"Ees eet zat I am too bold for your Eenglish ways? But I am not ashamed--no. I love you--oh, so much!----"
With a gasp he unlinked her arms and stood up.
"Natalie, what are you saying?"
"Why should I not say zat I love you?" she retorted hotly.
"You love me!" he muttered. "By G.o.d--I never dreamed----"
"Oh, Jeem!"
"Stop!" he roared. "Listen here, you"d better know the truth. I"m married!"
"Married?" she almost screamed.
"Jest that."
She stood up, all her wonderful castles strewn before her.
"Mon Dieu!" she groaned. "Mon Dieu!"
There was a sound from behind, and a figure slipped from out of the gloom--Angela. She stood facing them, her breast heaving under her emotions. Jim, seizing the opportunity, vanished into the house sick at the thought that Angela should have heard.
Angela approached Natalie and placed her arm round the latter"s waist.
"Natalie," she said, "I couldn"t help hearing."
"You--you heard?"
"Yes. And I had a right to hear."
"No one had a right----"
"Yes, someone had--his wife."
"You--his wife?"
Angela inclined her head.
"But he say you are his sister--and you act like that."
The problem became clearer to her. "Ah, I see--he say that because he do not want to cause you embarra.s.sment--because you do not love him."
Angela turned to her in righteous indignation.
"You don"t understand--he bought me, with money. I--I can"t explain....
But I am sorry this has happened."
Natalie wiped away a tear, sniffed, and then composed herself.
"I vill try to forget," she said. "I am verra glad eet ees you--for you are so beautiful.... But I vish it was me he bought," she added wistfully.
CHAPTER XXII
GOLD
The one desire, obsessing Jim"s mind, was to get away from Devinne"s place. Natalie"s unblushing overtures had scared him very considerably.
Women had always puzzled him--they puzzled him even more now. He certainly had no use for women who ran at one in that way. Far better for them to be like Angela, cold and unapproachable, alluring yet repellent. One knew where one was with Angela, but never with Natalie.
And Angela had heard, and perhaps seen, all that had taken place! He mopped his brow as he reflected upon her feelings in the matter. He was modest and foolish enough to think that jealousy was out of the question, but she would undoubtedly object to playing second fiddle to Natalie. So much he knew of her.
Fearful of meeting Natalie at breakfast, he rose early and made his way out, determined not to return until Chips the half-breed arrived with his cargo. A little distance from the house he stopped, and returned for the shovel and pick and washing-pan, with a view to filling in his spare time and banishing from his mind the painful scene of last night.
The red sun was just mounting the horizon as he strode off, and birds were singing gayly in the woods. Half an hour"s walk brought him out of the timber into comparatively bare country. Aimlessly he wandered on, drinking in the fresh morning air and stopping to gaze at the brilliant landscape from time to time. Below him, to the west, a small creek made a junction with the Yukon, its red water foaming over broken boulders, and leaping ten perpendicular feet to join the parent stream. He sauntered down towards it, the washing-pan clanking against the shovel as he walked.
Few men would have dug for gold along that creek; the surface had all the characteristics of unadulterated muck. He stuck the pick into it for the mere fun of hitting something. Though the sun shone warmly and rich the gra.s.s grew on either bank, the eternal ice was down under the surface.
In one hour he managed to dig out a cubic yard of earth. Having satisfied his hunger for exercise, he flung the shovel down and began to smoke.
Looking down the creek, he saw a clumsy flat-bottomed boat, piled high with cargo, swirling down the river, with a tousled-haired man in the stern keeping her from the bank by means of a pole.
"Chips," he murmured. "He must have started last night. So the food is here, and we can hike out to-day, thank G.o.d!"
As he looked, the punt struck a submerged sandbank and beached on it.
Chips" little body bent on the pole, but except to swivel the punt on its axis it had no other result.
Jim stood up, and seizing his tools, made down the creek. He shouted to Chips, and the latter looked at him imploringly. Jim waded through the water and reached the craft.
"You should have kept her out more in the center, my friend," he said.
"Current go swift there--no make the landing."
"Hm! perhaps you"re right. Here, take these aboard--I"ll come back with you."
He put the shovel and pick over the side of the boat and catching hold of the stern, pushed hard. Chips gave a yell of joy as the punt slithered and then jolted into deep water. Jim clambered aboard and took the pole. Half an hour later they beached her at the landing-place.
Devinne and the other half-breed came running down the slope. The former looked at Jim in surprise.
"Where did you go to? We waited breakfast for twenty minutes, and then discovered you were not in."
"Sorry," mumbled Jim. "I was mad for a walk. I met Chips up the river, stuck on a sandbank, so I came along. He ain"t a good sailor." Chips grinned, and he and his comrade commenced to pack the cargo up the hill.
Jim walked back with Devinne; the latter regarded him in curious fashion.
Entering the house, he met Angela, but Natalie was pleasantly absent.
Angela surveyed his wet figure with a smile.