Part 4

She got the gorgeous silk of tartan stripes that flared in the window like a light lightening the darkness, for Quin went in and bought what is known as a dress length and sent it down to her by his Chinese "boy." When he met Pete in the road at noon that day he stopped him.

"Oh, Pete----"

"Sir," said Pete respectfully, for the Tyee was so big and strong besides being a Tyee, which always counts.

"I have given your wife some stuff to make a dress. She was very good to my brother and to Mary," said Quin. "She's a very good little girl."

He nodded and walked on. He wished Pete would get killed on the top of a log, but his face was inscrutable and calm as that of any full-blooded Siwash. Pete was as innocent and as unsuspicious as any child. If he feared anyone it was Spanish Joe, with his guitar and his songs. He went home as pleased as Punch by the condescension of the Boss, and found Jenny laying out dinner.

The trouble came as quick as it could come. It came right there and then, when both were as happy as they could be. Jenny fairly shivered with pleasure to think of the silk she had hidden inside the inner room. Real silk it was and new, not a cast-off rag from Mrs. Alexander, of the Kamloops Hotel. The tulips of the dressing-gown faded clean out of sight: they died down in their monstrous array. She saw the Dress, saw it made up, saw the world admire it: heard the other klootchmen clicking envious admiration. But how was she to account for it to Pete? She had been kissed by Quin, and she knew he liked her, wanted her. The big man flattered her senses, he was a white man, rich and strong. She wouldn't have almost sworn on the Bible that she wouldn't lass him, now that this silk filled earth and heaven for her gaudy little mind. She would have to think how to tell Pete.

So in came Pete in excitement.

"Show me what Mr. Quin give you," he demanded. And her unlucky lie was ready. It fell from her lips before she had a moment to think.

"He give me nothing; why you say that?"

Pete's jaw fell and his eyes shut to a thin line.

"You damned liar, kliminiwhit," he said. "I know."

"It's not true, you dam' liar you'self," said Jenny. "What for you tink the Tyee give me tings? You tink me a cultus klootchman like Indian Annie?"

On his oath he would have sworn one happy moment before that he had never thought so. Now he thought too much.

"You show it me or I kill you," said Pete. "I know Mr. Quin he give you some stuff to make a dless."

In his rage his words grew more Indian, and his taught English failed, his r's became l's. So did hers.

"Damn lie, I have no dless," screamed Jenny. "You no give me no'ting, you make kokshut my dlessing-gown. I dless like one cultus klootchman, in lags."

He ran at her and she fled round the table. The newspaper and the dinner went on the floor, and she screamed. Then she slipped on the steak, and went down. As chance had it the table came over on top of her and she held it tight, so that he could not get at her to hurt her much. But he kicked her legs hard and then went into the inner room.

"No, Pete, no," she screamed. She knew that he must find the dress, the precious silk, and she forgot all else in her great desire that it should not be harmed. "I tell you the trut', Pete."

She crawled from under the table: her hair was down to her waist, her wretched every-day gown torn from her back: her bosom showed.

"Oh, Pete, oh, Pete!"

Her lips hung piteous for the lovely thing that Pete had found and now held up in horrid triumph. The roll unrolled: he had the crumpled end in his hand. It was a flag of blazing silk, a tartan to appeal to any savage. Now it cried for help.

"You damn klootchman, you," said Pete. "What for Quin he give you this?"

He kicked the roll with his foot. The stuff unrolled more and Jenny cried aloud as though it was her papoose that her savage man ill-used.

"I don' know why he give it me," she squealed.

"Him velly kin' man always. Oh, don' tear it, Pete, oh, oh!"

With his hands he ripped the silk in fragments.

"You damn bad woman, mesahchie klootchman," he roared. "You no take such a ting from Mr. Quin! You look at him lika you look at Spanish Joe the other day: I see you."

"You no see me do anyting wrong," Jenny cried, weeping bitterly. "I don' lika Spanish Joe. 'Tis a lie, Pete. And I no can help if Mr. Quin give me tings. I a very good woman, on the Bible I swear it. I quite virtuous; Mr. Quin he no touch me, I swear it. Don' tear it no more. Pete, oh, don'!"

He set his foot on the silk and ripped full twenty yards into fragments. The room was full of shining stuff, of red and yellow and green: the floor was gorgeous with colour, and as he exhausted his rage upon what he had found and was quite pitiless, her little flower of love for him seemed to die in her outraged heart, which loved beautiful things so much. Now she had nothing left, her visions passed from her. She sat down on the floor and howled aloud, keening over the death of the beautiful dress. She was no longer full of pride, and conscious of her beauty: she was no more than a poor dirty ill-used, heart-broken little klootchman, no more thought of than dirty old Annie and Annawillee, who mourned so sadly the other happy night.

