# Munsey's Magazine/Volume 78/Issue 1/Wild Bird

from Munsey's Magazine, Feb 1923; pp. 1–23.
Wild Bird
A STORY OF THE WILD NEW LANDS OF THE CANADIAN NORTHWEST
By Hulbert Footner Author of “The Man Hunt,” “Country Love,” “Thieves' Wit,” etc.
AT the top of the long rise the stage halted, and the passengers started to climb aboard again. By walking up the hills they accomplished the double purpose of easing the horses' load and limbering their own cramped limbs.
One of the passengers was an exceedingly pretty girl in a smart blue hat, and at the top of every hill there was a general contention among the male passengers for a seat beside her. The driver, as one possessing a prior right, patted the other half of his seat. A tall, bearded prospector, who had climbed in behind him, leaned out and offered the girl a paw like a grizzly's.
“Come in here with me, Nell! I got a story about Louis Riel I ain't told you yet.”
In the third seat two younger men made common cause together.
“Ah, Mort 'll talk you deef, dumb, and blind, Nell!” said one of them. “Sit here betwixt Pete and me, an' we'll let you do the talkin'.”
A fourth man remained standing in the road to see which way the cat would jump, prepared to act accordingly.
The girl hesitated, looking them all over with a good-natured and contemptuous smile. Her prettiness was of the fragile cast, most potent with men. She had delicately hollowed cheeks and great brown eyes, perfectly disillusioned. Finally she shook her head.
“I'm tired of you all,” she drawled. “I'm going to ride with Miss Maury until the next spell.”
This other feminine passenger had taken the rearmost seat of the stage, where she sat partly concealed, owing to the fact that the last pair of side curtains was down. She moved over with a smile. She seemed almost as much fascinated by the decorative Nell as the men were.
She was quite as pretty as Nell herself, and fresher, but hers was a beauty under cover. She simply kept it to herself, consequently none of the foolish men had discerned it. The old sailor hat she wore, which was faded and a little warped, seemed to advertise the fact that she was not out hunting. From the first the men, intuitively recognizing that she had nothing for them, had let her alone.
The stage clattered on.
“What's your first name?” asked Nell. “Here we been ridin' together 'most a week. Nobody uses a handle to their name up here.”
“Ann,” said the other.
She was rather shy with Nell, but bright-eyed and observant.
“You look like an Ann,” said Nell.
“What do Anns look like?” asked the girl, with a delightful smile.
“Oh, sort of household treasures.”
Ann laughed.
“What's your graft?” asked Nell.
Ann looked puzzled.
“What do you do for your country?”
“I teach school.”
Nell stared.
“Lord, did you expect to find any schools up here?”
“I didn't come up here to teach,” said Ann evasively. “I just want to see the country.”
To announce at large the real purpose of her journey—that she had come North to search for her father—would render her ridiculous, Ann felt; and like all young people, she had a dread of ridicule.
“Well, there it is,” said Nell, with a sweep of her arm.
The road was edging around the shoulder of a hill, and the wild, raw valley of the Campbell River lay spread beneath them, all broken with rock masses and scraggled with trees. Beyond it rose the mountains.
“What part of the East you from?” asked Nell.
“Maryland.”
“Some different from Cariboo, eh?”
A picture of that fat land rose before Ann's eyes.
“As different as one country could be from another,” she said simply.
Nell took a cigarette from the breast pocket of her smart serge coat, where she kept a little row handy to her hand, lighted it, and flipped the match over the wheel. Ann watched her, fascinated.
“Have one?” asked Nell.
“Oh, no!” said Ann, blushing and smiling. “It wouldn't suit an Ann; but you do it beautifully.”
Nell shrugged.
“They'll kill me yet,” she said.
Nell blew clouds of smoke, and regarded the broad backs of the men with distaste.
“Lord, but I'm sick of them!” she said.
“Of whom?” said Ann.
“Everything that wears pants. There's nothing to it!”
“I've been thinking about that,” said Ann shyly.
“The devil you have!” said Nell, with a sidelong look.
“I mean I wondered how a woman like you could be content to stay in this rough country.”
“Too much competition in the cities,” said Nell. “Up here I'm known. They call me the Queen of North Cariboo. Maybe you've heard. It's something to be queen even of a dump like this. As for men, I expect they're much the same everywhere. This country isn't so bad. At least we're honester about things up here. A city, with its newspapers and parsons and cops and old women, makes me sick! It isn't the country I'm fed up with—it's life in general, I guess. It's years since I had a thrill. I shan't stay up here always. I'm saving money.”
“Oh, I'm glad to hear that!” said Ann innocently.
Nell looked at her curiously.
“You're a funny kid. What is it to you whether I save?”
Ann blushed without replying.
“Do you save?” demanded Nell.
“A little,” said Ann; “but of course I'm blowing it all in on this trip.”
“You're a nice one to be talking about saving, then!”
“If I have to, I can go on teaching till I'm old,” said Ann simply.
Nell bit her lip and looked away.
Up in front Mort Levering threw back his head and yawned, ending with a roar that came echoing back from the hills.
“Nell, hop over the seats and come talk to me,” he playfully suggested.
“I'm better occupied,” returned Nell.
The other men laughed delightedly.
The whispered conversation on the back seat was resumed.
“How old are you?” asked Nell, with a strange curiosity.
“Twenty,” said Ann.
“I'm twenty-four,” said Nell.
The other girl could not restrain her glance of surprise.
“You think I'm lying,” said Nell; “but I'm not. I been on my own for nine years now. It's the cagy look you get that makes you seem older. I got six years more before I'll begin to break; and you can fool men for years after that, if you're clever—the big boobies!”
Ann had no comment to make.
“You don't care about men, do you?” asked Nell.
Again the charming, merry smile broke through Ann's shyness.
“Why, what makes you think so?” she countered.
“Well, for one thing, that hat,” said Nell.
Ann was not in the least offended.
“I thought I ought to dress as plainly as possible for a journey like this,” she said.
“Back in Maryland did you have a fellow?” Nell inquired, with her poignant curiosity.
“No,” said Ann. “I am not attractive to men,” she went on, with the air of one who had long made up her mind to the fact.
“You're prettier than I am,” said Nell.
“That's nonsense!”
“Believe me, I'm an expert,” said Nell dryly.
“Then why do they never look at me?”
“You've got to show them you're willing to be looked at.”
“I'd rather have some man discover me.”
“You'll wait a long time, kid. Men are not discoverers—they're sheep. Look at the way they run after me, just because I'm the fashion. I made myself the fashion. Your time will come,” she added darkly.
“I wouldn't go after a man if there was only one on earth!” said Ann, with spirit.
“There always is only one,” said Nell.
“It's more fun to be chased than to do the chasing,” said Ann.
“Sure,” said Nell; “but you'll find you've got to get him going before he'll set up a chase.”
“I want to be swept off my feet unawares,” said Ann.
“That's what all young girls say,” retorted Nell.
Johnny Lovat, the driver, a quarterbreed, pointed with his whip to a curious limestone scarp that crossed the valley below them. Out of a break in this cliff, a mile away, the river issued in a foaming torrent.
“That's the mouth of the second cañon,” said Johnny. “Lariat Cañon, some calls it, because there's a big round eddy in it you couldn't get out of no more than if you was caught in a rope. There's eleven cañons, in all, in three hundred miles between Yewcroft and Ching's Landing, where you take to the river. Mostly they have walls as smooth as if they was sliced down. Ole Father Campbell is one river the white man lets be. He had to build him a road alongside it!”
Above the cliff the floor of the valley was smoother, and the road descended from the mountainside. The view of the travelers was now more restricted. Most of the land had been burned over, and the black shafts of the trees stuck crazily this way and that, or were piled fantastically on the ground. Patches of purple fireweed mantled the heaps of rotting logs, and young aspen and birch were pushing up, preparatory to making all beautiful again.
Over the trees, living and dead, they had glimpses of snow peaks to east and west, and when they topped a rise more peaks closed in the view to the north. It was noon of a July day, and the sky was forget-me-not blue.
On the floor of the valley the old telegraph road was innocent of grading, and the horses could not travel above a walk. Many of the mudholes in shaded spots were historic.
“Hadn't never dried up within recollection of the oldest settler,” Johnny Lovat said.
Around these places new tracks had been laboriously cut through the fallen timber. Their withered little driver was often reminded of a story.
“See that hole yonder?” he said. “On my last trip up but one I come across old Pop Hopper stuck in that there hole with his load. Must have been asleep when he druv in, 'cause everybody knows it. Us fellows hates to get behind Pop Hopper on the road. Allus got to stop somewheres to help him out. As the saying is, he'd get through quicker if he put his neck in the collar and let his hosses drive. He's a character, Pop Hopper is. He don't have to freight—he's got money.
“Well, this time I speak of I knew he was ahead of me, 'cause I see streaks of egg yolk in the road. Nobody but Pop Hopper would load egg crates in the bottom of his wagon and bales of hay on top. Sure enough, I comes on him sunk in the mud 'most to the tops of his wheels, and him just setting there waiting to be helped. Well, I took my hosses out, and some other guys come along, too. All in all it took six teams pulling and about twenty men prizing to get Pop Hopper clear of the mud; and him standing alongside cussing us out like the foreman of a railway gang. That's Pop Hopper's way. He druv on, cracking his whip, but the rest of us had to spell awhile to rest up.
“Well, I'm damned if a couple of miles farther along he didn't turn her over altogether on a little side hill. Yes, sir, when I come up, all four of his wheels was turning in the air; and Pop Hopper a setting there with his back against a tree, eating a little lunch. Yes, there was a bucket of pickles busted open right convenient to his hand.”
