surely got a mule beat.”

He remained buried in deep thought for some moments while the girl
watched him, wondering anxiously at his interpretation of Usak’s
attitude. She was filled with an unease she could not shake off.

Quite suddenly Bill’s manner underwent a change. He laughed quietly, and
his gaze, which had passed to the dark river came again to the troubled
face beside him.

“Just don’t worry a thing, Kid,” he said, with an assumption of
lightness which drew a responsive sigh of relief. “It don’t matter.
Ther’s the boys around, and Mike, and my bunch. Usak’s full of his own
notions, an’ it’s best not to drive him too hard. If he guesses to make
a trip, just let him beat it. No. Don’t you worry a thing.”

“No.”

The Kid sighed again. And the man understood that the comfort he had
desired for her had been achieved.

Again came his quiet laugh.

“Anyway we can’t worry with Usak—to-night.”

The girl shook her head. In a moment she had forgotten the Indian and
remembered only the thing about to happen. It was their farewell that
had yet to be spoken, and this man would be speeding up the darkened
river to his camp, and it would be months—long, dreary months before she
would witness again those calm smiling grey eyes, and hear again the
voice that somehow made the heaviest burdens of her life on the river
something that was a joy to contemplate. The desolation of his going
appalled her now that the moment of parting had actually arrived.

“Gee! It’s going to be a long night to—Spring.”

Bill spoke with a surge of feeling he could no longer deny.

The girl remained silent, and her blue eyes sought the dark course of
the river in self-defence.

“What’ll you be doing—all the time?”

Bill’s voice had lowered. There was a wonderful depth of tenderness in
its tone.

“Waitin’—mostly.”

It was a little wistful, a little desperate. For the first time the
girl’s voice had become unsteady.

Bill drew a deep breath.

“Waiting?”

He turned swiftly in the shadow that hid them up. His eyes were no
longer calm. They were hot with those passions which are only the deeper
and stronger for the strong man’s restraint. Suddenly he thrust a hand
into the bosom of his parka and withdrew the folded plans of Marty Le
Gros’ gold “strike.”

“Here, Kid,” he said urgently. “You best have these. They’re yours
anyway whatever happens. You never can guess in this queer old country.
Take ’em in case. I’ll sure get right back in the spring. If I don’t
you’ll just have to figger—I can’t.”

He waited for the girl to take the paper. But she only gazed round on
him with eyes that had widened in real terror.

“You mean you’ll be—dead?” There was an instant’s pause as though the
thought had paralysed her. Then a piteous cry broke from her. “Oh, no,
no, no!” she cried. “You’ll come back, Bill. You won’t let a thing kill
you. I want you, Bill. You’ll come back to me. Oh, say you will.”

It was a distracted face that was raised to his with widened eyes that
had filled with tears.

“Would it hurt if—I didn’t?”

The man had moved a step nearer.

Just for one instant the tearful eyes stared up at him. Then the
threatened storm broke. The lantern clattered to the ground and
extinguished itself, and the girl’s face was buried in her mitted hands.

The sight of her distress was unendurable. The man no longer had power
to deny himself. Impulse leapt from under all restraint. That wonderful
impulse that is the very essence of the human soul, the inspiration of
all life. He caught her up in his fur-clad arms, and held her crushed
against a heart leaping madly with the triumph of glowing manhood.

The grey daylight was still faint over the south-eastern horizon. It was
growing slowly, transforming the darkened world under a grey twilight
that was hard set to dispel the night shadows. Still it was daylight,
and just sufficient to serve as a reminder that behind the drear Arctic
winter lay the promise of ultimate golden day.

The teeming rapids lay ahead, a cauldron of furiously boiling waters,
and away beyond them the stately course of the Hekor River. To the south
lay the wide woodland bluff that had witnessed the years-old tragedy of
Marty Le Gros’ home, flinging deep shadows across the turbulent waters.
While to the north, far as the eye could see, lay the low lichen-grown
land rollers inclining gently away to the purple distance.

Bill Wilder and Chilcoot had pulled in to the northern bank. Their two
light canoes were moored just at the head of the narrow, deep, swift
channel down to the greater river, which was the only open passage
through the boiling rapids. They were made fast to an up-standing
boulder, and the men were afoot on the shore, gazing down at their
outfit, and engaged in earnest talk.

Chilcoot was listening for the moment while his thoughtful eyes searched
anywhere but in the direction of the purposeful face of his friend. And
Wilder was talking rapidly and with a decision that forbade all protest.

“Old friend, ther’s just one thing I don’t want from you now,” he said.
“That’s any sort of old kick. Maybe I’m handing you reason enough to set
you kicking like a crazy steer. But you won’t do it, boy, for the sake
of all the years we’ve ground at the queer old mill of life together.
You’re the one feller, the only feller, I look to to help me along when
I’m set neck deep in a tight hole, and if you fail me I’ll have to
squeal on the thing above all others that seems right to me. I gave a
promise, and I’ve got to make that promise good if it beats the life out
of me, and robs me of all that little gal back there means to me. I’m
going right up the big river to the Valley of the Fire Hills, while you
get right on down to Placer, and pull every darn wire in my name and
your own to fix the ‘strike’ right. Later I’m gambling to get along down
and join you, if this darn country don’t beat the life out of me. I’ve
got to go if hell freezes over. Ther’s a helpless woman, and a blinded
man right up there, and if I don’t make ’em first they’ll be murdered by
a savage who’s just stark mad to slaughter ’em. They’re the folk I got
the plans of the ‘strike’ from. And I got it on a sort of promise I’d
see no harm got around their way from the feller who hates ’em so he’d
beat his way out of the gates of hell to get after ’em.”

“Usak.”

The bright eyes of the older man searched his friend’s.

Bill nodded.

“An’ that’s why you split the outfit into two boats?”

“Sure.”

“Is he settin’ right out? You got to beat him on the river?”

There was sharp doubt in Chilcoot’s question.

Bill nodded again.

“Yes.” Then he laughed mirthlessly. “I got to beat it up that river as
if all the legions of hell were hard on my heels. Say, boy, I got to
beat the hardest trail man around the North, with a crazy eye running
over levelled sights. I’ve got to beat him and I’ve got to beat the
winter night. I just don’t know a thing how it’s to be done, but if I
don’t do it I’ll have broke my fool word—which ’ud break me.”

Chilcoot’s gaze was turned up the river in the direction of the queer
homestead whose simple dwellers had flung them their farewell as they
passed down on their journey in the darkness.

“An’ that little gal, Bill,” he said slowly. “That little gal you reckon
to take right out of here, an’ marry, an’ educate, an’ set around in a
land of sunshine to raise your dandy kids. Ain’t ther’ a promise there
that it’ll break you to fail in? Are you feelin’ like makin’ a great
give-up for lousy scum of—Euralians? Are you?”

“There’s sure a promise there, boy, I’ll make good. If I don’t it’ll
only be I’m dead.”

The old man shook his head.

“I jest don’t get the argument,” he said in his blunt fashion. “If I
didn’t know you I’d say you’re dead crazy. But you ain’t,” he went on,
with another shake of the head. “Your promise is the biggest thing in
your life, bigger than that Kid’s happiness. Maybe you just can’t help
it. Maybe none of us ken help the things we are. I ain’t goin’ to kick.
It ain’t my way with you. I’m goin’ right on down to Placer, an’ I’m
goin’ to put things through, same as if you was along. An’ I’ll wait fer
you to come along till I know you can’t get. Then I’ll get back to here,
an’ see the Kid, an’ her folks get the thing you fancy for them, an’
I’ll see ’em along their trail till they can handle their own play. That
goes, Bill. Guess it goes all the time with me.”

“I knew.”

Wilder’s real acknowledgment was in the faint smile that shone in his
eyes. There was no attempt to find words to express himself. And anyway
with Chilcoot there was no need.

Chilcoot gazed down at the swaying boats.

“Will we beat it?” he said, and turned and glanced down the swift
stream.

“We best.”

It was then the older man voiced something of the real feeling that so
deeply stirred his rough heart.

