a boy again, and somehow or other the experience was
agreeable. Never had he seen a girl so cool, so candid, so refreshingly
unconscious and unaffected as this one. She was as limpid as a pool of
glacier water; her placidity, he imagined, had never been stirred, and
in that fact lay much of her fascination.
With her skees slung over her shoulder, the girl strode along beside
Phillips, talking freely on various topics, but with no disposition to
chatter. Her mind was alert, inquisitive, and yet she had that
thoughtful gravity of youth, wisdom coming to life. That Pierce had
made a good impression upon her she implied at parting by voicing a
sincere hope that they would meet again very soon.
"Perhaps I'll see you at the next dance," she suggested.
"Dance!" The word struck Pierce unpleasantly.
"Saturday night, at the Barracks."
"I'd love to come," he declared.
"Do. They're loads of fun. All the nice people go."
With a nod and a smile she was gone, leaving him to realize that he did
not even know her name. Well, that was of no moment; Dawson was a small
place, and--Saturday was not far off. He had heard about those official
parties at the Barracks and he made up his mind to secure an invitation
sufficiently formal to permit him to attend the very next one.
His opportunity came that night when one of the younger Mounted Police
officers paused to exchange greetings with him. Lieutenant Rock was a
familiar figure on the streets of Dawson and on the trails near by, a
tall, upstanding Canadian with a record for unfailing good humor and
relentless efficiency. He nodded at Pierce's casual reference to the
coming dance at Headquarters.
"Great sport," said he. "It's about the only chance we fellows have to
play."
When no invitation to share in the treat was forthcoming Pierce told of
meeting a most attractive girl that afternoon, and, having obtained his
hearer's interest, he described the youthful goddess of the snows with
more than necessary enthusiasm. He became aware of a peculiar
expression upon Rock's face.
"Yes. I know her well," the latter said, quietly. "D'you mean to say
she invited you to the ball?"
"It wasn't exactly an invitation--"
"Oh! I see. Well"--Rock shook his head positively--"there's nothing
doing, old man. It isn't your kind of a party. Understand?"
"I--don't understand," Pierce confessed in genuine surprise.
The officer eyed him with a cool, disconcerting directness. "We draw
the lines pretty close--have to in a camp like this. No offense, I
trust." With a smile and a careless wave of the hand he moved on,
leaving Pierce to stare after him until he was swallowed up by the
crowd in the gambling-room.
A blow in the face would not have amazed Pierce Phillips more, nor
would it have more greatly angered him. So, he was ostracized! These
men who treated him with such apparent good-fellowship really despised
him; in their eyes he was a renegade; they considered him unfit to know
their women. It was incredible!
This was the first deliberate slight the young man had ever received.
His face burned, his pride withered under it; he would have bitten out
his tongue rather than subject himself to such a rebuff. Who was Rock?
How dared he? Rock knew the girl, oh yes! But he refused to mention her
name--as if that name would be sullied by his, Pierce's, use of it.
That hurt most of all; that was the bitterest pill. Society! Caste! On
the Arctic Circle! It was to laugh!
But Phillips could not laugh. He could more easily have cried, or
cursed, or raved; even to pretend to laugh off such an affront was
impossible. It required no more than this show of opposition to fan the
embers of his flickering desire into full flame, and, now that he was
forbidden to meet that flying goddess, it seemed to him that he must do
so at whatever cost. He'd go to that dance, he decided, in spite of
Rock; he'd go unbidden; he'd force his way in if needs be.
This sudden ardor died, however, as quickly as it had been born,
leaving him cold with apprehension. What would happen if he took the
bit in his teeth? Rock knew about Laure--those detestable redcoats knew
pretty much everything that went on beneath the surface of Dawson
life--and if Pierce ran counter to the fellow's warning he would
probably speak out. Rock was just that sort. His methods were direct
and forceful. What then? Pierce cringed inwardly at the contemplation.
That snow-girl was so clean, so decent, so radically different from all
that Laure stood for, that he shrank from associating them together
even in his thoughts.
Well, he was paying the fiddler, and the price was high. Even here on
the fringe of the frontier society exacted penalty for the breach of
its conventions. Pierce's rebellion at this discovery, his resentment
at the whole situation, prevented him from properly taking the lesson
to heart. The issue was clouded, too, by a wholly natural effort at
self-justification. The more he tried this latter, however, the angrier
he became and the more humiliating seemed his situation.
He was in no mood to calmly withstand another shock, especially when
that shock was administered by Joe McCaskey, of all persons;
nevertheless, it came close upon the heels of Rock's insult.
Pierce had not seen either brother since their departure for Hunker
Creek, therefore Joe's black visage leering through the window of the
cashier's cage was an unwelcome surprise.
"Hello, Phillips! How are you making it?" the man inquired.
"All right."
Despite this gruffness, Joe's grin widened. There was nothing of
pleasure at the meeting, nor of friendliness behind it, however. On the
contrary, it masked both malice and triumph, as was plain when he asked:
"Did you hear about our strike?"
