CHAPTER XV.

Back in Dawson, on the evening of the same day when Britton stood alone with the awful Klondike solitude at the edge of Five Mountain Gulch-as it came to be named afterwards-when he faced at once the icy phantom Cold, the grisly skeleton Starvation, and the devil-faced thing Remorse, when he halted with death at his feet and its dread power pervading the desolate snows about him, there occurred, in the golden city, a strikingly different scene, a scene palpitating with warmth and life.

A group of men, present at Grant Simpson's invitation, occupied one of the ground-floor rooms of the Half Moon restaurant, engaged ostensibly in doing justice to a very elegant and costly supper, but really killing time in a luxurious way and waiting anxiously for the bell-note of business which they knew their host intended to ring in on them.

Simpson, with his accustomed lavish expenditure, had engaged the room to the utter exclusion of other guests who might have dined at two of the three tables which the chamber held; he had ordered that the trio of tables be lined up and converted into one long feasting board which could be covered with fine viands and drinks-principally drinks! The catering was let to the hostess of the Half Moon, Aline Giraud, who was a genius of management, all the more so since Pierre's absence on the trails left every responsibility in her hands. That night she expected him back from the completion of his baggage-freighting contract with Laverdale, the big American mine-owner who was bound for Dyea and the States, and Aline wished to have everything right. She wished the supper that this well-dressed, money-burning lawyer was giving to be a thing beyond criticism, and her every effort was devoted to making it so.

And the bill! She told herself the bill would be the best of it all. It would be a thing to cheer Pierre's heart and cause him to dance, with his cap thrown among the ceiling festoons.

Simpson's was the dominating figure of the company present in the room of the Half Moon where Aline Giraud served so assiduously with her alert, graceful movements and her full, white arms. He seemed to hold the key to some enterprise which claimed the attention of all under their masks of good fellowship, but Simpson did not yet consider the moment propitious for the unfolding of hidden plans.

He sat at the head of his table, with his guests ranged in two lines on either side, men well known in Dawson, the chief characteristic of whom was money. That was why they were present! If they had not had money to invest, they could have entered into no proposition with Simpson.

Jarmand, the fat, wealthy broker with the currant-roll neck and the oily insolence, was there; Fripps, the sour, thin, anaemic promoter, maintained his usual unobtrusive but nevertheless certain presence; a trio of capitalists of a somewhat similar stamp, keen-visaged but rotund-bodied, quelled their impatience successfully, while they secretly chafed at Simpson's dalliance, and awaited his proposition. These men were inseparable in any business prospect; they worked together, invested together, and stood or fell by a triumvirate judgment; and since their names began with the same letter-Cranwell, Crowdon, and Carr-they had been dubbed the three C's.

Where the three C's went in, the financial project need not be strictly legitimate. They had few scruples or qualms, and when they took hold of a mining scheme or a real estate deal, wise men kept out.

There were others present, probably a dozen in all, and among them Jim Laurance, who had come with a great deal of misgiving and scepticism on receipt of a letter from Simpson advising him of an opportunity of getting in on the ground floor right under the scoops of a dredging proposition.

And in preparation for his demonstration of ideas and plans, Grant Simpson bade them all enjoy themselves, setting the example himself with a free hand on the ladle of the punch bowl. Many followed his example from appetite; the three C's imitated, thinking of a relished business dessert as a sort of solace.

Famine might be threatening in the land of gold, but she had certainly no embargo on liquors and cigars. Both were indulged in without stint.

Blue, acrid wreaths of smoke filled the room, and the atmosphere became very warm. No one would have guessed it was forty below in the street, The two lines of guests at the table and the host at its head emptied glasses and refilled, tossed them off and ladled up again. Small talk hummed, and jests cracked out, more or less coarse in the intervals when pretty Aline Giraud was absent from the room during the different courses of the meal.

Jim Laurance, the only temperate one in the company, sipped his simple glass of punch sparingly, refusing the bottled stuff and the heavy wines. He felt disgusted and sorry that he had come, but he had money to invest if Simpson's thing suited him, and he settled himself to sit out the revel.

The roadhouse at Indian River had proved a good thing for Laurance. He had struck his Klondike right on that creek, and he was sane enough to know it. Instead of frittering away his coin on fool stampedes in hopes of a mighty strike, he was satisfied to invest it in sound mining securities and watch the dividends slowly grow. Such an enterprise, he hoped, was in Simpson's mind.

