FLUSH OF GOLD
Lon McFane was a bit grumpy, what of losing his tobacco pouch, or else hemight have told me, before we got to it, something about the cabin atSurprise Lake. All day, turn and turn about, we had spelled each otherat going to the fore and breaking trail for the dogs. It was heavysnowshoe work, and did not tend to make a man voluble, yet Lon McFanemight have found breath enough at noon, when we stopped to boil coffee,with which to tell me. But he didn't. Surprise Lake?--it was SurpriseCabin to me. I had never heard of it before. I confess I was a bittired. I had been looking for Lon to stop and make camp any time for anhour; but I had too much pride to suggest making camp or to ask him hisintentions; and yet he was my man, lured at a handsome wage to mush mydogs for me and to obey my commands. I guess I was a bit grumpy myself.He said nothing, and I was resolved to ask nothing, even if we tramped onall night.
We came upon the cabin abruptly. For a week of trail we had met no one,and, in my mind, there had been little likelihood of meeting any one fora week to come. And yet there it was, right before my eyes, a cabin,with a dim light in the window and smoke curling up from the chimney.
"Why didn't you tell me--" I began, but was interrupted by Lon, whomuttered--
"Surprise Lake--it lies up a small feeder half a mile on. It's only apond."
"Yes, but the cabin--who lives in it?"
"A woman," was the answer, and the next moment Lon had rapped on thedoor, and a woman's voice bade him enter.
"Have you seen Dave recently?" she asked.
"Nope," Lon answered carelessly. "I've been in the other direction, downCircle City way. Dave's up Dawson way, ain't he?"
The woman nodded, and Lon fell to unharnessing the dogs, while I unlashedthe sled and carried the camp outfit into the cabin. The cabin was alarge, one-room affair, and the woman was evidently alone in it. Shepointed to the stove, where water was already boiling, and Lon set aboutthe preparation of supper, while I opened the fish-bag and fed the dogs.I looked for Lon to introduce us, and was vexed that he did not, for theywere evidently old friends.
"You are Lon McFane, aren't you?" I heard her ask him. "Why, I rememberyou now. The last time I saw you it was on a steamboat, wasn't it? Iremember . . . "
Her speech seemed suddenly to be frozen by the spectacle of dread which,I knew, from the tenor I saw mounting in her eyes, must be on her innervision. To my astonishment, Lon was affected by her words and manner.His face showed desperate, for all his voice sounded hearty and genial,as he said--
"The last time we met was at Dawson, Queen's Jubilee, or Birthday, orsomething--don't you remember?--the canoe races in the river, and theobstacle races down the main street?"
The terror faded out of her eyes and her whole body relaxed. "Oh, yes, Ido remember," she said. "And you won one of the canoe races."
"How's Dave been makin' it lately? Strikin' it as rich as ever, Isuppose?" Lon asked, with apparent irrelevance.
She smiled and nodded, and then, noticing that I had unlashed the bedroll, she indicated the end of the cabin where I might spread it. Herown bunk, I noticed, was made up at the opposite end.
"I thought it was Dave coming when I heard your dogs," she said.
After that she said nothing, contenting herself with watching Lon'scooking operations, and listening the while as for the sound of dogsalong the trail. I lay back on the blankets and smoked and watched.Here was mystery; I could make that much out, but no more could I makeout. Why in the deuce hadn't Lon given me the tip before we arrived? Ilooked at her face, unnoticed by her, and the longer I looked the harderit was to take my eyes away. It was a wonderfully beautiful face,unearthly, I may say, with a light in it or an expression or something"that was never on land or sea." Fear and terror had completelyvanished, and it was a placidly beautiful face--if by "placid" one cancharacterize that intangible and occult something that I cannot say was aradiance or a light any more than I can say it was an expression.
Abruptly, as if for the first time, she became aware of my presence.
"Have you seen Dave recently?" she asked me. It was on the tip of mytongue to say "Dave who?" when Lon coughed in the smoke that arose fromthe sizzling bacon. The bacon might have caused that cough, but I tookit as a hint and left my question unasked. "No, I haven't," I answered."I'm new in this part of the country--"
"But you don't mean to say," she interrupted, "that you've never heard ofDave--of Big Dave Walsh?"
