The Crimson Gardenia and Other Tales of Adventure

by Rex Beach

  We didn't like Montague Prosser at first--he was too clean. He wore hisvirtue like a bath-robe, flapping it in our faces. It was WhitewaterKelly who undertook to mitigate him one day, but, being as the nuisancestood an even fathom high and had a double-action football motion abouthim, Whitewater's endeavors kind of broke through the ice and helanguished around in his bunk the next week while we sat up nights andchanged his bandages.

  Yes, Monty was equally active at repartee or rough-house, and he knockedWhitewater out from under his cap, slick and clean, just the way yousnap a playing-card out from under a coin, which phenomenon terminatedour tendencies to scoff and carp.

  Personally, I didn't care. If a man wants to wallow about in adisgusting daily debauch of cleanliness, it is his privilege. If hesquanders the fleeting moments brushing teeth, cleaning fingernails, andsuch technicalities, it stands to reason he won't have much time left toattend to his work and at the same time cultivate the essentials of lifelike smoking, drinking, and the proper valuation of a three-card draw.But, as I say, it's up to him, and outsiders who don't see merit in sucha system shouldn't try to bust up his game unless they've got goodfoot-work and a knockout punch.

  It wasn't so much these physical refinements that riled us as therarefied atmosphere of his general mental and moral altitudes. To methere's eloquence and sentiment and romance and spiritual uplift in areal, full-grown, black-whiskered cuss-word. It's a great help in amountainous country. Profanity is like steam in a locomotive--takes moreto run you up-hill than on the level, and inasmuch as there's only a fewmen on the level, a violent vocabulary is a necessity and appeals to melike a certificate of good character and general capability.

  There wasn't a thing doing with Prosser in the idiom line, however. Hismoral make-up was like his body, big and sound and white and manicured,and although his talk, alongside of ours, listened like it was skimmedand seminaried, still when we got to know him we found that his verbalstructures had vital organs and hair on their chests just like anybodyelse's, and at the same time had the advantage of being fit to sendthrough the mails.

  He had left a widowed mother and come north on the main chance, like therest of us, only he originated farther east. What made the particularten-strike with us was the pride he took in that same mother. He gloriedin her and talked about her in that hushed and nervous way a man speaksabout a real mother or a regular sweetheart. We men-folks liked him allthe better for it. I say we men, for he was a "shine" with thewomen--all nine of them. The camp was fifteen hundred strong thatwinter, over and above which was the aforesaid galaxy of nine, strandedon their way up-river to a Dawson dance-hall. The Yukon froze up andthey had to winter with us. Of course there were the three marriedladies, too, living with their husbands back on the Birch Ridge, but wenever saw them and they didn't count. The others went to work atEckert's theater.

  Monty would have been right popular at Eckert's--he was a handsomelad--but he couldn't see those people with a field-glass. They simplyscandalized him to death.

  "I love to dance," said he, one night, as we looked on, "and the musicsends thrills through me, but I won't do it."

  "Why not?" I asked. "This is Alaska. Be democratic. You're not soawfully nice that a dance-hall girl will contaminate you."

  "It's not democracy that I lack, nor contamination that I'm afraid of,"he replied. "It's the principle back of it all. If we encourage thesegirls in the lives they lead, we're just as bad as they are."

  "Look here, son, when I quit salt water I left all that garbage andbilge-water talk about 'guilt' and 'responsibility' behind. The days aretoo short, the nights are too cold, and grub is too dear for me to sparetime to theorize. I take people the way I take work and play--just asthey come--and I'd advise you to do the same."

  "No, sir; I won't associate with gamblers and crooks, so why should Ihobnob with these women? They're worse than the men, for all thegamblers have lost is their honesty. Every time I see these girls Ithink of the little mother back home. It's awful. Suppose she saw medancing with them?"

  Well, that's a bad line of talk and I couldn't say much.

  Of course, when the actresses found out how he felt they came back athim strong, but he wrapped himself up in his dignity and held himselfaloof when he came to town, so he didn't seem to mind it.

  It was one afternoon in January, cold and sharp, that Ollie Marceau'steam went through the ice just below our camp. She was a greatdog-puncher and had the best team in camp--seven fine malamoots--whichshe drove every day. When the animals smelled our place they ran awayand dragged her into the open water below the hot springs. She was wetfor ten minutes, and by the time she had got out and stumbled to ourbunk-house she was all in. Another ten minutes with the "quick" atthirty below would have finished her, but we rushed her in by the fireand made her drink a glass of "hootch." Martin got her parka off somehowwhile I slashed the strings to her mukluks and had her little feetrubbed red as berries before she'd quit apologizing for the troubleshe'd made. A fellow learns to watch toes pretty close in the winter.

