gentlemanly way with us has allus bin ter choke off a traitor's last
prayers with a hempen Amen. But this blamed M. P. is as apt ter pinch
the gentlemen as acts impulsive in a little lynchin' matter as quick as
he'd pinch a criminal. Thar's only two of 'em," he explained to the
travelers, "the Sergeant and his man--but the way the feller covers
distances--his horse has seven-leagued boots for sure! Now, as president
of Perdu's Peace Committee and Law and Order League, I'd claim it my
proud privilege ter fit the noose ter this young rascal's neck--but as
husband to a good woman and father to her kids I don't want ter run up
contrairy-wise agin Scarlett of the Mounted!"
"Very well," decided Evelyn. "I myself am in favor of government. I
belong to several ladies' associations for upholding clean streets and
economy in the Mayor's office and things like that. From what you say,
this--I didn't catch the Mounted Policeman's name, but he obviously must
be an officer; and though with us, in New York, policemen, even mounted
ones, have no standing in Society, yet, in his way, he must be a
gentleman. Then let this miserable fellow be bound and taken before him
for sentence. I myself will press the charge against him."
"Good business," applauded the delegation, heartily.
But as they were about to bind the prisoner with a rope taken from the
skeleton of a wretched horse that some inferior brute of a human being
had put to purposes of transportation under conditions for which nature
had never intended it, the Irishman put them lightly aside.
"One moment, please. Now that ye've wisely decided to postpone
suspending the judged, also, as a famous American in a crisis once
remarked, suspend judgment. All the accusations brought against me are
dead true, which is why ye are alive to make them. I assisted in the
despoiling of ye, on business principles, sacrificing small sums to one
ten times their combined amounts. For under my own right foot I carry a
sum that will not only replace Sarah's bonnet, greenbacks and all, but
also reimburse the hospital with a little contribution of my own to
boot."
As he spoke, he drew a roll of ready money from its hiding place and
handed some bills over to the astonished maid and the no less astonished
minister. "The rest, a draft, I am commissioned to deposit in the bank
on account of one Durant, now absent on a prospecting trip, for the
maintenance, till he returns, of his daughter----"
A loud chorus of surprise, admiration, gratitude interrupted the young
man who was now hero of the hour.
The League enrolled him an honorary member on the spot. To his terror,
three depressed women with bundles wanted to kiss him for his mother,
while Maclane, on behalf of all the disabled people in the district,
nearly wrung his hand off. As breaking away he started to make his
escape, Evelyn detained him. "My preserver," she cried, in impassioned
tones, "let me reward you!"
And when Scarlett, laughing, shook his head, refusing a moiety of his
own ready money that, at Evelyn's direction, Sarah was proffering him,
"Then at least tell me your name--for in the excitement I am ashamed to
say I have clean forgotten it."
"Yes, yes," insisted the group, "your name!"
"'Tis the same as it has always been," he answered, blithely, turning on
his heel. "I haven't changed it yet. Any time ye want me just ask at
headquarters for Himself, for Scarlett of the Mounted."
VI
EVELYN SEEKS COUNSEL
A few days later Evelyn, accompanied by Sarah, knocked at the door of
St. Andrew's Mission, near Perdu. An Indian woman opened to her, and on
her asking for Mr. Maclane, the minister came forward with a cordial
welcome.
"I won't invite you in, since just at present my study is in requisition
as a hospital, and in any case you will doubtless prefer the veranda
with its vista of the mountains."
"And your lovely garden," added Evelyn, glancing at the beds in which
vegetables and ornamental plants were growing in orderly profusion. "I
never supposed that cultivation was possible so far north."
"That is a common mistake," replied the minister. "But it is the same
with plants as with people: wherever it is possible for them to grow it
is intended that they should be cultivated; by which I do not mean that
we should take the nature out of them, teaching them tricks and
artificial ways; I mean that we should improve the conditions
surrounding them, in order that their natural tendencies and activities
may have the widest scope for beneficent purposes."
"And yet"--Evelyn looked up and down the road--"you seem to be almost
the only one who recognizes these possibilities. All the cabins seem to
have been dropped in uncompromising rows along the highways, as if they
were so many children's toys taken out of cardboard boxes labeled 'Made
in Germany'."
