The Barrier

by Beach, Rex Ellingwood

  "I'm going to build a big dance-hall and saloon here," said Stark, showing her the stakes that he had driven. "As soon as the rush to the creek is over I'll hire a gang of men to get out a lot of house logs. I'll finish it in a week and be open for the stampede."

  "Do you think this will be a big town?" she asked.

  "Nobody can tell, but I'll take a chance. If it proves to be a false alarm I'll move on—I've done it before."

  "You've been in a great many camps, I suppose."

  He said that he had, that for twenty years he had been on the frontier, and knew it from West Texas to the Circle.

  "And are they all alike?"

  "Very much. The land lies different but the people are the same."

  "I've never known anything except this." She swept the points of the compass with her arm. "And there is so much beyond that I want to know about—oh, I feel so ignorant! There is something now that perhaps you could tell me, you have travelled so much."

  "Let's have it," said he, smiling at her seriousness.

  She hesitated, at a loss for words, finally blurting out what was in her mind.

  "My father is a squaw-man, Mr. Stark, and I've been raised to think that such things are customary."

  "They are, in all new countries," he assured her.

  "But how are they regarded when civilization comes along?"

  "Well, they aren't regarded, as a rule. Squaw-men are pretty shiftless, and people don't pay much attention to them. I guess if they weren't they wouldn't be squaw-men."

  "My father isn't shiftless," she challenged, at which he remained silent, refusing to go on record. "Isn't a half-breed just as good as a white?"

  "Look here," said he. "What are you driving at?"

  "I'm a 'blood,'" she declared, recklessly, "and I want to know what people think of me. The men around here have never made me feel conscious of it, but—"

  "You're afraid of these new people who are coming, eh? Well, don't worry about that, Miss. It wouldn't make any difference to me or to any of your friends whether you were red, white, black, or yellow."

  "But it would make a difference with some people?" insisted the girl.

  "Oh, I reckon it would with Eastern people. They look at things kind of funny, but we're not in the East."

  "That's what I wanted to know. Nice people back there wouldn't tolerate a girl like me for a moment, would they? They wouldn't consider me good enough to associate with them?"

  He shrugged his shoulders. "I guess you'd have a hard time breaking in among the 'bon-tonners.' But what's the use of thinking about it. This is your country and these are your people."

  A morbid desire was upon her to track down this intangible racial distinction, but she saw Runnion, whom she could not bear, coming towards them, so thanked Stark hurriedly and went on her way.

  "Been making friends with that squaw, eh?" remarked Runnion, casually.

  "Yes," replied Stark. "She's a nice little girl, and I like her. I told her I didn't have any part in that miners' meeting affair."

  "Huh! What's the matter with you? It was all your doing."

  "I know it was, but I didn't aim it at her. I wanted that ground next to Lee's, and I wanted to throw a jolt into Old Man Gale. I couldn't let the girl stand in my way; but now that it's over, I'm willing to be friends with her."

  "Me, too," said Runnion, looking after Necia as her figure diminished up the street. "By Heaven! She's as graceful as a fawn; she's white, too. Nobody would ever know she was a breed."

  "She's a good girl," said Stark, musingly, in a gentle tone that Runnion had never heard before.

  "Getting kind of mushy, ain't you? I thought you had passed that stage, old man."

  "No, I don't like her in that way."

  "Well, I do, and I'm dead sore on that soldier."

  "She's not your kind," said Stark. "A bad man can't hold a good woman; he can win one easy enough, but he can't keep her. I know!"

  "Nobody but a fool would want to keep one," Runnion replied, "specially a squaw."

  "She's just woke up to the fact that she is a squaw and isn't as good as white. She's worried."

  "I'll lay you a little eight to five that Burrell has thrown her down," chuckled Runnion.

  "I never thought of that. You may be right."

  "If it's true I'll shuffle up a hand for that soldier."

  "If I were you I wouldn't deal it to him," said the gambler, dryly. "He may not cut to your break."

