Chương Chương 48 · BOOK IV CHAPTER I

"No, no, I'm all right. Really I am. Please leave me alone. You want me

to laugh? Ha! Ha! There! Is that all right now?"

"No, it isn't all right. It's very far from all right, my boy; and this

is where you and your little uncle here are going to have a real heart

to heart talk."

It was in the big cabin on Gold Hill, and the Prodigal was addressing

me. He went on:

"Now, look here, kid, when it comes to expressing my feelings I'm in the

kindergarten class; when it comes to handing out the high-toned dope I

drop my cue every time; but when I'm needed to do the solid pardner

stunt then you don't need to holler for me--I'm there. Well, I'm giving

you a straight line of talk. Ever since the start I've taken a strong

notion to you. You've always been ace-high with me, and there never will

come the day when you can't eat on my meal-ticket. We tackled the Trail

of Trouble together. You were always wanting to lift the heavy end of

the log, and when the God of Cussedness was doing his best to rasp a man

down to his yellow streak, you showed up white all through. Say, kid,

we've been in tight places together; we've been stacked up against hard

times together: and now I'll be gol-darned if I'm going to stand by and

see you go downhill, while the devil oils the bearings."

"Oh, I'm all right," I protested.

"Yes, you're all right," he echoed grimly. "In an impersonation of an

'all-right' man it's the hook for yours. I've seen 'all-right' men like

you hitting the hurry trail for the boneyard before now. You're 'all

right'! Why, for the last two hours you've been sitting with that

'just-break-the-news-to mother' expression of yours, and paying no more

heed to my cheerful brand of conversation than if I had been a measly

four-flusher. You don't eat more than a sick sparrow, and often you

don't bat an eye all night. You're looking worse than the devil in a

gale of wind. You've lost your grip, my boy. You don't care whether

school keeps or not. In fact, if it wasn't for your folks, you'd as lief

take a short cut across the Great Divide."

"You're going it a little strong, old man."

"Oh no, I'm not. You know you're sick of everything. Feel as if life's a

sort of penitentiary, and you've just got to do time. You don't expect

to get any more fun out of it. Look at me. Every day's my sunshine day.

If the sky's blue I like it; if it's grey I like it just as well. I

never worry. What's the use? Yesterday's a dead one; to-morrow's always

to-morrow. All we've got's the 'now,' and it's up to us to live it for

all we're worth. You can use up more human steam to the square inch in

worrying than you can to the square yard in hard work. Eliminate worry

and you've got the only system."

"It's all very well for you to preach," I said, "you forget I've been a

pretty sick man."

"That's no nursemaid's dream. You almost cashed in. Typhoid's a serious

proposition at the best; but when you take a crazy streak on top of it,

make a midnight getaway from the sick-ward and land up on the Slide

looking as if you'd been run through a threshing machine, well, you're

sure letting death get a short option on you. And you gave up. You

didn't want to fight. You shirked, but your youth and constitution

fought for you. They healed your wounds, they soothed your ravings, they

cooled your fever. They were a great team, and they pulled you through.

Seems as if they'd pulled you through a knot-hole, but they were on to

their job. And you weren't one bit grateful--seemed to think they had no

business to butt in."

"My hurts are more than physical."

"Yes, I know; there was that girl. You seemed to have a notion that that

was the only girl on God's green brush-pile. As I camped there by your

bedside listening to your ravings, and getting a strangle-hold on you

when you took it into your head to get funny, you blabbed out the whole

yarn. Oh, sonny, why didn't you tell your uncle? Why didn't you put me

wise? I could have given you the right steer. Have you ever known me

handle a job I couldn't make good at? I'm a whole matrimonial bureau

rolled into one. I'd have had you prancing to the tune of the wedding

march before now. But you kept mum as a mummy. Wouldn't even tell your

old pard. Now you've lost her."

"Yes, I've lost her."

"Did you ever see her after you came out of the hospital?"

"Once, once only. It was the first day. I was as thin as a rail, as

white as the pillow from which I had just raised my head. Death's

reprieve was written all over me. I dragged along wearily, leaning on a

stick. I was thinking of her, thinking, thinking always. As I scanned

the faces of the crowds that thronged the streets, I thought only of her

face. Then suddenly she was before me. She looked like a ghost, poor

little thing; and for a fluttering moment we stared at each other, she

and I, two wan, weariful ghosts."

"Yes, what did she say?"

"Say! she said nothing. She just looked at me. Her face was cold as ice.

She looked at me as if she wanted to _pity_ me. Then into her eyes there

came a shadow of bitterness, of bitterness and despair such as might

gloom the eyes of a lost soul. It unnerved me. It seemed as if she was

regarding me almost with horror, as if I were a sort of a leper. As I

stood there, I thought she was going to faint. She seemed to sway a

moment. Then she drew a great, gasping breath, and turning on her heel

she was gone."