  "Lord! stop your talk," we said. "This is the first chance we have hadto do anything for a lady in two years. It's a downright pleasure for usto take you in this way."

  "Indeed!" she chattered. "Well, it isn't mutual--" And we all laughed.

  We roused up a good fire and made her take off all the wet clothes shefelt she could afford to, then wrung them out and hung them up to dry.We made her gulp down another whisky, too, after which I gave her somefootgear and she slipped into one of Martin's Mackinaw shirts. We knewjust how faint and shaky she felt, but she was dead game and joked withus about it.

  I never realized what a cute trick she was till I saw her in that great,coarse, blue shirt with her feet in beaded moccasins, her yellow hairtousled, and the sparkle of adventure in her bright eyes. She stood outlike a nugget by candle-light, backed as she was, by the dingy barkwalls of our cabin.

  I suppose it was a bad instant for Prosser to appear. He certainly cuedin wrong and found the sight shocking to his Plymouth Rock proprieties.

  The raw liquor we had forced on her had gone to her head a bit, as itwill when you're fresh from the cold and your stomach is empty, so herface was flushed and had a pretty, reckless, daring look to it. She hadher feet high up on a chair, too--not so very high, either--where theywere thawing out under the warmth of the oven, and we were all laughingat her story of the mishap.

  Monty stopped on recognizing who she was, while the surprise in his facegave way to disapproval. We could see it as plain as if it was blazonedthere in printer's ink, and it sobered us. The girl removed her feet andstood up.

  "Miss Marceau has just had an accident," I began, but I saw his eyeswere fastened on the bottle on the table, and I saw also that he knewwhat caused the fever in her cheeks.

  "Too bad," he said, coldly. "If I can be of any assistance you'll findme down at the shaft-house." And out he walked.

  I knew he didn't intend to be inhospitable; that it was just hisinfernal notions of decency, and that he refused to be a party toanything as devilish as this looked--but it wasn't according to theAlaska code, and it was like a slap in the girl's face.

  "I am quite dry," she said. "I'll be going now."

  "You will not. You'll stay to supper and drive home by moonlight," sayswe. "Why, you'd freeze in a mile!" And we made her listen to us.

  During the meal Prosser never opened his mouth except to put somethinginto it, but his manner was as full of language as an oration. He didn'tthaw out the way a man should when he sees strangers wading into thegrub he's paid a dollar a pound for, and when we'd finally sent theyoung woman off Martin turned on him.

  "Young feller," said he--and his eyes were black--"I've rattled aroundfor thirty years and seen many a good and many a bad man, but I neverbefore seen such an intelligent dam' fool as you are."

  "What do you mean?" said the boy.

  "You've broke about the only law that this here country boasts of--thelaw of hospitality."

 
"He didn't mean it that way," I spoke up. "Did you, Monty?"

  "Certainly not. I'd help anybody out of trouble--man or woman--but Irefuse to mix with that kind of people socially."

  "'That kind of people,'" yelled the old man. "And what's the matter withthat kind of people? You come creeping out of the milk-and-water East,all pink and perfumed up, and when you get into a bacon-and-beanscountry where people sweat instead of perspiring you wrinkle your noselike a calf and whine about the kind of people you find. What do youknow about people, anyhow? Did you ever want to steal?"

  "Of course not," said Prosser, who kept his temper.

  "Did you ever want to drink whisky so bad you couldn't stand it?"

  "No."

  "Did you ever want to kill a man?"

  "No."

  "Were you ever broke and friendless and hopeless?"

  "Why, I can't say I ever was."

  "And you've never been downright hungry, either, where you didn't knowif you'd ever eat again, have you? Then what license have you got toblame people for the condition you find them in? How do you know whatbrought this girl where she is?"

  "Oh, I pity any woman who is adrift on the world, if that's what youmean, but I won't make a pet out of her just because she is friendless.She must expect that when she chooses her life. Her kind are bad--badall through. They must be."

  "Not on your life. Decency runs deeper than the hives."

