by Unknown
Macdonald closed the door behind them, then strode frowning up and down the room. The fear was growing on him that for all his great driving power he could not shake this slim girl from the view to which she clung. If the situation had not been so serious, it would have struck him as ridiculous. His relation with Meteetse had been natural enough. He believed that he had acted very honorably to her. Many a man would have left her in the lurch to take care of the youngster by herself. But he had acknowledged his obligation. He was paying his debt scrupulously, and because of it the story had risen to confront him. He felt that it was an unjust blow of fate. Punishment was falling upon him, not for what he had done, but because he had scorned to make a secret of it.
He knew that he must justify himself before Sheba or lose her. As she stood in the dusk so tall and rigid, he knew her heart was steel to him. Her finely chiseled face had the look of race. Never had the spell of her been more upon him. He crushed back a keen-edged desire to take her supple young body into his arms and kiss her till the scarlet ran into her cheeks like splashes of wine.
"You haven't the proper slant on this, Sheba. Alaska is the last frontier. It's the dropping-off place. You're north of fifty-three."
"Am I north of the Ten Commandments?" she demanded with the inexorable judgment of youth. "Did you leave the moral code at home when you came in over the ice?"
He smiled a little. "Morality is the average conduct of the average man at a given time and place. It is based on custom and expediency. The rules made for Drogheda won't fit Dawson or Nome. The laws made to protect young women in Ireland would be absurd if applied to half-breed squaws in Alaska. Meteetse does not hold herself disgraced but honored. She counts her boy far superior to the other youngsters of the village, and he is so considered by the tribe. I am told she lords it over her sisters."
A faint flush of anger had crept into her cheeks. "Your view of morality puts us on a level with the animals. I will not discuss the subject, if you please."
"We must discuss it. I must get you to see that Meteetse and what she stood for in my life have nothing to do with us. They belong to my past. She doesn't exist for either of us--isn't in any way a part of my present or future."
"She exists for me," answered Sheba listlessly. She felt suddenly old and weary. "But I can't talk about it. Please go. I want to be alone."
Again Macdonald paced restlessly down the room and back. He moved with a long, easy, tireless stride. The man was one among ten thousand, dominant, virile, every ounce of him strong as tested steel. But he felt as if all his energy were caged.
"Why don't you go?" the girl pleaded. "It's no use to stay."
He stopped in front of her. "I'm going to marry you, Sheba. Don't think I'll let that meddler interfere with our happiness. You're mine."
"No. Never!" she cried. "I'll take the boat and go home first."
"You've promised to marry me. You're going to keep your word and be glad of it all your life."
She shook her head. "No."
"Yes." Macdonald had always shown remarkable restraint with her. He had kissed her seldom, and always with a kind of awe at her young purity. Now he caught her by the shoulders. His eyes, deep in their sockets, mirrored the passionate desire of his heart.
The color flamed into her face. She looked hot to the touch, an active volcano ready to erupt. There was an odd feeling in her mind that this big man was a stranger to her.
"Take your hands from me," she ordered.
"Do you think I'm going to give you up now--now, after I've won you--because of a damfool scruple in your pretty head? You don't know me. It's too late. I love you--and I'm going to protect both of us from your prudishness."
His arms closed on her and he crushed her to him, looking down hungrily into the dark, little face.
"Let me go," she cried fiercely, struggling to free herself.
For answer he kissed the red lips, the flaming cheeks, the angry eyes. Then, coming to his senses, he pushed her from him, turned, and strode heavily from the room.
CHAPTER XV
GORDON BUYS A REVOLVER
Selfridge was not eager to meet his chief, but he knew he must report at once. He stopped at his house only long enough to get into fresh clothes and from there walked down to the office. Over the Paget telephone he had got into touch with Macdonald who told him to wait at headquarters until he came.
It had been the intention of Macdonald to go direct from Sheba to his office, but the explosion brought about by Meteetse had sent him out into the hills for a long tramp. He was in a stress of furious emotion, and until he had worked off the edge of it by hard mushing, the cramped civilization of the town stifled him.
Hours later he strode into the office of the company. He was dust-stained and splashed with mud. Fifteen miles of stiff heel-and-toe walking had been flung behind him.
Wally lay asleep in a swivel chair, his fat body sagging and his head fallen sideways in such a way as to emphasize the plump folds of his double chin. His eyes opened. They took in his chief slowly. Then, in a small panic, he jumped to his feet.
"Must 'a' been taking thirty winks," he explained. "Been up nights a good deal."
"What doing?" demanded the Scotchman harshly.
In a hurried attempt to divert the anger of Macdonald, his assistant made a mistake. "Say, Mac! Who do you think came up on the boat with me? I wondered if you knew. Meteetse and her kid--"
He stopped. The big man was glaring savagely at him. But Macdonald said nothing. He waited, and under the compulsion of his forceful silence Wally stumbled on helplessly.