  Meanwhile, Necia had passed on out of the town and through the Indian village at the mouth of the creek, until high up on the slopes she saw Alluna and the little ones. She climbed up to them and seated herself where she could look far out over the westward valley, with the great stream flowing half a mile beneath her. She stayed there all the morning, and although the day was bright and the bushes bending with their burden of blue, she picked no berries, but fought resolutely through a dozen varying moods that mirrored themselves in her delicate face. It was her first soul struggle, but in time the buoyancy of youth and the almighty optimism of early love prevailed; she comforted herself with the fond illusion that this man was different from all others, that his regard was equal to her own, and that his love would rise above such accidental things as blood or breed or birth. And so she was in a happier frame of mind when the little company made their descent at mid-day.

  As they approached the town they heard the familiar cry of "Steam-bo-o-o-at," and by the time they had reached home the little camp was noisy with the plaint of wolf-dogs. There were few men to join in the welcome to-day, every able-bodied inhabitant having disappeared into the hills, but the animals came trooping lazily to the bank, and sat down on their haunches watching the approaching steamer, in their soft eyes the sadness of a canine race of slaves. Behind them limped a sick man or two, a soldier from the barracks, and in the rear a fellow who had drifted in the week before with scurvy. It was a pitiful review that lined up to greet the tide of tenderfeet crowding towards their El Dorado, and unusual also, for as yet the sight of new faces was strange in the North.

  The deserted aspect of the town puzzled the captain of the steamer, and upon landing he made his way at once to John Gale's store, where he learned from the trader of the strike and of the stampede that had resulted. Before the recital was finished a man approached and spoke excitedly.

  "Captain, my ticket reads to Dawson, but I'm getting off here. Won't you have my outfit put ashore?" He was followed by a group of fellow-passengers who made a similar request.

  "This place is good enough for me," one of them said.

  "Me, too," another volunteered. "This strike is new, and we've hit her just in time."

  Outside a dozen men had crowded "No Creek" Lee against the wall of the store and were clamoring to hear about his find. Before the tardy ones had cleared the gang-plank the news had flashed from shore to ship, and a swarm came up the bank and into the post, firing questions and answers at each other eagerly, elbowing and fighting for a place within ear-shot of the trader or the ragged man outside.

  The frenzy of a gold stampede is like the rush from a burning building, and equally easy to arouse. No statement is too wild to lack believers, no rumor too exaggerated to find takers. Within an hour the crew of the steamer was busy unloading countless tons of merchandise and baggage billed to Dawson, and tents began to show their snowy whiteness here and there. As a man saw his outfit appear he would pounce upon it, a bundle at a time, and pile it by itself, which resulted in endless disputes and much confusion; but a spirit of youth and expectancy permeated all and prevented more than angry words. Every hour the heaps of baggage grew larger and the tents more numerous.

  Stark wasted no time. With money in his hands he secured a dozen men who were willing to work for hire, for there are always those who prefer the surety of ten coined dollars to the hope of a hundred. He swooped down with these helpers on his pile of merchandise that had lain beneath tarpaulins on the river-bank since the day he and Runnion landed, and
by mid-afternoon a great tent had been stretched over a framework of peeled poles built on the lot where he and Necia had stood earlier in the day. Before dark his saloon was running. To be sure, there was no floor, and his polished fixtures looked strangely new and incongruous, but the town at large had assumed a similar air of incompleteness and crude immaturity, and little wonder, for it had grown threefold in half a day. Stark swiftly unpacked his gambling implements, keen to scent every advantage, and out of the handful of pale-faced jackals who follow at the heels of a healthy herd, he hired men to run them and to deal. By night Flambeau was a mining-camp.

  Late in the evening the boat swung out into the river, and disclosed a strange scene of transformation to the puzzled captain of a few hours ago. The riverbank was lined with canvas shelters, illumined dully by the tent-lights within till they looked like a nest of glowworms in deep grass. A long, hoarse blast of good wishes rose from the steamer, then she sighed her way around the point above bearing forth the message that a new camp had been born.