  "Trouble with you," said I, "you've got a juvenile standard--things areall good or all bad in your eyes--and you can't like a person unless theone overbalances the other. When you are older you'll find that peopleare like gold-mines, with a thin streak of pay on bed-rock and lots ofhard digging above."

  "I didn't mean to be discourteous," our man continued, "but I'll neverchange my feelings about such things. Mind you, I'm not preaching, norasking you to change your habits--all I want is a chance to live my ownlife clean."

  The mail came in during March, five hundred pounds of it, and the campwent daffy.

  Monty had the dogs harnessed ten minutes after we got the news, and wedrove the four miles in seventeen minutes. I've known men withsweethearts outside, but I never knew one to act gladder than Monty didat the thought of hearing from his mother.

  "You must come and see us when you make your pile," he told me,"or--what's better--we'll go East together next spring and surprise her.Won't that be great? We'll walk in on her in the summer twilight whileshe is working in her flower-garden. Can't you just see the green treesand smell the good old smells of home? The catbirds will be calling andthe grass will be clean and sweet. Why, I'm so tired of the cold and thesnow and the white, white mountains that I can hardly stand it."

  He ran on in that vein all the way to town, glad and hopeful andboyish--and I wondered why, with his earnestness and loyalty and broadshoulders, he had never loved any woman but his mother. When I wastwenty-three my whole romantic system had been mangled and shredded fromheart to gizzard. Still, some men get their age all in a lump; they'reboys up till the last minute, then they get the Rip Van Winkle while youwait.

  This morning was bitter, but the "sour doughs" were lined up outside thestore, waiting their turns like a crowd of Parsifal first-nighters, sowe fell in with the rest, whipping our arms and stamping our moccasinstill the chill ate into our very bones. It took hours to sort theletters, but not a man whimpered. When you wait for vital news a tensioncomes that chokes complaint. There was no joking here, nor thatelephantine persiflage which marks rough men when they forgather in thewilderness. They were the fellows who blazed the trail, bearded, shaggy,and not pretty to look at, for they all knew hardship and went outstrong-hearted into this silent land, jesting with danger and singing inthe solitudes. Here in the presence of the Mail they laid aside theircloaks of carelessness and saw one another bared to the quick, timidwith hunger for the wives and little ones behind.

  There were a few like Prosser, in whom there was still the glamour ofthe Northland and the mystery of the unknown, but they were scattered,and in their eyes the anxious light was growing also.

  Five months is a wearying time, and silent suspense will sap thecourage. If only one could banish worry; but the long, unbearable nightswhen the mind leaps and scurries out into the voids of conjecture likesparks from a chimney--well, it's then you roll in your bunk and yoursigh ain't from the snow-shoe pain.

  A half-frozen man in an ice-clogged dory had brought us our last news,one October day, just before the river stopped, and now, after fivemonths, the curtain parted again.

  I saw McGill, the lawyer, in the line ahead of me and noted the graynessof his cheeks, the nervous way his lips worked, and the futile,wandering, uselessness of his hands. Then I remembered. When his lettercame the fall before it said the wife was very low, that the crisis wasnear, and that they would write again in a few days. He had lived thisendless time with Fear stalking at his shoulder. He had lain down withit nightly and risen with it grinning at him in the slow, cold dawn. Theboys had told me how well he fought it back week after week, but now,edging inch by inch toward the door behind which lay his message, it gotthe best of him.

  I wrung his hand and tried to say something.

  "I want to run away," he quavered. "But I'm afraid to."

  When we got in at last we met men coming out, and in some faces we sawthe marks of tragedy. Others smiled, and these put heart into us.

  Old man Tomlinson had four little girls back in Idaho. He got twoletters. One was a six-months-old tax-receipt, the other a laundry bill.That meant three months more of silence.

  When my turn came and I saw the writing of the little woman somethinggripped me by the throat, while I saw my hands shake as if they belongedto somebody else. My news was good, though, and I read it slowly--someparts twice--then at last when I looked up I found McGill near me.Unconsciously we had both sought a quiet corner, but he had sunk on to abox. Now, as I glanced at him I saw what made me shiver. The Fear wasthere again--naked and ugly--for he held one lonesome letter, and itsinscription was in no woman's hand. He had crouched there by my side allthis time, staring, staring, staring at it, afraid to read--afraid toopen it. Some men smile in their agony, shifting their pitiful masks tothe last, others curse, and no two will take their blows alike.