“Pop Hopper and Wes Trickett, they's a pair,” said Mort Levering. “One on the land and one on the water. Ole Wes is as good a navigator as Pop Hopper is a horseman. I mind once I was aboard his crummy ole stern-kicker when he tried to take her up the Gisborne Rapids, the water being low. Well, sir, his rotten ole hawsers busted as fast as they could be carried upstream. Every time they parted we'd settle back on a shoal, and Wes would go inside and take a swig of patent medicine. He buys every new kind he hears of, and keeps 'em all on a shelf at the foot of his bunk. I seen 'em there. They say he mixes different kinds together when he wants a new kick. One time, when we jolted on a shoal, she snapped her crazy ole stovepipe short off, and we had to lay to a couple of hours to fix that. When we were near to the head of the rapid, one more rope busted, and Wes suddenly lost heart. We were 'most up, but he turned her around and went down again. Say, I was sore! He put me out on the shore, and there I had to spell until I could get a parcel of breeds to pack my outfit through the bush.”
After six days in the same company, everybody's stock of stories was running low. For long periods the travelers rode in silence, uncomfortably shifting their positions on the hard seats, and yawning enormously. Time passed, said one, like a slow freight on an up grade. The men sat sidewise for the most part, casting sheep's eyes back at Nell, who ignored them.
Nell took off her smart blue hat, pinned it to a side curtain, and put her head down in Ann's lap, without so much as “by your leave.” Ann was greatly pleased by the childlike act. She gazed down at the other girl with a half smile, marveling at the real peachiness of Nell's complexion, and the shine of her chestnut hair, after all she had been through. She was a great and fascinating enigma to Ann.
Nell slept, or seemed to sleep, and Ann mused over her, fending her, as well as she could, from the jolts of the coach. How terrified she had been of Nell the first day, seeing her so sure of herself, so sure of her men! But it had gradually passed, as she found Nell quite human. The discovery had compelled Ann to change all her notions about girls of Nell's sort.
Somehow it comforted Ann to believe that they were not so bad as they were painted. One did not have to be strange with them. To be sure, on the surface, Nell was as hard and wary as Ann had supposed such girls must be; but it was only on the surface. It was an assumption not greatly different from any other professional manner. Did not Ann have to be hard and wary with her school children?
There was really such a little difference between her and Nell; yet it seemed to erect a whole world between them. But did it really, or was that only an idea?
“This is the last hill, ladies!” cried Johnny Lovat. “Down at the other side is Ching's Landing, where I bid you all a fond farewell.”
“Hope to God Wes Trickett 'll be there with his old washtub,” muttered Mort Levering. “You never can depend on Wes!”
“He'll be there to-day, though,” said Johnny. “He knows Nellie's coming in.”
Nell rose and put on the blue hat. From somewhere she produced a tiny mirror, in which she studied herself an inch at a time, tucking in her stray locks and powdering her small nose. Ann watched every move, delighted.
“Hey, Nell!” cried Mort. “When we get up to the Fort, don't you give me the go-by for any of them slick guys up there, do you hear? Remember I made the trip with you, Nell!”
“That's your handicap, Mort,” Nell replied, with her alluring insolence. “I'm tired of you before we arrive!”
They had turned at right angles, to climb the side of a rocky hill that ran straight athwart the valley. For some distance back they had glimpsed the dark wall ahead of them. They had passed out of the burned country, and superb fir trees rose wherever a foothold was obtainable among the rocks. Under the firs a sort of raspberry bush spread large, pale leaves to gather up the attenuated sunlight. They could hear the tremendous voice of the river quite close now, but they could not see it.
The road turned sharply on itself, into a rocky gulch, which would lead them to the top of the height. There were no fir trees in the gulch, but trees peered over the top. The defile was filled with detached rock masses, among which the wagon track wound its way.
Suddenly, with ear-piercing yells, a dozen figures leaped out from behind the rocks, brandishing rifles. The leaders reared back against the wheel horses; all four kicked over the traces and plunged in inextricable confusion. The stage started to roll back down hill. Johnny Lovat jammed on his brake. All the male passengers sat in blank consternation. In Canada, holdups have never been common enough to educate the inhabitants in the proper technique.
A moment of consternation, then Mort Levering started to bellow:
“You, Stinnett! You, Burnsey! You, Corning! I know you!”
He ended with a torrent of sulphurous profanity. The seeming attack dissolved in a gale of laughter. The highwaymen slapped their thighs, dropped on the ground, rolled about, and whooped in unappeasable merriment.
Mort continued to curse them with unabated vigor. The other men in the stage took it more or less in good part. It was the only thing they could do. Nell was perfectly unruffled throughout. Ann was all eyes. So keen was her passion for new experiences that she felt she wouldn't have minded much if it had been a real holdup.
The men crowded close to the stage at Nellie's side, and stretched up an odd bouquet of sinewy hands to grasp hers. Ann, peeping around the other girl, had the impression of a stormy sea of masculinity. It was impossible to distinguish individuals.
“Nell! Nell! Nell!” they chanted. “She's all right! Who's all right? Nellie Nairns! Wow!”
There was a flushed quality in both faces and voices. They had been drinking, thought Ann, without alarm. Watching Nellie, she marked the girl's half contemptuous smile, calculated and yet damnably seductive.
“Nell, you're a sight to heal sore eyes! By God, you're prettier than ever! Nell, we haven't seen your like up here since strawberries ripened in the winter! Nell, if you'll only stay up here, we'll give you the damn town!”
A black-haired youth climbed on the wheel, and, catching Nellie's hand, kissed it. He was pulled down with yells and jeers. Apparently this was against the code.
Several of the men ran to the horses and began to unhitch them.
“You, Johnny!” cried one. “Take your horses to hell! We're going to pull Nellie down to the boat by man power!”
When the group split up, Ann could begin to distinguish individuals—a boy not seventeen, with cheeks like roses; a thick Hercules, the wildest of the crew, red-haired, red-faced, red-armed, bawling with excitement; a black-visaged man, saturnine, with a devilish grin; an old man, capering like a goat, snapping his fingers.
The male passengers climbed down and became one with the welcomers—that is, all except Mort Levering, who planted his great bulk stubbornly on the seat, and lit a cigar.
“Come on, Mort!” cried the red-haired one. “We're not going to haul your fat carcass!”
“Come on yourself, Red!” retorted Mort. “I paid my fare, and I'm damned if I'll walk!”
“You damned sure will walk, old man!” cried Red. “This is the Nellie Nairns special! Come on, boys! Raus mit him!”
A dozen pair of hands dragged Mort down, amid cruel laughter. They set him on his feet, jammed his hat over his eyes, and stuck his trampled cigar back between his lips.
“Take the driver's seat, Nell!” cried Red.
She stepped nimbly over the backs of the seats, carelessly amused by the uproar. The boys whistled and cheered the display of silk stockings. Somebody shoved the whip into her hand, but she coolly put it back in its socket. A few men glanced askance at Ann in her corner, half hidden by the curtain, but none addressed her.
Four men held up the wagon pole and guided it; the rest ran ahead with a rope, which was affixed underneath the wagon. They started with a jerk.
They toiled up the last few yards of the hill, and came out on a level space. Here the men broke into a run. It was a bare, stony flat, the summit of the hill. They soon began to descend the other side, running faster and faster, with wild yells and whoops. The canny Nell's hand went to the brake.
The river lay revealed now—a placid stretch of water, bordered with aspens. In the midst of all the excitement Ann had a glance for the beautiful stream. Indeed, the whole scene was etched on her retina. Ann's eyes were starry, her lips parted.
“This is wonderful,” she was thinking. “I mustn't miss anything!”
Faster and faster they went down the stony track, the old stage lurching and swaying, the men yelling. It was like an old-fashioned fire engine going to a fire. They had two turns to negotiate, and they made them on two wheels. Only Nell's hand tugging at the brake saved them from complete disaster.
Far in the rear, Mort Levering stumped down in solitary, injured dignity.
At the bottom of the hill they tore across a natural meadow, and, making a wide turn, drew up smartly close beside the river bank. The men were breathless with yelling and laughing.
Below them, with her nose grounded on the shingle, Ann saw an absurd little stern-wheel steamboat with her name painted on the side of her pilot house—“Tewkesbury L. Swett.” She looked as if she had been built by boys out of odds and ends in somebody's back yard. Her emaciated smoke-stack had several kinks in it. On the deck a fat man with a grizzled, curly poll was frantically waving a yachting cap. Ann supposed this would be Wes Trickett.
Two men made a chair of their hands and carried Nell aboard. Ann followed on her own two feet, the men falling back, somewhat abashed. It was clear that no one could tell just where she came in.
Out on the deck Nell perched herself on the capstan, surrounded by her court, while Ann sought a place inside the rough deck house. A bale of hay supplied her with a seat where she could see all that went on outside, herself unseen. The mail bags and the express packages were carried aboard, but Mort Levering was still only halfway across the meadow.
“Pull out, pull out, cap!” shouted Red, excited as a schoolboy. “Serve him damned well right to be left behind!”
Captain Wes Trickett, with his yachting cap balanced absurdly on his curly pate, pulled a long blast on the piping whistle of the Tewkesbury L. Swett, and the company on board had the exquisite delight of seeing the fat Mortimer running like a deer across the grass and down the bank. Homeric laughter greeted his arrival on board. He stalked away astern.
The smoothness of the voyage upstream was delicious to shaken bones. Notwithstanding her interest in her surroundings, Ann fell asleep after supper, propped on her bale of hay in a corner of the deck house.
She was awakened by a blast of the whistle. The sun was still up. The river was broad, still, and gleaming under the level rays. On either hand rose high, green-clad hills, hiding the mountain peaks farther back. Ahead, looking up a long, straight reach of the stream, a little settlement was to be seen, crouching at the foot of the hills. This Ann knew for Fort Edward, her present goal.
At a mile's distance it was beautiful, the little man-made buildings standing out with a strange significance in the wilderness of untouched nature. Unfortunately, however, its beauty decreased as one drew closer. Still, the site was superb.
Here the Campbell River swung around the forefoot of a hill, and on the other side a fine tributary, the Boardman, came in from the northwest. The settlement was at the junction of the rivers—a spot that seemed predestined for a town, for the hills behind it drew back in a semicircle, as if to give room for a future metropolis.
