The sentence was never finished, already the two women were in each other"s arms, and Reba Reeves was smiling at him over the girl"s shoulder: "Carter Brent! If you had dared to even think of taking her to the hotel, I"d never have spoken to you again! You just let me catch you talking about hotels--when your _folks_ are living right here! And now take off your things because supper is most ready. You"ll find warm water in the reservoir of the stove, and I"ll make an extra lot of good hot coffee, because I know you will be tired of tea."
Never in his life had Brent enjoyed a meal as he enjoyed that supper in the dining room of the Reeves", with Snowdrift, radiant with happiness, beside him, and his host and hostess eagerly plying him with questions.
"I think it is the most romantic thing I ever heard of!" cried Reba Reeves, when Snowdrift had finished telling of her life among the Indians, and at the mission, "It"s easy enough to see why Carter chose you, but for the life of me I can"t see how you came to take an old scapegrace like him!" she teased, and the girl smiled:
"I took him because I love him," she answered, "Because he is good, and strong, and brave, and because he can be gentle and tender and--and he understands. And he is not a scapegrace any more," she added, gravely, "He has told me all about how he drank hooch until he became a--a bun----"
"A what?"
"A bun--is it not that when a man drinks too much hooch?"
"A b.u.m," supplied Brent, laughing.
"So many new words!" smiled the girl. "But I will learn them all.
Anyway, we will fight the hooch together, and we will win."
"You bet you"ll win!" cried Reeves, heartily, "And if I"m any judge, I"d say you"ve won already. How about it Brent?"
Deliberately--thoughtfully, Brent nodded: "She has won," he said.
"On the word of a Brent?" Reba Reeves" eyes were looking straight into his own as she asked the question.
"Yes," he answered, "On the word of a Brent."
A moment"s silence followed the words, after which he turned to Reeves: "And, now--let"s talk business. I have used about half the dust you loaned me. There is nothing worth while on the Coppermine--now." He smiled, as his eyes rested upon the girl, "So I have come back to take that job you offered me. Eleven hundred miles, we came, under the chaperonage of Joe Pete----"
"And a very capable chaperonage it was!" laughed Reeves, "Funniest thing I ever saw in my life--there in your cabin the morning you started. It was then I learned to know Joe Pete. But, go on."
"That"s about all there is to it. Except that I"d like to keep the rest of the dust, and pay you back in installments--that is, if the job is still open. I"ve got to borrow enough for a start, somewhere--and I reckon you"re about the only friend I"ve got left."
"How about that fellow, Camillo Bill? I thought he was a friend of yours."
"I thought so too, but--when I was down and out, and wanted a grub-stake, he turned me down. He"s all right though--square as a die."
"About that job," continued Reeves, gravely, "I"m a little afraid you wouldn"t just fill the bill."
For a moment Brent felt as though he had been slapped in the face. He had counted on the job--needed it. The next instant he was smiling: "Maybe you"re right," he said, "I reckon I am a little rusty on hydraulics and----"
"I"d take a chance on the hydraulics," laughed Reeves, "But--before we go any further, what would you take for your t.i.tle to those two claims that Camillo Bill has been operating?"
"Depends on who wanted to buy "em," grinned Brent.
"What will you sell them to me for?"
"What will you give?"
"How would ten thousand for the two of them strike you?"
Brent laughed: "Don"t you go speculating on any claims," he advised, "I"d be tickled to death to get ten thousand dollars--or ten thousand cents out of those claims--but not from you. It would be highway robbery."
"And if I did buy them from you at ten thousand, or a hundred thousand, you would be only a piker of a robber, as compared to me."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that if anybody offers you a million for "em--you laugh at "em,"
exclaimed Reeves, "Because they"re worth a whole lot more than that."
Brent stared at the man as though he had taken leave of his senses. "Who has been stringing you?" he asked, "The fact is, those claims are a liability, and not an a.s.set. Camillo Bill took them over to try to get the million I owed him out of "em--and he couldn"t do it. And when Camillo Bill can"t get the dust out, it isn"t there."
"How do you know he couldn"t do it?"
"Because he told me so."
"He lied."
Brent flushed: "I reckon you don"t know Camillo Bill," he said gravely, "As I told you, he wouldn"t grub-stake me when I needed a grub-stake, and I don"t understand that. But, I"d stake my life on it that he never lied about those claims--never tried to beat me out of "em when I was down and out! Why, man, he won them in a game of stud--and he wouldn"t take them!"
"But he lied to you, just the same," insisted Reeves, and Brent saw that the man"s eyes were twinkling. "And it was because he is one of the best friends a man ever had that he did lie to you, and that he wouldn"t grub-stake you. You said a while ago that I was about the only friend you had left. Let me tell you a little story, and then judge for yourself.
"About a week after you had gone, inquiries began to float around town as to your whereabouts. I didn"t pay any attention to them at first, but the inquiries persisted. They searched Dawson, and all the country around for you. When I learned that the inquiries emanated from such men as Camillo Bill, and Old Bettles, and Moosehide Charlie, and a few more of the heaviest men in the camp, I took notice, and quietly sent for Camillo Bill and had a talk with him. It seems that after he had taken his million out of the claims, he went to you for the purpose of turning them back. He had not seen you for some time, and he was--well, it didn"t take him but a minute to see what would happen if he turned back the claims and dumped a couple of million dollars worth of property into your hands at that time. So he told you they had petered out. Then he hunted up a bunch of the real sourdoughs who are your friends, and they planned to kidnap you and take you away for a year--keep you under guard in a cabin, a hundred miles from nowhere, and keep you off the liquor, and make you work like a n.i.g.g.e.r till you found yourself again. They laid their plot, and when they came to spring it, you had disappeared."
Brent listened, with tight-pressed lips, and as Reeves finished, he asked:
"And you say he got out his million, and there is still something left in the gravel?"
Reeves laughed: "I would call it something! Camillo Bill says he only worked one of the claims--and only about half of that. Yes, I would say there was something left."
"I reckon a man don"t always know his friends," murmured Brent, after a long silence, "I wonder where I can find Camillo Bill?"
"He"s in town, somewhere. I saw him this afternoon."
Brent turned to Snowdrift, who had listened, wide-eyed to the narrative: "You wait here, dear," he said, "And I"ll hunt up a parson, and a ring, and Camillo Bill. I need a--a best man!"
"Oh, why don"t you wait a week or so and give us time to get ready so we can have a real wedding?" cried Mrs. Reeves.
Brent shook his head: "I reckon this one will be real enough," he grinned, "And besides, we"ve waited quite a while, already."
As he turned into the street from the path leading from the door he almost b.u.mped into a man in the darkness:
"h.e.l.lo! Is that you, Ace-In-The-Hole? Yer the man I"m huntin" fer.
Friend of yourn"s hurt an" wants to see you."
"Who is it, Zinn? And how did he know I was in town?"
"It"s Camillo Bill. I was tellin" I see"d you comin" in--an hour or so back, in Stoell"s. Then Camillo, he goes down to the sawmill to see about some lumber, an" a log flies off the carriage an" hits him. He"s busted up pretty bad. Guess he"s goin" to cash in. They carried him to a shack over back of the mill an" he"s hollerin" fer you."
"Come on then--quick!" cried Brent. "What the h.e.l.l are you standin"
there for? Have they got a doctor?"