“You know, Bill, ther’s things in life make a feller wish they weren’t.
You’re bug on a promise, an’ it’s the thing that’s left you the feller
you are in other folks’ minds. I’d make any old promise, so it suited
me, to folks I ain’t worried about. An’ I wouldn’t lie awake o’ nights
breakin’ it. But I ain’t any sort o’ high notions. Japs—Euralians?” he
snorted, “Why, I’d promise ’em the earth with a dandy barbed wire fence
set all round it to get the thing I wanted from ’em. I’d—”

“Not if you’d seen a queer little woman whose worst crime was giving up
her life nursing a blinded devil of a murdering Euralian husband, and
was nigh crazy that some feller was coming along to rob her of his life.
Man, the sight made me sweat pity. If I can save that poor soul that
much, why—I want to do it.”

Bill sighed and passed a hand across his broad brow. “It’s no sort of
self-righteousness with me, boy,” he went on. “I just won’t know an easy
moment if I don’t do everything in my power to beat that crazy Indian.
Come on. We’ll get right on. We’ll clear these rapids and part the other
side.”

He moved hurriedly down to the water’s edge and began to cast the
moorings adrift. Chilcoot held the canoes ready. In a few moments both
had taken their places, and the thrusting paddles still held the little
vessels against the stream.

Bill suddenly held out a hand from which the mitt had been removed, and
Chilcoot gripped it forcefully.

“We’ll shake right here, old pard,” Bill said quietly. “When we get
below we’ll be full up keeping clear of the popple. You got everything
clear. An’ ther’s nothing on the river to beat you. I’ll be glad to have
your wish of luck.”

Their hands fell apart.

“You sure have it, Bill, all the luck that’s always yours rolled right
up into one.”

Chilcoot nodded and his eyes sparkled with real feeling. “So long,” he
cried.

“So long.”

Bill’s farewell came ringing back as his little craft shot out into the
stream under the plunging stroke of his paddle.

                              CHAPTER XIV

                           A WHITEMAN’S WORD

The grey dawn yielded to the many hues of the sunrise. For the moment a
cloudless azure dome smiled down upon a world with a soft crystal-white
carpet outspread. For days the temperature had hovered about zero, and
ice had formed upon the waterways with that fierce rapidity which the
northern man knows so well. Its frigid grip was reaching in every
direction seeking to seal the world under iron bonds.

But the Valley of the Fire Hills was dripping and steaming. Everywhere
the snow was melting, and the dark waters of the little river flowed
smoothly on still free from the smallest trace of ice. The temperature
was well above freezing, for the terrestrial furnaces of the blackened
hills were banked and glowing.

The valley was dense with a fog of steam. It was a ghostly world without
shape or form. A blind world with only the river bank to guide the
adventurer through its heart. There was no sound of life for all the
coming of the pitiful light of the briefest day. The world was still,
remote, bewildering.

Yet life was there; staunch, indomitable life. It was there with
purpose, simple, unwavering, and no qualm or doubt marred the clarity of
its resolution. A boat, a small whiteman-built canoe, was moving up the
eastern bank of the stream, feeling groping, taking every chance so that
it made its final destination.

With the first lift of the sun above the horizon a current of air
stirred the fog, and a cold breath shot through the tepid air. It came
and passed. Then it came again with added force. It was low on the
ground and the fog lifted. Swift and keen it pursued its advantage, and
the blinding mist thinned, and a dull sheen of the risen sun replaced
the cold grey. The wind increased. It bit fiercely as it swept down the
heated valley. And in a moment, it seemed, out of the bewildering fog
there appeared the graceful outline of the nosing canoe.

Bill Wilder breathed a sigh of relief. At last the scales had fallen
from before his eyes, and his way lay open to him. Instantly his paddle
dipped, and his boat shot out into midstream. It leapt forward under the
mighty thrusts of his arms, and as it raced on a fervent prayer went up
that the wind might hold and increase in strength.

The canoe lay moored at the old log landing. There had been no
hesitation. No doubt had been entertained for its security. Wilder had
left it to such chances as might befall, his only means of return to the
outer world, while he made his way over the snow-slush to the shades of
the woodlands surrounding the secret habitation that was his goal.

Half way through the woods the thing Wilder looked for came to pass.
Eyes and ears were keenly alert. He had realised that his approach would
be observed. That seeing eyes, faithful to the service of the woman’s
blinded charge, would be unfailing in their watch. The terror he had
once witnessed in them had been sufficient to warn him that her life was
comparable to that of a vigilant watchdog, everlastingly searching for
the approach of the dark, avenging figure that hypnotized her with the
horror of its return.

The diminutive figure of the Japanese woman came hurriedly to meet him
from her hiding somewhere screened amidst the dull green foliage of
these northern woods. She stood before him, her slanting black eves
widely gazing, and her thin, lined face eagerly demanding in its
expression of scarcely suppressed agitation.

Crysa began at once. She had no fear of this white-man. But she realised
that his coming had to do with her safety and the safety of her charge.
His promise had been her comfort, her most treasured memory.

“You give him the paper?” she said, as though no space of time had
elapsed since their last meeting, and the memory of every word then
spoken was as fresh in her mind as though their meeting had occurred
only the day before. “You give him this thing? And now you come that I
may know it is so? And Usak is satisfied? Oh, yes. You come to say that
thing? There is no more fear? None? I sleep, I eat, I know peace. Usak
will not come?”

Wilder gripped himself before this poor creature’s heart-breaking
appeal. He knew he must dash her last hope, and hurl her again to that
despair which had beset her so long. It was useless to attempt to soften
the facts. His resolve was clear in his mind. He shook his head.

“Nothing will satisfy him,” he said sombrely, “but the life of your man.
He’s on his way now, I guess. But I got away first. I came right along
up to get you folks away to safety. I don’t reckon to know how you’re
fixed for a quick get-away. But you both got to make it right now, or
Usak’ll be along and kill you both up. Maybe I can get you right out of
the country back to your own folk. That’s how I figger. But if I’m to do
that you need to beat it down the river with me—now. I came because of
my promise. See? I’m here with a white-man’s word to do the best I know.
You’ve got to take me to Ukisama, and both of you need to make up your
minds right away. Money don’t need to worry you. Only outfit for the
journey along down to Placer. Well?”

While he was speaking the woman’s face was a study in emotions. With his
first words the urgent hope fell from her in one tragic flash. There
were no tears. But panic closed down upon her in a staggering contrast
to her hope of the moment before. The dreadful fear she was enduring
left her lips moving. She followed the man’s words, as though she was
repeating them the more surely to impress them upon her staggered
faculties. But a measure of comfort seemed to come to her as he
propounded his purpose for their safety. And a desperate sort of calm
helped her as he made his final demand.

“You come with me,” she cried at once. “I take you to Hela. You say all
this thing. I, too, say much. Maybe he go. I not know. Come.”

And she turned, and led the way without waiting for any reply.

Wilder experienced a curious sensation of repugnance as he entered the
presence of the blinded man. He was not usually troubled by such
sensitiveness. But somehow he now realised more surely than ever contact
with something inexpressively evil. The yellow face of the man was
almost grey. But whether it was the result of any emotion of fear that
had produced the noisome hue he could not tell. The man’s eyeless
sockets seemed even more repulsive than when first he had looked upon
them. Then there were his restlessly moving hands, which, in his blind
helplessness, never for a moment seemed to remain quite still.

They were in the central hall of the house, that Eastern apartment so
full of vivid memories for the whiteman. It was unchanged from that
which he knew of it, even to the dust, and the sense of neglect and
disuse that pervaded it. Wilder remembered acutely. His eyes passed over
every familiar detail of the place and brought back to him a picture of
the happenings of that night, when, unbidden, unwelcome, he had been a
guest in the house.

The blinded man confronted him on his seat upon the cushioned divan
beside the carved screen. And he spoke at once as Bill entered and moved
over to the chair which was set before the bureau. Crysa went at once to
her husband and took her place on the seat beside him.

“You come again?” he said in his low, harsh tones.

And the challenge warned Wilder of the amazing watchfulness which fear
had inspired in these two. Crysa had said no word as she entered, yet
this sightless man knew him and understood.

“Sure.”

Wilder spoke quietly.

