by Unknown
Gordon thought of Sheba O'Neill as she sat listening to the tales of Macdonald in Diane's parlor and his gorge rose at the man.
"But Mac had fell on his feet all right," continued Holt. "He got his start off that claim. Now he's a millionaire two or three times over, I reckon."
They reached the outskirts of Kamatlah about noon of the third day. Gordon left Holt at his cabin after they had eaten and went in alone to look the ground over. He met Selfridge at the post-office. That gentleman was effusive in his greeting.
"This is a pleasant surprise, Mr. Elliot. When did you get in? Had no idea you were coming or I'd have asked you for the pleasure of your company. I'm down on business, of course. No need to tell you that--nobody would come to this hole for any other reason. Howland and his wife are the only possible people here. Hope you play bridge."
Elliot played it, but he did not say so. It was his business not to be drawn into entangling alliances.
"Of course you'll put up with me as my guest," Selfridge flowed on. "I've wanted to meet you again ever since we were on the Hannah together."
This was a little too cheeky. Gordon recalled with some amusement how this tubby little man and his friends had ignored the existence of Sheba O'Neill and himself for several days.
He answered genially. "Pleasant time we had on the river, didn't we? Thanks awfully for your invitation, but I've already made arrangements for putting up."
"Where? There's no decent place in camp except at Howland's. He keeps open house for our friends."
"I couldn't think of troubling him," countered Gordon.
"No trouble at all. We'll send for your things. Where are they?"
The land agent let him have it right between the eyes. "At Gideon Holt's. I'm staying with him on his claim."
Wally had struck a match to light a cigarette, but this simple statement petrified him. His jaw dropped and his eyes bulged. Not till the flame burned his fingers did he come to life.
"Did you say you were staying--with Gid Holt?" he floundered weakly.
Gordon noticed that his florid face had lost its color. The jaunty cock-sureness of the man had flickered out like the flame of the charred match.
"Yes. He offered to board me," answered the young man blandly.
"But--I didn't know he was here--seems to me I had heard--somewhere--that he was away."
"He was away. But he has come back." Gordon gave the information without even a flash of mirth in his steady eyes.
Selfridge could not quite let the subject alone. "Seems to me I heard he went prospecting."
"He did. Up Wild-Goose Creek, with Big Bill Macy and two other men. But I asked him to come back with me--and he did."
Feebly Wally groped for the clue without finding it. Had Big Bill sold him out? And how had Elliot got into touch with him?
"Just so, Mr. Elliot. But really, you know, Howland can make you a great deal more comfortable than Holt. His wife is a famous cook. I'll have a man go get your traps."
"It's very good of you, but I think I won't move."
"Oh, but you must. Holt's nutty--nobody at home, you know. Everybody knows that."
"Is he? The old man struck me as being remarkably clear-headed. By the way, I want to thank you for sending a relief party out to find me, Mr. Selfridge. Except for your help I would have died in the hills."
This was another facer for Wally. What the devil did the fellow mean? The deuce of it was that he knew all the facts and Wally did not. He talked as if he meant it, but behind those cool eyes there might lie either mockery or irony. One thing alone stood out to Selfridge like a sore thumb. His plans had come tumbling down like a house of cards. Either Big Bill had blundered amazingly, or he had played traitor. In either case Wally could guess pretty shrewdly whose hide Macdonald would tan for the failure. The chief wanted results. He did not ask of his subordinates how they got them. And this was the second time in succession that Selfridge had come to grief.
CHAPTER XI
GORDON INVITES HIMSELF TO DINNER--AND DOES NOT ENJOY IT
Big Bill and his companions reached Kamatlah early next day. They reported at once to Selfridge. It had been the intention of Wally to vent upon them the bad temper that had been gathering ever since his talk with Elliot. But his first sarcastic question drew such a snarl of anger that he reconsidered. The men were both sullen and furious. They let him know roundly that if Holt made them any trouble through the courts, they would tell all they knew.
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 o
f 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 sure 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."