  McGill was plucking feebly at the end of his envelope, tearing off tinybits, dropping the fragments at his feet. Now and then he stopped, andwhen he did he shuddered.

  "Buck up, old pal," I said.

  Then, recognizing me, he thrust the missive into my hand.

  "Tell me--for God's sake--tell me quick. I can't--No, no--wait! Not yet.Don't tell me. I'll know from your face. They said she couldn't live--"

  But she had, and he watched me so fiercely that when the light came intomy face he snatched the letter from me like a madman.

  "Ah-h! Give it to me! Give it to me! I _knew_ it! I told you theycouldn't fool me. No, sir. I felt all the time she'd make it. Why, Iknew it in my marrow!"

  "What's the date?" I inquired.

  "September thirtieth," he said. Then, as he realized how old it was, hebegan to worry again.

  "Why didn't they write later? They must know I'll eat my heart out.Suppose she's had a relapse. That's it. They wrote too soon, and nowthey don't dare tell me. She--got worse--died--months ago, and they'reafraid to let me know."

  "Stop it," I said, and reasoned sanity back into him.

  Monty had taken his mail and run off like a puppy to feast in quiet, soI went over to Eckert's and had a drink.

  Sam winked at me as I came in. A man was reading from a letter.

  "Go on. I'm interested," said the proprietor.

  The fellow was getting full pretty fast and was down to the garrulousstage, but he began again:

  "DEAR HUSBAND,--I am sorry to hear that you have been so unfortunate, but don't get discouraged. I know you will make a good miner if you stick to it long enough. Don't worry about me. I have rented the front room to a very nice man for fifteen dollars a week.
The papers here are full of a gold strike in Siberia, just across Bering Sea from where you are. If you don't find something during the next two years, why not try it over there for a couple?"

  "That's what I call a persevering woman," said Eckert, solemnly.

  "She's a business woman, too," said the husband. "All I ever got forthat room was seven-fifty a week."

  It seems I'd missed Montague at the store, but when the crowd came outOllie Marceau found him away in at the back, having gone there to bealone with his letters. She saw the utter abandon and grief in his pose,and the tears came to her eyes. Impulsively she went up and laid herhand on his bowed head. She had followed the frontier enough to know thesigns.

  "Oh, Mr. Prosser," she said, "I'm so sorry! Is it the little mother?"

  "Yes," he answered, without moving.

  "Not--not--" she hesitated.

  "I don't know. The letters are up to the middle of December, and she wasvery sick."

  Then, with the quick sentiment of her kind, the girl spoke to him,forgetting herself, her life, his prejudice, everything except thelonely little gray woman off there who had waited and longed just assuch another had waited and longed for her, and, inasmuch as Ollie hadsuffered before as this boy suffered now, in her words there was a sweetsympathy and a perfect understanding.

  It was very fine, I think, coming so from her, and when the first shockhad passed over he felt that here, among all these rugged men, there wasno one to give him the comfort he craved except this child of thedance-halls. Compassion and sympathy he could get from any of us, but hewas a boy and this was his first grief, so he yearned for somethingmore, something subtler, perhaps the delicate comprehension of a woman.At any rate, he wouldn't let her leave him, and the tender-hearted lasspoured out all the best her warm nature afforded.

  In a few days he braced up, however, and stood his sorrow like the restof us. It made him more of a man in many ways. For one thing, he neverscoffed now at any of the nine women, which, taken as an indication, wasgood. In fact, I saw him several times with the Marceau girl, for hefound her always ready and responsive, and came to confide in her ratherthan in Martin or me, which was quite natural. Martin spoke about itfirst.

  "I hate to see 'em together so much," said he. "One of 'em is going tofall in love, sure, and it won't be reciprocated none. It would servehim right to get it hard, but if _she's_ hit--it'll be too dam' pitiful.You an' I will have to combine forces and beat him up, I reckon."

  The days were growing long and warm, the hills were coming bare on theheights, while the snow packed wet at midday when we went into town tosled out grub for the clean-up. We found everybody else there for thesame purpose, so the sap began to run through the camp. We were loadingat the trading-post the next day when I heard the name of Ollie Marceau.It was a big-limbed fellow from Alder Creek talking, and, as he showedno liquor in his face, what he said sounded all the worse. I have heardas bad many a time without offense, for there is no code of loyaltyconcerning these girls, but Ollie had got my sympathy, somehow, and Iresented the remarks, particularly the laughter. So did Prosser, thePuritan. He looked up from his work, white and dangerous.