"Aya, yaya, hyaalleha," she cried aloud. "Hyas klahowyam nika, very miser'ble, aya!"

And Pete ran out of the shack leaving her moaning.

"That make her know what, eh?" said Pete. He worked furiously at the Mill, without any food, and was very unhappy, of course, though he knew he had done quite right in tearing the silk to pieces, and in knocking thunder out of his klootchman. He didn't believe she had been "real wicked," but when it came to taking presents from Mr. Quin, and lying about them, it was time to look out.

"I teach her," said Pete; "give her what for, eh?"

But he wasn't mad with Quin. It was quite natural for Quin to want Jenny. Pete knew all the men did. She was so pretty. Even the Chinamen knew it and said so. Pete was proud of that. "Velly hansum litty klootchman," said Wong. Why should a man be angry because another man wants his "litty gal?" No need to "makee bobbely 'bout that" surely. But the litty girl had to be taught, Nawitka!

"I give her the stick by-by," said Pete, and he used the wedges and the maul as if he were giving poor wretched Jenny the stick then. He worked that day though he hadn't an ounce of muckamuck inside him. Ginger White said he was as quick as the devil: worth ten of that swine Simmons. White's nose was gradually resuming its natural shape, but when he thought of Simmons his hand went up to it.

Oho, but they all worked, worked like the Bull-Wheel, like Gwya-Gwya and "him debble-debble," said Wong.

"No Joss in British Columbia," said Wong; "spose wantee catchee Joss catchee Debble-Debble. Bymby Blitish Columbia-side an' Californee-side him allo blong China, then Joss he come, galaw!"

The "debble-debble"' was in Pete's heart for hours, but there's nothing like work to get him out, and by four o'clock he was getting sorry he had kicked Jenny and torn up the "dless." The little klootchman had been good, he was sure, and she cooked for him nicely and didn't get drunk often. If she did get too much, it was his own fault, he knew that.

"I tell her I'm sorry," he said.

Aya, yaya, what a cruel world it is, Pitt River Pete!

The little klootchman was "dying" now and telling the old hag Indian Annie all about it. And it's only four o'clock and the Mill runs till six.

Poor Jenny, with bare shoulders and bare bosom, howled upon the gorgeous floor of silken rags for a long hour after Pete ran out in a rage.

"Aya, yaya, nika toketie dless kokshut, no good. Pete him wicket man, aya!"

Oh, think of it! That beautiful green and yellow and red silk so fine and thick and soft and shining t That "dless" which it contained as a possibility, that her natural woman's eye put on her pretty self! Aya, Yaya! Even a dear white woman would be very cross indeed if her man came in and said, "You damn person, you have a roll of silk given you by Smith or Brown or Jones," and then tore it up. Aya, Yaya! How sad for poor Jenny, only nineteen, and so sweet to look at and with a love of colour. Aya, as I speak I feel "hyu keely." I could mourn with Jenny and say I'd get her another roll of silk, for a kiss, perhaps, for the devil's in such a pretty dear. Tut, tut, it's a sad world and a wicked, and the pretty ones are the devil, aya, yaya!

It was quiet enough in Shack-Town in the afternoon and a continual aya, yaya-ing soon attracted the attention of Indian Annie when she came from begging up-town past Pete's shack.

"Aha, oho," said the bundle of wicked rags, once a beautiful klootchman and a white sea-captain's darling, and yet another's and another's, ay de mi, as Chihuahua said when he was sad, and others still in a devil of a long diminuendo and degringolade and a sad, sad fall, just as if she had been an improper white. "Oho, why Jenny cly, kahta she cly?"

In she went, for she knew Pete was wedging-off, and in the inner room she found a pretty one half naked on the silken rag carpet.

"Oh, my toketie Jenny, kahta cly? Oh, Lejaub, the pretty stuff all tole up, yaya? Who done it, Jenny, real kloshe silk all assame white klootchman have in chu'ch? Who give him, aya?"

She was down on her knees gathering up the silk in whole armfuls.

"Dis Pete? Eh, Pete, pelton Pete, fool Pete, eh?"

Jenny sobbed out it was Pete who had torn it all up, and Annie nodded cunningly as she stuffed a good bundle of it into her rags.

