Stampede, having gained his wind, was saying: "You don"t seem interested, Alan. But I"m going on, or I"ll bust. I"ve got to tell you what happened, and then if you want to lead me out and shoot me, I won"t say a word. I say, curse a firecracker anyway!"
"Go on," urged Alan. "I"m interested."
"I got "em on the boat," continued Stampede viciously. "And she with me every minute, smiling in that angel way of hers, and not letting me out of her sight a flick of her eyelash, unless there was only one hole to go in an" come out at. And then she said she wanted to do a little shopping, which meant going into every shack in town and buyin"
something, an" I did the lugging. At last she bought a gun, and when I asked her what she was goin" to do with it, she said, "Stampede, that"s for you," an" when I went to thank her, she said: "No, I don"t mean it that way. I mean that if you try to run away from me again I"m going to fill you full of holes." She said that! Threatened me. Then she bought me a new outfit from toe to summit--boots, pants, shirt, hat _and_ a necktie! And I didn"t say a word, not a word. She just led me in an"
bought what she wanted and made me put "em on."
Stampede drew in a mighty breath, and a fourth time wasted a match on his pipe. "I was getting used to it by the time we reached Tanana," he half groaned. "Then the h.e.l.l of it begun. She hired six Indians to tote the luggage, and we set out over the trail for your place. "You"re goin" to have a rest, Stampede," she says to me, smiling so cool and sweet like you wanted to eat her alive. "All you"ve got to do is show us the way and carry the b.u.ms." "Carry the what?" I asks. "The b.u.ms," she says, an" then she explains that a b.u.m is a thing filled with powder which makes a terrible racket when it goes off. So I took the b.u.ms, and the next day one of the Indians sprained a leg, and dropped out. He had the firecrackers, pretty near a hundred pounds, and we whacked up his load among us. I couldn"t stand up straight when we camped. We had crooks in our backs every inch of the way to the Range. And _would_ she let us cache some of that junk? Not on your life she wouldn"t! And all the time while they was puffing an" panting them Indians was worshipin"
her with their eyes. The last day, when we camped with the Range almost in sight, she drew "em all up in a circle about her and gave "em each a handful of money above their pay. "That"s because I love you," she says, and then she begins asking them funny questions. Did they have wives and children? Were they ever hungry? Did they ever know about any of their people starving to death? And just _why_ did they starve? And, Alan, so help me thunder if them Indians didn"t talk! Never heard Indians tell so much. And in the end she asked them the funniest question of all, asked them if they"d heard of a man named John Graham. One of them had, and afterward I saw her talking a long time with him alone, and when she come back to me, her eyes were sort of burning up, and she didn"t say good night when she went into her tent. That"s all, Alan, except--"
"Except what, Stampede?" said Alan, his heart throbbing like a drum inside him.
Stampede took his time to answer, and Alan heard him chuckling and saw a flash of humor in the little man"s eyes.
"Except that she"s done with everyone on the Range just what she did with me between Chitina and here," he said. "Alan, if she wants to say the word, why, _you_ ain"t boss any more, that"s all. She"s been there ten days, and you won"t know the place. It"s all done up in flags, waiting for you. She an" Nawadlook and Keok are running everything but the deer. The kids would leave their mothers for her, and the men--" He chuckled again. "Why, the men even go to the Sunday school she"s started! I went. Nawadlook sings."
For a moment he was silent. Then he said in a subdued voice, "Alan, you"ve been a big fool."
"I know it, Stampede."
"She"s a--a flower, Alan. She"s worth more than all the gold in the world. And you could have married her. I know it. But it"s too late now.
I"m warnin" you."
"I don"t quite understand, Stampede. Why is it too late?"
"Because she likes me," declared Stampede a bit fiercely. "I"m after her myself, Alan. You can"t b.u.t.t in now."
"Great Scott!" gasped Alan. "You mean that Mary Standish--"
"I"m not talking about Mary Standish," said Stampede. "It"s Nawadlook.
If it wasn"t for my whiskers--"
His words were broken by a sudden detonation which came out of the pale gloom ahead of them. It was like the explosion of a cannon a long distance away.
