Part 6

"I suppose you say these inane things to me because you think me incapable of appreciating sense," commented Miss Durant. "Just because all my poor little efforts to do good up here have seemed superfluous. Oh, yes"--she checked the protest that rose to his lips--"you all have been kindness personified, but I do not think you quite understand me," she complained, with the injured quaver of one who at heart knows herself to be understood only too well. "I'm really not such an overbearing, ill-natured girl; only, I acknowledge, a wee bit spoiled. You see, after my mother died, when I was still a very small child, in Colorado, my father sent me to a fashionable school in San Francisco, and there I began to feel that in Colorado we had been quite savage. Then, in my early 'teens I was put at another still more fashionable school in Chicago, where I was made to feel that in San Francisco I had been hopelessly Western. Next, I moved on to an ultra-fashionable school in New York, where it was tacitly impressed on me that in Chicago we had been positively vulgar. After this came a course of Dresden, Vienna, London, Paris, by which I realized that in New York I had been provincial, crude. On my return I felt myself cosmopolitan, a finished product. Yet, in this short space up here you all have made me wonder if, after all, all the time, I have not been a bit of a snob. Yes, you can't contradict me. I know. A thoroughbred would have taken things as she found them--would be at home anywhere, while I----" Having amazed herself far more even than her hearer by this unexpected burst of confidence, Miss Durant amazed herself still more by an unexpected burst of tears.

"Poor child!" Scarlett compassionated her, while liking her thoroughly for her candor. "Dear, dear little Evelyn, it's libelling yourself you are, although it's true, and that's the sweetest part of it. Here, take mine!" As she was hunting, between inconsolable sniffs, for the handkerchief with which she herself had bandaged him, he tendered her his own.

"Oh, the sprain--your wrist!" cried Evelyn, in alarm.

"That's all right," Scarlett reassured her, while drying her eyes with the hand he had removed for the purpose from the sling. "It was the other one that got the twist."

Evelyn drew back. "You mean you dared let me bind up the wrong one?"

"Ye made your own selection," Scarlett reminded her, in tones he vainly tried to render penitent.

"That you did, miss," corroborated Sarah, coming from the hotel with the blue sash and tying it about Evelyn's slender waist.

"Give me back my ribbon, my handkerchief!" demanded Evelyn of Scarlett, furiously.

"Not for four and twenty hours," he answered. "Not even for you would I break a promise to a lady."

"Never, never, never will I speak to you again!" cried Miss Durant.

Just then the chapel bell began to ring merrily, and at the same moment Maclane hurried toward them from the mission, an open hymnal in hand. "Come, my children, we march in, singing," he explained, pointing toward the Indians, who were forming in a procession by the chapel door. "As I am short of hymnals, you and the Sergeant will have to share one, Miss Durant. Hymn 674. 'Peace, Perfect Peace.'"

Evelyn stood still. "I absolutely decline to be associated in any way whatever with Sergeant Scarlett."

"Oh, my children!" remonstrated the minister. "How can we talk of missionizing the heathen when the Gentiles so wrangle among themselves! Ready, please! Fall into line!" Striking up the tune, he led the way.

And, somehow, in despite of her protest, Miss Durant found herself following, side by side with the hated young soldier, sharing the same hymnal, moreover, and joining her sweet voice with his manly one in praise of "Peace, Perfect Peace."

VIII.

AT THE SIGN OF THE TEMPERANCE SALOON.

"One sandwich, pie an' corfee, three-fifty! One ham an' eggs, pie, corfee, five! One whiskey on a doctor's prescription, two bits!" Thus Gumboot Annie scored off their reckonings to a party of prospectors who had patronized her lunch-tent, whereupon the prospectors meekly handed their pokes across the counter for her to weigh out the dust, according to her own liberal interpretation.

"Halt!" Barney's rich brogue rang out upon the trail. "Twinty minutes for refrishmints by request, for man and baste!"

"What's up now?" Gumboot Annie put her head out to reconnoitre. "Why, who's thet blamed cop runnin' in?"

"Why, it's pop!" in dismay, cried Gelly, who was assisting the mother of Klondike Delmonicos in the capacity of bean-slinger. "My pop!" She began to cry.

"Aye, it's Bully Nick, all right," corroborated a prospector, selecting a wooden toothpick with nicety. "They're fixin' ter extrydite him. Charge of murder. Oh, he'll be hanged this time fer sure!" he added, with relish.

"Now, wouldn't thet jostle yer!" exclaimed Gumboot Annie, generally. "But didn't the stiff he peppered get well some?"

