Читать книгу Alder Gulch - Ernest Haycox - Страница 6

Table of Contents

THE Dalles' principal street paralleled a river whose lava rock margins lay jagged and black in the quarter- moon's light; and a soft wind brought in the balsam scent of a thousand miles of pine hills and sagebrush desert, giving the air a thin and vigorous pungency. Coming up to the Umatilla House with Diana, Pierce observed the freight outfits loading for their long slow run into the back country, and the shaggy shapes of men who prospected the hills, and the sharp-eyed and half-wild cowhands in from distant ranches. Indians—these of the proud and intractable Plains tribe, so different from the slovenly fish-eaters of the Coast—stood by the hotel wall, and army men roamed by in their dusty blues. Pierce and Diana Castle made way to the desk through a crowd of citizens and boat passengers. Pierce said: "A room for myself and wife." A neat, grave man dressed in black broadcloth and white shirt turned from the desk and slightly collided with Diana, and was quick to lift his hat in apology.

"There's been some confusion," Pierce said as he signed the register. "We have lost our luggage and my wife is considerably fatigued. Could you bring up a meal?"

"Yes," said the clerk, and handed Pierce a key. "Four, Up the stairs."

Pierce walked as far as the stairway, there handing the key to Diana. "I'll see about passage," he said, and turned back through the crowd to the street. Rain had dropped here recently but there was no mud underfoot; the fine powdered soil of the street glittered by lamplight and would make, in another dry day, a steady pall of dust. An auctioneer stood on a box beside a tar flare calling up customers in a tireless voice and a woman came against him and looked at him with a laughing face. He stepped into the office of the navigation company, near the hotel, took place in line and eventually found himself at the counter, Beside him was the grave and neat man who had lifted his hat to Diana.

"Passage to Lewiston for two," said Pierce to the clerk,

"Thirty dollars," said the clerk.

"My wife is in poor health," added Pierce. "This includes a decent stateroom?"

"All gone," said the clerk. "You are buying deck space, and not much of that. It will be a full list inside of half an hour."

The neat man had been listening. Now he said: "If your wife does not mind sharing a stateroom with my daughter, I should be happy to accommodate you."

"That is handsome," said Pierce. "We will see you in the morning. Pierce is my name."

"Temperton," offered the man. "Will Temperton." He was courteous but he did not extend his hand. Pierce paid for two passages upriver and moved aside, hearing a woman's voice attack the clerk with a good-natured malice. "One up-river. I wouldn't consider it much of a treat to sit in one of your ratty little staterooms. Your bosses are making too much money for their own good. They're greedy, Neall."

"Hello, Lil Shannon," said the clerk. "Still, what other way could you get to Lewiston?"

"I can walk or I can ride," retorted the woman. "I can do both better than your stuffed Portland capitalists, my friend."

She was a woman with a rose-complexioned face, smiling and a little bold, and dressed on the high side of taste. She was his own age, Pierce judged, and knew as much of the world as he did. She turned her head with a rather swift gesture and met his attention. Her eyes were hazel and ready to be amused and he saw that she was accustomed to meeting the glances of men. She looked at him with a moment's steady interest; he bent his head slightly and left the office. The ticket line had lengthened and now stretched halfway back to the corner of the Umatilla House; and a man in line said: "That Lil Shannon in there?"

Pierce returned to the barroom of the Umatilla House and pressed through the thick crowd. All the talk about him concerned the mining camps of Burnt River, the Blue Mountains and the Owyhee, and Elk City and Florence; the smell of gold was in the smoke and whisky reek of the room. He got to the bar and bought a drink. He stood idle and solitary with the crowd moving around him and had hot beef and beans and bread off the steam table and he bought a cigar and got it properly burning, meanwhile watching the gold scales on the bar tip to the dust poured out of miners pokes.

"Nothing down Powder River. Elk City's playin' out. There's a new strike on over beyond the Grasshopper diggin's, in Alder Gulch."

"Where's that, Joe?"

"Up the Clearwater, beyond the Bitterroots, other side of Bannack."

He heard this talk but paid little attention to it, for his mind went back to Portland to review the scene aboard the Panama Chief. The Captain had meant to kill him and the Captain's voice had betrayed a tone of pleasure. He remembered the sound of the belaying pin on the Captain's skull and the way the Captain's mouth sprung wide open, and all during that time the smell of land had rolled over the water, rich and thick and racy with the freedom he had to have. There had been a black streak in the Captain.