"Aha, pelton Pete mamook si'k kokshut, but klaksta potlatsh mika, nika toketie, who give him you, my pretty?"

"Mr. Quin give him, and my bad man he say I mesahchie, no good, a cultus klootchman alla same you!" howled Jenny open-mouthed.

Annie showed her yellow fangs in a savage grin.

"Cultus, alla same nika? Oho, pelton Pete, fool Pete!"

"And he say," roared Jenny like any baby, "that I no good, not virtuous, and he beat me, and taka silk and tearum lika so! And I think I make a dless so pretty and now the pretty dless is all lags, all lags!"

She roared again and shook with sobs, and Annie got her by the shoulder.

"Pete is Lejaub, the devil of a bad man, my pretty. I get you ten new dlesses for that. I hear Pete no go to mamook but go up town and dlink whisky at Spanish Joe's white woman's. By-by he come back and beat you, Jenny."

Jenny clutched her.

"Oh, he kick me bad, see, nanitch!"

She showed her pretty knee with a black bruise on it.

"That nothin', tenas toketie, by-by Pete come back pahtlum and knock hell out of you, Jenny," said Annie. Then she bent and whispered in Jenny's ear.

"Oh, no, no," said Jenny. She clutched at Annie's skirt as the old wretch got upon her feet. But Annie turned on her and twitched her rags away.

"You pelton, too? Much better be live and with rich good man than dead with Pete and Pete with a lope on him neck. I go tell Mr. Quin, him very good man, kloshe man."

But Jenny implored her not to go to him. And as she sobbed that she was afraid of Quin the old hag gathered up more and more of the silk until she had nearly all that poor Jenny wasn't sitting on.

"You stay. I go see, go think what I do for you. I no go to Mr. Quin, I promise, tenas toketie."

And she got away and went straight to the office in which Quin was to be found, and asked to see him.

"Quit, you old devil," said the young clerk, "pull your freight out of this. No klootchmen wanted here."

She had her ugly old face inside the door and the boy threw the core of an apple at her.

"I want see Mr. Quin," she cried, as she dodged the missile.

"I want see him. You no kumtuks. Mr. Quin see me, I tell you he want see me. Ya, pelton!"

The boy knew very little Chinook and missed half the beauty of what she went on to say to him. But she told him much about his parents and a great deal about his sisters that would have been disagreeable even if translated with discretion. By the time she came to a climax, her voice rose to a shriek that might have been audible in the Mill itself, and Quin came out in a rage.

"Get to thunder out of this, you old fool," said Quin, "or I'll have you kicked off the place!"

She looked at him steadily and held up a long fragment of the silk before him.

"Mika kumtuks okook, you know him?" she asked with a hideous leer.

And Quin came off the step and went up to her.

"Where you get it, Annie?"

"You know," said Annie. "Tenas toketie have him, you give him, ah. But who tear him, makum kokshut?"

"Pete?" asked Quin with the devil of a face on him. But Annie walked a little away and beckoned him to follow. She got him round the corner and he went with her like a child. He thought he understood. Annie put out her claw and took his coat.

"I give you klootchman often, now you give me tukamonuk dolla, one hundred dolla, and I give you pretty Jenny."

Quin blew out his breath and bent down to her.

"You old devil," he said with a wavering grin.

"Me Lejaub? Halo, no, I give you pretty young squaw, that not like Lejaub. You give me one hundred dolla, see."

Quin sighed and opened his mouth.

"I give it. How you do it, Annie?"

"Now she hate Pete, him pelton," said the witch; "he beat her, kick her knee, kick her back, kick her belly too, and tear up si'k in tenas bits, Mr. Quin. She cly like any papoose, she scleam and make gleat latlah. He tear up si'k and tear her dless, now she half-naked on the floo'. That bad, and she pretty and say Mr. Quin give me dless, kloshe Mr. Quin. She love you, she tikegh mika, cly kahkwa the si'k yours. You come: she go with you. I make so no one know tings, if you take her yo' house."

His house was on the hill above them. There he lived with not a soul but his Chinese boy.

"How you make no one know?" he asked.

"Kloshe, I do it," said Annie. "I say to Pete she say to me she lun away, and not come back, eh?"

But as Quin explained to her, the first person Pete would think of would be the man who had given her the dress.

"Oh, ya, I know," said Annie. "Kloshe; I very clever klootchman, I know evelything. She lun away with Shipman Jack this very day and came tell me so I tell Pete. How that do, Mr. Quin? You tink, eh?"