"She cut you?"

"Yes, cut me dead, old fellow. And my only thought was of love for her,

eternal love. But I'll never forget the look on her face as she turned

away. It was as if I had lashed her with a whip. My God!"

"And you've never seen her since?"

"No, never. That was enough, wasn't it? She didn't want to speak to me

any more, never wanted to set eyes on me any more. I went back to the

ward; then, in a little, I came on here. My body was living, but my

heart was dead. It will never live again."

"Oh, rot! You mustn't let the thing down you like that. It's going to

kill you in the end. Buck up! Be a man! If you don't care to live for

yourself, live for others. Anyway, it's likely all for the best. Maybe

love had you locoed. Maybe she wasn't really good. See now how she lives

openly with Locasto. They call her the Madonna; they say she looks more

like a virgin-martyr than the mistress of a dissolute man."

I rose and looked at him, conscious that my face was all twisted with

the pain of the thought.

"Look here," I said, "never did God put the breath of life into a better

girl. There's been foul play. I know that girl better than any one in

the world, and if every living being were to tell me she wasn't good I

would tell them they lied, they lied. I would burn at the stake

upholding that girl."

"Then why did she turn you down so cruelly?"

"I don't know; I can't understand it. I know so little about women. I

have not wavered a moment. To-day in my loneliness and heartbreak I

care and hunger for her more than ever. She's always here, right here in

my head, and no power can drive her out. Let them say of her what they

will, I would marry her to-morrow. It's killing me. I've aged ten years

in the last few months. Oh, if I only could forget."

He looked at me thoughtfully.

"I say, old man, do you ever hear from your old lady?"

"Every mail."

"You've often told me of your home. Say! just give us a mental frame-up

of it."

"Glengyle? Yes. I can see the old place now, as plainly as a picture:

the green, dimpling hills all speckled with sheep; the grey house

nestling snugly in a grove of birch; the wild water of the burn leaping

from black pool to pool, just mad with the joy of life; the midges

dancing over the water in the still sunshine, and the trout jumping for

them--oh, it's the bonny, bonny place. You would think so too. You would

like it, tramping knee-deep in the heather, to see the moorcock rise

whirring at your feet; you would like to set sail with the fisher folk

after the silver herring. It would make you feel good to see the calm

faces of the shepherds, the peace in the eyes of the women. Ay, that was

the best of it all, the Rest of it, the calm of it. I was pretty happy

in those days."

"You were happy--then why not go back? That's your proper play; go back

to your Mother. She wants you. You're pretty well heeled now. A little

money goes a long way over there. You can count on thirty thousand.

You'll be comfortable; you'll devote yourself to the old lady; you'll be

happy again. Time's a regular steam-roller when it comes to smoothing

out the rough spots in the past. You'll forget it all, this place, this

girl. It'll all seem like the after effects of a midnight Welsh rabbit.

You've got mental indigestion. I hate to see you go. I'm really sorry to

lose you; but it's your only salvation, so go, go!"

Never had I thought of it before. Home! how sweet the word seemed.

Mother! yes, Mother would comfort me as no one else could. She would

understand. Mother and Garry! A sudden craving came over me to see them

again. Maybe with them I could find relief from this awful agony of

heart, this thing that I could scarce bear to think of, yet never ceased

to think of. Home! that was the solution of it all. Ah me! I would go

home.

"Yes," I said, "I can't go too soon; I'll start to-morrow."

So I rose and proceeded to gather together my few belongings. In the

early morning I would start out. No use prolonging the business of my

going. I would say good-bye to those two partners of mine, with a grip

of the hand, a tear in the eye, a husky: "Take care of yourself." That

would be all. Likely I would never see them again.

Jim came in and sat down quietly. The old man had been very silent of

late. Putting on his spectacles, he took out his well-worn Bible and

opened it. Back in Dawson there was a man whom he hated with the hate

that only death can end, but for the peace of his soul he strove to

conquer it. The hate slumbered, yet at times it stirred, and into the

old man's eyes there came the tiger-look that had once made him a force

and a fear. Woe betide his enemy if that tiger ever woke.

"I've been a-thinkin' out a scheme," said Jim suddenly, "an' I'm a-goin'

to put all of that twenty-five thousand of mine back into the ground.

You know us old miners are gamblers to the end. It's not the gold, but

the gettin' of it. It's the excitement, the hope, the anticipation of

one's luck that counts. We're fighters, an' we've just got to keep on

fightin'. We can't quit. There's the ground, and there's the precious

metals it's a-tryin' to hold back on us. It's up to us to get them out.

It's for the good of humanity. The miner an' the farmer rob no one. They

just get down to that old ground an' coax it an' beat it an' bully it

till it gives up. They're working for the good of humanity--the farmer

an' the miner." The old man paused sententiously.