Somebody said "You're in my way," and drove a shoulder point hard against his arm. The cigar, lightly held between his teeth, flew from his mouth and hot ashes sifted back to his face. He made a complete turn and came about and saw a man's square, sun- black face stare up from beneath the flat brim of a hat. He looked straight into a pair of mud-gray eyes and noticed temper move in spongelike contractions across this man's full-centered lips.

He waited a moment. He said, almost gentle with his words: "An accident?"

"You can do your sleeping somewhere else, can't you?" said the man.

Men crowded behind Pierce. He pushed his shoulders backward to relieve that pressure and he pulled up both arms and batted the man with his open left palm and hit him on the chest with his right fist. The man went backward into the crowd, into the arms of a tall fellow wearing a mustache and goatee. The tall one clenched and showed his big white teeth in a smile as he caught the falling man. He said, wickedly easy with his words: "There's your meat, Rube, go after him."

Rube struggled out of the arms of the tall one. He was short and broad and sweat rushed a thin glistening film over his sun- blackened cheeks. He was speaking to himself as he moved forward; and he lifted the point of one shoulder, as though to cock his fist. Pierce shoved himself clear of the bar. He hit this muscular, slow Rube in the belly and drove the wind out of him. He waited until Rube's head dropped and thereafter caught him fully on the temple. Rube went down to the floor.

Pierce said: "I don't like to be crowded. Keep your hands out of your pocket." Then he looked up to the tall fellow with the goatee who still smiled. He said nothing but he watched that smile as wickedness honed it thin. The tall one had a fresh, light skin and a set of agate eyes in which brightness danced; and small wrinkles deepened at the corners of his temples, and he seemed to be laughing deep in his chest.

Rube rolled and stood up. He shook his head and he looked at the tall fellow with the goatee. "What'll I do, George?"

"Why," said the tall George, "nothing more along that line, I guess." He inclined his head at Pierce. "You're handy with your fighting, brother. If I wasn't full of supper I'd take you on for a set."

"Why?" said Pierce.

"Just for fun," answered the tall one. "I think I could do you in." His smile was constant and winter-chilly. Light kept dancing oddly on the gray-green surfaces of his eyes. He had a streak in him, Pierce saw—a pure wild streak which registered at the down-slanted corners of his lips.

"Suit yourself," said Pierce. "I'm going upriver."

"My name is Ives," said the man, "George Ives"—and he waited, as though the name might remind Pierce of something. When he saw it did not, he added: "I'll talk with you on the boat."

"If you bring a fight," said Pierce, "bring a good reason with it."

"Fighting's reason enough," said George Ives, "Just the fun of it, friend."

"Not the way I fight," answered Pierce. "There's no fun in it."

"All right," murmured Ives, and touched his short, dull partner on the shoulder. These two left the barroom.

Pierce returned to the bar and bought a fresh cigar, and took time to light it; and strolled to the lobby. The night turned better though he did not know why; he felt clean and at ease.

He crossed the lobby to the stairs, noting that Rube and Ives had disappeared. At the foot of the stairs, he found a redheaded young man idly waiting for him. The redhead smiled. "Ketchum and Ives usually stick together. Those names don't mean anything to you? Well, if you go to Lewiston, don't consider this deal closed." He was high and robust and indolent, he was a character who seemed delighted simply to be alive and a spectator to the odd maneuverings of the world. "One other thing," he added, "close up your guard when you scrap. A trained pug would have knocked your head off whilst you were pullin' that punch forty miles up from your socks." He strolled away, whistling between his teeth.

Pierce climbed the stairs and went down a hall to Number Four and knocked; and entered the room on hearing Diana Castle's voice. She stood at the room's window and had apparently been looking into the street. When she came around he saw loneliness on her face. She gave him a glance that he had come to expect from her, long and thoughtful and deeply interested, as though she tried to reassure her faith in him. For his part, he was ill at ease.

"I have the tickets. The boat leaves at five-thirty." He moved around the room, noting the narrow bed and the four walls, and growing more irritated with himself. "I'll stand out in the hall. When you're in bed—and the light's out—I'll come in and sleep on the floor."

She said: "You don't like it, though."

