The Yukon Trail Part 33

CHAPTER XXII

GID HOLT COMES TO KUSIAK

The days grew short. In sporting circles the talk was no longer of the midnight Fourth of July baseball game, but of preparation for the Alaska Sweepstakes, since the shadow of the cold Arctic winter had crept down to the Yukon and touched its waters to stillness. Men, gathered around warm stoves, spoke of the merits of huskies and Siberian wolf-hounds, of the heavy fall of snow in the hills, of the overhauling of outfits and the transportation of supplies to distant camps.

The last river boat before the freeze-up had long since gone. A month earlier the same steamer had taken down in a mail sack the preliminary report of Elliot to his department chief. One of the pa.s.sengers on that trip had been Selfridge, sent out to counteract the influence of the evidence against the claimants submitted by the field agent. An information had been filed against Gordon for highway robbery and attempted murder. Wally was to see that the d.a.m.ning facts against him were brought to the attention of officials in high places where the charges would do most good. The details of the story were to be held in reserve for publicity in case the muckrake magazines should try to make capital of the report of Elliot.

Kusiak found much time for gossip during the long nights. It knew that Macdonald had gone on the bond of Elliot in spite of the scornful protest of the younger man. The two gave each other chilly nods of greeting when they met, but friends were careful not to invite them to the same social affairs. The case against the field agent was pending.

Pursuit of the miners who had robbed the big mine-owner had long ago been dropped. Somewhere in the North the outlaws lay hidden, swallowed up by the great white waste of snow.

The general opinion was that Mac was playing politics about the trial of his rival. He would not let the case come to a jury until the time when a conviction would have most effect in the States, the gossips predicted. They did not know that he was waiting for the return of Wally Selfridge.

The whispers touched closely the personal affairs of Macdonald. The report of his engagement to Sheba O'Neill had been denied, but it was noticed that he was a constant guest at the home of the Pagets. Young Elliot called there too. Almost any day one or other of the two men could be seen with Sheba on the street. Those who wanted to take a sporting chance on the issue knew that odds were offered _sub rosa_ at the Pay Streak saloon of three to one on Mac.

As for Sheba, she rebelled impotently at the situation. The mine-owner would not take "No" for an answer. He wooed her with a steady, dominant persistence that shook even her strong, young will. There was something resistless in the way he took her for granted. Gordon Elliot had not mentioned love to her, though there were times when her heart fluttered for fear he would. She did not want any more complications. She wanted to be let alone. So when an invitation came from her little friends the Husteds, signed by all three of the children, asking her to come and visit them at the camp back of Katma, the Irish girl jumped at the chance to escape for a time from the decision being forced upon her.

Sheba pledged her cousin to secrecy until after she had gone, so that Miss O'Neill was able to slip away on the stage unnoticed either by Macdonald or Elliot. The only other pa.s.senger was an elderly woman going up to the Katma camp to take a place as cook.

Later on the same day Wally Selfridge, coming in over the ice, reached Kusiak with important news for his chief. He brought with him an order from Winton, Commissioner of the General Land Office, suspending Elliot pending an investigation of the charges against him. The field agent was to forward by mail all doc.u.ments in his possession and for the time, at least, drop the matter of the coal claims.

Oddly enough, it was to Genevieve Mallory that Macdonald went for consolation when he learned that Sheba had left town. He had always found it very pleasant to drop in for a chat with her, and she saw to it that he met the same friendly welcome now that a rival had annexed his scalp to her slender waist. For Mrs. Mallory did not concede defeat.

If the Irish girl could be eliminated, she believed she would yet win.

His hostess laced her fingers behind her beautiful, tawny head, quite well aware that the att.i.tude set off the perfect modeling of the soft, supple body. She looked up at him with a mocking little smile.

"Rumor says that she has run away, my lord. Is it true?"

"Yes. Slipped away on the stage this morning."

"That's a good sign. She was afraid to stay."

It was a part of the fiction between them that Mrs. Mallory was to give him the benefit of her advice in his wooing of her rival. She seemed to take it for granted that he would at last marry Sheba after wearing away the rigid Puritanism of her resentment.