"You see," I apologised, "I'm new in the country. I've put in most of mytime in the Lower Country, down Nome way."
"Tell him about Dave," she said to Lon.
Lon seemed put out, but he began in that hearty, genial manner that I hadnoticed before. It seemed a shade too hearty and genial, and itirritated me.
"Oh, Dave is a fine man," he said. "He's a man, every inch of him, andhe stands six feet four in his socks. His word is as good as his bond.The man lies who ever says Dave told a lie, and that man will have tofight with me, too, as well--if there's anything left of him when Davegets done with him. For Dave is a fighter. Oh, yes, he's a scrapperfrom way back. He got a grizzly with a '38 popgun. He got clawed some,but he knew what he was doin'. He went into the cave on purpose to getthat grizzly. 'Fraid of nothing. Free an' easy with his money, or hislast shirt an' match when out of money. Why, he drained Surprise Lakehere in three weeks an' took out ninety thousand, didn't he?" Sheflushed and nodded her head proudly. Through his recital she hadfollowed every word with keenest interest. "An' I must say," Lon wenton, "that I was disappointed sore on not meeting Dave here to-night."
Lon served supper at one end of the table of whip-sawed spruce, and wefell to eating. A howling of the dogs took the woman to the door. Sheopened it an inch and listened.
"Where is Dave Walsh?" I asked, in an undertone.
"Dead," Lon answered. "In hell, maybe. I don't know. Shut up."
"But you just said that you expected to meet him here to-night," Ichallenged.
"Oh, shut up, can't you," was Lon's reply, in the same cautiousundertone.
The woman had closed the door and was returning, and I sat and meditatedupon the fact that this man who told me to shut up received from me asalary of two hundred and fifty dollars a month and his board.
Lon washed the dishes, while I smoked and watched the woman. She seemedmore beautiful than ever--strangely and weirdly beautiful, it is true.After looking at her steadfastly for five minutes, I was compelled tocome back to the real world and to glance at Lon McFane. This enabled meto know, without discussion, that the woman, too, was real. At first Ihad taken her for the wife of Dave Walsh; but if Dave Walsh were dead, asLon had said, then she could be only his widow.
It was early to bed, for we faced a long day on the morrow; and as Loncrawled in beside me under the blankets, I ventured a question.
"That woman's crazy, isn't she?"
"Crazy as a loon," he answered.
And before I could formulate my next question, Lon McFane, I swear, wasoff to sleep. He always went to sleep that way--just crawled into theblankets, closed his eyes, and was off, a demure little heavy breathingrising on the air. Lon never snored.
And in the morning it was quick breakfast, feed the dogs, load the sled,and hit the trail. We said good-bye as we pulled out, and the womanstood in the doorway and watched us off. I carried the vision of herunearthly beauty away with me, just under my eyelids, and all I had todo, any time, was to close them and see her again. The way was unbroken,Surprise Lake being far off the travelled trails, and Lon and I took turnabout at beating down the feathery snow with our big, webbed shoes sothat the dogs could travel. "But you said you expected to meet DaveWalsh at the cabin," trembled on the tip of my tongue a score of times.I did not utter it. I could wait until we knocked off in the middle ofthe day. And when the middle of the day came, we went right on, for, asLon explained, there was a camp of moose hunters at the forks of theTeelee, and we could make there by dark. But we didn't make th
ere bydark, for Bright, the lead-dog, broke his shoulder-blade, and we lost anhour over him before we shot him. Then, crossing a timber jam on thefrozen bed of the Teelee, the sled suffered a wrenching capsize, and itwas a case of make camp and repair the runner. I cooked supper and fedthe dogs while Lon made the repairs, and together we got in the night'ssupply of ice and firewood. Then we sat on our blankets, our moccasinssteaming on upended sticks before the fire, and had our evening smoke.
"You didn't know her?" Lon queried suddenly. I shook my head.
"You noticed the colour of her hair and eyes and her complexion, well,that's where she got her name--she was like the first warm glow of agolden sunrise. She was called Flush of Gold. Ever heard of her?"
