isn't he here himself to welcome me?" Evelyn's questions came rushing
eagerly.
"Miss Durant, he cannot come. He is a prisoner."
"A prisoner! What do you mean?" she faltered.
"A captive, rather; held by a gang of desperados for ransom."
"God in heaven!" Evelyn went white. "My daddy!"
"You are faint!" Raish went to her side, supporting her.
"No, no! Thanks, I am all right." Evelyn drew away. "But your pledge of
secrecy--why, it is preposterous! Every one should be told. The alarm
given--rewards offered--the country roused!" She moved forward as she
spoke.
"No, no! Not as you value his life!" Raish held her back. "Listen. One
incautious word, and your father is a dead man. There are spies about
us--everywhere. That is why I got you to meet me here--Miss Durant,
believe me, by raising the hue and cry you will sound your father's
death-knell."
Evelyn shuddered. "I can't believe----" she began, however,
incredulously.
"I will explain. Miss Durant, you have been in the district over two
weeks--the district in which you know your father's interests to lie.
Yet have you been able to locate him, to obtain one satisfactory answer
as to his goings and comings, his present whereabouts? Have you not
invariably been put off with specious generalities--sugar-plums to
soothe a wayward child? Admit that no man has said to you in definite
terms, 'Yonder, on such and such a hill, is the camp of Matthew Durant.
By such and such a trail can you reach him.'"
"Yes, that is true," admitted Evelyn. "Every one puts me off. Still----"
"The reason is," Raish interrupted her, "that no one knows where, among
those mountains, his prison lies. But that he is a prisoner is public
property, though not a soul has had the heart to break it to you."
"How cruel to have deceived me!" Evelyn burst into a flood of tears.
"And all the time he is wondering why I don't rescue him. But with his
resources what is the difficulty? Why has not he himself bought his
freedom?"
"Because their price is high--it is your entire fortune--the Rainbow
Mine--and your father loves you too well to subject you to poverty."
"It is like my father to put me first," sobbed Evelyn, "but doesn't he
know me better? Does he for a moment think I would weigh any
consideration on this earth against his safety?"
"Ah!" cried Raish, triumphantly, "I knew you were true blue. That is
what I told my old friend Durant--but captivity has so preyed on his
spirits that he is ill--unable to judge----"
"My father ill!" Evelyn clenched her little hands and moaned: "Oh, oh,
oh! If only I could go to him!"
"Have you the courage?" questioned Raish.
"The courage!" She looked at him, amazed. "If you know how to reach him
take me to him instantly!"
Raish almost laughed aloud. "Women are dead easy," he mentally
reiterated, before replying: "Very good." He drew Evelyn's furs closer
about her neck, protectingly. "I take you at your word. But we must
invent some excuse for our going off together. We must elude pursuit.
Above all, we must get rid of your friend, the Irishman."
"I trust Sergeant Scarlett," said Evelyn.
"And so do I!" cried Raish, with assumed cordiality. "I trust that
excellent young man to do his duty and win promotion at all costs. The
Sergeant makes love like an Irishman, Miss Durant. Ah, I saw!" he
checked her protest. "But believe me, not even for your bright eyes will
he sacrifice his loyalty to the government he serves by countenancing a
dicker with the thieves, its enemies."
"Let us leave the Sergeant out of the discussion," cried Evelyn, with
blazing cheeks. "What do you propose?--for by your manner I see you have
some plan."
"The plan is not mine. I never should have ventured to suggest it,"
answered Raish. "It is your father's, entirely. He and I were taken
prisoners together. I, as the unimportant man, financially, am used as
intermediary, being sent here, on parole, to treat with you for his
release. Spies are dogging my footsteps. Meanwhile, his life is hostage,
until I return with you in my charge. Your father, ever scrupulous,
fearing compromising comment, were you to travel with me alone, day and
night, as we shall have to do, advised----" He paused, as if delicacy
made the words difficult. "Miss Durant, he wishes you to go through a
form of marriage with me first."
"I marry you!" gasped Evelyn.
"As a matter of form only; to be dissolved when your father's freedom is
secured."
"Never--never! It is impossible!"
"Very good. I will carry back that answer." Raish turned to go. "You
send your love to him, I suppose, Miss Durant, and as he is a very sick
man, good-by?"
"Stop," she commanded him. "Give me a few moments. You are _sure_ my
father said that--about a marriage ceremony?"
