Well, they could do without the husband; but a woman-why they had not seen one all winter, and the presence of this one promised a new era in their lives. They were college men and gentlemen, these three young fellows, yearning for the flesh-pots they had been so long denied. Probably Grace Bentham suffered from a similar hunger; at least, it meant much to her, the first bright hour in many weeks of darkness.
But that wonderful first course, which claimed the versatile Lake for its parent, had no sooner been served than there came a loud knock at the door.
‘Oh! Ah! Won’t you come in, Mr. Bentham?’ said Parker, who had stepped to see who the newcomer might be.
‘Is my wife here?’ gruffly responded that worthy.
‘Why, yes. We left word with Mr. Meyers.’ Parker was exerting his most dulcet tones, inwardly wondering what the deuce it all meant. ‘Won’t you come in? Expecting you at any moment, we reserved a place. And just in time for the first course, too.’
‘Come in, Edwin, dear,’ chirped Grace Bentham from her seat at the table.
Parker naturally stood aside.
‘I want my wife,’ reiterated Bentham hoarsely, the intonation savoring disagreeably of ownership.
Parker gasped, was within an ace of driving his fist into the face of his boorish visitor, but held himself awkwardly in check. Everybody rose. Lake lost his head and caught himself on the verge of saying, ‘Must you go?’
Then began the farrago of leave-taking. ‘So nice of you-‘ ‘I am awfully sorry-‘ ‘By Jove! how things did brighten-‘ ‘Really now, you-‘ ‘Thank you ever so much-‘ ‘Nice trip to Dawson-‘ etc., etc.
In this wise the lamb was helped into her jacket and led to the slaughter. Then the door slammed, and they gazed woefully upon the deserted table.
‘Damn!’ Langham had suffered disadvantages in his early training, and his oaths were weak and monotonous. ‘Damn!’ he repeated, vaguely conscious of the incompleteness and vainly struggling for a more virile term.
It is a clever woman who can fill out the many weak places in an inefficient man, by her own indomitability, re-enforce his vacillating nature, infuse her ambitious soul into his, and spur him on to great achievements. And it is indeed a very clever and tactful woman who can do all this, and do it so subtly that the man receives all the credit and believes in his inmost heart that everything is due to him and him alone.
This is what Grace Bentham proceeded to do. Arriving in Dawson with a few pounds of flour and several letters of introduction, she at once applied herself to the task of pushing her big baby to the fore. It was she who melted the stony heart and wrung credit from the rude barbarian who presided over the destiny of the P. C. Company; yet it was Edwin Bentham to whom the concession was ostensibly granted. It was she who dragged her baby up and down creeks, over benches and divides, and on a dozen wild stampedes; yet everybody remarked what an energetic fellow that Bentham was. It was she who studied maps, and catechised miners, and hammered geography and locations into his hollow head, till everybody marveled at his broad grasp of the country and knowledge of its conditions. Of course, they said the wife was a brick, and only a few wise ones appreciated and pitied the brave little woman.
She did the work; he got the credit and reward. In the Northwest Territory a married woman cannot stake or record a creek, bench, or quartz claim; so Edwin Bentham went down to the Gold Commissioner and filed on Bench Claim 23, second tier, of French Hill. And when April came they were washing out a thousand dollars a day, with many, many such days in prospect.
At the base of French Hill lay Eldorado Creek, and on a creek claim stood the cabin of Clyde Wharton. At present he was not washing out a diurnal thousand dollars; but his dumps grew, shift by shift, and there would come a time when those dumps would pass through his sluice-boxes, depositing in the riffles, in the course of half a dozen days, several hundred thousand dollars. He often sat in that cabin, smoked his pipe, and dreamed beautiful little dreams,- dreams in which neither the dumps nor the half-ton of dust in the P. C. Company’s big safe, played a part.
And Grace Bentham, as she washed tin dishes in her hillside cabin, often glanced down into Eldorado Creek, and dreamed,- not of dumps nor dust, however. They met frequently, as the trail to the one claim crossed the other, and there is much to talk about in the Northland spring; but never once, by the light of an eye nor the slip of a tongue, did they speak their hearts.
This is as it was at first. But one day Edwin Bentham was brutal. All boys are thus; besides, being a French Hill king now, he began to think a great deal of himself and to forget all he owed to his wife. On this day, Wharton heard of it, and waylaid Grace Bentham, and talked wildly. This made her very happy, though she would not listen, and made him promise to not say such things again. Her hour had not come.
But the sun swept back on its northern journey, the black of midnight changed to the steely color of dawn, the snow slipped away, the water dashed again over the glacial drift, and the wash-up began. Day and night the yellow clay and scraped bedrock hurried through the swift sluices, yielding up its ransom to the strong men from the Southland. And in that time of tumult came Grace Bentham’s hour.
To all of us such hours at some time come,- that is, to us who are not too phlegmatic. Some people are good, not from inherent love of virtue, but from sheer laziness. But those of us who know weak moments may understand.
Edwin Bentham was weighing dust over the bar of the saloon at the Forks-altogether too much of his dust went over that pine board-when his wife came down the hill and slipped into Clyde Wharton’s cabin. Wharton was not expecting her, but that did not alter the case. And much subsequent misery and idle waiting might have been avoided, had not Father Roubeau seen this and turned aside from the main creek trail.
‘My child,-‘
‘Hold on, Father Roubeau! Though I’m not of your faith, I respect you; but you can’t come in between this woman and me!’
‘You know what you are doing?’
‘Know! Were you God Almighty, ready to fling me into eternal fire, I’d bank my will against yours in this matter.’
Wharton had placed Grace on a stool and stood belligerently before her.
‘You sit down on that chair and keep quiet,’ he continued, addressing the Jesuit. ‘I’ll take my innings now. You can have yours after.’
Father Roubeau bowed courteously and obeyed. He was an easy-going man and had learned to bide his time. Wharton pulled a stool alongside the woman’s, smothering her hand in his.
‘Then you do care for me, and will take me away?’ Her face seemed to reflect the peace of this man, against whom she might draw close for shelter.
‘Dear, don’t you remember what I said before? Of course I-‘
‘But how can you?- the wash-up?’
‘Do you think that worries? Anyway, I’ll give the job to Father Roubeau, here. I can trust him to safely bank the dust with the company.’
‘To think of it!- I’ll never see him again.’
‘A blessing!’
‘And to go-O, Clyde, I can’t! I can’t!’
‘There, there; of course you can. just let me plan it.- You see, as soon as we get a few traps together, we’ll start, and-‘
‘Suppose he comes back?’
‘I’ll break every-‘
‘No, no! No fighting, Clyde! Promise me that.’
‘All right! I’ll just tell the men to throw him off the claim. They’ve seen how he’s treated you, and haven’t much love for him.’
‘You mustn’t do that. You mustn’t hurt him.’
‘What then? Let him come right in here and take you away before my eyes?’
‘No-o,’ she half whispered, stroking his hand softly.
‘Then let me run it, and don’t worry. I’ll see he doesn’t get hurt. Precious lot he cared whether you got hurt or not! We won’t go back to Dawson. I’ll send word down for a couple of the boys to outfit and pole a boat up the Yukon. We’ll cross the divide and raft down the Indian River to meet them. Then-‘
‘And then?’
Her head was on his shoulder. Their voices sank to softer cadences, each word a caress. The Jesuit fidgeted nervously.
‘And then?’ she repeated.
‘Why we’ll pole up, and up, and up, and portage the White Horse Rapids and the Box Canon.’
‘Yes?’
‘And the Sixty-Mile River; then the lakes, Chilcoot, Dyea, and Salt Water.’