At a close view, though unbeautiful, the place was highly picturesque, sprawling amid a perfect chaos of stumps. A few trees had been left standing, mostly with a crazy list to one side or the other. The little shacks, more like poultry houses than habitations for men, were of yellow pine. Some were covered with tar paper fastened down with tin spheres as big as silver dollars. A few older and bigger structures were of a curious hybrid construction, walled with logs and roofed with canvas. Out of the ruck rose one two-story building, quite splendidly ugly in the nakedness of freshly sawed pine.
Before the center of the town there was a strong eddy, where the two rivers came together. One stream was brown, the other greenish, and for a long way the waters did not mix. The steamboat kept to the Campbell River side—the greenish side. The river was in flood, and the current washed the very bank on which the settlement was planted. Along the edge of the bank, as they approached, a fringe of men ran and gesticulated and shouted. Ann noted that there was not a single woman to be seen.
The top of the bank was on a level with the roof of the deck house, and all the passengers climbed a ladder to the roof, the better to see. The uproar ashore was prodigious. What with the lack of a beach and the swiftness of the current, it was no easy matter to make the little Swett fast. So many men leaped aboard from the shore to shake Nell's hand that the craft took on a dangerous list, and Captain Wes Trickett quite lost his head in the confusion.
Finally one who seemed to be in authority ashore ordered them all back, and shepherded them away from the edge, that the crew might have a chance to make their hawsers fast to stumps. The steamboat settled snugly alongside the bank. There was no need of any plank to disembark.
In the pandemonium of cheers and whoops, separate voices finally made themselves heard:
“Shut up!”
“Keep back!”
“Let's do things proper!”
“Give Cal a chance!”
The men divided into two groups, leaving an opening between. Through the opening came he who had seemed to be in authority. Ann was first struck by the odd fact that he had six or seven watch chains stretched across his middle; and from the bulge of his waistcoat pockets, watches must have been attached to them. He was a tall, middle-aged man, with the figure of a muscular youth and a youth's fine carriage. His face was hard and seamed and quizzical. He had a bullet head closely cropped.
Nell was standing alone on the boat with a hand on her hip, smiling. The man stepped aboard and made her an elegant bow.
“Nell,” he began in an oratorical voice, “as the so-called mayor of this here burg, it's up to me to speak for the assembled multitude, see? Some might object that I ain't been regularly elected mayor, so to— speak, but the fellows just naturally started calling me mayor, and I guess that gives me as good a right to the job as a wig and a gold chain. At that, I got plenty of chains, as you see, being the general repository for them as is no longer able to look after their own valuables.
“Well, as I was saying, being the mayor, it is my duty to welcome distinguished visitors in our midst—crown heads, and presidents, and the like; but we don't set no great store by such big bugs up here. Let 'em stay where folks is accustomed to crooking the knee. Of course, if any crown heads or presidents should come along, we'd treat 'em right. We'd just prop 'em against the bar at Maroney's, and if they could stand up under more'n two shots of Jack's squirrel whisky, we'd respect 'em as men.
“Nell, you got a better claim on us than any ole crown head or moth-eaten prince, see? Nothin' moth-eaten about you, Nell! You're the prettiest girl in Cariboo, and the famousest; and we want you to know we appreciate the honor you do us in paying us a visit. For though Fort Edward's bound to become the hub of North Cariboo in a couple of years or so—I own some lots here, so you can believe what I say—at present I admit it's not much to look at. It's a leetle onfinished. Nell, your coming among us is bound to make a hell of a lot of trouble for the authorities—which is me; but it's worth it. I hereby present you with the freedom of our city, and if there's anything you want in the damn hole, it's yours for the asking!”
The orator drew an immense rusty key from his pocket. Nell accepted it with a laugh, and hung it to one of the buttons of her jacket. Wild bursts of cheering broke out. The mayor offered Nell his arm, and they stepped ashore. The crowd opened to let them through, and fell in behind. Nell bowed to the right and left, like royalty.
Ann, not knowing what else to do, tagged along behind, carrying her suit case. As she turned her back on the steamboat, she experienced a horrid sinking of the heart. The place was so appallingly ugly, with its muddy tracks leading away in different directions among the tree stumps; and not a woman in sight—except Nell.
Ann's intuition warned her that from this time forward her path and Nell's would lie separate. She had no idea which way to turn. She felt like a lost child.
The crowd in front of her opened, and she beheld an antique democrat standing in the track, and Nell climbing into it. As she seated herself, Nell caught sight of Ann, and, with a barely perceptible motion of the head, indicated the back seat.
Ann thankfully accepted the invitation. Nobody paid any particular attention to the girl in the old sailor hat. They took her, perhaps, for a servant of Nell's.
The mayor gathered up the reins, and they proceeded, jolting over roots and splashing through mudholes. The crowd accompanied them, some running ahead, some keeping up alongside, careless of how they were splashed. All were shouting facetious remarks, in an endeavor to attract notice to themselves.
Nell paid not the slightest attention. In the midst of the racket she and the mayor maintained a polite conversation. Ann stretched her ears to hear it. Nell addressed the mayor as “Cal.”
“Me and a couple of other hard guys keeps pretty good order here,” Cal said. “You needn't be afraid.”
“I shan't be,” said Nell.
“It's true the gov'ment has threatened to send in the provincial police. That's along of a little fuss we had here last March, before the ice went out; but since then it's been as quiet as a Sunday school. We don't want no police here. There's few enough free places left on earth. The fuss we had was this way—Joe Mixer drove down from Gisborne portage one Sat'day night. Joe always carries a big roll, and trouble naturally follows in his train. A cantankerous cuss! We had a woman living here then called Cleopatra. Know her?”
“No,” said Nell.
“Nothing like your class, of course,” said Cal politely. “A black-haired woman from Kimowin way. Say, she had a face you could break rocks on! She lived in one of them shacks yonder. I never did hold by a woman living alone in camp. Not that it's the woman's fault; but she's got to have a protector. Now the girls at Maroney's, that's different. Maroney's got to look after them. He's got to keep up the reputation of his hotel. I knew this Cleopatra would be the cause of trouble; but here she was, and I hadn't no way of sending her out in the winter. She and Joe Mixer were old friends, and so, when he began to get loaded, he give her his roll to keep for him. A few hours later, being fully loaded by that time, he asked for it again, and she said he'd drunk it all up in her house. Joe went out and got his team, hooked up to the corner of her shack, and started to pull the whole caboodle over. Cleopatra, she snatched up a gun and let fly at him. She missed Joe and hit a fellow called Frenchy, who was taking her part. He wasn't bad hurt, though.
“Well, seems like at the sound of that shot all hell broke loose in this camp. Fighting broke out simultaneous everywhere, some taking Joe's part and some the woman's. We collared Joe and locked him up in a room in the hotel, but they fought on just the same without him. Let me see, how did it go? Mark Shand called himself Joe's champeen, but Frenchy's brother laid him out. Then Pat Radigan knocked out Frenchy's brother. Then Cleopatra sicked a Swede on Pat. Then, later, the Swede got fighting with another Swede, both near paralyzed with squirrel whisky. They opened their knives and cut each other so bad one died and the other got the T. B. We give the dead one an elegant funeral; but the affair gave Fort Edward a bad name, just the same. However, we're living it down! We're livin' it down!”
Cal jerked up his horses with an oath. Ann saw with horror what appeared to be a dead man lying athwart the road in one of the drier places.
“Here, you fellows!” roared the incensed mayor. “Roll him to one side, can't you? Nice thing, sleeping it off right in the middle of the main street! Another one of them Swedes,” he added deprecatingly, to Nell. “Those fellows ain't got no sense of decency!”
The obstruction having been removed, they proceeded.
A little farther along they came upon a man strangely possessed. Staggering wildly in a circle, his aim seemed to be to butt his brains out against the log wall of a building hard by.
“Squirrel whisky,” said Cal laconically.
He handed the reins to Nell, and jumped out. Several of the bystanders seized the man and held him, while the mayor went through his pockets. Cal held up a big, showy watch and a clasp knife.
“You see, fellows, I got his watch and his knife,” he said. “Let him come to me and claim them when he's slept it off.”
They drove on. Nell took these incidents as a matter of course. Ann's eyes were big.
The democrat drew up in front of the conspicuous two-story house which had a sign across it:
FORT EDWARD HOTEL—J. MARONEY
Here Ann discovered that there were other women in Fort Edward. Four girls came to the door of the hotel, clad in babyish silk dresses, their painted faces showing hideous in the daylight. They displayed an air of humility toward the scornful Nell that was rather piteous. Ann shivered, and searched their faces, without finding any answer to the riddle.
The building was in two parts—the newer, two-story structure of staring pine boards, and, adjoining this, a long, low shed without windows, built of logs. There was a wide wooden sidewalk or platform in front of the whole edifice, and there were two doors, one leading to the new part, one to the old. It was by far the most imposing structure in Fort Edward.
Everybody piled through the door into the old part of the building, leaving Ann at a loss on the sidewalk.
Peeping in through the door by which they had entered, she saw a long, dim room with lamps burning, tables around the walls, and a clear space in the middle, evidently for dancing. There was a bar across one end. Nellie, in a chair, was in the act of being lifted to one of the tables. Bottles and glasses were being thumped on the bar, and a loud noise of conviviality came out through the door.
Ann, not acquainted with the etiquette of such a place, dared not enter. She longed for a mantle of invisibility.
She tried the other door. It admitted her to a smaller room, a sort of office or lobby. There was a pool table in the middle, and a rough pine desk at one side. In the far corner, beside a window, there was a man hunched in a chair, with his feet up on the sill. His head was bent over a dog-eared magazine in his lap. He had a strange look sitting there by himself, when every other man in town was celebrating Nellie.
Ann coughed. He threw her a careless glance, and went on reading. He was young, and had a face extraordinarily full of life.
“Can I get a room here?” Ann asked timidly.
“I don't run the joint,” he said indifferently, without looking around again.
His voice, to a woman, sounded thrillingly deep and resonant.
Ann sat down by the desk, to wait for somebody else to come. Time passed. She studied the young man through her lashes. All she got of his face was an oblique view across one cheek, with the end of his nose projecting beyond. There was a natural grace in his slumped attitude in the chair. His legs were long, and a swelling calf was revealed within the dandified Strathcona boots he was wearing—well polished boots, with soft uppers to the knee, and elaborate lacing. A broad-brimmed felt hat was cocked askew on his head, the crown pinched to a point.
