Frona Welse arose with alacrity1 and came to the first officer's side.
"We're so busy," he explained, "and gold-rushers are such perishable2 freight, at least—"
"I understand," she interrupted, "and I, too, am behaving as though I were perishable. And I am sorry for the trouble I am giving you, but—but—" She turned quickly and pointed3 to the shore. "Do you see that big log-house? Between the clump4 of pines and the river? I was born there."
"Guess I'd be in a hurry myself," he muttered, sympathetically, as he piloted her along the crowded deck.
Everybody was in everybody else's way; nor was there one who failed to proclaim it at the top of his lungs. A thousand gold-seekers were clamoring for the immediate5 landing of their outfits6. Each hatchway gaped8 wide open, and from the lower depths the shrieking9 donkey-engines were hurrying the misassorted outfits skyward. On either side of the steamer, rows of scows received the flying cargo10, and on each of these scows a sweating mob of men charged the descending11 slings12 and heaved bales and boxes about in frantic13 search. Men waved shipping14 receipts and shouted over the steamer-rails to them. Sometimes two and three identified the same article, and war arose. The "two-circle" and the "circle-and-dot" brands caused endless jangling, while every whipsaw discovered a dozen claimants.
"The purser insists that he is going mad," the first officer said, as he helped Frona Welse down the gangway to the landing stage, "and the freight clerks have turned the cargo over to the passengers and quit work. But we're not so unlucky as the Star of Bethlehem," he reassured15 her, pointing to a steamship16 at anchor a quarter of a mile away. "Half of her passengers have pack-horses for Skaguay and White Pass, and the other half are bound over the Chilcoot. So they've mutinied and everything's at a standstill."
"Hey, you!" he cried, beckoning17 to a Whitehall which hovered18 discreetly19 on the outer rim20 of the floating confusion.
A tiny launch, pulling heroically at a huge tow-barge21, attempted to pass between; but the boatman shot nervily across her bow, and just as he was clear, unfortunately, caught a crab22. This slewed23 the boat around and brought it to a stop.
"Watch out!" the first officer shouted.
A pair of seventy-foot canoes, loaded with outfits, gold-rushers, and Indians, and under full sail, drove down from the counter direction. One of them veered24 sharply towards the landing stage, but the other pinched the Whitehall against the barge. The boatman had unshipped his oars26 in time, but his small craft groaned27 under the pressure and threatened to collapse28. Whereat he came to his feet, and in short, nervous phrases consigned29 all canoe-men and launch-captains to eternal perdition. A man on the barge leaned over from above and baptized him with crisp and crackling oaths, while the whites and Indians in the canoe laughed derisively30.
"Aw, g'wan31!" one of them shouted. "Why don't yeh learn to row?"
The boatman's fist landed on the point of his critic's jaw32 and dropped him stunned33 upon the heaped merchandise. Not content with this summary act he proceeded to follow his fist into the other craft. The miner nearest him tugged34 vigorously at a revolver which had jammed in its shiny leather holster, while his brother argonauts, laughing, waited the outcome. But the canoe was under way again, and the Indian helmsman drove the point of his paddle into the boatman's chest and hurled35 him backward into the bottom of the Whitehall.
When the flood of oaths and blasphemy36 was at full tide, and violent assault and quick death seemed most imminent37, the first officer had stolen a glance at the girl by his side. He had expected to find a shocked and frightened maiden38 countenance39, and was not at all prepared for the flushed and deeply interested face which met his eyes.
"I am sorry," he began.
But she broke in, as though annoyed by the interruption, "No, no; not at all. I am enjoying it every bit. Though I am glad that man's revolver stuck. If it had not—"
"We might have been delayed in getting ashore40." The first officer laughed, and therein displayed his tact41.
"That man is a robber," he went on, indicating the boatman, who had now shoved his oars into the water and was pulling alongside. "He agreed to charge only twenty dollars for putting you ashore. Said he'd have made it twenty-five had it been a man. He's a pirate, mark me, and he will surely hang some day. Twenty dollars for a half-hour's work! Think of it!"
"Easy, sport! Easy!" cautioned the fellow in question, at the same time making an awkward landing and dropping one of his oars over-side. "You've no call to be flingin' names about," he added, defiantly42, wringing43 out his shirt-sleeve, wet from rescue of the oar25.
"You've got good ears, my man," began the first officer.
"And a quick fist," the other snapped in.
"And a ready tongue."