Somewhere I had a confused and misty remembrance of having heard thename, yet it meant nothing to me. "Flush of Gold," I repeated; "soundslike the name of a dance-house girl." Lon shook his head. "No, she wasa good woman, at least in that sense, though she sinned greatly just thesame."
"But why do you speak always of her in the past tense, as though she weredead?"
"Because of the darkness on her soul that is the same as the darkness ofdeath. The Flush of Gold that I knew, that Dawson knew, and that FortyMile knew before that, is dead. That dumb, lunatic creature we saw lastnight was not Flush of Gold."
"And Dave?" I queried.
"He built that cabin," Lon answered, "He built it for her . . . and forhimself. He is dead. She is waiting for him there. She half believeshe is not dead. But who can know the whim of a crazed mind? Maybe shewholly believes he is not dead. At any rate, she waits for him there inthe cabin he built. Who would rouse the dead? Then who would rouse theliving that are dead? Not I, and that is why I let on to expect to meetDave Walsh there last night. I'll bet a stack that I'd a been moresurprised than she if I _had_ met him there last night."
"I do not understand," I said. "Begin at the beginning, as a white manshould, and tell me the whole tale."
And Lon began. "Victor Chauvet was an old Frenchman--born in the southof France. He came to California in the days of gold. He was a pioneer.He found no gold, but, instead, became a maker of bottled sunshine--inshort, a grape-grower and wine-maker. Also, he followed goldexcitements. That is what brought him to Alaska in the early days, andover the Chilcoot and down the Yukon long before the Carmack strike. Theold town site of Ten Mile was Chauvet's. He carried the first mail intoArctic City. He staked those coal-mines on the Porcupine a dozen yearsago. He grubstaked Loftus into the Nippennuck Country. Now it happenedthat Victor Chauvet was a good Catholic, loving two things in this world,wine and woman. Wine of all kinds he loved, but of woman, only one, andshe was the mother of Marie Chauvet."
Here I groaned aloud, having meditated beyond self-control over the factthat I paid this man two hundred and fifty dollars a month.
"What's the matter now?" he demanded.
"Matter?" I complained. "I thought you were telling the story of Flushof Gold. I don't want a biography of your old French wine-bibber."
Lon calmly lighted his pipe, took one good puff, then put the pipe aside."And you asked me to begin at the beginning," he said.
"Yes," said I; "the beginning."
"And the beginning of Flush of Gold is the old French wine-bibber, for hewas the father of Marie Chauvet, and Marie Chauvet was the Flush of Gold.What more do you want? Victor Chauvet never had much luck to speak of.He managed to live, and to get along, and to take good care of Marie, whoresembled the one woman he had loved. He took very good care of her.Flush of Gold was the pet name he gave her. Flush of Gold Creek wasnamed after her--Flush of Gold town site, too. The old man was great ontown sites, only he never landed them.
"Now, honestly," Lon said, with one of his lightning changes, "you'veseen her, what do you think of her--of her looks, I mean? How does shestrike your beauty sense?"
"She is remarkably beautiful," I said. "I never saw anything like her inmy life. In spite of the fact, last night, that I guessed she was mad, Icould not keep my eyes off of her. It wasn't curiosity. It was wonder,sheer wonder, she was so strangely beautiful."
"She was more strangely beautiful before the darkness fell upon her," Lonsaid softly. "She was truly the Flush of Gold. She turned all men'shearts . . . and heads. She recalls, with an effort, that I once won acanoe race at Dawson--I, who once loved her, and was told by her of herlove for me. It was her beauty that made all men love her. She'd 'a'got the apple from Paris, on application, and there wouldn't have beenany Trojan War, and to top it off she'd have thrown Paris down. And nowshe lives in darkness, and she who was always fickle, for the first timeis constant--and constant to a shade, to a dead man she does not realizeis dead.
