The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1903-08-07


nearly 20 years his junior, but what
did that matter? Her people had
been rich and proud, and now,
through recent financial disasters,
they were poor and pr ouder, but
what did all that matter either? He
loved her, and cared for nothing else
if she could only love him.
He had been impelled to tell her
so; for his ingrained hardness and
self-restraint had failed him at the
first touch of this bewildering pas
sion that, SO long a-coming, subdued
him utterly at last. She heard him
with pity in her eyes, but not love;
and she told him, with only pity in
her tones, that the man she loved was
him.
Later, he learned the story that lay
behind her words, and saw more hope
in it for himself than she had given
him, for surely his living love of her
could, in due time, win her away
from the memory of a dead rival.
Beginning to tiatter himself that she
was already relenting toward him, he
had appealed to her again before he
last left home, and she had seemed
to waver-she silenced him trem-
ulously and had seemed to hesitate;
and feeling that each new day put a
new barrier between her and her
past and removed one from betwixt
himself and her, he would not take
her answer then, but begged her to
think of all it must mean to him and
let him ask her for it, once for all,
when he came from his next voyage.
He was speeding homeward now,
and the letter was to prepare her for
his coming.
He wrote it with so many pauses
for reflection that by ten o'clock it
was still unfinished when, mindful of
his patient, he relocked it in his desk.
No. 16 was awake, but drowsy with
sheer weakness.
1.-The chests still troublesome" he
answered, with feeble cheerfulness,
''but I'm trifie better, thanks"
The doctor was not so sure of that.
We've got to keep your strength
up somehow" he said; adding to the
steward, Get some beef tea for him,
Barrow. I'll stay here while you're
gone"
The dim, stuffy little cabin was 81
lent for awhile, except for the la
bored respiration of the sick man,
who presently, becoming aware of
the doctors ruminant scrutiny,
reused himself to speak.
IF / don't pull through this, doc
tor
Don't worry about that; you WILL
But if | don't-Pm not afraid of
dying. I've been near it too often for
that; and yet, now, it seems harder
than it ever did before"
You'd better not talk. 1 don't
want you to excite yourself"
'Not me! What l mean is, it would
be hard luck to die on the way home.
I've been away nearly nine years. /
went away as poor as rat, and I'm
going back rich. That's something,
isn't it?"
Its great deal"
''To me it is. I didn't go out just
because I'd got the gold fever. \
It's out to the Klondike I've been,
doctor; away beyond Dawson City,
up the Yukon-Lord! it's the kind of
country you see in nightmares. I've
been seeing it over and over in night
mares ever since I've been ill"
Don't think of it"
81 wish l Couldn't" He laughed,
but there was a feverish brightness
in his eyes, and his voice quavered
with suppressed excitement. 81
haven't had time to think of it till
now"
He went on talking, and Walden lis
tened absently, with strange doubts
troubling his mind; and, so listening,
he half-unconsciously fashioned from
the others words visions of vast
snow wastes stretching into the night
or the day, now silent and lonely as
death, now blurred, and whirling and
bowling with the fury of storm,
and, always deep in the desolation of
it, a desperate little band of adven-
turers struggled forlornly, chasing a
dream, starving, and falling, and dy-
ing, some of them, in the track of it,;
and here, at last, with the unimag-
Unable terrors of that bleak wilder
ness left behind him, one of the few
survivors had emerged triumphant,
with his dream realized.
Triumphant, so far.
The doctor eyed him gloomily from
under a frown.
''And I'm not dead yet, though I'm
supposed to be-" the other chuckled
grimly. "One everlasting, terrible
winter we were showed up miles
away from anywhere, and we were
put down as done for. The wonder
is that we were not. Only two of
us managed to worry through, and
we wandered Heaven only knows
where, and we Iived-well, we didn't
live. But we worried through-and
I'm going home" His eyes closed
and he rambled on dreamily: "Nine
years, but she'll be waiting. 1 told
her that it wouldn't be more than
two-and she said, It's till you come,
Ned; and if you never come l shall
wait, till 1 meet you, at the end
He Law quiet minute, and then