experience quite new and delightfully strange. And when Freda
turned her head against his shoulder, her hair brushing his cheek
till his eyes met hers, full and at close range, luminously soft,
ay, and tender–why, whose fault was it that he lost his grip
utterly? False to Flossie, why not to Loraine? Even if the women
did keep bothering him, that was no reason he should make up his
mind in a hurry. Why, he had slathers of money, and Freda was
just the girl to grace it. A wife she’d make him for other men to
envy. But go slow. He must be cautious.
“You don’t happen to care for palaces, do you?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Well, I had a hankering after them myself, till I got to
thinking, a while back, and I’ve about sized it up that one’d get
fat living in palaces, and soft and lazy.”
“Yes, it’s nice for a time, but you soon grow tired of it, I
imagine,” she hastened to reassure him. “The world is good, but
life should be many-sided. Rough and knock about for a while, and
then rest up somewhere. Off to the South Seas on a yacht, then a
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nibble of Paris; a winter in South America and a summer in Norway;
a few months in England–”
“Good society?”
“Most certainly–the best; and then, heigho! for the dogs and
sleds and the Hudson Bay Country. Change, you know. A strong man
like you, full of vitality and go, could not possibly stand a
palace for a year. It is all very well for effeminate men, but
you weren’t made for such a life. You are masculine, intensely
masculine.”
“Think so?”
“It does not require thinking. I know. Have you ever noticed
that it was easy to make women care for you?”
His dubious innocence was superb.
“It is very easy. And why? Because you are masculine. You
strike the deepest chords of a woman’s heart. You are something
to cling to,–big-muscled, strong, and brave. In short, because
you ARE a man.”
She shot a glance at the clock. It was half after the hour. She
had given a margin of thirty minutes to Sitka Charley; and it did
not matter, now, when Devereaux arrived. Her work was done. She
lifted her head, laughed her genuine mirth, slipped her hand
clear, and rising to her feet called the maid.
“Alice, help Mr. Vanderlip on with his parka. His mittens are on
the sill by the stove.”
The man could not understand.
“Let me thank you for your kindness, Floyd. Your time was
invaluable to me, and it was indeed good of you. The turning to
the left, as you leave the cabin, leads the quickest to the water-
hole. Good-night. I am going to bed.”
Floyd Vanderlip employed strong words to express his perplexity
and disappointment. Alice did not like to hear men swear, so
dropped his parka on the floor and tossed his mittens on top of
it. Then he made a break for Freda, and she ruined her retreat to
the inner room by tripping over the parka. He brought her up
standing with a rude grip on the wrist. But she only laughed.
She was not afraid of men. Had they not wrought their worst with
her, and did she not still endure?
“Don’t be rough,” she said finally. “On second thought,” here she
looked at his detaining hand, “I’ve decided not to go to bed yet a
while. Do sit down and be comfortable instead of ridiculous. Any
questions?”
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111
“Yes, my lady, and reckoning, too.” He still kept his hold.
“What do you know about the water-hole? What did you mean by–no,
never mind. One question at a time.”
“Oh, nothing much. Sitka Charley had an appointment there with
somebody you may know, and not being anxious for a man of your
known charm to be present, fell back upon me to kindly help him.
That’s all. They’re off now, and a good half hour ago.”
“Where? Down river and without me? And he an Indian!”
“There’s no accounting for taste, you know, especially in a
woman.”
“But how do I stand in this deal? I’ve lost four thousand
dollars’ worth of dogs and a tidy bit of a woman, and nothing to
show for it. Except you,” he added as an afterthought, “and cheap
you are at the price.”
Freda shrugged her shoulders.
“You might as well get ready. I’m going out to borrow a couple of
teams of dogs, and we’ll start in as many hours.”
“I am very sorry, but I’m going to bed.”
“You’ll pack if you know what’s good for you. Go to bed, or not,
when I get my dogs outside, so help me, onto the sled you go.
Mebbe you fooled with me, but I’ll just see your bluff and take
you in earnest. Hear me?”
He closed on her wrist till it hurt, but on her lips a smile was
growing, and she seemed to listen intently to some outside sound.
There was a jingle of dog bells, and a man’s voice crying “Haw!”
as a sled took the turning and drew up at the cabin.
“NOW will you let me go to bed?”
As Freda spoke she threw open the door. Into the warm room rushed
the frost, and on the threshold, garbed in trail-worn furs, knee-
deep in the swirling vapor, against a background of flaming
borealis, a woman hesitated. She removed her nose-trap and stood
blinking blindly in the white candlelight. Floyd Vanderlip
stumbled forward.
“Floyd!” she cried, relieved and glad, and met him with a tired
bound.
What could he but kiss the armful of furs? And a pretty armful it
was, nestling against him wearily, but happy.
“It was good of you,” spoke the armful, “to send Mr. Devereaux
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with fresh dogs after me, else I would not have been in till to-
morrow.”
The man looked blankly across at Freda, then the light breaking in
upon him, “And wasn’t it good of Devereaux to go?”
“Couldn’t wait a bit longer, could you, dear?” Flossie snuggled
closer.
“Well, I was getting sort of impatient,” he confessed glibly, at
the same time drawing her up till her feet left the floor, and
getting outside the door.
That same night an inexplicable thing happened to the Reverend
James Brown, missionary, who lived among the natives several miles
down the Yukon and saw to it that the trails they trod led to the
white man’s paradise. He was roused from his sleep by a strange
Indian, who gave into his charge not only the soul but the body of
a woman, and having done this drove quickly away. This woman was
heavy, and handsome, and angry, and in her wrath unclean words
fell from her mouth. This shocked the worthy man, but he was yet
young and her presence would have been pernicious (in the simple
eyes of his flock), had she not struck out on foot for Dawson with
the first gray of dawn.
The shock to Dawson came many days later, when the summer had come
and the population honored a certain royal lady at Windsor by
lining the Yukon’s bank and watching Sitka Charley rise up with
flashing paddle and drive the first canoe across the line. On
this day of the races, Mrs. Eppingwell, who had learned and
unlearned numerous things, saw Freda for the first time since the
night of the ball. “Publicly, mind you,” as Mrs. McFee expressed
it, “without regard or respect for the morals of the community,”
she went up to the dancer and held out her hand. At first, it is
remembered by those who saw, the girl shrank back, then words
passed between the two, and Freda, great Freda, broke down and
wept on the shoulder of the captain’s wife. It was not given to
Dawson to know why Mrs. Eppingwell should crave forgiveness of a
Greek dancing girl, but she did it publicly, and it was unseemly.
It were well not to forget Mrs. McFee. She took a cabin passage
on the first steamer going out. She also took with her a theory
which she had achieved in the silent watches of the long dark
nights; and it is her conviction that the Northland is
unregenerate because it is so cold there. Fear of hell-fire
cannot be bred in an ice-box. This may appear dogmatic, but it is
Mrs. McFee’s theory.