The little man became alarmed. Instead of reproaches he gave them soft words and promises. The company would see them through. It would protect them against criminal procedure. But above all they must stand pat in denial. A conviction would be impossible even if the State's attorney filed an indictment against them. Meanwhile they would remain on the company pay-roll.
Gordon Elliot was a trained investigator. Even without Holt at his side he would probably have unearthed the truth about the Kamatlah situation. But with the little miner by his side to tell him the facts, he found his task an easy one.
Selfridge followed orders and let him talk with the men freely. All of them had been drilled till they knew their story like parrots. They were suspicious of the approaches of Elliot, but they had been warned that they must appear to talk candidly. The result was that some talked too much and some not enough. They contradicted themselves and one another. They let slip admissions under skillful examination that could be explained on no other basis than that of company ownership.
Both Selfridge and Howland outdid themselves in efforts to establish close social relations. But Gordon was careful to put himself under no obligations. He called on the Howlands, but he laughingly explained why he could not accept the invitations of Mrs. Howland to dinner.
"I have to tell things here as I see them, and may not have your point of view. How can I accept your hospitality and then report that I think your husband ought to be sent up for life?"
She was a good, motherly woman and she laughed with him. But she did wish this pleasant young fellow could be made to take the proper view of things.
Within two weeks Elliot had finished his work at Kamatlah.
"Off for Kusiak to-morrow," he told Holt that night.
The old miner went with him as a guide to the big bend. Gordon had no desire to attempt again Fifty-Mile Swamp without the help of some one who knew every foot of the trail. Holt had taken the trip a dozen times. With him to show the way the swamp became merely a hard, grueling mush through boggy lowlands.
Weary with the trail, they reached the river at the end of a long day. An Indian village lay sprawled along the bank, and through this the two men tramped to the roadhouse where they were to put up for the night.
Holt called to the younger man, who was at the time in the lead.
"Wait a minute, Elliot."
Gordon turned. The old Alaskan was offering a quarter to a little half-naked Indian boy. Shyly the four-year-old came forward, a step at a time, his finger in his mouth. He held out a brown hand for the coin.
"What's your name, kid?" Holt flashed a look at Elliot that warned him to pay attention.
"Colmac," the boy answered bashfully.
His fist closed on the quarter, he turned, and like a startled caribou he fled to a comely young Indian woman standing near the trail.
With gleaming eyes Holt turned to Elliot. "Take a good look at the squaw," he said in a low voice.
Elliot glanced at the woman behind whose skirts the youngster was hiding. He smiled and nodded pleasantly to her.
"She's not bad looking if that's what you mean," he said after they had taken up the trail again.
"You ain't the only white man that has thought that," retorted the old miner significantly.
"No?" Gordon had learned to let Holt tell things at his leisure. It usually took less time than to try to hurry him.
"Name of the kid mean anything to you?"
"Can't say it did."
"Hm! Named for his dad. First syllable of each of his names."
The land inspector stopped in his stride and wheeled upon Holt. His eyes asked eagerly a question. "You don't mean Colby Macdonald?"
"Why don't I?"
"But—Good Lord, he isn't a squawman, is he?"
"Not in the usual meaning of the word. She never cooked and kept house for him. Just the same, little Colmac is his kid. Couldn't you see it sticking out all over him? He's the spit'n' image of his dad."
"I see it now you've pointed it out. I was trying to think who he reminded me of. Of course it was Macdonald."
"Mac met up with Meteetse when he first scouted this country for coal five years ago. So far's I know he was square enough with the girl. She never claimed he made any promises or anything like that. He sends a check down once a quarter to the trader here for her and the kid."
But young Elliot was not thinking about Meteetse. His mind's eye saw another picture—the girl at Kusiak, listening spellbound to the tales of a man whose actions translated romance into life for her, a girl swept from the quiet backwaters of an Irish village to this land of the midnight sun with its amazing contrasts.