"No," he agreed instantly, "I don't. I keep thinking of where you came from and of what you're throwing away. I keep thinking of your dad." He turned full at her and he walked forward, and he did a thing so wholly unlike him that he had his own great marvel at it. Her soft fragrance slid through the armor of his self- sufficiency and he reached out and lifted her chin with his hand. He saw a quick flare of fear answer him and dropped his hand at once, once more embarrassed and irritated. "When a good man comes to you, what will you tell him about Madame Bessie's house, and this room tonight?"

"A good man would understand, wouldn't he?"

"There is no man that good."

"What have I done wrong?"

It was—and he struggled with the thought and could find no simple answer—the rebellion which made her break old ties and old standards and surrender security and gamble with man's respect. It was the willingness to do this that made the wrong. But he could not properly say it, and so stood still, shaking his head. Diana Castle said it for him with her brief, quick words.

"It is a man's world. You lay down the rules. You make our places for us, in which we are supposed to stay. You have the fun and then you come home to us and we are your audience, properly grateful for the secondhand warming of what the outside world looks like. Don't you suppose a woman can be hungry for the ugly and raw and dangerous part of living—the real part? You're not afraid of discomfort or misery, you don't feel that the mean and evil things through which you pass leave a stain on you. Why should they leave a stain on me?"

He said "I do not know," and left the room. He stood outside until he heard her call, and went back into the room. The light was out and night's thin wind blew through the opened window. She had put a blanket on the floor for him. He rolled himself into it and lay long awake, hearing the soft rise and fall of her breathing and unable to make up his mind about her. "Good night, Jeff," she said.

They ate in the dining room of the Umatilla House at four, with daylight gray at the windows and soon after were in the small train which ran fifteen miles around the unnavigable rapids to the landing at Celilo where the upper river boat Tenino waited. Going aboard, Pierce and Diana Castle stood on the cabin deck and watched the crowd distribute itself. Lil Shannon walked aft with her free and easy manner; she bracketed Pierce and Diana with a glance and moved in a rustle of silks toward the lady's parlor. In a moment Will Temperton came forward with a little girl of about ten. He lifted his hat at once to Diana and bowed when Pierce said: "My wife, Mr. Temperton."

Will Temperton had a grave, soft voice and he made a ceremony of introducing his daughter. "Lily Beth, may I present Mrs. Pierce. And Mr. Pierce. The cabin is at your disposal, of course." He led, them aft along the narrow passageway between rail and deck structure until he reached the proper stateroom and opened the door.

Diana said: "Lily Beth, do you mind too much?"

Lily Beth lifted a guarded glance. "I don't mind," she said passively. Will Temperton watched his daughter with a degree of helplessness. The man, Pierce thought, was somebow at once outside all this, powerless to step in. But Diana Castle's voice came pleasantly into the strain of the silence. "Perhaps I could help you with your hair and your clothes. Men don't know a great deal about those things."

"Yes," said Lily Beth. "Yes, thank you."

These two went into the stateroom and Pierce turned to notice that Temperton appeared immeasurably relieved. "Your wife," said Temperton, "is kind."

"Some things a man can't do," suggested Pierce.

"Yes," said Temperton. Then he added with an irritable frankness: "It is a fiction that a man has less affection for his daughter than his mother. A damned fiction trumped up by—" He checked himself, gave Pierce a curt bow and went down the deck, disappearing into the saloon.

There was some wrangling at the landing and Pierce bent over the rail to find a middle-sized freckled individual of his own age arguing calmly with the purser who blocked his forward progress on the gangplank.

"The boat is full up. You must wait until Thursday."

"No," said the man, "that is too late. I mean to take this boat. It don't look full up to me."

"You're questioning my word, sir?" said the purser.

"Why not at all," replied the freckle-faced one. "Accordin' to your lights the boat is full. Accordin' to mine it ain't. I see space where a man could stand."

"No, sir," said the purser. "Step ashore."

But the freckle-faced one stuck to his position. "A boat's never full. Why, I could sit on top of that wagon. Room for six people on it."

"Step ashore," insisted the purser. "You are delaying departure."

"Another passenger is another fifteen dollars, ain't it? Your company is in business to make money, I'd guess. What would the agent in Portland think of a purser that didn't look to the company interests?"

The Captain put his head through the pilothouse window high on the ship and let forth a blast of language. "By God, Mr. Wynkoop, haul up that windy debate! Let him on or knock him overboard."

