The Trail of 98 (8 page)

Next day the old man was still abed, and again the girl came to visit him.
This time I noticed that much of her timid manner was gone, and in its stead was
a shy friendliness. Once more the box of grapes proved a mediator between us,
and once more I found in her a reticent but sympathetic audienceso much so that
I was frank in telling her of myself, my home and my kinsfolk. I thought that
maybe my talk would weary her, but she listened with a bright-eyed regard,
nodding her head eagerly at times. Yet she spoke no word of her own affairs, so
that when again I left them together I was as much in the dark as ever.

It was on the third day I found the old man up and dressed, and Berna with
him. She looked brighter and happier than I had yet seen her, and she greeted me
with a smiling face. Then, after a little, she said:

"My grandfather plays the violin. Would you mind if he played over some of
our old-country songs? It would comfort him."

"No, go ahead," I said; "I wish he would."

So she got an ancient violin, and the old man cuddled it lovingly and played
soft, weird melodies, songs of the Czech race, that made me think of Romance, of
love and hate, and passion and despair.
Piece after piece he played, as if pouring out the sadness and
heart-hunger of a burdened people, until my own heart ached in sympathy.

The wild music throbbed with passionate sweetness and despair. Unobserved,
the pale twilight stole into the little cabin. The ruggedly fine face of the old
man was like one inspired, and with clasped hands, the girl sat, very
white-faced and motionless. Then I saw a gleam on her cheek, the soft falling of
tears. Somehow, at that moment, I felt drawn very near to those two, the music,
the tears, the fervent sadness of their faces. I felt as if I had been allowed
to share with them a few moments consecrated to their sorrow, and that they knew
I understood.

That day as I was leaving, I said to her:

"Berna, this is our last night on board."

"Yes."

"To-morrow our trails divide, maybe never again to cross. Will you come up on
deck for a little while to-night? I want to talk to you."

"Talk to me?"

She looked startled, incredulous. She hesitated.

"Please, Berna, it's the last time."

"All right," she answered in a low tone.

Then she looked at me curiously.

She came to meet me, lily-white and sweet. She was but thinly wrapped, and
shivered so that I put my coat around her. We ventured forward, climbing over a
huge anchor to the very bow of the boat, and crouching down in its peak, were
sheltered from the cold breeze.

We were cutting through smooth water, and crowding in on us were haggard
mountains, with now and then the greenish horror of a glacier. Overhead, in the
desolate sky, the new moon nursed the old moon in her arms.

"Berna!"

"Yes."

"You're not happy, Berna. You're in sore trouble, little girl. I don't know
why you come up to this God-forsaken country or why you are with those people. I
don't want to know; but if there's anything I can do for you, any way I can
prove myself a true friend, tell me, won't you?"

My voice betrayed emotion. I could feel her slim form, very close to me, all
a-tremble. In the filtered silver of the crescent moon, I could see her face,
wan and faintly sweet. Gently I prisoned one of her hands in mine.

She did not speak at once. Indeed, she was quiet for a long time, so that it
seemed as if she must be
stricken dumb, or as if some feelings were conflicting within
her. Then at last, very gently, very quietly, very sweetly, as if weighing her
words, she spoke.

"No, there's nothing you can do. You've been too kind all along. You're the
only one on the boat that's been kind. Most of the others have looked at
mewell, you know how men look at a poor, unprotected girl. But you, you're
different; you're good, you're honourable, you're sincere. I could see it in
your face, in your eyes. I knew I could trust you. You've been kindness itself
to grandfather and I, and I never can thank you enough."

"Nonsense! Don't talk of thanks, Berna. You don't know what a happiness it's
been to help you. I'm sorry I've done so little. Oh, I'm going to be sincere and
frank with you. The few hours I've had with you have made me long for others.
I'm a lonely beggar. I never had a sister, never a girl friend. You're the
first, and it's been like sudden sunshine to me. Now, can't I be really and
truly your friend, Berna; your friend that would do much for you? Let me do
something, anything, to show how earnestly I mean it?"

"Yes, I know. Well, then, you are my dear, true friendthere, now."

