UP creek1 the three negroes fled, past other camps, to where the stream branched. Here they took to the right and urged their horses along a forsaken2 trail to the head-waters of the little tributary3 and over the low saddle. They had endeavored to reach unfrequented paths as soon as possible in order that they might pass unnoticed. Before quitting the valley they halted their heaving horses, and, selecting a stagnant4 pool, scoured5 the grease paint from their features as best they could. Their ears were strained for sounds of pursuit, but, as the moments passed and none came, the tension eased somewhat and they conversed6 guardedly. As the morning light spread they crossed the moss-capped summit of the range, but paused again, and, removing two saddles, hid them among the rocks. Slapjack left the others here and rode southward down the Dry Creek Trail towards town, while the partners shifted part of the weight from the overloaded7 packmules to the remaining saddle-animals and continued eastward8 along the barren comb of hills on foot, leading the five horses.
“It don’t seem like we’ll get away this easy,” said Dextry, scanning the back trail. “If we do, I’ll be tempted9 to foller the business reg’lar. This grease paint on my face makes me smell like a minstrel man. I bet we’ll get some bully10 press notices to-morrow.”
“I wonder what Helen was doing there,” Glenister answered, irrelevantly11, for he had been more shaken by his encounter with her than at his part in the rest of the enterprise, and his mind, which should have been busied with the flight, held nothing but pictures of her as she stood in the half darkness under the fear of his Winchester. “What if she ever learned who that black ruffian was!” He quailed12 at the thought.
“Say, Dex, I am going to marry that girl.”
“I dunno if you be or not,” said Dextry. “Better watch McNamara.”
“What!” The younger man stopped and stared. “What do you mean?”
“Go on. Don’t stop the horses. I ain’t blind. I kin13 put two an’ two together.”
“You’ll never put those two together. Nonsense! Why, the man’s a rascal14. I wouldn’t let him have her. Besides, it couldn’t be. She’ll find him out. I love her so much that—oh, my feelings are too big to talk about.” He moved his hands eloquently15. “You can’t understand.”
“Um-m! I s’pose not,” grunted16 Dextry, but his eyes were level and held the light of the past.
“He may be a rascal,” the old man continued, after a little; “I’ll put in with you on that; but he’s a handsome devil, and, as for manners, he makes you look like a logger. He’s a brave man, too. Them three qualities are trump-cards and warranted to take most any queen in the human deck—red, white, or yellow.”
“If he dares,” growled17 Glenister, while his thick brows came forward and ugly lines hardened in his face.
In the gray of the early morning they descended18 the foot-hills into the wide valley of the Nome River and filed out across the rolling country to the river bluffs19 where, cleverly concealed20 among the willows21, was a rocker. This they set up, then proceeded to wash the dirt from the sacks carefully, yet with the utmost speed, for there was serious danger of discovery. It was wonderful, this treasure of the richest ground since the days of ’49, and the men worked with shining eyes and hands a-tremble. The gold was coarse, and many ragged23, yellow lumps, too large to pass through the screen, rolled in the hopper, while the aprons24 bellied25 with its weight. In the pans which they had provided there grew a gleaming heap of wet, raw gold.
Shortly, by divergent routes, the partners rode unnoticed into town, and into the excitement of the hold-up news, while the tardy26 still lingered over their breakfasts. Far out in the roadstead lay the Roanoke, black smoke pouring from her stack. A tug27 was returning from its last trip to her.
Glenister forced his lathered28 horse down to the beach and questioned the longshoremen who hung about.
“No; it’s too late to get aboard—the last tender is on its way back,” they informed him. “If you want to go to the ‘outside’ you’ll have to wait for the fleet. That only means another week, and—there she blows now.”
A ribbon of white mingled29 with the velvet30 from the steamer’s funnel31 and there came a slow, throbbing32, farewell blast.
Glenister’s jaw33 clicked and squared.
“Quick! You men!” he cried to the sailors. “I want the lightest dory on the beach and the strongest oarsmen in the crowd. I’ll be back in five minutes. There’s a hundred dollars in it for you if we catch that ship.”