The young man stood fast, resisting both refusal and a quarrel. He was single-minded on the subject. He would not grow angry and he would not back up and so he stood doggedly still and cheerfully eyed the purser. He pointed a finger at the ship's upper deck. "Lots of space up there. Just look around and see for yourself."

The purser meanwhile had reached his own conclusions and now shrugged his shoulders and retired to the boat, the young man following him aboard. Deckhands hauled in the gangplank, the Captain vented a whistle blast into the brightening morning and the Tenino sheered out to midstream.

Pierce took position under the pilothouse wall. Sunlight moved low from the east and the day grew moderately warm. Left and right the black walls of the Cascade Range sank into dun-colored grasslands; and far ahead the silver surface of the river moved between the emptiness of a sagebrush plain. Here and there on the shore line an Indian camp occasionally lay. Blue haze slowly threaded the horizons. Near midmorning the Tenino rounded a bend to sight a cavalry detachment moving along a ridge, the shapes of men and horses silvered by a rising, sun-shot dust. At noon Diana Castle joined him. "It is time to eat—and now we're free." Then she gave him a quick look. "But you wouldn't understand that because you have always been free." They moved aft toward the dining room. She looked up to him as if to see how he received her remark, and changed the subject. "Lily Beth is a nice child. But some kind of trouble has locked her tongue. She looks at me as though she dared not be herself."

After noon meal they moved to the forward end of the cabin deck and watched the river turn through shallow rapids and straighten again to straight calm channels. The pulse of the engine was a hard, constant heartbeat through the ship. Far- distant hills showed blue behind the haze. "Over there," said Diana, "is Idaho, and the mines. Will you be prospecting?"

"I expect. I put in a year in the California mother-lode country."

"I don't seem able to picture you bending beside a creek with a pan. Your star is a troubled one. You have little faith in the world and almost no trust in any person." She looked up to him. "People are all better than you think."

"Not where you are heading for," he said.

She said: "I guess I owe you an explanation. It was the third man, Jeff."

"Mr. Wyatt?"

"Mr. Wyatt, who someday will be a very powerful man. In his own way he is harder than you, for he wouldn't lend himself to the weakness of picking a strange woman off the street as you did. He would have said: 'Move on, girl, or I'll have you run in.'" But she immediately added in a distant voice: "Of course he would first have looked to see if she was pretty. Had she been quite pretty—"

Temperton and Lily Beth rounded the forward wall of the cabin deck. Temperton would have continued on with Lily Beth, but she paused of her own motion and stood at the rail beside Diana. It was only a small gesture yet Pierce noted a veiled expression of defeat come to Temperton. He said in his grave voice: "You'd like to stay with Mrs. Pierce, Lily Beth?"

"Yes."

Temperton moved away and in a moment Pierce strolled aft and ducked into the saloon for a cigar. The bar was crowded three- deep and smoke boiled from wall to wall and all the gaming tables were surrounded. Pierce got his cigar, meanwhile noticing both Ketchum and George Ives in another corner of the saloon; and through a temporary gap in the crowd he discovered Tempertonat one of the tables. When he saw that grave face and that immaculate figure thus engaged he knew at once the man's occupation. Ternperton was a gambler.

He stepped out of the saloon's reek and fell in step with a giant of a young lad who smiled on him and seemed anxious to talk. "I hear there's plenty of gold," said the young fellow. "I never mined before. Some particular way of going about it, I suppose."

"There's a matter of luck in it," said Pierce. "If you know nothing about it, day labor work will make you rich a good deal faster."

"Anna said that," agreed the young man. "She said I wasn't the fellow to be lucky. I was the one, she said, to take a sure job. I guess she hated to see me leave Buffalo."

"Who's Anna?"

"The girl I'm going back to marry when I make my stake. I'm Nick Tibault."

"Don't stay away from Anna too long," said Pierce, and drifted on. A crowd stood on the afterdeck, watching a very old man methodically put three shots into a piece of driftwood near the shore. The redhead lay on the deck, soaking up sunlight, and grinned as Pierce arrived. Pierce squatted on his heels and swapped talk for half an hour or more while the paddles churned out a steady roar and the boat ceaselessly swung with the channel, like a hunting dog scenting out a trail. The redhead had an amused flow of conversation, a wry and skeptical view of life. His name, it developed, was Ollie Rounds. Other than that bit of information, he revealed nothing of himself. His words made a screen.