"Yep, and they let off th' Bully on parole. But ef th' all-fired fool didn't celebrate his freedom by gittin' crazy drunk and shootin' at a United States Deputy Marshal fer targit! The marshal was a mean man an' deserved ter die--but Nick should 'a' left it to a meaner man to shoot him."

"A United States Marshal!" exclaimed Gumboot Annie, scornfully. "Shucks! Drunk or sober, I thought Nick had more sense."

"Nick shoots blind when"--her informant considerately lowered his voice--"when he's on the rampage for Dandy Raish. Nick has sworn ter kill Raish on sight along of Gelly."

"Gumboot Annie! Gumboot Annie!" Bill's eager voice rang out on the clear air, as he came running toward the tent.

"We're planning for to give Bully Nick a handsome send-off. Rustle, won't you? and get us up an A1, gilt-edged blow-out!"

"Betcherboots I will," promised Gumboot Annie, cordially, adding that the Bully would be a great loss, socially, if hanged.

"'Twas the drink done it--and I cud ha' kept him from it," moaned Gelly, rocking and wringing her hands.

"Here, stop whining and make the sandwiches. Better git down behind the stove whar yer pop can't see yer!" Gumboot Annie gave the girl an ungentle but not unkindly push, and thrusting a carving-knife into her hand, bade her, as it might be the old man's last square feed upon this planet, not to spare the butter.

"Gents, I thankee hearty for these here evidences of popularity," cried the Bully, as they placed him at the head of the well-filled board inside the lunch-tent. "Gents, go thou an' do likewise, but don't git pinched! Ah, well, ef I'd got my deserts I guess I'd'a' bin strung up twenty years ago."

"Better late than nivver," politely remarked Barney, who, as an honored guest, by his gift of repartee was contributing greatly to the meal's hilarity.

* * * * *

"Mush, get up, there! Godam you, Teleglaph and Langel. Mush!" Thus Chilkat Jo might have been heard profanely to encourage to increase of speed on a pious errand the parson's dogs that now were drawing a sled beside which the parson and the trader were running on their snow-shoes toward Gumboot Annie's tent. For all this took place many miles from Perdu and Lost Shoe Creek, on the heights where the snow still lingered in heavy, frozen masses, though the valleys below were abloom with summer flowers. "Him velly damn sick," he pityingly added, indicating the bundle wrapped in furs, strapped to the sled.

"Very sick, indeed, I fear, my son; but not damn sick," the minister corrected. "Perhaps we can get succor here. Whoa, Telegraph, Wrangle, lads, whoa!" Halting opposite the tent, he read its legend with surprise, "TEMPERANCE SALOON. GUMBOOT ANNIE, PROPRIETOR."

"Why, my daughter," he accosted the hostess, who, hearing sleigh-bells and scenting custom, had come forth, "does this indicate a happy change of heart and saving grace? You are taking thought to save your soul?"

"Save my skin," retorted the Gumbooted one, spitting with an accurate estimate of distances. "That blamed Scarlett was making things hot for me, so I jest wheeled the hull outfit acrost the boundary!" She pointed to an old Russian landmark, protruding like a tiny headstone from the snow, and followed by a line of rude pickets, the records of a surveying party, that straggled, single file, downhill, dividing the United States from British North America. "Lasky's a prohibition proposition, y'know."

"Whatever the motive, the action is most praiseworthy," Maclane commended her, "since your income must be greatly decreased by foregoing the sale of intoxicants."

"Now wouldn't thet jar yer!" demanded Gumboot Annie, humorously, of the landscape. "I ain't up here fer me health," she then reminded the minister. "Fines or license, it's all one ter me. And prohibition, or wide open, you betcherlife the boys has jest the same old thirst."

"H'm! Well, for the present I will waive the ethical aspect of the argument," replied Maclane, "and will beg you to sell me some stimulant for medicinal purposes. We have a lad here whom we found in trouble by the wayside; he is very low----"

"What's it a case of?" Gumboot Annie leaned across the counter to inspect the bundle on the sled, from which Jo was now unharnessing the dogs. "Drink or scurvy?"

"Neither," replied Maclane, raising the patient's head; "but, I fear, foul play."

"Now don't that pa'alyze yer!"

From a bottle she took from its hiding-place, Gumboot Annie poured out a generous dose. "Here, Ikey, take that ter the kid."

"Whiskey, two bits!" cried Ikey, from sheer force of habit, as he obeyed.