But Quin was doubtful. Annie urged her scheme on him and still drew him further down the road.

"Pete him once jealous, hab sick tumtum about Jenny with Shipman Jack, because Jack pinch her behind and she cly out and Pete hear it. That the other night. I know, I know evelything. I tell him mo'. I say she often meet Jack befo'. Now you have fire Jack, and he goes away this day and he now go in _Teaser_ piah-ship to Victolia, I see him. Ah, velly good, she go with him. I say klahowya to them. I get Annawillee for a dolla say she say klahowya to them. And alla time Jenny in yo' house. I bling her this night. You see, all light. You give me one dolla now?"

"You'll get drunk, you old harridan," said Quin, who was all of a shake, "and if you do you'll mamook pelton of me and no get the hundred dolla. No, I give you all to-night."

And knowing that it was true that she might get drunk if she had that dollar she went away without it, back to Jenny.

V

It was true enough that Jack Mottram, "Shipman" or sailorman, had been fired that day a little before noon. To be "fired" is to get the Grand Bounce, and to get that is to get what everyone understands when the sack is spoken of. Another way of saying it is to mention that "he got his time," or perhaps his Walking Ticket. So now it is understood. Before getting all these qualifications as a free unemployed seaman he had got drunk early in the morning. This is nearly always a fatal error and brings trouble anywhere. In a Stick-Moola running at full time it is liable to bring death. For death stands handy with his scythe, or perhaps his pickareen, uplifted in a Mill. Indeed, Jack the Shipman very nearly sent back to Bouddha, or maybe to Posa, one poor native of the Flowery Kingdom by landing him one on the "ear-hole." Poor Fan Tang (or something like it) up-ended and disappeared down a chute, and was so sadly disgruntled that he limped to the office and denounced Jack to Quin in a fine flow of Pidgin English and mixed Chinook.

"Muchee bad bad man belong Tlimmer pukpuk my! My fallee down chute allo same lumber. My muchee solly, you look see bluise!"

He exposed his awful injuries to Quin's view. He had parted with many patches of cuticle in his tumble down the chute.

"Dat shipman bad man, muchee dlunk," said Fan Tang spitefully, and when Quin went over to the Mill he found that Jack was indeed "muchee dlunk," and full of insolence and whisky.

"All ri', Mr. Quin, I quit. I'm full up of this work. You give me my money and I'm off to sea. What the 'ell I ever came ashore for, I dunno! What ho!"

Tom Willett, a young Englishman, went from the Chinee Trimmer to the Big Trimmer, and Wong the philosopher took the Chinee Trimmer.

"Out of this," said Quin, "or I'll smash your jaw."

That was to Jack, who wasn't so drunk as to take up the challenge. He went to the office quite meekly after all. He was almost as meek as one "Dutchman" among ten English.

"Righto, I'm off to Victoria this very day," said Jack. He drew fifteen dollars and three bits, rolled up his dunnage, and went to the wharf where the _Teaser_ steamboat, or "piah-ship," was lying. He bade farewell to Sawmill Town with much contempt. But Indian Annie saw him go. He goes out of this history on his way to Hong Kong with lumber. He got well man-handled by an American mate and lost much insolence before he sighted Mount Stenhouse.

Annie went back to Jenny, now moaning sadly with a dirty face, striped with tear-channels, and told the poor pretty dear a dreadful tale. Pete was up-town, having got drink in spite of his being a Siwash, and was ready to kill, said Annie.

"Aya, I'm very much flightened," said poor Jenny. "What shall I do, Annie?"

The procuress stole a little more silk and dragged at Jenny's arm.

"You klatawa, go away, chahco with me. I hide you, toketie. Pete wicked, bad man, and get hang if he see you. Come hyak, hyak!"

She got her into her own den, and hid her in the inner room. Then she hobbled off to Annawillee, while Jenny sobbed herself to sleep on the dirty bed. Annie and Annawillee were old friends, for Annie liked her. When Chihuahua beat Annawillee too much she took refuge at Annie's till her man calmed down. For love of Annie and a dollar Annawillee would do anything.

"I say I see Jenny klatawa in piah-ship with Jack the shipman. Nawitka, I say it, and you give me dolla?"

"Ha, one dolla, and one dlink, Annawillee," said Annie, grinning. "Pete he much solly, and get pahtlum to-night, for I take Jenny away to Mista Quin. By-by I ask mo' dolla. Nanitsh?"