Simpson's wine, however, was more in Simpson's thoughts than the enterprise. He had unwisely glutted his taste for beverages with a tang, and he lost control of his manners as well as his senses, laughing boisterously and telling unsavory tales.

"Hi, there!" he would yell, skidding the empty punch-bowl down the table to Jarmand. "Fill her up, Fatty. You're the doctor. Put in something stiff-stiff enough to make your moustache stand! Something d-d stiff, Fatty!"

"That's it, Jarmand," gurgled Bonneaves, a young profligate and an especial chum of Simpson's. "Mix us a regular old hair-raiser. We're out for fun! Who's holding us down?"

"No one! No one!" shouted three or four of the muddled men, stamping on the floor and breaking into confused singing, which set up rumbling echoes through the other parts of the restaurant and went far to disturbing its customers.

"Tell us a story, Simp," said Jarmand. "Old Simp's the boy for spicy ones. Eh, men? You bet your liver-colored notes he is. Rip one off, Simp, there's a good fellow!"

Accordingly Simp ripped one off, a story that convulsed the drinkers but which made Laurance's blood boil. The one-time plainsman, now an Alaskan sourdough, sat very still, without the shadow of a smile upon his face.

Aline Giraud, accompanied by a waitress, an ugly, angular Danish woman, brought in the meats. These were bear steaks, slices of moose flank, and grouse in pairs, a veritable feast which would have fed a hundred poverty-pinched wretches in the outlying camps. The thought came to Laurance as he poised his knife and fork over the breast of a fat grouse dressed with sage dressing in a wonderful brown gravy.

"Seems hard to waste this here," he said simply, "when there's so many poor cusses starvin' round the Fields."

"To h-l with them!" cried Simpson, roughly. "What we have, we got. Eh? We pay for it, and when you pay your way, the rest can go and be d-d to 'em. How's that?"

"Right," nodded Bonneaves. "You're always right, Simp. You're a wise old buck. Glad I've known you. You can show a fellow things. Here's to you, Simp!"

The talk grew louder and looser. As the gravies were being served, Simpson and Jarmand, exchanging winks, attempted a double surprise. The lawyer made a bungling effort to kiss Aline Giraud on the cheek, while at the same time the fat broker leaned forward and pecked at the waitress. The result was a startling surprise for Jarmand. The ham-like hand of the Danish woman descended with a resounding smack on the currant-roll neck of the broker.

The seated company roared at Jarmand. Jim Laurance frowned at Simpson and half rose from his chair, but Aline had succeeded in eluding the lawyer and fled through the doorway, the angry red showing in her cheeks.

"That's one on you, Fatty," tittered his friends. "Beautiful throw-down, that! Right place, too! Like another, Fatty? Better try again. Ho! ho!"

"Cheer up, old man," laughed Simpson, accepting the joke. "Better luck next time. Walk into the punch there, Fatty; you have a weak heart."

They walked into the punch till the third bowl failed to withstand the charges, and a fourth had to be mixed. Some of the men, unable to restrain their vivacity, arose and capered about the laden table, singing and playing the fool perfectly, and stopping only to refill empty tumblers.

The Danish waitress, now secure in the triumph of her first quick victory, held her ground undaunted, completing the serving of the banquet in spite of the noise. Aline, no longer entering the room, watched the progress of things through the doorway from the farther chamber. Somehow, this fine supper over which she had spent so much effort had not turned out as she had contemplated; things were getting beyond her grasp; her eyes grew anxious wide, and startled.

After all, she thought, it might not please Pierre. Even the bill would never compensate for the disgusting clamor and the humiliation.

Laurance had finished his single glass of punch and was drawing on his short, black pipe. He disdained the long, fat cigars of Jarmand and the three C's, and cursed the ill-smelling, coronet-banded cigarettes of Simpson and Bonneaves. The oddest figure in the group himself, he felt nothing but contempt for the others. The only thing about them he respected was the business instinct of their sober moments, and there seemed but little chance for a display of that now.

The Alaskan waited till the fourth bowl of punch ran low, hoping that Simpson would open his mouth to speak sound sense, instead of salacious nonsense, and tell them why he had invited them to supper, but when the concoction of a fifth bowl was begun, amid most uproarious hilarity, Laurance inwardly fumed, making up his mind that he would not sit there much longer.