"Aye, furthermore, he wrote it," Raish assured her. "Though to clear
myself from any suspicion of interested motives I begged him to send the
letter by another messenger. You should already have received it from
the hand of Walter Pierce."
"Miss Durant! Where is Miss Durant? Oh, Miss Durant!" At the moment
Maclane's agitated voice came toward them. As Evelyn, responding,
emerged from the thicket he met her, breathlessly. Chilkat Jo, whom he
had despatched to Lost Shoe Creek for Evelyn, had returned some time
before to announce that he had met her by the way, but the minister, not
expecting her for hours, had to be hunted up among the cabins further
on, whither he had gone on some errand of mercy. "I only just heard of
your arrival. How providential that you should have chosen this of all
days for your expedition! A poor lad--Chilkat Joseph and I found him by
the wayside--the victim, I fear, of foul play, has brought you tidings
of your father." As he spoke he was hurrying her toward the spot where
young Pierce lay.
"Walter Pierce--my father!" Evelyn almost shrieked in her excitement,
but at a warning sign from Travers, who had followed her, controlled
herself. "I have been expecting him."
"After all I fear it is too late." Maclane touched pulse and brow. "He
is beyond human help. He will not speak again." Kneeling by the sled he
began prayers for the passing soul, when he was interrupted by a cry
from Evelyn, as Walter's arm, which had rested loosely across his
breast, fell stiffly by his side, disclosing an open letter which, as
she saw immediately, was in her father's hand.
"Women are dead easy--women and parsons," chuckled Raish, who had
adroitly placed the missive where Evelyn found it. Going to her where
she stood, apart, reading her father's transcription of Nick's behest to
Gelly, "Well," he asked, "now are you convinced?"
"One moment, please!" Without explanation to him, Evelyn ran up the
hill where, international formalities complied with, under the two flags
the Bully was bidding his followers farewell.
"Dear, dear Nick"--she clasped his handcuffed fists in her soft, warm
palms--"you welcomed me to the district; you are my oldest friend. Tell
me, when did you last see my father?"
"Lucky? Why, now come ter think of it, Lucky were here not an hour
since. Fit as a fiddle, now warn't he, boys? Grand reports of the
Rainbow Mine. Shovelin' out pay-dirt like greased lightnin'! Ain't thet
so, boys? Sent love, of course, and he'd be in ter see yer ter-morrer.
His own words, d'ye see? Eh, boys?"
To which the boys, challenged by Nick's fiery eye, loyally responded:
"Sure! Thet's what! Betcherlife!"
Evelyn looked from face to face and read that, beneath a clumsy mask,
through heroic but mistaken kindness, ill news was being held back from
her. "Thank you all so much," she replied, and, turning, ran downhill to
rejoin Raish.
Sarah intercepted her. "Miss, I think we had ought to be getting back to
camp. The orphans are behaving scandalous, getting themselves engaged
three deep. I don't know as you can blame 'em, miss. I suppose it's a
microbe. I myself have just refused three marriages and two guilty
loves."
"I shall have to leave you to manage the orphans, Sarah." Evelyn smiled
an odd smile. "I myself am going to be married and start off on a
honeymoon immediately."
"You don't say, miss!" The maid raised her eyebrows. "Well, a common
soldier is hardly in the same social class as my own Scotch intended,
with a literary turn and a copper proposition, but I will say that
Sergeant Scarlett looks and acts quite the gentleman."
"Oh, it's not Sergeant Scarlett! It is the Mr. Travers who looked after
us so civilly aboard the Skagway boat."
Sarah's eyebrow's went up further still. "Indeed, miss! He's very smart
in his dress, yet--however, I suppose everything goes in a country where
no one minds the clocks."
Meanwhile, with the assistance of Ikey, Maclane, having covered the
funereal sled with the Stars and Stripes loaned by Gumboot Annie, drew
it across to poor Walter's own side of the dividing line, that his
mortal remains might rest in their native soil.
When he came to seek Evelyn, to consult her about the last rites, she
met him with a strange request, to the effect that first he should
unite her with all despatch and secrecy to one Mr. Horatio Travers, whom
she then and there presented to him.
"My dear young lady!" The minister stared at her. "Isn't this decision
very sudden? Forgive my interference, but you being alone up here, and
so young----"
"I'm twenty-two," Evelyn assured him, "and that's middle-aged for a New
York girl."
In spite of the bravado of her manner, her tone so wholly lacked all
bridal joyousness that Maclane was impelled to draw her aside and ask:
"Is this act of your own free will?"
