the popgun. When it came to fighting, Dave was the blamedest ever. He
was the limit, if by that I may describe his unlimitedness when he got into
action. He was easy and kind with the weak, but the strong had to give
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trail when he went by. And he was a man that men liked, which is the
finest word of all, a man’s man.
“Dave never took part in the big stampede to Dawson when Carmack
made the Bonanza strike. You see, Dave was just then over on Mammon
Creek strikin’ it himself. He discovered Mammon Creek. Cleaned eightyfour
thousand up that winter, and opened up the claim so that it promised a
couple of hundred thousand for the next winter. Then, summer bein’ on
and the ground sloshy, he took a trip up the Yukon to Dawson to see what
Carmack’s strike looked like. And there he saw Flush of Gold. I remember
the night. I shall always remember. It was something sudden, and it makes
one shiver to think of a strong man with all the strength withered out of
him by one glance from the soft eyes of a weak, blond female creature like
Flush of Gold. It was at her dad’s cabin, old Victor Chauvet’s. Some friend
had brought Dave along to talk over town sites on Mammon Creek. But
little talking did he do, and what he did was mostly gibberish. I tell you
the sight of Flush of Gold had sent Dave clean daffy. Old Victor Chauvet
insisted after Dave left that he had been drunk. And so he had. He was
drunk, but Flush of Gold was the strong drink that made him so.
“That settled it, that first glimpse he caught of her. He did not start back
down the Yukon in a week, as he had intended. He lingered on a month,
two months, all summer. And we who had suffered understood, and
wondered what the outcome would be. Undoubtedly, in our minds, it
seemed that Flush of Gold had met her master. And why not? There was
romance sprinkled all over Dave Walsh. He was a Mammon King, he had
made the Mammon Creek strike; he was an old sour dough, one of the
oldest pioneers in the land–men turned to look at him when he went by,
and said to one another in awed undertones, ‘There goes Dave Walsh.’ And
why not? He stood six feet four; he had yellow hair himself that curled on
his neck; and he was a bull–a yellow-maned bull just turned thirty-one.
“And Flush of Gold loved him, and, having danced him through a whole
summer’s courtship, at the end their engagement was made known. The
fall of the year was at hand, Dave had to be back for the winter’s work on
Mammon Creek, and Flush of Gold refused to be married right away.
Dave put Dusky Burns in charge of the Mammon Creek claim, and
himself lingered on in Dawson. Little use. She wanted her freedom a while
longer; she must have it, and she would not marry until next year. And so,
on the first ice, Dave Walsh went alone down the Yukon behind his dogs,
with the understanding that the marriage would take place when he arrived
on the first steamboat of the next year.
“Now Dave was as true as the Pole Star, and she was as false as a
magnetic needle in a cargo of loadstone. Dave was as steady and solid as
she was fickle and fly-away, and in some way Dave, who never doubted
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anybody, doubted her. It was the jealousy of his love, perhaps, and maybe
it was the message ticked off from her soul to his; but at any rate Dave
was worried by fear of her inconstancy. He was afraid to trust her till the
next year, he had so to trust her, and he was pretty well beside himself.
Some of it I got from old Victor Chauvet afterwards, and from all that I
have pieced together I conclude that there was something of a scene before
Dave pulled north with his dogs. He stood up before the old Frenchman,
with Flush of Gold beside him, and announced that they were plighted to
each other. He was very dramatic, with fire in his eyes, old Victor said. He
talked something about ‘until death do us part’; and old Victor especially
remembered that at one place Dave took her by the shoulder with his great
paw and almost shook her as he said: ‘Even unto death are you mine, and I
would rise from the grave to claim you.’ Old Victor distinctly remembered
those words: ‘Even unto death are you mine, and I would rise from the
grave to claim you.’ And he told me afterwards that Flush of Gold was
pretty badly frightened, and that he afterwards took Dave to one side
privately and told him that that wasn’t the way to hold Flush of Gold–that
he must humor her and gentle her if he wanted to keep her.
“There is no discussion in my mind but that Flush of Gold was frightened.
She was a savage herself in her treatment of men, while men had always tr
ated her as a soft and tender and too utterly-utter something that must not
be hurt. She didn’t know what harshness was . . . I until Dave Walsh,
standing his six feet four, a big bull, gripped her I and pawed her and
assured her that she was his until death, and then some. And besides, in
Dawson, that winter, was a music- player,–one of those macaroni-eating,
greasy-tenor-Eyetalian-dago propositions,–and Flush of Gold lost her
heart to him. Maybe it was only fascination–I don’t know. Sometimes it
seems to me that she really did love Dave Walsh. Perhaps it was because
he had frightened her with that even-unto-death, rise-from-the-grave stunt
of his that she in the end inclined to the dago music-player. But it is all
guesswork, and the facts are sufficient. He wasn’t a dago; he was a
Russian count–this was straight; and he wasn’t a professional piano-player
or anything of the sort. He played the violin and the piano, and he sang,–
sang well,–but it was for his own pleasure and for the pleasure of those he
sang for. He had money, too–and right here let me say that Flush of Gold
never cared a rap for money. She was fickle, but she was never sordid.
“But to be getting along. She was plighted to Dave, and Dave was coming
up on the first steamboat to get her–that was the summer of ’98, and the
first steamboat was to be expected the middle of June. And Flush of Gold
was afraid to throw Dave down and face him afterwards. It was all
planned suddenly. The Russian music-player, the Count, was her obedient
slave. She planned it, I know. I learned as much from old Victor
afterwards. The Count took his orders from her, and caught that first
steamboat down. It was the Golden Rocket. And so did Flush of Gold
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catch it. And so did I. I was going to Circle City, and I was flabbergasted
when I found Flush of Gold on board. I didn’t see her name down on the
passenger list. She was with the Count fellow all the time, happy and
smiling, and I noticed that the Count fellow was down on the list as having
his wife along. There it was, stateroom, number, and all. The first I knew
that he was married, only I didn’t see anything of the wife . . . unless Flush
of Gold was so counted. I wondered if they’d got married ashore before
starting. There’d been talk about them in Dawson, you see, and bets had
been laid that the Count fellow had cut, Dave out.
“I talked with the purser. He didn’t know anything more about it than I did;
he didn’t know Flush of Gold, anyway, and besides, he was almost rushed
to death. You know what a Yukon steamboat is, but you can’t guess what
the Golden Rocket was when it left Dawson that June of 1898. She was a
hummer. Being the first steamer out, she carried all the scurvy patients and
hospital wrecks. Then she must have carried a couple of millions of
Klondike dust and nuggets, to say nothing of a packed and jammed
passenger list, deck passengers galore, and bucks and squaws and dogs
without end. And she was loaded down to the guards with freight and
baggage. There was a mountain of the same on the fore-lower-deck, and
each little stop along the way added to it. I saw the box come aboard at
Teelee Portage, and I knew it for what it was, though I little guessed the
joker that was in it. And they piled it on top of everything else on the forelower-