Part 9 (1/2)

He ”kowtowed” some more, and at the answer of the chattering savage we looked at Annie.

”Him called Lund,” s.h.i.+vered the Siwash.

I never see anybody harder hit than her. I love a sc.r.a.p, but I thinks ”Billy, she's having a stiffer fight than you ever a.s.sociated with.”

Finally she says, kind of slow and quiet: ”Who knows where the 'Cut-off' starts?”

n.o.body answers, and up speaks the U. S. man again.

”You've got your nerve, to ask a man out on such a night.”

”If there was one here, I wouldn't have to ask him. There's people freezing within five miles of here, and you hug the stove, saying: 'It's stormy, and we'll get cold.' Of course it is. If it wasn't stormy they'd be here too, and it's so cold, you'll probably freeze.

What's that got to do with it? Ever have your mother talk to you about duty? Thank Heaven I travelled that portage once, and I can find it again if somebody will go with me.”

'Twas a blush raising talk, but n.o.body upset any furniture getting dressed.

She continues:

”So I'm the woman of this crowd and I hide behind my skirts. Mr.

Mail Man, show what a glorious creature you are. Throw yourself--get up and stretch and roar. Oh, you barn-yard bantam! Has it had its pap to-night? I've a grand commercial enterprise; I'll take all of your bust measurements and send out to the States for a line of corsets. Ain't there half a man among you?”

She continued in this vein, pollutin' the air, and, having no means of defence, we found ourselves follerin' her out into a yelling storm that beat and roared over us like waves of flame.

Swede luck had guided their shaft onto the richest pay-streak in seven districts, and Swede luck now led us to the Lund boys, curled up in the drifted snow beside their dogs; but it was the level head and cool judgment of a woman that steered us home in the grey whirl of the dawn.

During the deathly weariness of that night I saw past the calloused hide of that woman and sighted the splendid courage cached away beneath her bitter oratory and hosstyle syllogisms. ”There's a story there,” thinks I, ”an' maybe a man moved in it--though I can't imagine her softened by much affection.” It pleased some guy to state that woman's the cause of all our troubles, but I figger they're like whisky--all good, though some a heap better'n others, of course, and when a frail, little, ninety pound woman gets to bucking and acting bad, there's generally a two hundred pound man hid out in the brush that put the burr under the saddle.

During the next three days she dressed the wounds of them Scow-weegians and nursed them as tender as a mother.

The wind hadn't died away till along came the ”Flying Dutchman” from Dugan's, twenty miles up, floatin' on the skirts of the blizzard.

”h.e.l.lo, fellers. Howdy, Annie. What's the matter here?” says he.

”We had a woman at Dugan's too--purty as a picture; different from the Nome bunch--real sort of a lady.”

”Who is she?” says I, ”an' what's she doin' out here on the trail?”

”Dunno, but she's all right; come clean from Dawson with a dog team; says she's looking for her mother.”

I heard a pan clatter on the floor where Annie was was.h.i.+ng dishes, and her face went a sickly grey. She leaned across, gripping the table and straining to ask something, but the words wouldn't come, while ”Dutch” continues:

”Somethin' strange about it, I think. She says her ma's over in the Golden Gate district, workin' a rich mine. Of course we all laughed at her, and said there wasn't a woman in the whole layout, 'ceptin'

_some_ folks might misconstrue Annie here into a kind of a female.

She stuck to it though, much as to say we was liars. She's comin'

on--what's the matter, Annie--you ain't sore at me effeminatin' you by the gentle name of female, are you?”

She had come to him, and gripped his shoulder, till her long, bony fingers buried themselves in his mackinaw. Her mouth was twitching, and she hadn't got shed of that ”first-aid-to-the-injured” look.

”What name? What name, Dutch? What name?” She shook him like a rat.

”Bradshaw--but you needn't run your nails through and clinch 'em.