Part 32 (1/2)

”The chances are against it,” said Austerly. ”It is a long way to St.

Michael's, and one understands that those northern waters are either wrapped in fog or swept by sudden gales. Besides that, it must be a tremendous march or canoe trip inland, and before they reach the gold region the summer will be over. One would scarcely fancy that many of them could live out the winter. In fact, it seems to me scarcely probable that the Yukon basin will ever become a mining district.

Nature is apparently too much for the white man there. What is your opinion, Jordan?”

Jordan smiled, though there was a snap in his eyes.

”It seems to me you don't quite understand what kind of men we raise on the Slope,” he said. ”Once it's made clear that the gold is there, there's no snow and ice between St. Michael's and the Pole that would stop their getting in. When they take the trail those men will go right on in spite of everything. You have heard what their fathers did here in British Columbia when there was gold in Caribou? They hadn't the C.P.R.

then to take them up the Fraser, and there wasn't a wagon-road. They made a trail through the wildest canons there are on this earth, and blazed a way afterward, over range and through the rivers, across the trackless wilderness. It was too big a contract for some of them, but they stayed with it, going on until they died. The others got the gold.

It was a sure thing that they would get it. They had to.”

”Just so!” said Austerly, with a smile. ”Still, if I remember correctly, they were not all born on the Pacific Slope. Some of them, I almost think, came from England.”

”They did,” said Jordan, who for no very evident reason glanced in Anthea's direction. ”The ones who got there were for the most part sailormen. They and our bushmen are much of a kind, though I'm not quite sure that the hardest hoeing didn't fall to the sailor. He hadn't been taught to face the forest with nothing but an axe, build a fire of wet wood, or make a pack-horse bridge; but he started with the old-time prospectors, and he went right in with them. It's much the same now--steam can't spoil him. When a big risky thing is to be done anywhere right down the Slope, that's where you'll come across the man from the blue water.”

He stopped a moment as if for breath, with a deprecatory gesture. ”There are one or two things that sure start me talking. It's a kind of useless habit in a man who's shackled down to his work in the city, but I can't help it. Anyway, the men who are going north won't head for St.

Michael's and the Yukon marshes much longer. They'll blaze a shorter trail in from somewhere farther south right over the coast range. It won't matter that they'll have to face ten feet of snow.”

Neither of the other two answered him, but the fact that they watched the fading white sails of the little schooner had its significance.

There was scarcely a man on the Pacific Slope whose thoughts did not turn toward the golden north just then, and one could notice signs of tense antic.i.p.ation in all the wooden cities. The army of treasure-seekers had not set out yet, but big detachments had started, and the rest were making ready. So far there was little certain news, but rumors and surmises flew from mouth to mouth in busy streets and crowded saloons. It was known that the way was perilous and many would leave their bones beside it, and though, as Jordan had said, that would not count if there were gold in the land to which it led, men waited a little, feverishly, until they should feel more sure about the latter point.

By and by Austerly, who spoke to Valentine, went down the stairway, and Anthea smiled when the latter, after walking a few paces with him, turned back again to where Nellie Austerly was lying.

”There are things it is a little difficult to understand,” she said.

”Valentine has, perhaps, seen Nellie three or four times since she left the _Sorata_, and yet, as no doubt you have noticed, he will scarcely leave her. She would evidently be quite content to have him beside her all evening, too.”

”You didn't say all you thought,” and Jordan looked at her gravely. ”You mean that the usual explanation wouldn't fit their case. That, of course, is clear, since both of them must realize that she can't expect to live more than another year or so. I naturally don't know why she should take to Valentine; but I have a fancy from what Jimmy said that she reminded him of somebody. What is perhaps more curious still, I think she recognizes it, and doesn't in the least mind it.”

”Somebody he was fond of long ago?”

Jordan appeared to consider. ”That seems to make the thing more difficult to understand? Still, I'm not sure it does in reality. He is one of the men who remember always, too. He would not want to marry her if she were growing strong instead of slowly fading. It would somehow spoil things if he did.”

”Of course!” said Anthea slowly. ”In any case, as you mentioned, it would be out of the question. But how----”

Jordan checked her, with a smile this time. ”How do I understand? I don't think I do altogether; I only guess. A man who lived alone at sea or on a ranch in the shadowy bush might be capable of an attachment of that kind, but not one who makes his living in the cities. One can't get away from the material point of view there.”

He broke off, and sat still for a minute or two, for though it was clear that Anthea had no wish to discuss that topic further, he felt that she had something to say to him.

”Mr. Jordan,” she asked at last, ”have you had any news about the _Shasta_?”

Jordan's face clouded, but he did not turn in her direction, for which the girl was grateful.

”No,” he said, ”I have none. As perhaps you know, she should have turned up two or three weeks ago.”

It was a moment or two before he glanced around, and then Anthea met his gaze, in which, however, there was no trace of inquiry.

”You are anxious about her?” she asked.

”I am, a little. It is a wild coast up yonder, and they have wilder weather. The charts don't tell you very much about those narrow seas.