The Trail of 98 (22 page)

"Now," she echoed, her eyes wide with surprise.

"Yes, right away, dear. There's nothing to prevent us. Berna, I love you, I
want you, I need you. I'm just distracted, dear. I never know a moment's peace.
I cannot take an interest in anything. When I speak to others I'm thinking of
you, you all the time. O, I can't bear it, dearest; have pity on me: marry me
now."

In an agony of suspense I waited for her answer. For a long time she sat
there, thoughtful and quiet, her eyes cast down. At last she raised them to
me.

"You said one year."

"Yes, but I was sorry afterwards. I want you now. I can't wait."

She looked at me gravely. Her voice was very soft, very tender.

"I think it better we should wait, dear. This is a blind, sudden desire on
your part. I mustn't take advantage
of it. You pity me, fear for me, and you have known so few
other girls. It's generosity, chivalry, not love for poor little me. O, we
mustn't, we mustn't. And thenyou might change."

"Change! I'll never, never change," I pleaded. "I'll always be yours,
absolutely, wholly yours, little girl; body and soul, to make or to mar, for
ever and ever and ever."

"Well, it seems so sudden, so burning, so intense, your love, dear. I'm
afraid, I'm afraid. Maybe it's not the kind that lasts. Maybe you'll tire. I'm
not worth it, indeed I'm not. I'm only a poor ignorant girl. If there were
others near, you would never think of me."

"Berna," I said, "if you were among a thousand, and they were the most
adorable in all the world, I would pass over them all and turn with joy and
gratitude to you. Then, if I were an Emperor on a throne, and you the humblest
in all that throng, I would raise you up beside me and call you 'Queen.'"

"Ah, no," she said sadly, "you were wise once. I saw it afterwards. Better
wait one year."

"Oh, my dearest," I reproached her, "once you offered yourself to me under
any conditions. Why have you changed?"

"I don't know. I'm bitterly ashamed of that. Never speak of it again."

She went on very quietly, full of gentle patience.

"You know, I've been thinking a great deal since then. In the long, long days
and longer nights, when
I waited here in misery, hoping always you would come to me, I
had time to reflect, to weight your words. I remember them all: 'love that means
life and death, that great dazzling light, that passion that would raise to
heaven or drag to hell.' You have awakened the woman in me; I must have a love
like that."

"You have, my precious; you have, indeed."

"Well, then, let me have time to test it. This is June. Next June, if you
have not made up your mind you were foolish, blind, hasty, I will give myself to
you with all the love in the world."

"Perhaps
you
will change."

She smiled a peculiar little smile.

"Never, never fear that. I will be waiting for you, longing for you, loving
you more and more every day."

I was bitterly cast down, crestfallen, numbed with the blow of her
refusal.

"Just now," she said, "I would only be a drag on you. I believe in you. I
have faith in you. I want to see you go out and mix in the battle of life. I
know you will win. For my sake, dear, win. I would handicap you just now. There
are all kinds of chances. Let us wait, boy, just a year."

I saw the pathetic wisdom of her words.

"I know you fear something will happen to me. No! I think I will be quite
safe. I can withstand him. After a while he will leave me alone. And if it
should come to the worst I can call on you. You mustn't go too far away. I will
die rather than let
him
lay a hand on me. Till next June, dear, not a day longer. We will both be the
better for the wait."

I bowed my head. "Very well," I said huskily; "and what will I do in the
meantime?"

"Do! Do what you would have done otherwise. Do not let a woman divert the
current of your life; let her swim with it. Go out on the creeks! Work! It will
be better for you to go away. It will make it easier for me. Here we will both
torture each other. I, too, will work and live quietly, and long for you. The
time will pass quickly. You will come and see me sometimes?"

"Yes," I answered. My voice choked with emotion.

"Now we must go home," she said; "I'm afraid they will be back."

She rose, and I followed her down the narrow trail. Once or twice she turned
and gave me a bright, tender look. I worshipped her more than ever. Was there
ever maid more sweet, more gentle, more quick with anxious love? "Bless her, O
bless her," I sighed. "Whatever comes, may she be happy." I adored her, but a
great sadness filled my heart, and never a word I spoke.

