Part 2 (2/2)

”Probably. He is always interested in the field work up there, and this season's reconnaissance in the Mata.n.u.ska coal district should be of special importance to him just now. The need of a naval coaling station on the Pacific coast has grown imperative, and with vast bodies of coal accessible to Prince William Sound, the question of location should soon be solved.”

There was another silence, while Poster walked again to the end of the room and returned. ”How soon do you start east?” he asked.

”Within a week. Meantime, I am going over the Cascades into the sage-brush country to look up that land of Weatherbee's.”

”You intend then,” said Foster quickly, ”to take that piece of desert off Mrs. Weatherbee's hands?”

”Perhaps. It depends on the possibility of carrying out his project. I have just s.h.i.+pped a steam thawing apparatus in to the Aurora, and that, with supplies for a winter camp, has taken a good deal of ready money.

Freighting runs high, whether it's from the Iditarod or south from Fairbanks. But spring should see expenses paid and my investment back.”

”From all I've heard,” responded Foster dryly, ”you'll get your investment back with interest.”

”Of course,” said Tisdale after a moment, ”Mrs. Weatherbee will be eager to dispose of the tract; the only reason it is still on her hands is that no one has wanted to buy it at any price.”

”And that's just why you should.” Foster paused, then went on slowly, controlling the emotion in his voice, ”You don't know her, Hollis. She's proud. She won't admit the situation, and I can't ask her directly, but I am sure she has come to the limit. I've been trying all day, ever since I knew I must go north again, to raise enough money to make an offer for that land, but practically all I have is tied up in Alaska properties. It takes time to find a customer, and the banks are cautious.”

Tisdale rose from his chair. ”Foster!” he cried and stretched out his hands. ”Foster--not you, too.”

Then his hands dropped, and Foster drew a step nearer into the circle of light and stood meeting squarely the silent remonstrance, accusation, censure, for which he was prepared. ”I knew how you would take it,” he broke out at last, ”but it's the truth. I've smothered it, kept it down for years; but it's nothing to be ashamed of any longer. I'd have been glad to exchange places with Weatherbee. I'd have counted it a privilege to work, even as he did, for her; I could have suffered privation, the worst kind, wrung success out of failure, for the hope of her.”

”See here, Foster,”--Tisdale laid his hands on the younger man's shoulders, shaking him slowly,--”you must stop this.” His hold relaxed; he stepped back, and his voice vibrated softly through the room. ”How could you have said it, knowing David Weatherbee as you did? No matter what kind of a woman she is, you should have remembered she was his wife and respected her for his sake.”

”Respect? I do respect her. She's the kind of woman a man sets on a pedestal to wors.h.i.+p and glorify. You don't understand it, Hollis; you don't know her, and I can't explain; but just her presence is an appeal, an inspiration to all that's worth anything in me.”

Tisdale's hands sought his pockets; his head dropped forward a little and he stood regarding Foster with an upward look from under frowning brows.

”You don't know her,” Foster repeated. ”She's different--finer than other women. And she has been gently bred. Generations of the best blood is bottled like old wine in her crystal body.” He paused, his face brightening at the fancy. ”You can always see the spirit sparkling through.”

”I remember about that blue blood,” Tisdale said tersely. ”Weatherbee told me how it could be traced back through a Spanish mother to some buccaneering adventurer, Don Silva de y somebody, who made his headquarters in Mexico. And that means a trace of Mexican in the race, or at least Aztec.”

Foster colored. ”The son of that Don Silva came north and settled in California. He brought his peons with him and made a great rancheria. At the time of the Mexican War, his herds and flocks covered immense ranges.

Hundreds of these cattle must have supplied the United States commissary; the rest were scattered, and in the end there was little left of the estate; just a few hundred acres and a battered hacienda. But Mrs.

Weatherbee's father was English; the younger son of an old and knighted family.”

”I know,” answered Tisdale dryly. ”Here in the northwest we call such sons remittance men. They are paid generous allowances, sometimes, to come to America and stay.”

”That's unfair,” Foster flamed. ”You have no right to say it. He came to California when he was just a young fellow to invest a small inheritance.

He doubled it twice in a few years. Then he was persuaded to put his money in an old, low-grade gold mine. The company made improvements, built a flume thirty miles long to bring water to the property for development, but it was hardly finished when a State law was pa.s.sed prohibiting hydraulic mining. It practically ruined him. He had nothing to depend on then but a small annuity.”

”Meantime,” supplemented Tisdale, ”he had married his Spanish senorita and her inheritance, the old rancheria, was sunk with his own in the gold mine. Then he began to play fast and loose with his annuity at the San Francisco stock exchange.”

”He hoped to make good quickly. He was getting past his prime, with his daughter's future to be secured. But it got to be a habit and, after the death of his wife, a pa.s.sion. His figure was well known on the street; he was called a plunger. Some days he made fortunes; the next lost them.

Still he was the same distinguished, courteous gentleman to the end.”

”And that came on the stock exchange, after a prolonged strain. David Weatherbee found him and took him home.” Tisdale paused, then went on, still regarding Foster with that upward look from under his forbidding brows. ”It fell to Weatherbee to break the news to the daughter, and ten days later, on the eve of his sailing north to Seattle, that marriage was hurried through.”

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