CHAPTER XIV
"Ah, the salt water, Miss Welse, the strong salt water and the big wavesand the heavy boats for smooth or rough--that I know. But the freshwater, and the little canoes, egg-shells, fairy bubbles; a big breath, asigh, a heart-pulse too much, and pouf! over you go; not so, that I donot know." Baron Courbertin smiled self-commiseratingly and went on."But it is delightful, magnificent. I have watched and envied. Some dayI shall learn."
"It is not so difficult," St. Vincent interposed. "Is it, Miss Welse?Just a sure and delicate poise of mind and body--"
"Like the tight-rope dancer?"
"Oh, you are incorrigible," Frona laughed. "I feel certain that you knowas much about canoes as we."
"And you know?--a woman?" Cosmopolitan as the Frenchman was, theindependence and ability for doing of the Yankee women were a perpetualwonder to him. "How?"
"When I was a very little girl, at Dyea, among the Indians. But nextspring, after the river breaks, we'll give you your first lessons, Mr.St. Vincent and I. So you see, you will return to civilization withaccomplishments. And you will surely love it."
"Under such charming tutorship," he murmured, gallantly. "But you, Mr.St. Vincent, do you think I shall be so successful that I may come tolove it? Do you love it?--you, who stand always in the background,sparing of speech, inscrutable, as though able but unwilling to speakfrom out the eternal wisdom of a vast experience." The baron turnedquickly to Frona. "We are old friends, did I not tell you? So I may,what you Americans call, _josh_ with him. Is it not so, Mr. St.Vincent?"
Gregory nodded, and Frona said, "I am sure you met at the ends of theearth somewhere."
"Yokohama," St. Vincent cut in shortly; "eleven years ago, incherry-blossom time. But Baron Courbertin does me an injustice, whichstings, unhappily, because it is not true. I am afraid, when I getstarted, that I talk too much about myself."
"A martyr to your friends," Frona conciliated. "And such a teller ofgood tales that your friends cannot forbear imposing upon you."
"Then tell us a canoe story," the baron begged. "A good one! A--whatyou Yankees call--a _hair-raiser_!"
They drew up to Mrs. Schoville's fat wood-burning stove, and St. Vincenttold of the great whirlpool in the Box Canyon, of the terrible corkscrewin the mane of the White Horse Rapids, and of his cowardly comrade, who,walking around, had left him to go through alone--nine years before whenthe Yukon was virgin.
Half an hour later Mrs. Schoville bustled in, with Corliss in her wake.
"That hill! The last of my breath!" she gasped, pulling off her mittens."Never saw such luck!" she declared none the less vehemently the nextmoment.
"This play will never come off! I never shall be Mrs. Linden! How canI? Krogstad's gone on a stampede to Indian River, and no one knows whenhe'll be back! Krogstad" (to Corliss) "is Mr. Maybrick, you know. AndMrs. Alexander has the neuralgia and can't stir out. So there's norehearsal to-day, that's flat!" She attitudinized dramatically: "'_Yes,in my first terror! But a day has passed, and in that day I have seenincredible things in this house! Helmer must know everything! Theremust be an end to this unhappy secret! O Krogstad, you need me, and I--Ineed you_,' and you are over on the Indian River making sour-dough bread,and I shall never see you more!"
They clapped their applause.
"My only reward for venturing out and keeping you all waiting was mymeeting with this ridiculous fellow." She shoved Corliss forward. "Oh!you have not met! Baron Courbertin, Mr. Corliss. If you strike it rich,baron, I advise you to sell to Mr. Corliss. He has the money-bags ofCroesus, and will buy anything so long as the title is good. And if youdon't strike, sell anyway. He's a professional philanthropist, you know.
"But would you believe it!" (addressing the general group) "thisridiculous fellow kindly offered to see me up the hill and gossip alongthe way--gossip! though he refused point-blank to come in and watch therehearsal. But when he found there wasn't to be any, he changed aboutlike a weather-vane. So here he is, claiming to have been away to MillerCreek; but between ourselves there is no telling what dark deeds--"
"Dark deeds! Look!" Frona broke in, pointing to the tip of an ambermouth-piece which projected from Vance's outside breast-pocket. "A pipe!My congratulations."
She held out her hand and he shook good-humoredly.
"All Del's fault," he laughed. "When I go before the great white throne,it is he who shall stand forth and be responsible for that particularsin."
"An improvement, nevertheless," she argued. "All that is wanting is agood round swear-word now and again."
"Oh, I assure you I am not unlearned," he retorted. "No man can drivedogs else. I can swear from hell to breakfast, by damn, and back again,if you will permit me, to the last link of perdition. By the bones ofPharaoh and the blood of Judas, for instance, are fairly efficacious witha string of huskies; but the best of my dog-driving nomenclature, more'sthe pity, women cannot stand. I promise you, however, in spite of helland high water--"
"Oh! Oh!" Mrs. Schoville screamed, thrusting her fingers into her ears.
