CHAPTER XVI
The stampede to French Hill was on by the beginning of Christmas week.Corliss and Bishop had been in no hurry to record for they looked theground over carefully before blazing their stakes, and let a few closefriends into the secret,--Harney, Welse, Trethaway, a Dutch _chechaquo_who had forfeited both feet to the frost, a couple of the mountedpolice, an old pal with whom Del had prospected through the Black HillsCountry, the washerwoman at the Forks, and last, and notably, Lucile.Corliss was responsible for her getting in on the lay, and he drove andmarked her stakes himself, though it fell to the colonel to deliver theinvitation to her to come and be rich.
In accordance with the custom of the country, those thus benefitedoffered to sign over half-interests to the two discoverers. Corlisswould not tolerate the proposition. Del was similarly minded, thoughswayed by no ethical reasons. He had enough as it stood. "Got myfruit ranch paid for, double the size I was calculatin' on," heexplained; "and if I had any more, I wouldn't know what to do with it,sure."
After the strike, Corliss took it upon himself as a matter of course tolook about for another man; but when he brought a keen-eyed Californianinto camp, Del was duly wroth.
"Not on your life," he stormed.
"But you are rich now," Vance answered, "and have no need to work."
"Rich, hell!" the pocket-miner rejoined. "Accordin' to covenant, youcan't fire me; and I'm goin' to hold the job down as long as my sweetwill'll let me. Savve?"
On Friday morning, early, all interested parties appeared before theGold Commissioner to record their claims. The news went abroadimmediately. In five minutes the first stampeders were hitting thetrail. At the end of half an hour the town was afoot. To preventmistakes on their property,--jumping, moving of stakes, and mutilationof notices,--Vance and Del, after promptly recording, started toreturn. But with the government seal attached to their holdings, theytook it leisurely, the stampeders sliding past them in a steady stream.Midway, Del chanced to look behind. St. Vincent was in sight, footingit at a lively pace, the regulation stampeding pack on his shoulders.The trail made a sharp bend at that place, and with the exception ofthe three of them no one was in sight.
"Don't speak to me. Don't recognize me," Del cautioned sharply, as hespoke, buttoning his nose-strap across his face, which served to quitehide his identity. "There's a water-hole over there. Get down on yourbelly and make a blind at gettin' a drink. Then go on by your lonelyto the claims; I've business of my own to handle. And for the love ofyour bother don't say a word to me or to the skunk. Don't let 'm seeyour face."
Corliss obeyed wonderingly, stepping aside from the beaten path, lyingdown in the snow, and dipping into the water-hole with an emptycondensed milk-can. Bishop bent on one knee and stooped as thoughfastening his moccasin. Just as St. Vincent came up with him hefinished tying the knot, and started forward with the feverish haste ofa man trying to make up for lost time.
"I say, hold on, my man," the correspondent called out to him.
Bishop shot a hurried glance at him and pressed on. St. Vincent brokeinto a run till they were side by side again.
"Is this the way--"
"To the benches of French Hill?" Del snapped him short. "Betcher yourlife. That's the way I'm headin'. So long."
He ploughed forward at a tremendous rate, and the correspondent,half-running, swung in behind with the evident intention of taking thepace. Corliss, still in the dark, lifted his head and watched them go;but when he saw the pocket-miner swerve abruptly to the right and takethe trail up Adams Creek, the light dawned upon him and he laughedsoftly to himself.
Late that night Del arrived in camp on Eldorado exhausted but jubilant.
"Didn't do a thing to him," he cried before he was half inside thetent-flaps. "Gimme a bite to eat" (grabbing at the teapot and runninga hot flood down his throat),--"cookin'-fat, slush, old moccasins,candle-ends, anything!"
Then he collapsed upon the blankets and fell to rubbing his stiffleg-muscles while Corliss fried bacon and dished up the beans.
