Part 34 (1/2)
It was evening. Brent and Snowdrift had climbed from the little trail camp at the edge of the timber line, to the very summit of the great Bonnet Plume Pa.s.s to watch the sun sink to rest behind the high-flung peaks of the mighty Alaskan ranges.
”Oh, isn't it grand! And wonderful!” cried the girl as her eyes swept the vast panorama of glistening white mountains. ”How small and insignificant I feel! And how stern, and rugged, and hard it all looks.”
”Yes, darling,” whispered Brent, as his arm stole about her waist, ”It is stern, and rugged, and hard. But it is clean, and honest, and grand.
It is the world as G.o.d made it.”
”I have never been in the mountains before,” said the girl, ”I have seen them from the Mackenzie, but they were so far away they never seemed real. We have always hunted upon the barrens. Tell me, is it all like this? And where is the Yukon?”
Brent smiled at her awe of the vastness: ”Pretty much all like this,” he answered. ”Alaska is a land of mountains. Of course there are wide valleys, and mighty rivers, and along the rivers are the towns and the mining camps.”
”I have never seen a town,” breathed the girl, ”What will we do when we get there?”
”We will go straight to the Reeves,” he answered, with a glad smile.
”Reeves is the man who staked me for the trip into the barrens, and his wife is an old, old friend of mine. We were born and grew up in the same town, and we will go straight to them.”
”I wonder whether she will like me? I have known no white women except Sister Mercedes.”
”Darling, she will love you!” cried Brent, ”Everyone will love you! And we will be married in their house.”
”But, what will he think when you tell him you have not made a strike?”
Brent laughed: ”He will be the first to see that I have made a strike, dear--the richest strike in all the North.”
”And you didn't tell me!” cried the girl, ”Tell me about it, now! Was it on the Coppermine?”
”Yes, it was on the Coppermine. I made the great strike, one evening in the moonlight--when the dearest girl in the world told me she loved me.”
Snowdrift raised her wondrous dark eyes to his: ”Isn't it wonderful to love as we love?” she whispered, ”To be all the world to each other? I do not care if we never make a strike. All I want is to be with you always. And if we do not make a strike we will live in our tepee and snare rabbits, and hunt, and be happy, always.”
Brent covered the upturned face with kisses: ”I guess we can manage something better than a tepee,” he smiled. ”I've got more than half of Reeves' dust left, and I've been thinking the matter over. The fact is, I don't think much of that Coppermine country for gold. I reckon we'll get a house and settle down in Dawson for a while, and I'll take the job Reeves offered me, and work till I get him paid off, and Camillo Bill, and enough ahead for a grub-stake, and then we'll see what's to be done.
We'll have lots of good times, too. There's the Reeves' and--and----”
Brent paused, and the girl smiled, ”What's the matter? Can't you think of any more?”
”Well, to tell the truth, I don't know any others who--that is, married folks, our kind, you know. The men I knew best are all single men. But, lots of people have come in with the dredge companies. The Reeves will know them.”
”There is that girl you called Kitty,” suggested Snowdrift.
”Yes--” answered Brent, a little awkwardly, ”That's so. But, she's--a little different.”
”But I will like her, I am sure, because she nursed you when you were sick. I know what you mean!” she exclaimed abruptly, and Brent saw that the dark eyes flashed, ”You mean that people point at her the finger of scorn--as they would have pointed at me, had I been--as I thought I was.
But it is all wrong, and I will not do that! And I will hate those who do! And I will tell them so!” she stamped her moccasined foot in anger, and the man laughed:
”My goodness!” he exclaimed feigning alarm, ”I can see from here where I better get home to meals on time, and not forget to put the cat out.”