"And this is the way it was. You remember what I said last night of DaveWalsh--Big Dave Walsh? He was all that I said, and more, many timesmore. He came into this country in the late eighties--that's a pioneerfor you. He was twenty years old then. He was a young bull. When hewas twenty-five he could lift clear of the ground thirteen fifty-poundsacks of flour. At first, each fall of the year, famine drove him out.It was a lone land in those days. No river steamboats, no grub, nothingbut salmon bellies and rabbit tracks. But after famine chased him outthree years, he said he'd had enough of being chased; and the next yearhe stayed. He lived on straight meat when he was lucky enough to get it;he ate eleven dogs that winter; but he stayed. And the next winter hestayed, and the next. He never did leave the country again. He was abull, a great bull. He could kill the strongest man in the country withhard work. He could outpack a Chilcat Indian, he could outpaddle aStick, and he could travel all day with wet feet when the thermometerregistered fifty below zero, and that's going some, I tell you, forvitality. You'd freeze your feet at twenty-five below if you wet themand tried to keep on.
"Dave Walsh was a bull for strength. And yet he was soft andeasy-natured. Anybody could do him, the latest short-horn in camp couldlie his last dollar out of him. 'But it doesn't worry me,' he had a wayof laughing off his softness; 'it doesn't keep me awake nights.' Nowdon't get the idea that he had no backbone. You remember about the bearhe went after with the popgun. When it came to fighting Dave was theblamedest ever. He was the limit, if by that I may describe hisunlimitedness when he got into action, he was easy and kind with theweak, but the strong had to give trail when he went by. And he was a manthat men liked, which is the finest word of all, a man's man.
"Dave never took part in the big stampede to Dawson when Carmack made theBonanza strike. You see, Dave was just then over on Mammon Creekstrikin' it himself. He discovered Mammon Creek. Cleaned eighty-fourthousand up that winter, and opened up the claim so that it promised acouple of hundred thousand for the next winter. Then, summer bein' onand the ground sloshy, he took a trip up the Yukon to Dawson to see whatCarmack's strike looked like. And there he saw Flush of Gold. Iremember the night. I shall always remember. It was something sudden,and it makes one shiver to think of a strong man with all the strengthwithered out of him by one glance from the soft eyes of a weak, blond,female creature like Flush of Gold. It was at her dad's cabin, oldVictor Chauvet's. Some friend had brought Dave along to talk over townsites on Mammon Creek. But little talking did he do, and what he did wasmostly gibberish. I tell you the sight of Flush of Gold had sent Daveclean daffy. Old Victor Chauvet insisted after Dave left that he hadbeen drunk. And so he had. He was drunk, but Flush of Gold was thestrong drink that made him so.
"That settled it, that first glimpse he caught of her. He did not startback down the Yukon in a week, as he had intended. He lingered on amonth, two months, all summer. And we who had suffered understood, andwondered what the outcome would be. Undoubtedly, in our minds, it seemedthat Flush of Gold had met her master. And why not? There was romancesprinkled all over Dave Walsh. He was a Mammon King, he had made theMammon Creek strike; he was an old sour dough, one of the oldest pioneersin the land--men turned to look at him when he went by, and said to
oneanother in awed undertones, 'There goes Dave Walsh.' And why not? Hestood six feet four; he had yellow hair himself that curled on his neck;and he was a bull--a yellow-maned bull just turned thirty-one.
"And Flush of Gold loved him, and, having danced him through a wholesummer's courtship, at the end their engagement was made known. The fallof the year was at hand, Dave had to be back for the winter's work onMammon Creek, and Flush of Gold refused to be married right away. Daveput Dusky Burns in charge of the Mammon Creek claim, and himself lingeredon in Dawson. Little use. She wanted her freedom a while longer; shemust have it, and she would not marry until next year. And so, on thefirst ice, Dave Walsh went alone down the Yukon behind his dogs, with theunderstanding that the marriage would take place when he arrived on thefirst steamboat of the next year.