"What about 'm?" he exulted between mouthfuls. "Well, you can stackyour chips that he didn't get in on the French Hill benches. _How faris it, my man_?" (in the well-mimicked, patronizing tones of St.Vincent). "_How far is it_?" with the patronage left out. "_How farto French Hill_?" weakly. "_How far do you think it is_?" very weakly,with a tremolo which hinted of repressed tears. "_How far_--"
The pocket-miner burst into roars of laughter, which were choked by amisdirected flood of tea, and which left him coughing and speechless.
"Where'd I leave 'm?" when he had recovered. "Over on the divide toIndian River, winded, plum-beaten, done for. Just about able to crawlinto the nearest camp, and that's about all. I've covered fifty stiffmiles myself, so here's for bed. Good-night. Don't call me in themornin'."
He turned into the blankets all-standing, and as he dozed off Vancecould hear him muttering, "_How far is it, my man_? _I say, how far isit_?"
Regarding Lucile, Corliss was disappointed. "I confess I cannotunderstand her," he said to Colonel Trethaway. "I thought her benchclaim would make her independent of the Opera House."
"You can't get a dump out in a day," the colonel interposed.
"But you can mortgage the dirt in the ground when it prospects as hersdoes. Yet I took that into consideration, and offered to advance her afew thousand, non-interest bearing, and she declined. Said she didn'tneed it,--in fact, was really grateful; thanked me, and said that anytime I was short to come and see her."
Trethaway smiled and played with his watch-chain. "What would you?Life, even here, certainly means more to you and me than a bit of grub,a piece of blanket, and a Yukon stove. She is as gregarious as therest of us, and probably a little more so. Suppose you cut her offfrom the Opera House,--what then? May she go up to the Barracks andconsort with the captain's lady, make social calls on Mrs. Schoville,or chum with Frona? Don't you see? Will you escort her, in daylight,down the public street?"
"Will you?" Vance demanded.
"Ay," the colonel replied, unhesitatingly, "and with pleasure."
"And so will I; but--" He paused and gazed gloomily into the fire."But see how she is going on with St. Vincent. As thick as thievesthey are, and always together."
"Puzzles me," Trethaway admitted. "I can grasp St. Vincent's side ofit. Many irons in the fire, and Lucile owns a bench claim on thesecond tier of French Hill. Mark me, Corliss, we can tell infalliblythe day that Frona consents to go to his bed and board,--if she everdoes consent."
"And that will be?"
"The day St. Vincent breaks with Lucile."
Corliss pondered, and the colonel went on.
"But I can't grasp Lucile's side of it. What she can see in St.Vincent--"
"Her taste is no worse than--than that of the rest of the women," Vancebroke in hotly. "I am sure that--"
"Frona could not display poor taste, eh?" Corliss turned on his heeland walked out, and left Colonel Trethaway smiling grimly.
Vance Corliss never knew how many people, directly and indirectly, hadhis cause at heart that Christmas week. Two men strove in particular,one for him and one for the sake of Frona. Pete Whipple, an old-timerin the land, possessed an Eldorado claim directly beneath French Hill,also a woman of the country for a wife,--a swarthy _breed_, not overpretty, whose Indian mother had mated with a Russian fur-trader somethirty years before at Kutlik on the Great Delta. Bishop went down oneSunday morning to yarn away an hour or so with Whipple, but found thewife alone in the cabin. She talked a bastard English gibberish whichwas an anguish to hear, so the pocket-miner resolved to smoke a pipeand depart without rudeness. But he got her tongue wagging, and tosuch an extent that he stopped and smoked many pipes, and whenever shelagged, urged her on again. He grunted and chuckled and swore inundertones while he listened, punctuating her narrative regularly with_hells_! which adequately expressed the many shades of interest he felt.
In the midst of it, the
woman fished an ancient leather-bound volume,all scarred and marred, from the bottom of a dilapidated chest, andthereafter it lay on the table between them. Though it remainedunopened, she constantly referred to it by look and gesture, and eachtime she did so a greedy light blazed in Bishop's eyes. At the end,when she could say no more and had repeated herself from two to half adozen times, he pulled out his sack. Mrs. Whipple set up the goldscales and placed the weights, which he counterbalanced with a hundreddollars' worth of dust. Then he departed up the hill to the tent,hugging the purchase closely, and broke in on Corliss, who sat in theblankets mending moccasins.