"Need it in my business. No gettin' 'long without it among you sea-sharks. Pirate, am I? And you with a thousand passengers packed like sardines44! Charge 'em double first-class passage, feed 'em steerage grub, and bunk45 'em worse 'n pigs! Pirate, eh! Me?"
A red-faced man thrust his head over the rail above and began to bellow46 lustily.
"I want my stock landed! Come up here, Mr. Thurston! Now! Right away! Fifty cayuses of | mine eating their heads off in this dirty kennel47 of yours, and it'll be a sick time you'll have if you don't hustle48 them ashore as fast as God'll let you! I'm losing a thousand dollars a day, and I won't stand it! Do you hear? I won't stand it! You've robbed me right and left from the time you cleared dock in Seattle, and by the hinges of hell I won't stand it any more! I'll break this company as sure as my name's Thad Ferguson! D'ye hear my spiel? I'm Thad Ferguson, and you can't come and see me any too quick for your health! D'ye hear?"
"Pirate; eh?" the boatman soliloquized. "Who? Me?"
Mr. Thurston waved his hand appeasingly at the red-faced man, and turned to the girl. "I'd like to go ashore with you, and as far as the store, but you see how busy we are. Good-by, and a lucky trip to you. I'll tell off a couple of men at once and break out your baggage. Have it up at the store to-morrow morning, sharp."
She took his hand lightly and stepped aboard. Her weight gave the leaky boat a sudden lurch49, and the water hurtled across the bottom boards to her shoe-tops: but she took it coolly enough, settling herself in the stern-sheets and tucking her feet under her.
"Hold on!" the officer cried. "This will never do, Miss Welse. Come on back, and I'll get one of our boats over as soon as I can."
"I'll see you in—in heaven first," retorted the boatman, shoving off.
"Let go!" he threatened.
Mr. Thurston gripped tight hold of the gunwale, and as reward for his chivalry50 had his knuckles51 rapped sharply by the oar-blade. Then he forgot himself, and Miss Welse also, and swore, and swore fervently52.
"I dare say our farewell might have been more dignified," she called back to him, her laughter rippling53 across the water.
"Jove!" he muttered, doffing54 his cap gallantly55. "There is a woman!" And a sudden hunger seized him, and a yearning56 to see himself mirrored always in the gray eyes of Frona Welse. He was not analytical57; he did not know why; but he knew that with her he could travel to the end of the earth. He felt a distaste for his profession, and a temptation to throw it all over and strike out for the Klondike whither she was going; then he glanced up the beetling58 side of the ship, saw the red face of Thad Ferguson, and forgot the dream he had for an instant dreamed.
Splash! A handful of water from his strenuous59 oar struck her full in the face. "Hope you don't mind it, miss," he apologized. "I'm doin' the best I know how, which ain't much."
"So it seems," she answered, good-naturedly.
"Not that I love the sea," bitterly; "but I've got to turn a few honest dollars somehow, and this seemed the likeliest way. I oughter 'a ben in Klondike by now, if I'd had any luck at all. Tell you how it was. I lost my outfit7 on Windy Arm, half-way in, after packin' it clean across the Pass—"
Zip! Splash! She shook the water from her eyes, squirming the while as some of it ran down her warm back.
"You'll do," he encouraged her. "You're the right stuff for this country. Goin' all the way in?"
She nodded cheerfully.
"Then you'll do. But as I was sayin', after I lost my outfit I hit back for the coast, bein' broke, to hustle up another one. That's why I'm chargin' high-pressure rates. And I hope you don't feel sore at what I made you pay. I'm no worse than the rest, miss, sure. I had to dig up a hundred for this old tub, which ain't worth ten down in the States. Same kind of prices everywhere. Over on the Skaguay Trail horseshoe nails is just as good as a quarter any day. A man goes up to the bar and calls for a whiskey. Whiskey's half a dollar. Well, he drinks his whiskey, plunks down two horseshoe nails, and it's O.K. No kick comin' on horseshoe nails. They use 'em to make change."
"You must be a brave man to venture into the country again after such an experience. Won't you tell me your name? We may meet on the Inside."
"Who? Me? Oh, I'm Del Bishop60, pocket-miner; and if ever we run across each other, remember I'd give you the last shirt—I mean, remember my last bit of grub is yours."
"Thank you," she answered with a sweet smile; for she was a woman who loved the things which rose straight from the heart.
He stopped rowing long enough to fish about in the water around his feet for an old cornbeef can.
"You'd better do some bailin'," he ordered, tossing her the can.
"She's leakin' worse since that squeeze."