Unconsciously, he was frowning through the drifting haze of smoke at his companions. There was no stern decorum present, nor any nicety of attire. To be sure, Simpson, as host, and Bonneaves, to imitate his model, wore dinner clothes, but the rest were dressed in the ordinary dress which occupation demanded. The three C's were in black broadcloth; Jarmand sported a suit of loud check pattern; Fripps favored grey, as wrinkled and faded as his skin. The others of the company were mostly mining men who had come in corduroys, with trousers stuffed in knee-high cruisers, and had hung fur coats and caps on the pegs behind their chairs. Laurance, travelling by dog-train to Dawson, wore the musher's outfit of the trails.

He looked rough and uncouth, but very much a man. His beard was disreputable as ever; the iron-gray hair stood up stiffer and stubbier, allowing his rat ears to be seen; his nose peeped out, cherry-red and snub. He was lowering on the foolish antics of the rest of the men, and his keen blue eyes were narrowed so much that they did not flash.

"What's the matter with you, Laurance, old sport?" cried Bonneaves, joyously. "Look as if you'd buried your best friend in the punch-bowl!"

"Why," shouted Simpson, "if that's so, we'll resurrect him! Resurrect's the word, boys. Eh? How's that?" He seized the bowl in both arms and emptied it to the last drop in the array of glasses. Then he turned the dish upside down on the table and hammered upon its bottom, while the company roared as if he had done some extremely witty thing.

"What say, Laurance?" asked young Bonneaves. "Feel any better?"

"I feel like twistin' your cussed neck, young man," answered Laurance, wrathfully. "What did I come here for? To eat a decent meal an' talk business! I didn't come to swill meself-I'm certainly certain of that! We're men anyhow, an' there's no call for us to act like a lot of calf youngsters as can't pull the draw-string on their gullets. I say we're here to talk business!"

"H-l, yes," grunted Bonneaves, with the air of sudden recollection. "You're right, sport, now I come to remember. Simp did bring us here for a purpose, and that's no lie. Give us your scheme, Simp. Hot and heavy and fast-that's the way!"

Because their tastes palled a little, the others added their clamorous entreaties. Their exhortations made a confused babel:

"Hit it up, Simp! Uncork your oracle. Spread yourself quick, old boy. What's the tune now? Time we talked, by gad!" And Bonneaves nodded sagely at Laurance, muttering: "You're all right, sport. Simp's a wise buck, but you're a wiser! See? Attention, you duffers!" He secured order by pounding the board with the thick bottom of his tumbler.

"Simp's going to spout," he announced authoritatively. Noticing that the lawyer had engrossed himself with the opening of a champagne bottle, Bonneaves hastily added: "Why, no! Rat me if he isn't going to swallow! Here, Simp, that won't do. Put it away. Can't you see your friends are waiting?"

"I'm busy," protested Simpson, struggling with the cork. "It's all about that Yukon dredging business anyhow. I've taken it off Morris's hands since he's played the fool and disappeared, d-n him! I need backing. That's what I need. I can't go it alone!"

"What's the lay-out?" prompted Jarmand. "Put aside the bottle and get down to business."

Simpson flung away the opener as a useless thing and grasped a fresh one.

"Curse the bottle and curse the business," he fumed. "I'm busy, I tell you. Here, I have the prospectus. Read it yourselves, and you'll save my wind!" He drew some typewritten sheets from his breast-pocket and flung them upon the cloth.

What he had called the prospectus passed down the line at one side of the table, up again, and down the other side, greeted with grunts of approval by those still clear-brained enough to understand and with much head-wagging from such as were incapable of comprehension.

"Bully!"

"Standard bred!"

"Up to snuff!"

"Neat as garters!"

These were some of the comments from the appreciative assembly.

Last of all, the prospectus came to Jim Laurance. At the top of the sheet, in large typing, was the name, "Yukon Dredging Company." Underneath that reposed the list of directors, picked, apparently, from the group invited to supper. Jarmand's name appeared, and Fripps's, Bonneaves's, and the names of the three C's.

Laurance quietly read the sheets through, with their significance vitally impressing itself on him, and when he finished, he saw that he held the kind of thing which is circulated by thousands through the mails for the catching of suckers. It was the universally familiar, folded sheet that expounded the virtues of the greatest dredging proposition in the world.

"By gad," he cried, angrily shaking the prospectus in the air, "so this is what you've hauled me over here to back up, eh? A cussed, dirty, widow-an'-orphan robbin' swindle, if you ast me! An', gents, I give it to you straight: you're a pack of low faro dealers, a bunch of thimbleriggers, a handful of flimflammers if you put through that there deal. You're a ring of thieves and d-d blacklegs, gents!"