"Yes,but, Berna! To-morrow you'll go and we'll likely never see each other
again. What's the good of it all?"

"Well, what do you want? We will both have a memory, a very sweet, nice
memory, won't we? Believe me, it's better so. You don't want to have
anything to do with a girl
like me. You don't know anything about me, and you see the kind of people I'm
going with. Perhaps I am just as bad as they."

"Don't say that, Berna," I interposed sternly; "you're all that's good and
pure and sweet."

"No, I'm not, either. We're all of us pretty mixed. But I'm not so bad, and
it's nice of you to think those things.... Oh! if I had never come on this
terrible trip! I don't even know where we are going, and I'm afraid,
afraid."

"No, little girl."

"Yes, I can't tell you how afraid I am. The country's so savage and lonely;
the men are so like brute beasts; the womenwell, they're worse. And here are we
in the midst of it. I don't know what's going to become of us."

"Well, Berna, if it's like that, why don't you and your grandfather turn
back? Why go on?"

"He will never turn back. He'll go on till he dies. He only knows one word of
English and that's Klondike, Klondike. He mutters it a thousand times a day. He
has visions of gold, glittering heaps of it, and he'll stagger and struggle on
till he finds it."

"But can't you reason with him?"

"Oh, it's all no use. He's had a dream. He's like a man that's crazy. He
thinks he has been chosen, and that to him will a great treasure be revealed.
You might as well reason with a stone. All I can do is to follow him, is to take
care of him."

"What about the
Winklesteins, Berna?"

"Oh, they're at the bottom of it all. It is they who have inflamed his mind.
He has a little money, the savings of a lifetime, about two thousand dollars;
and ever since he came to this country, they've been trying to get it. They ran
a little restaurant in New York. They tried to get him to put his little store
in that. Now they are using the gold as a bait, and luring him up here. They'll
rob and kill him in the end, and the cruel part ishe's not greedy, he doesn't
want it for himselfbut for me. That's what breaks my heart."

"Surely you're mistaken, Berna; they can't be so bad as that."

"Bad! I tell you they're
vile
. The man's a worm, and the woman, she's
a devil incarnate. She's so strong and so violent in her tempers that when she
gets drinkingwell, it's just awful. I should know it, I lived with them for
three years."

"Where?"

"In New York. I came from the old country to them. They worked me in the
restaurant at first. Then, after a bit, I got employment in a shirt-waist
factory. I was quick and handy, and I worked early and late. I attended a night
school. I read till my eyes ached. They said I was clever. The teacher wanted me
to train and be a teacher too. But what was the good of thinking of it? I had my
living to get, so I stayed at the factory and worked and worked. Then when I had
saved a few dollars, I sent for grandfather, and he came and we
lived in the tenement and were very
happy for a while. But the Winklesteins never gave us any peace. They knew he
had a little money laid away, and they itched to get their hands on it. The man
was always telling us of get-rich-quick schemes, and she threatened me in
horrible ways. But I wasn't afraid in New York. Up here it's different. It's all
so shadowy and sinister."

I could feel her shudder.

"Oh, Berna," I said, "can't I help you?"

She shook her head sadly.

"No, you can't; you have enough trouble of your own. Besides it doesn't
matter about me. I didn't mean to tell you all this, but now, if you want to be
a true friend, just go away and forget me. You don't want to have anything to do
with me. Wait! I'll tell you something more. I'm called Berna Wilovich. That's
my grandfather's name. My mother ran away from home. Two years later she came
backwith me. Soon after she died of consumption. She would never tell my
father's name, but said he was a Christian, and of good family. My grandfather
tried to find out. He would have killed the man. So, you see, I am nameless, a
child of shame and sorrow. And you are a gentleman, and proud of your family.
Now, see the kind of friend you've made. You don't want to make friends with
such as I."

"I want to make friends with such as need my friendship. What is going to
happen to you, Berna?"

"Happen! God knows! It
doesn't matter. Oh, I've always been in trouble. I'm used to it. I never had a
really happy day in my life. I never expect to. I'll just go on to the end,
enduring patiently, and getting what comfort I can out of things. It's what I
was made for, I suppose."