"I'll fix 'm yet," Del remarked casually, at the same time patting thebook and throwing it down on the bed.
Corliss looked up inquiringly and opened it. The paper was yellow withage and rotten from the weather-wear of trail, while the text wasprinted in Russian. "I didn't know you were a Russian scholar, Del,"he quizzed. "But I can't read a line of it."
"Neither can I, more's the pity; nor does Whipple's woman savve thelingo. I got it from her. But her old man--he was full Russian, youknow--he used to read it aloud to her. But she knows what she knowsand what her old man knew, and so do I."
"And what do the three of you know?"
"Oh, that's tellin'," Bishop answered, coyly. "But you wait and watchmy smoke, and when you see it risin', you'll know, too."
Matt McCarthy came in over the ice Christmas week, summed up thesituation so far as Frona and St. Vincent were concerned, and did notlike it. Dave Harney furnished him with full information, to which headded that obtained from Lucile, with whom he was on good terms.Perhaps it was because he received the full benefit of the sum of theirprejudice; but no matter how, he at any rate answered roll-call withthose who looked upon the correspondent with disfavor. It wasimpossible for them to tell why they did not approve of the man, butsomehow St. Vincent was never much of a success with men. This, inturn, might have been due to the fact that he shone so resplendentlywith women as to cast his fellows in eclipse; for otherwise, in hisintercourse with men, he was all that a man could wish. There wasnothing domineering or over-riding about him, while he manifested agood fellowship at least equal to their own.
Yet, having withheld his judgment after listening to Lucile and Harney,Matt McCarthy speedily reached a verdict upon spending an hour with St.Vincent at Jacob Welse's,--and this in face of the fact that whatLucile had said had been invalidated by Matt's learning of her intimacywith the man in question. Strong of friendship, quick of heart andhand, Matt did not let the grass grow under his feet. "'Tis I'll betakin' a social fling meself, as befits a mimber iv the noble EldoradoDynasty," he explained, and went up the hill to a whist party in DaveHarney's cabin. To himself he added, "An' belike, if Satan takes hiseye off his own, I'll put it to that young cub iv his."
But more than once during the evening he discovered himself challenginghis own judgment. Probe as he would with his innocent wit, Matt foundhimself baffled. St. Vincent certainly rang true. Simple,light-hearted, unaffected, joking and being joked in all good-nature,thoroughly democratic. Matt failed to catch the faintest echo ofinsincerity.
"May the dogs walk on me grave," he communed with himself whilestudying a hand which suffered from a plethora of trumps. "Is it theyears are tellin', puttin' the frost in me veins and chillin' theblood? A likely lad, an' is it for me to misjudge because his isa-takin' way with the ladies? Just because the swate creatures smileon the lad an' flutter warm at the sight iv him? Bright eyes and bravemen! 'Tis the way they have iv lovin' valor. They're shuddered an'shocked at the cruel an' bloody dades iv war, yet who so quick do theylose their hearts to as the brave butcher-bye iv a sodger? Why not?The lad's done brave things, and the girls give him the warm softsmile. Small reason, that, for me to be callin' him the devil's owncub. Out upon ye, Matt McCarthy, for a crusty old sour-dough, withvitals frozen an' summer gone from yer heart! 'Tis an ossificationye've become! But bide a wee, Matt, bide a wee," he supplemented."Wait till ye've felt the fale iv his flesh."
The opportunity came shortly, when St. Vincent, with Frona opposite,swept in the full thirteen tricks.
"A rampse!" Matt cried. "Vincent, me lad, a rampse! Yer hand on it,me brave!"
It was a stout grip, neither warm nor clammy, but Matt shook his headdubiously. "What's the good iv botherin'?" he muttered to himself ashe shuffled the cards for the next deal. "Ye old fool! Find out firsthow Frona darlin' stands, an' if it's pat she is, thin 'tis time fordoin'."