"Hold on there, sport!" yelled Bonneaves. "You go it too strong. We won't stand for all that."

"I can go lots stronger yet, young cocky-neck," warned Lawrence. "Why, I ain't half goin'. You should see me fizz some time, me son, an' you'd run your feet off for fear of bein' blowed up." He regarded the youthful profligate grimly, shaking his stubby scalp and gray beard aggressively, but in the corners of his eyes there lurked a humorous expression.

"Aren't you in on this?" asked Jarmand, rolling a wave of his oily insolence down the table to Laurance. "Aren't you taking hold? There's money in it!"

The Alaskan eyed him squarely.

"Not the kind of money I want," he said severely. "Not me own kind, by a thousand yard shot! I don't want no widow's mites or orphan's pennies; I don't steal no wimmen's savin's nor the hard-earned dollars of some poor laborin' cuss as thinks the Yukon is one whoppin' lump of gold an' all we got to do here is to file up our finger-nails and claw it off in pieces. No, sir, count me out! An' I'll see some law-sharp an' have you gents counted out, too. You don't work this here game so easy. I'm certainly certain of that! You can't rob people so d-d bare-faced. No, sir, you truly can't. Why, this here would be wors'n jumpin' all the claims on Samson Creek!"

Laurance's glance rested full on Grant Simpson as he uttered his bold words, and the lawyer looked up with suspicious, drink-steeped eyes.

"What the devil's wrong with this thing?" he demanded angrily. "What puts your back up?"

"Look here," snapped Laurance, pointing to the typewritten sheet. "You claim to have one hundred miles river frontage, or 'bout ten thousand acres, on Indian Creek. You bought it from the Government! Pretty lie, if you ast me! Clear title from them, and all the rest of the high-falutin's! Pah!-it turns me sick. For you haven't a yard-not one d-d yard. I'm there, an' I know!"

The Alaskan's vehemence drew the attention of everyone, drunk or sober.

"An' you have two dredges at work, expectin' a third," he went on, continuing to read from the prospectus. "That's a crackin' good Sunday paper joke. What does it mean?"

"Well," growled Simpson, "we will have. We intend to."

"The devil you do," said Laurance. "You'll put the money in your pocket an' keep it there. To h-l with your prospectus!" He tore the sheets in half and threw the fragments on the floor.

Simpson laughed. He viewed the whole affair with colossal unconcern. In its time he could proceed with the venture at immense gain to himself and the others. It must be postponed, in spite of it being the reason for the assembly, because, just now, wine was a much more important thing.

"You don't have to plunge," he commented. "Stay out if you can't like it."

"Yes, but he doesn't need to give us extra work," interposed Jarmand, expostulating about the torn prospectus.

"Have an ice, Laurance." advised young Bonneaves. "It'll cool you down."

"I'll have nothin'," Laurance growled, reaching for his coat. "I don't hanker after suppin' with them as I now know is thieves."

At the host's call, the Danish waitress brought in the ices on a tray, while Jim Laurance muffled himself in his coat.

"Where's Aline?" Simpson asked, assuming the privilege of familiarity.

"My mistress?" said the waitress. "She will serve no more. She will not enter."

"But she'll have to," cried Simpson, flushing with anger and obstinacy. "Tell her to run in and serve immediately or I shall come after her and kiss both her cheeks instead of one."

The Danish woman flounced out, and Jarmand involuntarily put his fingers to his fat neck.

"You see," explained Simpson, "it isn't like as if I hadn't paid her for the supper and for occupying her room. And, by the way, this isn't the only room!" He nodded and laughed evilly, adding: "The hubby's on the trails."

Laurance's coat went off his back with a reverse of the motion which was putting it on. The garment flew into one corner, and the owner's voice rang out across the room like the clank of good steel.

"By heaven, Simpson," he roared, "you can't throw one speck of mud on Pierre's wife. You'll eat dirt for it. You're a d-d dago-hearted liar!"

Laurance sprang along behind the row of chairs to reach Simpson at the table's head, but a hand caught his elbow as he passed the side door and whirled him about. With the suddenness of an apparition, he saw Pierre, in musher's dress, fresh from the trails, filling the entrance with his bulk, so that the white face of Aline had to peer under the arm which held Laurance back.

