Part 58

He stared out wistfully at the distant southern mountains, effulgent and glorified by the midnight sun which lay so close behind their crests, and I winked at Martin.

"She's left--"

"What!" He whirled quickly.

"--the theater, and I don't suppose you can see her until to-morrow."

Disappointment darkened his face.

"Besides," Kink added, gloomily, "when you quit her like a dog I slicked myself up some, and I ain't anyways sure she'll care to see you now--only jest as a friend of mine. Notice I've cut my whiskers, don't you?"

We made Monty pay for that instant's hesitation, the last he ever had, and then I said:

"You walk up the river trail for a quarter of a mile and wait. If I can persuade her to come out at this hour I'll send her to you. No, you couldn't find her. She's moved since you left."

"I wouldn't gamble none on her meetin' you," Martin said, discouragingly, and combed out his new-mown beard with ostentation.

She was up the moment I knocked, and when I said that a man needed help I heard her murmur sympathetically as she dressed. When we came to our tent I stopped her.

"He's up yonder a piece," said I. "You run along while I fetch Kink and the medicine-kit. We'll overtake you."

"Is it anything serious?"

"Yes, it's apt to be unless you hurry. He seems to think he needs you pretty badly."

And so she went up the river trail to where he was waiting, her way golden with the beams of the sun whose rim peeped at her over the far-off hills. And there, in the free, still air, among the virgin spruce, with the clean, sweet moss beneath their feet, they met. The good sun smiled broadly at them now, and the grim Yukon hurried past, chuckling under its banks and swiggering among the roots, while the song it sang was of spring and of long, bright days that had no night.

McGILL

The ice was running when McGill arrived. Had he been two hours later he might have fared badly, for the ramparts above Ophir choke the river down into a narrow chute through which it hurries, snarling, and the shore ice was widening at the rate of a foot an hour. Early in the day the recorder from Alder Creek had tried to come ashore, but had broken through, losing his skiff and saving his life by the sheer good luck that favors fools and drunken men. It was October; the last mail had gone out a fortnight previous; the wiseacres were laying odds that the river would be closed in three days, so it was close running that McGill made--six hundred miles in an open whip-sawed dory.

They heard him calling, once he saw the lights, and, getting down to the water-level, they could make out his boat crunching along through the thin ice at the outer edge. He was trying to force his way inward to a point where the current would not move him, but the Yukon spun him like a top, and it looked as if he would go past. Fortunately, however, there happened to be a man in the crowd who had learned tricks with a lariat back in Oklahoma; a line was put out, and McGill came ashore with his bedding under one arm and a sheet-iron stove under the other. Stoves were scarce that winter, and McGill was no tenderfoot.

They obtained their first good look at him when he lined up with the crowd at Hopper's bar, ten minutes later, by which time it was known who he was. He had a great big frame, with a great big face on top of it, and, judging from his reputation, he had a great big heart to match them both. Some of the late-comers recalled a tale of how he had lifted the gunwales out of a poling-boat that was wedged in a timber-jam above White Horse, and from the looks of his massive hands and shoulders the tale seemed true. He was not handsome--few strong men are--but he had level, blue eyes, rather small and deep set, and a jaw that made people think twice before angering him, while his voice carried the rumbling bass note one hears at the edge of a spring freshet when the boulders are shifting.

"I missed the last boat from Circle," he explained, "so I took a chance with the skiff."

"Looks like you'd be the last arrival before the trails open," offered Hopper. "I don't guess there's nobody behind you?"

"I didn't pass anybody," said McGill, and it was plain from his smile that he had made good time.

"Aim to winter here, Dan?"

"I do. Minook told me, four summers ago, that he'd found a prospect near here, and I've always figgered on putting some holes down. But it looks like I'm late."

"Oh, there's plenty of ground open. You've got as good a chance as the balance of us."

"Any grub in camp?"

"Nope. Ophir was struck too late in the fall."

McGill laughed. "I didn't think there would be; but that's nothing new."

"Didn't you bring none?"