  CHAPTER X

  MEADE BURRELL FINDS A PATH IN THE MOONLIGHT

  "No Creek" Lee had come into his own at last, and was a hero, for the story of his long ill-luck was common gossip now, and men praised him for his courage. He had never been praised for anything before and was uncertain just how to take it.

  "Say, are these people kiddin' me?" he inquired, confidentially, of Poleon.

  "W'y? Wat you mean?"

  "Well, there's a feller makin' a speech about me down by the landing."

  "Wat he say?"

  "It ain't nothin' to fight over. He says I'm another Dan'l Boom, leadin' the march of empire westward."

  "Dat's nice, for sure."

  "Certainly sounds good, but is it on the level?"

  "Wal, I guess so," admitted Poleon.

  The prospector swelled with indignation. "Then, why in hell didn't you fellers tell me long ago?"

  The scanty ounce or two of gold from his claim lay in the scales at the post, where every new-comer might examine it, and, realizing that he was a never-ending source of information, they fawned on him for his tips, bribing him with newspapers, worth a dollar each, or with cigars, which he wrapped up carefully and placed in his mackinaw till every pocket of the rusty garment bulged so that he could not sit without losing them. They dwelt upon his lightest word, and stood him up beside the bar where they filled him with proofs of friendliness until he shed tears from his one good eye.

  He had formed a habit of parsimony born of his years of poverty, and was so widely known as a tight man by the hundreds who had lent to him that his creditors never at any time hoped for a reckoning. And he never offered one; on the contrary, he had invariably flown into a rage when dunned, and exhibited such resentment as to discourage the practice. Now, however, the surly humor of the man began to mellow, and in gradual stages he unloosened, the process being attended by a disproportionate growth of the trader's cash receipts. Cautiously, at first he let out his wit, which was logy from long disuse, and as heavy on its feet as the Jumping Frog of Calaveras, but when they laughed at its labored leaps and sallies his confidence grew. With the regularity of a clock he planted cigars and ordered "a little more hard stuff," while his roving eye rejoiced in lachrymose profusion, its over-burden losing itself in the tangle of his careless beard. By-and-by he wandered through the town, trailed by a troop of tenderfeet, till the women marked him, whereupon he fled back to the post and hugged the bar, for he was a bashful man. When Stark's new place opened it offered him another retreat of which he availed himself for some time. But late in the evening he reappeared at Old Man Gale's store, walking a bit unsteadily, and as he mounted the flight of logs to the door he stepped once too often.

  "What's become of that fourth step?" he demanded, sharply, of Poleon.

  "Dere she is," said the Frenchman.

  "I'm damned if it is. You moved it since I was here."

  "I'll have 'im put back," laughed the other.

  "Say! It's a grand thing to be rich, ain't it?"

  "I don' know, I ain' never try it."

  "Well, it is; and now that I've arrived, I'm goin' to change my ways complete. No more extravagance in mine—I'll never lend another cent."

  "Wat's dat?" ejaculated Doret, in amazement.

  "No more hard-luck stories and 'hurry-ups' for mine. I'm the stony-hearted jailer, I am, from now, henceforth, world 'thout end, amen! No busted miners need apply. I've been a good thing, but to-night I turn on the time-lock."

  "Ba gosh! You're fonny feller," laughed Poleon, who had lent the one-eyed man much money in the past and, like others, regarded him not merely as a bad risk but as a total loss. "Mebbe you t'ink you've been a spen't'rif all dese year."

  "I've certainly blowed a lot of money on my friends," Lee acknowledged, "and they're welcome to what they've got so far, but I'm goin' to chop all them prodigal habits and put on the tin vest. I'll run the solderin'-iron up my seams so they can't get to me without a can-opener. I'm air-tight for life, I am." He fumbled in his pockets and unwrapped a gift cigar, then felt for a match. Poleon tossed one on the bar, and he reached for it twice, missing it each time.

  "I guess dose new frien' of yours is mak' you purty full, M'sieu' Tin Vest."