“I’m here to help you,” he went on. “If you reckon to save the life
remaining to you you’ll need to take my talk at its face value and make
a quick get-away right off. I’ve just handed your wife, as quick as I
could, the trouble beating up the river for you. Usak’s behind me with
his gun. He’s crazy for your blood. An’ I’m crazy he shan’t get you. I
took an almighty chance pushing up from the Caribou here because I
handed your wife a promise I’d do the best I knew to save the murder
that crazy Indian looks for. With winter closing right down no one can
figger the chances of getting through back. Still, I handed my word, and
it goes with me. The thing I can do is to get you down to Caribou if the
winter don’t queer us. I can get you right on to your own country,
which, seeing you are who and what you are, is the only thing. Maybe
I’ll be going beyond the right I have in doing this, but I’ll do it
because you’re blind and helpless, and because your wife seems to have
suffered enough for being your wife. There’s going to be no argument as
far as I’m concerned. That I’m a police officer cuts no ice. In this
thing I’m just a plain whiteman who’s given his word, and it goes. Now,
here’s the proposition so far as I’m concerned. I’m going right back to
the landing, and I’ll wait around there till, the daylight goes. If you
come along in that time with the truck you need for the journey—you
needn’t worry with the food, I’ve got all we need—you have my promise
I’ll get you safe through, if its humanly possible, to your own country.
If I fail my life will pay just as surely as yours. You got my promise,
a whiteman’s promise, and you’ve got to be satisfied with it if you
fancy making a get-away. The moment night closes in I pull out, whether
you come with with me or not. That’s all.”

The repulsion inspired by the blind man’s presence had a deeper effect
on Wilder than he knew. He had planned his method, but his planning had
not provided for the cold fashion in which he delivered his proposition.
His tone was even more frigid than he realised. He rose from his seat to
depart. And instantly the Count’s harsh voice stayed him.

“And how do I know Usak is on the river? How I know this is not a police
trap?”

Wilder searched the ghastly features. A surge of anger leapt, and his
cheeks flushed till his broad brow was suffused to the edge of his thick
fur cap.

“It don’t matter a thing to me what you know, or what you don’t know,”
he said sharply. “Usak’s on the river, making right here with his gun.
Ther’s a getaway there at the landing till the daylight goes. You can
take it or not. It’s right up to you. It’s there because murder’s going
to happen around, and it’s my notion to prevent it. You’re blind, and
your woman helpless. It don’t seem to me you matter a hoot in hell. But
I’m glad to help a woman—any woman. You’ll think it over. An’ don’t
forget there isn’t more than two hours before the daylight goes. That’s
all I’ve to say.”

He turned and passed out the way he had come, and as he went he avoided
the dark stains on the floor, those stains so grimly significant, which
even he could not bring himself to pass over.

Half an hour before the last of the daylight a canoe crept down to the
landing.

Wilder was ready to cast off. He had spent the interim in preparing room
in his vessel for the added burden of his passengers. He knew they would
come.

There had been no doubt in his mind whatsoever. And curiously enough, he
was the more sure since the man was blind. In his philosophy the more
surely the man was afflicted the more surely he would cling to life, and
dread the final slaughtering of his body by an unseen enemy. Then in
addition there was the urgent appealing of the little woman, who was
surely something more than a ministering angel to this helpless demon.

Oh, yes, he had known they would come, but he had not suspected the
manner of their coming. They came in their own canoe, the blind man
paddling in the bow, and the woman, infinite in her despairing devotion,
serving her man to the last at the steering paddle.

It was a display of devotion that thrilled the whiteman for all the
worthlessness of the object of it. And he accepted the position readily.
It might add to his care, but it would lessen his labours. Their escape
from the avenging Usak was all he desired. But he was by no means
blinded to the reason that they came in their own boat. It was the man’s
distrust. He had no desire to yield himself a possible prisoner in the
whiteman’s craft.

Wilder nodded approval as they drew alongside, and he realised the
considerable outfit, including food, that had been provided.

“You prefer it that way,” he said quietly. “That’s all right. Keep right
on my tail,” he went on, reaching up and casting his mooring adrift.
“It’s mighty dark along the river, an’ maybe we’ll be thankful it is
that way. If it beats you you can make fast to me. If you’ve sense
you’ll act that way. I got two eyes an’ I know all ther’ is to this darn
trail.”

He thrust out into the stream, and the second vessel followed him like a
ghostly shadow in the twilight.

A man sat gazing out from his rocky shelter. His dark eyes were brooding
as he contemplated the falling snow. Below him, rendered invisible by
the storm, lay the still bosom of the mountain lake with shore ice
supporting its white burden. The bulk of the water still resisted the
grip of winter, but with every passing day, every hour, the spread of
shore ice was encroaching.

The grey curtain of falling snow was impenetrable even to the accustomed
eyes of Usak. The world about him was silent, and windless, and alive
with that desolate threat which drives man to despair. He had reached
the mouth of the Valley of the Fire Hills, and, blinded by the sudden
snow-storm, had sought what shelter he could find.

His shelter was half cavern and half overhung in the towering headland
at the mouth of the valley. Yet it served. His kyak was hauled from the
icy water and lay on the foreshore. And the man sat over a smoulder of
fire made of the driftwood he had collected on his way, and the
profusion of lichen he had gathered from the snow-free shelter in which
he sat.

Usak crouched huddled and smoking, over the inadequate fire. Its warmth
was negligible, but it afforded that without which no human being in
such desolation could endure, a mental comfort and companionship. He was
content to wait. For all the winter was advancing apace, for all he knew
that soon, desperately soon, the great lake, out upon which he was
gazing, would be one broad sheet of ice many feet in thickness, and
impossible for the light craft which was his vehicle, he was content
enough. The Valley of the Fire Hills would remain unfrozen, and the
great river below him would remain open long enough for his navigation.
For the rest there was always portage. Oh, yes. Time was with him. The
real freeze-up was not yet. The snow would cease later, and meanwhile he
could contemplate the thing he had looked forward to for so many years.

So there was no impatience that the world was blinded by snowflakes half
the size of his brown palm. With the passing of the silent storm, so
still, so windless, doubtless the cold would increase, but also,
doubtless, the sky could clear, and the Arctic twilight would again
light the world with its ghostly rays.

He thrust out a moccasined foot and kicked the embers of his fire
together. He removed the pipe from his strong jaws, and held its stem to
the warmth. The saliva in it had frozen, and it had gone out.

Presently he reached down and picked up a live coal. He tossed it into
the pipe bowl and sucked heavily at the stem, belching clouds of reeking
smoke. His enjoyment was profound.

After awhile the pipe was neglected. His enjoyment of it was merged into
something more absorbing. His savage mind was lost in the thing that had
brought him to the heart of the great Alaskan hills, and he was gazing
on a vision of savage delight. As his hands gripped each other about his
knees there was movement in them, nervous, twitching movement. For, in
fancy, they were slowly crushing out the life he was determined should
know the hideous meaning of prolonged death agony.

His delight was in his darkly brooding eyes as they looked into the
flicker of the fire. His mind was teeming with the thing he would say
while that life was conscious and could know the terror and agony of
those last moments. Oh, yes. It was worth all the waiting and he was
glad, glad that now, at last, the moment of his final vengeance was
approaching. Sheer insanity was driving, but it was that calm insanity
where the border line is passed coldly and calmly with hate the
dominating influence. Suddenly he started and leant forward.

His hands parted from about his knees, and, in a moment, he was on his
feet crouching and gazing out into the impenetrable snowfall. He moved
aside from his fire and crept forward. Then he stood up tall and
straight, and his head was turned with an ear to the outer world.

A sound had reached ears trained to the pitch of any forest creature. It
had been faint, so faint, yet to Usak it was quite unmistakable. It had
come from out there on the water beyond the ground ice, and he knew that
some living thing was passing, hidden by the grey of the snowfall.

He stood for a long time listening, his dark eyes no less alert than his
ears. Then with something like reluctance he came back to the fire and
spread his hands out over it. After awhile he returned to his seat.
There was no doubt in his mind. The sound he had heard was the ruffling
of the water stirred by the dip of a paddle.

But his shoulders moved in a shrug, and he dismissed the matter. Why
not? There were folk in the Valley of the Fire Hills, other folk than
those—Yes, far up, there were many of the folk he hated but did not
fear—the Euralians.