There was a door into the adjoining dance hall. Though it was closed, the sounds of merrymaking within were obvious enough. Ann began to suspect that the young man's air of extreme indifference was all a parade. There was nothing of the Puritan about him. It did not seem natural for him to be sitting there alone.
He rose, finally, and, tossing the magazine on a table, stretched himself as frankly as an animal. With his legs planted a little apart and his arms flung out, he was really a magnificent figure. His bare throat was like a column of ruddy marble. Ann saw that he was not above twenty-four. His eyes were as blue as the sea.
He threw her a curious glance, insulting in its indifference; but Ann did not mind. She rejoiced in the beauty of the youth, but was nothing to her what he thought of her.
He sauntered part way toward the door into the dance hall, then returned to his chair. There was something immature in his face—an uncertainty of purpose, a strain of wildness. This, in connection with his visible strength and fire, was rather disquieting. You would never be able to tell about such a man, Ann thought. He would be likely to fly off on any unexpected tangent, and, whichever way he went, his impetus would be tremendous.
Voices in the dance hall approached the door. The young man plumped down in his seat again. Ann was sure, then, that his grand indifference was a pose. The door opened, admitting Nell and a great burst of voices behind her. She turned in the doorway, saying:
See you later, boys!”
The door was closed, putting a damper on the noise.
There was a man with Nell, carrying her suit case—a fat man, whose forehead ran back to the middle of his crown, where it was stopped by a little precipice of black hair. He wore a very dirty apron, and his face was greasy with complacency.
The young man never turned around when Nell came into the room. How strange, Ann thought, that the best-looking man in Fort Edward should go out of his way to ignore the Queen of North Cariboo! It was certainly a studied affront. Nell evidently thought so, for, seeing him, she stopped abruptly. Her face showed no change, but Ann marked the way her neck turned pink under the ears.
The young man casually turned his head.
“Hello, Nell!” he drawled.
Ann burned with indignation.
“I'd slap his face!” she thought.
Nell betrayed no heat.
“Why, hello, Chako!” she said, in a voice that had the tinkle of breaking icicles. “I wondered where you were.”
The young man rose lazily.
“I don't hunt with the pack,” he said.
Nell looked him up and down with an enigmatic smile.
“Heavens! What a handsome pair!” Ann thought.
“You've grown, Chako,” Nell drawled. “Almost a man, aren't you?”
The young man, taken aback, stared at her with gathering fury. Before he could get an effective answer out, Nell had started briskly for the stairs at the back.
“Show me a room, Maroney,” she said peremptorily.
Ann snatched up her valise and followed them. As they mounted, the young man went into the dance hall, making the whole house shake with the slam of the door. Nell, on the stairs ahead of Ann, raised one shoulder and laughed.
The following days, to Ann, were like a fascinating and inexplicable dream. More truly, perhaps, they were like a sensational drama, at which she had the poorest seat in the house; for she obtained only glimpses of the action and tantalizing snatches of dialogue.
The main stage was presumably the dance hall, which Ann dared not enter; but the whole house seemed to vibrate with mystery and intrigue. There were arrivals and departures at all hours; scurrying and giggling in the corridors; violent altercations in distant rooms; endless whispered conversations in out-of-the-way corners.
One night, on the river bank, below her window, Ann heard the sounds of a woman's hurried, repressed sobbing, and the fierce whispering of an exasperated man. What would she not have given for the key to it all?
In the dance hall there was an orchestra consisting of two banjos, a piano, and a drum. The rollicking strains they sent up drove the solitary Ann half distracted.
“I could go down and dance without taking any hurt from it,” she told herself.
Nevertheless, the invisible bars across the doorway into the dance hall remained up.
There was singing, too, but Ann did not so much regret missing that. She could picture those poor girls mouthing and smirking. There was one better voice. Ann supposed it to be Nell's from the violence of the applause that greeted it.
From time to time Ann saw Nell flitting between the hotel and the dance hall. Nell's stage clothes had nothing in common, of course, with the abbreviated Mother Hubbards worn by the regular girls. Nell's dresses were expensive and marvelous; there was no end to them. Nevertheless, Ann considered her less alluring in her make-up.
Ann was glad to see that Nell never lost her contemptuous self-possession. She was the cause of a vast consumption of Maroney's liquor, but none of it was for her.
There was no regularity in the revels. From the hour of Nell's arrival, the racket kept up for twenty-four hours around the clock without stopping; then the dance hall closed for the night, presumably to give everybody a needed sleep. Early on the second morning it started up again, ran full blast all day and half the night, and started the third day at dinner time.
The roisterers made no distinction between day and night, and the fun might run just as high at noon as at midnight. At intervals it would be interrupted by a fight. Then somebody would get thrown out on the sidewalk with a crash, and the thrumming banjos would resume again. When customers of more importance got ugly, they would be assisted upstairs and locked in a room until they quieted down.
During these first few days Ann was like a little ghost in the house that everybody without seeing. Not to be allowed to share in all the running to and fro, the simmering excitement, the gusty laughter, was hard on her young spirit. It was not any moral sense that restrained her, but she just didn't know how to get into it.
Her favorite post was the chair alongside the desk in the lobby, where she could glance into the dance hall when the door was opened. She got fascinating glimpses of a murky interior, with one face—an amazing face, perhaps—thrown into strong relief by the light of a lamp. She could never find Nell in these glimpses.
By degrees she learned that Nell never mixed with the common throng. Nell had her own little salon adjoining the dance hall, where she received privileged friends. Ann marked the door through which all the champagne was carried.
When they passed in the hotel, Nell always ignored Ann. This hurt the latter, though she dimly understood that it might be due to a sort of delicacy on Nell's part. Ann longed for an opportunity to assure the other girl that there was no necessity for such a feeling.
The two girls were lodged in different parts of the house. Nell had the principal chamber at the head of the stairs. Once, as Ann came up, the door was standing open, and she made bold to step in. Nell was busy before the mirror.
“Hello!” said Ann.
Nell turned a cold face without speaking. Ann felt pretty small.
“What's the matter?” she asked.
Nell wriggled her pretty shoulders in annoyance.
“Oh, Lord! Have we got to have a fuss?” she said.
“Why, no,” replied Ann quickly. “I'm not the kind that fusses. But aren't we friends?”
“No,” said Nell curtly. “I'm working now,” she added. “I should think you would understand what I mean. How can we be friends?”
“I just wanted to tell you I don't mind—things,” Ann murmured a little lamely. “I just wanted to understand.”
“The less you understand the better for you,” said Nell cynically. “Oh, hell!” she went on in a friendlier voice. “I know you're not one of the holy, stuck-up kind, kid; but what's the use? I suppose you don't want a job like mine?”
“No,” said Ann.
“Then there's nothing to it. We've just got to give each other the polite go-by. No hard feelings on either side.”
“I suppose you're right,” Ann said regretfully; “but I'm sorry. Good luck to you!” she added, and turned to go.
“Same to you!” said Nell, with a warm flash of the brown eyes. “You're a dandy kid!”
Ann felt curiously flattered. It was something to win the approval of the scornful Nell; but they did not speak to each other again.
The tall, blond youth was much in Ann's thoughts. What an odd name he had—Chako! He did not live in the hotel, and Ann obtained only fleeting glimpses of him on his way to and from the dance hall. He carried himself as if he owned Fort Edward and all that it contained.
Ann observed that most of the men seemed to cringe to him a little. What she desired most of all was to see him and Nell together again. Those two struck sparks from each other!
One night Nell came into the hotel dining room, bringing with her the red-haired Hercules whom Ann had noticed on the occasion of the mock ambuscade. He was a handsome man of his type, confident and good-natured. He was quite grandly dressed in a three-piece store suit, boiled shirt, and satin tie.
There was but the one long table, and the two sat down almost opposite Ann. How thrilling it was to observe the man's obvious infatuation, and to mark how Nell alternately led him on with her sleepy, soft brown eyes, and checked him with her contemptuous smile! There was something dangerous about the man, but Nell was not in the least intimidated.
Ann could hear their conversation, but it was not brilliant. She told herself that it was not what people said to each other that mattered, but the unspoken things that passed from eye to eye.
“Why don't you settle down here, Nell?” the red-haired man asked.
“Heavens, Red! This mudhole would give me the hump in a month!”
“No, but I mean get a stake here. She's bound to grow.”
“So is the grass in the cemetery. Are you trying to sell me a lot, Red? Why don't you give me a couple?”
“Maybe I will.”
“Now you're talking!”
A few minutes later Ann received a redoubled thrill when the blond young man—Chako—came into the dining room, with one of the dance hall girls hanging to his arm. Ann instantly made up her mind that he had brought the girl in to throw her in Nell's eye, so to speak. Here was a situation!
The girl was clearly infatuated with Chako. She was rather a piteous creature. She had put off her ridiculous working dress, and had washed her face. Her appearance was not much improved thereby, for she had no figure, and her cheap waist and skirt hung lankily on her bones. The pallor of her face seemed more unnatural than the artificial roses and lilies that usually decorated it. Her hair was hastily put up in a roll around the nape of her neck. She had nice eyes. When they turned on Chako, a complete self-abandonment showed in them.
“How terrible,” thought Ann, “when one of those girls gets fond of a man! I wish I could make friends with her.”
These two sat down at the other end of the table. If Chako had brought the girl for Nell's benefit, his ruse was scarcely a brilliant one, for he took no pains to conceal his scorn of his companion. He looked a little sulky and sheepish. How Ann regretted that she could not hear what they said to each other! The rumble of the young man's deep voice reached her down half the length of the table, strangely stirring the woman in her.
“Heavens!” she thought, smiling at her own sensations. “A man like that is dangerous to be at large. He's too good-looking. It isn't fair!”
Ann wondered if the truth might not be that Nell and Chako, each the most desirable of their sex, were secretly attracted to each other, and that each was too stubborn to give in. Perhaps there was bound to be an obscure sort of rivalry between two such people, each of whom was supreme. Whichever way it was, the drama was not to be played out just then, for Nell and her friend presently rose and left the room, without paying the slightest attention to the other couple.
