Part 10 (1/2)

Jessie nodded. Her gaze was turned upon the far reach of the river.

”Yes. She's medium height--like you. She's a woman of sort of practical motherly instinct. Her eyes are blue, and clear, and fine, revealing the wholesome mind behind. She'll be slim, I guess, and her gown's just swell--real swell. She'll----”

The man broke in on an impulse which he was powerless to deny.

”She won't be tall?” he demanded, his eyes s.h.i.+ning into hers with an intensity which made Jessie shrink before them. ”She won't move with the grace of--of a Juno, straight limbed, erect? She won't have dandy gray eyes that look through and beyond all the time? She won't have lovely brown hair which sort of reflects the old sun every time it s.h.i.+nes on it? She won't have a face so beautiful it sets a feller just crazy to look at it? Say, if it was like that,” he cried, in a voice thrilling with pa.s.sion, ”I'd feel I didn't owe Providence the kick I've----”

How far his feelings would have carried him it was impossible to say.

He had been caught off his guard, and had flung caution to the winds.

But he was spared the possible consequences by an interruption which would not be denied. It was an interruption which had claimed them both at the same instant.

A sound came out of the distance on the still evening air. It came from the bend of the river where it swung away to the northwest. It was the sound of the dipping of many paddles, a sound which was of paramount importance to these people at all times.

The girl was on her feet first. Nor was Murray a second behind her.

Both were gazing intently out in the growing dusk. Simultaneously an exclamation broke from them. Then the girl spoke while the man remained silent.

”Canoes,” she said. ”One, two, three, four--five. Five canoes. I know whose they are.”

Murray was standing close beside her, the roundness of his ungainly figure aggravated by the contrast. He, too, was gazing hard at the flotilla. He, too, had counted the canoes as they came into view. He, too, had recognized them, just as he had recognized the thrill of delighted antic.i.p.ation in the girl's voice as she announced her recognition of them.

He knew, no one better, all that lay behind the s.h.i.+ning gray of the girl's eyes as she beheld the canoes approach. He needed no words to tell him. And he thanked his stars for the interruption which had saved him carrying his moment of folly further.

His eyes expressed no antic.i.p.ation. Their glowing fires seemed to have become extinguished. There was no warmth in them. There was little life in their darkly brooding watchfulness. Never was a contrast so deeply marked between two watchers of the same object. The man was cold, his expression hard. It was an expression before which even his habitual smile had been forced to flee. Jessie was radiant.

Excitement surged till she wanted to cry out. To call the name that was on her lips.

Instead, however, she turned swiftly upon the man at her side, who instantly read the truth in the radiant gray eyes gazing into his.

”It's--John Kars,” she said soberly. Then in a moment came a repet.i.tion. ”Fancy. John Kars!”

CHAPTER VIII

TWO MEN OF THE NORTH

North, south, east, west. There was, perhaps, no better known name in the wide northern wilderness than that of John Kars. In his buoyant way he claimed for himself, at thirty-two, that he was the ”oldest inhabitant” of the northland.

Nor was he without some justification. For, at the age of thirteen, accompanying his father, he had formed one of the small band of gold seekers who fought their way to the ”placers” of Forty-mile Creek years before the great Yukon rush.

He was one of those who helped to open the gates of the country. His child's muscles and courage had done their duty beside those of far older men. They had taken their share in forcing the icy portals of a land unknown, and terror-ridden. He had endured the agony of the first great battle against the overwhelming legions of Nature. He had survived, all unprepared and without experience. It was a struggle such as none of those who came later were called upon to endure. For all that has been told of the sufferings of the Yukon rush they were incomparable with those which John Kars had been called upon to endure at an age when the terror of it all might well have overwhelmed him.

But he had done more than survive. Good fortune and sanity had been his greatest a.s.sets. The first seemed to have been his all through.

Sanity only came to him at the cost of other men's experience. For all his hardihood he was deeply human. The early temptations of Leaping Horse had appealed to the virile youth in him. He had had his falls.

But there was something in the blood of the youth which quickly convinced him of the folly of the life about him. So he, to use his own expression, ”quit the poultry ranch” and ”hit the bank roll trail,”

and good fortune followed hard behind him like a faithful spouse.

He became rich. His wealth became a byword. And later, when, out of disorder and vice, the city of Leaping Horse grew to capital importance, he became surfeited with the acc.u.mulations of wealth which rolled in upon him from his manifold interests.

Then it was that the man which the Yukon world now knew suddenly developed. He could have retired to the pleasant avenues of civilization. He could have entered public life in any of the great capitals of the world. But these things had no appeal for him.