The afternoon wore on and sunset flung a bitter brilliance along the water. At supper Pierce met Diana and ate with her, and stood awhile in the twilight. Temperton presently arrived with Lily Beth and Pierce left her and found a place to sleep behind the bulwark of the pilothouse. He did not see her again until late dusk the following day when, with the journey almost through, they took place at the forward railing of the upper deck and watched lonely settlers' lights wink along the shore.

"What will you do?" he asked.

"I don't know. But you're through with me when we step ashore. It was luck to find you. I won't forget. What are your plans? Or maybe I shouldn't ask. That's the rule, isn't it, on the frontier? Never ask questions."

"I don't know."

There was the briefest of twilights, so that one moment it was half dark and one moment thereafter full dark. He heard her soft laugh. "Well; we're footloose. You will not starve. You will always find something and so will I."

"You can pick your ticket. Women are scarce in this country. Whenever you speak there'll be a dozen men to jump."

She said: "I wish you wouldn't be harsh." She gave him a steady look through the darkness. "Why should it matter to you at all?"

"No," he said, "it shouldn't matter at all. Everybody's got a life to live. Root hog or die. Take care of yourself and watch the other fellow to see he doesn't trick you. That's about all of it. I wish you luck."

"No," she said, "you really don't. You think I have thrown everything over. You have your idea of what a good woman should be and you dislike me for spoiling the idea."

Far upriver a cluster of lights broke the black. He was thinking of her with a disappointment that astonished him. It was feeling that had no proper place in him. She should mean nothing to him, yet she did.

She faced him and touched his arm. "I didn't tell you about George Wyatt. I was to have married him. That's why I ran away. Do you understand now?"

"You could have refused him easily enough, couldn't you?"

"I guess you don't understand. My father wished it, and all the relatives wished it. It would have joined two families and two firms. I liked him, but not enough. And still, I wondered if it wouldn't be sensible to put all strange things out of my head and be what everybody wanted me to be. It was very easy to be agreeable, Jeff. That's what frightened me. It was easier to marry him and be a pleasant lady than to run out in the rain and wait by Madame Bessie's house for help to come along." She fell silent, watching the outline of his face in the river dark. She held his arm, making him look at her; and he felt the swirl and rush of her feelings, the tempest which was having its way with her. "When a woman does the agreeable thing, half-heartedly for the sake of propriety and comfort, she is no better than Madame Bessie," she said. "There's such a thing as feeling that the years are going by, leaving you lost behind. I have never watched a boat go upriver without thinking I should be on it. And so I got on the boat. That's all."

"No," he said, "not all. What will you do?"

She dropped her hand and turned from him; and her hand made a little dismissing gesture and her voice was cooler than the night, and far away. "We're almost in." She turned from the rail and as he followed he had the sense that he had failed her.

They moved to the main deck and stood by as the Tenino blew for Lewiston and drifted half-speed to the landing. Rows of lights lay along a bluff and tar barrels burned at the landing and people came down Lewiston's main street to stand in groups; and voices carried across the water from ship to land and from land to ship, and bells jingled in the Tenino's engine room. The boat jarred softly against the landing piles.

"Where's gold?"

"New one over the Bitterroots! Alder Gulch! You got a long way to go, brother!"

The gangplank bridged the gap to shore. Pushed by the crowd, Pierce and Diana Castle crossed the landing and moved up an inclined road, passing touts who cried out the names of saloons and dance halls.

"The Luna House should be somewhere near," said Diana.

They went along the glitter and racket of Lewiston's long irregular street between tents and boarded buildings and rough log huts. This town was lusty, its saloons standing door to door as far as they might see. A sharp, wind blew out of the Bitterroots eastward and the boat passengers, stung by the thought of gold, rushed ahead. Pierce and Diana passed a dance hall at whose doorway women stood and beckoned trade, and arrived presently before the Luna House, which was a square two-story building without paint. She stopped here and gave him a smile which, real and generous as it was, still held its shadow.

He said: "Here's your purse."

"You're broke, Jeff. Take what you need."

"I'll get along." He was troubled by another thought. "Those people on the boat will know you as Mrs. Pierce. I don't see how you'll get around that."

"They'll soon be gone to one place or another. It won't matter."

"We're in a different country. News travels from camp to camp. Wherever you go somebody will recognize you and wonder—and maybe make some guesses about your being with me."