"Oh, McCarthy's all hunky," Dave Harney assured them later on, comingto the rescue of St. Vincent, who was getting the rough side of theIrishman's wit. The evening was over and the company was putting onits wraps and mittens. "Didn't tell you 'bout his visit to thecathedral, did he, when he was on the Outside? Well, it was suthin'like this, ez he was explainin' it to me. He went to the cathedraldurin' service, an' took in the priests and choir-boys in theirsurplices,--_parkas_, he called 'em,--an' watched the burnin' of theholy incense. 'An' do ye know, Dave, he sez to me, 'they got in an'made a smudge, and there wa'n't a darned mosquito in sight.'"
"True, ivery word iv it." Matt unblushingly fathered Harney's yarn."An' did ye niver hear tell iv the time Dave an' me got drunk oncondensed milk?"
"Oh! Horrors!" cried Mrs. Schoville. "But how? Do tell us."
"'Twas durin' the time iv the candle famine at Forty Mile. Cold snapon, an' Dave slides into me shack to pass the time o' day, and glueshis eyes on me case iv condensed milk. 'How'd ye like a sip iv Moran'sgood whiskey?' he sez, eyin' the case iv milk the while. I confiss memouth went wet at the naked thought iv it. 'But what's the use ivlikin'?' sez I, with me sack bulgin' with emptiness.' 'Candles worthtin dollars the dozen,' sez he, 'a dollar apiece. Will ye give sixcans iv milk for a bottle iv the old stuff?' 'How'll ye do it?' sez I.'Trust me,' sez he. 'Give me the cans. 'Tis cold out iv doors, an'I've a pair iv candle-moulds.'
"An' it's the sacred truth I'm tellin' ye all, an' if ye run acrossBill Moran he'll back me word; for what does Dave Harney do but lug offme six cans, freeze the milk into his candle-moulds, an' trade them into bill Moran for a bottle iv tanglefoot!"
As soon as he could be heard through the laughter, Harney raised hisvoice. "It's true, as McCarthy tells, but he's only told you the half.Can't you guess the rest, Matt?"
Matt shook his head.
"Bein' short on milk myself, an' not over much sugar, I doctored threeof your cans with water, which went to make the candles. An' by thebye, I had milk in my coffee for a month to come."
"It's on me, Dave," McCarthy admitted. "'Tis only that yer me host, orI'd be shockin' the ladies with yer nortorious disgraces. But I'lllave ye live this time, Dave. Come, spade the partin' guests; we mustbe movin'."
"No ye don't, ye young laddy-buck," he interposed, as St. Vincentstarted to take Frona down the hill, "'Tis her foster-daddy sees herhome this night."
McCarthy laughed in his silent way and offered his arm to Frona, whileSt. Vincent joined in the laugh against himself, dropped back, andjoined Miss Mortimer and Baron Courbertin.
"What's this I'm hearin' about you an' Vincent?" Matt bluntly asked assoon as they had drawn apart from the others.
He looked at her with his keen gray eyes, but she returned the lookquite as keenly.
"How should I know what you have been hearing?" she countered.
"Whin the talk goes round iv a maid an' a man, the one pretty an' theother not unhandsome, both young an' neither married, does it 'tokenaught but the one thing?"
"Yes?"
"An' the one thing the greatest thing in all the world."
"Well?" Frona was the least bit angry, and did not feel inclined tohelp him.
"Marriage, iv course," he blurted out. "'Tis said it looks that waywith the pair of ye."
"But is it said that it _is_ that way?"
"Isn't the looks iv it enough ?" he demanded.
"No; and you are old enough to know better. Mr. St. Vinc
ent and I--weenjoy each other as friends, that is all. But suppose it is as yousay, what of it?"
"Well," McCarthy deliberated, "there's other talk goes round, 'Tissaid Vincent is over-thick with a jade down in the town--Lucile, theyspeak iv her."
"All of which signifies?"
She waited, and McCarthy watched her dumbly.
"I know Lucile, and I like her," Frona continued, filling the gap ofhis silence, and ostentatiously manoeuvring to help him on. "Do youknow her? Don't you like her?"