Oh, but indeed Annawillee was no fool and saw quick enough. To get money for helping Quin to Jenny and to get more for not telling was a fine business! "What you tink, eh?"

At five o'clock, Jenny dressed in a horrid yellow dress belonging notoriously to Annawillee, and with her head bound up as if she were indeed Annawillee after Chihuahua had booted thunder out of her in a jamboree, crawled with Annie up the hill, and sat behind a big stump close to Quin's house, which stood alone. Poor Jenny was scared to death by now, for Annie said terrible things of a drunken Pete, who was supposed to be sharpening a knife for a pretty throat.

"You very good klootchman to Pete," said Annie, "and he bad, oh, bad to you, tenas toketie. Mista Quin him good man, rich and very skookum. Pete kwass, afraid of Mista Quin. You alla same white klootchman, good dlesses, very pretty. You no forget poor Annie: you give her dless and dolla when you alla same white woman in chu'ch, in legleese."

Jenny wept bitterly. She still thought she loved Pete, and she was conscious that she was no beauty in her dirt and the dreadful yellow rags of Annawillee.

"I wicked klootchman," said Jenny, "no mo' virtuous, I have shem see Bible. And I not toketie now, very dirty. How I look now, Annie?"

"You always toketie, tenas," said the old witch truly enough. "I do up yo' hair, tenas. By-by you mamook wash yo' face, and be very pretty. Mista Quin mamook wash every day, him gleat man, skookum man, very lich, very lich, plenty dolla. Him love you mo' than one hundred dolla."

She did up Jenny's mass of tumbled black hair, and wiped her face with a rag. She wetted it in her mouth.

"Now you clean," said Annie. "What time Mista Quin come to him house?"

She peered from behind her stump, and presently saw Quin come up the hill. As he passed her she called to him in a low voice.

"Yahkwa, here, Mista Quin."

And Quin came across the brush to them. Jenny buried her face in her hands and her shoulders troubled.

"I bling her," said Annie. "She much aflaid, hyu kwass, of Pete. He say he makee her mimaloose, kill her dead, she muchee aflaid, and she tikegh you, love you always."

Jenny shook and trembled like a beaten dog.

"She now very dirty and bad dless, but you mamook wash, and she hyu toketie. No klootchman here like Jenny. Now, tenas, you klatawa in house quick."

She dragged the trembling child to her feet, and then held out her hand to Quin.

"You give me the dolla?"

And Quin gave her the money in notes. She knew well enough what each one was worth.

"Now I tell Pete she klatawa with shipman Jack to Victoly, ha!"

She scrambled down the hill and Quin took Jenny by the arm.

"Come, tenas," he said in a shaking voice.

But it was a kind voice after all, and Jenny burst into a torrent of sobs and clung to him.

"I have much shem," she said, "I have much shame."

Even Quin had some too, poor devil.

They went into the house.

VI

By the time that the evening sun, slanting westwards to the Pacific, which roared on wild beaches sixteen miles away, shone into the western end of the Mill, Pete had worked the anger out of his heart as healthy children of the earth must do. The song of the Mill was no longer angry or menacing: it became a harmony and was even sweet. Work went beautifully: the logs were sweet-cutting spruce for the most part, or splendid pine, or odorous red cedar, and one precious log of white cedar. The saws ran easy and their filed teeth were sharp: the Hoes said "We can do, we can do," and the Pony Saw piped cleanly and clear, while the Trimmers, though they cut across the grain, cut most swiftly, and said, "Gee whiz, gee whiz." Young Willett was pleased to get the Big Trimmer and Wong most proud to run the Chinee one, which by its name certainly belonged of old to some Chinaman, perhaps now in the country of Green Tea and Bamboos, and forgetful of his ancient toil in alien lands. The engines, too, ran well and the sawdust carriers did not break down, and no belt parted, and nobody but Ginger White said much that was uncivil, and if he went no further than that no one minded him any more than they minded the weather or the wind.

So as things went sweetly, Pete's heart grew sweet and he was sorry he had kicked at Jenny's legs as she lay under the table, and sorry he had torn up the pretty silk. After all it was natural enough that Quin should give her something, and it was natural he wanted her. But of course he couldn't get her, for she was virtuous and had a Bible, and knew religion, and believed that Lejaub, or the diable, would take anyone who was not virtuous. Both the Catholic and the English priests said that, so it must be true. And, if she had denied having the dress, he owned that he had often frightened her and it was natural for her to say she hadn't got it, poor toketie Jenny. He nobly determined to forgive her and say no more about it.