"Heavens, yes!" she asserted, confidently. "No one on earth could make
me do anything I didn't choose to."
"Nevertheless," the minister demurred, "let me entreat you to defer so
important a step till you can consult your father."
"It is my father's desire, expressed with an emphasis that makes it
almost a command," averred Evelyn, solemnly. "And conveyed to me at the
price of that poor lad's life."
Still dissatisfied, but without sufficing reason for refusing, Maclane
put the usual questions to the prospective groom. As witness, Travers
introduced old Blenksoe, who, having disposed of Durant, had ambled up,
calling him a dear old family retainer--a lifelong friend.
"That's me," corroborated the old sinner. "Rough an' ready, but allus in
it with Raish. Not only is Raish by nature and eddication fitted to
adorn the proudest spear, but he's a square proposition. Ye kin safely
leave it ter Raish, every time."
"Well," reluctantly the minister consented, "where is your license?"
"A license!" exclaimed Travers. "What for?"
"To legalize the marriage," Maclane instructed him. "You must get one
from the Gold Commissioner or Justice of the Peace."
"Then that queers the show," stated old Blenksoe, "sence thar ain't no
gold round these here diggings, nor no justice, nor no peace."
"Is there no way of dispensing with it, under exceptional
circumstances?" Evelyn asked, anxiously. "If you knew how imperative my
reason for desiring haste----"
"In lieu of it, then," the minister conceded, "I will accept a copy of
the appropriate clause of the Dominion Marriage Act, signed by the
Mounted Policeman in charge of the district where Miss Durant resides."
And before Raish, who sprang forward, with an oath, could stop him, he
had entered the Customs building, calling for Sergeant Scarlett.
XII
NORTHERN LIGHTS
Scarlett looked from Evelyn to Travers and back again, in bewilderment,
dismay. "Miss Durant," he at last found voice to say, "surely there is
some mistake! Surely there's no love lost between ye and
this--gentleman!"
"My private affairs, my feelings, seem to cause a great deal of
unnecessary comment," remarked Evelyn, hiding her emotion under a mask
of irony. "May I beg you to refrain from criticism, and to give us the
requisite authority?"
Scarlett looked at her fixedly, and seeing her control weaken, her color
change, and her eyes fill and falter beneath his penetrating gaze, shook
his head. "That I must absolutely decline to do!"
"And why, pray?" she commanded herself to ask.
"Oh, the reason is plain!" Raish sneeringly interposed. "Every one knows
the Sergeant's own matrimonial aspirations. Every one has heard of the
cheap device by which on the very day of her arrival he tried to worm
himself into the favor of my fiancee. If he did but know it, her
father's chief reason for insisting on the immediate celebration of our
marriage is to protect her from the persecutions of adventurers!"
"I beg," cried Evelyn, checking Scarlett's furious retort, "that there
may be no such personalities! Mr. Travers, pray understand that I do
not, in the least, assent to your characterization of the Sergeant, who,
up to this moment, has treated me and my friends with the utmost
delicate consideration and chivalry!"
"Forgive me, dearest"--Raish took her hand. "I spoke too warmly! Yet who
could blame me? Come, come, my good Sergeant, put your name to that
paper without further ado, unless you wish to suffer under the
imputation of sacrificing official honor to personal revenge."
Not deigning to heed the taunt, Scarlett turned to the minister. "I
can't sign, because down in yonder valley is a lass in a red cloak who
has a prior claim upon this man."
Raish forced a contemptuous laugh. "The red-cloak, who should not even
be mentioned in this presence, may stay in the valley for me. My
acquaintance with the red-cloak belongs to a day before I knew Evelyn.
She condones the past, accepts the dedication of my future life."
Drawing Evelyn aside, he whispered, "Don't be alarmed. My pledge holds
good. This is all bluff, my doing the devoted, to throw them off the
track." Stooping suddenly he kissed her.
"My young friend," Maclane restrained and admonished Scarlett, "my
sympathies are yours wholly. But are you not exceeding your authority?"
"Aye," confessed the Irishman, "I'm stretching it a bit, maybe, to fit
me intuitions. Dominie, I tell ye 'tis a fishy business. Not an hour
since, the girl was in these arms of mine, lip to lip, and liking it.
And now, look at her shudder at that fellow's touch."