She shrugged her shoulders. "It was something we had to do."

"So-long," he said.

One quick crease came to her forehead, She bent nearer to look at him. "Will I ever see you again? Will you be around here?"

"I don't know," he answered. "But I wish you all the luck. I really do."

Temperton and Lily Beth arrived. Lily Beth said with pleased relief, "Are you going to stay here?"

"Yes," said Diana. But she had her eyes still on Pierce as he stepped away and raised his hat and said again: "So-long."

She lifted her shoulders and made a gesture with her hands and gave him a swift-vanishing smile. Pierce moved down the street, solid against the dance of shadow and saloon light. Diana came about and put her hand on Lily Beth's arm. "Time for bed, isn't it?" She had forgotten about Temperton at the moment and didn't notice the manner in which he looked at her, then to the departing Pierce, and back to her.

Pierce slept in the hayloft of a livery barn and had breakfast in a tent restaurant on Lewiston's rambling main street. Later he bought a razor and a cake of soap, returned to the livery to shave, and presently faced the day.

Like all boom camps, this one had been hurriedly thrown together of cheap lumber, canvas and logs. Fully three quarters of the town consisted of saloons and dance halls; the rest of it was made up of stores, miners' supply houses, livery barns, restaurants, these being surrounded by irregular rows of tents and cabins. At this hour the tide of traffic was at a peak, wagons rolling into Lewiston with supplies and freight teams moving out toward the mines along the Salmon and Clearwater.

"This town," said the stable hostler, "used to take in a lot of money supplying the mines. It will be three-quarters empty by fall. Everybody's going on to the Grasshopper and Alder Gulch diggin's in Montana. That's where the boom is now."

"How d'you get there?"

"Most of the crowd's goin' the north route by way of the Coeur d'Alene and the St. Regis, through Hell Gate, down the Deer Lodge to the Beaverhead."

"How long a trip?"

"With a good horse maybe twelve days." Then the hostler said: "I can set you up with an outfit for a hundred dollars."

Lil Shannon stepped from the Luna House and stopped when she came abreast Pierce. She gave him a smile. "You're staying here?"

"Don't know."

"Never stick to a downgrade camp." She was not so much bold as straightforward. There was no doubt of her trade, but still she was an attractive woman, energetic and brisk and self-confident. She had brown hair, and soft hazel eyes and a frank manner of looking at a man. "You're no farmer. You've been in places like this before."

"Yes."

She seemed very careful in her appraisal of him; she held her interested smile. "Takes money for an outfit. Got a stake?"

"No."

"Alder Gulch is your place, Jeff. I'll stake you."

He had no idea where she had learned his name but her use of it warmed him. "No," he said, "but you're all right."

"Yes, I'm all right," she said and shrugged her shoulders. "I'm leaving for Alder Gulch today." She dropped her eyes and studied the walk, and suddenly added: "Ketchum's not to be trusted, but Ives is the one to watch. You've left your wife rather alone, haven't you?" When he failed to speak, she murmured "Good luck," and moved on.

He idled along the street and looked back toward the Luna in the half-expectation of seeing Diana Castle. More wagons rolled out of Lewiston. A single rider came tearing into the street and dropped from his horse in, front of a building that had a small stage office sign extending from it. Ollie Rounds stood half asleep in front of the Gem saloon; and grinned amiably.

At noon Jeff ate and, being restless, toured the town again.

Over on the back side he saw men unloading lumber from a long line of freighters and was hailed as he strolled by. "You want a job? Pay's five dollars."

Pierce shucked his coat and moved to a wagon. A length of lumber slid down from the wagon and somebody said "I'll take the other end," and he looked around and saw before him the blond- headed young man, who had argued his way aboard the Tenino, "Name's Ben Scoggins," said he. "You're Pierce. I heard about your run-in with Ives and Ketchum." They moved back and forth between wagon and lumber pile, gently sweating under the sun. Other wagons came up to be loaded, and moved away on the long trip to the mines. Half-through the afternoon Scoggins spoke again, as though there had been no gap in the talk. "None of these miners keep what they get. It is the trader that makes the money. That's what I got my eye on tradin'. But there ain't no use wastin' time. Five dollars is five dollars. I can do my lookin' for the main chance at night. Ain't thrifty to be idle."

