Northland Stories (20 page)

“There 's my clothes,” she half-whimpered, the feminine for the moment prevailing. “They 're right at the top of the cache, and they 'll be ruined! I tell you, ruined!”

“There, there,” Dick interposed, when the last quavering syllable had wailed itself out. “Don't let that worry you, little woman. I 'm old enough to be your father's brother, and I 've a daughter older than you, and I 'll tog you out in fripperies when we get to Dawson if it takes my last dollar.”

“When we get to Dawson!” The scorn had come back to her throat with a sudden surge. “You 'll rot on the way, first. You 'll drown in a mudhole. You—you—Britishers!”

The last word, explosive, intensive, had strained the limits of her vituperation. If that would not stir these men, what could? Tommy's neck ran red again, but he kept his tongue between his teeth. Dick's eyes mellowed. He had the advantage over Tommy, for he had once had a white woman for a wife.

The blood of five American-born generations is, under certain circumstances, an uncomfortable heritage; and among these circumstances might be enumerated that of being quartered with next of kin. These men were Britons. On sea and land her ancestry and the generations thereof had thrashed them and theirs. On sea and land they would continue to do so. The traditions of her race clamored for vindication. She was but a woman of the present, but in her bubbled the whole mighty past. It was not alone Molly Travis who pulled on gum boots, mackintosh, and straps; for the phantom hands of ten thousand forbears drew tight the buckles, just so as they squared her jaw and set her eyes with determination. She, Molly Travis, intended to shame these Britishers; they, the innumerable shades, were asserting the dominance of the common race.

The men-folk did not interfere. Once Dick suggested that she take his oilskins, as her mackintosh was worth no more than paper in such a storm. But she sniffed her independence so sharply that he communed with his pipe till she tied the flaps on the outside and slushed away on the flooded trail.

“Think she 'll make it?” Dick's face belied the indifference of his voice.

“Make it? If she stands the pressure till she gets to the cache, what of the cold and misery, she 'll be stark, raving mad. Stand it? She 'll be dumb-crazed. You know it yourself, Dick. You 've wind-jammed round the Horn. You know what it is to lay out on a topsail yard in the thick of it, bucking sleet and snow and frozen canvas till you 're ready to just let go and cry like a baby. Clothes? She won 't be able to tell a bundle of skirts from a gold pan or a teakettle.”

“Kind of think we were wrong in letting her go, then?”

“Not a bit of it. So help me, Dick, she'd 'a' made this tent a hell for the rest of the trip if we had n't. Trouble with her she 's got too much spirit. This 'll tone it down a bit.”

“Yes,” Dick admitted, “she 's too ambitious. But then Molly's all right. A cussed little fool to tackle a trip like this, but a plucky sight better than those pick-me-up-and-carry-me kind of women. She 's the stock that carried you and me, Tommy, and you 've got to make allowance for the spirit. Takes a woman to breed a man. You can't suck manhood from the dugs of a creature whose only claim to womanhood is her petticoats. Takes a she-cat, not a cow, to mother a tiger.”

“And when they 're unreasonable we 've got to put up with it, eh?”

“The proposition. A sharp sheath-knife cuts deeper on a slip than a dull one; but that 's no reason for to hack the edge off over a capstan bar.”

“All right, if you say so, but when it comes to woman, I guess I 'll take mine with a little less edge.”

“What do you know about it?” Dick demanded.

“Some.” Tommy reached over for a pair of Molly's wet stockings and stretched them across his knees to dry.

Dick, eying him querulously, went fishing in her hand satchel, then hitched up to the front of the stove with divers articles of damp clothing spread likewise to the heat.

“Thought you said you never were married?” he asked.

“Did I? No more was I—that is—yes, by Gawd! I was. And as good a woman as ever cooked grub for a man.”

“Slipped her moorings?” Dick symbolized infinity with a wave of his hand.

“Ay.”

“Childbirth,” he added, after a moment's pause.

The beans bubbled rowdily on the front lid, and he pushed the pot back to a cooler surface. After that he investigated the biscuits, tested them with a splinter of wood, and placed them aside under cover of a damp cloth. Dick, after the manner of his kind, stifled his interest and waited silently.

“A different woman to Molly. Siwash.”