"Sergeant Scarlett"--breaking from Raish, Evelyn came to him and laid a
coaxing hand upon his arm--"I know that in your heart you are despising
me for a cheap coquette. And I deserve it. I have given you cause to
think the worst of me. I can't explain. But if you could only read my
heart--could only know what this means to me--it's the happiness of my
life! It will be misery to the end of my days if I fail him at this
supreme test. You're magnanimous, above all pettiness, I know. You
simply want to save me, as you think, from making a mistake. But believe
me, trust me, I know what I'm about. Now, will you do me the greatest
favor one human being ever entreated of another, by signing your name to
that document?"
Scarlett looked tenderly down on her, and, swayed against his judgment
by her earnestness, he might have yielded, had not the Dandy
inopportunely added the word too much.
"Sergeant Scarlett will hardly dare take the consequences of refusing
when I tell him that without the protection of my name Miss Durant will
be irretrievably compromised!"
Scarlett checked an almost overwhelming impulse to kick the speaker.
Instead, he took Evelyn's cold fingers into his honest grasp. "I'd give
my name to shield ye, my life to serve ye, and now I'm going to risk my
official honor, to--as I think, to save ye." He tore up the paper.
Above the general outcry that ensued, Sarah's tones were heard. "A
pretty country where you can't marry whom you please! America's good
enough for me!"
"America!" exclaimed Evelyn, struck by a sudden thought. "Are there
such restrictions with us in America?"
"Unfortunately not, my dear," replied Maclane, who had once occupied a
Chicago pastorate. "In the States the sacred tie is made and broken far
more easily."
"Then, quick," she cried, "across the boundary!" And seizing Travers'
hand she ran, the others following breathlessly, not halting till she
reached the tall mast from which proudly floated the emblem of the free.
"God in Heaven!" Scarlett looked after her, his personal grief swallowed
up in anxiety. "Is there no power above, below, to stop a wilful woman
from cutting her own throat with a wedding-ring?" He cast about for aid.
Barney, who might have thrown some light on the plot, had returned to
duties at headquarters, but Nick and Gelly might yet be reached in time,
and for them he sent messengers flying. Meanwhile, he bethought himself
of Chilkat Jo. Sheltered by the Customs water-butt, he found the trader
squatting peaceably, whittling a mimic totem-pole. On his shoulder
Scarlett laid a gauntleted hand. "Chilkat Jo, man, look what devil's
work is going on forninst ye! Can't ye say the word to stop it?"
There was an appreciable pause while, with a silken sound, the soft
shavings curled, fell, under the skilful knife. Then without looking up,
the Siwash gently replied, "Me no such godam-hellan-blazes Clistian
fool! Laish mally Missy Dulant! I mally Gelly!"
In desperation Scarlett strode toward the bridal group, reaching it just
as the minister's solemn tones rolled forth, challenging the wilderness
to show just cause or impediment why these two persons might not
lawfully be joined together.
"Just or unjust," he shouted, "sure it's myself will furnish the
impediment"--as, collaring the bridegroom, with a series of violent
jerks he sent him flying back into precincts that rendered him amenable
to Dominion law, where he neatly knocked him down, and sat on him. "Now,
I've got ye in my own jurisdiction, I'll detain ye as a suspicious
person till evidence for or against ye is forthcoming!" Maclane's
protests, Evelyn's tears, Sarah's shrieks and taunts, and old Blenksoe's
curses were as unavailing as Raish's struggles; the young giant held the
position by main force till Nick, who had been easily overtaken, by
courtesy of his custodians arrived in response to the recall.
"There, there," Scarlett soothed the squirming Dandy. "If I find I'm
mistaken; if that damned incriminating face of yours belies ye, sure
I'll apologize in sackcloth and give ye the satisfaction of a
gentleman." Jerking Travers to his feet, he confronted him with Gelly's
father. "Nick," he inquired, "what is your unvarnished opinion of this
fellow?"
"Wa'al, thar's things in his past," admitted the Bully, "same as in most
men's, thet you wouldn't hold up as a shinin' example to a
Sunday-school, d'ye see? But bygones is bygones. Arter wot he projected
ter-day, I've nought but good words fer Dandy Raish."
"Not another syllable, Nick, I beg," Travers hastened to cut short the
Bully's elogium at a period so favorable to his plans. "Now, Sergeant,
we accept your apology for your ill-directed zeal, and dispense with
your further company."
"Say, Scarlett," wrathfully demanded Nick, "I kin cheek yer now I'm
goin' ter be hanged by U. S. law! Take yer hands off'n Raish! Wot the
hell d'ye mean by damagin' my son-in-law?"
