CHAPTER IV
THE CREVASSE
For an hour before the Hannah reached Katma Miss O'Neill was busygetting her little brood ready. In that last half-day she was a creatureof moods to them. They, too, like Sheba herself, were adventuring intoa new world. Somehow they represented to her the last tie that bound herto the life she was leaving. Her heart was tender as a Madonna to theselambs so ill-fitted to face a frigid waste. Their mother had been a goodwoman. She could tell that. But she had no way of knowing what kind ofman their father might be.
Sheba gave Janet advice about where to keep her money and when to wearrubbers and what to do for Billie's cold. She put up a lunch for them totake on the stage. When they said their sniffling good-byes at Katma shewas suspiciously bright and merry. Soon the children were laughing againwith her.
One glance at their father, who introduced himself to Miss O'Neillas John Husted, relieved her mind greatly. His spontaneous delight atseeing them again and his choking gratitude to her for having lookedafter them were evidence enough that this kind-eyed man meant to be bothfather and mother to his recovered little folks. His emotion was toopoignant for him to talk about his wife, but Sheba understood and likedhim better for it.
Her temporary family stood on the end of the wharf and called good-byesto the girl.
"Tum soon and see us, Aunt Sheba," Billie shouted from his seat on theshoulder of his father.
The children waved handkerchiefs as long as she could be distinguishedby them. When they turned away she went directly to her room.
Elliot was passing forward when Miss O'Neill opened her stateroom doorto go in. The eyes of the young woman were blind with tears and she wasbiting her lip to keep back the emotion that welled up. He knew she wasvery fond of the motherless children, but he guessed at an additionalreason for her sobs. She too was as untaught as a child in the life ofthis frontier land. Whatever she found here--how much of hardship orhappiness, of grief or woe--she knew that she had left behind foreverthe safe harborage of quiet waters in which her life craft had alwaysfloated.
It came on to rain in the afternoon. Heavy clouds swept across from themountains, and the sodden sky opened like a sluice-box. The Kusiakcontingent, driven indoors, resorted to bridge. Miss O'Neill read.Gordon Elliot wrote letters, dawdled over magazines, and loungedalternately in the ladies' parlor and the smoking-room, where Macdonald,Strong, a hardware merchant from Fairbanks, and a pair of sour-doughminers had settled themselves to a poker game that was to last all nightand well into the next day.
Of the two bridge tables all the players were old-timers except Mrs.Mallory. Most of them were young enough in years, but they had been ofthe North long enough to know the gossip of the country and its smallpolitics intimately. They shared common hopes of the day when Alaskawould be thrown open to industry and a large population.
But Mrs. Mallory had come in over the ice for the first time lastwinter. The other women felt that she was a bird of passage, that thefrozen Arctic could be no more than a whim to her. They deferred alittle to her because she knew the great world--New York, Vienna,London, Paris. Great names fell from her lips casually and carelessly.She referred familiarly to princes and famous statesmen, as if she hadgossiped with them tete-a-tete over the teacups. She was full of spicylittle anecdotes about German royalty and the British aristocracy. Itwas no wonder, Gordon Elliot thought, that she had rather stunned thelittle social set of Kusiak.
Through Northrup and Trelawney a new slant on Macdonald was given toGordon. He had fallen into casual talk with them after dinner on thefore deck. It was still raining, but all three were equipped withslickers or mackintoshes. To his surprise the young man discovered thatthey bore him no grudge at all for his interference the night before.
"But we ain't through with Colby Macdonald yet," Trelawney explained."Mind, I don't say we're going to get him. Nothing like that. Heknocked me cold with that loaded suitcase of his. By the looks of himI'm even for that. Good enough. But here's the point. We stand forLabor. He stands for Capital. See? Things ain't what they used to bein Alaska, and it's because of Colby Macdonald and his friends. They'regrabbers--that's what they are. They want the whole works. A hell of aroar goes up from them when the Government stops their combines, butall the time they're bearing down a little harder on us workingmen.Understand? It's up to us to fight, ain't it?"
Later Elliot put this viewpoint before Strong.
"There's something in it," the miner agreed. "Wages have gone down, andit's partly because the big fellows are consolidating interests. Alaskaain't a poor man's country the way it was. But Mac ain't to blame forthat. He has to play the game the way the cards are dealt out."
The sky was clear again when the Hannah drew in to the wharf at MooseHead to unload freight, but the mud in the unpaved street leading to thebusiness section of the little frontier town was instep deep. Many ofthe passengers hurried ashore to make the most of the five-hour stop.Macdonald, with Mrs. Mallory and their Kusiak friends, disappeared ina bus. Elliot put on a pair of heavy boots and started uptown.
At the end of the wharf he passed Miss O'Neill. She wore no rubbers andshe had come to a halt at the beginning of the mud. After a momentaryindecision she returned slowly to the boat.
The young man walked up into the town, but ten minutes later he crossedthe gangplank of the Hannah again with a package under his arm. MissO'Neill was sitting on the forward deck making a pretense to herself ofreading. This was where Elliot had expected to find her, but now thatthe moment of attack had come he had to take his fear by the throat.When he had thought of it first there seemed nothing difficult aboutoffering to do her a kindness, yet he found himself shrinking from thechance of a rebuff.