Dick nodded his understanding. “Not so proud and wilful, but stick by a fellow through thick and thin. Sling a paddle with the next and starve as contentedly as Job. Go for‘ard when the sloop's nose was more often under than not, and take in sail like a man. Went prospecting once, up Teslin way, past Surprise Lake and the Little Yellow-Head. Grub gave out, and we ate the dogs. Dogs gave out, and we ate harnesses, moccasins, and furs. Never a whimper; never a pick-me-up-and-carry-me. Before we went she said look out for grub, but when it happened, never a I-told-you-so. ‘Never mind, Tommy,' she 'd say, day after day, that weak she could bare lift a snowshoe and her feet raw with the work. ‘Never mind. I'd sooner be flat-bellied of hunger and be your woman, Tommy, than have a
potlach
every day and be Chief George's
klooch.'
George was chief of the Chilcoots, you know, and wanted her bad.

“Great days, those. Was a likely chap myself when I struck the coast. Jumped a whaler, the
Pole Star,
at Unalaska, and worked my way down to Sitka on an otter hunter. Picked up with Happy Jack there—know him?”

“Had charge of my traps for me,” Dick answered, “down on the Columbia. Pretty wild, was n't he, with a warm place in his heart for whiskey and women?”

“The very chap. Went trading with him for a couple of seasons—
hooch,
and blankets, and such stuff. Then got a sloop of my own, and not to cut him out, came down Juneau way. That 's where I met Killisnoo; I called her Tilly for short. Met her at a squaw dance down on the beach. Chief George had finished the year's trade with the Sticks over the Passes, and was down from Dyea with half his tribe. No end of Siwashes at the dance, and I the only white. No one knew me, barring a few of the bucks I 'd met over Sitka way, but I 'd got most of their histories from Happy Jack.

“Everybody talking Chinook, not guessing that I could spit it better than most; and principally two girls who 'd run away from Haine's Mission up the Lynn Canal. They were trim creatures, good to the eye, and I kind of thought of casting that way; but they were fresh as fresh-caught cod. Too much edge, you see. Being a new-comer, they started to twist me, not knowing I gathered in every word of Chinook they uttered.

“I never let on, but set to dancing with Tilly, and the more we danced the more our hearts warmed to each other. ‘Looking for a woman,' one of the girls says, and the other tosses her head and answers, ‘Small chance he 'll get one when the women are looking for men.' And the bucks and squaws standing around began to grin and giggle and repeat what had been said. ‘Quite a pretty boy,' says the first one. I 'll not deny I was rather smooth-faced and youngish, but I 'd been a man amongst men many 's the day, and it rankled me. ‘Dancing with Chief George's girl,' pipes the second. ‘First thing George 'll give him the flat of a paddle and send him about his business.' Chief George had been looking pretty black up to now, but at this he laughed and slapped his knees. He was a husky beggar and would have used the paddle too.

“‘Who's the girls?' I asked Tilly, as we went ripping down the centre in a reel. And as soon as she told me their names I remembered all about them from Happy Jack. Had their pedigree down fine—several things he 'd told me that not even their own tribe knew. But I held my hush, and went on courting Tilly, they a-casting sharp remarks and everybody roaring. ‘Bide a wee, Tommy,' I says to myself; ‘bide a wee.'

“And bide I did, till the dance was ripe to break up, and Chief George had brought a paddle all ready for me. Everybody was on the lookout for mischief when we stopped; but I marched, easy as you please, slap into the thick of them. The Mission girls cut me up something clever, and for all I was angry I had to set my teeth to keep from laughing. I turned upon them suddenly.

“‘Are you done?' I asked.

“You should have seen them when they heard me spitting Chinook. Then I broke loose. I told them all about themselves, and their people before them; their fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers —everybody, everything. Each mean trick they 'd played; every scrape they 'd got into; every shame that 'd fallen them. And I burned them without fear or favor. All hands crowded round. Never had they heard a white man sling their lingo as I did. Everybody was laughing save the Mission girls. Even Chief George forgot the paddle, or at least he was swallowing too much respect to dare to use it.

“But the girls. ‘Oh, don't, Tommy,' they cried, the tears running down their cheeks. ‘Please don't. We 'll be good. Sure, Tommy, sure.' But I knew them well, and I scorched them on every tender spot. Nor did I slack away till they came down on their knees, begging and pleading with me to keep quiet. Then I shot a glance at Chief George; but he did not know whether to have at me or not, and passed it off by laughing hollowly.

