Читать книгу The Spoilers - Rex Beach - Страница 10

For four days the Santa Maria felt blindly through the white fields, drifting north with the spring tide that sets through Behring Strait, till, on the morning of the fifth, open water showed to the east. Creeping through, she broke out into the last stage of the long race, amid the cheers of her weary passengers; and the dull jar of her engines made welcome music to the girl in the deck state-room.

Soon they picked up a mountainous coast which rose steadily into majestic, barren ranges, still white with the melting snows; and at ten in the evening under a golden sunset, amid screaming whistles, they anchored in the roadstead of Nome. Before the rumble of her chains had ceased or the echo from the fleet's salute had died from the shoreward hills, the ship was surrounded by a swarm of tiny craft clamoring about her iron sides, while an officer in cap and gilt climbed the bridge and greeted Captain Stephens. Tugs with trailing lighters circled discreetly about, awaiting the completion of certain formalities. These over, the uniformed gentleman dropped back into his skiff and rowed away.

"A clean bill of health, captain," he shouted, saluting the commander.

"Thank ye, sir," roared the sailor, and with that the row-boats swarmed inward pirate-like, boarding the steamer from all quarters.

As the master turned, he looked down from his bridge to the deck below, full into the face of Dextry, who had been an intent witness of the meeting. With unbending dignity, Captain Stephens let his left eyelid droop slowly, while a boyish grin spread widely over his face. Simultaneously, orders rang sharp and fast from the bridge, the crew broke into feverish life, the creak of booms and the clank of donkey-hoists arose.

"We're here, Miss Stowaway," said Glenister, entering the girl's cabin.

"The inspector passed us and it's time for you to see the magic city.

Come, it's a wonderful sight."

This was the first time they had been alone since the scene on the after-deck, for, besides ignoring Glenister, she had managed that he should not even see her except in Dextry's presence. Although he had ever since been courteous and considerate, she felt the leaping emotions that were hidden within him and longed to leave the ship, to fly from the spell of his personality. Thoughts of him made her writhe, and yet when he was near she could not hate him as she willed—he overpowered her, he would not be hated, he paid no heed to her slights. This very quality reminded her how willingly and unquestioningly he had fought off the sailors from the Ohio at a word from her. She knew he would do so again, and more, and it is hard to be bitter to one who would lay down his life for you, even though he has offended—particularly when he has the magnetism that sweeps you away from your moorings.

"There's no danger of being seen," he continued, "The crowd's crazy, and, besides, we'll go ashore right away. You must be mad with the confinement—it's on my nerves, too."

As they stepped outside, the door of an adjacent cabin opened, framing an angular, sharp-featured woman, who, catching sight of the girl emerging from Glenister's state-room, paused with shrewdly narrowed eyes, flashing quick, malicious glances from one to the other. They came later to remember with regret this chance encounter, for it was fraught with grave results for them both.

"Good evening, Mr. Glenister," the lady said with acid cordiality.

"Howdy, Mrs. Champian?" He moved away.

She followed a step, staring at Helen.

"Are you going ashore to-night or wait for morning?"

"Don't know yet, I'm sure." Then aside to the girl he muttered, "Shake her, she's spying on us."

"Who is she?" asked Miss Chester, a moment later.

"Her husband manages one of the big companies. She's an old cat."

Gaining her first view of the land, the girl cried out, sharply. They rode on an oily sea, tinted like burnished copper, while on all sides, amid the faint rattle and rumble of machinery, scores of ships were belching cargoes out upon living swarms of scows, tugs, stern-wheelers, and dories. Here and there Eskimo oomiaks, fat, walrus-hide boats, slid about like huge, many-legged water-bugs. An endless, ant-like stream of tenders, piled high with freight, plied to and from the shore. A mile distant lay the city, stretched like a white ribbon between the gold of the ocean sand and the dun of the moss-covered tundra. It was like no other in the world. At first glance it seemed all made of new white canvas. In a week its population had swelled from three to thirty thousand. It now wandered in a slender, sinuous line along the coast for miles, because only the beach afforded dry camping ground. Mounting to the bank behind, one sank knee-deep in moss and water, and, treading twice in the same tracks, found a bog of oozing, icy mud. Therefore, as the town doubled daily in size, it grew endwise like a string of dominoes, till the shore from Cape Nome to Penny River was a long reach of white, glinting in the low rays of the arctic sunset like foamy breakers on a tropic island.

"That's Anvil Creek up yonder," said Glenister. "There's where the Midas lies. See!" He indicated a gap in the buttress of mountains rolling back from the coast. "It's the greatest creek in the world. You'll see gold by the mule-load, and hillocks of nuggets. Oh, I'm glad to get back. THIS is life. That stretch of beach is full of gold. These hills are seamed with quartz. The bed-rock of that creek is yellow. There's gold, gold, gold, everywhere—more than ever was in old Solomon's mines—and there's mystery and peril and things unknown."

"Let us make haste," said the girl. "I have something I must do to-night. After that, I can learn to know these things."

Securing a small boat, they were rowed ashores the partners plying their ferryman with eager questions. Having arrived five days before, he was exploding with information and volunteered the fruits of his ripe experience till Dextry stated that they were "sourdoughs" themselves, and owned the Midas, whereupon Miss Chester marvelled at the awe which sat upon the man and the wondering stare with which he devoured the partners, to her own utter exclusion.

"Sufferin' cats! Look at the freight!" ejaculated Dextry. "If a storm come up it would bust the community!"

The beach they neared was walled and crowded to the high-tide mark with ramparts of merchandise, while every incoming craft deposited its quota upon whatever vacant foot was close at hand, till bales, boxes, boilers, and baggage of all kinds were confusedly intermixed in the narrow space. Singing longshoremen trundled burdens from the lighters and piled them on the heap, while yelling, cursing crowds fought over it all, selecting, sorting, loading.

