The Alaskan Part 29

Then he went to Alan. He raised the limp head, while Mary bowed her face in her hands. In her anguish she prayed that she, too, might die, for in this hour of triumph over Graham there was no hope or joy for her. Alan was gone. Only death could have come with that terrible red blot on his forehead, just under the gray streak in his hair. And without him there was no longer a reason for her to live.

She reached out her arms. "Give him to me," she whispered. "Give him to me."

Through the agony that burned in her eyes she did not see the look in Stampede's face. But she heard his voice.

"It wasn't a bullet that hit him," Stampede was saying. "The bullet hit a rock, an' it was a chip from the rock that caught him square between the eyes. He isn't dead, _and he ain't going to die!_"

How many weeks or months or years it was after his last memory of the fairies' hiding-place before he came back to life, Alan could make no manner of guess. But he did know that for a long, long time he was riding through s.p.a.ce on a soft, white cloud, vainly trying to overtake a girl with streaming hair who fled on another cloud ahead of him; and at last this cloud broke up, like a great cake of ice, and the girl plunged into the immeasurable depths over which they were sailing, and he leaped after her. Then came strange lights, and darkness, and sounds like the clashing of cymbals, and voices; and after those things a long sleep, from which he opened his eyes to find himself in a bed, and a face very near, with shining eyes that looked at him through a sea of tears.

And a voice whispered to him, sweetly, softly, joyously, "Alan!"

He tried to reach up his arms. The face came nearer; it was pressed against his own, soft arms crept about him, softer lips kissed his mouth and eyes, and sobbing whispers came with their love, and he knew the end of the race had come, and he had won.

This was the fifth day after the fight in the kloof; and on the sixth he sat up in his bed, bolstered with pillows, and Stampede came to see him, and then Keok and Nawadlook and Tatpan and Topkok and Wegaruk, his old housekeeper, and only for a few minutes at a time was Mary away from him. But Tautuk and Amuk Toolik did not come, and he saw the strange change in Keok, and knew that they were dead. Yet he dreaded to ask the question, for more than any others of his people did he love these two missing comrades of the tundras.

It was Stampede who first told him in detail what had happened--but he would say little of the fight on the ledge, and it was Mary who told him of that.

"Graham had over thirty men with him, and only ten got away," he said.

"We have buried sixteen and are caring for seven wounded at the corrals.

Now that Graham is dead, they're frightened stiff--afraid we're going to hand them over to the law. And without Graham or Rossland to fight for them, they know they're lost."

"And our men--my people?" asked Alan faintly.

"Fought like devils."

"Yes, I know. But--"

"They didn't rest an hour in coming from the mountains."

"You know what I mean, Stampede."

"Not many, Alan. Seven were killed, including Sokwenna," and he counted over the names of the slain. Tautuk and Amuk Toolik were not among them.

"And Tautuk?"

"He is wounded. Missed death by an inch, and it has almost killed Keok.

She is with him night and day, and as jealous as a little cat if anyone else attempts to do anything for him."

"Then--I am glad Tautuk was. .h.i.t," smiled Alan. And he asked, "Where is Amuk Toolik?"

Stampede hung his head and blushed like a boy.

"You'll have to ask _her_, Alan."

And a little later Alan put the question to Mary.

She, too, blushed, and in her eyes was a mysterious radiance that puzzled him.

"You must wait," she said.

Beyond that she would say no word, though he pulled her head down, and with his hands in her soft, smooth hair threatened to hold her until she told him the secret. Her answer was a satisfied little sigh, and she nestled her pink face against his neck, and whispered that she was content to accept the punishment. So where Amuk Toolik had gone, and what he was doing, still remained a mystery.

A little later he knew he had guessed the truth.

"I don't need a doctor," he said, "but it was mighty thoughtful of you to send Amuk Toolik for one." Then he caught himself suddenly. "What a senseless fool I am! Of course there are others who need a doctor more than I do."

Mary nodded. "But I was thinking chiefly of you when I sent Amuk Toolik to Tanana. He is riding Kauk, and should return almost any time now."

And she turned her face away so that he could see only the pink tip of her ear.

"Very soon I will be on my feet and ready for travel," he said. "Then we will start for the States, as we planned."

"You will have to go alone, Alan, for I shall be too busy fitting up the new house," she replied, in such a quiet, composed, little voice that he was stunned. "I have already given orders for the cutting of timber in the foothills, and Stampede and Amuk Toolik will begin construction very soon. I am sorry you find your business in the States so important, Alan. It will be a little lonesome with you away."

He gasped. "Mary!"

She did not turn. "_Mary!_"

He could see again that little, heart-like throb in her throat when she faced him.

And then he learned the secret, softly whispered, with sweet, warm lips pressed to his.

"It wasn't a doctor I sent for, Alan. It was a minister. We need one to marry Stampede and Nawadlook and Tautuk and Keok. Of course, you and I can wait--"

But she never finished, for her lips were smothered with a love that brought a little sob of joy from her heart.

And then she whispered things to him which he had never guessed of Mary Standish, and never quite hoped to hear. She was a little wild, a little reckless it may be, but what she said filled him with a happiness which he believed had never come to any other man in the world. It was not her desire to return to the States at all. She never wanted to return. She wanted nothing down there, nothing that the Standish fortune-builders had left her, unless he could find some way of using it for the good of Alaska. And even then she was afraid it might lead to the breaking of her dream. For there was only one thing that would make her happy, and that was _his_ world. She wanted it just as it was--the big tundras, his people, the herds, the mountains--with the glory and greatness of G.o.d all about them in the open s.p.a.ces. She now understood what he had meant when he said he was an Alaskan and not an American; she was that, too, an Alaskan first of all, and for Alaska she would go on fighting with him, hand in hand, until the very end. His heart throbbed until it seemed it would break, and all the time she was whispering her hopes and secrets to him he stroked her silken hair, until it lay spread over his breast, and against his lips, and for the first time in years a hot flood of tears filled his eyes.

So happiness came to them; and only strange voices outside raised Mary's head from where it lay, and took her quickly to the window where she stood a vision of sweet loveliness, radiant in the tumbled confusion and glory of her hair. Then she turned with a little cry, and her eyes were shining like stars as she looked at Alan.

"It is Amuk Toolik," she said. "He has returned."

"And--is he alone?" Alan asked, and his heart stood still while he waited for her answer.

Demurely she came to his side, and smoothed his pillow, and stroked back his hair. "I must go and do up my hair, Alan," she said then. "It would never do for them to find me like this."

And suddenly, in a moment, their fingers entwined and tightened, for on the roof of Sokwenna's cabin the little gray-cheeked thrush was singing again.