That same night, as the lingering summer twilight was drawing to a close, Ann was sitting in her room, resentful at having to stay there, when a tremendous uproar arose in the dance hall below. A confused roaring of voices and tramping of feet came up. Women screamed; a table was overthrown; the music stopped in the middle of a bar.
Such a racket was not unusual, but to Ann this was the last straw. She determined to see what was going on. Slipping downstairs, she ran across the deserted office and boldly opened the door into the forbidden place.
A fight was in progress. The scene was like an old painting with strong contrasts of light and shadow. The middle part of the hall was built up higher than the sides. Under the ridgepole hung a row of big kerosene lamps, with thin shades reflecting the light downward. Thus the middle of the floor was brightly illuminated, while the sides were in a brown shadow, out of which faces showed queerly.
At first Ann could make out little of what was going on, the spectators milled around so. All that she could see was two more wildly bobbing heads in the center. On the outskirts Maroney, in his dirty apron, was brandishing both fists and bawling to the principals to settle their troubles outside. Other voices were shouting:
“Stand back! Give them a show!”
Gradually the crowd pressed back, and Ann saw the fighters. Chako was not in it, and the wild beating of her heart quieted down. One was the red-haired man who had sat opposite her at supper. Ann wondered if this was the price he had to pay for supping with Nellie Nairns. There was a smear of blood on the bosom of his white shirt, but it was not his blood, for his purple face was as yet unmarked.
His adversary was the swarthy, saturnine fellow whom Ann had marked at Ching's Landing. She had heard him called “Foxy.” His face was as yellow as saffron, and his features were fixed in a devilish grin. Blood was running over his lips, and one blue sleeve was ripped from shoulder to cuff.
Ann, thinking of Nell, glanced toward the near corner of the hall. The door of Nell's room stood open, and Nell herself was framed in the doorway, with a strong light behind her. She had changed to a sort of gypsy costume, with a fringed shawl over her shoulders and a red scarf around her head. She was leaning against the door frame, with one hand negligently braced against the other side. The attitude suggested a calm interest in the scene.
Ann herself was revolted by the sight of blood, but the need to see, to know, was imperious. Little by little she was drawn into the hall. She mixed in the outer rank of the spectators, and no one noticed her.
To her it seemed as if Foxy was getting all the worst of the fight. He was lighter than the other man, and continually ran from him; but sometimes he stopped and delivered a blow which cracked like a shot under the roof, and jolted his antagonist sickeningly. The sallow man was beautiful in action, his tight trousers revealing the play of steely leg muscles. By comparison, the red Hercules moved like a dray horse.
Red flung his arms around Foxy's neck, and seemed bent on strangling him. There were some protests from the crowd. A man alongside Ann said to her, without noticing whom he addressed:
“Hell! Everything goes here, short of murder!”
In his efforts to free himself Foxy went down, with Red on top. Red seized hold of the other man's shoulders, and viciously banged his head against the floor. Several bystanders ran out and dragged Red off.
Foxy clambered to his feet, and stood swaying. Somebody dashed a glass of water in his face. He shook his black head like a dog, and the fixed grin returned.
The men who were holding Red released him; but as the two men once more approached each other, suddenly Maroney and his little gang of waiters and musicians came charging out of the shadows on the far side of the hall. The surprised fighters found themselves being hustled toward the door.
Instantly everybody took a hand in the scrimmage, and absolute pandemonium resulted. Ann stood back, both terrified and fascinated.
The initial momentum of Maroney's attack was sufficient to accomplish his purpose. The crowd stuck for a moment in the doorway, then suddenly drained out like water through a hole, leaving the hall empty.
Ann followed. Outside the door there was a bench, upon which she instinctively climbed. Though it was after ten o'clock, there was still a bit of light in the sky.
Wide though the walk was, the space was more restricted than inside, and the crowd gave the fighters the whole of it, gathering in groups at either end. Ann, on her bench, had the post of vantage like a referee. Nobody noticed her.
The end was not long deferred now. Foxy seemed to have acquired an access of strength from somewhere. With incredible quickness he dodged the heavier man's blows, ducking under his arms, spinning around, coming up behind him, and planting his own blows almost at will.
“Dancing master!” somebody yelled.
In a few moments he had Red swaying uncertainly. Finally, with a straight arm blow to the jaw, Foxy knocked his enemy clean off the sidewalk. The red-headed man fell in the mud with a great splash, and lay there groaning.
They hauled him up, and half carried, half led him to the bench. Ann jumped nimbly down and made haste to mix with the crowd.
Foxy, panting, stood by looking on, to make sure that he had finished his job. It was only too evident that he had. Red's head was lolling on his chest. Foxy, with a shrug, turned eagerly back into the hall. Cal Nimmo, the mayor, led him by the arm, and the crowd pushed after, cheering. Ann followed.
Inside the cheering was redoubled. Men ran around in front of the victor, striving to grasp his hand. Various admirers thrust his coat, his hat, his collar, upon him. Foxy and Cal pushed their way slowly toward the door of Nell's room, which stood invitingly open; but Nell was not visible.
Suddenly, from among the tables on the far side of the room, Chako strode into the full light. A frightened girl was pulling back on his arm; another had hold of his coat. It was obvious that Chako had been drinking. His fine features were a little thickened, his eyes looked recklessly irresponsible. There was a curious peaked furrow across his forehead, which gave him an aspect of terrible wrath.
“Chako! Chako!” the girls were gasping. “Don't make any more trouble! What do you care, Chako? For God's sake, come back!”
Chako roughly freed himself of his encumbrances. The girl who clung to his arm was sent reeling back into the shadows. The uproar surrounding Foxy was suddenly stilled. All eyes turned on Chako.
“Ah! You make me sick with your cheering!” he cried, with a violent thrust of his spread palm. His deep voice made the hall ring. “If it was Red who beat, you'd cheer him just the same! Always ready to lick the boots of the night's hero!”
No voice answered him. He strode up to Foxy.
“Red was my mark,” he said. “I was waiting until he sobered up. You thought you had something easy, didn't you, taking him on when he was drunk? You've got to take me now!”
Foxy snarled in his yellow face, and gave ground.
“Big talk!” he said. “When you see a man's tired!”
A few other voices were raised on Foxy's behalf.
“Can't you see he's tired? He beat Red to a standstill.”
“Shut up!” cried Chako, with startling violence. A pin might have been heard to drop. Chako laughed contemptuously. To Foxy he went on indifferently: “Take your own time; but don't put on too many airs—that's all!”
Chako turned, and went back to his table and his girls. Foxy, laughing with his friends, proceeded to the door of Nell's room.
Every one sought his former seat, and Ann suddenly found herself standing conspicuously alone. She slipped out of the hall, regained her own room, and went to bed, where she lay long, marveling at life.
She had no more than fallen asleep, it seemed to her, when she was awakened by another tumult in the dance hall. She heard the same hoarse voices and loud stamping, interrupted by the same strange periods of silence, with sudden outbursts of shouting. She sprang out of bed with her heart in her throat, thinking of the magnificent youth; but before her trembling fingers could get her hairpins in and her hooks fastened, the racket died down and the banjos resumed their thrumming. She went back to bed.
Ann had not missed as much as she feared. In the morning she learned that Red Chivers, unexpectedly returning to the dance hall after his defeat, had attacked Foxy Nicholls, and this time had beaten Foxy to a finish.
Red had long been the undisputed champion of Fort Edward, and his defeat in the first battle had surprised everybody. It had only come about, they said, because he was so drunk that he could scarcely stand. Left alone after the first fight, he had gone to the river and plunged in, to sober up; then he had come back and redeemed his reputation.
Ann learned all this from Noll Voss at the breakfast table. She had to have some one who could interpret to her what was happening about her, so she had frankly made up to this respectable, diffident man, who came regularly to the hotel for his meals.
Their intercourse was beset with difficulties, for Noll had old-fashioned ideas about women, and disapproved of Ann's curiosity. In fact, it was his character to disapprove of most things. He was susceptible, however, and Ann made no scruple to exert a little fascination in order to obtain what she wanted. Noll was a dull, plain man of about forty—what Ann called the pathetic age in an unmarried man.
“But what were they fighting about?” asked Ann, though she knew well enough by intuition.
Noll looked severely disapproving.
“No good cause,” he said.
“But I want to know,” insisted Ann.
“Well,” said Noll, “Red Chivers sets up to be Nellie Nairns's best friend here, and Foxy aimed to cut him out.”
“Ah!” said Ann. “I heard that other young fellow—what do they call him—Chako?”
“Chako Lyllac,” said Noll bitterly.
“I heard that Chako Lyllac had challenged Red, too.”
“Pure devilishment!” said Noll. “He just can't abide that any man should be set ahead of him.”
“Is this Chako a good fighter?” Ann asked offhand.
“Oh, he can fight,” said Noll. “He's a firebrand—the worst of the lot. The only thing good about him is that he don't stay long anywhere. He comes and he goes.”
“Where did he come from originally?” asked Ann.
“How do I know? He's been knocking about the North since he was a young boy. They say he ran away from school. Some say his father is a bishop.”
“Very likely,” said Ann, smiling. “Bishops have that kind of sons, they say.”
“Chako Lyllac makes me sick,” cried Noll, “with his drinking and his fighting and his swelling around!”
He would, Ann thought, glancing at the respectable man through her lashes.
“Where did he get that outlandish name?” she asked.
“The Indians gave it to him.”
There was a little devil of curiosity in Ann that would not be appeased.
“Are Nellie Nairns and Chako old friends?” she asked.
“Not that I ever heard of,” said Noll. “They're both wild birds. I suppose they meet different places, coming and going. What is it to you?” he added, with a suspicious glance.
“Nothing,” said Ann, with a shrug. “The boy is so good-looking, one can't help feeling a little interest
This was bitter to the plain man.
“Yah! So good-looking!” he snarled. “His good looks never brought no woman any good. He's a nuisance. Maroney would be glad enough to get him away from here.”