Usak was standing on the landing almost lost in the billows of smoke
surging down upon him. They belched out of the heart of the wood which
concealed the clearing, wherein had stood the secret habitation of the
man whom he had designed should know his final vengeance.

The whole of the dripping valley seemed to be afire. Behind him the roar
and crackle of the burning forest grew louder, and the suffocating smoke
grew denser and denser while the heat was blistering.

He stepped quickly into his waiting kyak and pushed out into the stream,
vanishing in the twilight of the night. He paddled rapidly till he had
cleared the woodland belt and approached the unlovely barrens of the
Fire Hills. Then he sought the shelter of the bank and shipped his
paddle.

He knelt up in the little vessel gazing back at the ruthless work of his
hands. It was there plain enough for him to see. The billows of drifting
smoke were darkly outlined against the moonlit, star-decked heavens. And
farther inland was the glowing heart of the fire, with leaping splashes
of flame lightening up the world around it, hungrily devouring the
splendid dwelling that had once been the home of his most hated enemy.

But there was none of the joy in his mood that might have been looked
for. No. A light of fury was burning in his merciless eyes. He had been
thwarted in his long contemplated vengeance, and he had been driven to
the impotent devastation which his savage heart had prompted. He had
reached the place only to find it utterly deserted. The house he found
devoid of all life, and his search had only yielded him further
confirmation that his intended victims had escaped him. So, in his
insane savagery, he had done the thing that alone would satisfy. He had
fired the house, and seen to it that even the woods about it should not
escape destruction.

He remained for awhile contemplating the mischief of his handiwork and
drawing such comfort from it as his mood would allow. Then, at last,
feasted, satiated, he dipped his paddle again into the sluggish waters.

He knew. He understood. The chance had been his far back there at the
mouth of the creek. He had heard the sound of a paddle, and should have
guessed. But his wits had failed him, and the snow had blinded him. But
even now he did not wholly despair. There was the winter. The man was
blind. And the woman—Psha! He drove his paddle with all the fury of his
desire.

                               CHAPTER XV

                           THE IRONY OF FATE

The race against the season was being won. The race against that other—?

Yes, Bill Wilder was well enough satisfied. Not a day, not an hour had
been lost in his rush to the hills. He had spared no effort. And on the
return he had driven hard with the full weight of the stream speeding
him. There had been the one heavy snowstorm as he had passed out of the
mouth of the Valley of the Fire Hills. For a few hours it had blinded
him and forced him to shelter. For the rest the luck of the weather had
been with him, with only the increasing cold and the twenty hour nights
with which to do battle.

He was feeling good as he came to the familiar landing above the Grand
Falls, and prepared for his portage down to the canyon of the rapids.

It was all curious in its way, and there were moments on the journey
when he found himself half whimsically wondering at the thing he was
doing. For the man he was endeavouring to save from the hands of Usak he
had only utter loathing and detestation. There was no pity in him, not a
moment’s thought of it. For the little distracted woman it was
different. He knew he was risking everything in life out of pity for
this poor creature, who was nothing in the world to him except that she
was a woman, and not even white at that. He realised his utter folly. He
even reminded himself that the thing he was doing was not only unfair to
himself, but to those others who looked to him for succour, that other
whose life had become focussed in him.

He knew that an encounter with Usak would mean a battle to the death of
one or perhaps all of them. He knew that, embarrassed by these helpless
creatures, a sudden final onslaught of the Arctic winter night might
well mean the end of all things. But he had not hesitated. No. He had
calculated closely. His knowledge of the northern world had told him
that there was time—even time to spare. The daylight had not yet passed,
and, unless the season was one of unusual severity, the dreaded
freeze-up was not due for several weeks more. No. The cold was steadily
increasing. There would be more snow yet. But there would be relapses of
temperature, and the final sealing of the great river was still a long
way off. So he had refused to be turned aside from his purpose.

He had laboured on with a mind steadily poised and with nerves in
perfect tune. His greatest apprehension was the possible encountering of
the Indian, Usak. And even on this his resolve was clear and as
merciless as anything the savage, himself, might have contemplated. He
was armed and ready, and no interference would be tolerated even if his
necessity drove him to slaughter.

The daylight had been spent in disgorging the two canoes of their
freight. He and the little Japanese woman had spent the time preparing
his packs. They were not vast, but the whole portage would mean three
laborious trips over the rough territory of the great gorge down to the
landing below.

The first trip was to be his own canoe. The second was to be the camp
outfit of his passengers. The blind-man and the woman would accompany
him on that trip and help with the packs. Then, with these folk safely
encamped below the gorge, he would return alone to bring down their
canoe.

Yes. It was all clearly planned with a view to the simplest and best
advantage, and the preliminary work had gone on rapidly under his
energetic guidance. There was not one moment’s unnecessary delay, for he
understood, only too well, the value of every precious hour he could
steal on his human and elemental adversaries.

The last pack had been made up of the things that could be dispensed
with. His canoe was hauled up empty, ready to be shouldered. And now,
with the last flash of daylight shining in the south-west, he stood low
down on the foreshore gazing out over the water in the direction of the
misty falls. Mid-day was only two hours gone and the daylight was
already collapsing with the falling sun.

The peace of this far-off world was a little awesome, the silence was
something threatening. The dull roar of the Grand Falls alone robbed it
of utter, complete soundlessness. The snow was a soft virgin carpet in
every direction. The hardy, dark woods were weighted down with its
burden. For all there was shore ice against the river bank the whole
breadth of the waters of the river were silently, heavily flowing on to
the tremendous precipitation far beyond. But it was not of these things
that Wilder was thinking. In the emergency besetting he was concerned
only for the signs which, out of his experience, he was striving to
interpret.

They were very definite. The sun had fallen below the horizon,
accompanied by two pale sundogs that strove but failed to display an
angry glare. The horizon was clear of all cloud, a vault of wonderful
colour. Such breath of wind as was stirring was coming up out of the
south-east. It was good. It was all good. The sundogs suggested
possible, ultimate change, but not yet. The breeze was almost mild. But
above all there was not a single cloud to shut out the light of the moon
that would presently rise, and the brilliant starlight, and the
beneficent northern lights. No. It would be a perfect night.

He turned back to the couple hugging the tiny fire they had ventured to
light in the shelter of an attenuated bluff of woods.

“Just get this clear,” he said thrusting his hands out to the warmth.
“I’m setting out right away. It’ll take me six hours to make back here.
Six hours good. I’d have been glad to cache your boat back there in the
woods, an’ hide up our tracks right. But the snow on the ground beats us
on that play. Any pair of eyes happening along could follow us anywhere.
No. If Usak’s around I give him credit for being able to read our tracks
anyway, and with the snow, why they’re just shriekin’ at him. We got to
take a big chance. But ther’s one play we can make.”

He paused and rubbed his hands thoughtfully while the eyeless man gazed
unerringly up into his face, and the woman beside him waited a prey to
apprehension.

“You best beat it back into these woods,” he went on quickly. “Leave
that fire—burning. Leave it so it looks like dying out. As if we were
all out on portage. See? And you two make the woods, dodging the snow
patches, an’ walking on the bare ground. Take your sleeping kit, and get
what sleep you can—without a fire. That’s all. I’ll get right back just
as quick as I know. Once we’re on the river below these Falls, why I
guess Usak hasn’t a chance. But I got to leave you one end or the other
while I make this first portage, an’ it seems horse sense leaving you
above the Falls. We haven’t seen a sign of that murdering Indian above
here the whole way.”

The blindman nodded.

“That’s sense,” he said in his harsh way.

The woman silently acquiesced. It was sufficient that the man had
agreed. But her troubled eyes told of the haunting dread that obsessed
her.

Wilder turned away and moved over to his canoe lying ready. He stooped
down, and when he stood up again the little vessel was exactly poised
upon his broad back.

The hush of the woods was profound. The dark aisles of the trees were
visible in the moonlight, for the foliage above was thin, and meagre,
and tattered under the fierce storms which roared down out of the heart
of the hills. The promise of sun-down had been fulfilled. A full moon
shone down upon a chill, silvery world, and the starlight was of that
amazing brilliance which is the great redeeming of the Arctic night.
There was no wind, not a breath. It was cold, intensely cold, and the
northern heavens were lit by an amazing wealth of vivid, moving lights.