"Ah, most of the folk who come here are so busily engrossed in spading
up the soil for treasure they have no time to till and sow. Yet our
short summer of long days is capable of harvests that would yield pure
gold in a land of canned supplies, where men get to long for green food
as for water in the desert. Metz, the pioneer baker of Perdu, a
far-sighted German, is raking in the gold-dust that other men
laboriously pan out, by the sackful, simply by adding a fresh lettuce
leaf, or radish, to every plate of fried eggs and bacon that he serves.
Brackett of Atlin is famous for the beauty of his poppy patch that
blazes like a banner on a dusty mountainside, no less than for the
succulence of the turnips with which he regales his friends, all grown
on a tiny corner of an auriferous claim that overhangs the sluiceboxes.
Dr. Milne of Dawson received a prize for the tomatoes and celery he took
down from his far-north home to the exposition in Victoria, on the
occasion of the visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales. Indeed, there
was a story going the rounds that on the third day of the exposition,
when the good doctor wanted to substitute fresh produce for his own,
which, by that time had wilted, he could find none in Victoria to match
their size. And I myself am not a little proud of my own sweet-peas."
He handed Evelyn the fragrant blossoms he had been cutting as he talked.
"Thank you. They are indeed lovely. But I must not detain you too long.
I have come to you for that which I rarely seek--advice."
"I am wholly at your service." Maclane installed her in a steamer-chair
and placed himself on a bench beside her. "Some ethical question?"
"Oh, dear, no! I am an Episcopalian," answered Evelyn, loftily. "Not but
what I am very liberal," she hastened to add. "I subscribe to worthy
charities of all denominations."
There was charity without resentment on Maclane's good brow as he merely
said: "Then in what way can I help you?"
"My troubles are all of a practical nature."
"In that respect, perhaps, I am not the best adviser."
"But there's no one else in whom I can confide. People up here treat me
in the strangest way. I never had such an experience."
"Well, well, I'll do my best."
"In the first place I don't know how to manage about money. Sergeant
Scarlett has deposited several hundred dollars to my account in the
Canadian Bank of Commerce, and as much more in the Bank of British North
America, yet this morning, when I went to draw some, the managers of
each informed me, apparently on their own responsibility, that I am put
on a weekly allowance; that I may only draw so much, at stated times,
and not a penny more. When I threatened to withdraw my patronage, they
said that would be impossible till the account was closed. I went to
three lawyers in succession to get out injunctions and things against
them--but not a man would undertake the case. Oh, evidently all the
officials are leagued in some sort of a ring or another, for when I
went to the office of the _Perdu Claim_ and asked the editor to help me
expose them, he only laughed. In New York, one or the other of the
ten-cent magazines would have jumped at such an opportunity. However,
that wouldn't matter so much if I could buy things from the stores on
credit, but I find not a merchant will allow me to run up a bill. 'Cash
down; spot cash for everything.' I never was so insulted in all my
life."
"I am sorry people have seemed inhospitable," began Maclane, "but----"
"Oh, when it comes to that," Evelyn interrupted, "every one has been
hospitality itself. Even the bank people, while officially they were
insulting me, in the name of their wives and sisters offered to put up
my party in some sort of fashion till we get settled. Hastie refuses to
charge one penny for accommodating us till we find permanent quarters,
though he had the impertinence--I'm sure he didn't mean to be
impertinent--to suggest that we could stay indefinitely if we liked to
work our way as chambermaids and waitresses and dishwashers and things.
Even that impudent editor offered to turn out of the wretched cupboard
of a room at the back of his office where he lives, and sleep on a
printing press if we liked to go stay there. At least a dozen families
have invited us to bunk in their stuffy little cabins till my father's
return. But that isn't my way of doing things at all. I'm accustomed to
having the best and paying for it. Yet not a soul will accept my note or
give me one pennyworth of credit. Just wait till my father hears how I
am being treated!"
"Ah, your father!" Maclane caught at the idea. "A talk with your father
would clear things up immediately."
"Yes, of course. But where is my father? how to get at him? I ask, ask,
ask. Everyone has seen him quite recently. Every one assures me he is in
his usual perfect health. Yet when I insist on knowing definitely which
path he took, every one points vaguely north, south, east, west, toward
the mountains."
"Then, for the present, why not accept that view of it?" the minister
suggested. "It seems to be a matter of general knowledge that he is
well, and off on a prospecting tour--and to a born prospector, such as
is your father, there seem to be no limitations in the way of time,
space, endurance, when searching for treasure. Only one thing can be
predicated with certainty: sooner or later a man must turn up at some
base of supplies to renew his outfit. And then, knowing your anxiety,
the whole district will see to it that he and you are put into
communication with each other."
