CHAPTER III
THE GIRL FROM DROGHEDA
Gordon Elliot was too much of a night owl to be an early riser, butnext morning he was awakened by the tramp of hurried feet along thedeck to the accompaniment of brusque orders, together with frequentangry puffing and snorting of the boat. From the quiver of the walls heguessed that the Hannah was stuck on a sandbar. The mate's language gavebacking to this surmise. Divided in mind between his obligation to thesleeping passengers and his duty to get the boat on her way, thatofficer spilled a good deal of subdued sulphurous language upon thesituation.
"All together now. Get your back into it. Why are you running aroundlike a chicken without a head, Reeves?" he snapped.
Evidently the deck hands were working to get the Hannah off by poling.
Elliot tried to settle back to sleep, but after two or three ineffectualefforts gave it up. He rose and did one or two setting-up exercises tolimber his joints. The first of these flashed the signal to his brainthat he was stiff and sore. This brought to mind the fight on thehurricane deck, and he smiled. His face was about as mobile as if itwere in a plaster cast. It hurt every time he twitched a muscle.
The young man stepped to the looking-glass. Both eyes were blacked, hislip had been cut, and there was a purple weal well up on his left cheek.He stopped himself from grinning only just in time to save anothertwinge of pain.
"Some party while it lasted. I never saw more willing mixers. Everybodyseemed anxious to sit in except Mr. Wally Selfridge," he explained tohis reflection. "But Macdonald is the class. He's there with both rightand left. That uppercut of his is vicious. Don't ever get in the way ofit, Gordon Elliot." He examined his injuries more closely in the glass."Some one landed a peach on my right lamp and the other is in mourningout of sympathy. Oh, well, I ain't the only prize beauty on board thismorning." The young man forgot and smiled. "Ouch! Don't do that, Gordon.Yes, son. 'There's many a black, black eye, they say, but none so brightas mine.' Now isn't that the truth?"
He bathed, dressed, and went out on the deck.
Early though he was, one passenger at least was up before him. Theyoung woman he had noticed last evening with the magazine was doing aconstitutional. A slight breeze was stirring, and as she moved againstit the white skirt clung first to one knee and then the other, mouldingitself to the long lines of her limbs with exquisite grace of motion.It was as though her walk were the expression of a gallant and buoyantpersonality.
Irish he guessed her when the deep-blue eyes rested on his for aninstant as she passed, and fortified his conjecture by the coloring ofthe clear-skinned face and the marks of the Celtic race delicatelystamped upon it.
The purser came out of his room and joined Elliot. He smiled at sight ofthe young man's face.
"Your map's a little out of plumb this morning, sir," he ventured.
"But you ought to see the other fellow," came back Gordon boyishly.
"I've seen him--several of him. We've got the best collection of bruiseson board I ever clapped eyes on. I've got to give it to you and Mr.Macdonald. You know how to hit."
"Oh, I'm not in his class."
Gordon Elliot meant what he said. He was himself an athlete, had playedfor three years left tackle on his college eleven. More than one critichad picked him for the All-America team. He could do his hundred in justa little worse than ten seconds. But after all he was a product oftraining and of the gymnasiums. Macdonald was what nature and a longline of fighting Highland ancestors had made him. His sinewy, knottedstrength, his massive build, the breadth of shoulder and depth ofchest--mushing on long snow trails was the gymnasium that hadcontributed to these.
The purser chuckled. "He's a good un, Mac is. They say he liked to havedrowned Northrup after he had saved him."
Elliot was again following with his eyes the lilt of the girl'smovements. Apparently he had not heard what the officer said. At leasthe gave no answer.
With a grin the purser opened another attack. "Don't blame you a bit,Mr. Elliot. She's the prettiest colleen that ever sailed from DublinBay."
The young man brought his eyes home. They answered engagingly the smileof the purser.
"Who is she?"
"The name on the books is Sheba O'Neill."
"From Dublin, you say."
"Oh, if you want to be literal, her baggage says Drogheda. Ireland isIreland to me."
"Where is she bound for?"
"Kusiak."
The young woman passed them with a little nod of morning greeting to thepurser. Fine and dainty though she was, Miss O'Neill gave an impressionof radiant strength.
"Been with you all the way up the river?" asked Elliot after she hadpassed.
"Yep. She came up on the Skagit from Seattle."
"What is she going to do at Kusiak?"
Again the purser grinned. "What do they all do--the good-looking ones?"
"Get married, you mean?"
"Surest thing you know. Girls coming up ask me what to bring by way ofoutfit. I used to make out a long list. Now I tell them to bring clothesenough for six weeks and their favorite wedding march."
"Is this girl engaged?"
"Can't prove it by me," said the officer lightly. "But she'll never getout of Alaska a spinster--not that girl. She may be going in to teach,or to run a millinery store, or to keep books for a trading company.She'll stay to bring up kiddies of her own. They all do."
Three children came up the stairway, caught sight of Miss O'Neill, andraced pell-mell across the deck to her.
The young woman's face was transformed. It was bubbling with tenderness,with gay and happy laughter. Flinging her arms wide, she waited forthem. With incoherent cries of delight they flung themselves upon her.Her arms enveloped all three as she stooped for their hugs and kisses.
The two oldest were girls. The youngest was a fat, cuddly little boywith dimples in his soft cheeks.
"I dwessed myself, Aunt Sheba. Didn't I, Gwen?"
"Not all by yourself, Billie?" inquired the Irish girl, registering aproper amazement.
He nodded his head slowly and solemnly up and down. "Honeth togoodness."
Sheba stooped and held him off to admire. "All by yourself--just thinkof that."