The blindman and his woman made no pretence of the sleep that Wilder had
suggested. Sleep was impossible to them. They crouched together in their
sleeping furs, striving for any measure of warmth for their chilled
bodies. But they had otherwise obeyed. For the thing suggested had
appealed. They were deep hidden amidst the tree trunks, waiting, waiting
for that return which alone could yield them any sense of security.

They talked together spasmodically, and in low, hushed tones.

For the most part they talked in their own native tongue, but sometimes
they used the language of the country of their adoption.

The blindman’s hearing was doubly acute for his affliction. And he
crouched straining for any sound to warn them of lurking danger. But the
hours passed, and only the droning roar of the distant Falls broke the
soundlessness of the night.

Crysa could contain her fears no longer. A sigh escaped her and she
stirred restlessly.

“He will come?” she said, and her tone was full of besetting doubt.

The man’s reply was slow in coming. It almost seemed as though the
straining effort of listening completely pre-occupied him.

He nodded at last.

“He will come,” he rasped. Then he added, “He is a fool whiteman.”

The woman’s quick eyes lit as they glanced round on her husband.

“He is good,” she said.

“Good?”

The scorn in the yellow man’s tone was something bitter beyond words.

Nothing more was said, and the man returned to his listening.

A long low kyak glided up to the landing. It came without sound, for the
stream was swift, and the shore ice had been broken up by those who had
come before. The trailing paddle was lifted quickly from the water and
the vessel’s occupant reached out and caught the side of the boat lying
moored against the bank. Skilfully he guided the nose of his craft in
between the moored vessel and the bank, and the whole thing was
completed in absolute soundlessness.

With his vessel lying stationary he remained for a moment unmoving. His
great body towered as he knelt up against his paddling strut. He was
surveying the moored boat with eager, dark eyes and an acutely reading
mind. Presently he turned from the contemplation of the thing that had
set a wild fierce hope stirring in his savage heart. His gaze was flung
upon the landing itself, and upon the surrounding slope of the river
bank, and the adjacent bluff of woods. The brilliant night revealed all
he sought with a clearness which left him without a shadow of doubt.
Finally he discovered beyond, just within the shelter of the woods, the
last dying smoulder of the camp fire. He reached towards the nose of his
kyak, and seized the long rifle lying there. Then he stepped ashore.

The dark figure moved swiftly up the shore. It reached the edge of the
woods and stood for a moment gazing down on the dying camp fire. The
dark eyes had suddenly become fiercely urgent as he searched every sign
that was there for his interpretation.

After a few moments the man moved about in the neighbourhood of the
fire. His moccasined feet gave out no sound. He was searching diligently
in the trodden snow. At last he came again to a halt. He threw up his
head and stared about him. It was the attitude of a creature of the
forest scenting its prey, and in his eyes was a look of fierce exulting
as he gazed into the dark shelter of the woods. Then his whole attitude
underwent a change. He seemed to crouch down. His long rifle was borne
at the trail in his hand, and he moved forward stealthily, and became
swallowed up by the shadowed depths.

The hush of the night left the falling of a pine cone a sound that was
almost startling. The droning roar of the distant Falls was only part of
the awesome quiet. The windlessness was a threat of greater and greater
depths of cold, while the brilliant moon and cloudless sky only helped
to impress more deeply the intense frigidity of the coming season. It
was all perfect, in its exquisite peace, a vision of superlative
splendour in the amazing twilight. It suggested a sublime creation
unspoiled, unsullied by any inharmonious blemish, a broad indefinite
sketch set out by the mighty brush and divine inspiration of a God-like
artist who only requires to inset the subtle, finishing details. Such
was the seeming of the moment.

A cry. A series of raucous human cries. They came from somewhere within
the forest belt. They came full of terror, and maybe pain. They came
full of ferocious unyielding and savage passion. They came again and
again, with the shrill of a woman’s voice mingling. Then the last sound
died out, swallowed up by the immense silence.

So the grandeur of the night scene, the sublimity of Nature’s profound
calm, lost for a few brief moments by the invasion of an expression of
surging human passions, returned again, all undefeated, to the rugged
heart of the northern wilderness.

The moon was still high in the starlit heavens, shedding its cold
benignity upon the flowing waters. The belt of the northern lights had
extended. Their ghostly sheen had deepened, and the vivid arc of a
burnished aurora had joined their legions. The world was lit anew. The
twilight had glorified; the night was transformed. No longer was the
moon the dominant light giver. The jewel-like sparkle of the stars had
dimmed in contrast. For the aurora, the glory of the Arctic night, had
ascended its triumphant throne.

The whiteman swung along, approaching the camping ground above the
Falls, filled with satisfaction and hope at the beneficent change. For
practical purposes the night light was all-sufficient. In fancy he saw
the completion of his labours in far less time than he had anticipated,
and something like ultimate security for those he sought to succour.

The further portage would be easy now. The first trip was over. Now
there was the bearing of the packs in which he would have the assistance
of those others. Then the last—the portage of their—

He had reached the low shore clearing of the landing. A great flood of
silvery light illuminated the whole breadth of the river. There it lay a
wide, swift tide, with the great hills far across its bosom rising a
jagged snowcapped line, gleaming like burnished silver under the amazing
heavenly lights.

But the scene as Nature had painted it made not an instant’s claim upon
him. How should it? He had come to a sudden halt, his gaze riveted upon
a vision that made him draw his breath sharply, and set his heart
leaping. He became rooted to the spot. Two boats were out there on the
broad bosom of the river. Two of them. And both were moving on down the
stream towards—

A shout broke from him. It came with all the power of his well-nigh
bursting lungs. It was the natural impulse which his surge of feeling
inspired. He shouted again and again. Then of a sudden he charged down
to the water’s edge, and stood staring helplessly, silently, a prey to
unspeakable horror.

Two boats! The leading vessel was a long low kyak. There was no
mistaking its build. Just as there was no mistaking, to his mind, the
burly figure propelling it. The second boat he recognised on the
instant. It was the canoe he had expected to portage on his third trip.
In it were two figures sitting up. They were motionless. They were
paddleless. They were sitting, inert, like bundles set there, and quite
incapable of any movement, incapable of any resistance. And between the
two boats stretched a taut line.

It needed no second thought for Wilder to realise the thing that was
being enacted. The inhuman vengeance of the crazy Indian had descended
upon those benighted helpless folk and no power on earth could save
them.

Usak’s purpose was as clear as the brilliant light of the night. The
ruthless savage was towing them out into mid-stream. Presently he would,
doubtless, release their vessel when it had reached the limit of safety
for himself. Then he would leave them to the hideous destruction
awaiting them at the great waterfall flinging back its thunderous roar
out of the heart of the mists enshrouding it.

There was no succour that he could offer. He was without any means of
reaching them with his own canoe already below the Falls. And his
automatic pistol was useless. No. He could only stand there helplessly
watching the terrible tragedy of it all.

Now he knew the thing that must have happened. He vividly pictured the
coming of Usak, whom they must have passed higher up the river on their
way down. The stillness of the figures in the boat was terribly
significant.

The man must have come upon them in their hiding, perhaps asleep. He
must have overpowered them. Probably he had bound them hand and foot
when he set them in the boat, so that the blindman, no less than the
other, should contemplate, even if it was only through his hearing, the
dreadful death he was preparing for them.

He caught his breath. Then in a moment he hurled the full force of his
impotent loathing in a furious shout across the water.

“You swine! God Almighty!”

The exclamation came as he saw the man cease paddling and reach out to
the rope behind him. In a moment it was severed, and the trailing boat
began instantly to turn broadside on to the current.

The watching man gave a gasp. Then the broadside boat was forgotten, and
his whole attention was given to the other, the boat containing the
demented creature perpetrating his long-pondered crime.

Usak’s paddle was beating the water furiously. He was striving with all
his enormous strength and skill to swing his light vessel out of the
stream. He was labouring in a fashion that instantly warned the
on-looker of the peril besetting him. And the sight of the struggle
thrilled him with an excitement which had no relation to any desire for
the man’s escape.