"Your son-in-law?" in one breath cried Evelyn, Sarah and Maclane.
"I sent my gal a letter," elucidated Nick. "Your pop Lucky put it in
writin' fer me, Missy. That's it you got in your hand."
"This letter! And that villain made me believe---- Oh, oh, oh!" Evelyn
burst into a flood of humiliated tears.
"You black scoundrel; you'd 'a' deceived her as you deceived my gal!"
Nick made a blind rush at Raish, but was held back by his custodians.
"Sure as thar's a God in Heaven, Raish," he vowed, as they restrained
him, "I'll live ter kill ye yet!"
Vain threat! A sharp sound cleft the crystal air and, echoing, died away
in soft detonations among the hills. The Dandy threw up his hands as he
had forced so many luckless travelers to do in his career of highway
robbery, and fell, gracefully, as he did everything, face downward, with
a little trickle of blood, upon the snow. With a shriek of anguish a
girl in a red cloak, who had been speeding up the hill, threw herself
beside him, calling his name with all the loving epithets that even the
lowest of the low seems able to win from some woman's heart.
Tears wrung from his being's depths for baffled retribution coursing
down his rough cheeks, the Bully lifted pinioned hands to Heaven and
uttered the one prayer of his life: "O Almighty Gawd, with all respect,
why did You butt in? O Gawd! I've made cold meat of a score o' men on
end from fust ter last! But they was jes' accident or playfulness, d'ye
see? This here skunk were the only livin' thing I ever hankered fer ter
kill! And Thou hast called my bluff, and took the wind outen my sails by
puttin' the shootin'-iron of my vengeance inter another's hand! Thar
ain't no four-flushin' Thee, O Gawd! Thou hast plumb squared the
reckonin' fer all my sins, past and ter come, world without end. Amen."
Whose the hand that shot Dandy Raish no one ever knew, though many a
young fool, in his cups, boasted of the high distinction. In the case of
a man so universally detested perhaps official enquiry thought it policy
to rest. But, possessed at the moment by a literal interpretation of
duty, with a heavy heart the good minister sought his favorite Indian
proselyte.
Sitting beside him, where he found him whittling peaceably in the
shelter of the Customs water-butt, "O Joseph, Chilkat Jo," sighing, he
began. "My son, if on your hands there be blood-guiltiness, you must
repent, confess!"
The soft shavings slithered, curled and fell, as the emblem of the Raven
and the Frog grew beneath the skilful knife. Then, in unimpassioned
monotone, the Indian remarked, "Some day, when I velly old, old chief, I
lepent, confess, make godam-hellan-blazes Clistian deathbed. But
now----" He paused to twist the weird features of his tribal god into an
inscrutable smile. "Now, I mally Gelly."
It was the cool of the evening. From behind the mountains northern
lights shot up in streamers of living green and rose. There was a sound
of bells, and "mushing," as the drivers harnessed up their dog-teams to
carry the picnickers back to camp. Scarlett looked over at Evelyn with
an odd contraction of the heart, where the bud of hope was trembling for
life under the icy hand of circumstance, but as she did not appear to
notice him he turned and went on his own road without farewell.
Then Evelyn went to Gelly where, the violence of her grief spent, she
still crouched beside her lover's stiffening form. Putting an arm about
her, "Come. Come home with me to live," she said. "Yes." For Gelly
looked up with resentment changing to incredulity. "Please. As a favor
to me. I have so much to learn. I need you."
XIII
A YEAR AFTER
Winter had come and gone; spring had passed into a new summer. In the
prosperous township of Lost Shoe Creek no one would have recognized the
god-forsaken camp of the year before. While the locality was generally
condemned as an auriferous proposition, its situation fitted it
admirably for base of supplies to other creeks: Abe Lincoln, Jubilee,
Old Glory and Princess May, where hydraulic machinery had been
established and placer claims were being worked with profitable, if not
phenomenal, results.
Some critics attributed the marvelous transformation that had taken
place to the presence of women, dating from the arrival of Evelyn and
her party; others to the gospel tidings of good-will brought by Parson
Maclane, when, wild rose in buttonhole, and followed by his dogs,
Telegraph and Wrangel, he came running on the trail. A third faction
was for giving the credit to law and order, personified by the
ubiquitous young soldier, Sergeant Scarlett, and his right-hand man,
Barney. But the wise set it down to the trinity of saving influences.