  "Don't talk that way about a girl," said he to the stranger, and it madea sensation among the crowd.

  I never knew a man before with courage enough to kick in public on suchsubjects. As it was, the man said something so much worse that rightthere the front busted out of the tiger-cage and for a few brief momentswe were given over to chaos.

  I had seen Whitewater walloped and I knew how full of parlor tricks thekid was, but this time he went insane. He knocked that man off thecounter at the first pass and climbed him with his hobnails as he lay onthe floor. A fight is a fight, and a good thing for spectators andparticipants, for it does more to keep down scurvy than anything I knowof, but the thud of those heavy boots into that helpless flesh sickenedme, and we rushed Prosser out of there while he struggled like a maniac.I never saw such a complete reversal of form. Somewhere, away backyonder, that boy's forefathers were pirates or cannibals or butchers.

  When the fog had cleared out of his brain the reaction was just aspowerful. I took him out alone while the others worked over the AlderCreek party, and all at once my man fell apart like wet sawdust.

  "What made me do it--what made me do it?" he cried. "I'm crazy. Why, Itried to kill him! And yet what he said is true--that's the worst ofit--it's true. Think of it, and I fought for her. What am I coming to?"

  After the clean-up we came to camp, waiting for the river to break andthe first boat to follow. It was then that the suspense began to tell onour partner. He read and reread his letters, but there was little hopein them, and now, with no work to do, he grew nervous. Added toeverything else, our food ran short, and we lived on scraps of whateverwas left over from our winter grub-stake. Just out of cussedness thebreak-up was ten days late, the ten longest days I ever put in, buteventually it came, and a week later also came the mail. We needed foodand clothes, we needed whisky, we needed news of the great, distantworld--but all we thought of was our mail.

  The boy had decided to go home. We were sorry to see him leave, too, forhe had the makings of a real man in him even if he shaved three times aweek, but no sooner was the steamer tied than he came plunging into mytent like a moose, laughing and dancing in his first gladness. Themother was well again.

  Later I went aboard to give him the last lonesome good wishes of thefellow who stays behind and fights along for another year. The bigfreighter, with her neat staterooms and long, glass-burdened tables,awoke a perfect panic in me to be going with him, to shake this cruelcountry and drift back to the home and the wife and the pies like mothermade.

  I found him on the top deck with the Marceau girl, who was sayinggood-by to him. There was a look about her I had never seen before, andall at once the understanding and the bitter irony of it struck me. Thispoor waif hadn't had enough to stand, so Love had come to her, just asKink had predicted--a hopeless love which she would have to fight theway she fought the whole world. It made me bitter and cynical, but Iadmired her nerve--she was dressed for the sacrifice, trim andwell-curried as a thousand-dollar pony. Back of her smile, though, I sawthe waiting tears, and my heart bled. Spring is a fierce time forromance, anyhow.

  There wasn't time to say much, so I squeezed Monty's hand like acider-press.

  "God bless you, lad! You must come back to us," I said, but he shook hishead, and I heard the girl's breath catch. I continued, "Come on, Ollie;I'll help you ashore."

  We stood on the bank there together and watched the last of him, talland clear-cut against the white of the wheel-house, and it seemed to mewhen he had gone that something bright and vital and young had passedout of me, leaving in its stead discouragement and darkness and age.

  "Would you mind walking with me up to my cabin?" Ollie asked.

  "Of course not," I said, and we went down the long street, past thetheater, the trading-post, and the saloons, till we came to the hillwhere her little nest was perched. Every one spoke and smiled to her andshe answered in the same way, though I knew she was on parade andholding herself with firm hands. As we came near to the end and her pacequickened, however, and I guessed the panic that was on her to be alonewhere she could drop her mask and become a woman--a poor, weak,grief-stricken woman. But when we were inside at last her mannerastounded me. She didn't throw herself on her couch nor go to pieces, asI had dreaded, but turned on me with burning eyes and her hands tightclenched, while her voice was throaty and hoarse. The words cametumbling out in confusion.

  "I've let him go," she said. "Yes, and you helped me. Only for you I'dhave broken down; but I want you to know I've done one good thing atlast in my miserable life. I've held in. He never knew--he never knew. OGod! what fools men are!"

  "Yes," I said, "you did mighty well. He's a sensitive chap, and if you'dbroken down he'd have felt awful bad."