And all the way up on the boat she continued to fill his mind. The slowness of the steamer fretted him. He paced up and down the deck for hours at a time worried and anxious. Sometimes the jealousy in his heart flamed up like a prairie fire when it comes to a brush heap. The outrage of it set him blazing with indignation. Diane ought to be whipped, he told himself, for her part in the deception. It was no less than a conspiracy. What could an innocent young girl like Sheba know of such a man as Colby Macdonald? Her imagination conceived, no doubt, an idealized vision of him. But the real man was clear outside her ken.
Gordon set his jaw grimly. He would have it out with Diane. He would let her see she was not going to have it all her own way. By God, he would put a spoke in her wheel.
Sometimes, when the cool, evening breezes blew on his bare, fevered head, he laughed at himself for an idiot. How did he know that Macdonald wanted Sheba O'Neill. All the evidence he had was that he had once seen the man watch her while she sang a sentimental song. Whereas it was common talk that he would probably marry Mrs. Mallory, that for months he had been her almost daily companion. If the older woman had lost the sweet, supple slimness of her first youth, she had won in exchange a sophisticated grace, a seductive allure that made her the envy of all the women with whom she associated. She held at command a warm, languorous charm which had stirred banked fires in the hearts of many men. Why should not Macdonald woo her? Gordon himself admitted her attractiveness.
And why should he take it for granted that Sheba was ready to drop into the arms of the big Alaskan whenever he said the word? At the least he was twenty years older than she. Surely she might admire him without falling in love with the man. Was there not something almost insulting in the supposition that Macdonald had only to speak to her in order to win?
But in spite of reason he was on fire to come to his journey's end. No sooner had he reached his hotel than he called up Mrs. Paget. Quite clearly she understood that he wanted an invitation to dinner. Yet she hesitated.
"My 'phone can't be working well," Gordon told her gayly. "You must have asked me to dinner, but I didn't just hear it. Never mind. I'll be there. Seven o'clock, did you say?"
Diane laughed. "You're just as much a boy as you were ten years ago, Gord. All right. Come along. But you're to leave at ten. Do you understand?"
"No, I can't hear that. My 'phone has gone bad again. And if I had heard, I shouldn't think of doing anything so ridiculous as leaving at that hour. It would be an insult to your hospitality. I know when I'm well off."
"Then I'll have to withdraw my invitation. Perhaps some other day—"
"I'll leave at ten," promised Elliot meekly.
He could almost hear the smile in her voice as she answered. "Very well. Seven sharp. I'll explain about the curfew limit sometime."
Macdonald was with Miss O'Neill in the living-room when Gordon arrived at the Paget home.
Sheba came forward to greet the new guest. The welcome in her eyes was very genuine.
"You and Mr. Macdonald know each other, of course," she said after her handshake.
The Scotchman nodded his lean, grizzled head, looking straight into the eyes of the field agent. There was always a certain deliberation about his manner, but it was the slowness of strength and not of weakness.
"Yes, I know Mr. Elliot—now. I'm not so s
ure that he knows me—yet."
"I'm beginning to know you rather well, Mr. Macdonald," answered Gordon quietly, but with a very steady look.
If the Alaskan wanted to declare war he was ready for it. The field agent knew that Selfridge had sent reports detailing what had happened at Kamatlah. Up to date Macdonald had offered him the velvet glove. He wondered if the time had come when the fist of steel was to be doubled.
Paget was frankly pleased to see Gordon again. He was a simple, honest man who moved always in a straight line. He had liked Elliot as a boy and he still liked him. So did Diane, for that matter, but she was a little on her guard against him. She had certain plans under way that she intended to put through. She was not going to let even Gordon Elliot frustrate them.
"Did you have a successful trip, Mr. Elliot?" asked Sheba innocently.