Miss Durant moved her daintily shod feet impatiently. "I'm not
accustomed to waiting for anything that money can procure me. Why can't
I send messengers flying to recall him, in every direction where there
is a trail? One would think that hordes of these out-at-elbow camp
hangers-on would be on their knees to me, begging for the chance--yet,
though I have notices posted up everywhere offering a liberal salary and
a thousand dollar bonus, I have had not one single application, not
though I offer for security the Rainbow Mine."
"Poor child!" Maclane looked at her compassionately, wondering in what
way the bitter truth might be most gently broken to her, and examining
his own honest conscience to know if his should be the task. Before this
was clear to him, however, to his infinite relief he saw the handsome
person of the Sergeant, now clad in full uniform, coming up the garden
path. "Why not take our friend Scarlett into our counsels?" he hastened
to suggest.
"What! That insolent young man who pretended to take service with me!"
Miss Durant ignored the soldier's military salute.
"My dear," remonstrated the good Maclane, "our friend is greeting you."
"Ah, Sergeant," cried Evelyn, with hauteur, "I did not see you! That is
to say, in my world a lady does not see a gentleman until she recognizes
him."
"Faith, then, I'd best make myself invisible, lest when recognized I
mayn't be seen." Scarlett turned to go.
"Oh, please remain," pleaded Maclane, "and help me advise with Miss
Durant. Pending her father's arrival, she finds herself, er--financially
embarrassed--or rather at a loss to proportion her finances to her wants
in the style to which she is accustomed. Now what do you suggest?"
"The first word lies with you, Dominie." His back toward the two,
Scarlett had seated himself on the veranda steps and was playing with
Telegraph and Wrangel, who, after a series of critical sniffings, had
taken him unreservedly into their favor.
"Oh, not with me; not with any son of man," hastily disclaimed Maclane,
who quite forgot that he had tried to throw the responsibility on
Scarlett. "First always comes prayer. Take your troubles, my daughter,
to the Divine Footstool."
"Oh, of course," replied Evelyn, petulantly, "I always say my prayers,
and make the responses in church. But just now I'm asking you how I am
to pay for daily bread."
"Well," Scarlett considered, "I should advise--to begin with--well----"
"You've said well twice," Evelyn sharply pulled him up. "Best let well
alone."
"Pardon," retorted Scarlett. "Truth lies at the bottom of my well."
In spite of herself Evelyn smiled, and perceiving his advantage he went
on: "After all, well is the best beginning when you can't find a better.
Why not for the present--just for a lark, you know--try roughing it?"
"Roughing it!" echoed Evelyn, in dismay. "Wouldn't that be a bit rough?"
"That's where the lark comes in," Scarlett assured her. "And we'd all
make it as smooth as we know how."
"A capital idea!" Maclane slapped his knee and looked toward the
sweet-pea vines as if calling on them to agree with him.
"So--er--original. Think what letters you can write to your friends at
home, Miss Durant. And then that is the only way to get the
full--er--bouquet of a country, so to speak; not from the tourist
standpoint, but by living the life of the people of any class who, by
their work, are making it."
Miss Durant frowned, pondered a little, then smiled. "I rather like the
notion. We came here largely to do good, and it will make the
inhabitants feel more at ease; bridge over the social difference, as it
were, if I adopt their mode of life. I really am very democratic."
"Then that's where ye'll feel out of place," Scarlett remarked.
"Wherever the surface is flat as a billiard table, as regards
conditions, all class distinctions being wiped out, it's there that
aristocracy begins. The democrats insist on it!"
"Perhaps I can accommodate myself even to your idea of aristocracy,"
Evelyn remarked, ironically. "The first question is, can we find a
suitable dwelling?"
"I've been investigating," answered Scarlett, "and I find at Lost Shoe
Creek there is an abandoned cabin ye can have rent free; a really very
decent affair 'twill be with a little patching, which the boys will be
only too proud to lend a hand with."
Evelyn gasped. "And you call that suitable for _me_!"
Scarlett shrugged his shoulders. "This is the wilderness, my lady."
"My dear," interposed Maclane, "you must remember that building is a
costly matter. Even unskilled labor, when you can obtain it, commands
five dollars a day. Talk of democracy; no man here is looking for a
day's wage at carpentering, when any turn of the pick and shovel may
make him a Croesus! Make up your mind to it that the Sergeant is
offering you the equivalent of New York's most costly hostelry."