He moved over to where she sat and lifted his hat. "I hope you won'tthink it a liberty, Miss O'Neill, but I've brought you some rubbers froma store uptown. I noticed you couldn't get ashore without them."
Gordon tore the paper wrapping from his package and disclosed half adozen pairs of rubbers.
The girl was visibly embarrassed. She was not at all certain of theright thing to do. Where she had been brought up young men did not offercourtesies of this sort so informally.
"I--I think I won't need them, thank you. I've decided not to leave theboat," she answered shyly.
Elliot had never been accused of being a quitter. Having begun this, heproposed to see it out. He caught sight of the purser superintending thedischarge of cargo and called to him by name. The officer joined them,a pad of paper and a pencil in his hand.
"I'm trying to persuade Miss O'Neill that she ought to go ashore whilewe're lying here. What was it you told me about the waterfall back ofthe town?"
"Finest thing of its kind in Alaska. They're so proud of it in this burgthat they would like to make it against the law for any one to leavewithout seeing it. Every one takes it in. We won't get away till night.You've plenty of time if you want to see it."
"Now, will you please introduce me to Miss O'Neill formally?"
The purser went through the usual formula of presentation, adding thatElliot was a government official on his way to Kusiak. Having done hisduty by the young man, the busy supercargo retired.
"I'm sure it would do you good to walk up to the waterfall with me, MissO'Neill," urged Elliot.
She met a little dubiously the smile that would not stay quiteextinguished on his good-looking, boyish face. Why shouldn't she go withhim, since it was the American way for unchaperoned youth to enjoyitself naturally?
"If they'll fit," the girl answered, eyeing the rubbers.
Gordon dropped to his knee and demonstrated that they would.
As they walked along the muddy street she gave him a friendly little nodof thanks. "Good of you to take the trouble to look out for me."
He laughed. "It was myself I was looking out for. I'm a stranger in thecountry and was awfully lonesome."
"Is it that this is your first time in too?" she asked shyly.
"You're going to Kusiak, aren't you? D
o you know anybody there?" repliedElliot.
"My cousin lives there, but I haven't seen her since I was ten. She's anAmerican. Eleven years ago she visited us in Ireland."
"I'm glad you know some one," he said. "You'll not be so lonesome withsome of your people living there. I have two friends at Kusiak--a girl Iused to go to school with and her husband."
"Are you going to live at Kusiak?"
"No; but I'll be stationed in the Territory for several months. I'll bein and out of the town a good deal. I hope you'll let me see somethingof you."
The fine Irish coloring deepened in her cheeks. He had a way of takingin his stride the barriers between them, but it was impossible for herto feel offended at this cheery, vigorous young fellow with the winningsmile and the firm-set jaw. She liked the warmth in his honest browneyes. She liked the play of muscular grace beneath his well-fittingclothes. The sinuous ease of his lean, wide-shouldered body stirredfaintly some primitive instinct in her maiden heart. Sheba did not know,as her resilient muscles carried her forward joyfully, that she wasanswering the call of youth to youth.
Gordon respected her shyness and moved warily to establish his contact.He let the talk drift to impersonal topics as they picked their way outfrom the town along the mossy trail. The ground was spongy with water.On either side of them ferns and brakes grew lush. Sheba took the porouspath with a step elastic. To the young man following she seemed amiracle of supple lightness.
The trail tilted up from the lowlands, led across dips, and into a draw.A little stream meandered down and gurgled over rocks worn smooth byages of attrition. Alders brushed the stream and their foliage checkeredthe trail with sunlight and shadow.
They were ascending steadily now along a pathway almost too indistinctto follow. The air was aromatic with pine from a grove that camestraggling down the side of a gulch to the brook.
"Do you know, I have a queer feeling that I've seen all this before,"the Irish girl said. "Of course I haven't--unless it was in my dreams.Naturally I've thought about Alaska a great deal because my father livedhere."
"I didn't know that."
"Yes. He came in with the Klondike stampeders." She added quietly: "Hedied on Bonanza Creek two years later."
"Was he a miner?"
"Not until he came North. He had an interest in a claim. It later turnedout worthless."
A bit of stiff climbing brought them to a boulder field back of whichrose a mountain ridge.
"We've got off the trail somehow," Elliot said. "But I don't suppose itmatters. If we keep going we're bound to come to the waterfall."
Beyond the boulder field the ridge rose sharply. Gordon looked a littledubiously at Sheba.
"Are you a good climber?"
As she stood in the sunpour, her cheeks flushed with exercise, he couldsee that her spirit courted adventure.
"I'm sure I must be," she answered with a smile adorable. "I believe Icould do the Matterhorn to-day."
Well up on the shoulder of the ridge they stopped to breathe. Thedistant noise of falling water came faintly to them.
"We're too far to the left--must have followed the wrong spur," Elliotexplained. "Probably we can cut across the face of the mountain."
Presently they came to an impasse. The gulch between the two spursterminated in a rock wall that fell almost sheer for two hundred feet.