“Why?” asked Ann.
“Ah! It ain't fit to be talked about!” said Noll.
“But I want to understand these things,” said Ann.
Noll's bitterness overrode his customary prudence.
“All Maroney's girls are stuck on him,” he said. “It spoils them; but Maroney can't throw him out, or they'd go on strike.”
“I see!” said Ann.
This provided her with a deal of matter to think about. She presently resumed upon another tack.
“Weren't you in the hall last night?” she asked.
“I'm a workingman,” said Noll, puffing out his cheeks. “There's few enough around here can say it. That's what's the matter with the place. They're all sitting around on their tails, waiting for the railway to come across the mountains and make 'em rich without working.”
“It does you credit,” said Ann demurely. She was gradually working around to the purpose she had in mind. “But in the evenings—”
“In the evenings I go to bed,” said Noll.
“Don't you ever visit the dance hall? The music sounds attractive.”
“Don't profit nobody I can see, except Maroney. He's getting rich off them poor fools.”
“I'd like to go in some night,” said Ann softly.
He looked at her aghast.
“You're joking!”
“Why shouldn't I go?”
“Look at the fights they have in there?”
“Oh, if there was any trouble, we could leave,” said Ann—though she did not mean to do so.
“Any of them fellows would feel free to ask you to dance,” protested Noll.
“Well, it wouldn't hurt me, would it?”
“You'd be labeled!”
“If anybody made any mistake about me, I could soon put them right,” said Ann. “There are plenty of cabarets in the East. Everybody goes.”
He merely stared at her.
“I'd rather go with you,” Ann said insinuatingly. “You'd be such a good protector! If you won't take me, I'll have to find somebody else.”
The moralist gulped, and struggled with himself.
“Well—well, I'll take you,” he said desperately. “I'll take you, if you'll promise me you won't dance with any of them fellows.”
“I'll promise that,” said Ann. “We'll go to-night.”
Ann wore her old sailor hat into the dance hall that night. A hat marked her off from all the other girls in the place, stamping her as a casual visitor. Noll Voss followed at her heels, wearing his Sunday suit and a rubber collar. His hair was carefully slicked down and brushed back over a finger. The respectable man was horridly uncomfortable.
As a matter of fact, their entrance did not create the sensation that he had feared. The people at the tables gave Ann a curious glance, and immediately resumed their talk.
“You see there's no harm in my coming,” said Ann.
“I don't like it! I don't like it!” said Noll unhappily. “There's going to be trouble to-night!”
It was true that the unusual quietness of the place had an ominous effect. It was well filled, too. There was a great buzz of whispering at the tables. Everybody had an expectant eye on the entrance doors. Just inside the doors, the two biggest men on Maroney's staff had taken up their stand, and were scrutinizing all arrivals.
“What are those men there for?” asked Ann.
“To keep Chako Lyllac out,” said Noll.
Ann led the way across the dance floor, and chose the end table on the other side. It was about the best point of vantage in the place. The bar ran across that end of the room. At one end of the bar were the two entrance doors, one from the hotel and one from the outside. In the corner at the other end of the bar was the door of Nell's dressing room. It was closed.
Seated at their table, the two immediately dropped into a comfortable obscurity, and Noll Voss ceased to perspire. Ann had her opportunity, at last, to saturate herself in the strange atmosphere of the place, so different from anything she had known. No detail escaped her.
The curious construction of the dance hall was due, perhaps, to the fact that its builders did not know how to span a roof across a space as wide as they required. They had constructed a narrow hall, some fifteen feet high, and had then run up a lean-to down each side. Some time later, on the side toward the river, it had been found necessary to build a lean-to on the lean-to, to provide dressing rooms for the performers.
The high space in the middle was the dancing floor. It was surrounded by varnished pine posts. Behind the posts, under the low roofs of the lean-tos, were the tables. There were no windows, and the light from the kerosene lamps hanging from the ridgepole in the center left the tables in semidarkness.
The orchestra was at the end of the hall opposite the bar. The banjos presently started one of the rippling airs of which they had the secret, the piano thumping a two-chord accompaniment which never varied. Rollicking airs they played, which had long been out of fashion; but more than once, upon hearing them, a faint recollection had stirred within Ann. Perhaps they were songs that old people had sung to her in her babyhood.
A number of couples took the floor. There was nothing old-fashioned about the dancing, such as it was. It consisted of a lugubrious promenade around the floor, with a hitch to the left at mathematical intervals. There were not nearly enough girls for partners, and several pairs of men danced together with perfect gravity. It was all quite decorous.
Afterward one of the girls—a young woman with strange lemon-colored hair—took the center of the floor and proceeded to sing a sentimental song. This was a painful exhibition, and Ann averted her eyes from it. The poor girl's croaking voice was a dreadful mockery of music, and her efforts to please were tragic; but it was all eminently proper.
“There is no harm in this place,” said Ann to her escort.
“There's trouble brewing,” Noll muttered. “It's too quiet to-night!”
Maroney, the proprietor, seemed to share the same idea. The fat little man with the retreating pompadour moved uneasily around the edge of the floor, watching his customers narrowly, and keeping an anxious eye cocked toward the door. Cal Nimmo and several of his cronies had the next table to Ann, and Maroney continually returned there to air his grievances.
“They's been a fight here ev'y night!” he said. “Las' night they was two fights. I'm fed up with it. I ain't narrer-minded. I don't aim to interfere with nobody havin' a good time, but I say times ain't what they was in the old days. I say, if anybody wants to fight, they got to go outside. That's reasonable, ain't it?”
Maroney obtained but small sympathy from Cal.
“Ah, what do you care, Maroney?” said the mayor banteringly. “Makes everybody thirsty, don't it?”
“That's all right,” said Maroney; “but somebody's goin' to get hurt in one of these scraps. Somebody's goin' to get done in some night. Then the news of it 'll travel outside, and they'll send in the police to make an investigation. God, if there's anything I hate, it's an investigation! They'll close me up—that's what they'll do; and then where'll you go for your fun?”
“Oh, if they close you, somebody else will open,” said Cal.
Maroney became almost tearful.
“I got money in this place!” he cried. “Ain't I got no rights? You call yourself the mayor of this town. You had ought to help me keep order, instead of encouragin' them!”
“Your money is nothing to me, Maroney,” said Cal coolly. “I ain't your hired bouncer. I like to see a good scrap myself, and your dance hall makes the best arena in town. My job is just to see that fair play is done.”
“Well, there ain't goin' to be no scrap to-night!” cried Maroney passionately. “I told Chako Lyllac not to come back here. If he comes in that door, he'll be thrown out without a word said!”
“Well, that 'll be a fight, at that,” drawled Cal, amid the laughter of his friends.
The door into Nell's dressing room opened, and Nell appeared there, adjusting the skirt of a shimmering dress. She signaled to the bartender, who in turn whistled to the musicians. The banjoists played a sustained chord, and Nell walked smartly out on the floor,amid stormy applause. She passed close to Ann, but gave no sign of recognition. With her carmined cheeks, her smudged eyes, and her professional smile, she looked scarcely human. Ann had no sensation of beholding one who was familiar to her.
Nell sang an innocent little song called “Lonesome.” She had not much voice, but she knew better than to force what she had. She was not engaged for her voice.
She was wearing a dress of silver cloth, simply and artfully made—gathered over the hips, and softly wrinkled about her lissom waist. Her strutting walk about the floor, while she sang, emphasized the lissomeness. Surely no such silvery apparition had ever before been seen in Fort Edward! Ann, watching the rough faces at the tables, and seeing how their eyes beamed, understood much, and was prepared to forgive much.
The tall, massive form of Red Chivers issued out of Nell's dressing room. He took up a conspicuous stand at the foot of the dance hall, in front of the bar, where he watched Nell with grinning delight and something of a proprietary air. He was sober to-night, and clad in his best—a sanguinary dandy.
Ann observed that Nell never looked at Red during the course of the song and the promenade. Nell's smile was all-embracing, and she never looked directly at anybody. There was a remoteness in the made-up eyes. Behind the posturing and the professional smile, Ann apprehended an inviolable personality.
Riotous applause greeted the end of the song. A shower of silver coins fell on the floor, and a few bills fluttered. Nell took no notice of these tributes. She bowed all around, and walked off. A waiter searched for the coins with a sharp eye, and pounced on them like a chicken pouncing on grains of corn.
With the disappearance of Nell the applause was redoubled. Every eye was on the door of her room. Above all the ordinary clapping could be heard the clack, clack, of Red Chivers's huge, hard palms.
Suddenly a similar sound was heard toward the other end of the hall, and heads turned that way. Chako Lyllac was seen standing out on the floor, clapping a pair of hands no less formidable than Red's.
An indrawn breath of astonishment was heard all about the hall. Maroney's two men were still holding the entrance door, and Chako's appearance in the middle of the hall seemed like magic. Glances traveling beyond him saw the door to the girl's dressing room standing open. That provided the explanation. He had been concealed in there. That room had windows through which he could have climbed.
The ordinary applause died away abruptly, but the two big men, their eyes fixed on each other, continued to beat their hands together. More than half the length of the room separated them.
Nell came out to the edge of the dance floor, and bowed. She gave no sign of seeing Chako. She returned to her room and closed the door.
Chako's legs were planted, his body was a little thrown back, his curly yellow pate was bare. It hurt Ann deep inside her to look at him. That curious peaked furrow ran across his brows. There was no boyish weakness in his face now, no humanity at all. He was the immemorial battler, so splendid, so strange to her, so inaccessible, that the sight of him seemed to crush Ann's very heart.
Red, with a swagger, turned toward Nell's door.
“Keep out of that room, Red,” said Chako, not loudly.
Red turned with a grin.
“Hey?” he said.
“You heard me,” said Chako.
“Have I got to beat you, kid?” drawled Red, looking around humorously at his friends.
“No—you've got to take a beating,” said Chako, with unchanged face.
“Listen to what's talking!” returned Red, with affected mirth.
“Take off your coat,” said Chako.