"Oh, very well!" Miss Durant condescended to the cabin. "I suppose we
can have tents for the servants? I shall need two women besides Sarah."
"Pardon, miss." At her name, the maid's stout form appeared from behind
the angle of the veranda, where she had been conducting a discreet
flirtation with the waterman, who with a bucket supported by a frame on
wheels and drawn by eight frisky little huskies, supplied Perdu with
water from the lake at five cents the pail. "Do not count on me, miss.
When my month is up I am looking to settle down on my own account."
"You are going to desert me? You are planning to set up in business,
Sarah?" asked Evelyn, dismayed.
"Business!" Sarah laughed, scornfully. "With men growing on the bushes,
as one might say."
"You don't mean to say you are going to get married?"
"Why not me as well as the next lady, miss, and sooner than some, in a
place where ladies is valued far more for their practical abilities than
for mere youth and skin-deep beauty. I am told that two French-Canadian
gentlemen, who are starting rival laundries, came to blows about me in
the Pioneer Bakery last night; this gentleman with the waterworks
concession has just passed some extremely gratifying remarks about
me--though my own preference is for a Scotch gentleman with religious
views and a copper proposition. Dear knows one needs something stable to
tie up to in this outlandish place, where day and night get all mixed
up!"
"But, Sarah," Evelyn laughed, "you know you haven't changed your watch
hands since we left the Grand Central Station."
"Time is time, miss," stated Sarah, "and twisting the hands of a watch
don't affect it. I've always heard that mining camps was immoral places,
and I'll answer for it this monkeying-with-the-clock business was
invented by some scapegrace that wanted to deceive his poor wife about
the hour he got home at night. But my choice, whichever I decide on,
won't take me in that way!" She shook her umbrella with a mixture of
coquetry and warning in the direction of the waterman.
Again Evelyn laughed, rather helplessly. "And I have been so indulgent
with you, allowing you to gratify your crude taste for colors, where any
other mistress would have insisted on black, serge or alpaca, with at
most for your bonnet a quill or wing. However, I mustn't stand in your
light, Sarah."
"You can't, miss," the maid informed her, respectfully, but with
finality. "As for deserting you, as a married lady I shall only be too
happy to chaperon you till your father gets back or till you settle down
on your own account. And to start with, though my month isn't up, let me
give you a bit of advice as from one lady to another. Policemen," she
eyed Scarlett with disparagement, "are all very well in their way, but
as from my own experience I know they are apt to be triflers,
particularly on promotion. Measured by a New York figure of speech among
us below-stairs ladies, miss, I myself wouldn't think of permitting an
arm with fewer than three stripes on it round my waist."
On this Scarlett assured Sarah, to her great indignation, that she, at
any rate, would be safe from his advances, his arm not being long
enough to meet her figure-of-speech's measurements. When she had
returned to the waterman, Evelyn, recovering from the indignant
embarrassment into which Sarah's advice had thrown her, sighed: "Such an
admirable maid! However will my hair get dressed?"
"Do it yourself," suggested Scarlett. "I always do mine." A girl in a
red cloak just then happening to pass by he beckoned her. "I think after
all I can find some one to do your work. Come here, Gelly. Miss Durant
wants to talk with you."
Evelyn surveyed the girl's unkempt, though now sober comeliness
dubiously. "She doesn't look very---- However, is she willing, clean and
honest?"
"No, I ain't," snapped out Gelly, irritated by the inspection. "Not one
of 'em. I'm as bad as they make 'em!"
"Do you mean to tell me----" Evelyn's voice dropped to a shocked
whisper. "Sergeant, have you dared recommend me a young person who is
not--not virtuous?"
"But she has so many other virtues," pleaded Scarlett for his protegee,
"I thought ye might give her a chance." He appealed to Sarah, who had
drawn near. "Perhaps ye'll let me explain to you as being the older
woman."
Sarah pursed her lips primly. "There's some things I'll never be old
enough to hear."
"I beg your pardon, heartily," Scarlett was heard quietly to say.
"I am by no means sure that I shall grant it," replied Miss Durant, with
a haughty toss of the head.
"Oh, I was addressing Gelly here," he hastened to set her straight. "I
had no right to let her be present at her own dissection."
