A Girl of the Klondike Part 16

"I shouldn't wonder if I stumbled over a corpse next," muttered Talbot, as he slipped and almost fell in the darkness on a slimy something under his feet that reminded him of blood. They got up to the door and tried the latch. It would not yield; then they thumped on it with their gloved fists.

The latch was drawn back by some hand inside, and the door opened just wide enough to admit them, and was pushed to again. Stephen and Talbot found themselves in a crowd of loiterers inside the door, who apparently took no notice of them beyond a sodden stare.

It was a long, low room that they entered, so low that it seemed to Talbot the ceiling was almost upon their heads. The atmosphere was stifling, evil-smelling beyond endurance, and so clouded with tobacco smoke that they could not see the farther end.

A long table covered with green cloth took up the centre of the room, and all round the walls were ranged smaller ones. The place was full when the two men entered, all s.p.a.ce at the centre table was occupied, the side tables were filled, and men standing up between blocked the way up the room. The windows at the end were barred and shuttered, not a breath of outer air could enter. The cheap lamps nailed at intervals along the grimy walls were mostly black and smoking, adding their acrid fumes to the thick atmosphere. There were very few women present, some painted, worn, unhappy-looking creatures, hovering like restless phantoms round the tables where the thickest crowds were, that seemed all. Stephen looked round on every side with haggard face and anxious eyes. She was nowhere near the door, and after a hurried survey of all those lower tables they forced and pressed and pushed their way towards the other end. At last they caught sight of her. She was sitting at a small table, with her face turned towards the room, intent upon the game. Her cheeks were flushed with excitement. She had flung her fur cap aside, and her ruffled black hair lay loose upon her forehead. The collar of her bodice was open and turned back a little from her round white neck. She looked, with her soft young face, like a fresh flower dropped by chance into this evil, tainted den. Talbot gave her a keen scrutiny as they approached, and understood Stephen's infatuation. As for Stephen himself, his heart went out to her, and he was filled with a bitter self-reproach and sudden resolutions. His love and his darling!

How could he have let her be found here! His claims and his gold, they might all go. He would take her away in safety at once. He would not hesitate again.

When they reached the table they saw there was a large stake on the cloth between the two players. Her companion was a youngish man, seemingly a miner, dressed in the roughest clothes. Neither looked up till both men were close by them and between them and the lights. Then Katrine raised her eyes and started violently as she recognised them.

Her face flushed deeper, and her eyebrows contracted with annoyance.

Stephen went round to the back of her chair and laid his hand on her shoulder.

"Come away; oh pray, come away," he said, in an imploring tone. It was all he seemed able to articulate.

"I'm just in the middle of a game," she answered petulantly. "You mustn't interrupt me."

"But it isn't safe for you to be here."

"Stuff! I used to be here every night before I married you!"

A death-like pallor overspread the man's face as he heard. He could not believe her, could not realise it. Had she indeed been here night after night?

"Why do you come here and interfere?" she continued pettishly, looking up from Talbot to his companion. "I always have such luck, and I'm likely to lose it if you worry me."

The young miner sat back in his chair, thrust both hands in his pockets, and stared rudely at the intruders. He did not mind the interruption as much as she did, since he was losing, and had been steadily ever since he sat down to play with Katrine, and doubts and angry questionings of his opponent's methods began to stir in his dull, clouded brain, as toads stir the mud in some thick pool.

"You ought not to be here at all," said Stephen hotly.

"Well, why shouldn't I make money as well as you?" returned the girl quickly, with a flash of scorn in her dark eyes, and Stephen whitened and winced.

"Haven't you made enough for one night, in any case?" interposed Talbot quietly.

"Yes, I think I have," she answered, with a glance at the glistening pile on the cloth. "I'll come," she added suddenly, "if Jim's no objection. What do you say, Jim?" she asked, looking across to the young fellow, who had been a sulky, silent spectator of the whole scene.

"Shall we quit for to-night?"

"If you give me back my money," he answered. "That's mine," he said, pointing to the pile. "It's my money, gentlemen; she's been winning all the evening."

"Yes, I always do have luck," retorted Katrine. "I told you so when we began."