"Well, I can't quit this minin' business. I've just got to go on so

long's I've got health an' strength; an' I'm a-goin' to shove all I've

got once more into the muck. I stand to make a big pile, or lose my

wad."

"What's your scheme, Jim?"

"It's just this: I'm goin' to install a hydraulic plant on my Ophir

Creek claim, I've got a great notion of that claim. It's an

out-of-sight proposition for workin' with water. There's a little stream

runs down the hill, an' the hill's steep right there. There's one

hundred feet of fall, an' in Spring a mighty powerful bunch of water

comes a-tumblin' down. Well, I'm goin' to dam it up above, bring it down

a flume, hitch on a little giant, an' turn it loose to rip an' tear at

that there ground. I'm goin' to begin a new era in Klondike minin'."

"Bully for you, Jim."

"The values are there in the ground, an' I'm sick of the old slow way of

gettin' them out. This looks mighty good to me. Anyway, I'm a-goin' to

give it a trial. It's just the start of things; you'll see others will

follow suit. The individual miner's got to go; it's only a matter of

time. Some day you'll see this whole country worked over by them big

power dredges they've got down in Californy. You mark my words, boys;

the old-fashioned miner's got to go."

"What are you going to do?"

"Well, I've written out for piping an' a monitor, an' next Spring I hope

I'll have the plant in workin' order. The stuff's on the way now. Hullo!

Come in!"

The visitors were Mervin and Hewson on their way to Dawson. These two

men had been successful beyond their dreams. It was just like finding

money the way fortune had pushed it in front of their noses. They were

offensively prosperous; they reeked of success.

In both of them a great change had taken place, a change only too

typical of the gold-camp. They seemed to have thawed out; they were

irrepressibly genial; yet instead of that restraint that had formerly

distinguished them, there was a grafted quality of weakness, of

flaccidity, of surrender to the enervating vices of the town.

Mervin was remarkably thin. Dark hollows circled his eyes, and a curious

nervousness twisted his mouth. He was "a terror for the women," they

said. He lavished his money on them faster than he made it. He was

vastly more companionable than formerly, but somehow you felt his

virility, his fighting force had gone.

In Hewson the change was even more marked. Those iron muscles had

couched themselves in easy flesh; his cheeks sagged; his eyes were

bloodshot and untidy. Nevertheless he was more of a good fellow, talked

rather vauntingly of his wealth, and affected a patronising manner. He

was worth probably two hundred thousand, and he drank a bottle of brandy

a day.

In the case of these two men, as in the case of a thousand others in the

gold-camp, it seemed as if easy, unhoped-for affluence was to prove

their undoing. On the trail they had been supreme; in fen or forest, on

peak or plain, they were men among men, fighting with nature savagely,

exultantly. But when the fight was over their arms rested, their muscles

relaxed, they yielded to sensuous pleasures. It seemed as if to them

victory really meant defeat.

As I went on with my packing I paid but little heed to their talk. What

mattered it to me now, this babble of dumps and dust, of claims and

clean-ups? I was going to thrust it all behind me, blot it clean out of

my memory, begin my life anew. It would be a larger, more luminous life.

I would live for others. Home! Mother! again how exquisitely my heart

glowed at the thought of them.

Then all at once I pricked up my ears. They were talking of the town, of

the men and women who were making it famous (or rather infamous), when

suddenly they spoke the name of Locasto.

"He's gone off," Mervin was saying; "gone off on a big stampede. He got

pretty thick with some of the Peel River Indians, and found they knew of

a ledge of high-grade, free-milling quartz somewhere out there in the

Land Back of Beyond. He had a sample of it, and you could just see the

gold shining all through it. It was great stuff. Jack Locasto's the last

man to turn down a chance like that. He's the worst gambler in the

Northland, and no amount of wealth will ever satisfy him. So he's off

with an Indian and one companion, that little Irish satellite of his,

Pat Doogan. They have six months' grub. They'll be away all winter."

"What's become of that girl of his?" asked Hewson, "the last one he's

been living with? You remember she came in on the boat with us. Poor

little kid! Blast that man anyway. He's not content with women of his

own kind, he's got to get his clutches on the best of them. That was a

good little girl before he got after her. If she was a friend of mine

I'd put a bullet in his ugly heart."

Hewson growled like a wrathful bear, but Mervin smiled his cynical

smile.

"Oh, you mean the Madonna," he said; "why, she's gone on the

dance-halls."

They continued to talk of other things, but I did not hear them any

more. I was in a trance, and I only aroused when they rose to go.

"Better say good-bye to the kid here," said the Prodigal; "he's going to

the old country to-morrow."

"No, I'm not," I answered sullenly; "I'm just going as far as Dawson."

He stared and expostulated, but my mind was made up. I would fight,

fight to the last.