Ann's eyes flew from one to the other, measuring them. She was half sick with anxiety. Chako Lyllac was so much younger, so much finer than that coarse brute, how could he prevail in a brutal set-to? Both men appeared to be perfectly sober to-night.
“Let's go! Let's go! Let's go!” Noll Voss was gabbling at her side.
Ann felt as if the beating of her heart would kill her, but she shook her head.
“You must come!” said Noll, catching her arm. “It's not a fit sight—”
Ann's pleasant eyes flashed on him with surprising spirit.
“Be quiet!” she said. “I'm not going!”
Noll subsided sullenly.
Maroney had run out on the floor. To give him his due, he had courage.
“Get out of my place!” he cried to Chako. “I don't want you in here! Get out!”
Chako looked down at him as from a height.
“Back up, Maroney,” he drawled. “If I hit you once, you'd burst!”
“Get out, I tell you!” cried Maroney. “Get out before you're thrown out!”
“If any man wants the job, let him try it,” said Chako, looking around. “If you set more than one on me, I'll shoot!”
Cries of protest arose.
“Let them alone, Maroney! We won't stand for any interference. Let them fight it out!”
Maroney turned on them, brandishing his arms, beside himself with rage.
“Get out!” he cried. “All of you get out of my place! It's closed for the night!”
A roar of laughter answered him.
“Close up the bar!” Maroney shouted to his bartenders. “Put out the lights! The place is closed!”
They started to obey. Meanwhile Maroney ran to the last one of the three big lamps. These let up and down on lines that were fastened to the side posts. Maroney lowered the lamp, blew it out, and, taking it from its holder, handed it to a waiter to carry out.
While he was doing this, Chako and Red approached each other, their eyes holding in an unwavering grip. They were of the same height, but Red had about fifteen pounds on Chako. Some of the extra weight was around Red's waist, where it did not help him, while Chako's belly was as flat as a plank.
Moments seemed to pass while they faced each other motionless. A girl moaned hysterically. There was nervous laughter.
“Collide! Collide!” cried a man's voice.
“Want seconds, or a timekeeper?” Chako asked.
“To hell with it!” said Red. “You won't last a round!”
Chako struck at him like a cat. Eyes could not follow the blow, but they saw the red head jerked aside by the impact. Ceasing to smile, Red stepped back and swung his blacksmith's right. Chako sidestepped it. Maroney blew out the second light.
There was no running about in this fight. The two biggest men in Fort Edward stood up to each other and doggedly gave and took punishment. The impact of fist on flesh was like the crack of a snake whip. It was hard fighting, but it did not seem so dangerous at first. They stood so firmly planted that it seemed impossible either could injure the other.
Presently Chako reached Red's nose and it began to bleed. A curious murmur of satisfaction went round the hall. Ann was more horrified by that sound than by the sight of the blood.
Red, infuriated, showed his teeth, and cursed Chako thickly. Chako's face showed no expression whatever. His eyes were fathomless. Red fought furiously, always falling back to get space for his great swings, Chako following him up close with short-arm jabs. At length Red caught his enemy with a sledge hammer swing, and Chako went down. He fell on his hands, and scrambled clear. Wild yells broke from the onlookers.
Maroney blew out the last lamp. The yells ended in an angry groan. There was a rush for Maroney, but he and his waiter escaped in the dark, with the lamp.
The fighters had instinctively separated. It was not absolutely dark. The door into the girls' dressing room stood open, and a shaft of gray daylight came through. Somebody ran to open the front door and let in a little more light.
Cal Nimmo made his harsh voice heard above all the racket.
“Fellows! We can go to the Japanese restaurant. The Jap is game.”
Red's voice answered thickly from somewhere:
“Ah! I can see him all I want.”
“Suits me!” Chako agreed.
They rushed together. The crowd fell back behind the posts. In the murk the two figures no longer looked quite real. Their outlines were blurred; they seemed to float; they melted from one posture into another, like figures of smoke. Only the sound of Red's thick curses was horribly human. Chako uttered no sound.
They were so much of a size that it was impossible to tell which was which. The smack of their blows was less often heard now. Unable to hit each other effectively, they wrestled, standing for moments locked in a close embrace; but their sobbing breaths betrayed the strain.
They crashed to the floor. There was the sound of a dogged pummeling. The undermost figure thrashed wildly, and, still locked together, they began to roll. Over and over on the floor they went until they fetched up against the post beside which Ann was sitting. The upper part of their bodies went under the table. Ann jumped up and shoved it back.
The two figures separated and rose up. One backed off. The other brushed against Ann in rising. It was Chako. She knew that young head.
“Ah, fight hard! Fight hard!” she breathed involuntarily.
He precipitated himself like a flung stone on the waiting shadow out on the floor.
It could be made out that one man had changed his tactics. He continually retreated, refusing the clinches; and when the other opened his arms to embrace him, it was met with a blow. Over and over this trick was worked.
A confusion of cries arose from the invisible spectators.
“Red's got him going!”
“No, it's Chako!”
“Red's clinching to save himself!”
“It's Chako!”
In the end the bearlike one, whichever one it was, got the other in his hug. They crashed to the floor. It was down toward the rear of the hall. There was a furious struggle on the floor—rolling, thrashing, bumping, and pummeling. Then, quite suddenly, it ceased. One figure picked himself up, and the other lay there.
The end of the fight had come so unexpectedly that for a moment there was not a sound around the hall. Ann breathed a sort of prayer:
“Oh, God! Oh, God! Not the young one!”
Then the resonant voice of Chako was heard:
“Make a light, somebody. He's all in!”
It broke the tension. Sounds rippled around the hall again. Tears rolled down Ann's cheeks, and she began to shake inside. Somebody vaulted over the bar and struck a match. He found one of the small lamps there, and lighted it. It had a glass reflector behind it, which threw a shaft of light straight down the floor of the hall, revealing Chako standing there and looking down at Red Chivers.
Red raised himself on one hand. His head was hanging.
When the light came up, there was a fresh uproar. Some ran to pick up Red and drag him to one of the tables.
“Good boy, Chako!” somebody yelled.
A chorus took it up. Men and women started for him.
“Keep away from me!” cried Chako, with that contemptuous thrust of his open palm. He seemed to grow bigger in his scorn. “Shut your heads, you fools! I'm no man of yours!”
They fell back. The admiring atmosphere became hostile; but it was all one to Chako. He started down the hall.
Suddenly Ann saw Nell slip by her. Chako and the girl met midway on the dance floor. They had a clear space there to themselves. Everybody watched intently, but none cared to venture close.
Ann was mad to hear what those two had to say to each other. It seemed to her that the whole meaning of what had happened would be lost to her if she did not hear. Swiftly as a darting lizard she circled behind the tables in the dark, and came to the post nearest to where they stood. She flattened herself against it.
“Thanks, old man,” she heard Nell drawl in her cool tones. “He was a coarse brute!”
“That's all right,” Chako muttered.
“But what did you do it for?” Nell asked curiously.
“Ah!” growled Chako. “He was too well satisfied with himself. I couldn't stand it!”
Nell laughed.
“You don't want me,” she said. :
“No,” said Chako bluntly. “Too many after you. If you'd come away with me—north, where there's nobody—”
“No,” said Nell. “You and I weren't made for each other. Both too much run after, I expect.”
“You shouldn't have come out here to me,” Chako growled. “I don't want to seem to turn you down before these swine.”
Nell laughed again.
“A fat lot I care what they think!” she said. “Shake hands to show there's no hard feeling, and let's call it a night!”
Ann peeped around the post. She saw the couple oddly lighted up in the horizontal rays from the light on the bar. Their shadows reached down to the far end of the room. Nell laid her hand within Chako's. She was laughing up into his eyes, and Chako was scowling somberly down upon hers.
“By God, Nell, you're handsome!” he rumbled.
“Thanks!” said Nell, showing her beautiful white teeth.
She ran back to her room. Chako stood watching her with troubled eyes until she disappeared. Then he looked around him. Seeing his coat where he had flung it, he picked it up and wriggled it over his shoulders. Without looking to the right or the left, he made his way to the entrance door and went out.
As soon as he had gone, the whispering started up. A sniggering laugh went around, and there was a loud guffaw. The sneer expressed in these sounds made Ann shiver. The frequenters of Maroney's place did not understand, and what they did not understand they hated.
Thirty seconds after Chako had gone, the usual empty clatter of talk and laughter filled the place. It was as if nothing had happened. The banjos were tuning up again. Maroney unconcernedly brought the lamps back, and the waiters darted to and fro across the floor with fresh rounds of drinks.
Ann's sole thought, now, was of escaping. She had had her fill of the dance hall. It could never tempt her again. She was done forever with the rôle of a spectator of life. Sitting on the bank, feeling herself safe, and watching the rapids course by, she had suddenly been sucked in, and now she was being hurried down helplessly she knew not to what end. She was terrified half out of her wits by the violence of the emotions that seized her and shook her till she turned faint. She could not think or understand. Her instinct was only to get by herself, to hide herself.
She waited until the music started, and the dancers provided a little cover for her retreat. Then, with a muttered word to Noll Voss, she slipped across the floor and gained the hotel. She never waited to see whether her escort accompanied her. She flew upstairs, and, thankfully gaining her own room, flung herself face down on her bed.
“Ah, if he would come north with me!” she whispered, pressing her face into the pillow. “If he would come north with me! Oh, I am mad! But if he would only come with me!”
To effect her purpose in coming to North Cariboo, Ann required the help of a man; but she found Fort Edward so violent and strange in all its ways that she allowed the first days to slip by without making any effort to become acquainted with the right sort of man.
There was Noll Voss, but he would never do. Her instinct warned her not to tell him what she had come for. A well-meaning man, he was not a true son of the woods, but a settler. Moreover, his notions about women were both absurd and aggravating. In her mind's eye, Ann could see the look of horror that would overspread his face if she proposed that they should take a trip into the wilds together. And if she did go with him, she couldn't trust him. Notwithstanding his moral ideas, there was something shifty in Noll.
