The Trail of 98 (26 page)

I was feeling profoundly depressed, miserable, disgusted with everything. For
the first time I began to regret ever leaving home. Out on the creeks I was
happy. Here in the town the glaring corruption of things jarred on my
nerves.

And it was in this place Berna worked. She waited on these wantons; she
served those swine. She heard their loose talk, their careless oaths. She saw
them foully drunk, staggering off to their shameful assignations. She knew
everything. O, it was pitiful; it sickened me to the soul. I sat down and buried
my face in my hands.

"Order, please."

I knew that sweet voice. It thrilled me, and I looked up suddenly. There was
Berna standing before me.

She gave a quick start, then recovered herself. A look of delight came into
her eyes, eager, vivid delight.

"My, how you frightened me, I wasn't expecting you. Oh, I am so glad to see
you again."

I looked at her. I was conscious of a change in her, and the consciousness
came with a sense of shearing pain.

"Berna," I said, "what are you doing with that paint on your face?"

"Oh, I'm sorry." She
was rubbing distressfully at a dab of rouge on her cheek. "I knew you would be
cross, but I had to; they made me. They said I looked like a spectre at the
feast with my chalk face; I frightened away the customers. It's just a little
pink,all the women do it. It makes me look happier, and it doesn't hurt me
any."

"What I want is to see in your cheeks, dear, the glow of health, not the
flush of a cosmetic. However, never mind. How are you?"

"Pretty well" hesitatingly.

"Berna," boomed the rough, contumacious voice of Madam, "attend to the
customers."

"All right," I said; "get me anything. I just wanted to see you."

She hurried away. I saw her go behind the curtains of one of the closed boxes
carrying a tray of dishes. I heard coarse voices chaffing her. I saw her come
out, her cheeks flushed, yet not with rouge. A miner had tried to detain her.
Somehow it all made me writhe, agitated me so that I could hardly keep my
seat.

Presently she came hurrying round, bringing me some food.

"When can I see you, girl?" I asked.

"To-night. See me home. I'm off at midnight."

"All right. I'll be waiting."

She was kept very busy, and, though once or twice a tipsy roysterer ventured
on some rough pleasantry, I noticed with returning satisfaction that most of the
big, bearded miners treated her with chivalrous respect.
She was quite friendly with them. They
called her by name, and seemed to have a genuine affection for her. There was a
protective manliness in the manner of these men that reassured me. So I
swallowed my meal and left the place.

"That's a good little girl," said a grizzled old fellow to me, as he stood
picking his teeth energetically outside the restaurant. "Straight as a string,
and there ain't many up here you can say that of. If any one was to try any
monkey business with that little girl, sir, there's a dozen of the boys would
make him a first-rate case for the hospital ward. Yes, siree, that's a jim-dandy
little girl. I just wish she was my darter."

In my heart I blessed him for his words, and pressed on him a fifty-cent
cigar.

Again I wandered up and down the now familiar street, but the keen edge of my
impression had been blunted. I no longer took the same interest in its sights.
More populous it was, noisier, livelier than ever. In the gambling-annex of the
Paystreak Saloon was Mr. Mosher shuffling and dealing methodically. Everywhere I
saw flushed and excited miners, each with his substantial poke of dust. It was
usually as big as a pork-sausage, yet it was only his spending-poke. Safely in
the bank he had cached half a dozen of them ten times as big.

These were the halcyon days. Success was in the air. Men were drunk with it;
carried off their feet, delirious. Money! It had lost its value. Every one you
met was "lousy" with it; threw it away
with both hands, and fast as they emptied one pocket it filled
up the others. Little wonder a mad elation, a semi-frenzy of prodigality
prevailed, for every day the golden valley was pouring into the city a seemingly
exhaustless stream of treasure.

I saw big Alec, one of the leading operators, coming down the street with his
men. He carried a Winchester, and he had a pack-train of burros, each laden down
with gold. At the bank flushed and eager mobs were clamouring to have their
pokes weighed. In buckets, coal-oil cans, every kind of receptacle, lay the
precious dust. Sweating clerks were handling it as carelessly as a grocer
handles sugar. Goldsmiths were making it into wonders of barbaric jewellery.
There seemed no limit to the camp's wealth. Every one was mad, and the
demi-mondaine was queen of all.