"--They got off here. 'Course I didn't know whether you'd sent for her or not, so I stopped and kinder gave her the glad hand just to size things up."
"Yes."
"She had the address of Miss O'Neill, that Irish girl staying at the Pagets, the one that came in--"
"Go on," snapped his chief.
"So I directed her how she could get there and--"
Wally found himself lifted from the chair and hammered down into it again. His soft flesh quaked like a jelly. As he stared pop-eyed at the furious face above him, the fat chin of the little man drooped.
"My God, Mac, don't do that!" he whined.
Macdonald wheeled abruptly away, crossed the room in long strides, and came back. He had a grip on himself again.
"What's the use?" he said aloud. "You're nothing but a spineless putterer. Haven't you enough sense even to give me a chance to decide for myself? Why didn't you keep the woman with you till you could send for me, you daft donkey?"
"I swear I never thought of that."
"What have you got up there in your head instead of brains? I send you outside to look after things and you fall down on the job. I give you plain instructions what to do at Kamatlah and you let Elliot make a monkey of you. You see him on the boat with a woman coming to make trouble for me, and the best you can do is to help her on the way. Man, man, use your gumption."
"If I had known--"
"D'ye think you've got sense enough to take a plain, straight message as far as the hotel? Because if you have, I've got one to send."
Wally caressed tenderly his bruised flesh. He had a childlike desire to weep, but he was afraid Macdonald would kick him out of the office.
"'Course I'll do whatever you say, Mac," he answered humbly.
The Scotch-Canadian brushed the swivel chair and its occupant to one side, drew up another chair in front of the desk, and faced Selfridge squarely. The eyes that blazed at the little man were the grimmest he had ever looked into.
"Go to the hotel and see this man Elliot alone. Tell him he's gone too far--butted into my affairs once too often. There's not a man alive I'd stand it from. My orders are for him to get out on the next boat. If he's here after that, I'll kill him on sight."
The color ebbed out of the florid face of Wally. He moistened his lips to speak. "Good God, Mac, you can't do that. He'll go out and report--"
"To hell with his report. L
et him say what he likes. Put this to him straight: that he and I can't stay in this town--and both of us live."
Wally had lapped up too many highballs in the past ten years to relish this kind of a mission. He had depressed his nerves with overmuch tobacco and spurred them with liquors, had dissipated his force in many small riotings. His nerve was gone. He had not the punch any more. Yet Mac was always expecting him to help out with his rough stuff, he reflected fretfully. This was the third time in a month that he had been flung headlong into trouble. Take this message now. There was no sense in it. Selfridge plucked up his courage to say so.
"That won't buy us anything but trouble, Mac. In the old days you could put over--"
The little man never guessed how close he came to being flung through the transom over the door, but his instinct warned him to stop. His objection died away in a mumble.
"O' course I'll do whatever you say," he added a second time.
"See you do," advised his chief, an ugly look in his eyes. "Tell him he gets till the next boat. If he's here after that, he'd better go heeled, for I'll shoot on sight wherever we meet."
Selfridge went on his errand with lagging feet. On the way he stopped at the Pay-Streak Saloon to fortify himself with a cocktail. He found Elliot sitting moodily alone on the porch of the hotel.
In Gordon's pocket there was a note to Macdonald explaining that he had nothing to do with the coming of Meteetse. He had expected to send it by the hotel porter that evening, but the curt order to leave town filled him with a chill anger. The dictator of affairs at Kusiak might think what he pleased for all the explanation he would get from him. As for taking the next boat, Elliot did not even give that consideration.
"Tell your master I don't take orders from him," he told Wally quietly. "I'll stay till my work here is done."
They had moved a few yards down the street. Now Gordon turned, lean-loined and active, and trod with crisp, confident step back to the hotel. He had said all that was necessary to say.
Two men standing on the porch nodded a good-evening to him. Gordon, about to pass, glanced at them again. They were Northrup and Trelawney, two of the miners who had had trouble with Macdonald on the boat.
On impulse he stopped. "Found work yet?" he asked.
"Found a job and lost it again," Northrup answered sullenly.
"Too bad."
"Macdonald passed the word along that we weren't to get work. So our boss fired us. The whole district is closed to us. We been blacklisted," explained Trelawney.
"And we're busted," added his mate.
Elliot was always free-handed. Perhaps he felt just now unusually sympathetic towards these victims of the high-handed methods of Macdonald. From his pocket he took a small leather purse and gave a piece of gold to each of them.
"Just as a loan to carry you for a couple of days till you get something to do," he suggested.
Northrup demurred, but after a little pressure accepted the accommodation.
"I pay you soon back," he promised.
Trelawney laughed recklessly. He had been drinking.