"Madame," Baron Courbertin spoke up gravely, "it is a fact, a lamentablefact, that the dogs of the north are responsible for more men's soulsthan all other causes put together. Is it not so? I leave it to thegentlemen."
Both Corliss and St. Vincent solemnly agreed, and proceeded to detonatethe lady by swapping heart-rending and apposite dog tales.
St. Vincent and the baron remained behind to take lunch with the GoldCommissioner's wife, leaving Frona and Corliss to go down the hilltogether. Silently consenting, as though to prolong the descent, theyswerved to the right, cutting transversely the myriad foot-paths and sledroads which led down into the town. It was a mid-December day, clear andcold; and the hesitant high-noon sun, having laboriously dragged its paleorb up from behind the southern land-rim, balked at the great climb tothe zenith, and began its shamefaced slide back beneath the earth. Itsoblique rays refracted from the floating frost particles till the air wasfilled with glittering jewel-dust--resplendent, blazing, flashing lightand fire, but cold as outer space.
They passed down through the scintillant, magical sheen, their moccasinsrhythmically crunching the snow and their breaths wreathing mysteriouslyfrom their lips in sprayed opalescence. Neither spoke, nor cared tospeak, so wonderful was it all. At their feet, under the great vault ofheaven, a speck in the midst of the white vastness, huddled the goldencity--puny and sordid, feebly protesting against immensity, man'schallenge to the infinite!
Calls of men and cries of encouragement came sharply to them from closeat hand, and they halted. There was an eager yelping, a scratching offeet, and a string of ice-rimed wolf-dogs, with hot-lolling tongues anddripping jaws, pulled up the slope and turned into the path ahead ofthem. On the sled, a long and narrow box of rough-sawed spruce told thenature of the freight. Two dog-drivers, a woman walking blindly, and ablack-robed priest, made up the funeral cortege. A few paces farther onthe dogs were again put against the steep, and with whine and shout andclatter the unheeding clay was hauled on and upward to its ice-hewnhillside chamber.
"A zone-conqueror," Frona broke voice.
Corliss found his thought following hers, and answered, "These battlersof frost and fighters of hunger! I can understand how the dominant raceshave come down out of the north to empire. Strong to venture, strong toendure, with infinite faith and infinite patience, is it to be wonderedat?"
Frona glanced at him in eloquent silence.
"'_We smote with our swords_,'" he chanted; "'_to me it was a joy likehaving my bright bride by me on the couch.' 'I have marched with mybloody sword, and the raven has followed me. Furiously we fought; thefire passed over the dwellings of men; we slept in the blood of those whokept the gates_.'"
"But do you feel it, Vance?" she cried, her hand flashing out and restingon his arm.
"I begin to feel, I think. The north has taught me, is teaching me. Theold thing's come back with new significance. Yet
I do not know. Itseems a tremendous egotism, a magnificent dream."
"But you are not a negro or a Mongol, nor are you descended from thenegro or Mongol."
"Yes," he considered, "I am my father's son, and the line goes back tothe sea-kings who never slept under the smoky rafters of a roof ordrained the ale-horn by inhabited hearth. There must be a reason for thedead-status of the black, a reason for the Teuton spreading over theearth as no other race has ever spread. There must be something in raceheredity, else I would not leap at the summons."
"A great race, Vance. Half of the earth its heritage, and all of thesea! And in threescore generations it has achieved it all--think of it!threescore generations!--and to-day it reaches out wider-armed than ever.The smiter and the destroyer among nations! the builder and thelaw-giver! Oh, Vance, my love is passionate, but God will forgive, forit is good. A great race, greatly conceived; and if to perish, greatlyto perish! Don't you remember:
"'_Trembles Yggdrasil's ash yet standing; groans that ancient tree, andthe Jotun Loki is loosed. The shadows groan on the ways of Hel, untilthe fire of Surt has consumed the tree. Hrym steers from the east, thewaters rise, the mundane snake is coiled in jotun-rage. The worm heatsthe water, and the eagle screams; the pale of beak tears carcases; theship Naglfar is loosed. Surt from the south comes with flickering flame;shines from his sword the Val-god's sun_.'"
Swaying there like a furred Valkyrie above the final carnage of men andgods, she touched his imagination, and the blood surged exultingly alongunknown channels, thrilling and uplifting.
"'_The stony hills are dashed together, the giantesses totter; men treadthe path of Hel, and heaven is cloven. The sun darkens, earth in oceansinks, fall from heaven the bright stars, fire's breath assails theall-nourishing tree, towering fire plays against heaven itself_.'"