"Now Dave was as true as the Pole Star, and she was as false as amagnetic needle in a cargo of loadstone. Dave was as steady and solid asshe was fickle and fly-away, and in some way Dave, who never doubtedanybody, doubted her. It was the jealousy of his love, perhaps, andmaybe it was the message ticked off from her soul to his; but at any rateDave was worried by fear of her inconstancy. He was afraid to trust hertill the next year, he had so to trust her, and he was pretty well besidehimself. Some of it I got from old Victor Chauvet afterwards, and fromall that I have pieced together I conclude that there was something of ascene before Dave pulled north with his dogs. He stood up before the oldFrenchman, with Flush of Gold beside him, and announced that they wereplighted to each other. He was very dramatic, with fire in his eyes, oldVictor said. He talked something about 'until death do us part'; and oldVictor especially remembered that at one place Dave took her by theshoulder with his great paw and almost shook her as he said: 'Even untodeath are you mine, and I would rise from the grave to claim you.' OldVictor distinctly remembered those words 'Even unto death are you mine,and I would rise from the grave to claim you.' And he told me afterwardsthat Flush of Gold was pretty badly frightened, and that he afterwardstook Dave to one side privately and told him that that wasn't the way tohold Flush of Gold--that he must humour her and gentle her if he wantedto keep her.
"There is no discussion in my mind but that Flush of Gold was frightened.She was a savage herself in her treatment of men, while men had alwaystreated her as a soft and tender and too utterly-utter something thatmust not be hurt. She didn't know what harshness was . . . until DaveWalsh, standing his six feet four, a big bull, gripped her and pawed herand assured her that she was his until death, and then some. Andbesides, in Dawson, that winter, was a music-player--one of thosemacaroni-eating, greasy-tenor-Eye-talian-dago propositions--and Flush ofGold lost her heart to him. Maybe it was only fascination--I don't know.Sometimes it seems to me that she really did love Dave Walsh. Perhaps itwas because he had frightened her with that even-unto-death,rise-from-the-grave stunt of his that she in the end inclined to the dagomusic-player. But it is all guesswork, and the facts are, sufficient.He wasn't a dago; he was a Russian count--this was straight; and hewasn't a professional piano-player or anything of the sort. He playedthe violin and the piano, and he sang--sang well--but it was for his ownpleasure and for the pleasure of those he sang for. He had money,too--and right here let me say that Flush of Gold never cared a rap formoney. She was fickle, but she was never sordid.
"But to be getting along. She was plighted to Dave, and Dave was comingup on the first steamboat to get her--that was the summer of '98, and thefirst steamboat was to be expected the middle of June. And Flush of Goldwas afraid to throw Dave down and face him afterwards. It was allplanned suddenly. The Russian music-player, the Count, was her obedientslave. She planned it, I know. I learned as much from old Victorafterwards. The Count took his orders from her, and caught that firststeamboat down. It was the _Golden Rocket_. And so did Flush of Goldcatch it. And so did I. I was going to Circle City, and I wasflabbergasted when I found Flush of Gold on board. I didn't see her namedown on the passenger list. She was with the Count fellow all the time,happy and smiling, and I noticed that the Count fellow was down on thelist as having his wife along. There it was, state-room, number, andall. The first I knew that he was married, only I didn't see anything ofthe wife . . . unless Flush of Gold was so counted. I wondered if they'dgot married ashore before starting. There'd been talk about them inDawson, you see, and bets had been laid that the Count fellow had cutDave out.
"I talked with the purser. He didn't know anything more about it than Idid; he didn't know Flush of Gold, anyway, and besides, he was almostrushed to death. You know what a Yukon steamboat is, but you can't guesswhat the _Golden Rocket_ was when it left Dawson that June of 1898. Shewas a hummer. Being the first steamer out, she carried all the scurvypatients and hospital wrecks. Then she must have carried a couple ofmillions of Klondike dust and nuggets, to say nothing of a packed andjammed passenger list, deck passengers galore, and bucks and squaws anddogs without end. And she was loaded down to the guards with freight andbaggage. There was a mountain of the same on the fore-lower-deck, andeach little stop along the way added to it. I saw the box come aboard atTeelee Portage, and I knew it for what it was, though I little guessedthe joker that was in it. And they piled it on top of everything else onthe fore-lower-deck, and they didn't pile it any too securely either.The mate expected to come back to it again, and then forgot about it. Ithought at the time that there was something familiar about the big huskydog that climbed over the baggage and freight and lay down next to thebox. And then we passed the _Glendale_, bound up for Dawson. As shesaluted us, I thought of Dave on board of her and hurrying to Dawson toFlush of Gold. I turned and looked at her where she stood by the rail.Her eyes were bright, but she looked a bit frightened by the sight of theother steamer, and she was leaning closely to the Count fellow as forprotection. She needn't have leaned so safely against him, and I needn'thave been so sure of a disappointed Dave Walsh arriving at Dawson. ForDave Walsh wasn't on the _Glendale_. There were a lot of things I didn'tknow, but was soon to know--for instance, that the pair were not yetmarried. Inside half an hour preparations for the marriage took place.What of the sick men in the main cabin, and of the crowded condition ofthe _Golden Rocket_, the likeliest place for the ceremony was foundforward, on the lower deck, in an open space next to the rail andgang-plank and shaded by the mountain of freight with the big box on topand the sleeping dog beside it. There was a missionary on board, gettingoff at Eagle City, which was the next step, so they had to use him quick.That's what they'd planned to do, get married on the boat.