Usak was a superb river man. Perhaps he had no equal upon the northern
waters. But he was an Indian with the lust to kill, and without the
sober judgment of the whiteman watching him from the shore. Wilder
understood. It was there for him to see. The Indian had gone too far in
his desire. He had passed the limits of safety before he severed the
rope to hurl his victims to the fate he had designed for them. He was
caught in the same overwhelming rush of silent water. His paddle was no
better than a toy thing to stay the rush. His kyak was caught and flung
broadside. And abreast of the other it was drifting, drifting down upon
the roaring cataract ahead.

Wilder drew a deep breath.

Usak had ceased paddling. There was a moment in which he remained
utterly unmoving like those others. To the on-looker it seemed that he
was contemplating the full horror in which his mistake had involved him.
Then, of a sudden, he saw the dark figure rear itself up in the boat,
which, even at that distance, seemed to rock perilously. The man stood
erect. Then an arm was raised and the paddle was flung into the racing
waters. After that it seemed that the doomed creature’s arms were folded
across his broad bosom, and, like a statue, unmoved by any emotion of
fear, he stood boldly contemplating the terrible doom towards which he
and his victims were inevitably being borne.

Wilder turned away. It was all too painful. It was all too horrible in
its human wantonness. He passed up the shore and sat down, pondering the
irony of the fate that had descended upon the demented man out there on
the water.

And after awhile, when the cold of the night drove him, and he bestirred
himself, and again moved down to the water’s edge, it was to witness the
placid unruffled bosom of the great river flowing heavily on as it had
done throughout the ages. The trifling human tragedy it had witnessed
was far too infinitely small to leave its impress upon a scene so
tremendous in its expression of overwhelming Nature.

                              CHAPTER XVI

                       THE END OF THE LONG TRAIL

The transformation was complete. It was beyond anything that had been
dreamed of by those who had foreseen the thing that would happen. It had
come with that startling rapidity which the lure and magic of gold never
fails to bring about.

Just before the break of spring saw the return to the Caribou of
Chilcoot and Bill Wilder. But their return was very different from their
adventurous going, when it had been a desperate race against the season.
They came while the grip of the Arctic night was still fast upon the
great waterways, and before the sun had lifted its shining face above
the horizon. They came with a great equipment of men and material on
heavily laden dog-sleds. They came with all speed that not a moment of
the coming daylight might be lost, and to head off the rush of the human
tide that was already strung out behind them for the new adventure.

Bill Wilder had not permitted the grievous tragedy he had witnessed on
the upper waters of the Hekor to deflect his purpose one iota. The shock
of the thing he had witnessed had been painful beyond words. For the
blind leader of the Euralian marauders he had had not one grain of pity.
For the great Indian, who had given his life to the loyal service of the
girl he loved, there had been a regret that was not untinged with a
sensation of relief. He felt somehow that the thing was right; he felt
that had the demented creature achieved his purpose and himself escaped,
the position would have been fraught with serious complications, not to
say dangers. Usak would have expected to return to his service of Felice
as though nothing had happened. He would have demanded the thing he
looked upon as his right. And to hold his place at her side he would
have been prepared to use any and all the methods his savage mind
prompted.

Wilder’s duty would have been obvious. The man had committed his wanton
crime. He was a serious danger to them all. Even, he felt, to the girl
herself. There would have been nothing for him to do but hand the story
of the crime to his friend, George Raymes. That would have deeply
involved him. The Kid would have been hurt, hurt as he had no desire to
hurt her, with the knowledge of the hideous crime, and that the full
penalty of whiteman’s law had fallen upon the man who had been a second
father and devoted servant to her. As it was she need never know the
thing that had happened. No one need ever know the thing that had
happened, except Raymes, and perhaps Chilcoot, who would, he knew,
remain as silent as the grave.

He had felt it was all for the best. And somehow, in those moments in
which he had witnessed the calm courage with which the Indian had faced
his terrible end a feeling of intense admiration and sympathy went out
to the savage whose conception of manhood was so curious a blending of
downright honesty and loyalty, of hate to the limit of fiendish cruelty,
and of an invincible courage in face of personal disaster.

But for the little Japanese woman his feelings were stirred to the
deepest. When he thought of her, body and soul he hated the ruthless
Indian with all the passionate manhood in him. And the more deeply he
pondered her tragic end, the more surely he cried out against the
seeming injustice that Fate could have allowed it to come to pass.

He had sat for hours over the flickering camp fire before he
contemplated continuing his labours. But in the end the shock of the
horror passed, and the urgency of the moment bestirred him. There was
nothing to be done but to continue his journey. There was no need even
to obliterate such traces of the camp as might remain. It was the way of
Nature in these far-flung regions to hide up man’s track almost in the
moment of his passing.

So he had made his way down to Placer, not even pausing at the rapids at
the mouth of the Caribou, so vivid with happy memories for him. It was a
journey of weeks that taxed every ounce of the manhood in him. For the
night of winter had fallen, and the storming world about him was often
doubly blinded. But he reached his destination at last, and reached it
with the last of the open water.

It was his return to Placer that set the whole city agog. It was known
he had been about in the north for two open seasons. And the conclusions
drawn were natural enough in a gold community watching the movements of
the man who was the leading figure in the traffic upon which it was
engaged.

He denied every inquiry by which he was assailed. He denied even his
friend, and, for the time being, chief, George Raymes. He visited him at
once. And with his first greeting explained in a fashion he had long
since prepared.

“I’m right glad to see you again, George,” he declared, as they gripped
hands. “Ther’ve been times when I didn’t guess it would happen ever. But
I’ve so far beat the game, and I’m glad. Now, see, right here,” he went
on, smiling whimsically into the other’s questioning eyes, “I haven’t
any report to hand you yet. And I’ll take it more than friendly you
don’t ask me a thing. I’m setting right out with one big outfit, and if
the game goes my way I’ll be right back when the earth’s dry, and the
skitters are humming. And when that time comes I’ll hand you a story
that ought to set you sky high with the folks who run your end of the
game. Do you feel like acting that way?”

The policeman was content. He knew Wilder too well to press him.
Besides, Chilcoot had been in the city weeks. Chilcoot had been in close
contact with the Gold Commissioner. Furthermore, Chilcoot had been
preparing the return outfit, collecting men and material for a swift
rush, and had talked with him in his office. So he readily acquiesced,
and left these “special” constables to work out their plans in the way
they saw fit.

But the whisper had gone round. Bill Wilder and Chilcoot Massy were
preparing a great outfit for the trail. Bill Wilder and Chilcoot Massy
were buying largely. And their purchases were of all that material
required in the exploitation of a big “strike.” Then word had leaked out
through the Gold Commissioner’s office, as, somehow, it always contrived
to do when something of real magnitude was afoot. So the “sharps,” and
the “wise-guys,” and the traders, and all the riff-raff, ready to jump
in on anything offering a promise of easy gain, bestirred themselves out
of their winter’s pursuit of pleasure. Not one, but a hundred outfits
were quietly being prepared with the deliberate intention of dogging
these great captains of the gold trade to their destination. Chilcoot
and Wilder were preparing for the winter trail. And as a result every
dog and sled within the city was brought into commission.

Then had come the setting out. It was arranged with the utmost secrecy.
The preparations of these men had been made beyond the straggling town’s
limits, so that the get-away could be as sudden as they chose to make
it. Every man engaged to accompany them was under bond to report each
day at the camp at a given hour, and this had gone on since the moment
of their engagement. It was on this rule Wilder depended for his
get-away from those who were determined to follow.

For days and weeks the outfit stood ready. Each day the dogs were
harnessed, and every man was in his place. Then the word was passed to
unhitch, and the men were permitted to return to the city.

The intending pursuit knew the game from A to Z. It was not new. It had
been practised a hundred times. It was no less ready. It was no less on
the watch. When the start was actually made word would reach them within
two hours and the whole wolf pack would jump.

So it happened. One day the men did not return to the city. But word
came back, and the rush began. Out into the twilight of the Arctic night
leapt the army of trail dogs and their teamsters. Hundreds of sleds
hissed their way over the snow-bed on the great river. Hundreds of
voices shouted the jargon of the trail at their eager beasts of burden,
and the fierce whips flung out. Many were rushing on disaster in the
blind northern night. Many would never reach the hoped-for goal to grab
the alluring wealth from the bosom of mother earth. But that was always
the way of it. Whatever the threat, whatever the dread, whatever the
possibility of disaster, the lust of gold in the hearts of these people
remained triumphant.