There was no room for more, yet hourly they added to the mass. Teams splashed through the lapping surf or stuck in the deep sand between hillocks of goods. All was noise, profanity, congestion, and feverish hurry. This burning haste rang in the voice of the multitude, showed in its violence of gesture and redness of face, permeated the atmosphere with a magnetic, electrifying energy.

"It's somethin' fierce ashore," said the oarsman. "I been up fer three days an' nights steady—there ain't no room, nor time, nor darkness to sleep in. Ham an' eggs is a dollar an' a half, an' whiskey's four bits a throw." He wailed the last, sadly, as a complaint unspeakable.

"Any trouble doin'?" inquired the old man.

"You KNOW it!" the other cried, colloquially. "There was a massacree in the Northern last night."

"Gamblin' row?"

"Yep. Tin-horn called 'Missou' done it."

"Sho!" said Dextry. "I know him. He's a bad actor." All three men nodded sagely, and the girl wished for further light, but they volunteered no explanation.

Leaving the skiff, they plunged into turmoil. Dodging through the tangle, they came out into fenced lots where tents stood wall to wall and every inch was occupied. Here and there was a vacant spot guarded jealously by its owner, who gazed sourly upon all men with the forbidding eye of suspicion. Finding an eddy in the confusion, the men stopped.

"Where do you want to go?" they asked Miss Chester.

There was no longer in Glenister's glance that freedom with which he had come to regard the women of the North. He had come to realize dully that here was a girl driven by some strong purpose into a position repellent to her. In a man of his type, her independence awoke only admiration and her coldness served but to inflame him the more. Delicacy, in Glenister, was lost in a remarkable singleness of purpose. He could laugh at her loathing, smile under her abuse, and remain utterly ignorant that anything more than his action in seizing her that night lay at the bottom of her dislike. He did not dream that he possessed characteristics abhorrent to her; and he felt a keen reluctance at parting.

She extended both hands.

"I can never thank you enough for what you have done—you two; but I shall try. Good-bye!"

Dextry gazed doubtfully at his own hand, rough and gnarly, then taking hers as he would have handled a robin's egg, waggled it limply.

"We ain't goin' to turn you adrift this-a-way. Whatever your destination is, we'll see you to it."

"I can find my friends," she assured him.

"This is the wrong latitude in which to dispute a lady, but knowin' this camp from soup to nuts, as I do, I su'gests a male escort."

"Very well! I wish to find Mr. Struve, of Dunham & Struve, lawyers."

"I'll take you to their offices," said Glenister. "You see to the baggage, Dex. Meet me at the Second Class in half an hour and we'll run out to the Midas." They pushed through the tangle of tents, past piles of lumber, and emerged upon the main thoroughfare, which ran parallel to the shore.

Nome consisted of one narrow street, twisted between solid rows of canvas and half-erected frame buildings, its every other door that of a saloon. There were fair-looking blocks which aspired to the dizzy height of three stories, some sheathed in corrugated iron, others gleaming and galvanized. Lawyers' signs, doctors', surveyors', were in the upper windows. The street was thronged with men from every land—Helen Chester heard more dialects than she could count. Laplanders in quaint, three-cornered, padded caps idled past. Men with the tan of the tropics rubbed elbows with yellow-haired Norsemen, and near her a carefully groomed Frenchman with riding-breeches and monocle was in pantomime with a skin-clad Eskimo. To her left was the sparkling sea, alive with ships of every class. To her right towered timberless mountains, unpeopled, unexplored, forbidding, and desolate—their hollows inlaid with snow. On one hand were the life and the world she knew; on the other, silence, mystery, possible adventure.

The roadway where she stood was a crush of sundry vehicles from bicycles to dog-hauled water-carts, and on all sides men were laboring busily, the echo of hammers mingling with the cries of teamsters and the tinkle of music within the saloons.

"And this is midnight!" exclaimed Helen, breathlessly. "Do they ever rest?"

"There isn't time—this is a gold stampede. You haven't caught the spirit of it yet." They climbed the stairs in a huge, iron-sheeted building to the office of Dunham.

"Anybody else here besides you?" asked her escort of the lawyer.

"No. I'm runnin' the law business unassisted. Don't need any help. Dunham's in Wash'n'ton, D. C., the lan' of the home, the free of the brave. What can I do for you?"

He made to cross the threshold hospitably, but tripped, plunged forward, and would have rolled down the stairs had not Glenister gathered him up and borne him back into the office, where he tossed him upon a bed in a rear room.

"Now what, Miss Chester?" asked the young man, returning.

"Isn't that dreadful?" she shuddered. "Oh, and I must see him to-night!" She stamped impatiently. "I must see him alone."

"No, you mustn't," said Glenister, with equal decision. "In the first place, he wouldn't know what you were talking about, and in the second place—I know Struve. He's too drunk to talk business and too sober to—well, to see you alone."

"But I MUST see him," she insisted. "It's what brought me here. You don't understand."

"I understand more than he could. He's in no condition to act on any important matter. You come around to-morrow when he's sober."

"It means so much," breathed the girl. "The beast!"

Glenister noted that she had not wrung her hands nor even hinted at tears, though plainly her disappointment and anxiety were consuming her.

"Well, I suppose I'll have to wait, but I don't know where to go—some hotel, I suppose."

"There aren't any. They're building two, but to-night you couldn't hire a room in Nome for money. I was about to say 'love or money.' Have you no other friends here—no women? Then you must let me find a place for you. I have a friend whose wife will take you in."

She rebelled at this. Was she never to have done with this man's favors? She thought of returning to the ship, but dismissed that. She undertook to decline his aid, but he was half-way down the stairs and paid no attention to her beginning—so she followed him.