"But I've run ahead of the facts. The reason Dave Walsh wasn't on the_Glendale_ was because he was on the _Golden Rocket_. It was this way.After loiterin' in Dawson on account of Flush of Gold, he went down toMammon Creek on the ice. And there he found Dusky Burns doing so wellwith the claim, there was no need for him to be around. So he put somegrub on the sled, harnessed the dogs, took an Indian along, and pulledout for Surprise Lake. He always had a liking for that section. Maybeyou don't know how the creek turned out to be a four-flusher; but theprospects were good at the time, and Dave proceeded to build his cabinand hers. That's the cabin we slept in. After he finished it, he wentoff on a moose hunt to the forks of the Teelee, takin' the Indian along.
"And this is what happened. Came on a cold snap. The juice went downforty, fifty, sixty below zero. I remember that snap--I was at FortyMile; and I remember the very day. At eleven o'clock in the morning thespirit thermometer at the N. A. T. & T. Company's store went down toseventy-five below zero. And that morning, near the forks of the Teelee,Dave Walsh was out after moose with that blessed Indian of his. I got itall from the Indian afterwards--we made a trip over the ice together toDyea. That morning Mr. Indian broke through the ice and wet himself tothe waist. Of course he began to freeze right away. The proper thingwas to build a fire. But Dave Walsh was a bull. It was only half a mileto camp, where a fire was already burning. What was the good of buildinganother? He threw Mr. In
dian over his shoulder--and ran with him--half amile--with the thermometer at seventy-five below. You know what thatmeans. Suicide. There's no other name for it. Why, that buck Indianweighed over two hundred himself, and Dave ran half a mile with him. Ofcourse he froze his lungs. Must have frozen them near solid. It was atomfool trick for any man to do. And anyway, after lingering horriblyfor several weeks, Dave Walsh died.
"The Indian didn't know what to do with the corpse. Ordinarily he'd haveburied him and let it go at that. But he knew that Dave Walsh was a bigman, worth lots of money, a _hi-yu skookum_ chief. Likewise he'd seenthe bodies of other _hi-yu skookums_ carted around the country like theywere worth something. So he decided to take Dave's body to Forty Mile,which was Dave's headquarters. You know how the ice is on the grassroots in this country--well, the Indian planted Dave under a foot ofsoil--in short, he put Dave on ice. Dave could have stayed there athousand years and still been the same old Dave. You understand--justthe same as a refrigerator. Then the Indian brings over a whipsaw fromthe cabin at Surprise Lake and makes lumber enough for the box. Also,waiting for the thaw, he goes out and shoots about ten thousand pounds ofmoose. This he keeps on ice, too. Came the thaw. The Teelee broke. Hebuilt a raft and loaded it with the meat, the big box with Dave inside,and Dave's team of dogs, and away they went down the Teelee.
"The raft got caught on a timber jam and hung up two days. It wasscorching hot weather, and Mr. Indian nearly lost his moose meat. Sowhen he got to Teelee Portage he figured a steamboat would get to FortyMile quicker than his raft. He transferred his cargo, and there you are,fore-lower deck of the _Golden Rocket_, Flush of Gold being married, andDave Walsh in his big box casting the shade for her. And there's onething I clean forgot. No wonder I thought the husky dog that came aboardat Teelee Portage was familiar. It was Pee-lat, Dave Walsh's lead-dogand favourite--a terrible fighter, too. He was lying down beside thebox.