The color in the cheeks beneath the eager eyes of the girl was warm."Let's try it," she begged.
The young man had noticed that she was as sure-footed as a mountain goatand that she could stand on the edge of a precipice without dizziness.The surface of the wall was broken. What it might be beyond he could nottell, but the first fifty feet was a bit of attractive and not toodifficult rock traverse.
Now and again he made a suggestion to the young woman following him,but for the most part he trusted her to choose her own foot and handholds. Her delicacy was silken strong. If she was slender, she was yetdeep-bosomed. The movements of the girl were as certain as those of anexperienced mountaineer.
The way grew more difficult. They had been following a ledge thatnarrowed till it ran out. Jutting knobs of feldspar and stunted shrubsgrowing from crevices offered toe-grips instead of the even foothold ofthe rock shelf. As Gordon looked down at the dizzy fall beneath them hisjudgment told him they had better go back. He said as much to hiscompanion.
The smile she flashed at him was delightfully provocative. It served topoint the figure she borrowed from Gwen. "So you think I'm a 'fraid-cat,Mr. Elliot?"
His inclination marched with hers. It was their first adventure togetherand he did not want to spoil it by undue caution. There really was notmuch danger yet so long as they were careful.
Gordon abandoned the traverse and followed an ascending crack in thewall. The going was hard. It called for endurance and muscle, as wellas for a steady head and a sure foot. He looked down at the girl wedgedbetween the slopes of the granite trough.
She read his thought. "The old guard never surrenders, sir," was herquick answer as she brushed in salute with the tips of her fingers astray lock of hair.
The trough was worse than Elliot had expected. It had in it a good dealof loose rubble that started in small slides at the least pressure.
"Be very careful of your footing," he called back anxiously.
A small grassy platform lay above the upper end of the trough, but thelast dozen feet of the approach was a very difficult bit. Gordon tookadvantage of every least projection. He fought his way up with his backagainst one wall and his knees pressed to the other. Three feet short ofthe platform the rock walls became absolutely smooth. The climber couldreach within a foot of the top.
"Are you stopped?" asked Sheba.
"Looks that way."
A small pine projected from the edge of the shelf out over theprecipice. It might be strong enough to bear his weight. It might not.Gordon unbuckled his belt and threw one end over the trunk of the dwarftree. Gingerly he tested it with his weight, then went up hand over handand worked himself over the edge of the little plateau.
"All right?" the girl called up.
"All right. But you can't make it. I'm coming down again."
"I'm going to try."
"I wouldn't, Miss O'Neill. It's really dangerous."
"I'd like to try it. I'll stop if it's too hard," she promised.
The strength of her slender wrists surprised him. She struggled up thevertical crevasse inch by inch. His heart was full of fear, for amisstep now would be fatal. He lay down with his face over the ledge andlowered to her the buckled loop of his belt. Twice she stoppedexhausted, her back and her hands pressed against the walls of thetrough angle for support.
"Better give it up," he advised.
"I'll not then." She smiled stubbornly as she shook her head.
Presently her fingers touched the belt.
"SO YOU THINK I'M A 'FRAID-CAT, MR. ELLIOT?"]
Gordon edged forward an inch or two farther. "Put your hand through theloop and catch hold of the leather above," he told her.
She did so, and at the same instant her foot slipped. The girl swung outinto space suspended by one wrist. The muscles of Elliot hardened intosteel as they responded to the strain. His body began to slide veryslowly down the incline.
In a moment the acute danger was past. Sheba had found a hold with herfeet and relieved somewhat the dead pull upon Elliot.
She had not voiced a cry, but the face that looked up into his was verywhite.
"Take your time," he said in a quiet, matter-of-fact way.
With his help she came close enough for him to reach her hand. Afterthat it was only a moment before she knelt on the plateau beside him.
"Touch and go, wasn't it?" Sheba tried to smile, but the colorless lipstold the young man she was still faint from the shock.
He knew he was going to reproach himself bitterly for having led herinto such a risk, but he could not just now afford to waste his energieson regrets. Nor could he let her mind dwell on past dangers so
long asthere were future ones to be faced.
"You might have sprained your wrist," he said lightly as he rose toexamine the cliff still to be negotiated.
Her dark eyes looked at him with quick surprise. "So I might," sheanswered dryly.
But his indifferent tone had the effect upon her of a plunge into coldwater. It braced and stiffened her will. If he wanted to ignore theterrible danger through which she had passed, certainly she was notgoing to remind him of it.
Between where they stood and the summit of the cliff was another rocktraverse. A kind of rough, natural stairway led down to a point oppositethem. But before this could be reached thirty feet of granite must becrossed. The wall looked hazardous enough in all faith. It lay in theshade, and there were spots where a thin coating of ice covered thesmooth slabs. But there was no other way up, and if the traverse couldbe made the rest was easy.
Gordon was mountaineer enough to know that the climb up is safer thanthe one back. The only possible way for them to go down the trough wasfor him to lower her by the belt until she found footing enough to goalone. He did not quite admit it to himself, but in his heart he doubtedwhether she could make it safely.
The alternative was the cliff face.
The Yukon Trail: A Tale of the North Page 5