The Caucasian. (Clinton, N.C.) 188?-1913, 1911-11-09
CHAPTER vi.

II was held by the thousands oil
aero worshipping chechaquos that Day
light was a man absolutely without
fear But BEETLES and Dan Macdonald
and other sourtoughs shook their
heads and laughed as they mentioned
women. And they were right. lie had
always been afraid Of them from the
time. himself lad of seventeen, when
Queen Anne. OF Juneau. made open
and ridiculous love 10 him. For that
matter. he never had known women
Born In a mining-camp where they
were rare and mysterious. having no
sisters. his mother dying while he was
an infant, he had never been In con-
1act with them.
But 1t was left to the Virgin TO give
MIN his fnal fright. She was found
one morning dead In her cabin. A
shot through the head had done Il.
and she had left no message. no ex-
PLANTATION. Then came the talk Some
Wit. yoicing public opinion. called 1t O
case OF too much Daylight. She had
killed herself because OF him. Every
body knew this. and said 30. The cor
respondents wrote IT up. and once
more Burning Daylight. King OF the
Klondike. was sensationally featured
In the Sunday supplements of the
United States. The Virgin had
Strengthened up, 80 the feature-stories
ran, and correctly so. Never had she
entered q Dawson City dance-hall
When she first arrived from Circle
CITY, she had earned her living by
washing clothes. Next. she had bought
. sewing-machine and made mems
drill parkas. fur caps, and moosehide
mittens. Then she had gone as a clerk
into the First Yukon Bank. All this,
and more. was known and told, though
one and all were agreed that Day
light while the cause, had been the
Snnocent cause Of her untimely end.
And the worst Of 1t was that Day
light knew It was true. Always would
20 remember that last night he had
ween her. He had thought nothing OF
% at the time; but. looking back, he
was haunted by every little thing that
mad happened. In the light of the
tragic event, he could understand
everything-her quietness, that calm
gertrude as II all vexing questions OF
living had been smoothed ovt and
were gone, and that certain ethereal
sweetness about all that she had said
and done that had been almost mater
nal. He remembered the way she had
looked at him, how she had laughed
when he narrated Mickey Dolan's mis-
rake in stalking the fraction on Shook
fum Gulch. Her laughter had been
Nightly joyous, while at the same time
1t had lacked its old-time robustness.
Not that she had been grave or sub
dued. On the contrary she had been
30 patiently content, so flied with
peace. She had fooled him, fool that
he was. He had even thought that
might that her feeling for him had
passed, and he had taken delight in
the thought. and caught visions Of the
satisfying future friendship that would
DE theirs with this perturbing love
Tout of the way.
And then, when he stood at the
door, cap in hand. and said good night.
1t had struck him at the time as a
pending over his hand and kissing it
He had felt like fool, but he shivered
now when he looked back on 1t and
felt again the touch of her lips on his
hand. She was saying good-by, an
eternal good-by, and he~had never
guessed. At that very moment, and
for all the moments of the evening.
coolly and deliberately, as he well
knew her way, she had been resolved
20 die. II he had only known 1t! Un-
touched by the contagious malady
himself, nevertheless he would have
married her II he had had the slight
est inkling Of what she contemplated.
And yet he knew, furthermore, that
hers was a certain stiff-kneed pride
that would not have permitted her to
accept marriage as an act OF philan-
thropy. There had really been no saw
Ing her. after all. The lovedisease
mad fastened upon her, and she had
been doomed from the first to perish
of it.
Six thousand spent the winter OF
1897 in Dawson. work on the creeks
went on apace, while beyond the pass-
as 1t was reported that one hundred
Thousand more We're waiting for the
spring. Late one brief afternoon, Day
light, on the benches between French
Hill and Shookum Hill, caught q Wild
er vision OF things. Beneath him lay
the richest part Of Eldorado Creek.
while up and down Bonanza he could
see for miles. It was a scene OF a
vast devastation. The hills, to their
tops, had been shorn OF trees, and
their naked sides showed signs of gor-
Ing and perforating that even the
mantle OF snow could not hide. Be
meath him, in every direction. were
the cabins of men. But not many
men were visible. A blanket of smoke
allied the valleys and turned the gray
day to melancholy twilight Smoke
arose from a thousand holes In the
snow where. deep down on bedrock