Then her eyes flashed and her tone changed. "But you had no right to do it. How dare you?"
"I guess I"d dare a lot of things for certain reasons. See here, you"ve bin through a h.e.l.l of a lot up here, but you"ve never suffered hunger, and it wouldn"t be good for you, I"m thinking. Cold and frostbite is one thing, and hunger"s another. There"s nothin" like starvation to freeze up your heart. It"s like a red-hot iron inside, gittin" redder and redder....
Shootin" a starvin" dog"s a mercy, I reckon."
"Is it any worse for me than you?"
"Yep."
With that dogmatic a.s.sertion he relapsed into silence. Angela flew to her own small supply of food and produced the requisities for a good meal. The mixture was soon spluttering over the fire, emitting odors almost unendurable to the hungry, watching Jim. Angela turned it out on to a plate.
"Come along," she said.
"I told you----"
She went to him and put her arm round him.
"If you"ve any regard for me--if you want to make me happy, eat that."
It was the first time she had ever displayed any real depth of feeling, and it was like balm to him. But his obstinacy prevailed, for in the dish was a normal day"s ration for the two of them.
"Maybe you think we"ll drop across food on trail, but we won"t. There"s nothin" to be got until the first freighter comes up the river. Better put it back."
She took her arm away and went to the dish.
"If you won"t eat, I"ll throw it away--I swear I will!"
"Angela!"
"It"s your own maxim, your own teaching--share and share alike. I won"t recognize any other doctrine. It shall go to the birds unless...."
She meant what she said, and he knew it.
"All right--I"ll eat," he mumbled.
Half an hour later, feeling a hundred per cent. better, he rose to his feet and entered the tent, where Angela was busily engaged putting down the blankets on improvised mattresses of gathered moss and young bracken.
"See," she said, "I"ve split up the food again. How long will it last if eked out?"
He turned out one of the sacks and ran his eye over the contents.
"Two days, at a pinch."
"And how soon can we make Dawson?"
"A week, hard plugging."
"Then it looks as though the "pinch" will have to be resorted to--and expanded."
He saw she was smiling as she tucked his bottom blanket carefully under the moss.
"When you put it that way we can make anything," he said. "If I had a canoe we could push up the river a good deal faster than overland, but I ain"t got one--and that"s the rub."
"Then we"ll have to depend on luck."
"No friend o" mine. Luck don"t cut much ice up here."
Angela shook her head. She had a slight suspicion that luck had not entirely deserted them. Though the future seemed black and threatening, were there not compensating elements? There were worse things than dying in the wilderness with a "wild man."
CHAPTER XX
COMPLICATIONS
Devinne"s trading-post was not the sort of place one expected to find in Alaska. Devinne himself was a queer customer, a man of good education and birth. That he chose to establish a trading-post on the upper reaches of the Yukon was a mystery to all who knew him. The real reason was a secret in the heart of Devinne, and had reference to a quarrel in a Parisian club in which a blow had been struck in a moment of pardonable fury, resulting in the death of a revered citizen of Paris.
Devinne found the Yukon district a comparatively "healthy" spot. He had started the trading-post four years back, and had prospered very considerably. He had started in a small way, taking trips into Indian villages and bargaining for furs. A man of quick intelligence, he soon acquired a substantial knowledge of most of the queer Indian dialects, which proved a tremendous a.s.set from a business point of view.
After one year"s profitable trading he had built the "post." It was a fairly commodious affair, boasting three rooms upstairs and three below, plus a long shed attached to the rear of the main building where he carried on his business, with two half-breed a.s.sistants, who slept in the shed itself.
A year after the post was completed Natalie, Devinne"s only daughter, a woman of uncertain age, came out to keep house for him. Natalie had all the quick pa.s.sions of her Southern mother, which doubtlessly accounted for the sudden rupture between herself and her husband after but a brief span of married life.
Two years in Alaska had not changed her nature. Unlike Devinne, she was quick to anger. She ruled her father as completely as she had ruled her husband, until that worthy sought refuge under the wing of another, less tyrannous, woman.
On this night, in late May, Natalie and her father sat in the big front room which afforded them an uninterrupted view of the river. Natalie was busy at crochet-work, and Devinne was going over some accounts with a view to finding what profit the year had yielded. Judging by his frequent purrs and sighs, the result was not displeasing. Natalie looked up.
"Well?" she queried, in French.
"Another good season and we"ll be able to get away."
"Where to?"
"Los Angeles would not be so bad. A good, equable climate, a little society, and a club or two--ah!"
"But is it safe?"
He furrowed his brows.
"We"ll risk it. Four years is a long time, and I think I am changed somewhat. You won"t be sorry to leave this country--ma cherie?"
Natalie put down her crochet.
"No. It seems a waste of one"s life. Mon Dieu, I am tired of it."
Devinne c.o.c.ked up his ears as two shrill hoots came from the river. He sprang to the window and saw the dim light of a ship going up the river.
"It"s the old _Topeka_ back again. She"s early this season, which is fortunate, for we"re badly in need of that consignment. "Chips" will have to get up to Dawson to-morrow and bring the stuff back. Maybe the piano is aboard."