Paget grinned behind his hand. The girl's question was like a match to powder, and every one in the room knew it but she. The engineer's interests and his convictions were on the side of Macdonald, but he recognized that Elliot had been sent in to gather facts for the Government and not to give advice to it. If he played fair, he could only tell the truth as he saw it.
The eyes of Diane held a spark of hostility as she leaned forward. The word had already been passed among the faithful that this young man was not taking the right point of view.
"Did you, Gordon?" echoed his hostess.
"I think so," he answered quietly.
"I hear you put up with old Gideon Holt. Is he as cracked as he used to be?" asked Macdonald.
"Was he cracked when you used to know him on Frenchman Creek?" countered the young man.
Macdonald shot a quick, slant look at him. The old man had been talking, had he?
"He was cracked and broke too," laughed the mine-owner hardily. "Cracked when he came, broke when he left."
"Yes, that was one of the stories he told me." Gordon turned to Sheba. "You should meet the old man, Miss O'Neill. He knew your father at Dawson and on Bonanza."
The girl was all eagerness. "I'd like to. Does he ever come to Kusiak?"
"Nonsense!" cut in Diane sharply. She flashed at Gordon a look of annoyance. "He's nothing but a daft old idiot, my dear."
The dinner had started wrong, and though Paget steered the conversation to safer ground, it did not go very well. At least three of those present were a little on edge. Even Sheba, who had missed entirely the point of the veiled thrusts, knew that Elliot was not in harmony with either Diane or Macdonald.
Gordon was ashamed of himself. He could not quite have told what were the impulses that had moved him to carry the war into the camp of the enemy. Perhaps, more than anything else, it had been a certain look of quiet assurance in the eyes of his rival when he looked at Sheba.
He rose promptly at ten.
"Must you go so soon?" Diane asked. She was smiling at him with bland mockery.
"I really must," answered Elliot.
His hostess followed him into the hall. She watched him get into his coat before saying what was on her mind.
"What did you mean by telling Sheba that old Holt knew her father? What is he to tell her if they meet—that her father died of pneumonia brought on by drink? Is that what you want?"
Gordon was honestly contrite. "I didn't think of that."
"No, you were too busy thinking of something mean to say to Mr. Macdonald."
He agreed, yet could not forbear one dig more. "I suppose I wanted Holt to tell her that Macdonald robbed her father and indirectly was the cause of his death."
"Absurd!" exploded Diane. "You're so simple that you accept as true the gossip of every crack-brained idiot—when it suits your purpose."
He smiled, boyishly, engagingly, as he held out his hand. "Don't let's quarrel, Di. I admit I forgot myself."
"All right. We won't. But don't believe all the catty talk you hear, Gordon."
"I'll try to believe only the truth." He smiled, a little ruefully. "And it isn't necessary for you to explain why the curfew law applies to me and not to Macdonald."
She was on her dignity at once. "You're quite right. It isn't necessary. But I'm going to tell you anyhow. Mr. Macdonald is going away to-morrow for two or three days and he has some business he wants to talk over with Sheba. He had made an appointment with her, and I didn't think it fair to let your coming interfere with it."
Gordon took this facer with his smile still working.
"I've got a little business I want to talk over with you, Di."
She had always been a young woman of rather a hard finish. Now she met him fairly, eye to eye. "Any time you like, Gordon."
Elliot carried away with him one very definite impression. Diane intended Sheba to marry Macdonald if she could bring it about. She had as good as served notice on him that the girl was spoken for.
The young man set his square jaw. Diane was used to having her own way. So was Macdonald. Well, the Elliots had a will of their own too.
CHAPTER XII
SHEBA SAYS "PERHAPS"
Obeying the orders of the general in command, Peter took himself to his den with the excuse that he had blue-prints to work over. Presently Diane said she thought she heard one of the children crying and left to investigate.
The Scotchman strode to the fireplace and stood looking down into the glowing coals. He seemed in no hurry to break the silence and Sheba glanced at his strong, brooding face a little apprehensively. Her excitement showed in the color that was beating into her cheeks. She knew of only one subject that would call for so formal a private talk between her and Macdonald, and any discussion of this she would very much have liked to postpone.