The boss came around at six to pay off. Pierce returned to wash up at the livery barn, had his supper and sauntered along the street. Night dropped—and lights moved out of saloon and dance hall, and glowed yellow through tent sides; and the outbound tide of men suddenly seemed to reverse itself and come back in doubled volume, filling Lewison brim-ful. Coming past the Luna House, he saw Diana Castle on the porch.

He stopped at once and showed his pleasure. She watched him without speaking for a moment and it occurred to him that loneliness had its way with her. She had been listening to the full-rounded echoes of the street with a thoughtful expression and now as her glance turned to him he noticed the softening of expression. Her smile, delayed as it was, turned her pleasant and pretty.

"What have you been doing, Jeff?"

"Getting information, Also did a half a day's work. Everybody, it seems, is headed for Alder Gulch."

"Are you going?"

"Better see what's here first."

He hunted in his pocket for a cigar and took time lighting it; and out of impulse he held up a hand to her. She came down the steps at once and they turned toward the river, slowly walking. "Anything happen for you?" he asked.

"No—not yet."

At the landing men worked at the Tenino's heavy cargo by the light of tar flares and wind came in from the eastern hills, brisk-cold. They swung aside, following a road away from town, silent as they walked. The fragrance of her clothes came powerfully to him, and he felt the swing of her body and even the warm tone of her personality. The read followed up a slight grade so that presently they came to a place from which they saw Lewiston lying a little below them, all its lights winking in the night.

"Why, Jeff," she said. "You're lonely."

"Yes," he said, "I suppose I am."

Her voice was gentle for him. "You always seemed very composed and self-sufficient to me."

"Always have been a lone wolf," he reflected. "I never see a lighted house at night but what I think of the people inside. They've get everything."

She spoke in a low, tentative voice: "Would you be thinking of some woman somewhere?"

"I left home when I was twelve. A woman has been something I never knew about. I'm speaking of your kind of a woman. Your kind has been to me something like the light of a star a long, long way off."

She caught her breath. "Then that is why you distrust me. The star fell and when it came near you it wasn't what you thought, You built a woman into something that never was. You are disillusioned."

He shook his head and turned down the hill with her, the softness gene; and the moment's undercurrent of nearness was gone. At the hotel he lifted his hat. "Luck," he said. She only nodded, and watched him go down toward the glowing heart of town. In a moment he entered a tent saloon. Turning, she discovered Will Temperton waiting. He lifted his hat. "May I have a word?" he asked.

She knew, of course, that he was a gambler; for his was a type of man that showed its professional signals always—the neatness, the soft, steel-like courtesy, the gentle and dead tone, the undercurrent of complete fatalism. He was one of these.

"I would," he murmured, "say nothing to offend you. If I am wrong I must ask your complete pardon. I would not presume to make any comment on your affairs except that I have a daughter and I need some help."

"You have a lovely daughter, Mr. Temperton,"

"She has no mother. And I believe you've observed that there are times when I cannot help her. Not so much in the matter of dress. In other things. In being able to make her see that I would do anything on this earth for her. I can't tell her. It must be done another way." He hesitated before adding the next phrase. "She must know that I love her and would give my life for her. I do not mean that idly."

"I know."

"I believe you do. But she needs a woman to draw her out and to take the place of a mother for at least a while. She's too much alone. Probably you know my trade."

"Yes."

He was long still, struggling with his choice of words, and with his own feelings. "It is the only trade I know," he said at last. "Now you know why I take the liberty of being frank. The gentleman is not your husband is he?"

"No," she said.

"Thank you for not taking offense. I had to know. Lily Beth and I are starting for Alder Gulch tomorrow, I have arranged for the carriage and pack. I should like you to go along as her companion, It is worth two hundred dollars a month to me, or any other sum you'd care to set. As her companion, I mean nothing else by the offer."

"Is her mother dead, Mr. Temperton?"

He delayed his answer and seemed hard put. "No," he said at last. "She is not dead."

She had her quick start of feeling for the girl, and for the woman who had lost Lily Beth. This was what came to her and clung; and afterwards she discovered that she watched the big tent saloon into which Pierce had gone. "You were nice to offer this chance, but I can't accept it."

She expected him to argue. He did not. He took her decision much as he took the turn of an unfavorable card. When the card fell there was never a back-turning of it, no question and no argument. "I'm sorry," he said, and turned into the Luna House.