  "Nothin' of the sort. I've got a bad dose of indigestion."

  "Dat's 'orrible disease! Dere's plaintee riche man die on dat seecknesse. You better lie down."

  Doret took the hero of the day by the arm and led him to the rear of the store, where he bedded him on a pile of flour sacks, but he had hardly returned to the bar when Lee came veering out of the dimness, making for the light like a ship tacking towards a beacon.

  "What kind of flour is that?" he spluttered.

  "Dat's just plain w'eat flour."

  "Not on your life," said the miner, with the firmness of a great conviction. "It's full of yeast powders. Why, it's r'arin' and risin' like a buckin' hoss. I'm plumb sea-sick." He laid a zigzag course for the door.

  "W'ere you goin'?" asked Poleon.

  "I'm goin' to get somethin' for this stomach trouble. It's fierce." He descended into the darkness boldly, and stepped off with confidence—this time too soon. Poleon heard him floundering about, his indignant voice raised irascibly, albeit with a note of triumph.

  "Wha'd I tell you? You put it back while I was ashleep." Then whistling blithely, if somewhat out of tune, he steered for the new saloon to get something for his "stomach trouble."

  At Stark's he found a large crowd of the new men who welcomed him heartily, plying him with countless questions, and harking to his maudlin tales of this new country which to him was old. He had followed the muddy river from Crater Lake to the Delta, searching the bars and creek-beds in a tireless quest, till he knew each stream and tributary, for he had been one of the hardy band that used to venture forth from Juneau on the spring snows, disappearing into the uncharted valley of the Yukon, to return when the river clogged and grew sluggish, and, like Gale, he had lived these many years ahead of the law where each man was his own court of appeals and where crime was unknown. He had helped to build camps like Forty Mile and Circle; he knew by heart the by-laws and rules that governed every town and mining district in the country; he knew every man and child by name, but, while many of his friends had prospered, unceasing ill-luck had dogged him. Yet he had held to honesty and hard work, measuring a man by his ability to swing an axe or a shovel, and, despite his impecuniosity, regarding theft as the one crime deserving capital punishment.

  "Oh, there's lots of countries worse'n this," he declared. "We may not be very han'some to the naked eye, and we may not wear our handk'chiefs in our shirt cuffs, but there ain't no widders and orphans doin' our washin', and a man can walk away from his house, stay a month, and find it there when he comes back."

  "Those days are past," said Stark, who had joined in the discussion. "There's too many new people coming in for all of them to be honest."

  "They'd better be," said Lee, aggressively.
"We ain't got no room for stealers. Why, I had a hand in makin' the by-laws of this camp myself, 'long with John Gale, and they stip'lates that any person caught robbin' a cache is to be publicly whipped in front of the tradin'-post, then, if it's winter time, he's to be turned loose on the ice barefooted, or, if it's summer, he's to be set adrift on a log with his shirt off."

  "Either one would mean certain death," said a stranger. "Frost in winter, mosquitoes in summer!"

  "That's all right," another bystander declared. "A man's life depends on his grub up here, and I'd be in favor of enforcing that punishment to the letter if we caught any one thieving."

  "All the same, I take no chances," said Stark. "There's too many strangers here. Just to show you how I stand, I've put Runnion on guard over my pile of stuff, and I'll be glad when it's under cover. It isn't the severity of punishment that keeps a man from going wrong, it's the certainty of it."

  "Well, he'd sure get it, and get it proper in this camp," declared Lee; and at that moment, as if his words had been a challenge, the flaps of the great tent were thrust aside, and Runnion half led, half threw a man into the open space before the bar.

  "Let's have a look at you," he panted. "Well, if it ain't a nigger!"

  "What's up?" cried the men, crowding about the prisoner, who crouched, terror-stricken, in the trampled mud and moss, while those playing roulette and "bank" left the tables, followed by the dealers.

  "He's a thief," said Runnion, mopping the sweat from his brow. "I caught him after your grub pile, Stark."