I saw Hewson and Mervin. They had struck it rich on a property they had
bought on Hunker. Fortune was theirs.

"Come and have a drink," said Hewson. Already he had had many. His face was
relaxed, flushed, already showing signs of a flabby degeneration. In this man of
iron sudden success was insidiously at work, enervating his powers.

Mervin, too. I caught a glimpse of him, in the doorway of the Green Bay Tree.
The Maccaroni Kid had him in tow, and he was buying wine.

I looked in vain for Locasto. He was on a big debauch, they told me. Viola
Lennoir had "got him going."

At midnight, at the
door of the Paragon, I was waiting in a fever of impatience when Berna came
out.

"I'm living up at the cabin," she said; "you can walk with me as far as that.
That is, if you want to," she added coquettishly.

She was very bright and did most of the talking. She showed a vast joy at
seeing me.

"Tell me what you've been doing, deareverything. Have you made a stake? So
many have. I have prayed you would, too. Then we'll go away somewhere and forget
all this. We'll go to Italy, where it's always beautiful. We'll just live for
each other. Won't we, honey?"

She nestled up to me. She seemed to have lost much of her shyness. I don't
know why, but I preferred my timid, shrinking Berna.

"It will take a whole lot to make me forget this," I said grimly.

"Yes, I know. Isn't it frightful? Somehow I don't seem to mind so much now.
I'm getting used to it, I suppose. But at firstO, it was terrible! I thought I
never could stand it. It's wonderful how we get accustomed to things, isn't
it?"

"Yes," I answered bitterly.

"You know, those rough miners are good to me. I'm a queen among them, because
they know I'mall right. I've had several offers of marriage, too, really,
really good ones from wealthy claim-owners."

"Yes," still more bitterly.

"Yes, young man; so you want to make a strike
and take me away to Italy. Oh, how I plan and plan
for us two. I don't care, my dearest, if you haven't got a cent in the world,
I'm yours, always yours."

"That's all right, Berna," I said. "I'm going to make good. I've just lost a
fifty-thousand dollar claim, but there's more coming up. By the first of June
next I'll come to you with a bank account of six figures. You'll see, my little
girl. I'm going to make this thing stick."

"You foolish boy," she said; "it doesn't matter if you come to me a beggar in
rags. Come to me anyway. Come, and do not fail."

"What about Locasto?" I asked.

"I've scarcely seen anything of him. He leaves me alone. I think he's
interested elsewhere."

"And are you sure you're all right, dear, down there?"

"Quite sure. These men would risk their lives for me. The other kind know
enough to leave me alone. Besides, I know better now how to take care of myself.
You remember the frightened cry-baby I used to bewell, I've learned to hold my
own."

She was extraordinarily affectionate, full of unexpected little ways of
endearment, and clung to me when we parted, making me promise to return very
soon. Yes, she was my girl, devoted to me, attached to me by every tendril of
her being. Every look, every word, every act of her expressed a bright, fine,
radiant love. I was satisfied, yet unsatisfied, and once again I entreated
her.

"Berna, are you
sure, quite sure, you're all right in that place among all that folly and
drunkenness and vice? Let me take you away, dear."

"Oh, no," she said very tenderly; "I'm all right. I would tell you at once,
my boy, if I had any fear. That's just what a poor girl has to put up with all
the time; that's what I've had to put up with all my life. Believe me, boy, I'm
wonderfully blind and deaf at times. I don't think I'm very bad, am I?"

"You're as good as gold."

"For your sake I'll always try to be," she answered.

As we were kissing good-bye she asked timidly:

"What about the rouge, dear? Shall I cease to use it?"

"Poor little girl! Oh no, I don't suppose it matters. I've got very
old-fashioned ideas. Good-bye, darling."

"Good-bye, beloved."

I went away treading on sunshine, trembling with joy, thrilled with love for
her, blessing her anew.

Yet still the rouge stuck in my crop as if it were the symbol of some
insidious decadence.