But the thing worked out for Wilder as he designed. The old tried
artifice gave him the start he needed. Three hours was all he required.
For the rest these hardy adventurers behind him would never see the snow
dust from his sled runners. He was equipped for a speed such as none of
them could compete with, and if the weather became bad he calculated to
lose the pursuit utterly.

It was a storming journey. The North he loved and courted did her best
for him in return. Snow-storm and blizzard came to his aid, and, after
weeks of terrible hardship, he reached the Caribou with his track lost
beneath feet of drift snow.

He had gained all the time he needed. And so when the spring sun rose
above the horizon, and the world of ice began its thunderous peals of
disintegration, and the hordes of Placer swarmed on the banks of the
Caribou he had established his outfit upon the staked claims ready to
hurl at the work before him, and defend his property from all lawless
aggression.

With the return of daylight it was a bewildering scene on the river.
From its mouth right up to the gold-working on the creek, which had lain
so long hidden, the tide of adventurers was swarming. And almost with
every passing hour the flood seemed to grow. The low banks were dotted
with tents and habitations of almost every sort of primitive
construction. And men and women, and even children, were like human
flies where for ages the silence of the North had remained all unbroken.

As the season advanced and the fever of work developed to its height,
the reality of the thing became evident. Gold? Why the original strike
was little more than the fringe of the thing awaiting those whose
hardihood had been sufficient for them to survive the winter journey.
The creek, as Chilcoot had suggested, was laden with its immense
treasure, and rich claims were staked for ten miles up its narrow
course. “The Luck of the Kid,” as Wilder had christened it, was a
veritable Eldorado.

The homestead lying back in its shelter of windswept bluff had no place
in the bustle and traffic on the river. It was a home of even deeper
calm now than was its wont when the northern world aroused itself at the
dawn of the open season. Usually at such a time the caribou herd was
brought in, and the work its advent entailed never failed to absorb the
rising spirits of those young lives, ready like the simple wild flowers
of spring, to hurl themselves into their annual labours after the long
night of winter’s inactivity. Usually at such a time it was the hub of
life upon the river, literally teeming in contrast with the stillness of
the cheerless valley. But now the herd remained at large free to drift
back to its original wild state. The corrals were empty and unrepaired,
for there was no Usak to guide the efforts of the half-breed Eskimo, and
no half-breed Eskimo to need such guidance.

The farm had died in the winter night. And curiously enough there were
no mourners. All that remained was the homestead itself, with Hesther
McLeod and the girl children, and the Kid, to enjoy its sturdy shelter.
The half-breeds had joined in the rush for gold. And Clarence, and Alg,
and Perse were out there, away up the river “batching it” on their
claims, absorbed in the exhilarating pursuit of extracting the wealth
which had been literally flung into their hands. Then Usak had failed to
return from his “one big trip.”

Hesther and the Kid were at the kitchen door, and with them was the
author of the amazing transformation.

It was a day of brilliant sunshine with a spring sky of white, frothing,
windswept cloud that broke, and gathered, and swept on, yielding a
vision of brilliant blue sky at every break. Already the flies were
making their presence felt, and the river was a rushing torrent, wide,
and deep, and brown with the sweepings of its completely submerged
banks.

They were gazing out upon the distant panorama of the busy river. They
were watching the general movement going on. There were men moving up,
packing their goods afoot since the river was for the moment
un-navigable for the light craft, which, as yet, were alone available.
There were traders building shanties for the housing of their wares.
There were tents which sheltered those who were relying on the gambler’s
desire for their share in the feast. There were other habitations which
housed, the even more disreputable creatures, who, like vultures, hover
always in the distance waiting to glut themselves upon the spoils of the
wayside. Then, much more in their appeal to the gentle mind of Hesther,
there were the figures of women, staunch, devoted women carrying on
their simple domestic labours while their men were absent farther up the
river seeking the treasure which their dazzled eyes yearned to gaze
upon.

For all they were gazing upon the scene Hesther and the Kid were far
more deeply interested in Bill Wilder and the thing he was saying. The
eyes of the girl were shining with unfeigned happiness and delight. The
long winter of his absence had been ended weeks ago, and his early
return had transformed her whole outlook. From the moment of his coming
there had been no more darkness for her, no more anxious waiting. For
had not almost his first words been to tell her that his work, that work
which had taken him from her side, was finished; completely,
successfully finished. The excitement of the gold rush, the excitement
of the boys had left her undisturbed. But the happy excitement of this
man’s return had thrilled her in a fashion that left her without thought
or care for anything else. And now he was detailing those plans which
envisaged for her simple mind all that was beautiful and desirable in
life.

“You see,” he said, “ther’s not a thing here now to keep us. It’s just
the other way around. All this.” He indicated the life on the river. “We
best get out before—before it gets worse, as it surely will.”

He turned directly to Hesther.

“My organization’s right up there on the claims, under the control of
Chilcoot, and they’re working your stuff same as if it was for me. And
the result of it’ll come along through my office, just the same as if it
was mine. I’m not needed around up there. Maybe I best tell you I’m so
full of gold I don’t care ever to see fresh colour. I want to quit it
all, and take you folks along with me. The boys can stop around and
Chilcoot’ll see to ’em. And we’ll just get along down and fix things the
way we want ’em. Ther’s a swell house waiting in Placer for you, mam.
It’s all fixed good. It’s your home, for you an’ yours just as soon as
you feel like taking possession, and maybe the Kid here’ll feel like
stopping along with you till—till—Say,” he turned to the smiling girl,
“we won’t let a thing keep us waiting, eh? We’ll get married right away
in Placer, just as quick as things can be fixed right. Then your Mum,
here, can choose just where she feels like living. That so?”

There was no need for verbal response. It was there in the girl’s eyes,
which smiled happily up into his as she slipped her brown hand through
his arm.

“That’s the way I’d like to fix things,” he went on, taking possession
of the girl’s hand. “Does it suit you, mam?” he said, turning again to
Hesther. “Just say right here. Ther’s a bank roll waiting on you down
there, in the way of an advance on the stuff that’s coming to you out of
your claim. And I’ll be around all the time to see you ain’t worried a
thing.”

The gentle-eyed mother opened her lips to speak. But words seemed
difficult under his steady gaze. Wilder glanced quickly away, and the
woman’s emotion passed.

“I just don’t know how to say the thing I feel, Bill,” she said softly.
“The thing you’ve been to me an’ mine. God’ll surely bless you,
an’—an’—”

Bill laughed. He felt his laugh was needed.

“Not a word that way. Say, you been mother to my little Kid. It goes?”

“Sure. The thing you say goes with me—all the time.” Hesther glanced
hastily back into the kitchen. She was seeking excuse and found it in
her simple labours.

“I guess that stew’ll be boilin’,” she said. “I’ll go fix it.”

And Billy’s happy smile followed her into the room, while he caressed
the hand he was holding.

Bill and the Kid had passed on down to the landing so pregnant with
memories for them both.

It was the girl who was talking now while the man stared out down the
busy river.

“You know, Bill. I just don’t sort of understand the way this—this gold
makes folks act. It sort of seems to set them kind of crazy. The boys
are the same. I used to feel it would be fine to have dollars an’
dollars. I used to think of all the swell food and clothes I’d buy for
the boys, an’ Hesther, an’ the girls. That was all right. But I didn’t
get crazy for gold like these folk. You say ther’s a heap of gold in my
claim. I—I don’t seem to feel I want a thing of it. True I don’t.” She
laughed. “Maybe you’ll guess I’m more crazy than they are. Do you?”

Bill shook his head.

“No, Kid. I don’t,” he said gently. “I’m glad. Later, maybe, when we’re
married, and you’ve got around, and learned about things, and seen the
things you can have with gold you’ll feel different. But I’m glad it
don’t get you that way now. I tell you ther’s a big heap more to life
than this gold. But ther’s a heap of good things you can do with gold.
You feel you want to make other folks happy and comfortable? Well,
gold’ll help you that way. I bin all my life collecting a bunch of this
dam old stuff, and I’d learned to hate it good. Well, it’s not that way
now. Say, I just lie awake at nights thinkin’ the things I can do for
you, and the folks belonging to you. And I got to like the darn stuff
again. And I’m just as crazy glad as all those other poor folk I got
it.” He smiled whimsically down into the girl’s eyes. “The outfit’s
ready, Kid. I’ve had it ready days,” he went on. “Ther’s two big canoes,
and they’ll hold your Mum, and the gals, and you and me and the
half-breeds to paddle. When do you say, little girl? It’s right up to
you.”