"What strike?"
"Why, it's all over town! Frank and I hit pay in our first shaft--three
feet of twenty-cent dirt."
"Really?" Pierce could not restrain a movement of surprise.
Joe nodded and chuckled, meanwhile keeping his malignant gaze focused
upon the younger man's face. "It's big. We came to town to buy grub and
a dog-team and to hire a crew of hands. We've got credit at the A. C.
Company up to fifty thousand dollars."
There was a brief pause which Pierce broke by inquiring, as casually as
he could:
"Did Tom and Jerry have any luck?"
"Sure thing! They've hit it, the same as us. You tossed off a
home-stake, kid. Don't believe it, eh? Well, here's the proof-coarse
gold from Hunker." With an ostentatious flourish the speaker flung down
a half-filled poke, together with a bar check. "Cash me in, and don't
let any of it stick to your fingers."
Pierce was impelled to hurl the gold sack at Joe's head, but he
restrained himself. His hands were shaky, however, and when he untied
the thongs he was mortified at spilling some of the precious yellow
particles. Mortification changed to anger when the owner cried, sharply:
"Hey! Got cashier's ague, have you? Just cut out the sleight-of-hand!"
Pierce smothered a retort; silently he brushed the dust back into the
blower and set the weights upon his scales. But McCaskey ran on with an
insulting attempt at banter:
"I'm onto you short-weighers. Take your bit out of the drunks; I'm
sober."
When Pierce had retied the sack and returned it he looked up and into
Joe's face. His own was white, his eyes were blazing.
"Don't pull any more comedy here," he said, quietly. "That short-weight
joke doesn't go at the Rialto."
"Oh, it don't? JOKE!" McCaskey snorted. "I s'pose it's a joke to spill
dust--when you can't get away with it. Well, I've spotted a lot of
crooked cashiers in this town."
"No doubt. It takes a thief to catch a thief." McCaskey started. His
sneer vanished. "Thief! Say--" he blustered, angrily. "D'you mean--"
The clash, brief as it had been, had excited attention. Noting the fact
that an audience was gathering, the speaker lowered his voice and,
thrusting his black, scowling countenance closer to the cage opening,
he said: "You needn't remind me of anything. I've got a good memory.
Damn' good!" After a moment he turned his back and moved away.
When Pierce went off shift he looked up Lars Anderson and received
confirmation of the Hunker strike. Lars was in a boisterous mood and
eager to share his triumph.
"I knew that was a rich piece of ground," he chuckled, "and I knew I
was handing those boys a good thing. But a fellow owes something to his
friends, doesn't he?"
"I thought you said it was low grade?"
"Low grade!" Big Lars threw back his head and laughed loudly. "I never
said nothing of the kind. Me knock my own ground? Why, I'd have banked
my life on Hunker!"
Here was luck, Pierce told himself. A fortune had been handed him on a
silver platter, and he had shoved it aside. He was sick with regret; he
was furious with himself for his lack of wisdom; he hated Laure for the
deception she had practised upon him. The waste he had made of this
opportunity bred in him a feeling of desperation.
Toward the close of the show Laure found him braced against the bar;
the face he turned upon her was cold, repellent. When she urged him to
take her to supper he shook his head.
"What's the matter?" she inquired.
"Big Lars never told you Hunker was low grade," he declared.
The girl flushed; she tossed her dark head defiantly. "Well, what of
it?"
"Simply this--Tom and Jerry and the McCaskeys have struck rich pay."
"Indeed?"
"You lied to me."
Laure's lips parted slowly in a smile. "What did you expect? What would
any girl do?" She laid a caressing hand upon his arm. "I don't care how
much they make or how poor you are--"
Pierce disengaged her grasp. "I care!" he cried, roughly. "I've lost my
big chance. They've made their piles and I'm--well, look at me."
"You blame me?"
He stared at her for a moment. "What's the difference whether I blame
you or myself? I'm through. I've been through for some time, but--this
is curtain."
"Pierce!"
Impatiently he flung her off and strode out of the theater.
Laure was staring blindly after him when Joe McCaskey spoke to her.
"Have a dance?" he inquired.
She undertook to answer, but her lips refused to frame any words;
silently she shook her head.
"What's the idea? A lovers' quarrel?" McCaskey eyed her curiously, then
he chuckled mirthlessly. "You can come clean with me. I don't like him
any better than you do."
"Mind your own business," stormed the girl in a sudden fury.
"That's what I'm doing, and minding it good. I've got a lot of
business--with that rat." Joe's sinister black eyes held Laure's in
spite of her effort to avoid them; it was plain that he wished to say
more, but hesitated. "Maybe it would pay us to get acquainted," he
finally suggested. "Frank and me and the Count are having a bottle of
wine upstairs. Better join us."
"I will," said Laure, after a moment. Together they mounted the stairs
to the gallery above.