Macdonald had never liked her so well as now. Her point of view was so sane, so reasonable. It asked for no impossible virtues in a man. There was something restful in her genial, derisive understanding of him. She had a silent divination of his moods and ministered indolently to them.

"Do you think so? Ought I to follow her?" he asked.

She showed a row of perfect teeth in a low ripple of amus.e.m.e.nt. The situation at least was piquant, even though it was at her expense.

"No. Give the girl time. Catch her impulse on the rebound. She'll be bored to death at Katma and she will come back docile."

Her scarlet lips, the long, unbroken lines of the sinuous, opulent body, the challenge of the smouldering eyes, the warmth of her laughter, all invited him to forget the charms of other women. The faint feminine perfume of her was wafted to his brain. He felt a besieging of the blood.

Stepping behind the chair in which she sat, he tilted back the head of l.u.s.trous bronze, and very deliberately kissed her on the lips.

For a moment she gave herself to his embrace, then pushed him back, rose, and walked across the room to a little table. With fingers that trembled slightly she lit a cigarette. Sheathed in her close-fitting gown, she made a strong carnal appeal to him, but there was between them, too, a close bond of the spirit. He made no apologies, no explanation.

Presently she turned and looked at him. Only the deeper color beneath her eyes betrayed any excitement.

"Unless I'm a bad prophet you'll get the answer you want when she comes back, Colby."

He thought her reply to his indiscretion superb. It admitted complicity, reproached, warned, and at the same time ignored. Never before had she called him by his given name. He took it as a token of forgiveness and renunciation.

Why was it not Genevieve Mallory that he wanted to marry? It would be the wise thing to do. She would ask nothing of him that he could not give, and she would bring to him many things that he wanted. But he was under the spell of Sheba's innocence, of the mystery of her youth, of the charm she had brought with her from the land of fairies and banshees. The reasonable course made just now not enough appeal to him.

He craved the rapture of an impossible adventure into a world wonderful.

The mine-owner carried with him back to his office a sense of the futile irony of life. A score of men would have liked to marry Mrs. Mallory.

She had all the sophisticated graces of life and much of the natural charm of an unusually attractive personality. He had only to speak the word to win her, and his fancy had flown in pursuit of a little Puritan with no knowledge of the world.

In front of the Seattle & Kusiak Emporium the Scotchman stopped. A little man who had his back to him was bargaining for a team of huskies.

The man turned, and Macdonald recognized him.

"h.e.l.lo, Gid. Aren't you off your usual beat a bit?" he asked.

The little miner looked him over impudently. "Well--well! If it ain't the Big Mogul himself--and wantin' to know if I've got permission to travel off the reservation."

Macdonald laughed tolerantly. He had that large poise which is not disturbed by the sand stings of life.

"I reckon you travel where you want to, Gid,--same as I do."

"Maybeso. I shouldn't wonder if you'd find out quite soon enough what I'm doing here. You never can tell," the old man retorted with a manner that concealed volumes.

Those who were present remembered the words and in the light of what took place later thought them significant.

"Anyhow, it is quite a social event for Kusiak," Macdonald suggested with a smile of irony.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SITUATION AT LEAST WAS PIQUANT, EVEN THOUGH IT WAS AT HER EXPENSE]

Without more words Holt turned back to his bargaining. The big Scotchman went on his way, remembered that he wanted to see the cashier of the bank which he controlled, and promptly forgot that old Gid existed.

The old man concluded his purchase and drove up to the hotel behind one of the best dog teams in Alaska. He had paid one hundred dollars down and was to settle the balance next day.

Gideon asked a question of the porter.

"Second floor. That's his room up there," the man answered, pointing to a window.

"Oh, you, seven--eighteen--ninety-nine," the little miner shouted up.

Elliot appeared at the window. "Well, I'll be hanged! What are you doing here, Old-Timer?"

"Onct I knew a man lived to be a grandpa minding his own business,"

grinned the little man. "Come down and I'll tell you all about it, boy."

In half a minute Gordon was beside him. After the first greetings the young man nodded toward the dog team.