Frona smiled mentally, tucked up her skirts, and bent61 to the work. At every dip, like great billows heaving along the sky-line, the glacier62-fretted mountains rose and fell. Sometimes she rested her back and watched the teeming63 beach towards which they were heading, and again, the land-locked arm of the sea in which a score or so of great steamships64 lay at anchor. From each of these, to the shore and back again, flowed a steady stream of scows, launches, canoes, and all sorts of smaller craft. Man, the mighty65 toiler66, reacting upon a hostile environment, she thought, going back in memory to the masters whose wisdom she had shared in lecture-room and midnight study. She was a ripened67 child of the age, and fairly understood the physical world and the workings thereof. And she had a love for the world, and a deep respect.
For some time Del Bishop had only punctuated68 the silence with splashes from his oars; but a thought struck him.
"You haven't told me your name," he suggested, with complacent69 delicacy70.
"My name is Welse," she answered. "Frona Welse."
A great awe71 manifested itself in his face, and grew to a greater and greater awe. "You—are—Frona—Welse?" he enunciated72 slowly. "Jacob Welse ain't your old man, is he?"
"Yes; I am Jacob Welse's daughter, at your service."
He puckered73 his lips in a long low whistle of understanding and stopped rowing. "Just you climb back into the stern and take your feet out of that water," he commanded. "And gimme holt that can."
"Am I not bailing74 satisfactorily?" she demanded, indignantly.
"Yep. You're doin' all right; but, but, you are—are—"
"Just what I was before you knew who I was. Now you go on rowing,—that's your share of the work; and I'll take care of mine."
"Oh, you'll do!" he murmured ecstatically, bending afresh to the oars.
"And Jacob Welse is your old man? I oughter 'a known it, sure!"
When they reached the sand-spit, crowded with heterogeneous75 piles of merchandise and buzzing with men, she stopped long enough to shake hands with her ferryman. And though such a proceeding76 on the part of his feminine patrons was certainly unusual, Del Bishop squared it easily with the fact that she was Jacob Welse's daughter.
"Remember, my last bit of grub is yours," he reassured her, still holding her hand.
"And your last shirt, too; don't forget."
"Well, you're a—a—a crackerjack!" he exploded with a final squeeze.
"Sure!"
Her short skirt did not block the free movement of her limbs, and she discovered with pleasurable surprise that the quick tripping step of the city pavement had departed from her, and that she was swinging off in the long easy stride which is born of the trail and which comes only after much travail77 and endeavor. More than one gold-rusher, shooting keen glances at her ankles and gray-gaitered calves78, affirmed Del Bishop's judgment79. And more than one glanced up at her face, and glanced again; for her gaze was frank, with the frankness of comradeship; and in her eyes there was always a smiling light, just trembling on the verge80 of dawn; and did the onlooker81 smile, her eyes smiled also. And the smiling light was protean-mooded,—merry, sympathetic, joyous82, quizzical,—the complement83 of whatsoever84 kindled85 it. And sometimes the light spread over all her face, till the smile prefigured by it was realized. But it was always in frank and open comradeship.
And there was much to cause her to smile as she hurried through the crowd, across the sand-spit, and over the flat towards the log-building she had pointed out to Mr. Thurston. Time had rolled back, and locomotion86 and transportation were once again in the most primitive87 stages. Men who had never carried more than parcels in all their lives had now become bearers of burdens. They no longer walked upright under the sun, but stooped the body forward and bowed the head to the earth. Every back had become a pack-saddle, and the strap-galls were beginning to form. They staggered beneath the unwonted effort, and legs became drunken with weariness and titubated in divers88 directions till the sunlight darkened and bearer and burden fell by the way. Other men, exulting89 secretly, piled their goods on two-wheeled go-carts and pulled out blithely90 enough, only to stall at the first spot where the great round boulders91 invaded the trail. Whereat they generalized anew upon the principles of Alaskan travel, discarded the go-cart, or trundled it back to the beach and sold it at fabulous92 price to the last man landed. Tenderfeet, with ten pounds of Colt's revolvers, cartridges93, and hunting-knives belted about them, wandered valiantly94 up the trail, and crept back softly, shedding revolvers, cartridges, and knives in despairing showers. And so, in gasping95 and bitter sweat, these sons of Adam suffered for Adam's sin.