She shrugged her shoulders and shivered a little.

"Let me go now, my friend. It's cold up here; I'm chilled. Don't look so
terribly downcast. I expect I'll come out all right. Something may happen. Cheer
up! Maybe you'll see me a Klondike queen yet."

I could see that her sudden brightness but hid a black abyss of bitterness
and apprehension. What she had told me had somehow stricken me dumb. There
seemed a stark sordidness in the situation that repelled me. She had arisen and
was about to step over the fluke of the great anchor, when I aroused myself.

"Berna," I said, "what you have told me wrings my heart. I can't tell you how
terribly sorry I feel. Is there nothing I can do for you, nothing to show I am
not a mere friend of words and phrases? Oh, I hate to let you go like this."

The moon had gone behind a cloud. We were in a great shadow. She halted, so
that, as we stood, we were touching each other. Her voice was full of pathetic
resignation.

"What can you do? If we were going in together it might be different. When I
met you at first I hoped, oh, I hopedwell, it doesn't matter
what I hoped. But, believe me, I'll be
all right. You won't forget me, will you?"

"Forget you! No, Berna, I'll never forget you. It cuts me to the heart I can
do nothing now, but we'll meet up there. We can't be divided for long. And
you'll be all right, believe me too, little girl. Be good and sweet and true and
every one will love and help you. Ah, you must go. Well, wellGod bless you,
Berna."

"And I wish you happiness and success, dear friend of mine."

Her voice trembled. Something seemed to choke her. She stood a moment as if
reluctant to go.

Suddenly a great impulse of tenderness and pity came over me, and before I
knew it, my arms were around her. She struggled faintly, but her face was
uplifted, her eyes starlike. Then, for a moment of bewildering ecstasy, her lips
lay on mine, and I felt them faintly answer.

Poor yielding lips! They were cold as ice.

Never shall I forget the last I saw of her, a forlorn, pathetic figure in
black, waving a farewell to me as I stood on the wharf. She wore, I remember, a
low collar, and well do I mind the way it showed off the slim whiteness of her
throat; well do I mind the high poise of her head, and the silken gloss of her
hair. The grey eyes were clear and steady as she bade good-bye to me, and from
where we stood apart, her face had all the pathetic sweetness of a Madonna.

Well, she was going, and sad enough her going seemed to me. They were all for
Dyea, and the grim old Chilcoot, with its blizzard-beaten steeps, while we had
chosen the less precipitous, but more drawn-out, Skagway trail. Among them I saw
the inseparable twins; the grim Hewson, the silent Mervin, each quiet and
watchful, as if storing up power for a tremendous effort. There was the large
unwholesomeness of Madam Winklestein, all jewellery, smiles and coarse badinage,
and near her, her perfumed husband, squinting and smirking abominably. There was
the old man, with his face of a Hebrew Seer, his visionary eye now aglow with
fanatical enthusiasm, his lips ever muttering: "Klondike, Klondike"; and lastly,
by his side, with a little wry smile on her lips, there was the white-faced
girl.

How my heart ached for
her! But the time for sentiment was at an end. The clarion call to action rang
out. Inflexibly the trail was mustering us. The hour was come for every one to
give of the best that was in him, even as he had never given it before. The
reign of peace was over; the fight was on.

On all sides were indescribable bustle, confusion and excitement; men
shouting, swearing, rushing hither, thither; wrangling, anxious-eyed and
distracted over their outfits. A mood of unsparing energy dominated them. Their
only thought was to get away on the gold-trail. A frantic eagerness impelled
them; insistent, imperative; the trail called to them, and the light of the
gold-lust smouldered and flamed in their uneasy eyes. Already the spirit of the
gold-trail was awakening.

Hundreds of scattered tents; a few frame buildings, mostly saloons,
dance-halls and gambling joints; an eager, excited mob crowding on the loose
sidewalks, floundering knee-deep in the mire of the streets, struggling and
squabbling and cursing over their outfitsthat is all I remember of Skagway. The
mountains, stark and bare to the bluff, seemed to overwhelm the flimsy town, and
between them, like a giant funnel, a great wind was roaring.