Matt started to speak, cleared his throat, and halted. At last, indesperation, he blurted out, "For two cents, Frona, I'd lay ye acrostme knee."
She laughed. "You don't dare. I'm not running barelegged at Dyea."
"Now don't be tasin'," he blarneyed.
"I'm not teasing. Don't you like her?--Lucile?"
"An' what iv it?" he challenged, brazenly.
"Just what I asked,--what of it?"
"Thin I'll tell ye in plain words from a man old enough to be yerfather. 'Tis undacent, damnably undacent, for a man to kape companywith a good young girl--"
"Thank you," she laughed, dropping a courtesy. Then she added, half inbitterness, "There have been others who--"
"Name me the man!" he cried hotly.
"There, there, go on. You were saying?"
"That it's a crying shame for a man to kape company with--with you, an'at the same time be chake by jowl with a woman iv her stamp."
"And why?"
"To come drippin' from the muck to dirty yer claneness! An' ye can askwhy?"
"But wait, Matt, wait a moment. Granting your premises--"
"Little I know iv primises," he growled. "'Tis facts I'm dalin' with."
Frona bit her lip. "Never mind. Have it as you will; but let me go onand I will deal with facts, too. When did you last see Lucile?"
"An' why are ye askin'?" he demanded, suspiciously.
"Never mind why. The fact."
"Well, thin, the fore part iv last night, an' much good may it do ye."
"And danced with her?"
"A rollickin' Virginia reel, an' not sayin' a word iv a quadrille orso. Tis at square dances I excel meself."
Frona walked on in a simulated brown study, no sound going up from thetwain save the complaint of the snow from under their moccasins.
"Well, thin?" he questioned, uneasily.
"An' what iv it?" he insisted after another silence.
"Oh, nothing," she answered. "I was just wondering which was themuckiest, Mr. St. Vincent or you--or myself, with whom you have bothbeen cheek by jowl."
Now, McCarthy was unversed in the virtues of social wisdom, and, thoughhe felt somehow the error of her position, he could not put it intodefinite thought; so he steered wisely, if weakly, out of danger.
"It's gettin' mad ye are with yer old Matt," he insinuated, "who hasyer own good at heart, an' because iv it makes a fool iv himself."
"No, I'm not."
"But ye are."
"There!" leaning swiftly to him and kissing him. "How could I rememberthe Dyea days and be angry?"
"Ah, Frona darlin', well may ye say it. I'm the dust iv the dirt underyer feet, an' ye may walk on me--anything save get mad. I cud die forye, swing for ye, to make ye happy. I cud kill the man that gave yesorrow, were it but a thimbleful, an' go plump into hell with a smileon me face an' joy in me heart."
They had halted before her door, and she pressed his arm gratefully."I am not angry, Matt. But with the exception of my father you are theonly person I would have permitted to talk to me about this--thisaffair in the way you have. And though I like you, Matt, love youbetter than ever, I shall nevertheless be very angry if you mention itagain. You have no right. It is something that concerns me alone.And it is wrong of you--"
"To prevint ye walkin' blind into danger?"
"If you wish to put it that way, yes."
He growled deep down in his throat.
"What is it you are saying?" she asked.
"That ye may shut me mouth, but that ye can't bind me arm."
"But you mustn't, Matt, dear, you mustn't."
Again he answered with a subterranean murmur.
"And I want you to promise me, now, that you will not interfere in mylife that way, by word or deed."
"I'll not promise."
"But you must."
"I'll not. Further, it's gettin' cold on the stoop, an' ye'll befrostin' yer toes, the pink little toes I fished splinters out iv atDyea. So it's in with ye, Frona girl, an' good-night."
He thrust her inside and departed. When he reached the corner hestopped suddenly and regarded his shadow on the snow. "Matt McCarthy,yer a damned fool! Who iver heard iv a Welse not knowin' their ownmind? As though ye'd niver had dalin's with the stiff-necked breed, yecalamitous son iv misfortune!"
Then he went his way, still growling deeply, and at every growl thecurious wolf-dog at his heels bristled and bared its fangs.