"You bet. Me too."
His companion flashed a look of warning at him and explained that they were going down the river to look for work outside of the district.
Suddenly Trelawney broke loose and began to curse Macdonald with a bitterness that surprised the Government agent. What struck him most, though, was the obvious anxiety of Northrup to quiet his partner and to gloss over what he had said. Thinking of it later, Gordon wondered why the Dane, who had as much cause to hate Macdonald as the other, should be at such pains to smooth down the man and explain away his threats.
Elliot bought an automatic revolver next morning and a box of cartridges. He was not looking for trouble, but he intended to be prepared for it when trouble came looking for him. With a rifle he was a fair shot, but he lacked experience with the revolver. In the afternoon he walked out of town and practiced shooting at tin cans for a half an hour. On his way back he met Peter Paget.
The engineer came straight to the subject in his mind.
"Selfridge came to see me last night. He told me about the trouble between you and Macdonald, Gordon. You must leave town till he cools down. Macdonald is a bad man with a gat."
"Is he?"
"You can drop down the river on business for a few weeks. After a while--"
His friend looked at him coolly. "I can, but I'm not going to. Where do you get this stuff about me being a quitter, Pete?"
Peter laid a hand on his shoulder. "Now, look here, Gordon. Don't be a kid and foolhardy. Duck. I'm your friend--"
"You're his, too, aren't you?"
"Yes, of course, but--"
"All right. Tell him to duck. There'll be no trouble of my making. But if he starts any I'll be there. Macdonald doesn't own the earth, you know. I've been sent up here by Uncle Sam on business, and you can bet your last dollar I'll stay on the job till I'm through."
"Of course you've got to finish your job. But it doesn't all have to be done right here. Just for a week or two--"
"Tell your friend something else while you're on the subject. If I drop him, I go scot free because he is interfering with me in my duty. I'll put Selfridge on the stand to prove it. But if he should kill me, his last chance for getting the Macdonald claims patented would be gone. The public would raise such a howl that the Administration would have to throw your friend and the Guttenchilds overboard to save itself. I know that--and Macdonald knows it. So he stands to lose either way."
Paget knew this was true. He knew, too, there was no use in arguing with this young athlete. That close-gripped jaw and salient chin did not belong to a slacker. Gordon would stick and see the thing out. But Peter could not drop the subject without one more appeal.
"He's not sore at you about the claims. You know that. It's because you brought the squaw up the river to see Sheba."
"I didn't bring her--hadn't a thing to do with that. I don't know who brought her, though I could give a good guess."
A gleam of hope showed in the eye of the engineer. "You didn't bring her? Diane said you threatened--"
"Maybe I did say I would. Anyhow, I thought better of it. But I'm glad some one had the sense to tell Miss O'Neill the truth."
"Who do you think brought her?"
"I'm not thinking on that subject out loud."
"But if we could show Mac--"
"That's up to you. I'll not lift a finger. Your king of Kusiak has to learn some time that everybody isn't going to sidestep him and pussyfoot when he's around. I didn't start this war and I'm not making any peace overtures."
"You're as obstinate as the devil," smiled Peter, but in his heart he admired the dourness of his friend.
The engineer went to Macdonald and gave a deleted version of his talk with Elliot. The Scotchman listened, a bitter, incredulous smile on his face.
"Says he didn't bring her, does he? Tell him from me that he lies. Your wife let out to me by accident that he threatened to bring her. Meteetse and he came up on the boat together. He was with her at your house when she told her story. He's trying to save his hide. No chance."
"Elliot isn't a liar. When he says he didn't bring the woman, that satisfies me. I know he didn't do it," insisted Paget stiffly.
"Different here. Who else had any interest in bringing her except him? Nobody. Use your brains, Peter. He takes the first boat down the river. He comes back on the next one. She comes back, too. They couldn't figure I'd be at your house when they showed up there to tell the story. That's where Mr. Elliot slipped up."
Peter was of different stuff from Selfridge. He had something to say. So he said it.
"Times have changed, Mac. You can't shoot down this young fellow without making all kinds of trouble. First thing we'd lose the claims. The Administration would drop you like a hot potato if you did a thing like that. Sheba would never speak to you again. Your friends would know in their hearts it was murder. You can't do it."
Macdonald's j
aw clamped. "Then let him get out. That's my last word to him."
CHAPTER XVI
AMBUSHED
Colby Macdonald, in miner's boots and corduroy working suit, stood beside his horse with one arm thrown carelessly across its rump. He was about to start for Seven-Mile Creek Camp with twenty-seven hundred dollars in the saddlebags to pay the men there.
Diane was talking with him. "She's young and fine and spirited. Of course it was a great shock to her. She had been idealizing you. But I think she is beginning to understand things better. At any rate, she does not hate you any more. Give the girl time."