"One of them cussed b.u.ms," he explained. "That"s why they hurried on ahead of us, Alan. _She_ says this Fourth of July celebration is going to mean a lot for Alaska. Wonder what she means?"
"I wonder," said Alan.
CHAPTER XV
Half an hour more of the tundra and they came to what Alan had named Ghost Kloof, a deep and jagged scar in the face of the earth, running down from the foothills of the mountains. It was a sinister thing, and in the depths lay abysmal darkness as they descended a rocky path worn smooth by reindeer and caribou hoofs. At the bottom, a hundred feet below the twilight of the plains, Alan dropped on his knees beside a little spring that he groped for among the stones, and as he drank he could hear the weird whispering and gurgling of water up and down the kloof, choked and smothered in the moss of the rock walls and eternally dripping from the crevices. Then he saw Stampede"s face in the glow of another match, and the little man"s eyes were staring into the black chasm that reached for miles up into the mountains.
"Alan, you"ve been up this gorge?"
"It"s a favorite runway for the lynx and big brown bears that kill our fawns," replied Alan. "I hunt alone, Stampede. The place is supposed to be haunted, you know. Ghost Kloof, I call it, and no Eskimo will enter it. The bones of dead men lie up there."
"Never prospected it?" persisted Stampede.
"Never."
Alan heard the other"s grunt of disgust.
"You"re reindeer-crazy," he grumbled. "There"s gold in this canyon.
Twice I"ve found it where there were dead men"s bones. They bring me good luck."
"But these were Eskimos. They didn"t come for gold."
"I know it. The Boss settled that for me. When she heard what was the matter with this place, she made me take her into it. Nerve? Say, I"m telling you there wasn"t any of it left out of her when she was born!"
He was silent for a moment, and then added: "When we came to that dripping, slimy rock with the big yellow skull layin" there like a poison toadstool, she didn"t screech and pull back, but just gave a little gasp and stared at it hard, and her fingers pinched my arm until it hurt. It was a devilish-looking thing, yellow as a sick orange and soppy with the drip of the wet moss over it. I wanted to blow it to pieces, and I guess I would if she hadn"t put a hand on my gun. An" with a funny little smile she says: "Don"t do it, Stampede. It makes me think of someone I know--and I wouldn"t want you to shoot him." Darned funny thing to say, wasn"t it? Made her think of someone she knew! Now, who the devil could look like a rotten skull?"
Alan made no effort to reply, except to shrug his shoulders. They climbed up out of gloom into the light of the plain. Smoothness of the tundra was gone on this side of the creva.s.se. Ahead of them rolled up a low hill, and mountainward hills piled one upon another until they were lost in misty distance. From the crest of the ridge they looked out into a vast sweep of tundra which ran in among the out-guarding billows and hills of the Endicott Mountains in the form of a wide, semicircular bay.
Beyond the next swell in the tundra lay the range, and scarcely had they reached this when Stampede drew his big gun from its holster. Twice he blazed in the air.
"Orders," he said a little sheepishly. "Orders, Alan!"
Scarcely were the words out of his mouth when a yell came to them from beyond the light-mists that hovered like floating lace over the tundra.
It was joined by another, and still another, until there was such a sound that Alan knew Tautuk and Amuk Toolik and Topkok and Tatpan and all the others were splitting their throats in welcome, and with it very soon came a series of explosions that set the earth athrill under their feet.
"b.u.ms!" growled Stampede. "She"s got c.h.i.n.k lanterns hanging up all about, too. You should have seen her face, Alan, when she found there was sunlight all night up here on July Fourth!"
From the range a pale streak went sizzling into the air, mounting until it seemed to pause for a moment to look down upon the gray world, then burst into innumerable little b.a.l.l.s of puffy smoke. Stampede blazed away with his forty-five, and Alan felt the thrill of it and emptied the magazine of his gun, the detonations of revolver and rifle drowning the chorus of sound that came from the range. A second rocket answered them.