From the first Ann had marked Cal Nimmo, the mayor, as a good man to go to for advice. There was something reassuring in the hardness, the squareness, the good humor expressed in Cal's weather-beaten countenance. He was rather a terrible figure, too, with his cynical grimness, his air of no nonsense, and it required a good deal of resolution for Ann to nerve herself to the point of addressing him.
In the days following the return of Nellie Nairns, Cal seemed extraordinarily busy. Ann had had only glimpses of him on the wing to and from the dance hall. She couldn't very well follow him in there, and no other opportunity to speak to him had presented itself.
Then came the night when Ann was torn up by the roots, as it seemed to her. After that nothing in her life had the same significance as before.
On the morning after the fight in the dance hall she drifted downstairs from her room a little earlier than usual. The hotel was wrapped in a quilt of silence. Even in the kitchen the business of the day had not commenced.
Ann went outside. The sun had been up for hours; it was like midday in more southerly latitudes. It had been a big night in Fort Edward, and no creature stirred now. It was like a camp of the dead in broad day.
To Ann, after the violent upheavals of the night, the very world seemed changed—and for the worse. She was worn out, yet the demon of unrest pursued her, and she could not keep still.
She drifted along the main street of the settlement—they called it Dominion Avenue, when they remembered. It ran straight across the blunt, shallow peninsula on which Fort Edward was built, touching the Boardman River on one side and the Campbell on the other. It had been laid off a hundred feet wide, but the stumps had never been cleared out of it, and the tangled skeins of wagon tracks twisted among them as crookedly as rivulets in loose sand. It was something of an undertaking for a foot passenger to get from one side to the other.
The street was really distinguished in its ugliness. The closely built structures down each side were not all of a type, for old log buildings rubbed elbows with pert new clapboarded stores with false fronts.
Ann saw more than one sprawling figure in the merciless sunlight. She was getting used to that. She looked diffidently in their faces, but she did not see the face she feared to see. Yet in her heart she hoped that drunkenness had laid Chako by the heels somewhere; for her secret terror was that he had flown straight out of Maroney's to the north, like the wild bird he was. Out of her reach forever!
She searched the face of each ugly building with pain. If only she could know that one of them held Chako safe for the moment, she could rest.
Noll Voss turned up at the hotel for breakfast, as usual. Never had Ann been so glad to see him. She had to get information from somebody, or she would go wild; but Noll was sulky.
“You gave me the slip last night,” he said.
“It was too terrible!” Ann told him. “I ran to my room.”
“Not till the trouble was over!” said Noll bitterly.
“What became of Chako Lyllac?” Ann asked with bated breath.
“Chako Lyllac! Chako Lyllac!” snarled Noll. “I suppose you think he's quite a hero—like all the other women!”
Noll's feelings were of small moment to Ann.
“I asked you a civil question,” she said coldly.
“I'll tell you what happened to Chako Lyllac!” he cried. “When he left here, he went to Siwash Jimmy's place, the lowest den in town. He filled up on squirrel whisky, and went crazy and wrecked the place. They sent up here for Cal Nimmo. It took six of them to hold him down. They locked him in a shed at Cal's place to sleep it off. There's your hero for you!”
Ann was conscious only of relief. He had not gone beyond reach!
“If you cannot speak civilly—” she said coldly.
Noll suspected that she was using him, but he could not resist her. He came crawling, as Ann knew he would.
“Ah! I didn't mean nothing against you,” he muttered. “That young waster just makes me mad!”
“Cal Nimmo is his friend,” murmured Ann.
“About the only friend he's got,” said Noll.
How Ann's breast warmed toward the hard-faced mayor! She resolved not to let that morning pass without speaking to him. Meanwhile she mercilessly plied Noll Voss with questions, and Noll, willy-nilly, had to answer.
“I suppose Chako Lyllac will soon be leaving here?”
“As soon as his money's spent.”
“Where will he go?”
“You can search me!”
“But I suppose he has to make his living somehow?”
“Oh, he works off and on—river work with parties going up the Campbell or down the Spirit.”
“Are any parties getting ready to go on the rivers now?”
“Not that I know of. It's getting late.”
“What will he do, then?”
“Oh, go off to his friends the Indians, I suppose.”
“But he must spend a lot of money here. Where does he get it?”
“He brings out a bunch of fur every spring. Traps all winter, and then he can't rest till he's drunk it all up!”
After breakfast Ann boldly carried a chair out on the platform, prepared to wait there all day, if necessary, until Cal Nimmo came along. Noll Voss hung about her abjectly. She tolerated him. He was still useful to her.
After all, it proved to be no hard matter at all. All she had to do was to stand up and say:
“Mr. Nimmo, can I have a talk with you?”
Cal snatched the hat off his bullet head. His keen eyes bored her through.
“Why, sure, miss,” he said. “Let's go inside.”
He had the natural good manners that result from perfect assurance.
They stood by the side window at the rear of the room.
“I've been wanting to talk to you ever since I came,” said Ann; “but you always seemed so busy.”
“Busy! Sho!” said Cal. “What does it amount to!”
“It's about my reason for coming here,” said Ann.
“I wondered about that myself,” said Cal; “but it's a free country. There wasn't no call for me to ask you.”
“I'm looking for my father, Joseph Maury,” Ann told him.
“Never heard the name,” said Cal.
“Surely you must have heard of him!” said Ann, surprised. “He's been in this country many years. Every year I have had a letter from him, and it was always mailed in this place.”
“That's easy explained,” said Cal. “I suppose he goes among us under some other name.”
“But why should he?”
Cal shrugged.
“We got some queer cusses up here,” he said dryly. He pulled up chairs. “Sit down, miss. What sort of looking man is your father?”
“I never saw him,” replied Ann. “I know him only by his letters.”
“H-m!” said Cal. “Then any one of us might be the man, for all you know—even me!”
“I wish it were you, Mr. Nimmo,” Ann boldly declared.
Cal grinned delightedly.
“Same here,” he said heartily; “but no such luck for me!”
“In the winters he trapped furs,” Ann went on, “and in the summers he prospected for gold; but he never found any gold, he said.”
“The usual story,” remarked Cal.
“Every spring he brought his furs out to Fort Edward, sold them, bought his supplies, and went back.”
It presently appeared that Ann had her father's last letter. She read it to Cal.
    Dear Daughter:
    I hope this finds you well. I am about the same as usual. I got your letter. I am glad you are well. I was late this year getting out. We had such unseasonable warm weather the snow in the mountains melted early, and the rivers were in flood. I capsized twice, but I did not lose my catch. I got a touch of fever from getting wet and all, and had to spell a couple of days.
    I had good fur this year. After paying for everything I had a hundred dollars' credit left. I send you a post office order herewith. It ought to be twice as much. The traders here are both robbers. They're in cahoots with each other. So no more at present from
Your sincere father, Joseph Maury.
Cal struck his fist into his palm.
“I have it!” he cried. “Joe Grouser—that's what we called him. It was that touch about the traders being robbers. That's Joe Grouser! When was that letter dated?”
“Two years ago in June.”
“That's right! That's the last time he was here. When he didn't show up last year, there was some talk about it, but the traders here supposed he had carried his fur down the Spirit River. He had often threatened to do it.”
“Tell me more about him,” murmured Ann.
“Well, of all the queer ones he was one of the queerest,” said Cal reminiscently. “Every year he'd come floating down the Campbell on a little raft, with his catch. Every year he'd have a hell of a row with the traders over the price, and carry his fur from one to the other and back again. As a matter of fact, Joe Grouser always got the best price going, because he wasn't in debt to the traders. Then he'd buy his year's grub, and quietly sit around getting drunk every day until the steamboat went up the river. She'd carry him and his outfit to Gisborne Portage, Joe Mixer would put him across, and we wouldn't see nor hear of him for another year.
“He was a dogged man. Every year he carried in more than half a ton of grub without any help. He'd built himself a good-sized skiff, and he'd track that heavy boat all the way up the Rice River, the Pony River, and the Little River, and him not a big man, at that—two hundred and fifty miles, and how much farther I don't know. Going in with his grub it was easier, downstream work; but when he got to the Grand Forks of the Spirit, he went on up the Stanley. He was a strong-hearted man, whatever you may say. Nobody knew just where he ranged. He was secret as a clam. No traveler, no Indian, ever came upon his camp.”
“What a life!” murmured Ann.
“You're right,” agreed Cal. “What a life!”
“But you were his friend.”
“As much his friend as he would let me,” said Cal. “The fact was, he hadn't no use for any man. He'd tell us to our faces what he thought of us, and it wasn't complimentary; but nobody got sore, because he was Joe Grouser, see? He was thorough. Nothing ever suited him. The country, the weather, his luck, life itself—all rotten!”
There were tears in Ann's eyes.
“How unhappy he must have been!”
“Well, I don't know,” said Cal. “When he was grousing away, there was a sort of brightness in his eye. Certainly he got a satisfaction out of being different from everybody else.”
“What did he look like?” asked Ann.
“Nothing remarkable,” said Cal. “He was a smallish man with a mistrustful, wide open eye, like a bird's. Of late years he was somewhat withered up. He wore the batteredest felt hat in the country, and always had the stub of a clay pipe under his nose. When he came floating down the river, sitting on top of his bale of fur, he was all of a color with the dead logs of his raft. You had to look twice to see him at all.”
“And yet, in my village at home, they still tell what a handsome man he was when he courted my mother, and how full of life!”
“Ah, well, time plays the devil with us all,” said Cal, grinning; “specially the gamy ones.”
“How should I set about finding him?” asked Ann simply.
Cal looked grave.
“That's quite a job,” he said. “We'll talk it over again. First off I want to make some inquiries. There are some fellows here who come up from Spirit River Crossing. They'll know if he went down that way. I'll see you again this afternoon.”
Ann's heart beat fast. It was terribly hard for her to drop the matter, even for an hour or two, without having broached that which was far more to her than a father whom she had never seen.
“The man's eyes are keen,” she thought. “I must be careful!”
She ventured to say a little breathlessly:
“Shall I come to your house?”
“No, no,” said Cal quickly. “No fit place to receive a lady. I'll see you here.”
He bowed to her gallantly, and went to join the men outside.
(To be continued in the March number of Munsey's Magazine)