Frona felt vaguely96 disturbed by this great throbbing97 rush of gold-mad men, and the old scene with its clustering associations seemed blotted98 out by these toiling99 aliens. Even the old landmarks100 appeared strangely unfamiliar101. It was the same, yet not the same. Here, on the grassy102 flat, where she had played as a child and shrunk back at the sound of her voice echoing from glacier to glacier, ten thousand men tramped ceaselessly up and down, grinding the tender herbage into the soil and mocking the stony103 silence. And just up the trail were ten thousand men who had passed by, and over the Chilcoot were ten thousand more. And behind, all down the island-studded Alaskan coast, even to the Horn, were yet ten thousand more, harnessers of wind and steam, hasteners from the ends of the earth. The Dyea River as of old roared turbulently down to the sea; but its ancient banks were gored104 by the feet of many men, and these men labored105 in surging rows at the dripping tow-lines, and the deep-laden boats followed them as they fought their upward way. And the will of man strove with the will of the water, and the men laughed at the old Dyea River and gored its banks deeper for the men who were to follow.
The doorway106 of the store, through which she had once run out and in, and where she had looked with awe at the unusual sight of a stray trapper or fur-trader, was now packed with a clamorous107 throng108 of men. Where of old one letter waiting a claimant was a thing of wonder, she now saw, by peering through the window, the mail heaped up from floor to ceiling. And it was for this mail the men were clamoring so insistently109. Before the store, by the scales, was another crowd. An Indian threw his pack upon the scales, the white owner jotted110 down the weight in a note-book, and another pack was thrown on. Each pack was in the straps111, ready for the packer's back and the precarious112 journey over the Chilcoot. Frona edged in closer. She was interested in freights. She remembered in her day when the solitary113 prospector114 or trader had his outfit packed over for six cents,—one hundred and twenty dollars a ton.
The tenderfoot who was weighing up consulted his guide-book. "Eight cents," he said to the Indian. Whereupon the Indians laughed scornfully and chorused, "Forty cents!" A pained expression came into his face, and he looked about him anxiously. The sympathetic light in Frona's eyes caught him, and he regarded her with intent blankness. In reality he was busy reducing a three-ton outfit to terms of cash at forty dollars per hundred-weight. "Twenty-four hundred dollars for thirty miles!" he cried. "What can I do?"
Frona shrugged115 her shoulders. "You'd better pay them the forty cents," she advised, "else they will take off their straps."
The man thanked her, but instead of taking heed116 went on with his haggling117. One of the Indians stepped up and proceeded to unfasten his pack-straps. The tenderfoot wavered, but just as he was about to give in, the packers jumped the price on him to forty-five cents. He smiled after a sickly fashion, and nodded his head in token of surrender. But another Indian joined the group and began whispering excitedly. A cheer went up, and before the man could realize it they had jerked off their straps and departed, spreading the news as they went that freight to Lake Linderman was fifty cents.
Of a sudden, the crowd before the store was perceptibly agitated118. Its members whispered excitedly one to another, and all their eyes were focussed upon three men approaching from up the trail. The trio were ordinary-looking creatures, ill-clad and even ragged119. In a more stable community their apprehension120 by the village constable121 and arrest for vagrancy122 would have been immediate. "French Louis," the tenderfeet whispered and passed the word along. "Owns three Eldorado claims in a block," the man next to Frona confided123 to her. "Worth ten millions at the very least." French Louis, striding a little in advance of his companions, did not look it. He had parted company with his hat somewhere along the route, and a frayed124 silk kerchief was wrapped carelessly about his head. And for all his ten millions, he carried his own travelling pack on his broad shoulders. "And that one, the one with the beard, that's Swiftwater Bill, another of the Eldorado kings."
"How do you know?" Frona asked, doubtingly.
"Know!" the man exclaimed. "Know! Why his picture has been in all the papers for the last six weeks. See!" He unfolded a newspaper. "And a pretty good likeness125, too. I've looked at it so much I'd know his mug among a thousand."
"Then who is the third one?" she queried126, tacitly accepting him as a fount of authority.
Her informant lifted himself on his toes to see better. "I don't know," he confessed sorrowfully, then tapped the shoulder of the man next to him. "Who is the lean, smooth-faced one? The one with the blue shirt and the patch on his knee?"
Just then Frona uttered a glad little cry and darted127 forward. "Matt!" she cried. "Matt McCarthy!"
The man with the patch shook her hand heartily128, though he did not know her and distrust was plain in his eyes.
"Oh, you don't remember me!" she chattered129. "And don't you dare say you do! If there weren't so many looking, I'd hug you, you old bear!
"And so Big Bear went home to the Little Bears," she recited, solemnly.
"And the Little Bears were very hungry. And Big Bear said, 'Guess what
I have got, my children.' And one Little Bear guessed berries, and one
Little Bear guessed salmon130, and t'other Little Bear guessed porcupine131.