Two columns of flame leaped up from the earth as huge fires gained headway, and Alan could hear the shrill chorus of children"s voices mingling with the vocal tumult of men. All the people of his range were there. They had come in from the timber-naked plateaux and high ranges where the herds were feeding, and from the outlying shacks of the tundras to greet him. Never had there been such a concentration of effort on the part of his people. And Mary Standish was behind it all!
He knew he was fighting against odds when he tried to keep that fact from choking up his heart a little.
He had not heard what Stampede was saying--that he and Amuk Toolik and forty kids had labored a week gathering dry moss and timber fuel for the big fires. There were three of these fires now, and the tom-toms were booming their hollow notes over the tundra as Alan quickened his steps.
Over a little knoll, and he was looking at the buildings of the range, wildly excited figures running about, women and children flinging moss on the fires, the tom-tom beaters squatted in a half-circle facing the direction from which he would come, and fifty Chinese lanterns swinging in the soft night-breeze.
He knew what they were expecting of him, for they were children, all of them. Even Tautuk and Amuk Toolik, his chief herdsmen, were children.
Nawadlook and Keok were children. Strong and loyal and ready to die for him in any fight or stress, they were still children. He gave Stampede his rifle and hastened on, determined to keep his eyes from questing for Mary Standish in these first minutes of his return. He sounded the tundra call, and men, women, and little children came running to meet him. The drumming of the tom-toms ceased, and the beaters leaped to their feet. He was inundated. There was a shrill crackling of voice, laughter, children"s squeals, a babel of delight. He gripped hands with both his own--hard, thick, brown hands of men; little, softer, brown hands of women; he lifted children up in his arms, slapped his palm affectionately against the men"s shoulders, and talked, talked, talked, calling each by name without a slip of memory, though there were fifty around him counting the children. First, last, and always these were _his people_. The old pride swept over him, a compelling sense of power and possession. They loved him, crowding in about him like a great family, and he shook hands twice and three times with the same men and women, and lifted the same children from the arms of delighted mothers, and cried out greetings and familiarities with an abandon which a few minutes ago knowledge of Mary Standish"s presence would have tempered.
Then, suddenly, he saw her under the Chinese lanterns in front of his cabin. Sokwenna, so old that he hobbled double and looked like a witch, stood beside her. In a moment Sokwenna"s head disappeared, and there came the booming of a tom-tom. As quickly as the crowd had gathered about him, it fell away. The beaters squatted themselves in their semicircle again. Fireworks began to go off. Dancers a.s.sembled. Rockets hissed through the air. Roman candles popped. From the open door of his cabin came the sound of a phonograph. It was aimed directly at him, the one thing intended for his understanding alone. It was playing "When Johnny Comes Marching Home."
Mary Standish had not moved. He saw her laughing at him, and she was alone. She was not the Mary Standish he had known aboard ship. Fear, the quiet pallor of her face, and the strain and repression which had seemed to be a part of her were gone. She was aflame with life, yet it was not with voice or action that she revealed herself. It was in her eyes, the flush of her cheeks and lips, the poise of her slim body as she waited for him. A thought flashed upon him that for a s.p.a.ce she had forgotten herself and the shadow which had driven her to leap into the sea.
"It is splendid!" she said when he came up to her, and her voice trembled a little. "I didn"t guess how badly they wanted you back. It must be a great happiness to have people think of you like that."
"And I thank you for your part," he replied. "Stampede has told me. It was quite a bit of trouble, wasn"t it, with nothing more than the hope of Americanizing a pagan to inspire you?" He nodded at the half-dozen flags over his cabin. "They"re rather pretty."
"It was no trouble. And I hope you don"t mind. It has been great fun."
He tried to look casually out upon his people as he answered her. It seemed to him there was only one thing to say, and that it was a duty to speak what was in his mind calmly and without emotion.
"Yes, I do mind," he said. "I mind so much that I wouldn"t trade what has happened for all the gold in these mountains. I"m sorry because of what happened back in the cottonwoods, but I wouldn"t trade that, either. I"m glad you"re alive. I"m glad you"re here. But something is missing. You know what it is. You must tell me about yourself. It is the only fair thing for you to do now."
She touched his arm with her hand. "Let us wait for tomorrow.
Please--let us wait."