It was about two months later when I returned from a flying visit to
Dawson.

"Lots of mail for you two," I cried, exultantly bursting into the cabin.

"Mail? Hooray!"

Jim and the Prodigal, who were lying on their bunks, leapt up eagerly. No one
longs for his letters like your Northern exile, and for two whole months we had
not heard from the outside.

"Yes, I got over fifty letters between us three. Drew about a dozen myself,
there's half a dozen for you, Jim, and the balance for you, old sport."

I handed the Prodigal about two dozen letters.

"Ha! now we'll have the whole evening just to browse on them. My, what a
stack! How was it you had a time getting them?"

"Well, you see, when I got into town the mail had just been sorted, and there
was a string of over three hundred men waiting at the general delivery wicket. I
took my place at the tail-end of the line, and every newcomer fell in behind me.
My! but it was such weary waiting, moving up step by step; but I'd just about
got there when closing-time came. They wouldn't give out any more mailafter my
three hours' wait, too."

"What did you do?"

"Well, it seems
every one gives way to the womenfolk. So I happened to see a girl friend of
mine, and she said she would go round first thing in the morning and enquire if
there were any letters for us. She brought me this bunch."

I indicated the pile of letters.

"I'm told lots of women in town make a business of getting letters for men,
and charge a dollar a letter. It's awful how hard it is to get mail. Half of the
clerks seem scarcely able to read the addresses on the envelopes. It's
positively sad to watch the faces of the poor wretches who get nothing, knowing,
too, that the chances are there is really something for them sorted away in a
wrong box."

"That's pretty tough."

"Yes, you should have seen them; men just ravenous to hear from their
families; a clerk carelessly shuffling through a pile of letters. 'Beachwood,
did you say? Nope, nothing for you.' 'Hold on there! what's that in your hand?
Surely I know my wife's writing.' 'Beachwoodyep, that's right. Looked like
Peachwood to me. All right. Next there.' Then the man would go off with his
letter, looking half-wrathful, half-radiant. Well, I enjoyed my trip, but I'm
glad I'm home."

I threw myself on my bunk voluptuously, and began re-reading my letters.
There were some from Garry and some from Mother. While still unreconciled to the
life I was leading, they were greatly interested in my wildly cheerful accounts
of the country. They were disposed to be less censorious, and I
for my part was only too glad Mother
was well enough to write, even if she did scold me sometimes. So I was able to
open my mail without misgivings.

But I was still aglow with memories of the last few hours. Once more I had
seen Berna, spent moments with her of perfect bliss, left her with my mind full
of exaltation and bewildered gratitude. She was the perfect answer to my heart's
call, a mirror that seemed to flash back the challenge of my joy. I saw the love
mists gather in her eyes, I felt her sweet lips mould themselves to mine, I
thrilled with the sheathing ardour of her arms. Never in my fondest imaginings
had I conceived that such a wealth of affection would ever be for me. Buoyant
she was, brave, inspiring, and always with her buoyancy so wondrous tender I
felt that willingly would I die for her.

Once again I told her of my fear, my anxiety for her safety among those rough
men in that cesspool of iniquity. Very earnestly she strove to reassure me.

"Oh, my dear, it is in those rough men, the uncouth, big-hearted miners, that
I place my trust. They know I'm a good girl. They wouldn't say a coarse thing
before me for the world. You've no idea the chivalrous respect they show for me,
and the rougher they are the finer their instincts seem to be. It's the others,
the so-called gentlemen, who would like to take advantage of me if they
could."

She looked at me with bright, clear eyes, fearless in their scorn of sham and
pretence.

"Then there are the
women. It's strange, but no matter how degraded they are they try to shield and
protect me. Only last week Kimona Kate made a fearful scene with her escort
because he said something bad before me. I'm getting tolerant. Oh, you've no
idea until you know them what good qualities some of these women have. Often
their hearts are as big as all outdoors; they would nurse you devotedly if you
were sick; they would give you their last dollar if you were in want. Many of
them have old mothers and little children they're supporting outside, and they
would rather die than that their dear ones should know the life they are living.
It's the men, the men that are to blame."