"Dis for me, _camarade_," murmured Pierre, pushing the Alaskan behind him.

Giraud then walked quickly past the astonished men till he stood in front of Simpson. Very deliberately he gazed at him.

"M'sieu'," he said, "you wan coward. You wan dam coward!" And his open palms gave Simpson a stinging blow on either cheek.

The lawyer lashed out with both hands and feet, but Pierre grasped him by the throat and shook him like a long rag. Bedlam broke loose! Chairs and tables were overturned as the half-dazed revellers jumped up. Aline's screams were mingled with the crash of glass and chinaware. Jarmand, Bonneaves, and two or three more of Simpson's friends rushed to his assistance, bent on violence toward Pierre, but Jim Laurance swung on them sharply, with eight inches of blued, cylindrical steel glittering in either hand.

"Back there," he yelled, "every man-jack of you, or I'll plug you with these gas-pipes!"

The glinting light on the dull, ugly Colts daunted them no more than the determined gleam in the eyes of the man behind. The rescuers fell aside like gale-blown gravel and remained glued to the wall.

Pierre Giraud set the lawyer on his feet. The voyageur's face was pale and rigid.

"M'sieu'," he said, "you lak wan feather in my hand. Ah no be go fight wit' you dat way, 'cause dat not be fair. _Mais_ you geeve Aline wan insult-de wors' insult dat man could geeve! An' Aline, she lak wan leetle w'ite saint. M'sieu'," and he tapped Simpson's shoulder, "wan of us be keel here. Ah keel you, fair, or you keel me. Tak' de choice of dose!" He indicated Laurance's pistols.

It was no orthodox duel. There occurred no pacing, no arrangement, no seconding, no counting! Laurance put one weapon in Simpson's hand, whipped the other over to Giraud, and stepped between the door-jambs, screening the thing from Aline.

Abruptly the shooting began, the revolvers spurting jets of flame through the blue haze of the room, whose atmosphere thickened into swirling wreaths with every report.

It was a scene of the wildest disorder, with the overturned tables and chairs and shattered glass below; lights above, swaying to the explosions of the pistols; at the sides the lines of awed yet excited men flattened against the walls; the anxious Laurance and the frantic, white-faced wife in the side entrance; guests fleeing from the other parts of the establishment with shrieks and clamor; and in the centre of it all the two combatants manoeuvring in the mist of smoke to avoid being hit, advancing and firing swiftly as they advanced.

Simpson shot the faster, with wild, deadly, malevolent hatred; Giraud directed his weapon with slower deliberateness, ruled by one earnest, avenging impulse. The room rocked to the deafening reverberations of the pistols; the bullets went pang-panging on the wainscoting; the jets of flame turned to crossed spears stabbing through the smoke.

In ten seconds the men were within gun-reach in the centre of the floor. Simpson's sixth ball broke the skin on his opponent's neck, but Giraud's fifth went hurtling through the lawyer's brain.

Simpson sagged in a little heap of black tuxedo and white starch, his brow stained with spurting red. Aline Giraud was sobbing on Pierre's breast, but Laurance roused him roughly to an acceptance of realities.

"Hit it, an' hit it quick!" Jim urged vociferously. "The Mounted will be here on the run in a minnit. Gad, that firin' must wake up the whole town. Where's the dog-train? Is it unhitched?"

"_Non_," answered Pierre, speaking like a man in a dream, "she be in de yard lak Ah left her."

"Come on, then," whispered Laurance, pulling him out.

Aline clung to him piteously, and Pierre embraced her with a swift, despairing, passionate gesture. Then he put her from him with an effort that was agony.

"He'll come back," consoled Laurance, "as soon as this blows over. Come on, Pierre. I hear runnin'."

They were gone on the instant, leaving Aline Giraud with her sweet, white face upturned in prayer and her hands clasped in an attitude of fear, parting, and renunciation.

When the uniformed men of the Mounted Police filled the room where Simpson lay dead, Pierre was galloping his dog-team at full speed up the ice-trail of the Klondike.

"Hit it for the Thron-Diuck camps," Laurance had advised. "They're somewhere in them mountains. An' lie low till I send you word by an Indian."

That was how Pierre, heading for the Thron-Diuck encampments near the Klondike's source, found Rex Britton four days later, half dead from starvation and exposure, with his last burned match in his pocket, ravings on his tongue and delirium in his brain, about fifteen miles from Five Mountain Gulch.