"You may call it luck; I don't," muttered the miner, his face turning a dusky purple.

"And what do you call it?" returned Katrine, white with anger in her turn at the insinuation, while Talbot, who saw what was coming, tried to draw her away.

"What does it matter? Come away; leave him the money."

No one in the room noticed what was going on in their corner. The others were all too busy with their own play, absorbed in their own greed; besides, squabbles over the tables were of such common occurrence, they ceased to excite any curiosity.

"I shan't," returned Katrine, shaking herself free.

The oily, smoky light from above fell across her face; it seemed to bloom through the foul, dusky air like a rose.

"It's my money--I won it."

"Yes, by cheating," shouted the miner, forgetting everything but the approaching loss he foresaw of the shining pile.

"You lie," said Stephen, hoa.r.s.ely. "She has not cheated you."

The miner staggered to his feet, and before any of them realised it he had drawn his pistol and fired. His hand was unsteady from drink and rage, and the ball pa.s.sed over Stephen's shoulder and went into the wall behind him. Talbot tried to draw Stephen to one side. The miner, blind with anger, half conscious only of what he was about, and drawing almost at random, turned his revolver on Talbot. Like a flash Katrine interposed between them, and Jim's bullet found a lodgment in her lungs.

She had fired also. The shots had been simultaneous, and the miner fell, without a groan, without a murmur, forward across the table, carrying it with him to the floor. The gold pile scattered amongst the filthy sawdust on the ground. Katrine sank backwards into Talbot's arms, and her head fell to his shoulder like that of a tired child falling to sleep.

In an instant they were surrounded by an eager inquiring throng. All the tables, with some few exceptions, were deserted; the players all crowded up to the end of the room, and Stephen and Talbot were carried back to the wall by the pressing crowd. Some of the men raised the body of the miner; he was dead. The people pressed round, and one glance at the set face told them. A momentary awe spread amongst them, and the men who had raised the body carried it to a bench and laid it there. Stephen, pallid as the dead man himself, looked round in desperation on the staring crowd.

"Is there a surgeon or a doctor here?" he asked.

Katrine heard him, and raised herself a little in Talbot's arms; he was standing against the wall now. She turned her eyes towards Stephen and stretched out her hand.

"It's no use, Steve, dear," she said; "I'm done for. Don't worry with a doctor. I shall be gone in five minutes."

Stephen dropped on his knees and seized the little soft brown hand extended to him, covering it with kisses.

"Oh no, no, don't say it," he said in a voice suffocated with anguish, heedless of the staring faces around. Some of the mob looked on with interest, some turned back to their own tables, others went down on their hands and knees to sc.r.a.pe up the scattered gold dust that had mixed in the trampled sawdust.

"Lay me a little flatter," she murmured to Talbot, and he sank on one knee and so supported her, her head resting on his arm.

"If we could get her to the air," Stephen exclaimed.

"No, the moving pains me; let me be," she replied. "I tell you I'm dying."

Stephen groaned.

"Pray then, pray now. Oh, Katie dear, pray before it is too late. Aren't you afraid to die like this, in this place?"

Katrine shook her head wearily. "No, I don't think I've ever been afraid," she murmured.

"Did I kill him?" she asked a second later, opening her eyes.

Talbot looked down and nodded. Stephen's voice was too choked for utterance.

"I'm glad of that," she murmured, letting her eyes close again; "I never missed a shot yet."

"Oh, Katie, Katie," moaned Stephen. The room was black to him; it seemed as if he saw h.e.l.l opening to swallow up for ever his beloved one.

Katrine opened her eyes at his agonised cry.

"Now, Steve, it can't be helped; I'm dying, and it's all right. I only don't want you to worry over it. Nothing is worth worrying for in this world. And I guess we'll all meet again very soon in a warmer place than Alaska."

Stephen, utterly broken down, could only sob upon her hand.

Talbot felt a sort of rigor pa.s.sing through the form he held, and thought she was dying. He was stirred to the innermost depths of his being by her act. She had stepped so calmly between him and death, given up her life with the free generous courage of a soldier or a hero.