"Flush of Gold caught sight of me, called me over, shook hands with me,and introduced me to the Count. She was beautiful. I was as mad for herthen as ever. She smiled into my eyes and said I must sign as one of thewitnesses. And there was no refusing her. She was ever a child, cruelas children are cruel. Also, she told me she was in possession of theonly two bottles of champagne in Dawson--or that had been in Dawson thenight before; and before I knew it I was scheduled to drink her and theCount's health. Everybody crowded round, the captain of the steamboat,very prominent, trying to ring in on the wine, I guess. It was a funnywedding. On the upper deck the hospital wrecks, with various feet in thegrave, gathered and looked down to see. There were Indians all jammed inthe circle, too, big bucks, and their squaws and kids, to say nothing ofabout twenty-five snarling wolf-dogs. The missionary lined the two ofthem up and started in with the service. And just then a dog-fightstarted, high up on the pile of freight--Pee-lat lying beside the bigbox, and a white-haired brute belonging to one of the Indians. The fightwasn't explosive at all. The brutes just snarled at each other from adistance--tapping at each other long-distance, you know, saying dast anddassent, dast and dassent. The noise was rather disturbing, but youcould hear the missionary's voice above it.
"There was no particularly easy way of getting at the two dogs, exceptfrom the other side of the pile. But nobody was on that side--everybodywatching the ceremony, you see. Even then everything might have been allright if the captain hadn't thrown a club at the dogs. That was whatprecipitated everything. As I say, if the captain hadn't thrown thatclub, nothing might have happened.
"The missionary had just reached the point where he was saying 'Insickness and in health,' and 'Till death us do part.' And just then thecaptain threw the club. I saw the whole thing. It landed on Pee-lat,and at that instant the white brute jumped him. The club caused it.Their two bodies struck the box, and it began to slide, its lower endtilting down. It was a long oblong box, and it slid down slowly until itreached the perpendicular, when it came down on the run. The onlookerson that side the circle had time to get out from under. Flush of Goldand the Count, on the opposite side of the circle, were facing the box;the missionary had his back to it. The box must have fallen ten feetstraight up and down, and it hit end on.
"Now mind you, not one of us knew that Dave Walsh was dead. We thoughthe was on the _Glendale_, bound for Dawson. The missionary had edged offto one side, and so Flush of Gold faced the box when it struck. It waslike in a play. It couldn't have been better planned. It struck on end,and on the right end; the whole front of the box came off; and out sweptDave Walsh on his feet, partly wrapped in a blanket, his yellow hairflying and showing bright in the sun. Right out of the box, on his feet,he swept upon Flush of Gold. She didn't know he was dead, but it wasunmistakable, after hanging up two days on a timber jam, that he wasrising all right from the dead to claim her. Possibly that is what shethought. At any rate, the sight froze her. She couldn't move. She justsort of wilted and watched Dave Walsh coming for her! And he got her.It looked almost as though he threw his arms around her, but whether ornot this happened, down to the deck they went together. We had to dragDave Walsh's body clear before we could get hold of her. She was in afaint, but it would have been just as well if she had never come out ofthat faint; for when she did, she fell to screaming the way insane peopledo. She kept it up for hours, till she was exhausted. Oh, yes, sherecovered. You saw her last night, and know how much recovered she is.She is not violent, it is true, but she lives in darkness. She believesthat she is waiting for Dave Walsh, and so she waits in the cabin hebuilt for her. She is no longer fickle. It is nine years now that shehas been faithful to Dave Walsh, and the outlook is that she'll befaithful to him to the end."
Lon McFane pulled down the top of the blankets and prepared to crawl in.
"We have her grub hauled to her each year," he added, "and in generalkeep an eye on her. Last night was the first time she ever recognizedme, though."
"Who are the we?" I asked.
"Oh," was the answer, "the Count and old Victor Chauvet and me. Do youknow, I think the Count is the one to be really sorry for. Dave Walshnever did know that she was false to him. And she does not suffer. Herdarkness is merciful to her."
I lay silently under the blankets for the space of a minute.
"Is the Count still in the country?" I asked.
But there was a gentle sound of heavy breathing, and I knew Lon McFanewas asleep.