He waited anxiously for the girl’s reply. Watching her he saw the happy
smile fade abruptly out of her eyes, and he knew the bad moment he had
foreseen had arrived.

“Usak hasn’t got back,” she said quickly.

“No.”

Suddenly the girl withdrew her hand from the rough cloth arm of the
man’s pea-jacket.

“You know I just can’t understand the thing that’s happened. He’s been
gone six months. He went, as I told you, right after you, and we haven’t
heard a thing. You know, Bill, it kind of seems to me he’s—dead. I sort
of feel it right here,” she went on, pressing her hands to her bosom.
“An’—an’ I feel—Oh, he was an Indian I know, but he was the feller who
raised me like a father an’ mother. An’ I sort of loved him for it,
an’—an’—I just can’t bear to quit till—till— Don’t you understand? I
sort of feel I must wait for him. It would break him all up if I quit
him. And I—I don’t want to quit him. Indeed I don’t.”

For some moments Bill made no attempt to reply. He remained staring out
at the surging river as it roared on down under the freshet. He did not
even attempt to comfort the girl in her obvious distress.

It was difficult. But Bill was steadily resolved not to tell the real
truth as he knew it. It would break her heart to know Usak to be the
fierce fiend he was. No. If necessary he would lie in preference.

He shook his head at last.

“He won’t come back,” he said decidedly. “Get a grip on the position. He
went on a winter trip. He set out in his kyak, you told me. He went with
a light outfit and his rifle. Why, his kyak couldn’t carry two months’
grub, an’ he’s been away six. Let’s guess a bit. We know this old North.
The winter trail. We know these rivers with the ice crowding down on
’em. We know you’ve only to beat the winter trail long enough to get
your med’cine. The North gets us all beaten in the end if we don’t quit
in time. The one way trail’s claimed Usak, little girl, if I’m a judge.
No. Don’t wait on his return. If he gets back Chilcoot’ll send him right
along on to us. If he’s alive I mean to have him with us. I squared
things with him before he went so he’ll be glad to be with us both.
Let’s leave it that way. Eh?”

The girl’s hand had stolen back to its place on the man’s arm, and he
took possession of it again. To her he was irresistible, and then there
was that wonderful, wonderful time coming.

She nodded her fair head, and the smile dawned once more in her eyes.

“I guess it’s best—but—”

“That’s right.”

The man drew a deep breath of relief. He had been saved a deliberate
lie. And his eyes smiled.

“To-morrow?” he said quickly.

But the girl was no less quick in her denial.

“Mum couldn’t be ready. Ther’s the boys.”

Bill laughed.

“I forgot. This day week, eh?” he went on urgently. “The river’ll
slacken then. That do?”

The Kid laughed happily as he squeezed the soft hand lying so
contentedly in his.

Superintendent Raymes laid aside the folded sheets of the closely
written report which he had read several times over. For a moment he sat
gazing at it thoughtfully. Then he reached across his desk and selected
a long cigar, and passed the box to his visitor and temporary
subordinate.

“Best take one, Bill,” he said. Then he laughed quietly. “You can only
die once.”

“But I don’t want to die—now.”

Bill shook his head and pulled a pipe from the pocket of his pea-jacket.

In a moment both men were smoking. Bill gazed about him while he waited
for the other to speak. It was the same office he had always known.
Simple, plain, typical of the lives of these Mounted Policemen. Somehow
it appealed to him just now infinitely more than it had ever done
before. He remembered his mood that time when he had sat in the same
chair two years before. And somehow he wanted to laugh.

“It’s an amazing story, Bill,” Raymes said after awhile. “I guessed when
I got you interested two years back there was a deal to it. But I never
reckoned it was going to be the thing it is. Say—” His eyes lit and he
swung his chair about and faced the other while he held his cigar poised
streaming its smoke upon the somewhat dense atmosphere of the room. “By
all accounts the folk hereabouts owe you a deal for the nosing of Le
Gros’ ‘strike.’ It’s the biggest since ‘Eighty-Mile’?”

Bill shook his head.

“Nobody owes me a thing—not even thanks. We’ve helped ourselves. And
I’ve helped myself most of all.”

“But I thought you said you hadn’t a claim on it?”

“That’s so.”

“Well?”

Bill laughed outright.

“Guess you’ve forgotten the ‘girl-child, white.’” Raymes nodded. His
usually sober face was smiling in response.

“I know. You located her.”

“Sure I did.” Bill sucked happily at his old pipe. “I located her. And I
brought her and her folks right down with me to this city. I fixed ’em
all up in a swell house, and made things right for them. The Kid and I
are going to be married in two weeks from now. And I’ll take it friendly
for you to stand by me when the passon fixes things. No, I don’t guess
anyone owes me a thing. The Kid herself is my claim, an’ she’s chock
full of the only gold that sets me yearning.”

“Well, say!”

The police officer sat gazing in smiling astonishment.

“Seems queer?”

“No. I’m just glad I’ve had a hand in passing you that claim. Good luck,
Bill. I’m sure your man.”

Bill gripped the hand thrust out at him. Then the smile passed out of
both men’s faces as if by agreement. After all the policeman’s work was
his foremost concern.

“It don’t seem to me there’s a thing to do about your story of this
murdering Indian, and the folks he dragged to death with him,” he said,
in his alert official way. “In a way it’s a sort of poetic justice on
all concerned. I’ll need to pass it along with the official report, but
it’ll maybe just end right there. But these Euralians. That’s a swell
scoop for me, sure. It’s a thing for Ottawa, an’ll need to go down in
detail. Maybe you’ll be needed to hand further information. Japanese,
eh? Well, it isn’t new in this western country. It’s the same from
northern Alaska down to Panama. The darn continent’s alive with ’em,
penetrating peacefully, and robbing us white folks of our birthright.
You know, Bill ther’s a bad day coming for us whites. We sit around an’
look on, shrugging our shoulders, and eating and sleeping well. And all
the time this thing’s creeping on us, like some dam disease. The
Americans know it, and are alive to the danger. We don’t seem to worry.
At least, not officially. But I sort of see the day coming when this
thing’s got to be fought sheer out, and I’m by no means sure of the
outcome. We’re told the Yellow man in the West outnumbers the White. But
that don’t suggest a thing of the reality. When the Yellow men mean to
strike you’ll find they’ve honeycombed this country, and the States, and
it’ll be something like four to one waiting to rise at the given word.
Yes, it’s bad,” he finished up, with a grave shake of the head. “But you
certainly have given me a swell scoop that should help my boat along
with Ottawa. Guess you won’t feel like quitting our territory now, eh?”

The man’s manner had changed from gravity to something bantering as he
put his question.

“More than ever,” Bill said, with a shake of the head.

“But it’s the North’s given you all—this?”

“Yes. That’s so, George.” Bill knocked out his pipe. “But you don’t
know. Felice has been raised in the darkness of that darn region, almost
without decent human comfort. She hasn’t known a thing but buckskin and
the river trail, and the flies and skitters of a barren world for twenty
of the best years of her life. She doesn’t know a thing but an almighty
fight to make three meals of food a day, and a night passed in queer
brown blankets an’ caribou pelts. Well, it’s up to me to teach her the
thing life is and can be. I’m going to. I’m going to give her such a
time she won’t remember those days. She’s going where the sun’s warm and
life’s dead easy. And so are those belonging to her. It’s up to me, and
I’m out to do it. You haven’t seen her yet. You’d understand if you had.
She’s right outside sitting waiting for me in the buggy. Will you come
along and say a word of welcome to her?”

Bill had risen to his feet. There was just a shade of eagerness in his
invitation. It was almost as if he feared reluctance in this old friend
of his.

But there was none. Not a shadow. Raymes rose from his desk on the
instant, and his eyes were full of swift censure.

“You kept her waiting there, Bill?” he cried. “You? Say, come right on
and present me, so I can tell her the thing I think of you.”