"Wait!" Evelyn had an inspiration. "I spend a week every Lent in a
Settlement, and we came up here to do good, so why not----"
"Now, look here!" Confronting her, arms akimbo, Gelly let loose the
coarsely expressed, though not wholly unjustifiable, anger that in
deference to Maclane and Scarlett she had been trying to restrain. "You
better just dry up on that good-doin' proposition, else it ull be the
worse fer yer round these diggin's! I know yer kind. I was in a Home
oncet, and they came and sang to us, sometimes in fine duds ter show
thet they regarded us like as their equals, which is lies! And sometimes
dressed, oh my! so goody-goody plain, ter show thet rich folk don't
reely care fer silk and sealskin--which is lies! And then they sent me
to a convent, and the Sisters, they meant all right, but they cheated
the doctor about the medicines they put in his prescriptions to save
money fer the Church, and kidded to the saints about their souls. Souls!
Shucks! Thar was a missioner oncet who thought she'd got a holt of me
all right, all right. She were a-prospectin' ter launder my soul and
show it tied up with baby-blue ribbons and sashayed with sanctity as a
prize sample to the Lord. Want ter know what I done ter her? Not a
thing, you betcherlife! Only smashed her face with a sody-water bottle!
Soft drinks, cos thet kind puts most heft in the bottle and least ter
the booze. See? Now you better get busy and earn your own salt, virtuous
ef you're so plumb struck on virtue, and ef not, anyway----"
A firm hand on her shoulder cut her short, as, wheeling her
right-about-face, Scarlett sternly bade her, "Come!" And, like a little
cowering dog about to be whipped for a victory in which, while half
ashamed of it, it wholly glories, Gelly meekly followed him.
The color which the girl's attack had driven from Evelyn's face came
flooding back as she turned reproachfully upon Maclane: "And you never
said a word to stop her!"
"Ah," replied the minister, "I have learned that I always gain so much
from listening to the other fellow's point of view."
"But surely"--for Miss Durant was not a little proud of her capacity for
"emanating gracious influences," as the dilettanti of her kind were apt
to phrase it--"surely you believe in missionary work; in doing good?"
Before replying, Maclane stooped forward and drew back a spray of vine
that was spreading itself obtrusively over a little pink-faced daisy
making a sturdy effort to look up to the god of light. "The best we can
do is to try to give created things their chance. And in the end, my
dear," he patted Evelyn's hand kindly, "it's the missionaries, the
good-doers, to whom the good is done."
"Gelly," Scarlett meanwhile was admonishing his stubborn charge, "in all
this lowdown district there isn't a man so mean he could be hired to
tell that poor girl yonder the truth about her father till we've made
her feel at home among us and somehow fitted her to bear it. Now, Gelly,
are you, a girl that has known trouble, going to be meaner than the
men?"
Gelly looked at him. "Better hev yer uniform let out fer the wings ter
sprout," she advised him, with unfeigned homage, if with mocking
tongue. "As fer thet thar stuck-up piece----" A rude grimace completed
her estimate of Evelyn, but in the midst of it she paused suddenly, her
ill-bred thumb dropping from her saucy nose. "I'm jiggered ef I don't
b'lieve yer gone on her!"
"That's neither here nor there," answered the young soldier. "I'll lock
up your tongue in jail if it disturbs the peace, but I'd so much sooner
put you on your honor, Gelly."
"Till next time," promised Gelly, "yer kin let it go at that!" Then, as
she went down the road, she burst into loud sobbing: "And I cud be
decent ef some decent woman ud believe in me!"
Maclane, who had been considering, had a new idea. "I wonder if Chilkat
Jo couldn't be persuaded to help you, Miss Durant; that is, if you feel
you must have service."
"Of course I must," said Evelyn. "The orphans have been brought up to
work, and make themselves useful, but they are my guests, my partners in
this expedition; and naturally I cannot expect them to do things that I
should not do myself."
"Naturally," Maclane agreed with her, more readily than she deemed
politeness required. Going to the door he opened it, and called to some
one within. "O Joseph! Chilkat Jo!"
The trader, who had been enjoying the hospitality of the mission, came
forth with alacrity. Seeing Maclane, "Godam you! what do you want?" he
asked, in tones at once amiable and fraught with high respect.
"Oh, Joseph, what expressions!" The minister shook his head. "You see,"
he explained to Evelyn, "like all the Indians, he learned bad habits
from the white traders before the missionaries came his way. I sometimes
wonder, if any Indians survive civilization, whether morally they will
recover from contact with the whites. But, come, Joseph, our friends
here are looking for a handy man to----"