Then Big Bear laughed 'Whoof! Whoof!' and said, 'A Nice Big Fat
Man!'"
As he listened, recollection avowed133 itself in his face, and, when she had finished, his eyes wrinkled up and he laughed a peculiar134, laughable silent laugh.
"Sure, an' it's well I know ye," he explained; "but for the life iv me
I can't put me finger on ye."
She pointed into the store and watched him anxiously.
"Now I have ye!" He drew back and looked her up and down, and his expression changed to disappointment. "It cuddent be. I mistook ye. Ye cud niver a-lived in that shanty," thrusting a thumb in the direction of the store.
Frona nodded her head vigorously.
"Thin it's yer ownself afther all? The little motherless darlin', with the goold hair I combed the knots out iv many's the time? The little witch that run barefoot an' barelegged over all the place?"
"Yes, yes," she corroborated135, gleefully.
"The little divil that stole the dog-team an' wint over the Pass in the dead o' winter for to see where the world come to an ind on the ither side, just because old Matt McCarthy was afther tellin' her fairy stories?"
"O Matt, dear old Matt! Remember the time I went swimming with the
Siwash girls from the Indian camp?"
"An' I dragged ye out by the hair o' yer head?"
"And lost one of your new rubber boots?"
"Ah, an' sure an' I do. And a most shockin' an' immodest affair it was! An' the boots was worth tin dollars over yer father's counter."
"And then you went away, over the Pass, to the Inside, and we never heard a word of you. Everybody thought you dead."
"Well I recollect132 the day. An' ye cried in me arms an' wuddent kiss yer old Matt good-by. But ye did in the ind," he exclaimed, triumphantly136, "whin ye saw I was goin' to lave ye for sure. What a wee thing ye were!"
"I was only eight."
"An' 'tis twelve year agone. Twelve year I've spint on the Inside, with niver a trip out. Ye must be twinty now?"
"And almost as big as you," Frona affirmed.
"A likely woman ye've grown into, tall, an' shapely, an' all that." He looked her over critically. "But ye cud 'a' stood a bit more flesh, I'm thinkin'."
"No, no," she denied. "Not at twenty, Matt, not at twenty. Feel my arm, you'll see." She doubled that member till the biceps knotted.
"'Tis muscle," he admitted, passing his hand admiringly over the swelling137 bunch; "just as though ye'd been workin' hard for yer livin'."
"Oh, I can swing clubs, and box, and fence," she cried, successively striking the typical postures138; "and swim, and make high dives, chin a bar twenty times, and—and walk on my hands. There!"
"Is that what ye've been doin'? I thought ye wint away for book-larnin'," he commented, dryly.
"But they have new ways of teaching, now, Matt, and they don't turn you out with your head crammed—"
"An' yer legs that spindly they can't carry it all! Well, an' I forgive ye yer muscle."
"But how about yourself, Matt?" Frona asked. "How has the world been to you these twelve years?"
"Behold139!" He spread his legs apart, threw his head back, and his chest out. "Ye now behold Mister Matthew McCarthy, a king iv the noble Eldorado Dynasty by the strength iv his own right arm. Me possessions is limitless. I have more dust in wan minute than iver I saw in all me life before. Me intintion for makin' this trip to the States is to look up me ancestors. I have a firm belafe that they wance existed. Ye may find nuggets in the Klondike, but niver good whiskey. 'Tis likewise me intintion to have wan drink iv the rate stuff before I die. Afther that 'tis me sworn resolve to return to the superveeshion iv me Klondike properties. Indade, and I'm an Eldorado king; an' if ye'll be wantin' the lind iv a tidy bit, it's meself that'll loan it ye."
"The same old, old Matt, who never grows old," Frona laughed.
"An' it's yerself is the thrue Welse, for all yer prize-fighter's muscles an' yer philosopher's brains. But let's wander inside on the heels of Louis an' Swiftwater. Andy's still tindin' store, I'm told, an' we'll see if I still linger in the pages iv his mimory."
"And I, also." Frona seized him by the hand. It was a bad habit she had of seizing the hands of those she loved. "It's ten years since I went away."
The Irishman forged his way through the crowd like a pile-driver, and Frona followed easily in the lee of his bulk. The tenderfeet watched them reverently140, for to them they were as Northland divinities. The buzz of conversation rose again.
"Who's the girl?" somebody asked. And just as Frona passed inside the door she caught the opening of the answer: "Jacob Welse's daughter. Never heard of Jacob Welse? Where have you been keeping yourself?"
