There was another silence, but not nearly so long.
"What prospects, pardners?" he repeated.
The Boy looked at Maudie. She made a little gesture of "I"ve done all the fightin" I"m good for." The Colonel"s eyes, clear again and tranquil, travelled from face to face.
O"Flynn cleared his throat, but it was Mac who spoke.
"Yes--a--we would like to hold a last--hold a counsel o" war. We"ve always kind o" followed your notions--at least"--veracity pared down the compliment--"at least, you can"t say but what we"ve always listened to you."
"Yes, you might just--a--start us as well as you can," says Potts.
The Colonel smiled a little. Each man still "starting"--forever starting for somewhere or something, until he should come to this place where the Colonel was. Even he, why, he was "starting" too. For him this was no end other than a chapter"s ending. But these men he had lived and suffered with, they all wanted to talk the next move over--not his, theirs--all except the Boy, it seemed.
Mac was in the act of changing his place to be nearer the Colonel, when Potts adroitly forestalled him. The others drew off a little and made desultory talk, while Potts in an undertone told how he"d had a run of bad luck. No doubt it would turn, but if ever he got enough again to pay his pa.s.sage home, he"d put it in the bank and never risk it.
"I swear I wouldn"t! I"ve got to go out in the fall--goin" to get myself married Christmas; and, if she"s willing, we"ll come up here on the first boat in the spring--with backing this time."
He showed a picture. The Colonel studied it.
"I believe she"ll come," he said.
And Potts was so far from clairvoyance that he laughed, awkwardly flattered; then anxiously: "Wish I was sure o" my pa.s.sage money."
When Potts, before he meant to, had yielded place to O"Flynn, the Colonel was sworn to secrecy, and listened to excited whispers of gold in the sand off yonder on the coast of the Behring Sea. The world in general wouldn"t know the authenticity of the new strike till next season. He and Mrs. O"Flynn would take the first boat sailing out of San Francisco in the spring.
"Oh, you"re going outside too?"
"In the fahll--yes, yes. Ye see, I ain"t like the rest. I"ve got Mrs.
O"Flynn to consider. Dawson"s great, but it ain"t the place to start a famully."
"Where you goin", Mac?" said the Colonel to the irate one, who was making for the door. "I want a little talk with you."
Mac turned back, and consented to express his opinion of the money there was to be made out of tailings by means of a new hydraulic process. He was going to lend Kaviak to Sister Winifred again on the old terms. She"d take him along when she returned to Holy Cross, and Mac would go outside, raise a little capital, return, and make a fortune. For the moment he was broke--hadn"t even pa.s.sage money. Did the Colonel think he could----
The Colonel seemed absorbed in that eternal interrogation of the tent-top.
"Mine, you know"--Mac drew nearer still, and went on in the lowered voice--"mine"s a special case. A man"s bound to do all he can for his boys."
"I didn"t know you had boys."
Mac jerked "Yes" with his square head. "Bobbie"s goin" on six now."
"The others older?"
"Others?" Mac stared an instant. "Oh, there"s only one more." He grinned with embarra.s.sment, and hitched his head towards Kaviak.
"I guess you"ve jawed enough," said Maudie, leaving the others and coming to the foot of the bed.
"And Maudie"s goin" back, too," said the sick man.
She nodded.
"And you"re never goin" to leave her again?"
"No."
"Maudie"s a little bit of All Right," said the patient. The Big Chimney men a.s.sented, but with sudden misgiving.
"What was that job ye said ye were wantin" me forr?"
"Oh, Maudie"s got a friend of hers to fix it up."
"Fix what up?" demanded Potts.
"Little postscript to my will."
Mac jerked his head at the nurse. With that clear sight of dying eyes the Colonel understood. A meaner spirit would have been galled at the part those "Louisville Instructions" had been playing, but cheap cynicism was not in the Colonel"s line. He knew the awful pinch of life up here, and he thought no less of his comrades for asking that last service of getting them home. But it was the day of the final "clean-up" for the Colonel; he must not leave misapprehension behind.
"I wanted Maudie to have my Minook claim----"
"Got a Minook claim o" my own."
"So I"ve left it to be divided----"
They all looked up.
"One-half to go to a little girl in "Frisco, and the other half--well, I"ve left the other half to Kaviak. Strikes me he ought to have a little piece o" the North."
"Y-yes!"
"Oh, yes!"
"Good idea!"
"Mac thought he"d go over to the other tent and cook some dinner. There was a general movement. As they were going out:
"Boy!"
"Yes?" He came back, Nig followed, and the two stood by the camp-bed waiting their Colonel"s orders.
"Don"t you go wastin" any more time huntin" gold-mines."
"I don"t mean to."
"Go back to your own work; go back to your own people."
The Boy listened and looked away.