Outlined against the blazing air, her brows and lashes white with frost,the jewel-dust striking and washing against hair and face, and thesouth-sun lighting her with a great redness, the man saw her as thegenius of the race. The traditions of the blood laid hold of him, and hefelt strangely at one with the white-skinned, yellow-haired giants of theyounger world. And as he looked upon her the mighty past rose beforehim, and the caverns of his being resounded with the shock and tumult offorgotten battles. With bellowing of storm-winds and crash of smokingNorth Sea waves, he saw the sharp-beaked fighting galleys, and thesea-flung Northmen, great-muscled, deep-chested, sprung from theelements, men of sword and sweep, marauders and scourgers of the warmsouth-lands! The din of twenty centuries of battle was roaring in hisear, and the clamor for return to type strong upon him. He seized herhands passionately.
"Be the bright bride by me, Frona! Be the bright bride by me on thecouch!"
She started and looked down at him, questioningly. Then the import of itreached her and she involuntarily drew back. The sun shot a last failingflicker across the earth and vanished. The fire went out of the air, andthe day darkened. Far above, the hearse-dogs howled mournfully.
"No," he interrupted, as words formed on her lips. "Do not speak. Iknow my answer, your answer . . . now . . . I was a fool . . . Come,let us go down."
It was not until they had left the mountain behind them, crossed theflat, and come out on the river by the saw-mill, that the bustle andskurry of human life made it seem possible for them to speak. Corlisshad walked with his eyes moodily bent to the ground; and Frona, with headerect and looking everywhere, stealing an occasional glance to his face.Where the road rose over the log run-way of the mill the footing wasslippery, and catching at her to save her from falling, their eyes met.
"I--I am grieved," she hesitated. And then, in unconscious self-defence,"It was so . . . I had not expected it--just then."
"Else you would have prevented?" he asked, bitterly.
"Yes. I think I should have. I did not wish to give you pain--"
"Then you expected it, some time?"
"And feared it. But I had hoped . . . I . . . Vance, I did not comeinto the Klondike to get married. I liked you at the beginning, and Ihave liked you more and more,--never so much as to-day,--but--"
"But you had never looked upon me in the light of a possiblehusband--that is what you are trying to say."
As he spoke, he looked at her side-wise, and sharply; and when her eyesmet his with the same old frankness, the thought of losing her maddenedhim.
"But I have," she answered at once. "I have looked upon you in thatlight, but somehow it was not convincing. Why, I do not know. There wasso much I found to like in you, so much--"
He tried to stop her with a dissenting gesture, but she went on.
"So much to admire. There was all the warmth of friendship, and closerfriendship,--a growing _camaraderie_, in fact; but nothing more. ThoughI did not wish more, I should have welcomed it had it come."
"As one welcomes the unwelcome guest."
"Why won't you help me, Vance, instead of making it harder? It is hardon you, surely, but do you imagine that I am enjoying it? I feel becauseof your pain, and, further, I know when I refuse a dear friend for alover the dear friend goes from me. I do not part with friends lightly."
"I see; doubly bankrupt; friend and lover both. But they are easilyreplaced. I fancy I was half lost before I spoke. Had I remainedsilent, it would have been the same anyway. Time softens; newassociations, new thoughts and faces; men with marvellous adventures--"
She stopped him abruptly.
"It is useless, Vance, no matter what you may say. I shall not quarrelwith you. I can understand how you feel--"
"If I am quarrelsome, then I had better leave you." He halted suddenly,and she stood beside him. "Here comes Dave Harney. He will see youhome. It's only a step."
"You are doing neither yourself nor me kindness." She spoke with finalfirmness. "I decline to consider this the end. We are too close to itto understand it fairly. You must come and see me when we are bothcalmer. I refuse to be treated in this fashion. It is childish of you."She shot a hasty glance at the approaching Eldorado king. "I do notthink I deserve it at your hands. I refuse to lose you as a friend. AndI insist that you come and see me, that things remain on the old footing."
He shook his head.
"Hello!" Dave Harney touched his cap and slowed down loose-jointedly."Sorry you didn't take my tip? Dogs gone up a dollar a pound sinceyesterday, and still a-whoopin'. Good-afternoon, Miss Frona, and Mr.Corliss. Goin' my way?"
"Miss Welse is." Corliss touched the visor of his cap and half-turned onhis heel.
"Where're you off to?" Dave demanded.
"Got an appointment," he lied.
"Remember," Frona called to him, "you must come and see me."
"Too busy, I'm afraid, just now. Good-by. So long, Dave."
"Jemimy!" Dave remarked, staring after him; "but he's a hustler. Alwaysbusy--with big things, too. Wonder why he didn't go in for dogs?"