He whirled and spurred up through the mud of the streets. Bill Wheaton was snoring luxuriously34 when wrenched35 from his bed by a dishevelled man who shook him into wakefulness and into a portion of his clothes, with a storm of excited instructions. The lawyer had neither time nor opportunity for expostulation, for Glenister snatched a valise and swept into it a litter of documents from the table.
“Hurry up, man,” he yelled, as the lawyer dived frantically36 about his office in a rabbit-like hunt for items. “My Heavens! Are you dead? Wake up! The ship’s leaving.” With sleep still in his eyes Wheaton was dragged down the street to the beach, where a knot had assembled to witness the race. As they tumbled into the skiff, willing hands ran it out into the surf on the crest37 of a roller. A few lifting heaves and they were over the bar with the men at the oars22 bending the white ash at every swing.
“I guess I didn’t forget anything,” gasped38 Wheaton as he put on his coat. “I got ready yesterday, but I couldn’t find you last night, so I thought the deal was off.”
Glenister stripped off his coat and, facing the bow, pushed upon the oars at every stroke, thus adding his strength to that of the oarsmen. They crept rapidly out from the beach, eating up the two miles that lay towards the ship. He urged the men with all his power till the sweat soaked through their clothes and, under their clinging shirts, the muscles stood out like iron. They had covered half the distance when Wheaton uttered a cry and Glenister desisted from his work with a curse. The Roanoke was moving slowly.
The rowers rested, but the young man shouted at them to begin again, and, seizing a boat-hook, stuck it into the arms of his coat. He waved this on high while the men redoubled their efforts. For many moments they hung in suspense39, watching the black hull40 as it gathered speed, and then, as they were about to cease their effort, a puff41 of steam burst from its whistle and the next moment a short toot of recognition reached them. Glenister wiped the moisture from his brow and grinned at Wheaton.
A quarter of an hour later, as they lay heaving below the ship’s steel sides, he thrust a heavy buckskin sack into the lawyer’s hand.
“There’s money to win the fight, Bill. I don’t know how much, but it’s enough. God bless you. Hurry back!”
A sailor cast them a whirling rope, up which Wheaton clambered; then, tying the gripsack to its end, they sent it after.
“Important!” the young man yelled at the officer on the bridge. “Government business.” He heard a muffled42 clang in the engine-room, the thrash of the propellers43 followed, and the big ship glided44 past.
As Glenister dragged himself up the beach, upon landing, Helen Chester called to him, and made room for him beside her. It had never been necessary to call him to her side before; and equally unfamiliar45 was the abashment47, or perhaps physical weariness, that led the young man to sink back in the warm sand with a sigh of relief. She noted48 that, for the first time, the audacity49 was gone from his eyes.
“I watched your race,” she began. “It was very exciting and I cheered for you.”
He smiled quietly.
“What made you keep on after the ship started? I should have given up—and cried.”
“I never give up anything that I want,” he said.
“Have you never been forced to? Then it is because you are a man. Women have to sacrifice a great deal.”
Helen expected him to continue to the effect that he would never give her up—it was in accordance with his earlier presumption—but he was silent; and she was not sure that she liked him as well thus as when he overwhelmed her with the boldness of his suit. For Glenister it was delightful50, after the perils51 of the night, to rest in the calm of her presence and to feel dumbly that she was near. She saw him secretly caress52 a fold of her dress.
If only she had not the memory of that one night on the ship. “Still, he is trying to make amends53 in the best way he can,” she thought. “Though, of course, no woman could care for a man who would do such a thing.” Yet she thrilled at the thought of how he had thrust his body between her and danger; how, but for his quick, insistent54 action, she would have failed in escaping from the pest ship, failed in her mission, and met death on the night of her landing. She owed him much.
“Did you hear what happened to the good ship Ohio?” she asked.
“No; I’ve been too busy to inquire. I was told the health officers quarantined her when she arrived, that’s all.”
“She was sent to Egg Island with every one aboard. She has been there more than a month now and may not get away this summer.”
“What a disappointment for the poor devils on her!”
“Yes, and only for what you did, I should be one of them,” Helen remarked.
“I didn’t do much,” he said. “The fighting part is easy. It’s not half so hard as to give up your property and lie still while—”
“Did you do that because I asked you to—because I asked you to put aside the old ways?” A wave of compassion55 swept over her.
“Certainly,” he answer............