"Stop thet, yer little skin!" Leaning far over the counter, to the endangerment of her balance, his employer gave him a smart cuff. "I'm as close as they make 'em when I'm dealing with the healthy, but I've yet ter see myself take money from a dyin' man."

"He told me to meet him here to-day," gasped Walter Pierce, as Maclane bent over him with skilful ministry.

"Who, my son?"

"Hush! Wait--it is a secret! I have a confession to make."

When Gumboot Annie and her assistant had withdrawn, and the Indian had gone to a distance to feed the dogs, Walter tried to speak.

"It was the drink!"

"It generally is," commented the parson, mournfully.

"I had an errand for another man--one of the greatest importance. He trusted me. Some men suspected his secret and dogged my footsteps, entered into conversation with me--pretended to take a fancy to me--to show themselves my friends--good fellows. They made me drink with them. Then I, in my turn, stood treat to keep my end up and show myself a good fellow."

"Alas!" whispered the minister, as Walter paused for breath, "how many lads have I seen go down to the lowest depths, under that banner bearing the devil's own device: To show one's self a good fellow!"

"Then, when they had got me where they wanted me, drunk," continued the sick man, "they robbed me. Oh, not of money--for though they made me play, they let me win--but of my honor----"

"Oh, no, my son! It was you who threw away your own honor."

"If only I had thought of that at the time! Now they have his secret--his samples. They'll know about his mine! Tell him----"

The minister worked over the fainting form with tender skill. At last, when a glimmer of consciousness returned, "Now, my son," he said, "you owe it to the man you have wronged to make restitution. Tell me who he is, and what I am to say to him."

Walter gathered his strength for a supreme effort. "Durant," at last he managed to gasp. "Tell his daughter----" He fell back in the stupor that precedes death.

"O Joseph! Chilkat Jo!" called Maclane. And when the Indian, obeying with alacrity, replied, "Godam you, what you want?" he did not stay to reprove him, only bade him, "Run hot-foot to Lost Shoe Creek and fetch Miss Durant. Tell her I have a message from her father!"

When the trader had set off, the speed of his winged-footed race redoubled by good will, Maclane, having drawn the sled to a spot where a clump of evergreens would act as wind-brake, went to the Customs Office on the crest of the hill in search of remedies.

Seeing the coast clear, old Blenksoe, who for some time past had been hovering about the place, now came to the lunch counter, where he soon was joined by his arch-accomplice in villainy, Dandy Raish. "Hello, old tortoise!" was the hitter's salutation as his partner sauntered up. "I've been waiting for you this ever so long."

"Thet you hevn't," contradicted Blenksoe. "Not that it matters--but you allus were a fust-class liar!"

"Some folks have not enough imagination to lie," retorted the Dandy, paring his nails. "But chuck all that and get to business!"

"Business! Hully gee! Anythin' doin'? Am I in it?"

"Sure--if you can deliver the goods! Order the drinks, won't you?"

"Say, you got a tocter's brescription for liquor?" queried Ikey, when old Blenksoe did as he was bidden.

"I'll sure hev an undertaker's stiff-ticket ef I don't get it," replied Blenksoe, as he carried the medicinal doses over to the bench where the Dandy had ensconced himself.

"Best stay out here where no one can hear us," explained the latter.

"That suits me all right," agreed Blenksoe, lighting a pipe and settling himself on the Canadian side. "Thar's a warrant out fer my arrest in 'Lasky."

"I thought you were _persona non grata_ in the Dominion also, since that hold-up of the stage near Lost Shoe Creek."

"Thet hold-up you put me up to, while you sneaked in the bushes. You'd orter be pinched yerself fer takin' a rake-off. Ain't the receiver as bad as the thief?"

"Piano, pianissimo," advised Raish. "One never knows who's within earshot." He glanced about him fearfully.

"Thet's so," admitted Blenksoe. "I declar, what between Kennedy on the one hand and Uncle Sam on t'other, and both a-gittin' so all-fired pertikeler, every day makes it harder for a crook ter make an honest livin'." He lighted an ill-smelling pipe. "Well, Dandy, fire away."

"Have you seen Durant lately?"

"Durant? Who th' hell's Durant?"

"Your partner, Lucky. Durant is his outside name."

"You don't say! Oh, Lucky, he ain't no good no more. Lucky's off his nut. Went stark, ravin' mad the day his gal came inter camp. I've shuk Lucky."

"More fool you. He's found a mine!"

"I dessay. As usual, a pocket, or a pot of gold eagles at th' fut of a rainbow."