We reached the cabin, and on the threshold she paused. The others had not yet
returned. She held out both hands to me, and her eyes were glittering with
tears.

"Be brave, my dearest; it's all for my sakeif you love me."

"I love you, my
darling; anything for your sake. I'll go to-morrow."

"We're betrothed now, aren't we, dearest?"

"We're betrothed, my love."

She swayed to me and seemed to fit into my arms as a sword fits into its
sheath. My lips lay on hers, and I kissed her with a passionate joy. She took my
face between her hands and gazed at me long and earnestly.

"I love you, I love you," she murmured; "next June, my darling, next
June."

Then she gently slipped away from me, and I was gazing blankly at the closed
door.

"Next June," I heard a voice echo; and there, looking at me with a smile, was
Locasto.

It comes like a violent jar to be awakened so rudely from a trance of love,
to turn suddenly from the one you care for most in all the world, and behold the
one you have best reason to hate. Nevertheless, it is not in human nature to
descend rocket-wise from the ethereal heights of love. I was still in an exalted
state of mind when I turned and confronted Locasto. Hate was far from my heart,
and when I saw the man himself was regarding me with no particular
unfriendliness, I was disposed to put aside for the moment all feelings of
enmity. The generosity of the victor glowed within me.

As he advanced to me his manner was almost urbane in its geniality.

"You must forgive me," he said, not without dignity, "for overhearing you;
but by chance I was passing and dropped upon you before I realised it."

He extended his hand frankly.

"I trust my congratulations on your good luck will not be entirely obnoxious.
I know that my conduct in this affair cannot have impressed you in a very
favourable light; but I am a badly beaten man. Can't you be generous and let
by-gones be by-gones? Won't you?"

I had not yet come down to earth. I was still
soaring in the rarefied heights of love, and
inclined to a general amnesty towards my enemies.

As he stood there, quiet and compelling, there was an assumption of frankness
and honesty about this man that it was hard to withstand. For the nonce I was
persuaded of his sincerity, and weakly I surrendered my hand. His grip made me
wince.

"Yes, again I congratulate you. I know and admire her. They don't make them
any better. She's pure gold. She's a little queen, and the man she cares for
ought to be proud and happy. Now, I'm a man of the world, I'm cynical about
woman as a rule. I respect my mother and my sistersbeyond that" He shrugged
his shoulders expressively.

"But this girl's different. I always felt in her presence as I used to feel
twenty-five years ago when I was a youth, with all my ideals untarnished, my
heart pure, and woman holy in my sight."

He sighed.

"You know, young man, I've never told it to a soul before, but I'd give all
I'm wortha clear millionto have those days back. I've never been happy
since."

He drew away quickly from the verge of sentiment.

"Well, you mustn't mind me taking an interest in your sweetheart. I'm old
enough to be her father, you know, and she touches me strangely. Now, don't
distrust me. I want to be a friend to you both. I want to help you to be happy.
Jack Locasto's not such a bad lot, as you'll find when you know him. Is
there anything I can do
for you? What are you going to do in this country?"

"I don't quite know yet," I said. "I hope to stake a good claim when the
chance comes. Meantime I'm going to get work on the creeks."

"You are?" he said thoughtfully; "do you know any one?"

"No."

"Well, I'll tell you what: I've got laymen working on my Eldorado claim; I'll
give you a note to them if you like."

I thanked him.

"Oh, that's all right," he said. "I'm sorry I played such a mean part in the
past, and I'll do anything in my power to straighten things out. Believe me, I
mean it. Your English friend gave me the worst drubbing of my life, but three
days after I went round and shook hands with him. Fine fellow that. We opened a
case of wine to celebrate the victory. Oh, we're good friends now. I always own
up when I'm beaten, and I never bear ill-will. If I can help you in any way, and
hasten your marriage to that little girl there, well, you can just bank on Jack
Locasto: that's all."

I must say the man could be most conciliating when he chose. There was a
gravity in his manner, a suave courtesy in his tone, the heritage of his Spanish
forefathers, that convinced me almost in spite of my better judgment. No doubt
he was magnetic, dominating, a master of men. I thought: there are two Locastos,
the primordial one, the Indian, who had assaulted
me; and the dignified genial one, the Spaniard, who
was willing to own defeat and make amends. Why should I not take him as I found
him?