“So be. When I passed the parting with Tilly that night I gave her the word that I was going to be around for a week or so, and that I wanted to see more of her. Not thick-skinned, her kind, when it came to showing like and dislike, and she looked her pleasure for the honest girl she was. Ay, a striking lass, and I did n't wonder that Chief George was taken with her.

“Everything my way. Took the wind from his sails on the first leg. I was for getting her aboard and sailing down Wrangel way till it blew over, leaving him to whistle; but I was n't to get her that easy. Seems she was living with an uncle of hers—guardian, the way such things go—and seems he was nigh to shuffling off with consumption or some sort of lung trouble. He was good and bad by turns, and she would n't leave him till it was over with. Went up to the tepee just before I left, to speculate on how long it'd be; but the old beggar had promised her to Chief George, and when he clapped eyes on me his anger brought on a hemorrhage.

“‘Come and take me, Tommy,' she says when we bid good-by on the beach. ‘Ay,' I answers; ‘when you give the word.' And I kissed her, white-man-fashion and lover-fashion, till she was all of a tremble like a quaking aspen, and I was so beside myself I 'd half a mind to go up and give the uncle a lift over the divide.

“So I went down Wrangel way, past St. Mary's and even to the Queen Charlottes, trading, running whiskey, turning the sloop to most anything. Winter was on, stiff and crisp, and I was back to Juneau, when the word came. ‘Come,' the beggar says who brought the news. ‘Killisnoo say, “Come now.”' ‘What's the row?' I asks. ‘Chief George,' says he.
‘Potlach.
Killisnoo, makum
klooch.'

“Ay, it was bitter—the Taku howling down out of the north, the salt water freezing quick as it struck the deck, and the old sloop and I hammering into the teeth of it for a hundred miles to Dyea. Had a Douglass Islander for crew when I started, but midway up he was washed over from the bows. Jibed all over and crossed the course three times, but never a sign of him.”

“Doubled up with the cold most likely,” Dick suggested, putting a pause into the narrative while he hung one of Molly's skirts up to dry, “and went down like a pot of lead.”

“My idea. So I finished the course alone, half-dead when I made Dyea in the dark of the evening. The tide favored, and I ran the sloop plump to the bank, in the shelter of the river. Could n't go an inch further, for the fresh water was frozen solid. Halyards and blocks were that iced up I did n't dare lower mainsail or jib. First I broached a pint of the cargo raw, and then, leaving all standing, ready for the start, and with a blanket around me, headed across the flat to the camp. No mistaking, it was a grand layout. The Chilcats had come in a body—dogs, babies, and canoes—to say nothing of the Dog-Ears, the Little Salmons, and the Missions. Full half a thousand of them to celebrate Tilly's wedding, and never a white man in a score of miles.

“Nobody took note of me, the blanket over my head and hiding my face, and I waded knee deep through the dogs and youngsters till I was well up to the front. The show was being pulled off in a big open place among the trees, with great fires burning and the snow moccasin-packed as hard as Portland cement. Next me was Tilly, beaded and scarlet-clothed galore, and against her Chief George and his head men. The shaman was being helped out by the big medicines from the other tribes, and it shivered my spine up and down, the deviltries they cut. I caught myself wondering if the folks in Liverpool could only see me now; and I thought of yellow-haired Gussie, whose brother I licked after my first voyage, just because he was not for having a sailor-man courting his sister. And with Gussie in my eyes I looked at Tilly. A rum old world, thinks I, with man a-stepping in trails the mother little dreamed of when he lay at suck.

“So be. When the noise was loudest, walrus hides booming and priests a-singing, I says, ‘Are you ready?' Gawd! Not a start, not a shot of the eyes my way, not the twitch of a muscle. ‘I knew,' she answers, slow and steady as a calm spring tide. ‘Where?' ‘The high bank at the edge of the ice,' I whispers back. ‘Jump out when I give the word.'

“Did I say there was no end of huskies? Well, there was no end. Here, there, everywhere, they were scattered about,—tame wolves and nothing less. When the strain runs thin they breed them in the bush with the wild, and they're bitter fighters. Right at the toe of my moccasin lay a big brute, and by the heel another. I doubled the first one's tail, quick, till it snapped in my grip. As his jaws clipped together where my hand should have been, I threw the second one by the scruff straight into his mouth. ‘Go!' I cried to Tilly.