"Not a bit of it. A bona-fide mine. What d'you make of these samples?"

Through his prospector's glass, Blenksoe examined the small clods of earth Raish held out to him, then uttered the profanest expletive at his command.

"Free gold, assayin' sixty ter th' ton!"

"You'd better believe it is!" The Dandy pocketed the samples which Blenksoe was eyeing hungrily.

"Say, I'd like a sample ter test. Oh, well, as you say! How'd you come by 'em?"

"I got them with the information from a kid whom Lucky has taken in on the ground floor."

"You mean ter tell me the stiff hes shuk me, his pard an' dearest friend?" Blenksoe seized his gun. "I'll fix Lucky!"

"Keep quiet, you old fool! Durant don't owe you a bean, and you know it. And the way you've always grafted on him he is not likely to run after you to put you wise."

"Thet's so. Whar is the mine?"

"Ah, that's just where my information stops short. If I knew I shouldn't need you."

"Well, I s'pose the game is ter lay low, rubber round till we locate the claim, and jump it."

"And have that blasted Scarlett butting in? Guess again! Claim-jumping don't go, now the M. P. are in charge. We have to do something far cleverer. I'll tell you what. I've thought it all out. We have to kidnap Durant, and kidnap his daughter."

"Why the hell----"

"Blenksoe, a cow could give you cards and spades. We'll play them off, one against the other, till he signs over a half interest in his mine for ransom."

"Dandy, you're a wonder!" Blenksoe regarded the brains of the concern with admiration. "I'll get the gang on to it to oncet. It ull be no trick at all ter kidnap Lucky. Lucky's dead easy! But the gal--gals is scarce, and conspickerous accordin', in a mining camp. How the hell are we to handle the gal?"

"Leave her to me. I have already struck up a traveling acquaintance with her; managed to do her some little service en route. That's why I was careful to keep in the background during the hold-up. I sent her a private message to meet me here to-day, telling her I had a confidential message from her father. We must act like a flash, for that blasted Scarlett is sweet on her. By Jove! that's an idea!" The Dandy slapped his knee. "I owe him a bad turn. I'll cut him out! I'll marry her myself!"

"You, you son of a camp cook!" sneered Blenksoe.

Raish shrugged his shapely shoulders. "The camp cooks of to-day are the swells of to-morrow. I'm ambitious. I've always qualified myself for the toniest society. I spend as much for perfumery as for liquor, and I never sleep between sheets but I wear pink silk pyjamas."

"By gum, I b'lieve you'll git thar!" cried Blenksoe, overcome by these evidences of culture. Going to the counter, before Raish could stop him, he ordered: "Set up th' drinks, Ikey! Here's ter Dandy an' his bride!"

"Haow's that? Raish a-goin' ter git married?" inquired Gumboot Annie, who was bustling about for more provender for the banqueters inside the tent. "And who's the lady?"

"Oh, jest a little silk-stockin' proposition from the States," replied old Blenksoe, unmindful of the Dandy's warning signs. "One of the Noo York smarties, and jes' fitted fer Raish."

"Eh?" shrieked Gelly, starting up from her corner behind the stove. "She is, is she! And what about me?"

"Gelly! Tagging on as usual!" exclaimed Raish, in disgust.

"Thar, thar, Gelly! I was only joshin'," Blenksoe tried to soothe the girl.

"Dandy, you're a wonder!" Blenksoe re-[1] him, pleading. "Pop is run in, and mebbe goin' ter be hanged. Raish, make an honest woman of me that I may go bid him good-by!"

1. Transcriber's note: One or more lines are missing from the original text.

The Dandy drew back. "What! Me, with my prospects, take up with the daughter of a murderer!"

"You, you----" Gelly flew at him with the carving-knife she held.

"Here, quit that!" Gumboot Annie adroitly snatched away the weapon. "My sandwich-knife! Now wouldn't thet stick yer?" in aggrieved tones she appealed to an imaginary audience on the horizon line. Bystanders joined in the discussion, and, attracted by the noise, some of the diners came running from the tent, the Japanese paper napkins, that the high character of the occasion had warranted, in hand, ready for a scrap or any other fun that might be going; accordingly, the Dandy saw the wisdom of adopting a conciliating policy. "Gelly"--he led the girl aside--"I do mean to do the square thing by you, but no man likes to be coerced, you know; and after what has gone between us I don't want to be laughed at publicly for a fool--and if you love me, you don't want to render me publicly ridiculous. Just go back, quietly, like a good girl and wait for me at Lost Shoe Creek. When I have one or two tangles straightened out I'll come back and marry you, honest! But remember, on the quiet, If you blab--well, I'll see you somewhere before I ever speak to you again. Now, good-by and go!"