"We helped just the teeniest bit on the buttons," confessed Janet, theoldest of the small family.
"And I tied his shoes," added Gwendolen, "after he had laced them."
"Billie will be such a big man Daddie won't know him." And Sheba gavehim another hug.
Gwendolen snuggled close to Miss O'Neill. "You always smell so sweet andclean and violety, Aunt Sheba," she whispered in confidence.
"You're spoiling me, Gwen," laughed the young woman. "You've kissed theblarney stone. It's a good thing you're leaving the boat to-day."
Miss Gwen had one more confidence to make in the ear of her friend."I wish you'd come too and be our new mamma," she begged.
A shell-pink tinge crept into the milky skin of the Irish girl. She wasless sure of herself, more easily embarrassed, than the average Americanof her age and sex. Occasionally in her manner was that effect ofshyness one finds in the British even after they have escaped fromprovincialism.
"Are all your things gathered ready for packing, Janet?" she askedquietly.
The purser gave information to Elliot. "They call her Aunt Sheba,but she's no relative of theirs. The kids are on their way in to theirfather, who is an engineer on one of the creeks back of Katma. Theirmother died two months ago. Miss O'Neill met them first aboard theSkagit on the way up and she has mothered them ever since. Some womenare that way, bless 'em. I know because I've been married to one myselfsix months. She's back there at St. Michael's, and she just grabs atevery baby in the block."
The eyes of Elliot rested on Miss O'Neill. "She loves children."
"She sure does--no bluff about that." An imp of mischief sparkled inthe eye of the supercargo. "Not married yourself, are you, Mr. Elliot?"
"No."
"Hmp!"
That was all he said, b
ut Gordon felt the blood creep into his face.This annoyed him, so he added brusquely,--
"And not likely to be."
When the call for breakfast came Miss O'Neill took her retinue ofyoungsters with her to the dining-room. Looking across from his seat atan adjoining table, Elliot could see her waiting upon them with a fineabsorption in their needs. She prepared an orange for Billie and offeredto the little girls suggestions as to ordering that were accepted bythem as a matter of course. Unconsciously the children recognized in herthe eternal Mother.
Before they had been long in the dining-room Macdonald came in carryinga sheaf of business papers. He glanced around, recognized Elliot, andmade instantly for the seat across the table from him. On his face andhead were many marks of the recent battle.
"Trade you a cauliflower ear for a pair of black eyes, Mr. Elliot," helaughed as he shook hands with the man whose name he had just learnedfrom the purser.
The grip of his brown, muscular hand was strong. It was in characterwith the steady, cool eyes set deep beneath the jutting forehead, withthe confident carriage of the deep, broad shoulders. He looked a dynamicAmerican, who trod the way of the forceful and fought for his share ofthe spoils.
"You might throw in several other little souvenirs to boot and not missthem," suggested Elliot with a smile.
Macdonald nodded indifferently. "I gave and I took, which was as itshould be. But it's different with you, Mr. Elliot. This wasn't yourrow."
"I hadn't been in a good mix-up since I left college. It did me a lot ofgood."
"Much obliged, anyhow." He turned his attention to a lady entering thedining-room. "'Mornin', Mrs. Selfridge. How's Wally?"
She threw up her hands in despair. "He's on his second bottle ofliniment already. I expect those ruffians have ruined his singing voice.It's a mercy they didn't murder both him and you, Mr. Macdonald. When Ithink of how close you both came to death last night--"
"I don't know about Wally, but I had no notion of dying, Mrs. Selfridge.They mussed us up a bit. That was all."
"But they _meant_ to kill you, the cowards. And they almost did it too.Look at Wally--confined to his bed and speaking in a whisper. Look atyou--a wreck, horribly beaten up, almost drowned. We must drive thevillains out of the country or send them to prison."
Mrs. Selfridge always talked in superlatives. She had an enthusiasmfor the dramatics of conversation. Her supple hands, her shrill, eagervoice, the snapping black eyes, all had the effect of startlingheadlines to the story she might be telling.
"Am I a wreck?" the big Scotchman wanted to know. "I feel as husky as awell-fed malamute."
"Oh, you _talk_. But we all know you--how brave and strong you are.That's why this outrage ought to be punished. What would Alaska do ifanything happened to you?"
"I hadn't thought of that," admitted Macdonald. "The North would have togo out of business, I suppose. But you're right about one thing, Mrs.Selfridge. I'm brave and strong enough at the breakfast table. Steward,will you bring me a double order of these shirred eggs--and a smallsteak?"
"Well, I'm glad you can still joke, Mr. Macdonald, after such a terribleexperience. All I can say is that I hope Wally isn't permanentlyinjured. He hasn't your fine constitution, and one never can tell aboutinternal injuries." Mrs. Selfridge sighed and passed to her place.
The eyes of the big man twinkled. "Our little fracas has been a godsendto Mrs. Selfridge. Wally and I will both emerge as heroes of a desperatestruggle. You won't even get a mention. But it's a pity about Wally'sinjuries--and his singing voice."
The younger man agreed with a gravity back of which his amusement wasapparent. The share of Selfridge in the battle had been limited to legwork only, but this had not been good enough to keep him from beingoverhauled and having his throat squeezed.
Elliot finished breakfast first and left Macdonald looking over along typewritten document. He had it propped against a water-bottleand was reading as he ate. The paper was a report Selfridge had broughtin to him from a clerk in the General Land Office. The big Canadianand the men he represented were dealing directly with the heads of theGovernment departments, but they thought it the part of wisdom to keepin their employ subordinates in the capacity of secret service agentsto spy upon the higher-ups.