He turned from the fire to Sheba. It was characteristic of him that he plunged straight at what he wanted to say.
"I've asked to see you alone, Miss O'Neill, because I want to make a confession and restitution—to begin with," he told her abruptly.
She had a sense of suddenly stilled pulses. "That sounds very serious." The young woman smiled faintly.
His face of chiseled granite masked all emotion. It kept under lock and key the insurgent impulses that moved him when he looked into the sloe eyes charged with reserve. Back of them, he felt, was the mystery of purity, of maidenhood. He longed to know her better, to find out and to appropriate for himself the woman that lay behind the fine veil of flesh. She seemed to him delicate as a flame and as vivid. There would come a day when her innocent, passional nature would respond to the love of a man as a waiting harp does to skillful fingers.
"My story goes away back to the Klondike days. I told you that I knew your father on Frenchman Creek, but I didn't say much about knowing him on Bonanza."
"Mr. Strong has told me something about the days on Bonanza, and I knew you would tell me more some day—when you wanted to speak about it." She was seated in a low chair and the white throat lifted toward him was round as that of a bird.
"Your father was among the first of those who stampeded to Bonanza. He and Strong took up a claim together. I bought out the interest of your father."
"You told me that."
His masterful eyes fastened to hers. "I didn't tell you that I took advantage of him. He was—not well. I used that against him in the bargaining. He wanted ready money, and I tempted him."
"Do you mean that you—wronged him?"
"Yes. I cheated him." He was resolved to gloss over nothing, to offer no excuses. "I didn't know there was gold on his claim, but I had what we call a hunch. I took his claim without giving value received."
It was her turn now to look into the fire and think. From the letters of her father, from talks with old-timers she knew how in the stampedes every man's hand had been for himself, how keen-edged had been the passion for gold, a veritable lust that corroded the souls of men.
"But—I don't understand." Her brave, steady eyes looked directly into those of Macdonald. "If he felt you had—done him a wrong—why did he come to you when he was ill?"
"He was coming to dem
and justice of me. On the way he suffered exposure and caught pneumonia. The word reached us, and Strong and I brought him to our cabin."
"You faced a blizzard to bring him in. Mr. Strong told me how you risked your life by carrying him through the storm—how you wouldn't give up and leave him, though you were weak and staggering yourself. He says it was a miracle you ever got through."
The big mine-owner brushed this aside as of no importance. "We don't leave sick men to die in a blizzard up North. But that's not the point."
"I think it has a bearing on the matter—that you saved him from the blizzard—and took him in—and nursed him like a brother till he died."
"I'm not heartless," said Macdonald impatiently. "Of course I did that. I had to do it. I couldn't do less."
"Or more," she suggested. "You may have made a hard bargain with him, but you wiped that out later."
"That's just what I didn't do. Don't think my conscience is troubling me. I'm not such a mush-brained fool. If it had not been for you I would never have thought of it again. But you are his daughter. What I cheated him out of belongs to you—and you are my friend."
"Don't use that word about what you did, please. He wasn't a child. If you got the best of him in a bargain, I don't think father would think of it that way."
The difficulty was that he could not tell her the truth about her father's weakness for drink and how he had played upon it. He bridged all explanations and passed to the thing he meant to do in reparation.
"The money I cleaned up from that claim belongs to you, Miss O'Neill. You will oblige me by taking it."
From his pocket he took a folded paper and handed it to her. Sheba opened it doubtfully. The paper contained a typewritten statement and to it was attached a check by means of a clip. The check was made out to her and signed by Colby Macdonald. The amount it called for was one hundred and eighty-three thousand four hundred and thirty-one dollars.
"Oh, I couldn't take this, Mr. Macdonald—I couldn't. It doesn't belong to me," she cried.
The Yukon Trail Page 9