And for the last time, though not the first, poor Gelly trusted him.

Looking after the red-cloaked and hooded figure, as on snow-shoes she sped lightly down the trail, the Dandy laughed. "Women are easy, dead easy!" he exclaimed; and then he laughed still louder, as winding in and out through mountain passes the sound of approaching sleigh-bells and girls' merry voices floated through the crystal air. "Dead, dead easy," he reiterated, with the unction of enjoyment in his sapient superiority. "Here comes Evelyn now!"

IX.

THE PROVISIONAL BOUNDARY.

"Miss Durant! This is a delightfull surprise!" Dismounting from her sled drawn by eight frisky little huskies, Miss Durant encountered not the Mr. Horatio Travers who had written, begging for a private interview near Gumboot Annie's, on a confidential mission from her father, but the handsome and genial presence of Sergeant Scarlett.

"The surprise at least is not all on one side," laughed Evelyn, giving him her hand. "What are you doing so far from headquarters?"

"My jurisdiction extends to the boundary line. Just now it is my painful duty to meet a United States Representative in yonder Customs building, and formally make over to him the person of Bully Nick."

"Ah, the poor Bully!" Evelyn sighed. "He has this incorrigible habit of shooting the wrong people. But I'm in hopes of getting him off. I shall spare no expense. I've wired to Sitka, in my father's name, for the ablest counsel to defend him."

"And, confidence for confidence," said Scarlett, "what are you doing here?"

"Oh, just keeping an appointment--I mean, mushing it with Sarah and the girls for a day's outing," Evelyn hurriedly corrected herself, recalling that Travers' note enjoined the strictest secrecy. "And, pardon me, I must go to their rescue now." To conceal a slight embarrassment caused by her prevarication, she sped toward her party on whom the Customs' officials of two nations had pounced down, assuming that they intended to cross the boundary and must be treated like malefactors accordingly.

Picking up the muff that Evelyn in her haste had dropped, Scarlett buried his face in the soft fur. "I'm another," he confided to it.

"'Tis himself!" Barney hurried toward him from the tent, but as Scarlett, in his abstraction, did not notice him, he inquired, with solicitude: "Are ye here, sorr?"

"Faith, no, man. I'm wandering."

"Is ut impty ye do be feeling yourself inside, sorr?"

"Empty is it, with the appetite that's there! Bring me rations out here. Bring a double share." His eye strayed toward Evelyn.

"H'm! 'Tis a case of wan plate and two spoons, or I'm a blind man!" commented Barney, hastening to obey.

"Miss," cried Sarah, in shocked accents, as Evelyn drew near, "them orphans are flirting outrageously with the Customs gentlemen of both nations, and feeding them with fudge."

"Dear, dear," mocked Evelyn, "we must put a stop to that at all costs, Sarah. Take the girls into the tent and give them their dinner--or there will be international complications."

"Internal ones, more likely," put in Scarlett, who had followed her. "Sweet things don't often come our way. And speaking of sweet things, Miss Durant, won't you yourself mess with me out here in the open? Just for the experience, ye know. It isn't really cold. The snow is left over from the winter, but it's a summer sun overhead."

"It does look tempting," confessed Evelyn, as Barney appeared, bringing with him provender, with its equipments, for two, deftly arranging it on a table by the bench. "I'm early for my appointment--I mean, I have plenty of time, and Sarah can chaperon the girls."

"Have ye room enough?" with solicitude inquired the soldier, placing himself beside her.

"Plenty, thanks. Have you?"

"Too much," he protested, "on the wrong side." The bench having no back, he gallantly supplied the lack. "Allow me to make ye an arm-chair."

Evelyn properly edged away. "Sergeant, are these your company manners?"

"Surely, since two's company."

"Come, come, I can't permit you so much latitude!"

"If you knew your map ye'd know that the further north ye go the closer the lines of latitude are drawn."

"Speaking of maps, I wish you'd tell me exactly where we are?"

"Faith, where I am is exactly what I'm trying to find out--how far I've gone with you."

"Do be sensible, if you can, and tell me where we are sitting, geographically speaking."

"Geographically speaking, we are sitting on the provisional boundary between our respective nations."

"Oh! Please don't add it is called provisional because one stops here for provisions."