The Yukon Trail: A Tale of the North
Page 20
CHAPTER XIX
SHEBA DOES NOT THINK SO
The fingers of Sheba were busy with the embroidery upon which sheworked, but her thoughts were full of the man who lay asleep on thelounge. His strong body lay at ease, relaxed.
Already health was flowing back into his veins. Beneath the tan of thelean, muscular cheeks a warmer color was beginning to creep. Soon hewould be about again, vigorous and forceful, striding over obstacles tothe goal he had set himself.
Just now she was the chief goal of his desire. Sheba did not deceiveherself into thinking that he had for a moment accepted her dismissalof him.
He still meant to marry her, and he had told her so in characteristicway the day after their break.
Sheba had sent him a check for the amount he had paid her and hadrefused to see him or anybody else.
Shamed and humiliated, she had kept to her room. The check had come backto her by mail.
Across the face of it he had written in his strong handwriting:--
I don't welsh on my bets. You can't give to me what is not mine.
Do not think for an instant that I shall not marry you.
Watching him now, she wondered what manner of man he was. There hadbeen a day or two when she had thought she understood him. Then she hadlearned, from the story of Meteetse, how far his world of thought wasfrom hers. That which to her had put a gulf between them was to him onlyan incident.
She moved to adjust a window blind and when she returned found that hissteady eyes were fixed upon her.
"You're getting better fast," she said.
"Yes."
The girl had a favor to ask of him and lest her courage fail she plungedinto it.
"Mr. Macdonald, if you say the word Mr. Elliot will be released on bail.I am thinking you will be so good as to say it."
His narrowed eyes held a cold glitter. "Why?"
"You must know he is innocent. You must--"
"I know only what the evidence shows," he cut in, warily on his guard."He may or may not have been one of my attackers. From the first blowI was dazed. But everything points to it that he hired--"
"Oh, no!" interrupted the Irish girl, her dark eyes shining softly. "Theway of it is that he saved your life, that he fought for you, and thathe is in prison because of it."
"If that is true, why doesn't he bring some proof of it?"
"Proof!" she cried scornfully. "Between friends--"
"He's no friend of mine. The man is a meddler. I despise him."
The scarlet flooded her cheeks. "And I am liking him very, very much,"she flung back stanchly.
Macdonald looked up at the vivid, flushed face and found it whollycharming. He liked her none the less because her fine eyes were hot anddefiant in behalf of his rival.
"Very well," he smiled. "I'll get him out if you'll do me a good turntoo."
"Thank you. It's a bargain."
"Then sing to me."
She moved to the piano. "What shall I sing?"
"Sing 'Divided.'"
The long lashes veiled her soft eyes while she considered. In a way hehad tricked her into singing for him a love-song she did not want tosing. But she made no protest. Swiftly she turned and slid along thebench. Her fingers touched the keys and she began.
He watched the beauty and warmth of her dainty youth with eyes thatmirrored the hunger of his heart. How buoyantly she carried her duskylittle head! With what a gallant spirit she did all things! He wasusually a frank pagan, but when he was with her it seemed to him thatGod spoke through her personality all sorts of brave, fine promises.
Sheba paid her pledge in full. After the first two stanzas were finishedshe sang the last ones as well:--
"An' what about the wather when I'd have ould Paddy's boat, Is it me that would be feared to grip the oars an' go afloat? Oh, I could find him by the light of sun or moon or star: But there's caulder things than salt waves between us, so they are. Och anee!
"Sure well I know he'll never have the heart to come to me, An' love is wild as any wave that wanders on the sea, 'Tis the same if he is near me, 'tis the same if he is far: His thoughts are hard an' ever hard between us, so they are. Och anee!"
Her hands dropped from the keys and she turned slowly on the end of theseat. The dark lashes fell to her hot cheeks. He did not speak, but shefelt the steady insistence of his gaze. In self-defense she looked athim.
The pallor of his face lent accent to the fire that smouldered in hiseyes.
"I'm going to marry you, Sheba. Make up your mind to that, girl," hesaid harshly.
There was infinite pity in the look she gave him. "'There's caulderthings than salt waves between us, so they are,'" she quoted.
"Not if I love you and you love me. By God, I trample down everythingthat comes between us."
He swung to a sitting position on the lounge. Through the steel-grayeyes in the brooding face his masterful spirit wrestled with hers. Alean-loined Samson, with broad, powerful shoulders and deep chest, hedominated his world ruthlessly. But this slim Irish girl with the young,lissom body held her own.
"Must we go through that again?" she asked gently.
"Again and again until you see reason."
She knew the tremendous driving power of the man and she was afraid inher heart that he would sweep her from the moorings to which she clung.
"There is something else I haven't told you." The embarrassed lasheslifted bravely from the flushed cheeks to meet steadily his look."I don't think--that I--care for you. 'Tis I that am shamed atmy--fickleness. But I don't--not with the full of my heart."
His bold, possessive eyes yielded no fraction of all they claimed."Time enough for that, Sheba. Truth is that you're afraid to letyourself love me. You're worried because you can't measure me by thelittle two-by-four foot-rule you brought from Ireland with you."
Sheba nodded her dusky little head in naive candor. "I think there willbe some truth in that, Mr. Macdonald. You're lawless, you know."
"I'm a law to myself, if that's what you mean. It is my business to helphammer out an empire in this Northland. If I let my work be cluttered upby all the little rules made by little men for other little ones, myplans would come to a standstill. I am a practical man, but I keep sightof the vision. No need for me to brag. What I have done speaks for me asa guidepost to what I mean to do."
"I know," the girl admitted with the impetuous generosity of her race."I hear it from everybody. You have built towns and railroads anddeveloped mines and carried the twentieth century into new outposts. Youhave given work to thousands. But you go so fast I can't keep step withyou. I am one of the little folks for whom laws were made."
"Then I'll make a new code for you," he said, smiling. "Just do as I sayand everything will come out right."
Faintly her smile met his. "My grandmother might have agreed to that.But we live in a new world for women. They have to make their owndecisions. I suppose that is a part of the penalty we pay for freedom."
Diane came into the room and Macdonald turned to her.
"I have just been telling Sheba that I am going to marry her--that thereis no escape for her. She had better get used to the idea that I intendto make her happy."
The older cousin glanced at Sheba and laughed with a touch ofembarrassment. "Whether she wants to be happy or not, O Cave Man?"
"I'm going to make her want to."
Sheba fled, but from the door she flung back her challenge. "I don'tthink so."