So, as he talked entertainingly to me, my fears were dissipated, my
suspicions lulled. And when we parted we shook hands cordially.

"Don't forget," he said; "if you want help bank on me. I mean it now, I mean
it."

'Twas early in the bright and cool of the morning when we started for
Eldorado, Jim and I. I had a letter from Locasto to Ribwood and Hoofman, the
laymen, and I showed it to Jim. He frowned.

"You don't mean to say you've palled up with that devil," he said.

"Oh, he's not so bad," I expostulated. "He came to me like a man and offered
me his hand in friendship. Said he was ashamed of himself. What could I do? I've
no reason to doubt his sincerity."

"Sincerity be danged. He's about as sincere as a tame rattlesnake. Put his
letter in the creek."

But no! I refused to listen to the old man.

"Well, go your own gait," he said; "but don't say that I didn't warn
you."

We had crossed over the Klondike to its left limit, and were on a hillside
trail beaten down by the feet of miners and packers. Cabins clustered on the
flat, and from them plumes of violet smoke mounted into the golden air. Already
the camp was astir. Men were chopping their wood, carrying their water. The
long, long day was beginning.

Following the trail,
we struck up Bonanza, a small muddy stream in a narrow valley. Down in the
creek-bed we could see ever-increasing signs of an intense mining activity. On
every claim were dozens of cabins, and many high cones of greyish muck. We saw
men standing on raised platforms turning windlasses. We saw buckets come up
filled with the same dark grey dirt, to be dumped over the edge of the platform.
Sometimes, where the dump had gradually arisen around man and windlass, the
platform in the centre of that dark-greyish cone was twenty feet high.

Every mile the dumps grew more numerous, till some claims seemed covered with
them. Looking down from the trail, they were like innumerable anthills blocking
up the narrow channel, and around them swarmed the little ant-men in
never-resting activity. The golden valley opened out to us in a vista of green
curves, and the cleft of it was packed with tents, cabins, dumps and tailing
piles, all bedded in a blue haze of wood fires.

"Look at that great centipede striding across the valley," I said.

"Yes," said Jim, "it's a long line of sluice-boxes. See the water a-shinin'
in the sun. Looks like some big golden-backed caterpillar."

The little ants were shovelling into it from one of their heaps, and from
that point it swirled on into the stream, a current of mud and stone.

"Seems to me that stream would wash away all the gold," I said. "I know it's
all caught in the riffles, but I think if that dump was mine I would want
sluice-boxes
a mile
long and about sixteen hundred riffles. But I guess they know what they are
doing."

About noon we descended into the creek-bed and came to the Forks. It was a
little town, a Dawson in miniature, with all its sordid aspects infinitely
accentuated. It had dance-halls, gambling dens and many saloons: every
convenience to ease the miner of the plethoric poke. There in the din and daze
and dirt we tarried awhile; then, after eating heartily, we struck up
Eldorado.

Here was the same feverish activity of gold-getting. Every claim was valued
at millions, and men who had rarely owned enough to buy a decent coat were
crying in the saloons because life was not long enough to allow them to spend
their sudden wealth. Nevertheless, they were making a good stab at it. At the
Forks I enquired regarding Ribwood and Hoofman: "Goin' to work for them, are
you? Well, they've got a blamed hard name. If you get a job elsewhere, don't
turn it down."

Jim left me; he would work on no claim of Locasto's, he said. He had a
friend, a layman, who was a good man, belonged to the Army. He would try him. So
we parted.

Ribwood was a tall, gaunt Cornishman, with a narrow, jutting face and a
gloomy air; Hoofman, a burly, beet-coloured Australian with a bulging
stomach.

"Yes, we'll put you to work," said Hoofman, reading the letter. "Get your
coat off and shovel in."

So, right away, I found myself in the dump-pile, jamming a shovel into the
pay-dirt and swinging it
into a sluice-box five feet higher than my head. Keeping at
this hour after hour was no fun, and if ever a man desisted for a moment the
hard eyes of Hoofman were upon him, and the gloomy Ribwood had snatched up a
shovel and was throwing in the muck furiously.