  "What!"

  She grasped me by the coat lapels and shook me. Yes! That weak littlewoma
n shook me, while her face went perfectly livid.

  "'He'd have felt badly,' eh? Man! Man! Didn't you _see_! Are you blind?Why, he asked me to go with him. He asked me to marry him. Think ofit--that great, wonderful man asked me to be his wife--me--OliveMarceau, the dancer! Oh, oh! Isn't it funny? Why don't you laugh?"

  I didn't laugh. I stood there, picking pieces of fur out of my cap andwondering if ever I should see another woman like this one. She pacedabout over the skin rugs, tearing at the throat of her dress as if itchoked her. There were no tears in her eyes, but her whole frame shookand shuddered as if from great cold, deep set in her bones.

  "Why didn't you go?" I asked, stupidly. "You love him, don't you?"

  "You know why I didn't go," she cried, fiercely. "I couldn't. How couldI go back and meet his mother? Some day she'd find me out and it wouldspoil his life. No, no! If only she hadn't recovered--No, I don't meanthat, either. I'm not his kind, that's all. Ah, God! I let him go--I lethim go, and he never knew!"

  She was writhing now on her bed in a perfect frenzy, calling to himbrokenly, stretching out her arms while great, dry, coughing sobswrenched her.

  "Little one," I said, unsteadily, and my throat ached so that I couldn'ttrust myself, "you're a brave--girl, and you're his kind or anybody'skind."

  With that the rain came, and so I left her alone with her comfortingmisery. When I told Kink he sputtered like a pinwheel, and every eveningthereafter we two went up to her house and sat with her. We could dothis because she'd quit the theater the day the boat took Prosser away,and she wouldn't heed Eckert's offers to go back.

  "I'm through with it for good," she told us, "though I don't know whatelse I'm good for. You see, I don't know anything useful, but I supposeI can learn."

  "Now, if I wasn't married already--" I said.

  "Humph!" snorted Kink. "I ain't so young as neither one of my pardners,miss, but I'm possessed of rare intellectual treasures."

  She laughed at both of us.

  When a week had passed after the first boat went down with Prosser, webegan to look daily for the first up-river steamer, bringing word directfrom the outside world. It came one midnight, and as we were gettingdressed to go to the landing our tent was torn open and Montague tumbledin upon us.

  "What brought you back?" we questioned when we'd finished mauling him.

  It was June, and the nights were as light as day in this latitude, so wecould see his face plainly.

  "Why--er--" He hesitated for an instant, then threw back his head,squared his great young shoulders, and looked us in the eyes, while allhis embarrassment fled. "I came back to marry Olive Marceau," said he."I came to take her back home to the little mother."

  He stared out wistfully at the distant southern mountains, effulgent andglorified by the midnight sun which lay so close behind their crests,and I winked at Martin.

  "She's left--"

  "What!" He whirled quickly.

  "--the theater, and I don't suppose you can see her until to-morrow."

  Disappointment darkened his face.

  "Besides," Kink added, gloomily, "when you quit her like a dog I slickedmyself up some, and I ain't anyways sure she'll care to see younow--only jest as a friend of mine. Notice I've cut my whiskers, don'tyou?"

  We made Monty pay for that instant's hesitation, the last he ever had,and then I said:

  "You walk up the river trail for a quarter of a mile and wait. If I canpersuade her to come out at this hour I'll send her to you. No, youcouldn't find her. She's moved since you left."

  "I wouldn't gamble none on her meetin' you," Martin said,discouragingly, and combed out his new-mown beard with ostentation.

  She was up the moment I knocked, and when I said that a man needed helpI heard her murmur sympathetically as she dressed. When we came to ourtent I stopped her.

  "He's up yonder a piece," said I. "You run along while I fetch Kink andthe medicine-kit. We'll overtake you."

  "Is it anything serious?"

  "Yes, it's apt to be unless you hurry. He seems to think he needs youpretty badly."

  And so she went up the river trail to where he was waiting, her waygolden with the beams of the sun whose rim peeped at her over thefar-off hills. And there, in the free, still air, among the virginspruce, with the clean, sweet moss beneath their feet, they met. Thegood sun smiled broadly at them now, and the grim Yukon hurried past,chuckling under its banks and swiggering among the roots, while the songit sang was of spring and of long, bright days that had no night.

  McGILL